Concessions Don't Help

Barry Rubin -- Jerusalem Post
Summary from the Daily Alert Bulletin of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Two disproved propositions underlying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are: 1) Israel must keep offering the Palestinians more until they accept a deal. 2) If Israel keeps offering more concessions it will win international support and sympathy.

Unfortunately, Arafat is not a nationalist whose appetite would be assuaged by the creation of a state. He is basically a combination of old-fashioned Islamist, who believes that God is on his side and that compromise is sinful, and romantic revolutionary, who does not want the battle to end.

What has instead happened is that the Palestinian appetite grows with the feeding. The more Israel offers, the more Palestinians demand. Experience has taught the Palestinian leadership that as it refuses compromise, Israelis who claim to speak for Israel offer more concessions.

In the West, moderation and generosity are taken as proofs that one truly wants to settle a dispute; in the Middle East they are taken as signs of weakness and of knowing that one's cause is unjust.

The central problem is a Palestinian refusal to settle for anything but everything, either immediately or in stages. The Palestinian leadership and opinion-makers are not people whom Israel will persuade by concessions.

By continuing to insist that the problem is that Israel has not offered enough, Israelis do not prove their goodwill but rather seem to suggest that they are the guilty party. This is also part of the reason for the world's hostility.