Why the $900 Million Will Not Produce Peace

In this morning’s Wall Street Journal, there is an excellent letter from Doron Lubinsky of
Atlanta:

Letters from both Joseph Kaufman and Tejas Vakil, (Feb. 19) distort the reasons for the failure of comprehensive
Middle East peace plans: Every attempt has been sunk by the uncompromising positions of Arab regimes. The Palestinians could have had a state in 1948, and at any time until 1967, and again in 2001. At every stage their leadership, backed by the Arab League, sank negotiations through ever more demands.

Former President Bill Clinton’s intense efforts at a comprehensive peace were sunk because Yasser Arafat did not want peace. The “moderate” Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has stuck to every hard-line position of Yasser Arafat, especially on refugees. His spurious demand that descendants of Arab refugees be resettled in pre-1967
Israel (not the
West Bank) denies the rights of a similar number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands. It also sidesteps Arab responsibility for starting the wars that led to both Arab and Jewish refugee issues.

[. . .]

Peace will not come until the Arab world changes its attitude, stops incitement, and genuinely accepts the idea of Jewish self-determination. Instead of cynically maintaining and abusing the refugee issue for propaganda, it could begin to uplift the descendants of Arab refugees with oil revenue. Tiny
Israel, with very limited resources, managed to uplift even more penniless Jewish refugees from Arab lands.