The Redhunter

Three: After the 1967 Six Day War Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan famously said that he was "expecting a phone call"; from the Arab governments. He expected them to agree to peace treaties in return for getting their land back. He never got any calls.

Four: The Arabs could have taken Anwar Sadat's lead and approached Israel to make similar deals. Instead, they threw Egypt out of the Arab League and made Sadat a pariah. When he was murdered they celebrated throughout the Arab world.

Five: Yassir Arafat could have agreed to the deal offered him at Camp David in 2000 by President Clinton and Israeli PM Ehud Barak. But instead of taking an offer that would have created a Palestinian state, he started an intifada that took hundreds if not thousands of lives.

Yes yes I know the objections; the 1948 plan was unfair to the Arabs and the Zionists would have chased them off the land anyway, that it was unrealistic to expect Jordan to give up part of their territory for the Palestinians, that the Arabs would have lost face had they called Moshe Dayan in 1967, that the situation with regard to Egypt and the Sinai was different, and that the 2000 deal would have left too many Israeli settlements.

But by rejecting every opportunity for peace, the Arabs miss something else too. If they had accepted the UN plan in 1948 and the Zionists had then chased them off the UN designated land, they'd have a case. If Jordan had given them land on the "West Bank" after 1948 and Israel had invaded without provocation, they'd have a case. If the Israeli's hadn't returned the land they won in the 1967 Six Day War after reasonable negotiations they'd have a case. If they'd tried to follow up on the Carter-Sadat-Begin settlement and been rebuffed they'd have a case. And if they'd accepted Clinton and Baruk's proposal at Camp David in 2000 and the Israelis reneged they'd have a case.

But in each case they didn't. They missed their opportunity and thus have no case, or at least have a weaker one.

And no I am not saying that the Israelis have been perfect. I wish they had not built so many settlements, and that they would stop building new ones.

For the sake of argumentation we'll take take every Arab objection at face value. But what have the Palestinians got now? Only a rump Palestinian Authority and no real nation. Isn't half a loaf better than none?

Further, as time goes on the land available to the Palestinians grows smaller and smaller. It's like a declining stock; if you sell you lose money, but the longer you wait the more money you lose. Eventually you figure out it's not going to go back up again and you cut your losses, sell, and move on.

As the Israeli diplomat and politician Abba Eban said, "the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity"