Just don’t mention the settlements

Think Progress blogger Matthew Yglesias challenges the militant Zionist view that peace in the Middle East will only come when Iran is crushed:

Israel’s Palestinian problem is fairly simple to define—there are millions of Palestinians living in Israeli-controlled territory. To preserve its Jewish character, Israel doesn’t want to give these Palestinians the rights of Israeli citizens. And so the Palestinians live, stateless and without rights, and they’re not happy about it. Exactly what to do about this situation is a somewhat thorny issue, but Israeli leaders have spent a distressing amount of time over the past ten years trying to convince themselves that their Palestinian problem is about something other than this. That it’s “really” about Syria or “really” about Iraq or “really” about Iran. Before the invasion of Iraq it was common to hear that the road to peace in the Middle East ran through Baghdad. That somehow if Saddam Hussein were removed from power, this would somehow so demoralize the Palestinians that they become willing to accept what Israel is prepared to offer.

Obviously, that didn’t work out. But instead of the failure of the Iraq Theory leading Israelis to get real about what’s going on, it’s led them to take refuge in the new and updated Iran Theory whereby these problems would vanish if somehow Iranian power and influence could be crushed.

Of course, the other interpretation is that Israel’s political elite and its Diaspora clique have no interest in striking a deal with the Palestinians; occupation is a far more profitable business and fulfills the Greater Israel ideology.

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