The Feld-Blog

So Palestinians just voted into power a political party who some think are terrorists, but who also do not recognize the existance of the state of Israel. Now answer me this: how exactly are we supposed to move towards peace between Palestinians and Israelis, if Palestinian leaders won't even sit down at a table with the Israelis because they dont recognize Israeli legitimacy. This seems like a pretty big stumbling block to me.

Mahmoud al-Zahar, one of the top Hamas officials has stated that a long-term truce may be possible if Israel retreats behind its pre-1967 borders and releases all Palestinian prisoners. He wouldn't commit to recognizing Israel or even commit to negotiating with Israel, just that they might be compelled to stop organizing terrorist attacks against Israel if these conditions are met.

To those of you who engage in this debate: I would say go to Israel. Go to the Golan heights, and if you can go to the West Bank. When you see the Golan you will realize exactly why it is that Israel is loathe to give up this prime territory. In the Six-Day War, Syria used the Golan to pepper all of Israel with Artillery. When you stand on the Golan heights you can see almost all of the DMZ and nearly all of Israel. Israel miraculously survived a war without this terrirory once (they took it during the war). To cede this territory back would almost certainly mean to lose any future war. Israel was lucky (or incredibly skilled) once. I don't think they want to run that risk again.

Palestinians also claim that Israel is not truely committed to a two-state solution (this in spite of the fact that Israel has been party to many international agreements including the Road Map for Middle East peace which were solid commitments to this end. It was Arafat who walked away from solid offers time and time again).

Pre-1967 borders didn't work for Israel. Merely lacking a claim to the Golan could easily spell the doom of Israel. I think it's probably understandable then, that Israel might be resistant to ceding such strategically invaluable territory to a terrorist organization whose main platform is the destruction of Israel.

So to anyone out there who thinks the solution is simple, that Israel such merely confine itself to its originally granted borders and more forward in the peace process - it's much much more complicated than that.