Give the Palestinian Authority What It Seems to Want

The Palestinian Authority seems to want to torpedo the ill-conceived United States sponsored MIddle East "peace conference." The United States should accede to that desire rather than going ahead with a conference highly unlikely to lead to anything helpful but quite likely to have harmful consequences.

According to the article PA stipulates conference attendance by Khaled Abu Toameh, "the Palestinian Authority is demanding 'far-reaching' concessions from Israel and the US as a precondition for attending."

Thus far, while Israel, as usual, has shown a continued willingness to make lopsided concessions in the pursuit of peace, the Palestinian Arabs have yet to demonstrate any willingness to make even minimal concessions.

According to the article, the so-called "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas is demanding Israel release hundreds of jailed terrorists (so they can murder more Israelis), remove dozens of checkpoints (to make it easier for the terrorists to murder Israelis), halt construction of the anti-terror barrier (to avoid improving its ability to save lives) and halt the construction of homes for Jews in the disputed territories (so the Palestinian Arabs can more easily grab territory in advance of any agreement on borders).

Each of these demands should be rejected out of hand, along with the likely demand for millions of dollars to "boost his Fatah-controlled PA security forces," thus enabling them to be better armed when they put on their black pajamas at night, in the unlikely event that the arms don't wind up in the hands of Hamas as did the arms given to them in Gaza.

In the Alice in Wonderland perspective of the Palestinian Arabs, one official said "Olmert is either unwilling or unable to reach an agreement over the core issues with the Palestinians due to his internal problems."

Until the Palestinian Arabs give up their outlandish demands for the right to emigrate to Israel, while simultaneously demanding Judea and Samaria be ethnically cleansed of Jews and for the redivision of Israel's capital and show a willingness for territorial compromise, there obviously is no chance of any agreement.

Meanwhile, as long as there remain, de facto, two Palestinian Arab states, one in the West Bank and one in Gaza, with the two states at war with each other and neither with the ability to implement any agreement even if they were willing to make the compromises necessary for one, it's all pointless.

In any real sense, the scheduled "peace conference" is already destined to be a failure if it is held. The United States should take advantage of the Palestinian Authority demands and use them as an excuse for abandoning this exercise in futility.