Kosher Food Served at the White House?

Thoughts on the renewed peace talks:

• Tzippi Livni described her dinner along with her Palestinian counterparts as a “meeting between old friends.”  She has kinder words for her enemies than for the Israeli right wing.

• Any normal agreement between the Israeli’s and Palestinian’s would require Israel to remain in the Jordan valley.  This means that a Palestinian state will be the hole of an Israeli doughnut. So there really won’t be any true separation between the Israelis and Palestinians.  And when Israel doesn’t let the Palestinians out of their little state…bring on the flood of international criticism.  I wonder what the sanctions might be then!

• How does a modern society like Israel, whose people are in general peaceful, make peace with a society who still lines up its own people against the firing squad, beheads them, hangs them, and then takes the corpse for a pleasure ride around the city tied to the back of the car.  A clash of civilizations!

• How do you negotiate with people you can’t trust?

• If Abu Mazen didn’t accept Ehud Olmert’s previous offer, why would he accept Netanyahu’s less generous offer?

• Arabs hate each other, Muslims hate each other – so how can they love Israel who they hate even more?

• If the Palestinians signed a peace agreement, Abu Mazen and his friends in the PA would suddenly have responsibilities to their people….probably not something they want.

• If Abu Mazen signs a peace agreement – the invitations to the White House and other trips to Europe would stop….probably not something he wants.

• If the peace talks fail, does Tzippi Livni have a reason for staying in the government?  Peace talks were the only reason she ‘returned’ to politics.

• The US interest in the Israeli-Arab conflict while there are so many other conflicts in the Middle East, explained a Middle East analyst, is because it’s the only one where they have influence.

• James Baker once said that being a Middle East analyst means guaranteed employment.

• The night before the Oslo agreements were signed, Bill Clinton was very nervous that Arafat might kiss him on the White House lawn.  Thus, he sent the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Arafat to somehow relay to Arafat that it just wouldn’t be appropriate.  I wonder if Obama would be adverse to kissing Abu Mazen during a similar ceremony.