Ted Belman
The author is a retired attorney and the editor of Israpundit. In 2009 he made aliya and is now living in Jerusalem.The US is backing the plan because it wants to curry favour with the European Union, which is demanding a resolution of the "occupation" and the refugee problem. This is the price the US must pay to get European support in the war against terrorism and for the war in Iraq. Paradoxically, the Europeans care not a whit for the Palestinians. The EU lavishes billions on the Palestinian Authority without requiring that the money be spent to improve the lives of ordinary Palestinian Arabs, content to allow the money to be used to support terrorists and to line the pockets of kleptocrats at the head of the PA. In effect, the Europeans support Palestinian terror and not the peace process.
The main reason Palestine won't come into existence is that the Arab Palestinians don't want it, nor does Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia or Egypt, notwithstanding protestations to the contrary.
Ever since the Palestine Mandate was created, the Arabs have resisted the Zionist enterprise and Britain has supported this resistance. They rejected the Partition Plan in 1947. They rejected the State of Israel when it was declared in 1948, with the support of the US State Department, and invaded Israel en masse. In 1964, they created the PLO, dedicated to destroying Israel. They massed for invasion again in 1967 and, after being soundly defeated by Israel, they rejected Resolution 242. Instead, they passed a resolution in Khartoum that advocated "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it."
They finally accepted Resolution 242 and the State of Israel in the Oslo Accords because it was part of their "phased plan" to destroy Israel. They never had any intention of honouring the accords and they never did. It is not the Islamic way. Agreements with the infidel are not binding.
The "Palestinians" are making war, not nice. It has ever been so. Aside from the odd pro-peace comment, I challenge you to identify one thing they have done in the furtherance of peaceful coexistence. Just one.
Incitement continues without abatement, arms and terrorists are smuggled in and the PA publicly supports and praises its terrorists and martyrs. The populace is voting in favour of the terrorists, including Hamas and the terrorist arms of Fatah. The convicted mass murderer Marwan Barghouti is leading the polls. Suicide bombings and rocket attacks continue. All this in brazen disregard of their government's commitment to end incitement and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure. Mahmoud Abbas is the walking dead.
The charters of both the PLO and Hamas dedicate these organizations to the destruction of Israel. The Arabs cling tenaciously to the "right of return" because if it were accepted, it would destroy Israel, and if it is rejected, which is a certainty, the conflict goes on.
The conflict suits the needs of the Arab world, which wants to concentrate the world's attention elsewhere than on themselves. Iran wants to get the bomb. Egypt and Saudi Arabia want to avoid democratization and to avert the gaze of human rights organizations. Jordan wants Israel to remain on the Jordan River to ensure its survival. Syria continues to support the terrorists in Israel as a bargaining chip to make a deal for their survival, or as a deflection of attention from them. So, they all have vested interests in keeping the conflict alive.
The United Nations is also dependant on the conflict not being resolved. It has created a vast bureaucracy since 1948 that is obsessed with the Palestinians. If the conflict were to be resolved, then this bureaucracy would have to be dissolved. No bureaucracy would stand for this. I urge you to visit Eye on the UN , which fully discloses how infested with hatred it is. What Roadmap? There is no evidence that the UN really is committed to it.
Then there is Al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers. They plan to re-establish the Caliphate. They are just beginning to flex their muscles. The Palestinian cause fuels their recruitment. A defeat of Israel would fuel it even further.
Iraq is another case in point. The coalition wants out, desperately. It realizes that the US bit off more then it is prepared to chew. If Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia wanted the coalition out, the insurgency would end immediately. But it continues. They want America bogged down and in need of their help. They want the US to be more concerned with an exit strategy then with preventing Iran from getting the bomb or with democratizing them or with regime change. Furthermore, behind the scenes lurks the inevitable conflict for power and ascendancy between the Shiites and the Sunnis. Finally, the Iraq conflict is filling the coffers of OPEC and the oil interests in the US, making it financially rewarding for the conflict to continue.
A Jewish One-State Plan has been proposed, but many supporters of Israel rejected it because the world wouldn't allow it or because it involved absorbing many more Arabs into Israel. The Plan argued that the ratio of Jews to Arabs in the expanded state would be 2:1 and that it could be maintained. But many felt that the Arabs, who have been nurtured on hate, could not be "domesticated". I mention this because the Arabs themselves are still advocating their One State Solution, which is a euphemism for the destruction of Israel. Search the web and you will see that this idea is alive and well not only in the Arab world, but also in many parts of the Western world.
The Roadmap is the flavour of the month. But it won't always be so. Much can happen in the next few years which would change the paradigm. The US is in retreat, but it doesn't want to retreat from the Middle East. It may well decide not to force retreat on Israel. There are other solutions that it may develop an appetite for. But "Palestine" will never come into existence.