Cursed With An Opportunity?

War is a mental illness; an addiction. It becomes routine, perpetuated by cynicism grown rampant - contempt prior to investigation. Whether you believe in the "cycle of violence" or whether you think that's another "terrorist-loving liberal" buzzword, war involves cyclical thinking, like so many obsessive mental disorders. The true cycle of violence takes place not in the "real world" where lives are traded, but in the thoughts of those who perpetuate the violence. Once you've killed one of the "enemy," how can you not feel that the rest are after you? How can you ever feel safe again?

(via The American Errorist)

From Ha'aretz:

"Hamas has announced that it accepts a Palestinian independent state within the 1967 borders with a long-term truce," Sheikh Hassan Yousef, the top Hamas leader in the West Bank, told The Associated Press, referring to lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

[...]

"For us a truce means that two warring parties live side by side in peace and security for a certain period and this period is eligible for renewal," Yousef said. "That means Hamas accepts that the other party will live in security and peace."

Now I can see two main paths that Israel can go with this.

The first would be counterproductive, I believe. That would be to say that you cannot take the word of Hamas seriously, you cannot negotiate with terrorists, and that this fundamnetally proves that Israel's military attacks against Hamas and the Palestinians in general has worked. I think if this is the path taken, there will be no two-state solution.

[...]

The second path Israel can take is to take this seriously as a sign of progress, to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority even if it has contacts with Hamas, even if at a later date Hamas members enter into local PA elections and hold positions or win seats. And Israel should recognize that it has an opportunity to have the majority of the Palestinian population backing a unified Palestinian leadership that accepts a two-state solution with Israel living in peace and security.

The future cannot be predicted, and so this choice reads as being between "more of the same" and "something different." However, when you've hit a dead-end, any path is preferable. The long-time refusal to negotiate with Arafat was, in some ways, a convenient excuse to avoid the issues. His death and the prospect of an election calls the bluff, and it's time now to lay those cards on the table.

What needs to change more than anything is the mental "cycle of violence" (exemplified by "path A") and the idea that peace can be won. Wars can be won and enemies defeated until there's nobody left to disagree with. But the absence of war is not the same as peace. Peace cannot be won, it must be surrendered to.