YES, IT IS MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on his tenth shuttle mission to the Mideast, announced this week that peace in the region is “not mission impossible”. What he means is that the Israelis and the Palestinians may actually be able to live side-by-side in harmony at some point. The immediate goal is to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian State adjoining Israel’s border. The creation of a Palestinian State requires Israel to retreat to its 1967 borders before it captured Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. For their part, the Palestinians must acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as the Jewish homeland. Tall orders both.

The Lame Spin Award goes to Mr. Kerry for his silly forecast of possible peace between these two peoples. While tranquility in the Mideast may be possible, it won’t be with Isreal and Palestine coexisting. Lasting calm depends on one or the other group pulling up stakes and pitching tents elsewhere. This won’t happen voluntarily, which means that hostilities will continue to rage until the finality of war settles the matter.

The current obstacles to peace, much like their predecessors, exemplify the intractable challenges. Israel recently released Palestinian prisoners as a good will gesture on the eve of further territorial expansion. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, welcomed the prisoners as returning heros while Israel viewed them as terrorists. Abbas also refrained from criticizing the attacks that brutality killed Jewish men, women and children. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Abbas of unabated incitement against the Jewish State. And so it goes.

Why do we continue our peace missions? Surely, the Secretary of State knows just how hopeless peace is, at least the variety that leaves both of these antagonists standing. Because doing our best to delay the inevitable is better than sitting on our hands while the Mideast disappears under a large mushroom cloud. U.S. interests are not served today by mutual annihilation so the missions persist as does the fibbing about peace.

Turmoil between the Children of Israel and the earlier inhabitants of the region has been on full boil since the Battle of Jericho. The walls came tumbling down 3,500 years ago, give or take, and Mr. John Kerry isn’t the one to put them back up. By all means, conduct more missions, just skip the whoppers.