Is it just me?

I know I was being extra snarky when I wrote the post entitled 'Peace... when?' last week.  But after hearing of the Palestinian's reluctance to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State, I just couldn't let such an asinine justification as "There is no country in the world where religious and national identities are intertwined" (by Saeb Erakat) pass without comment. 

Obviously there are many countries that openly describe themselves as 'The Islamic replublic of...", not to mention the Vatican wich one would be hard pressed to describe as not having nationality and religion intertwined. 

So I'm wondering why everybody in the media let such a bald-faced lie pass without challenge.  It all comes back to the old 'Zionism is racism' libel that should have been put to rest long ago.  However, it never occurred to me that this issue of Israel's very right of self-determination might really be the sticking point... the line in the sand, so to speak... for the Palestinians.

In preparing for the Annapolis Conference our leaders are sitting up nights trying to decide whether to give away half of our territory... or all of it (except for Tel Aviv and its suburbs, of course).  Yet in the Palestinian camp, the insurmountable issue that seems to have stuck in their craw is Israel's very right to self determination!

I have often joked that the trend in Arab-Israeli negotiations is that Israel is expected to bring large tracts of land to the negotiating table in order to sue for peace... and the Arabs are expected to bring a pen.  But this time around I'm struggling to find the joke. 

How sad is it that after all these years we still haven't settled the most basic issue of Israel's right to self-determination... yet Palestinian self-determination is not only a given, but their right to define themselves any way they like is considered sacrosanct.

Just to review:

1.  The Palestinians want demand their own state... but they want all of the 'Palestinian refugees' to have the right to retrn to Israel... not the Palestinian state.  Isn't the very raison d'etre of a Palestinian State (and the Paletinian self-determination movement) to provide people who self-identify as ethnically, politically or culturally 'Palestinian' with a place they can call their own???

2.  The Palestinians claim the right to self rule and bridle at any whiff of outside interference in their internal affairs... yet they demand that Israel be treated like some bankrupt company languishing in receivership that must be administered by an outside fiduciary trustee (i.e. the UN or the EU).

3.  The Palestinians are arguably the least transparent legal/political/financial entity on the planet, yet they dismiss as cumbersome and insulting any request from those who have been pouring unprecedented amounts of foreign aid into their Swiss bank accounts coffers (more per capita than even the Marshall Plan provided to Europe after WWII) for even the most basic accounting of where the money has gone.

4.  The Palestinians have no single centralized authority to govern political, military, economic, infrastructure, medical, intelligence or security issues.   In fact there are as many as seven or eight entities claiming control of some of these 'departments'... and nobody at all minding the store in others.  But despite this novel 'decentralized' approach to government, they expect Israel to enter into binding negotiations with them even as they engage in open civil war amongst themselves... without a clue as to who might emerge the winner or how the victor might be disposed towards honoring exisitng agreements with Israel.

5.  Normally a people yearning for nationhood have some basic idea of what kind of government they want, how the economy will be arranged, how basic infrastructure (electricity, sewage, water, roads, transportation, etc.) will be provided for, how the citizenry will receive medical care and education... and perhaps most important, how it will relate to its neighbors and the rest of the world.  The Palestinians have done about as much thinking on these subjects as one can comfortably fit on a cocktail napkin.  Yet they have several full-fledged chapters of their charter that, to this day, still call for the destruction of the Zionist entity .  Clearly they have given some thought to that part of the plan.

6.  Even as the Palestinians bring claims to the UN and other interested parties of 'Israeli atrocities and genocide' they continue to bombard Israel cities with rockets, stab Israeli citizens in the street, throw Molotov cocktails and rocks at civilian traffic and attempt to smuggle explosives to terrorist cells for use against Israeli civilian targets. Yet we still provide them with fuel, electricity, water and other 'humanitarian' services.

Somebody please explain to me again why we are talking to the Palestinians about anything right now (except possibly terms of surrender)?

[UPDATE:  An excellent op-ed from the Jerusalem Post on the whole issue of the 'Recognition Sham']