According to Canadian Press reports, Israeli and Palestinian moderates are drafting a peace treaty behind the scenes. Both sides neglected to provide any details, except to say that the Palestinian refugee question is still a deal-breaker.
Even if completed, the 40-page document would have largely symbolic value since those negotiating it are not in positions of real power. However, it could serve as a guideline in future formal negotiations.
Who’s working on this anyway? Sure, there are plenty of Leftist groups in Israel – both fringe groups and not-so-fringe groups – who faithfully take their delusion pills every morning and refuse to bury Oslo. But who are these so-called Palestinian moderates, and how have they managed to escape assassination by the terrorist groups as of yet?
As for the “symbolic value” of this treaty, that may be a slight overstatement. Back in cegep, myself and a friend drafted a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians for our final semester paper in a humanities course. Both of us were Hebrew-school-educated Jews – she took Israel’s side, I (ever loving the devil’s advocate position) took the Palestinian side – and we broke open a bag of potato chips and had a signed treaty by lunchtime, since both of us had other papers to write.
Working out the details was fairly easy, since both of us were essentially on the same side (i.e. the side of wanting to get an A in the course). The hardest part of that project was when a virus on my classmate’s computer threatened to corrupt our final document. And I bet that it still has more symbolic value than this so-called treaty being reported by the press.
I wish peace were as easy as writing a few words on a piece of paper and shaking hands. There are an awful lot of naive idealists who wish the same. Unfortunately, Oslo’s lessons have taught us that the only road to peace is the hard one, bumpy and full of sharp turns and forks. True peace can never be achieved in spite of populations, but only with their support. Until the Palestinian people stop indoctrinating their children to be martyrs, to hate Jews, and to blame all their woes on Israel, a real peace is not possible. Until Israeli society resigns itself to making the necessary concessions, a real peace is not possible.
Until the Israeli and Palestinian people really, truly want peace, and are willing to make the necessary changes to their own societies and ways of thinking, then a so-called treaty won’t be worth the paper it’s written on.