This from the AP: ”Both governments carry out arbitrary arrests, ban rivals from travel, exclude them from civil service jobs and suppress opposition media, the rights groups say. Torture in…lockups includes beatings and tying up detainees in painful positions.”
Israelis and Palestinians? Nope. Palestinains and Palestinians, Gaza’s Hamas versus the West Bank’s Fatah. The story goes on: ”The crackdowns have become more sweeping in recent months as each aims to strengthen its grip on its respective territory,” and on and on.
But, starting again this week, the White House thinks it will be able to forge a peace settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians — or at least one group of Palestinians — even as the Palestinians, themselves, are at open civil war with each other.
Two questions: Does it not give pause to the negotiations crowd that what they may be forging — or forcing — will push the Israelis into a settlement with a group that may disappear and lose to its stronger opponents on the Gaza strip? Second, whence comes the idea that the Israelis should be able to give concessions and strike peace with Palestinians on the West Bank while Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza cannot find peace among themselves? Because the Israelis have so much more in common with the Palestinians than the Palestinians do with themselves?
It’s fair to say a lot of people want peace — but maybe, just maybe, that peace is more likely to come once the brethren in the area can adjudicate something like that among themselves first.
– Seth Leibsohn is a fellow at the Claremont Institute.