Why the Arab-Israeli peace process didn't/doesn't/can't work

If you found a beehive hanging a foot from your front door, how much time would you spend tip-toeing in and out of your house before you called somebody to remove it?

Would you wait to see if the bees were going to be aggressive?

Would you wait until you'd been stung a few times?

Would you wait until your children had been stung a few times?

Would you let the U.S. State Department persuade you to give the bees more time to learn to co-exist peacefully with you?

Israel did. But today it appears that the years of one-sided war -- of "intifada" and suicide bombings and quietly state-sponsored rocket attacks -- have finally come to an end.

For years, apologists for Palestinian violence stared dewy-eyed into TV cameras and explained that Palestinian youths throw stones and blow themselves up on buses because these are the only weapons they have to resist "occupation."

For years, apologists for Palestinian violence finessed the question of exactly how much land they consider "occupied."

Today we have the answer from the elected Hamas-led government: all of it.

Today we have the answer from the government of Iran, sponsor of Hezbollah terrorists: all of it.

In order to believe the Middle East peace process can succeed, you must believe they don't really mean it. You must think the people who openly call for the destruction of Israel are not telling the truth about their goal.

But they do mean it. They are telling the truth. They want to destroy Israel, and ever since the last time Israel defeated them in an all-out shooting war, they have lived by the Russian saying, patience will crack a rock.

The Gaza Strip and the West Bank and southern Lebanon are now in the hands of terrorists who control governments.

The terrorists were better off without the governments. Now their stateless acts of terror are official acts of war.

And if it's war, both sides get to fight.

There is nothing further to be gained by pretending that a dispute over existence can be compromised away. Delaying the war will only give Iran the months or years it needs to finish its nuclear weapon.

The time for wishing is over. Some wars just have to be fought.

Copyright 2006

.