Palestinians need autonomy
August 30, 2009
The Editor
Jerusalem Post
Sir,
Israel has every reason to believe in the continuation of the general de facto peace with the neighboring Arab states which, with the exception of Jordan and Egypt, are still technically at war with us.
I refer to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon which declared war on Israel in 1947 and never entered into a peace treaty thereafter. Not one of these states except Iraq is governed by representatives of their people and that took a full scale war to bring about. Clearly, when left to themselves the Arabs prefer government by self-appointed chiefs to representatives of the people.
The same applies to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for although terrorists among them have also caused some of us grief their numbers too are small.
The US led Quartet keeps urging Israel to accept a Palestinian state yet neither the Hamas nor Fatah terrorist organizations are interested in this solution because they neither have the desire nor the ability to govern themselves. In addition, the pickings at the top make any other form of government strictly undesirable to the present rulers.
Since Israel will not establish relations with a state which will not recognize the Jewish State, their best solution is still autonomy, as Begin once offered. That`s the solution Obama should be peddling!
Sincerely,
Jock L. Falkson