Zero-Sum War

Israpundit carries this excellent piece by Ze'ev Chafets with this highlight. [Emphasis Israpundit]

When President Bush puts together the photo album of his recent peacemaking junket to the Middle East, he should include pictures of the twisted bus and charred bodies in the streets of Jerusalem.

Bush's little holiday didn't cause the carnage. But it also did nothing to prevent it, or to move the sides even an inch closer to peace. There was never a chance that it would. That's because Israel and the Palestinians are not caught up in a dispute that can be mediated by American diplomacy. They are engaged in a zero-sum war.

The simple truth is that this conflict will continue until one side or the other is defeated. Zero sum.

No talking cure

Hamas and Islamic Jihad say this out loud at every opportunity. They don't want compromise. They don't want peace. They want an Islamic nation in all of Palestine, from Tel Aviv to the Jordan River. Period.

Yasser Arafat shares that goal. The Palestinian president walked out of peace talks at Camp David in the summer of 2000 precisely because he was offered a Palestinian state next to Israel. He insisted then, and still insists, on something else. He calls it the Palestinian right to return, which is a euphemism for two Palestinian states - and no Israel.