Posted 4/30/2003 11:32:00 AM by Ocean Guy
Road Map Revealed.... Here's some more on the road map from the NY Times and the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, and from the BBC.

What's there to say? The Quartet has spoken. Why on earth we continue to believe that Russia, France and Germany have anything meaningful to add to peace in the region is incomprehensible. Why we continue to believe that the Arabs want peace is incomprehensible. What will happen now?

Through every action they take, the Arabs in general, the PLO in particular, continue to show us they do not want to live in peace with Israel. But we continue to ignore the reality. An Arab blows himself up to kill Jews, Americans, & Israelis just hours before the Road Map is delivered to the Israeli Government… That's OK with us:

State Department spokeswoman Nancy Beck said Wednesday morning's terror attack in Tel Aviv wouldn't derail the peace effort, the Associated Press reported.

"This despicable attack was undertaken by those opposed to the restoration of dialogue and the peaceful pursuit of a comprehensive peace in the region," Beck said. "Attacks such as these will not deter us and the proponents of peace throughout the region from continuing down the path on which we have embarked."

Just who are those opposed to the restoration of dialogue? The majority of the Arabs oppose it. But we ignore that. It's not convenient to deal with them. It's much easier to ask our friends to sacrifice and pretend that the Arabs think like us. We'd rather live with our fantasy that the Arabs want the same chance at a peaceful life that we do. The sad fact is, they don't. Their view of peace begins with their freedom from Israel’s existence… They keep telling us, they keep showing us, but we ignore it.

We see and hear the hatred that is spouted at Friday prayers throughout the Arab world. We ignore it. We know the violence perpetrated and supported by the Arab world against Israel, but we ignore it. We know most Arab states refuse to recognize Israel, but we ignore it. We know France, Russia, Germany, and others oppose our view of peace, and oppose our presence in the Middle East, yet we join with them as partners. We know Abu Mazen was a terrorist, but we ignore it.

We know Arabs have been living as refugees for 55 years, we give them Billions of dollars to build a state and they squander it… we give them more. We know that Arab states won’t let their brothers leave the refugee camps to build lives, but we ignore it. Instead of asking more of the Arabs to solve their problem, we ask our friends to sacrifice.

We ask our friends to sacrifice for our idea of peace while ignoring the vast difference in the way the Arabs imagine and define the same peace. We impute our values and ideals on the Arabs and ignore the reality that their values and ideals are not at all similar. It’s not right, under these circumstances to demand so much from Israel..

On one hand I'm encouraged by the Bush administration’s willingness to stick to what they believe is right, regardless of world opinion, as they showed us in Iraq. But I'm not at all confident that they will stand up for those principles in the face of increasing anti-Israel and anti-American pressure. My fear is we are too eager to placate the Arab world and mollify the Europeans who have no more interest in a peaceful, secure Israel than Yasser Arafat does.

We’ll see. I have very little doubt that Arab violence will continue. As it continues, I’ll be watching to see how hard we pressure Israel to make even more concessions. Meanwhile I'm hoping we have said what we mean and that we meant what we said.