It's among the most annoying phrases in the lexicon and a worthy target for dissection. Rush Limbaugh took a chainsaw to it today and the results weren't pretty.
In the aftermath of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's allegedly stunning re-election victory, attention has predictably turned to widespread concern over the so-called "Middle East peace process."
The wording dates back decades and runs the risk of being repeated ad infinitum, since Israel never lacks for antagonists who refuse to accept its success amid an arid wasteland of failure and misery.
Limbaugh told his radio listeners today that the phrase is just as phony as its cousin in duplicity, the much-touted "two-state solution" --
Have you ever stopped to think, in this whole Middle East peace process, and remember that's all it is. It's a process that never ends. It's a process that recycles and repeats. It's a chess game and the game never is won or lost. The pieces keep being moved around by different players, depending on the American administration and the Israeli prime minister, and whoever's running the show at the PLO or Fatah or whatever they call themselves on any given day, Hamas, Hezbollah, you name it.
The Middle East peace process is an industry into itself. It's not designed to be resolved. The Middle East peace process does not have an achievable objective. We're all being lied to about this, we're all being strung along, we're all being roped in thinking for my whole life, there's been no change in it, when we're all roped into believing that there's a solution to this, with words, with the right people -- doctors, nurses, clean water, whatever, speeches, you name it. There aren't any such solutions and there never are to conflicts like this. Ours is a world governed by the aggressive use of force, not by the aggressive use of process.
And this is made especially and abundantly clear in this case because there is no such thing as a two-state solution. I don't know how much time you out there as individuals pay attention to the Middle East peace process. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't pay much attention at all 'cause it never changes, it's the same thing. The news on the Middle East peace process does not change from administration to administration, from person to person, from year to year. Oh, you might have changes that appear to be different, like this two-state solution business, or when the Israelis finally decide to accept the idea of a Palestinian state.
But then whenever something like that, which some people would consider progress, is made, guess who undermines it? Hello, Yasser Arafat. Hello, whoever is running the show in negotiations against the Israelis, because they do not want a two-state solution. There is no two-state solution. There's a one-state solution. The two-state solution actually means the end of Israel. Go take a look at the Hezbollah charter. Take a look at things stated by Yasser Arafat when he was around, doesn't matter who, you'll see. Take a look at the Iranian caliphate, I mean, no matter where you go, the objective is wiping out the Jewish state -- it doesn't exist any more and neither do the people who at present live in it. That's the objective. That's the only objective. There is no desire to live side by side. In peace! In tranquility! In mutual respect! And all of that. There is no such possibility resulting from negotiations, it's just never going to happen.
And I daresay the people involved in it know it. But the Middle East peace process has become a career. The Middle East peace process is something that when you're 15 you say, you know, I want to work there. I want to work there for life! I want to become a diplomat and work at the Middle East peace process! I want to be a career appointee to the Middle East peace process, so that I'm there no matter who the American administration is, president is. This whole thing is a joke.
Limbaugh was even more emphatic at the start of the next hour of his show (audio) --
In fact, it's not even a one-state solution that the Palestinians want. It's not a one-state solution the Iranians want. Well, I'm picking up where I left off 'cause I got offended, I was interrupted, but I couldn't do anything about it. What we're talking about here is a final solution and the final solution is, there is no Israel and there are no Jews living where Israel is now and that's the objective and this is never going to get solved from the Palestinian side, from the Iranian side, from the Arab side, 'til that happens, pure and simple.
If that ever happens, you've got a solution. And how they gonna do that, folks? How's that solution if that were to happen? How is there no Israel and how are there no Jews living on the land that is now Israel? How does that happen? You think somebody's going to negotiate that? You think somebody's going to come along in the Middle East peace process and agree to that? You think the United Nations going to pass a Security Council resolution everybody's going to vote for that wipes Israel as it exists off the map and puts the Jews that live there somewhere else, preferably in the Mediterranean is what the Palestinians want. Do you think that's gonna happen? That hasn't an iota's of a chance happening unless there is a military conflict that Israel would lose, which is how conflicts like this have traditionally been solved throughout human history.
Another century, another attempt at a final solution by virulent anti-Semites. Netanyahu, this generation's Churchill, has been sounding the alarm for years and Israelis this week reaffirmed their belief in him over appeasement from an American version of Neville Chamberlain.
