Nidra Poller

The greatest obstacle to peace? The peace process, of course. It's something worse than processed cheese, but it doesn't seem to bother the altermondialistes, ecolo-purists, and fins gastronomes.

Arafat was Allah's gift to peace. But when he died, for some mysterious reason all those who were claiming that he was the Key and the Door and the Road and the Way to peace suddenly discovered that great hopes were dawning.

Yes, we know why. It's because Mahmoud Abbas shaves. And the same people who spit on advertising wouldn't be expected to give Gillette the credit for this tsunami of peace hope. No, it's not the razor, it's a je ne sais quoi of Abbas that somehow soothes our souls and makes our eyes shine like Christmas bulbs.

Here's a guy you can peace process with. He doesn't snarl, he smiles like a sweet grandfather as he's carried around on the shoulders of an arch-terrorist serial Jew-killer. He makes extravagant election promises about flying the Palestinian flag from the minarets of Jerusalem (existing, and to come...like in movie contracts), burying Arafat in Jerusalem, ending the occupation (of West Jerusalem, of course, but it's that famous French non dit), fulfilling the dreams of Arafat, and fulfilling the goals of Hamas. He can talk about dismantling the Jewish state by stages; the world's press takes things one at a time.

A state, a state, a state in Gaza and the West Bank, Reuters just repeated it for the 8 millionth time, that's what the Palestinians want, what Hamas wants, what the Qur'an wants, what Allah wants. And since there are no borders to the West Bank and Gaza on Palestinian maps, Reuters can be trusted. All they want is a state.

A state of war. But as long as they only say it to each other, and never in English, why worry?

What's wrong with the peace process is that Israel hasn't caught on. Israel keeps trying to deal with facts on the ground. They want a state in Gaza? OK, we'll pull out of Gaza. And too bad for a bunch of cranks who want to live there because they don't understand peace processes. And, as all the world can see, the Palestinians are thrilled.

You're pulling out of Gaza? Oh how thrilling, how did you know, it's exactly what I wanted. I'm just so excited, I'm bursting with Kassams. How many Jews can I kill before you pull out of Gaza to prove to you how much I love you and to encourage you to pull out of the West Bank and Tel Aviv and all those other territories you've been occupying since Methusaleh.

The peace processing world looks on, frowns, points a finger at Israel and says "Hey there, you better stop attacking these Palestinians if you want to show you're serious about peace." Revisionists revise history and the Peace Processors are revising the road map. Suddenly if you want to get from point X to point Y, you should begin at point Y. (Come to think of it, why didn't I think of that?) You want a Palestinian state? The road map says that's Y and to get there you must start at X, namely stop killing Jews, You improve the road map. There is no X. You begin with a Palestinian state at Y. Check out your favorite media this week and you’ll see how many talking mouths are going that way for 2005.

Because the pundits are logical. If you give them a state (that's what they want) they'll stop killing Jews. It's logical. You have to be some kind of Zionist extremist or ultra talmudist to think otherwise.

The problem with the peace process is that Israel is always trying to create facts on the ground. Why can't we do like Abbas? We announce to the world the glad tidings: we are pulling out of Gaza. We have decided that being in Gaza is counter-productive. In exchange, the world should give us a free pass to respectability, and repeal all UN resolutions. (All of them? Why not just the ones that are anti-Israel? Oh yeah, I see what you mean. Why make an exception for the other two?)

And then we just sit tight in Gaza, mow our lawns and putter around in our greenhouses and let the years go by. If a Reuters journalist happens to come by, we send out a spokesperson to declaim: we are going to pull out of Gaza. for the sake of peace, for the sake of the process, for the sake of the peace process. In fact, the person might add, we realize that it was a mistake to ever go into Gaza. But what can you do, that was thousands of years ago…

Abbas says he won't touch a hair on the rifle of a single Palestinian terrorist? Great! Neither will we. We proclaim that we have decided to stop killing Jew-Killers. No no no, it's not lowdown word play. We aren't going to eliminate them, liquidate them, target them or any such thing. We are going to peace process them.

You see what I mean? Public opinion is not asking for miracles. Public opinion doesn't expect Abbas to end homicide bombings, rocket launchings, tunnel diggings and assorted atrocities, they just want to hear him say that it would be nice if those things could finally achieve their goals and be phased out. So… that rickety little fence we stretched out between Israelis and their designated killers is not a Wall of Shame, an Apartheid Wall, a Barrier to Peaceful Justice, it's just a line of thought, and in fact, to our minds, it doesn't even exist. Of course we'll pull it down the first thing tomorrow morning as a sign of good faith, but in the meantime people shouldn't get hung up on it. What matters is good intentions, Abbas intends to demilitarize the jihad and we intend to pull down the fence…

Nidra Poller is a novelist and journalist who lives in France.