The ‘peace machine’ failed

Theoretically, had the peace machine worked correctly, and everyone played their roles and lightening struck the clock tower at the right time, past mistakes would be corrected and the world would be transported into an era of harmony.

Mad scientists, however, were wily politicians, playing visionaries, and real-life actors didn't play their designated roles. The peace/time-machine didn't work because those who constructed it used false calculations and inaccurate data, instead of realities. While everyone thought the time machine was set for 1967, Arabs set it for 1948, or earlier.

Palestinian leaders realized that Israel could not give them what they wanted: withdrawal to the 1949 Armistice lines, Palestinian right-of-return, with compensation, and eastern Jerusalem. Nor were they willing to end the conflict, recognize Israel's right to exist, and live happily ever after.

For a while, the peace machine transported everyone into a bubble of hype and nonsense. The mechanism constructed in Oslo was supposed to bring about "peace in our time," appeasing (arguably) the world's most deadly terrorist and laying the groundwork for a second Arab Palestinian state; at least, that was the intention of the Israelis and Americans involved.

Yasser Arafat, however, had a different, hidden agenda. Smiling and shaking hands, he launched terrorist attacks, which he denied, or finessed, while pocketing billions from Gulf States, Americans and Western countries. Mahmoud Abbas played the same game as Israeli and American politicians kept tinkering with the machine, hoping it would work. Based on false assumptions, lured with expectations and hopes, fancy conferences and peace centers, the bubble finally burst.

Obama upsets mechanism

President Barack Obama's support for Palestinian demands upset the mechanism, prompting Palestinians to ignite the statehood machine, bypassing what they saw as unnecessary concessions and restrictions, and Israeli opposition.

De facto recognition, already partially achieved, increases pressure on Israel to abandon and destroy Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, as was done in the Gaza Strip. Palestinians also demand international forces to protect their interests, and a system of boycotts and sanctions, similar to those used against South Africa; "apartheid" is "apartheid," the UN intones, and "Zionism is racism."

Israel Leftists, by definition opposed to Jewish settlement, support withdrawal, arguing, as Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak do, that "it is in Israel's interest to end the occupation."

Having undergone a process of de-legitimization and condemnation, thanks to media and hundreds of NGOs like the PA-sponsored Global BDS Movement, dedicated to Israel's defamation and destruction, attacks on Israel will increase.

The "occupation" will be over, and so will Israel. As Italian journalist Giulio Meotti warns in his book, "A New Shoah," we are on the verge of a nightmare.

Unlike "Doc Brown" who fiddled with his time machine, and "Marty McFly," Middle East peace mechanics never learned from their mistakes. They never understood that for Arabs, "back to the future" means going back to1948, genocide of Jews, and eliminating the State of Israel.

The author is an historian, writer and journalist

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