Quote Originally Posted by Sylvan View Post
There is no concession that Israel can make that the Arabs will accept. As long as they are international victims, the free money flows in.
The minute they accept peace and can be held accountable, the whole game is up and they know it.
Israel has figured this out.
Obama has too, its just perpetual victimhood is his gig too.
Are these generic Arabs (in which case the term isn't terribly useful), or do you mean the Palestinians? And why wouldn't this logically apply to Israel's c$3 billion per year? (I don't think it does--I'm just highlighting the logical inference.)

If you mean the Arabs in general, of course, the amount flowing in to Jordan and Egypt increased after signing a peace agreement, and the Palestinians assume it would too. Certainly, every World Bank and IMF analysis that I've ever seen of the Palestinian economy (probably several dozen since 1994) suggests that the economic costs of occupation to the Palestinians (in terms of trade and mobility restrictions) exceeds the economic benefits of foreign aid.

By contrast, the Syrians don't receive significant amounts of external aid any more, and certainly have no economic interest in perpetuating the conflict--rather, they have an interest in securing the return of the occupied Golan Heights.

If one examine the actual negotiating record in either 2000-01 or 2007-08 (the only two periods of actual permanent status negotiations), I think its rather hard to conclude that either side didn't want a deal. Rather, their views of what that deal should include were still too far apart for a deal to be reached, and external mediation was very poorly done indeed.