Sunday, December 10, 2017

Palestinians Losing Clout

Conrad Black is a former press baron, a Canadian resident, a British Lord, and a frequent perceptive commenter on American politics. He often writes for Canada's National Post, which he once owned.

Today he revisits the conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories, in light of Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. First, he makes several interesting points.
This recent and contemporary bunk about Israel as an apartheid state is the last gasp of the useful idiots of primeval anti-Semitism. The Jews are the majority, unlike the Afrikaaners; the Arabs have substantial rights; and Israel was not just admitted to the United Nations as a territory and jurisdiction, like Canada and the United States and other existing countries in 1945 were, but was created by the United Nations as a Jewish state. It is the ultimate, legitimate country.

The agitation about Jerusalem as capital is nonsense — the Israeli Knesset and Supreme Court are there and Russia recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in April of this year, which makes their disapproval of Trump’s move this week a bit rich, even by the unvaryingly cynical standards of the Kremlin.
Then he concludes with some pointed advice for the Palestinians.
Donald Trump has recognized realities and done the Palestinians a favour, if they and their ancient terrorist leadership aren’t too punch-drunk to recognize the facts: the Palestinians were used and are no longer useful. Donald Trump is a realist and is not overly concerned with the American Jewish vote, which is now infested with Jew-hating Jews anyway. The Palestinians should take what they can get while they can get it.
Trump signaled to the Palestinians they’ve already turned down the best deal they’ll get from the U.S. The offers will continue to get less and less attractive the longer they stall.

If the U.S. never manages to settle the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, that’s an outcome it can live with, indefinitely. Can Palestine? Are they willing to live with a deteriorating status quo?

Will Palestinians choose to be a nation? If they do not or cannot, historians will eventually write about them as they do the Hittites or the Minoans, as a people who no longer exist.