Preliminarily, I believe it is fundamental that the United States of America must always adopt a firm policy of encouraging peace and democracy and discouraging terrorism and anarchy.
As such, I will place a moratorium on any encouragement of "land for peace" talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authorities until or unless both sides demonstrate their commitment to peace by not making any unprovoked attacks of any sort across each other for a period of at least 10 years.
The Palestinian Authorities must prove that they are committed to the formation of a true government and peace with Israel. Such proof would require, in my opinion, that there be no missiles lobbed into or other acts of terror on the rest of Israel from Palestinian administered regions of Israel for a period of at least 10 years and of course the same would be expected of Israel.
To the extent the Palestinian Authorities cannot control the conduct of their administratees to prevent attacks on the rest of Israel, their ability to self-govern must be questioned. It is important that, as an aspiring nation, they demonstrate an ability to self-govern first, otherwise, there is no point on having them at the negotiating table.
This policy, presented here in an overly simplistic tone, does not mean that the U.S. will break all diplomatic relations with the Palestinian people, merely that it will not back Palestinian autonomy until such time as it demonstrates its willingness to form a peaceful democracy.
Furthermore, this policy does not mean that the United States will not continue to foster peace in the middle east. In fact, it means we will have to redouble our efforts to enlist our allies, especially Egypt and Jordan, to actively counsel the Palestinian people toward peaceful self-governance.
The U.S. approach toward the demands of the Palestinian people is downright silly from a management perspective. I recall an employee of mine who came and asked me for a raise. I told him that I was unimpressed with his performance and that I didn't think he merited a raise. He told me that his performance would improve dramatically if I increased his pay. I explained to him that people get paid based on their performance, not their promise of performance and that if his performance improved he would get a raise. Naturally, his performance did not improve and he ended up getting fired.
The performance of the Palestinians has not improved since the United States began encouraging Israel to make concessions. It was foolish for Israel to make concessions before the Palestinians made any DEMONSTRATION of commitment to the Peace process. It is time for us to get the horse back in front of the cart.
