In the Jerusalem Post: M.J. Rosenberg makes the case for diplomacy and Caroline Glick takes aim at “Utopian peace junkies.”
Rosenberg:
There are those (and they have been quite vocal lately) who say that engaging in negotiations is a gift to the other side and that negotiating is a form of surrender. What hogwash!
In 1971, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt told the Israelis that if Israel would pull back two miles from the Suez Canal, Egypt would open negotiations on a full peace treaty. President Richard Nixon told Prime Minister Golda Meir to explore the offer and that if she didn’t, Egypt would probably go to war. Meir said “no,” Israel was strong and didn’t fear Egypt. So Sadat prepared for war.
Two years later Egypt attacked. Israel lost 3,000 soldiers and almost the state itself. Only then did it agree to negotiations that ultimately led to the Camp David agreement, which has saved countless Israeli and Egyptian lives over three decades. It also led Israel to a situation where it relinquished not a few miles of Sinai but every last inch.
In other words, it is not diplomacy that rewards aggressors and would be aggressors. It is the absence of diplomacy or inept diplomacy.
Glick:
All along and still today, standing against these voices of sane reality were voices preaching utopian peace. Men and women like Yossi Beilin, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Shulamit Aloni, Tzipi Livni, Yuli Tamir, Sheli Yachimovich, Amnon Shahak, Uri Saguy, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert and their chorus of “peace” operatives in the media castigated all proponents of reality-based policymaking as nothing more than fear-mongering fanatics and enemies of peace almost indistinguishable from the likes of Hizbullah, Hamas and all the rest.
And of course the voices of reason were correct every time and never thanked for their wisdom. Indeed, they continue to this day to be condemned as fear-mongering fanatics.
