Israel Peace at what price?

Israel Peace at what price?

I realize that this will not sound very nice to those of you, like myself, who were born and raised in a modern post-World War era; but peace is really not all it is cracked up to be. I say this because people who are not direct parties to a conflict like to use the word as a positive good, when in fact, it often has a negative outcome.

The classic definition of peace is an absence of hostilities by the parties to a conflict and a mutually-agreed upon cessation of hostilities does not seem to apply here. This technicality is the stumbling block between peaceful co-existence between us and the Palestinians. On paper, they appear to want peaceful relations with us; but in reality, they spend almost all their time and energies on supporting BDS movements and incitement in the press and in their schools and they have been doing this since Oslo. If someone dedicates a town square to someone who has died while committing a suicide bombing, this is not a peace we can live with, nor should the international community be insisting upon it and expecting us to accept this condition. There is no such thing as an expression of peaceful intention by use of high explosives. There is also no such thing as a “freedom fighter” when one already has the freedom to do as they please as long as it is done in a peaceful manner. When someone tries to rob an innocent individual of their right to life, they are merely your garden-variety terrorist.

Surely, it is nice to have quiet contiguous borders with one’s neighbors, but when does the quiet achieved become a zero-sum gain? The answer is: when your neighbors with whom you have reached a peace agreement still want you dead and out of the way. Peace at any price is an absurdity, both from a historical point of view as well as a practical approach to life. By its very nature, a lasting and stabilizing peace cannot be achieved between two parties who have vastly different approaches to life. Certainly, you can sit down with your enemies and discuss and then reach a kind of accord after considering borders, commerce and the like, and later make all kinds of pronouncements to your own political parties and your peoples. But this is not actual peace, either. And any politician who waves the banner of promised peaceful co-existence between two or more diametrically opposed peoples is being highly disingenuous, if not downright delusional and dishonest. Why do I believe this? Because no one really needs peace in order to exist as a nation and here is my proof:

The State of Israel has been in existence since 1948, give or take a few thousand years. In all that time, Israel has been set upon by a multitude of enemies from Assyrians to Greeks to Romans to Persians to every Arab nation on earth. All who have sworn to destroy the Jews and Judea and the modern State of Israel and have embarked upon their campaigns to make a reality of their words have so far been wildly unsuccessful. We have not only survived, we have thrived, and all that has been achieved was carried out while in a virtual state of war with all our neighbors. Evidently, there is something in our DNA that makes this reality occur throughout our history. If only our enemies realized this, they would be beating down our doors to sign peace agreements with us and then stick to them and we would cease to exist as a nation. As for those with whom we have an “uneasy peace?” When they stop fighting amongst themselves, they will once again turn their attention to our destruction. Using history as our guide, it is inevitable.

Here is another thing to mull over while our politicians attempt to garner favor with the electorate by throwing the word “peace” around willy-nilly. It is an election cycle and people say things that make nice sound bites but have no real chance of ever happening. They recognize that people are tired of war and hatred; but unless and until the inflammatory comments and inciteful rhetoric of hatred ceases from both sides to the conflict, there will be no peace. Perhaps it is time we stop looking for something which will never occur and focus on the reality. We simply do not need the Palestinians in our lives. We never have needed them, although they like to insist that we do. Likewise, we do not need anything from them. We do not need their resources and we do not need them in order to survive. That is another myth thrown around by them to ensure they keep getting the trillions of dollars they have already received and wasted from the EU, United States, Russia and the Arab world. It would be nice if someone turned off their money spigot and made them work for themselves and for their own state. And here, I am not talking about a physical “disengagement” from the Palestinians; but rather, a complete and total severance of all interactions, both security and commercial relationships. We have access to two seas and airspace to the world. Let the Palestinians find their own borders and make their own agreements with other nations. They will find the Egyptians amenable to their requests for border access as soon as they stop importing terror under their borders and killing Egyptian soldiers and policemen.

We have already done the heavy lifting and have achieved much and will achieve more in the future. It should be obvious by now that the Palestinians are not interested in peace with us. Let the rest of the world figure that out for themselves. Let countries that claim we “occupy” the Palestinians give them land and resources and money˗˗lots and lots of money. Let Sweden, Denmark and Norway call us names. Who cares what they think, anyway? Rarely has anyone bombed their cafes, schools, bars and shopping malls, much less aimed missiles at them on a regular basis. These are countries that opened their borders to Nazis without stopping their military juggernaut. Perhaps when the Palestinians start flooding their countries with their own brand of jihadi ideology, suicide bombings and weaponry from Syria, Iran, China, North Korea and Russia, we can just sit back and watch. It is time for us to admit to ourselves that the Palestinians are big on racist incitement against us, but not really into that whole “love thy neighbor” and “we want peace” thing.