Why not a rational strategy?

Moshe Arens speaks for me in his Haaretz column on the situation of Israel vis a vis Arafatistan: “Wishful thinking or rational strategy?”
Arens states: “The murderous ‘game’ with the Palestinians continues to be conducted by Israel on the basis of wishful thinking rather than rational strategy. It is, unfortunately, a recursive game, providing opportunities for learning from past mistakes. But we seem to have learned nothing and are being repeatedly punished for our mistakes. It started with the Oslo agreements – wishful thinking and visions of the New Middle East took precedence over rational analysis…”
I recently made a similar point in “Why not victory?” in connection with our link to a Caroline Glick column from the Jerusalem Post. I agree with everything Arens says in this column, but it is important because Arens’ point is not a subject of public discussion by Israel’s political leadership with the people of Israel.
Symptomatic of the delusional thinking to which Arens refers is the fact that there has as yet been no public accounting for the disaster of Oslo itself. Vital advocates of Oslo such as Shimon Peres are still respectable public figures playing significant roles and urging the same policy. It is as if Neville Chamberlain (if he had still been alive — he had the grace to die in 1940) were still advising Winston Churchill on the statesmanship of appeasement in 1942. (Courtesy of RealClearPolitics.)

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