FATAL MISCONCEPTIONS. Lt. Gen. (res.) Moshe Yaalon, Shalem Center Distinguished Fellow, has written an opinion piece in today’s Los Angeles Times about the key misconceptions that prevent an accurate view of the Middle East. The piece is an abridged version of an oopen letter to Tony Blair, published in Ma'ariv.

Among the fatal misconceptions Yaalon covers:

Resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a pre-requisite for Middle East peace. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is only one of a number of conflicts that divide the region, and is unrelated to the others.

Israeli territorial concessions are key to progress toward Middle East peace. The central issue in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is ideological, not territorial. This is why Israeli attempts to cede territory have inflamed the conflicted, instead of bringing it closer to resolution.

The “Occupation” blocks the possibility of reaching an agreement.
The parties involved don’t even use the term, “Occupation” in the same way. While most of the West means the lands captured during the 1967 Six-Day War, many Palestinians--and Israeli Arabs--use the term to refer to all of Israel.

The current Palestinian leadership has an interest in establishing a state that will live peacefully alongside Israel.
The Palestinian leadership has demonstrated time and again that it is not interested in the welfare of its people, who now live in far worse conditions than before Yasser Arafat’s return and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority.

Yaalon concludes:

The emissaries who travel to Israel must draw on their rich diplomatic experiences, free themselves from misconceptions about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the petty politics that flows from them -- especially the binds of political correctness -- to lead us all toward freedom, security and peace. Anything else is mere meddling.

And we've had more than enough of that.

Read the whole thing.

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