Stardate 20021216.1924

(On Screen): Reuters reports:

Israel and the United States on Monday talked about a new Middle East peace plan that will dominate a meeting of mediators in Washington on Friday but neither side indicated any urgency in completing it.

Sometimes in diplomacy it becomes evident that no agreement is possible, and the only thing you can do is wait until the situation changes so that it's more clearcut, usually because one side's situation degraded substantially and it is more willing to make concessions. There were negotiations between the USSR and US during the Cold War which went on literally for years with no progress at all, and then something important happened and suddenly they were concluded in just a few months.

That's what is going on here. The article says that Israel asked the US to wait until after Israeli elections in January. What we're actually waiting for is our invasion of Iraq. As long as the Palestinians continue to feel as if there is substantial support for them by other Arab nations, they will be disinclined to make the kinds of concessions which will actually be required for any kind of peaceful settlement of the conflict in that region. If we conquer Iraq (and cut off the substantial Iraqi payments to various Palestinian terrorist groups) and substantially destabilize other Arab regimes in the region who have also been providing substantial support to the PA and to terrorist groups, or at the very least start making them offers they cannot refuse (specifically Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran), then as the aid which has financed the Intifada vanishes the Palestinian negotiating position will be forced to change, and the Palestinians themselves may finally take the critical step of booting Arafat and picking someone more reasonable and less corrupt to lead them, and the even greater critical step of finally admitting to themselves that they will never actually destroy Israel and take back that territory. The key transition to look for is when the Palestinians cease to demand the "right of return". Once that happens, peace will become possible.

And then, finally, negotiations will actually make progress. As it currently stands, there's no point in negotiating with the Palestinian Authority because there's no prospect whatever of a satisfactory agreement which both sides would actually honor.