Who Wins With A US Brokered Peace Between Israel and The Palestinians?
The current peace talks in Washington between Israel, headed by Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas present both sides and host President Barack Obama with great opportunities to change the world for the better.
For Israel it is critical that any peace agreement setting up an independent Palestinian state come along with guarantees for peace and security enforcement by the USA and recognition by all parties of Israel as a Jewish state - Netanyahu has made it clear that there will be no agreement without these 2 conditions.
The establishment of a Palestinian State allows Abbas to take credit for being the leader to bring about a first in history - statehood for Palestinians - and will defang to a great extent his arch rivals and Israel's enemy, Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules Gaza and was responsible for starting the last Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hamas is funded and supported by Iran and Syria and is a Sunni fundamentalist group bent on destroying Israel and killing all Israeli Jews. They also regard Abbas as a Quisling and consider members of his Fatah party enemies. A couple of years ago, over 150 Fatah soldiers fled to Israel and sought sanctuary rather than be caught by Hamas who would have tortured and then killed them — think about that.
For the USA the prospect of peace between the Palestinians and Israel is pleasing for several reasons. Instability in the Middle East always inflates oil prices which hurts the global economy and the USA even more, since our demand for oil is relatively inelastic, especially in the short term. Conversely, a solid peace agreement that creates a Palestinian State and provides Israel with the security she desperately needs will help stabilize oil prices as well as the value of the US dollar — factors that contribute to the economic recovery that the USA badly needs.
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