My 2014 thought's about ............Mid-East Peace.

 Real Peace ? It's just a gimmick.

For almost two decades, the seemingly perpetual Middle East “peace process” has been like a hamster-wheel for Palestinians and a merry-go-round for Israelis All the movement has been a form of running or turning in place. Nothing ever really changes.An agreement has been reached that "establishes a basis for  resuming direct final status negotiations between" Palestinians and Israel, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in  Amman, Jordan."This is a significant and welcome step forward," Kerry said. Next we have Extremist Jewish settlers on early Tuesday torched three Palestinian cars near the West Bank city of Ramallah in what Israeli police are calling a “Price tag” attack related to the release of 26 Palestinian prisoners and ongoing peace talks. Palestinian sources said the settlers sprayed on the wall of a house in the neighborhood a message to the US Secretary of State John Kerry, saying “Regards Kerry, keep coming back.” The reality factor ,The Palestinians get what they have right now. The entire city of Jerusalem remains the Jewish capitol ( I prefer it as nutral territory adminstered by the UN ), it was never the capitol of any other people in history. Israel annexes the settlements and the Palestinians get the rest of the West Bank. That’s it. The Palestinians get a small country, more than they deserve, but a country they can build and nurture and develop- like the Jews did with their small country. It’s not fair for either side, but it’s better for Israel. Why shouldn’t it be? The combined remnants of the old colonial Arab Empire attacked the tiny Jewish state in 1948, 1967, and 1972 and lost. The world, which has never been very nice to the Jews, demands Israel, the victor, give land to the imperialist losers. Did Germany get to keep some of Poland? Did Italy get to keep some of Ethiopia? Did the Turks get to keep part of Egypt? In the interest of peace, both sides should accept this plan.Throughout this “peace process”, all deadlines, starting with the five-year deadline for achieving a permanent peace agreement set in the “Oslo” Declaration of Principles signed almost 20 years ago, have been consistently and predictably missed. Such failures have been guaranteed by the practical reality that, for Israel, “failure” has had no consequences other than a continuation of the status quo, which, for all Israeli governments, has been not only tolerable but preferable to any realistically realizable alternative. For Israel, “failure” has always constituted “success”, permitting it to continue confiscating Palestinian land,expanding its West Bank colonies, building more Jews-only bypass roads and generally making the occupation even more permanent and irreversible. However, the focus on settlement building, both by the Palestinians and the Americans, is a clear sign of how removed the peace processers are from the reality of the conflict. If there was any chance at all that the Palestinians were actually willing to sign a peace deal that would recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders would be drawn or to end the conflict, the building of a few apartments in parts of Jerusalem that are not going to change hands wouldn’t be worth a mention. But since PA leader Mahmoud Abbas knows there’s no way he could take such a step, he and his followers must continue to try to turn settlements into an issue that will, after a decent interval, give him an excuse for weaseling his way out of the talks. Just consider it a fake controversy to go along with a peace process that is, at its core, just as fake.