Middle East peace solution: Stop trying to obliterate Israel

The secret to Middle East peace is deceptively simple. It always has been. Middle East peace is possible if the people of the region accept Israel's right to exist and stop trying to kill Jews. This has been true since 1948 when the State of Israel was established.
   

Hamas has brought a new savagery to the futile and self-destructive drive to destroy Israel rather than live constructively alongside it. They have, in part, succeeded. Anti-Zionism and antisemitism have been re-ignited around the world.
    I say to all those seeking to destroy Israel, put down your weapons and take the Israeli hand of peace. It has been waiting since 1948.
    The writer was the director of BBC Television (2013-15). (Telegraph-UK)

Full Article by Danny Cohen: In recent days some outlandish proposals have been made about the future of Israel and Gaza.

Yet the secret to Middle East peace is, in the end, deceptively simple. It always has been.Middle East peace is possible if the people of the region accept Israel’s right to exist and stop trying to kill Jews. 

It can happen if the nations, militias, terrorist organisations and anti-Semites that surround the Jewish homeland end their decades-long efforts to destroy the country. In saying this I am not being glib. I do not think this is overly simplistic. I understand the complexities of the Middle East. I am aware that Israel, like every other democratic State in modern history has not always acted perfectly. 

I wish that a better accommodation could be made with Palestinians in the West Bank. But in the end, it is this simple. Stop trying to kill Jews, stop trying to destroy the tiny strip of land that is Jewish people’s ancestral homeland and peace becomes possible in the region.

This has been true since 1948 when the State of Israel was established. That year, Arab nations rejected the idea of the UN-mandated Jewish State and tried to destroy the country in its infancy. The Arab States lost the war and Israel began to build its future. 

In 1967, Arab nations again attempted to destroy Israel. They lost the war in six days but they kept trying. In 1973 they declared war again and failed again. The Jewish State, just two decades old, had learnt to defend itself effectively against those who hated the idea that Jews had a tiny country amidst the vastness of the Middle East. 

At the time, Prime Minister Golda Meir understood this fundamental formula for Middle East peace. In a quote widely attributed to her she said: “If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.”

Meir found simple words for a simple truth. The people of Israel wanted to live in peace with their neighbours. The men who led the neighbouring countries cared more about destroying Israel than the lives of their soldiers and citizens.

And so the pattern continued for more decades. There were more attempts to destroy Israel through war and terrorism. More innocent people died on both sides in pointless conflicts aimed at taking from Jewish people the one place in the world they could be certain to call home.

In recent years, hope raised its voice with the Abraham Accords between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. The rulers of these nations understood that peace was better than war, that Israel, a smart, tech-driven start-up nation was better as a trading partner than an enemy.

They also understood that the death cult of Hamas was leading the Palestinians towards a hell of their own making. They could see that in Gaza there was no sane partner for peace that Israel could negotiate with.

The October 7 attacks were in part an attempt to destroy the pathway to peace that Israel had begun with Arab nations. Hamas has brought a new savagery to the futile and self-destructive drive to destroy Israel rather than live constructively alongside it. 

They have, in part, succeeded. Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism have been re-ignited around the world. In a grotesque inversion it is Israel who is the pariah not the cold-blooded genocidal maniacs of Hamas.

Yet I believe their efforts to destroy peace will fail. 

One day, maybe soon, other Middle Eastern powers will have their own Abraham Accords with Israel. They know that Iran is the real enemy in the region and that an economic alliance with Israel will help their citizens prosper and their country remain safe. So, I say to all those seeking to destroy Israel, to all those aggressive anti-Zionists who have emerged around the world: Israel will never be destroyed. 

Jewish people will always live where they have done for millennia. Understand this will always be the case. End the anti-Zionist mania.

Put down your weapons and take the Israeli hand of peace. It has been waiting since 1948.