The Invisible Hand

Peaceful Non-existence Watch (Act 8)

Amos Oz, the Israeli essayist, was in Edinburgh yesterday when he solved the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"The vast majority of the population between the Mediterranean and the river Jordan would agree with me", he said, that the only solution was an Israel and a Palestine with a partitioned Jerusalem. "It is a cowardly leadership - that is what is delaying the crucial solution . . .. at the end of the day there will be a state solution on both sides," Oz was reported as saying by the BBC.

Gee, why didn’t I think of that? Two sovereign states living in peace . . . what a terrific idea!

Oz said, "the road to peace should by now be apparent to everybody.”

Yes, that particular road to peace is well marked and heavily traveled. The trouble is, it doesn’t go where the Palestinians are headed.

Just yesterday, Hamas and Islamic Jihad rejected a proposed Palestinian consensus policy for ending suicide attacks on Israeli civilians. They made it crystal clear that the murders will continue as long as there are Israelis in Israel.

"Hamas will not accept any document that does not give it the right of resistance on all Palestinian lands," said Ismail Abu Shanab, a Hamas leader in Gaza. Mr. Abu Shanab, who had taken part in the secret meetings, told Israeli radio that his group would continue to strike inside the 1948 borders of Israel.

Hamas also objected to limiting Palestinian claims to lands lost by Arabs in the 1967 war and to any proposal of negotiations with Israel.

Similarly, an Islamic Jihad official, Muhammad al-Hindi, indicated that his group intended to continue attacks inside Israel, saying, "There is no change in our position in regard to the resistance."

Earth to Oz . . . there won't be any peaceful coexistence as long as radical Islamofascists insist on the extinction of Israel.

And if Hamas and Islamic Jihad continue to take the position of “all or nothing," why shouldn't the IDF oblige them?

Hamas and the Jihadis . . . these are the cowards who are blocking the road to peace in the Middle East.

Indeed, these are the same fanatics who have hijacked the better part of the Islamic world and are driving the lot full-throttle right off the road to peace and over the cliff to oblivion shouting "Allah Akbar!"