SEPTEMBER 22, 2019: TYPICAL EU

Susana Terstal and her Middle East peace process (“Peace needs international law and political will,” September 22) are typical of those who have stood in the way of a solution to the Palestinian problem that would work for decades.

When will she realize that the two-state camel lies dead in the burning sands of the Middle East, killed not by Israeli homes but by virulent Arab rejectionism and violence against the notion and the people of the Jewish State of Israel.

They may think they can revive this dead camel if only they can drag it to that distant oasis called “peace.” They haven’t realized yet that this is not an oasis but a mirage borne out of their fevered refusal to accept it was a non-starter from the beginning.

Terstal writes: “The viability of the two-state solution is being eroded through demolitions, confiscations and displacement.”

No it is not. It has been eroded by the rejectionist Palestinian double-headed hydra (the PA and Hamas) that thrives on the naïve international contributions that have been feeding the beast for decades based on naïve delusions that it is Jewish homes that are the “obstacles to peace,” and not an obstinate Palestinian terror campaign determined to remove anything Jewish from the Middle East, to be replaced by the Palestine she is trying to promote.

For she has not seriously considered that in any Palestine solution we Israelis go to bed with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and wake up in the morning with Hamas and a continuation of the “Palestinian struggle” from more vulnerable borders. She naively thinks that this struggle will end as soon as she creates her Palestine.

Tragically, it is organizations like her MEPP that have blocked voices offering rational alternatives to a failed two-state policy. Alternatives to this failed two-state nonsense have always been there. MEPP and others have simply been unwilling to consider them.

These people will surely block the upcoming peace plan about to be promoted by the Trump administration for the simple reason that it is not strictly based on the outdated foundation of two-states but will offer an alternative to that unattainable solution.

One notices from Terstal’s article her inability to understand that the fault has always been entirely on the Palestinian side. Cure that and you can possibly cure the problem, but Terstal surely knows the problem on the Palestinian side is incurable, so she ignores it and tilts to blame onto Israelis.

It’s high time that Susana Terstal, her Middle East Peace Process and others like them face the truth and get real.

BARRY SHAW
The writer is the international public diplomacy director at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

In Terstal’s article she establishes “international law” that suits her very non-biased views. The same EU that didn’t have a word to say about Arab self-determination while Egypt and Jordan were in control of Gaza and Judea and Samaria for 19 years suddenly realized they had a responsibility to get involved in housing starts in that territory once Israel was in charge.

It is good to remind her that when Israel was attacked in 1973, again facing annihilation, no fair and just European nation would allow US planes carrying arms to Israel to land on their territory to refuel.

How nice of her to seek a two-state solution. Israel left Gaza and got thousands of rockets as an Arab peace overture. If Terstal ever criticizes Arab rocket fire I am sure she will ask both sides to reduce violence.

She says: “The viability of the two-state solution is being eroded through demolitions, confiscations and displacements....” I would suggest the viability is eroded by knifings, shootings, car rammings of Israelis and teaching Arab children to be suicide bombers. Also the fact that the EU, which has suffered many attacks by followers of the Koran, not being able to confront this problem doesn’t help peace anywhere in the world.

The EU is antisemitic. They are not as concerned with any human rights violations no matter how horrible. Islamic State did not get a fraction of the condemnation Israel gets. Arab rocket fire, attack tunnels, and threats to annihilate Israel are not worthy of mention by it. The reality is that if the Arabs were replaced by any people not following the Koran, peace would have been achieved long ago. How many conflicts in the world are there where one of the parties is not Islamic?

PHILIP BRIEFF
Jerusalem