Why the travesty of the ICJ ruling may actually be a good thing.

Well it is official, the PLO has been given the ultimate excuse to ignore reality and pursue impossible maximalist positions. Others have written on the corruption of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the absurdity of their recent ruling, and I see no value in adding my non-expert analysis to them. But for completeness here is one such analysis:

The verdict of the ICJ is a staggering misuse of the tools of justices, and tears up the framework of the Oslo Accords

The prospect of any real or meaningful negotiations with the PLO (or Hamas) has long been recognized by those paying attention to be a pipe dream. Anyone who remembers Arafat's response to the peace overtures of 2000/1 and/or Abbas' response to the peace overtures of 2008 has only seen a further hardening of the Palestinian leadership's expectation of eventually destroying Israel and expelling the Jewish population.

So far, so hopeless.

And what has the Israeli response to this reality been?

We have done nothing.

In the past 20+ years the only Israeli policy has one of containment and (to a degree) stasis. Forever living in a fear of action triggering another war, the governments of Israel have adopted a policy of pretending that meaningful negotiations are going to start any moment now, and that nothing should be done to jeopardize that. Only when events take on epic proportions do we momentarily break away from that inaction in order to respond to recent events.

In the face of absolute Palestinian rejection of our existence we have looked to others to solve the problem.

This is the attitude of a people whose minds are still trapped in exile - always looking for the approvals of others, and the protection of others.

This has to end.

It is long past time that we look long and hard at the territory we control and decide what portions we wish to annex, and how we are going to manage the Arab intransigents. No one else is going to help us with this, at best we will get support for the solutions we impose upon an unwilling Arab populace. But this should not frighten us, or worry us - if it was up to the "Arab street" then we all would have been killed long ago.

So I am hoping that this ICJ ruling helps Israelis and Jews everywhere realize that no matter how closely we follow the law, no matter how hard we try for mutual agreement, our efforts will be pointless. The only way towards acceptance is through having the strength to decide on solution, and the will to impose it.

Personally I always thought we should start implementing some variation of Trump's Peace to Prosperity Plan. Let us start by formally annexing all of the areas that would become Israel under that plan, and begin building the bypass roads so that the Palestinians can travel between their areas freely. If they comply with the requirements of the plan we will slowly transfer them the territories and authority outlined in the plan, and if not, we will at least drawn clear lines on what communities and territory we are keeping.

What do you think?