I am pessimistic about peace

JERUSALEM — There is nothing like a trip to Israel to sober one up about the realities here. They make so much more sense than the ethereal world of diplomacy.

In that world, “two states” and “borders” and “refugees” and “settlements,” as well as “Arab nations” and “Obama” and “George Mitchell” and “Mahmoud Abbas” define reality. That’s not reality. The resolution of all these issues, and the satisfaction of all those people, will not make peace.

I am pessimistic about peace.

I drive from central Jerusalem toward Neve Yaakov, which is one of those Jewish neighborhoods built after the Six Day War of 1967. Obama calls it a settlement. Israelis call it a neighborhood. It really doesn’t make a difference what it’s called. It is a telling symbol of all that is wrong with life between Israelis and Palestinians — not because of it itself. But because of how you get there, and how you get beyond there.

I am given instructions how to drive to Neve Yaakov. I miss the turn-off and keep going. It turns out that I am driving toward Atarot, an Israeli industrial zone. If I keep going past Atarot, I will end up in Ramallah, home base of the Palestinian Authority.

Now, the road to Atarot is a two-lane highway, both ways. A very nice highway. Just one thing. On the left, sheltering the cars coming from Ramallah and Atarot, is a high wall. On the right, sheltering the cars going in my direction, is a high, barbed wire fence.

The kind of fence that surrounds prisons.

But this isn’t a prison, it’s a highway.

This barbed wire fence is not the “security fence” that divides Jewish and Palestinian areas, protecting the Jewish areas from Palestinian suicide terrorists.

This is a separate fence. One security fence is not enough.

Now, why does that barbed wire fence run alongside the highway? It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to answer this question, and it doesn’t take a lot of creativity to see its implications for peace.

That fence is there to protect the Israeli drivers from Palestinian bombs and attackers. That fence testifies to the deep hatred that Palestinians bear for Israeli . . . drivers. Say they are driving to an Israeli settlement, say they are driving to Palestinian Ramallah. It doesn’t make any difference. They are sitting ducks — if not for the wall and the barbed wire fence.

An agreement between diplomats on the borders of a Palestinian state is not going to result in the dismantling of that barbed wire fence. An agreement on Palestinian refugees is not going to remove the hatred from the hearts of would be Palestinian highway terrorists, and is not going to convince Israelis that it is safe to drive on that road minus the barbed wire fence.

An agreement that makes Obama and Hamas and Netanyahu shake hands, and that does — or does not — dismantle Israeli settlements on the West Bank, is not going to make it illegal for Israelis to drive in the West Bank, and not going to make it safe for them to do so.

In short, a diplomatic agreement, in which the current administration, the EU, the Arab League and others invest so much hope, is not going to yield peace. Because if a Jew cannot drive without the protection of a barbed wire fence, who is kidding whom? There is no peace.

And since no agreement will bring real peace, then the much vaunted “peace dividend” that the US is looking for will not materialize. It is a sheer pipe dream for Obama to believe that if Israelis and Palestinians ink an agreement, the hatred that yields barbed wire fences will go away.

I am pessimistic about peace. 

ANOTHER symbol, less obvious, but no less telling: a gasoline station in Bet Hanina. As I drive from the center of Jerusalem toward Neve Yaakov, I pass Bet Hanina, an Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem.

Ideally, this is exactly how peace should be constructed: a Jewish neighborhood and a Palestinian neighborhood, cheek by jowl, living in peace. Yet, for an Israeli to turn off the main highway to go buy gas in that gasoline station in Bet Hanina — not more than a couple of blocks up a small hill from the highway — would be foolish. Dangerous. No Jew can enter a Palestinian neighborhood and be safe. However, any Palestinian can enter Neve Yaakov or any other Israeli neighborhood and be safe.

The hostility felt by Palestinians toward Israelis reaches the point of violence, which makes that gasoline station in Bet Hanina off limits. With a few exceptions, the hostility felt by Israelis toward Palestinians does not reach the point of violence. So who’s kidding whom? Where is the basis for peace?

Some will argue that once the Palestinians have their own state, their hostility toward Israel will recede.

I think it is just the opposite. Palestinian culture is steeped in denial of Israel, starting from the books used in elementary school. Palestinian society is steeped in glorification of violence against Israel, reflected in highways protected by walls and barbed wire fences. Palestinians will see their own state as a means to wage a more systematic war against Israel.

If Palestinians accepted a — notice, I say a, not the — Jewish right to the land of Israel, I would feel differently. But Palestinian educators, I am told, are taken on the tours of the Western Wall tunnels and still ask: But where is the evidence that the Jews ever had any presence in this land?

The Western Wall is the last remaining wall of the ancient holy Jewish temple in Jerusalem. The Western Wall is 2,000 years old. The Western Wall includes one stone that weighs 570 tons — 40 feet long, 9 feet high, 12 feet deep — and, after seeing all this, Palestinian educators ask: where? where is the evidence of a Jewish right to the land of Israel?

With that mentality, a Palestinian state will not bring peace, just war between two states instead of the present war between two peoples.

I am pessimistic about peace in Israel — or in Palestine, call it what you want. Call them settlements, call them neighborhoods, it makes no difference. When Israeli drivers need to be protected by barbed wire fences, when Palestinian educators cannot acknowledge the evidence before their eyes, when I cannot conveniently make a left turn two blocks up to buy some gasoline in Bet Hanina, I am pessimistic about peace.