For Some People, The Conflict Is Really Simple

For this person, at least:

...there is a statistically precise way to measure the extent of peace that exists between Israel and the Palestinian population of Gaza. Before Israel removed all Israeli settlements from Gaza, Palestinians launched several hundred Qassam rockets at Israel each year. And today, with Gaza ethnically cleansed of Jews, Palestinians fired more than 3,000 Qassam rockets and mortars at Israel last year alone.

How can this be? Without Israeli settlements, why would Gaza Palestinians fire any rockets and mortars at Israelis living in Israel, let alone 10 times more than when there were Israeli settlements in Gaza?

There can be only one conclusion: Israeli settlements are not the problem.

Even more apparent, however, is the fact that U.S. pressure on Israel to restrict or remove settlements in the West Bank will not only fail to ease tensions with the Palestinians, but in all likelihood any Israeli settlement decrease will only increase Palestinian violence toward Israel, just like it has in Gaza.

If Israeli settlements are not the main obstacle to peace, then what is? The answer is Israel's very existence. This is why rockets and mortars are fired not at Israeli soldiers in Palestinian population centers, but at Israeli civilians living in Israeli population centers. It is the reason why most bus bombings and terrorist attacks take place in Israeli cities and not in Israeli settlements.

The Palestinians never have truly accepted the existence of the state of Israel. Palestinians did not accept the two-state solution proposed by the United Nations in 1947 and they did not accept the two-state solution brokered by President Clinton at Camp David in 2000. Even the supposedly moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recently revealed that he rejected a two-state solution proposed by Israel's previous prime minister.

In each instance, the government of Israel agreed to make enormous concessions to create a Palestinian state living side by side along Israel. But in each instance, the Palestinians not only refused but responded with even more violence. The simple truth is that the Palestinians do not want a peace that includes Israel...