The Peace Process is “Madness”
By
Frederick Cedoz, IASPS Executive Director, Washington, D.C
Charles Krauthammer, in an
op-ed entitled “Middle East Madness” in the January 12th edition
of the Washington Post
rightly points out that the personalities driving the eleventh hour attempts at
a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians are a
“breathtaking mix of narcissism and self-delusion.”
It is difficult to determine
which is more alarming; that President Clinton “has recklessly devalued the
power and prestige of his office” under the guise of peace but really more for
securing a legacy – with the acquiescence of Mr. Barak, or the current state
of security affairs in Israel and those that will result from an implementation
of proposals currently being debated.
We have made the argument for more than a decade that Israel’s very
existence as a nation is at risk as a result of its statist economic structure
and dependence on U.S. aid money.
In fact, the most recent paper in our IASPS
Research Papers in Strategy Series “American
Aid to the Middle East: A Tragedy of Good Intentions” succinctly makes
this point.
In the past the argument over
aid has been whether Israel’s adherence to a crippling socialist economic
agenda would lead to Third World economic status by failing to encourage free
enterprise and tax policies that encourage private development over governmental
monopolies. Now the
logical end of Israel’s failure to reject these statist policies, coupled with
the attempts by the American administration to force a peace deal on Israel is
at hand: Israel’s security has been “irrevocably damaged.”
Mr. Barak’s policies of
withdrawal and concession have caused Israel’s security situation to
deteriorate from a “formal state of peace” to “armed conflict” according
to Arieh O’Sullivan in the January 11th Jerusalem
Post (“Israel, PA now in ‘armed conflict’”).
These concessions, placing Israel in a state of near-war, while giving up
strategic assets like the Golan Heights and the Jordan Valley have come in
exchange for nothing from Yasser Arafat.
Again, Krauthammer points out that “Arafat’s position is unchanged
from where it was seven years ago when the Oslo accords were signed: 100 percent
of the West Bank, all of East Jerusalem for his capital and, fatally, the
resettlement of 4 million to 5 million Palestinians in Israel, thus in a single
stroke demographically destroying the Jewish state.”
The possibility of Israel’s
demise is more palpable now than ever.
Israel’s existence as a nation is no longer jeopardized solely by
statist economic policies. Instead
what was once taken for granted as established by blazing military victories,
Israel’s security has been placed at risk as a result of concessions and a
failure to understand what the “peace process” really means for Israel.
That is the elimination of the nation-state, as it currently exists.
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