...The dream of a world without Israel is the fuel that drives the Arab war against the Jews in the Middle East. This dream long pre-dates the security barrier, the checkpoints, the house demolitions, the settlements, and the occupation. It long pre-dates even the birth of the state of Israel, and has been around for as long as Jews have talked seriously about Jewish self-government in the Middle East. It therefore makes no difference where Israeli borders are, or whether Palestinians have a capital in Jerusalem, or whether there is or is not a security barrier. It is the very existence of Israel as a nation that is so offensive to Arab and Muslim radicals; and it is their absolute unwillingness to accept a Jewish state, of any size or shape, that has continued to inspire the rejectionists. It is said that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. This is why the Arabs said no to a Palestinian state in 1948, and why they have said no ever since, most recently when the government of Ehud Barak offered the possibility of an Arab Palestine on over 90% of the West Bank and 100% of Gaza, with a capital in East Jerusalem and financial compensation for the refugees from 1948. In the face of that offer, Yasser Arafat walked out of the Camp David talks in 2000, and gave the order to commence the Second Intifada. Two years later, after hundreds of Israeli dead and thousands more wounded, Israel began construction of the security barrier. By the time the security barrier had been substantially completed, over 1100 Israelis had been killed and over 8000 wounded. And life for Palestinian Arabs became, necessarily, more restricted and more unpleasant.

It would therefore seem obvious that anyone interested in peace between Israel and the Arabs would be eager to disabuse Arabs of the notion that Israel might someday cease to exist. It would not even be necessary for liberal Christians to like this idea. They could merely use their influence (and their abundant financial resources) to promote the idea that Palestinian Arabs, for their own good, should abandon the idea of destroying Israel and push their leaders to seek some kind of comprehensive settlement.

Yet liberal Christians have chosen to do just the opposite. In one denomination after another, we hear slightly different versions of the same story: the very existence of Israel is offensive; Palestinian refugees have the right to return to their homes (though Jewish refugees from Arab states have no rights even to compensation for lost property); Jews must move out of the West Bank; and Israel must return to its borders before 1967 (which were utterly indefensible)...