New York Times columnist Roger Cohen’s latest thinking on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
I’ve grown so pessimistic about Israel-Palestine that I find myself agreeing with Israel’s hard-line foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman: “Anyone who says that within the next few years an agreement can be reached ending the conflict simply doesn’t understand the situation and spreads delusions.”
… Obama, who has his Nobel already, should ratchet expectations downward. Stop talking about peace. Banish the word. Start talking about détente. That’s what Lieberman wants; that’s what Hamas says it wants; that’s the end point of Netanyahu’s evasions…
At least until Intifada-traumatized Israeli psychology shifts. I agree with the Israeli author David Grossman when he writes: “We have dozens of atomic bombs, tanks and planes. We confront people possessing none of these arms. And yet, in our minds, we remain victims. This inability to perceive ourselves in relations to others is our principal weakness.”
In Cohen’s view, it’s the Israeli psychology that needs to shift. Again, no word on what the Palestinians must do to prepare for peace, such as giving up the goal of eliminating Israel entirely, championed by Hamas, or electing a leadership free of corruption and capable of delivering on a peace deal. No word either on the Palestinian rejection of the peace deal Ehud Olmert offered, which would have give Palestinians a state that included part of Jerusalem.
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