"Peace for Prosperity" - Neither a promise for peace nor for prosperity?
I have my doubts that the plan for "Peace to Prosperity" is doing the Israelis any favors. Certainly, if the Palestinians acquiesce in this plan, continue to provide security cooperation in the West Bank, refrain from an alliance between the West Bank and Hamas/PIJ and reject external intervention by Hizbollah, Iran or any number of trouble makers in the region, then the plan may work. But what if the Palestinian Authority collapses or refuses security cooperation, and what if the Israeli government has to provide active daily IDF or police security for its estimated new 1,370 kilometer border, as well as for 15 isolated Israeli enclaves with 14,270 Israeli settler citizens living in islands encircled by Palestinians. I have to wonder if the IDF was an active part of this negotiation and its planning for the future?
I hope all goes well. I hope we do not see road side bombs and suicide bombers a la Afghanistan attacking the settlements or the settlers. But, I worry that we have not seen the next chapter. I suppose it is a good sign that the Arab states have not risen up in opposition and that the promised Palestinian protests have not taken place, at least for now. But several factors suggest to me that what you see today is not what we will get as the process of implementation takes place.
For one thing, security has been tenuously sustained in the past by the illusion that there will be a reckoning and that the Palestinians will get their day in the sun. Keeping that illusion alive has been the crux of our numerous peace plans and negotiations. Even when it was clear that our negotiations were going nowhere, at least we could keep that hope alive. The very process of negotiation has helped sustain peace. Palestinian leaders have been able to say "be a good boy and all will be well." Who will believe that now?
It is also true that the Palestinian people had confidence in the integrity of the United States as a barrier against aggressive Israeli right wing settler action. That myth has been punctured for good. Trump and his crew have robbed most Palestinians of any hope for US support against extreme settler demands in the future.
Palestinians may hark back to the lessons of south Lebanon and the effect of Israeli casualties in sustaining a position on the northern border for the Israeli body politic. Will Israelis be willing to pay any price to protect exposed small settlements in the heart of a Palestinian sea?
How long will Israelis be willing to pay the economic price for the dreams that Kushner has spun of a better life for Palestinians if the Arab states do not come forward with actual cash. Their record on this in the past has not been very encouraging. I did not see Trump offering to pony up the needed cash. So even if one could buy Palestinian good behavior, I question from where the money is going to come.
And if the private sector is expected to kick in investment to create jobs, then perhaps I am wrong to assume that capital is a coward.
There appears to be very little appetite in Europe for Israel's actions and for the settler dreams. At what point do the europeans, bereft now of the leavening of Britain, take action on economic boycotts in the face of what is perceived to be a policy of "apartheid?"
The Israelis should know better than most from their experience in the 1940's what a committed minority can do even in the face of overwhelming force. Maybe this is just a tempest in a teapot and time will wash away this plan, just as it washed away the Regan plan. But the path to which the Israelis seem to be committed driven by their domestic politics and the course that Trump is promising for our own elections, make it likely that further actions will be taken that drive us increasingly away from a pacific settlement.