Opinion from the desk of the Editor

The professor will take some time to update my readers on the doings in the Middle East…..and maybe an answer or two on some pressing questions.

First of all, after almost 50 years the whole process is a joke….not something humorous but rather something worthless and non-productive.  what is it that Einstein said?  Oh yeah, “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is the height of stupidity”……..so that makes the Middle East process a stupid endeavor…..

Over the years I have been asked many times why the delay in achieving peace in the Middle East……I could write for days on what has gone wrong and still present more questions that there are answers for on any given day.

There was a point when there was a glimmer of hope for a cessation of hostilities between the Israelis and Palestinians….but that was crapped on almost before the ink was dry.  And since those days every president has had a plan….and the plans never worked out and some ask why is that?

I lecture from time to time on the Middle East and when I am asked the question I try to give an honest answer.

The Middle East failures come down to one common denominator….Israel.

Almost every time someone will say….Israel is for the Jews…..I ask why one would say that……and every time they quote some Biblical reference of Israel was given to them by God.  I then ask who wrote those words…….confusion and I say a JEW.  I point out that there is NO other reference to such a promise other than in the religious papers of Jewish antiquity.

Let’s be truthful….until Israel stars acting like a civilized nation there can be NO advancement of the peace process.  Israel plays on the guilt feelings other nations have for the Holocaust and that guilt has served Israel well.  That debt from about 80 years ago has been paid in full……..Israel wants to move forward but are willing to play the card whenever it suits their purpose.

If Israel were truly committed to the peace process they would stop all settlement construction and start treating Palestinians as equal members of the human race.

I say by all means believe in your Torah but stop using it to justify all the violence toward Palestinians………Israel needs to show the rest of the world that it is committed to peace for the world’s longest conflict.

There can be a Middle east peace….it can be achieved but only when Israel truly wants it……..and so far Israel does not want it…..and appears it NEVER did want a peaceful end to this conflict.  Pretty tough talk, eh?  Well, here is why I say that……..

Though the talks have realistically been over for a month now, since Israel reneged on its last prisoner releases, today marks the official end to the current peace process, and has Israelis looking back at the roughly nine months of negotiations.

Those hoping for peace didn’t get much out of the talks, as they never really got off the ground and stalled on seemingly every point. The hawks did much better, with Israel approving nearly 14,000 settlement homes in the occupied West Bank during the negotiations.

While hawks often griped about the peace process, the government regularly unveiled grand new construction plans to try to “placate” them, and ended up expanding settlements massively, the only tangible result of talks no one expected to net a real deal.

Peace Now, which released the final figures on the settlement construction, noted that the current right-far-right government has built three times as many settlements as any other in Israeli history, and the government is expected to increase the rate of expansion even further now that the talks are over, couching it as “retaliation.”

Israel’s Defense Ministry is also continuing to demolish Palestinian homes and buildings in the West Bank as the expansion grows. Today, Israeli troops moved against the village of Krirbet al-Taweel, destroying several buildings, including a mosque.

There is the major sticking point….if they, Israel, truly wanted peace then this should be a no brainer…..ergo….Israel does not want peace.