LEONARD PITTS DESCRIBES THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN 'PEACE PROCESS'

In an op-ed the other day, this is how syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts described the conflict between President Obama and the Republicans:

“Compromise requires a partner. When the other party's bottom line is that you fail, when that is the opponent's prime directive, the most important item on their agenda, then you lack both that partner and any basis for negotiation. To put that another way: after you have reasoned with the bully, bargained with the bully, tried to appease the bully, sometimes the only remaining option is to punch the bully in the nose.”

Pitts didn’t know it, but he was giving a perfect description of the Israeli-Palestinian ‘peace process.’ Time after time Israel has attempted to compromise with its adversaries – first with Yasser Arafat and then with Mahmoud Abbas – by offering concessions that bordered on jeopardizing its own security, only to be rebuffed by the Palestinians because their ‘prime directive’ is the destruction of the Jewish state.

Obama and the international community see Israel as the bully, not as a victim of the Palestinian determination to destroy it. They ignore the fact that Israel has reasoned, bargained and tried to appease the Palestinians without any success. It is way past time for Obama and the international community to accept the fact that ‘compromise requires a partner’ and that in the peace process, Israel ‘lacks both that partner and any basis for negotiation.’