If you really want to be depressed, contemplate the chance of success for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The issues between them seem insurmountable.
As long as Israel holds the West Bank it is ruling a recalcitrant population. But if it withdraws to the 1967 borders, which are in reality the 1949 armistice lines, the narrow middle of the country could be cut in half by an Arab/Palestinian attack.
Israel is composed of leftists and secularists who are willing to withdraw
from some or all of the West Bank. It is also composed of the right and the ultra-religious, some of whom are willing to live in peace in the West Bank with the Palestinians, whether the area is called Judaea and Samaria or Palestine.
The Palestinians seem to want the West Bank Judenrein, something it was not before the Jordanians invaded in 1948. Given the current realities, it is not possible to get 500,000 religious and nationalistic Jews to withdraw without an Israeli civil war.
Based on history, if Israel does withdraw, the future of peace is less than assured.
When Israel withdrew from Lebanon, it got Hezbollah; when it withdrew from Gaza,
it got Hamas. If it withdraws from the West Bank, it could get a militarized Palestine
importing arms and rockets from Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. If Jordan falls to the
majority Palestinian inhabitants, the future is bleak for Israel.
When the Palestinians speak in English, they proclaim that Israel must withdraw
to the 1967 borders. When they speak in Arabic, they frequently say that the Jewish state of Israel must be destroyed and that not one inch of the area can ever be in Jewish hands.
The western press and many of their reporters who lean to the left always seem to favor the underdog. Israel is far stronger than the Palestinians, so there is little doubt of their allegiance. The UN, with a core of Arab and other third-world countries, is understandably anti-Israel, sometimes even shading into anti-Jewish. With more than twenty wars going on between Islamic extremists and what they consider to be infidels, it is surprising that the UN mostly criticizes Israel. Or maybe not.
With Israel’s hundreds of nuclear and other sophisticated weapons, you would have
to be insane to try to destroy it. The Arab terrorist groups must know what the
endgame would be. The question is: Are they fanatical enough to try it anyway?
Kapil Komireddi is an Indian journalist that writes on world affairs, foreign policy, India, Pakistan, and the Middle East.