Readjusting Perspectives

"We decided to address the Israeli decision makers and shapers of public opinion to shake things up. The two-state solution is the only possible, doable choice for both peoples."
Mohammed al-Madani, Palestinian Outreach Committee to the Israeli Society

"We didn't negotiate of course. We talked and got to meet each other. We established a good connection. We understood the hard life the Palestinians are having. They understood the difficulties we are having. When you meet the other side, this is important."
MK Boaz Toporovsky, Yesh Atid party

"The long disconnect between us and the Palestinians has created huge gaps. There are too many Knesset members who don't understand our real position. By these discussions and meetings, we have made a breakthrough with the right-wing and religious camp."
Ashraf Ajrami, former Palestinian Authority cabinet minister

"It shows (Abbas) has a real will to talk and sees in himself a partner and therefore we immediately accepted the invitation."
MK Hilik Bar, Knesset, Labor Party

A Palestinian man walks past police officers in riot gear during a demonstration against the renewed peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, in the West Bank city of Ramallah -- Maajdi Mohammed, The Associated Press

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is set to host a dozen Israeli lawmakers (Members of the Knesset) for discussions relating to the current round of initial peace talks, at his West Bank offices in Ramallah. Should those talks be successful, and should Israel accede to the Palestinian demand that Jerusalem be partitioned as Palestine once was, such meetings would take place at the new national offices of the PA re-located to east Jerusalem.

What supreme irony; when the United Nations gave its full assent to the creation of the State of Israel on a portion of the disputed territory the Palestinians absolutely refused to accept the notion of a Jewish State on territory they considered to be all theirs, despite the presence of Jews remaining where historically Jews lived in a land of their own. Now the ancient Jewish city of Jerusalem is on the bargaining block with Arabs demanding the most sacred Judaic portion be acceded to them.

As for Ashraf Ajrami speaking of how surprising he found it that Israelis and Palestinians have 'drifted' from one another, unlike the interaction he recalled prevailing two decades earlier in the days of peace efforts...well! He was himself involved in violent attacks against Israel, more commonly termed from the Palestinian perspective "resistance", and for his efforts in that arena, spent a dozen years as a prisoner in Israel for his misdeeds.

Now he is a peace-maker of distinction. Who will have no truck with any new borders, preferring those that existed before the 1967 war when Israel responded to yet another combined Arab armies attack and was finally re-united with the Temple Mount which formerly under Jordanian control, was off limits to Jews. Under Israeli oversight there are no off-limit areas to sites of religious importance; Muslims are given preferential access to the area they call the Noble Sanctuary and to their mosque and sanctuary built over the ruins of the Temple of Solomon; both versions.

It is the easy equation between the inconvenience of 'occupation' and the death-dealing suicide bombing and series of wars, as though one is the equivalent of the other that is most striking. The Palestinians are under "occupation" as the only method by which Israel could devise to ensure that ongoing deadly strikes against the state and its people would not continue. The Palestinians' desire to recoup what they feel they have lost, resulting in vicious slaughter of Jewish civilians led to the current situation.

Cause and effect. The greater Palestinian population long fed a diet of disaffection and blame, hatred and revenge, unsurprisingly now see little value in peace talks with those they consider usurpers of their territory, enemies, those who prefer to see them dead. And they naturally enough react in a manner meant to preempt the deed, seeking to kill as many Jews as they possibly can. The PA itself has set this immovable stage of rage and resentment, violence and misery.

Which has not served one whit to dampen their sense of entitlement to asserting demands of those whom they have continually attacked. The hostile, deadly divisions between the two Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, have ensured lack of unity between the two, though they have more in common when it comes to Israel than what sets them apart. Still, they attack one another and threaten to annihilate Israel; Fatah by stealth of movement, overpopulating Israel with Palestinians and Hamas by outright deadly conflict.

It will take far more than commiserating with one another in schmooze-sessions before any union of purpose will ever take root between the two isolations, Arabs and Jews.