(First published in the Vallejo Times-Herald) 

So, Israel and Syria are resuming peace talks.
I confess, I always get a little excited about announcements like this � made slightly tremulous by the prospect of peace breaking out in the region � but that usually only lasts long enough to further examine the details.
As usual, the details contain the devil in this latest situation.
Evidently, Israeli and Syrian representatives have been meeting in Ankara to set up peace negotiations under Turkish auspices.
The hope, said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert�s office is �to conduct the dialogue in a serious and continuous manner with the aim of reaching a comprehensive peace.�
Wouldn�t that be wonderful?! Peace with the Arabs. No more rocket fire into cities. No more mass murder/suicides in restaurants and discotheques.
Oh. Wait. The rocket fire is coming from Gaza and sometimes Lebanon. The walking bombs come mostly in the form of Palestinian Arabs. So, even if a peace deal is reached with Syria, those problems will likely continue, with Syrian officials remaining in a position to disclaim any power to intervene.
And what exactly are the two sides offering?
At Syria�s insistence, Israel is putting up the Golan Heights � the plateau overlooking Israel from which Syria launched attacks against the Jewish state for decades before Israel captured it in 1967.
For its part, Israel is putting its proverbial foot down, insisting Syria �disengaging from Iran� and end �its support for Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism.�
So, unless I�m missing something here, Israel is being asked to exchange something quite tangible for promises of something almost impossible to verify � a change of heart.
It�s pretty clear what Syria gains in this deal � the ability to reoccupy the Golan Heights and resume launching attacks against Israel at its leisure, with a strategic advantage Israel wrested from it once already at great cost.
It�s a lot less clear what Israel gains.
It goes to show you that some things never seem to change.
A friend e-mailed me something that illustrates this in an especially powerful way. It was published in the Los Angeles Times May 26, 1968. It was written by the late Eric Hoffer, a non-Jewish American longshoreman-turned philosopher who won the Presidential Medal of Freedom after writing nine books and many newspaper columns. His book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic:
�The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.
Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks, and Algeria a million Frenchman. Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese and no one says a word about refugees.
But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees. Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single one.
Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace.
Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world.
Other nations, when they are defeated, survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed. Had Nasser triumphed last June [1967], he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews.
No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on.
There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Blacks are executed in Rhodesia. But, when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.
The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.
The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources.
Yet at this moment, Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally. We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us. And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer [1967] had the Arabs with their Russian backers won the war, to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general.
I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel so will it go with all of us.
Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us all.�
Yep.

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