The case for doing nothing to advance Middle East peace

By Youssef Ibrahim in today's New York Sun as he reflects on the fortieth anniversary of the Six-Day War:

In this week's torrent of 40th anniversary recollections about the Six-Day War, one TV image cut straight to the chase: King Faisal of Saudi Arabia staring into a camera to say, "The essential point remains the total elimination of Israel.". . .

For all the noise about peace in the 40 years since, the Saudi monarch's silver bullet solution is still the basic Arab mindset, so much so that Faisal is still feted as a purist Arab — Al Arabi Al Assil.

Because of the continued pervasiveness of this view, Ibrahim argues that for now doing nothing to advance Middle East peace, "serves a higher purpose":

Regardless of the peace treaties with Israel forged by President Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan, the overwhelming majority of Arabs need more time to dismantle their war posture.

At this point, Israel's primary antagonists in this conflict, the Palestinian Arabs, are no longer an entity that can be engaged. Having dissolved into a myriad of warring gangs, there is no one to settle with. The best offer to Israel from the "democratically elected" Palestinian leadership of Hamas is a hudna — Islamist jargon for the kind of truce the Prophet Muhammad offered his enemies, a respite during which the non-Muslim party should decide to surrender or prepare to die.

As he concludes:

It is pointless even to think about structuring new accords with Arab societies that are relentlessly marching toward various stages of radicalism, Islamic or otherwise. It would not help, it cannot stop their macabre march, and it would not hold. A look at just the two biggest countries of the Middle East — Iran and Egypt — shows that recapturing the 1970s ethos of secularism and separation of mosque and state is an iffy proposition for the near future.

As for Israel, going forward with more unilateral evacuations, as in Lebanon and Gaza, has only liberated land for terrorist operations. But reoccupying either spot is unacceptable to the Israeli public.

All that's left is time, the great healer. The Middle East has had 40 years to appreciate the meaning of the 1967 war. A few decades more may convince all the parties that this is as good as it gets.

Let's see if Indonesia can come up with a more creative solution. See post below.