A young man was procrastinating turning in his term paper for a class.

“Why don’t you finish it?”, I asked.
“It’s finished already”, he said.
“But I need to do some more work on it”, he said.
“But I thought you said it is finished”, I remarked.
“It is”, he said.

Using this thought process doesn’t necessarily mean that one is an addict, but it is found more often among addicts. This contradictory thinking is Addictive Thinking.

Now, lets look at the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. I can slightly change the words in this paragraph and you will recognize the arguments. For example:

“Why won’t the Israelis agree to a peace agreement with the Palestinians?”, I asked.
“They already did”, he said.
“But they need to stop settlement construction in order for the Palestinians to come to the negotiating table so that Israel can make peace with them”, he said.
“But I thought you said Israel already agreed to a peace agreement with the Palestinians”, I remarked.
“They did”, he said.

Or let’s try this one on for size:

“How can peace be achieved?”, I asked.

“The Israelis need to make peace with the Palestinians right now because the region is stable and Israel is surrounded by friendly governments,” he responded.

“But the region is changing. What if the region becomes unstable and Israel is surrounded by unfriendly governments?”, I asked.

“Then the Israelis need to make peace with the Palestinians right now because they may not get that chance later,” he said.

“But the Israelis are worried about the West Bank becoming like Gaza”, I noted.

“So they need to make peace now to stop that from happening,” he stated.

“But if the Palestinian Authority makes the concessions necessary for the process to move forward, they will be overthrown by radicals who support Hamas and oppose the peace process”, I remarked.

“The Israelis need to be forced to make concessions so that peace may be achieved,” he concluded.

What??? This makes no sense because it is addictive thinking. There is no logic to the argument. No matter what the circumstances, the argument is that Israel must make concessions and that it is Israel’s fault that peace has not already been achieved. Pressuring Israel to make concessions now that the Palestinian Authority may not even appear to be yielding on any of the core issues for fear of facing an uprising is about as ridiculous a conception as any heretofore applied to the peace process. No possible good may come of such pressure. In fact, if a strong Palestinian Authority is necessary to achieve peace, then those seeking peace must avoid encouraging it to come to the negotiating table now in its weakened state. Additionally, with the Palestinian Authority in a weakened state and potentially being toppled in favor of a much more radical regime, Israel cannot possibly make any concessions on borders or security.

While the addictive thinkers will no doubt argue that if only Israel had made concessions earlier it would have achieved peace already, those thinking clearly will readily understand that if the Palestinian Authority was in control over the entire West Bank today, an uprising could rapidly bring Hamas to power there with an abrogation of any peace treaty along with it.

The only reasonable solution is to allow the Palestinian Authority the chance to survive the onslaught of radical sentiment by giving it the ability to avoid having to make unpopular concessions now. Those who wish to pressure Israel to make concessions in order to bring the Palestinian Authority to the negotiating table must both seek to weaken Israel without achieving peace and to strengthen Hamas in its attempts to remove the Palestinian Authority from leadership over the West Bank. Why? Because these will be the primary results if the act of urging Israel to make concessions in order to bring the two sides to the negotiating table were to be successful.

For the peace process to move forward, the region must stabilize first.

AHMED al-OMRAN (from Saudi Arabia) – “The masses will not listen to Mr. Obama unless he also addresses the leaders who deny us basic rights.”

OMAYMA ABDEL-LATIF (from Lebanon) – “To restore America’s credibility in the Muslim world, Mr. Obama should promise that come election time, he will respect the will of voters, even if he does not like the results.”

ABDULKAREEM al-ERYANI (from yemen) – “We have helped Washington combat extremism but the United States has not done enough to help us fight poverty, the twin brother of terrorism.”

SHAHAN MUFTI (from Pakistan) – “President Obama should speak to those Pakistanis who need so badly to hear that this constitutional experiment is worth a fresh try, even in these testing times; that the Islamic legal tradition is compatible with Western models of democracy; that Islamic and Western conceptions of justice and freedom still might meld in the grand Pakistani experiment.”

HOSSAM el-HAMALAWY (from Egypt) – “Our real allies are the human rights groups and unions that will pressure the Obama administration to sever all ties to the Mubarak dictatorship.”

AYMAN NOUR (from Egypt) – “But we expect him to demand freedom for all and to restate his conviction that oppressive regimes march on the wrong side of history.”

ABDULJALIL ALSINGACE (from Bahrain) – “It would be good if Mr. Obama vowed to support democracy and human rights.”

Now I realize that 7 individuals hardly constitute a significant sample of population of one billion, but given the MSM’s obsession with President Obama’s speech being about the peace process, it’s more than a little odd that the Times didn’t find a single writer who mentioned “justice for Palestine” as a major point that the President must address.

The prevailing MSM wisdom is expressed here:

Obama was pressed by NPR’s Michele Norris and Steve Inskeep about the challenge of developing a new relationship with the Muslim world without demonstrating America’s willingness to press Israel harder for changes in its policies. If Israel continues to ignore U.S. demands for an end to settlement activity — which Obama has called for publicly and privately — and the U.S. continues to support Israel, how will that enhance American credibility in the Muslim world?

Yesterday Jeff Jacoby published an interview he had with Saad Eddin Ibrahim (who also wrote an op-ed in the WSJ) which had this exchange:

Q: Do you agree with those who say that what Arab leaders want isn’t a Palestinian state, but a Palestinian struggle?
A: Yes, there are vested interests in keeping the Palestinian conflict going. So if Obama’s speech will really be a breakthrough for peace, it will also be a stepping-stone to genuine democratization. Peace will take away the excuse that the authoritarian regimes use to justify their own hold on power.

In other words, the peace process is a chimera. It’s designed to draw attention away from the failings of the dictatorships that make up the Arab world. Presenting a united front and claiming that you stand for freedom while denying it to your own people is an effective cover for despotism.

To what degree the cause of freedom is greater than the cause of Palestine isn’t certain. But it’s worth asking whether Palestine is the really the central concern of the Muslim world and if pressuring Israel will somehow restore America’s standing among the world’s Muslims by bringing peace to the Middle East.

UPDATE: from When Egypt was in Gaza – via Instapundit Michael:

Ralph Galloway, an UNRWA official who quit in frustration, observed bitterly: “The Arab states don’t want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don’t give a damn whether the refugees live or die.”

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.