There it is. The map of “Israel” as Abu Mazen, (Mahmoud Abbas) sees it.

As you can see, Israel is gone, and ’Palestine’ covers the entire area – as a grinning Abu Mazen looks on. (What is it, with these grinning world leaders?)

The Abu Mazen quote that accompanied this photo when it ran on the front pages of both PA newspapers on April 28, 2009-- with “Palestine” printed in English, by the way, just to make sure we all get the message – says. “I say this clearly. I do not accept the Jewish State, call it what you will.”

Some ‘peace partner’, huh? How can anyone possibly think that this is someone with whom the “Jewish State” should make a deal?

And yet that’s what the world says it wants. Well, why not? It sounds simple. You have two nations (let’s just assume for a moment that mishmash of Arab rabble from Syria, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states really constitutes a “nation”) who are arguing over territory. Surely the most expedient way to solve that is by just affecting a compromise. Put the boundary somewhere between what the two want, and the issue is settled. Why make such a big deal out of it?

As most of you probably know, the reason it’s a big deal – and the reason why a ‘compromise’ like that won’t work – is that this isn’t a dispute over boundaries or territory. It’s a religious war, a dispute over whether one nation state has the right to exist or not. Draw a boundary wherever you want – and the fight will continue. It will continue until one state – the one that tends to abide by international agreements -- ceases to exist. With one of the two states gone, then you have peace.

Of a sort.

Is that what the Western world wants? North America and Europe? Probably not. Some do, certainly, those who continue to believe that Hitler’s work was interrupted and completing it now would be just fine. But most people probably see a division of the land – two states for two peoples – as a “fair” resolution of the problem.

“Fair”. A word that ought to be banned from use by anyone over the age of nine.

“Fair” is a child’s word. It has to do with getting a cookie that’s just as big as your sisters, or with being able to stay up as late as Johnny across the street. It has nothing to do with reality in the adult world.

Moms can adjust Cookie-size easily enough, and staying up a bit later can be negotiated. But if one child were to insist that he had the right to kill the other – heaven forbid – unless he got ALL the cookies, ALL the time, then there’s no negotiation. When one party promises to annihilate of the other, there is no compromise. There can’t be.

There’s an absolutely excellent article out today by Arieh Eldad originally published in HaTikvah. Dr. Eldad is a physician and Member of the Knesset from the Moledet Party, part of National Union.

http://www.israelunitycoalition.org/news/article.php?id=3995

The whole piece ought to be required reading before anyone opens his or her mouth to voice an opinion on the Israel/’Palestinian’ conflict.

The key point Eldad makes is that the Arabs war against the Jewish State has nothing to do with territory, as such. It’s a religious war, one over whether or not Israel has a right to exist.

Religious wars have nothing to do with logic, being reasonable or finding a ‘fair’ solution. When one party to the conflict insists ‘my god says I have to kill you’ there’s no reasoning with that. No compromise.

As Abu Mazen so proudly proclaims, not now, not ever, will they accept the Jewish State. It must be wiped off the map.

Israel’s late Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin had it right, too. “A Palestinian state can rise only on the ruins of the State of Israel.”