YOU BE THE PSYCHIATRIST !

Since the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, here are a few facts for your consideration:

In 1936, when Palestine was still under British rule, a royal commission headed by Lord Peel was sent to investigate the steadily worsening Arab violence. After a detailed inquiry, the Peel Commission concluded that "an irrepressible conflict has arisen between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country." It recommended a two-state solution - a partition of the land into separate Arab and Jewish states. "Partition offers a chance of ultimate peace," the commission reported. "No other plan does."

But the Arab leaders, more intent on preventing Jewish sovereignty in Palestine than in achieving a state for themselves, rejected the Peel plan out of hand. The foremost Palestinian leader, Haj Amin al-Husseini, actively supported the Nazi regime in Germany. In return, Husseini wrote in his memoirs, Hitler promised him "a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world."

In 1947, the Palestinians were again presented with a two-state proposal. Again they spurned it. Like the Peel Commission, the United Nations concluded that only a division of the land into adjacent states, one Arab and one Jewish, could put an end to the conflict. On Nov. 29, 1947, by a vote of 33-13, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181, partitioning Palestine on the basis of population. Had the Arabs accepted the UN decision, the Palestinian state that "the whole world wants" would today be 61 years old. Instead, the Arab League vowed to block Jewish sovereignty by waging "a war of extermination and a momentous massacre."

Following its stunning victory in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel offered to exchange the land it had won for permanent peace with its neighbors. From their summit in Khartoum came the Arabs' notorious response: "No peace with Israel, no negotiations with Israel, no recognition of Israel."

At Camp David in 2000, Ehud Barak offered the Palestinians virtually everything they claimed to be seeking - a sovereign state with its capital in East Jerusalem, 97 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, tens of billions of dollars in "compensation" for the plight of Palestinian refugees. Yasser Arafat refused the offer, and launched the bloodiest wave of terrorism in Israel's history.

In 2005, when Israel pulled out of Gaza, paving the way for a Palestinian state there; when the 'Palestinians' were handed, on a silver platter, beautiful greenhouses, a working business with reveneue and profits, how did they react? They blew them up and burned them down...(see here)

There is more, but you get the general behavioral pattern. In fact, the one "stable" thing about the instability of the Middle East is that certain behavior is absolutely predictable based on all the data points available.

Now, YOU be the psychiatrist! Answer the following question based on your analysis of the behavioral psychology of the players in the ongoing drama described above:

What is the most likely outcome of President HopeandChange's renewed attempts to implement a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

BONUS QUESTION for additional points:

If the primary goal of the Palestinians and their Islamic brothers in the region is NOT peace or the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, what might it be?

BONUS ESSAY QUESTION Discuss the following psychological point and how these dynamics play into the analysis above:

If you asked Obama which nation -- Israel or Iran -- is more evil and more dangerous to our interests and to the world's, I'm confident that Obama would name Iran on all counts, and would do so sincerely. But the more important point is that Iran occupies no meaningful place in Obama's left-wing consciousness; Israel does. (By the way, I think the same analysis applies to Venezuela and Great Britain).

If you were to ask a person with major "father" issues who is more evil, his father or Jeffrey Dahmer, the person would name Dahmer. Yet Dahmer doesn't enter the person's consciousness or animate his behavior; the father does.

But having major father issues isn't the same thing as favoring, or being indifferent to, patricide.

If I might add to that last statement: it is an important aspect of psychological health that a person come to understand and appreciate the various psychological conflicts that swirl around in his or her unconscious. Only by making the unconscious conscious do you begin to establish control over your behavior and NOT unconsciously favor, or be indifferent to evil.