INSOLUBLE PROBLEMS….Conservatives all seem to hate the Middle East “roadmap” that President Bush is pushing on both Israel and the Palestinians, but it has never been clear to me what their alternative is. Today, Arnold Beichman, writing in NRO, seems to suggest that there isn’t one. After writing at length about the undeniable fact that Palestinians generally hate Israel, he finishes with this:
Arab intransigence is the insoluble important question and it will not change. After all, the Palestinians’ annual “Palestine Prize for Culture” was recently presented to Abu Daoud for his recent memoir in which he detailed how he masterminded the 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.
George Santayana once said: “All problems are divided into two classes, soluble questions, which are trivial and important questions which are insoluble.”
Yep, that’s the end. Not “here’s a better plan” or “we need to work on Arab intransigence and here’s how,” but “it will not change.” Period. The problem is insoluble.
So what’s the answer supposed to be? A gigantic wall around Israel? Extermination of all Palestinians? Endless war? What?
What can possibly be the point for a conservative magazine to simply declare the problem insoluble and then walk away?
