Olmert Gambles On Israel's Security

I'm not sure why this qualifies as new news considering that this has been the Israeli position for some time now.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has promised sweeping moves towards Palestinian sovereignty if a new unity government in the occupied territories commits to recognising the Jewish state.
Mr Olmert last night told visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Israel's concessions to Palestinian statehood would be unprecedented if deadlocked talks between warring Palestinian factions succeeded in moderating the ruling Hamas administration.

Hours before she departed for the Arab world, Dr Rice said the US would devote substantial resources over coming months to reactivating the peace process.

Both Jerusalem and Washington have been trying to strengthen Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a move that has pitched his Fatah party into deadly conflicts with the Hamas-led Government of Ismail Haniya.

Tensions have threatened to spark open warfare in Gaza and the West Bank and plunge the peace process back even further.

The Israelis are sick of having to fight every moment of their existence, but the moment Israel shows the lack of will to fight, the jihadis will exploit the situation to their advantage. Olmert's latest move is contingent upon the Palestinian unity government recognizing Israel's right to exist.

Good luck with that. Considering that Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist and can't even agree to form the unity government, Olmert's offer appears to be risk free. The Palestinian civil war continues as Hamas and Fatah fight over who controls the future of the Palestinians, and while the West and Israel hope that it is Fatah, neither Fatah nor Hamas are interested in peace with Israel. Both are dedicated to Israel's destruction and have enshrined that concept in their founding documents and ideologies. Indeed, Fatah had the opportunity to make peace with Israel in 2000 and instead chose war. Fatah had the opportunity to make a good faith effort to show that they were interested in peace by eliminating references to the destruction of Israel in their charter and the PA charter. That never happened. They didn't even try those symbolic measures, so why should anyone hope that they'll put down their arms against Israel long enough for someone to call it peace.

It's also instructive to note that while the media calls the situation between Israel and the Palestinians a shaky ceasefire, it is anything but. The Palestinians continue to fire rockets into Israel on a near daily basis, and if such acts took place anywhere else in the world, the nation on the receiving end would have carte blanche to eliminate the terrorists firing them. Israel is simply not any random nation, but one held to a different standard by the rest of the world.

US Secretary of State Rice is currently on another diplomatic mission through the Middle East trying to build support for the latest efforts in Iraq and to try and push yet another Israel-Palestinian solution. I think she's going to have more success on the former than the latter considering that the Palestinians themselves have no interest in peace with Israel. They wont even bother with the diplomatic nicety of recognizing Israel's right to exist.

If they cannot or will not accept even that symbolic gesture, what makes anyone think that they'll take more concrete steps. In this fashion, Rice continues a long trend of diplomatic efforts that try to paper over conflicts without dealing with the underlying nature of the conflict. Diplomats talk and their job is to talk.

UPDATE:
Sounds like some folks realize that it is useless to talk about a peace process based on wishful thinking instead of the facts as they currently exist. Hamas and Fatah are both dedicated to Israel's destruction. Until that changes, any talk of a peace process is wishful thinking and avoids the realities of the situation on the ground.

UPDATE:
Just in case you didn't get the point, Hamas puts an exclamation point on the matter. Hamas reiterates that it will never recognize Israel's right to exist. There's no reason to doubt their intentions on the subject - they support and condone terrorist attacks against Israel, and seek Israel's destruction at every turn. Their opposition to Fatah stems partly from the fact that Fatah has not done enough to attack and destroy Israel fast enough for Hamas' leaders' liking. Further, Hamas says that they are closer to an agreement with Fatah on a unity government, but this has to be part of a running joke since they've been working towards a unity government for months now and the only thing that seems to have changed is the body count racked up on both sides.