Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

Israel and the Palestinians are finally back to the peace table. The odds of success, of course, are slim. But that is no excuse for not really trying in the past several years. As I have said before, unless there is peace in the Middle East, we will NEVER be free of terrorism no matter what else we do. The continuation of this conflict is the most important avenue for extremists to recruit terrorists. Without peace, Israel will never be safe and the Palestinians will always live in inhumane conditions.

Despite the long odds, there are some reasons for optimism. Namely the 3 people that are most important in these negotiations. Netanyahu is a conservative. He may lose his right wing supporters if he makes concessions. But he must realize that he is in an unique position to do something historic. Whatever peace agreement he makes will have more legitimacy than one made by say, Simon Perez. This is like Nixon going to China, or closer to his home, Begin making peace with Egypt. Will Netanyahu do it? Well, even Ariel Sharon was changing right before he got a stroke. So hopefully Netanyahu will make a transformation also.

Will Abbas be braver than Arafat and make peace? He is a moderate and so whatever he does will be attacked by Hamas anyway. So he may as well ignore them and take a plunge toward history. He may lose his life if he makes peace. But he will be a legend in history if does.

Then there is Hilary Clinton. She is untested in these type of negotiations. But she has the advantage of being there when Bill Clinton almost got a deal done. She must have learned from his successes and failures. This is also her chance to make history and I got feeling she will go all out for it.

There are bound to be road blocks all over the place. Hamas already started the attack. As I said, the odds are still long. But there are a lot at stakes here both for the world in general and the 3 participants in particular. Hopefully they can come through.