It is extremely unfortunate that the International Olympic Committee’s boneheaded (anti-Semitic? anti-Israel?) refusal to honor the Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the Munich Olympics 40 years ago has overshadowed the point of the anniversary.
Whether the athletes are honored with a moment of silence or not, or dishonored without a moment of silence or not, the main point is how little has changed in the last 40 years on the Israel-Palestine front. Contrast that front with the larger, Israel-Arab front: A peace treaty between Egypt and Israel for the last 33 years; a peace treaty between Jordan and Israel for the past 18 years; a quiet border — an undeclared but real peace — with Syria for the past 38 years. It is a canard that Israel won’t make peace. Ask Egypt. Ask Jordan. Ask Syria.
What has not changed is the Palestinian unwillingness to make peace with Israel. The lack of movement is Palestinian alone. The remaining stumbling block is the initial stumbling block: the refusal of Palestinians to recognize Israel as a permanent, Jewish state.
To those who point to Israeli settlements on the West Bank as the stumbling block, where were those settlements in 1979, when Israel made peace with Egypt? Virtually no settlements existed then. Where were the settlements when Israel made peace with Jordan in 1994? They were less than half what they are today. Israel reached out — Egypt reached back; Jordan reached back. The Palestinians did not reach back.
Their modus vivendi has been to kill Israeli innocents, as they did at the Olympics 40 years ago (and continue to do so today); to pretend that time stands still; not to take responsibility for “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” as the late Israeli statesman put it all too accurately.
For 40 years, the Palestinians have asked Israel to go backwards. In 1972, the Palestinians did not ask for an end to settlements, because there were none; they asked, rather, for Israel to go backwards — to disappear from within even her pre-1967 borders. Then, when the Palestinians recognized Israel, they asked Israel to go backwards by accepting the recognition as impermanent and by dismantling settlements built while the Palestinians said no to negotiations. Follow the pattern. The Palestinians want peace on the basis of yesteryear. Some Arab countries have found a way to make peace, the Palestinians have not.
The Palestinian idea of progress is, 40 years after the fact, for some Palestinians to admit, grudgingly, that killing 11 Israelis at the Olympics was not a good idea. Timing is everything. You can’t make peace today based on conditions of 40 years ago. It’s time for the Palestinians to play catch-up.
Copyright © 2012 by the Intermountain Jewish News
