Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt are heading to the Middle East for yet another go at Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Yawning already, dear reader? Well, we all know why. They have a chance in you-know-where of succeeding.
Nothing against Messrs. Kushner and Greenblatt, but this roundelay has been going on numerous times since the 1993 Oslo Accords. Discussions are held between the two sides (directly or indirectly), the Israelis asked for good faith concessions, the Palestinians asked to refrain from violence. Actual substantive negotiations (occasionally) occur. (Everyone has known the parameters of a successful negotiation for years.) At the last minute the Palestinians walk away, even when offered 95% of their demands, as they did during negotiations with Israeli PM Olmert. (Bill Clinton is said to have followed Arafat down the stairs, begging the aging terrorist to sign.)
Reason: The Pals don’t want a two-state solution. Virtually everyone vaguely honest knows it. If they wanted a state of their own alongside a Jewish state, they could have had one decades ago. They don’t or, more specifically, only a very small number of them do. The vast majority want a one-state solution — theirs.
Oh, wait, I forgot the most important part of these negotiations. Money. Each time the Palestinians get a lot of it. From the U.S., Europe and Japan.
Most of this largesse goes, as everyone also knows, through or to their leaders who are billionaires in Savile Row suits. This even includes the bloody Hamas terrorists who enjoy the good life in places like Qatar as well as only the slightly less violent PA.
These leaders have no incentive to make peace for the most obvious “gravy train” financial reasons and also, needless to say, because they have no interest in ending up like Anwar Sadat. It’s all a game.
Who could be surprised then that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas thumbed his nose at President Trump, not to mention most of the leaders of the free world and the UN Security Council, by extending his congratulations the other day on North Korea’s national day to his brother-in-crime Kim Jung-un.
In a telegram, the PA president said that the Korean people made “the greatest sacrifices for the sake of its freedom and dignity,” according to Wafa, the official PA news site.
Abbas also expressed appreciation for “Korea’s solidarity in support of our people’s rights and its just struggle to end the occupation and establish an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.
Indeed, the Palestinians and the Norks do have much in common. They create crises and threaten to blow up the Middle East and/or the world in order to extort as much money as possible from the West, including the ever-generous Uncle Sam, only to knife him in the back and start all over again.
So what are Messrs. Kushner and Greenblatt to do? At minimum, start over, don’t repeat the Oslo pattern, and heed the words of H. L. Mencken who famously said, “When they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.” And, boy, this is about the money.
Cut it off.
The Palestinians will, of course, scream. They will wail about their poor, suffering people, Gaza, etc. Kushner and Greenblatt should tell them to sell their fancy suits and Mercedes and empty their Swiss bank accounts if they’re really so worried about the poor Palestinians. That will shut them up fast.
And if they threaten violence, which assuredly they will, rattling on about a third — or is it fifth — Intifada, just shrug. The IDF exists for a reason. What these people need is some “tough love,” and if the “love” aspect is difficult with these folks, which it admittedly could be, keep the “tough.” That’s the important part.
Speaking of which, above all don’t go wobbly, like the repulsively hypocritical Cory Booker, on the Taylor Force Act. That’s the opposite of what you should be doing. For once, the Senate is laying ground work for you.
The bills in question are designed to block U.S. companies from declining to do business with Israel, especially by supporting the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement known as BDS; and to reduce funding for the Palestinian Authority until it cuts off payments to families of terrorists.
Booker was one of just four senators, all Democrats, to oppose the Taylor Force Act, named for a Vanderbilt University graduate student killed in a Tel Aviv terrorist attack, when it came up in the Senate Finance Committee. Menendez voted yes.
Stand firm. Otherwise it will be Déjà Oslo All Over Again.
Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and co-founder of PJ Media. His latest book is I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn’t Already. He tweets @rogerlsimon.
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