Here, then, I have today set before you life and prosperity, death and doom… I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live,
Deuteronomy 30:15,19
Yesterday the President put out his long awaited peace plan for the middle east.
You might expect me to comment on the details but said details are actually not important because if you are looking at this as a peace plan you are completely wrong.
This is not a peace plan, it’s an ultimatum.
The president is smart enough and worldly enough to understand that any deal with the Palestinians that does’t explicitly give them to right to continue to kill Jews until not one is left alive and the state of Israel is gone is a tough sell at best and a non-starter. Mostly because the leadership knows that agreeing to any such deal, particularly one that involves cracking down on terrorism is likely going to cost them their lives. Then again as Don Surber points out the equation is slightly different than it was a few days ago:
Killing ( Soleimani) jeopardized Iran’s terrorism program which he headed. Today, President Trump followed through with a Middle East proposal that creates a Palestinian state, opens Temple Mount to all three Abrahamic religions, and invests $50 billion to create a million jobs for Palestinians
It’s true that if they grabbed the Trump plan and gave up their vendetta the Palestinians would actually grow in wealth, power and influence to the point where they might actually be able to rival Israel economically and perhaps even militarily in a few generations,
If you were dealing with a western culture this would be a no-brainer but this is a face culture. To publicly concede the permanent existence of Israel is a humiliation beyond them. Much easier & safer to grift off the UN, Iran and anyone else’s aid and live without fear of assassination.
But that’s the other half of the coin.
If Potus can nail Iran’s #1 terror coordinator you had better believe that Israel can nail Hamas’ boss men if they wish so that suggests that they might be able to protect a Palestinian leader who comes to the table, furthermore if they turn to terror as a response you don’t know if Trump might decide that like the late Iranian General they are expendable.
Trump is a deal maker, if this deal is turned down then it’s likely that Trump will not only cut the Palestinians off without a cent but might tell Israel that as far as he is concerned they are welcome to take the gloves off both with Palestinian leadership and their people.
What happens if Israel decides they’ve had enough of this and simply annexes any remaining west bank territory that they won in the 1967 war that they need, fence it off and leave the Palestinians to govern the rest of the land without them.
After all what is anyone going to do? The State is Israel is now self sufficient in terms of water and energy. They are a nuclear power and no state not in the business of suicide is going to risk a war of destruction against them. As for the UN what are they going to do other than make noise, after all they can’t be more anti-Israel than they already are.
And that’s only part of it, what happens if an energy exporting US decides to put pressure on other states to cut aid to the Palestinian state? What happens if the gulf states afraid of Iran are told that any help from the US means cutting these folks loose and Iran isn’t doing all that well these days to begin with.
All of this is feasible thanks to a United States that is energy independent, economically resurgent and rearmed beyond the ability of their enemies to challenge them.
This is the actual question that the Palestinian leadership faces: What do you fear more?
Of course without Trump there is no choice necessary. I suspect they will stall and wait to see if the propaganda they are seeing on CNN about Trump’s imminent defeat is real, but if (OK when) the President is re-elected the stark choice will be before them again. I also suspect that the longer they wait, the more likely that both Trump’s and Israel’s price will go up. There are big rewards with going with Trump and survive, but if they go against him they are basically a local street gang with little to no clout beyond their neighborhood and without that foreign capital and Israel willing to provide what they do their clout within the territories vanishes.
The Donald has set before them the choice of life and death of the Palestinian People. I suspect A Palestinian nation unshackled to war and graft will grow and prosper beyond their wildest dreams to the point where Palestinians in Israel & elsewhere will rush to be part of the growth and prosperity it will generate. That is the choice of life.
Alas I doubt they will make that choice. This plan goes nowhere but it would be nice if I was wrong.
Closing thought: Ironically the peace deal is also the best shot for the radicals to manage to conquer Israel eventually. Take the deal, let the Palestinians grow rich and powerful and Israel grow complacent for four or five generations and then strike Pearl Harbor style when it’s not expected. The problem with that plan is once the population is rich, prosperous and happy they just might decide it’s not worth losing what they have to satisfy a few radicals dreams of genocide.
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