Dr. Henry Speaks His Mind

American opposition to the concept of a security fence, therefore, should be reconsidered. A physical barrier difficult to penetrate would facilitate Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian cities and the abandonment of checkpoints that deprive so much of Palestinian life of dignity. It provides a line on the other side of which settlements have to live under Palestinian rule or be abandoned. Is the Palestinian objection less the result of the principle of the fence but the ratification of the permanence of Israel it represents? By the same token, Israel must be serious about vacating the territories beyond the security fence. Some object to the security fence as being reminiscent of the walls created by communism, especially in Berlin and along the east-west German borders. But the Communist walls were designed to keep their peoples in; complex than a device for using the United States to extract concessions from Israel for little more than the word ``peace.'' The Palestinians must make a choice between the requirements of genuine acceptance of the Jewish state and an interim solution that creates a Palestinian state immediately and marks a major step toward dealing with the settlement, even if it falls short of the entire gamut of their aspirations. Israel must abandon a diplomacy designed to exhaust its counterparts and concentrate, in close coordination with the United States, on the essentials of its requirements.

An excellent assessment by Henry Kissinger in a Korean newspaper, courtesy of Israpundit . I agree with pretty much everything in this article, including the traumatic effects of peace he mentions a bit later in the article, read the whole thing.