RISHON LEZION, Israel — Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu makes a good point:
Netanyahu said that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians had not succeeded because they were devoted to solving final-status issues like Jerusalem and refugees and not on improving the lives of the Palestinians. He proposed shifting the focus to the economy to make it easier to reach an agreement later on.
“What has been tried until now with negotiations that try to reach a deal on ‘Jerusalem or bust’ has led to failure, and it will again and again,” Netanyahu told the crowd. “Economic development doesn’t solve problems, but it mitigates them and makes a stronger partner on the other side, because it gives them something to live for.”
As I wrote in a prior post in this series, the Palestinian people will need a viable state of their own before peace is ever possible with Israel. The phenomenon of suicide bombing is complex, but much of it has to do with zealous, religious fundamentalists taking advantage of people who are poor, destitute, angry, without hope, and easily brainwashed. If the future State of Palestine had a stable, functioning middle-class populace, then terrorism would essentially disappear. As Thomas Friedman theorized, countries that both have a McDonald’s have rarely waged war against each other. (Countries need to have a large middle class to have fast food establishments, and a place with a stable middle class wages war less often. (When people are richer and have more stuff, they are less willing to risk losing it through conflict. People are more willing to fight if they have nothing to lose.)
However, part of me is skeptical. I, along with most moderate observers, realize that Israel will need to divide Jerusalem and leave most, if not all, of the West Bank in order to have peace. I just hope that Netanyahu is not merely changing the subject and taking these difficult choices off the table as his party gets ready for the Israeli general elections in February.
