Make it shorter.

After a few years of not-so-subtle hints from family (first, second and black sheep generations), friends (Facebook and the old-fashioned, less ephemeral kind), and the nice readers who occasionally ask me to delete them from my email lists, I decided I might as well move from listening to acting. After all, USA Today built its brand around short, topical articles for the Twitter generation so who am I to question a successful pecuniary model?

So let’s get right to today’s main topic…

Gun Control 

How many of you know that, according to a Pew Research Center study, overall gun violence in America is actually down over 50% in the last 20 years? (Or that the  New York Times consistently spells “overall” as “over all,” often in the same column or article, and despite my best efforts to motivate their Public Editor to address this scandalous behavior in her Sunday column  — I’m up to five emails and counting —  she remains hopelessly focused on journalistic ethics?)

Isn’t citing a gun violence statistic out of context (at least the context I prefer), and not pointing out that the U.S. remains the world’s leader in civilized society gun violence, often by several magnitudes — virtually even with pastoral Mexico’s gun violence rate, over five-times Israel’s, eight-times Germany’s, 40-times the United Kingdom’s and over 160- times Japan’s — a tad bit disingenuous? Isn’t where where the U.S. ranks in the world overall ( or “over all” if you’re the New York Times) more meaningful?

Enough with the “isn’ts.” Let’s move to the “why’s,” briefly interrupted by a ”yes.”

Why have the Obama administration’s efforts to prophylactically control Haredi-like gun procreation resulted in new examples of fecklessness to add to the last decade or two of political fecklessness? Why is it so hard to gather support for background checks and gun registration and to diminish the support for the NRA’s “government as fundamentally evil” platform?  Yes, I know the NRA wins support by distributing lots of  dollars to lots of pliable politicians, but our nation’s gun policies (or lack thereof) have unquestionably delivered a disproportionately large number of deaths and injuries to innocent people.

Let’s rant for a minute about silly and not-so-silly laws.

Why, in the state of Colorado, should it be perfectly legal for you to toke on your personal size pot allotment while you fire a round or two, as long as you’ve undergone a background check and don’t use more than a 15-round gun magazine, while in Virginia you can buy guns and ammo of any type and even walk down Norfolk’s 21st Street with a gun in your holster, but if you fire up a blunt you’ll get thrown in jail?

Let’s rant for a minute about my government problems in America’s 50 state insurance fiefdoms. Why, other than for revenue generation, am I required to hold over 200 insurance licenses and to endure an equal number of background checks,  just so I can sell standard policies of insurance? Our nation’s citizens are better protected from a rampaging insurance agent armed with the ability to inflict paper cut mayhem than everyday (or, for The New York Times, every day) idiots who kill and maim just because we have too many political leaders choosing the NRA’s campaign contributions over better serving their constituents.

Let’s rant for another minute about the disingenuousness of  those who warn of the grave dangers if the government is allowed to maintain permanent lists of American gun owners, but who remain quiescent when the government  acknowledges it actually does maintain lists of every American’s phone calls,  in addition to email and Internet details if you interact with a foreign person of interest.

Message to gun rights advocates: If you’re more worried about the possibility of your government using lists of gun owners to take away what you believe are constitutionally guaranteed rights, why not shift your focus just a scootch to an area where your constitutionally guaranteed rights have already been abridged?

Message One to POTUS: As someone who voted for the pre-election Obama that vowed to be the civil rights anti-Bush, I’m not only disappointed in your inaction in halting government overreach, I’m appalled by your active participation in expanding a program that pre-election Obama would have at least demanded be subject to robust public discussion.  I’m glad we have apparently used the snooping program to identify and break up several terrorist plots, but that does not prove whether the necessary information could have been gathered in a less obtrusive way or whether the program itself strikes a proper  civil rights versus security balance. “Trust me; it works” isn’t good enough.

Message Two to POTUS : It’s not enough to blame the Republicans, the NRA, gun manufacturers, or whoever you choose to blame for your failure to get more effective gun control laws. At some point, great leaders just figure out how to get it done. If you believe the issue is important and you can’t win over the people you need to win over, then how is that solely their fault?

Rant over.

Next week we’ll shift away from U.S. to international (and familial) politics. I’ll disclose never-before-disclosed details about my recent trip to China and Korea. The paragraph below will have to serve as your blog appetizer…

China and Korea

I just visited China with my wife. After that, I took a few steps into North Korea with three other family members.

So I’m an expert.

Not a Tom Friedman-I-talked-to-two-people-so-now-I-can-opine-on-geopolitical- solutions-to-the-world’s-most-vexing-problems expert. That’s a much higher level than I aspire to, although the three members of my family I traveled with to Korea do give me a 50 percent expert bonus. Plus their 19 to 82 age range gives me broader perspective than Friedman usually gets, and should qualify me to exercise a multi-generational naming rights license I purchased from several Generation X and Millennial Generation authors: Our traveling group shall henceforth be known as Generation KAWP (Kosher, Allergic, Whiny, and Proud). On second thought, let’s make that partly kosher, allergic and whiny, but completely proud — of my father and his trip back to South Korea to relive some of his experiences during the Korean War.

Let me explain.

Portions of our Korean trip were a Jerry Seinfeld-type exercise in overcoming the urge to both locate the nearest Western-style restaurant and then strangle fellow generation members (myself included) as we laid the groundwork for episodes one through four of a possible new Seinfeld sitcom. Imagine going to Korea with a group where one or more members variously keep kosher or don’t eat pork, are allergic to fish, sesame seeds or sesame oil,  don’t eat chicken or cheese, and/or insist on Coke Zero not Coke Light. Then there was one member who would happily eat anything while secretly wishing he could be part of some other generation.

More to follow next week…

Another day, another email from Stratfor, a global intelligence service subscribed to by many government and industry leaders (and indirectly by those of us on my father’s email distribution list). While I glance at most of Stratfor’s reports, I tend to focus on the ones offering special insight into Middle East geopolitics.

That, and Stratfor’s weekly ”this month only” offers. Who knew that a Stratfor marketing year could have 52 months?

If Stratfor gets to “free,” throws in a Ginsu knife, and compensates me for the time in took  to undo all of the damage that a hacker from Anonymous caused when he breached Stratfor’s on line security safeguards, then perhaps I’ll reconsider my decision not to subscribe.  (Full disclosure: I used to subscribe to Stratfor. Once Anonymous breached Stratfor’s computer system and I started getting Nigerian, Egyptian, Algerian and Samoan credit card charges, I reconsidered the wisdom of subscribing to an intelligence service that didn’t seem, well, too intelligent. It’s one thing for Israel and the U.S. to drop a little worm into Iran’s computer network, but when a 27-year-old  in Chicago can get personal emails and credit card information from an organization comprised of former government intelligence officials whose business model is to sell  their intelligence and security capabilities, then I figure my money can be better spent losing money blogging.)

But that’s enough about me. Let’s talk about Kenneth Waltz.

Stratfor recently noted his passing and described Waltz as ”one of the (world’s) most influential academic and international relations theorists.”

Here is some of what Stratfor had to say:

… Many of Waltz’s ideas are still actively debated in contemporary geopolitics. During the Cold War, in 1981, Waltz famously argued that nuclear proliferation — rather than the decommissioning of nuclear weapons — would lead to lasting peace as the number of states with nuclear deterrents rose….Waltz stood by his view of nuclear proliferation as a deterrent, and ultimately an arbiter for peace, until the end of his life. In the summer of 2012, he argued that the West should allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon as part of a regional balance of power that would help to maintain broader Middle East peace and stability. Arguing that Iran’s political leadership, despite its rhetoric, is inherently rational and not suicidal, Waltz saw the likelihood of Iran using a nuclear device against a target like Israel as relatively low…While the view that Iran sees a future nuclear arsenal as a defense mechanism fits largely within Stratfor’s regional understanding, it does not provide a complete picture of the competition for power that exists between Iran, Turkey and the Sunni Arab states. Waltz’s theories, part of a larger body of international relations theory, inform Stratfor’s geopolitical framework. But so do empathetic analysis, rigorous economic and geographic study, and a holistic, non-dogmatic approach to the global system.

Now I don’t pretend to understand  where “empathetic analysis, rigorous economic and geographic study and a holistic, non-dogmatic approach to the global system” gets us in analyzing either a country determined to build the ultimate U.S/Israel attack-deterrent,  a 28-year old dictator-descendant who threatens Austin with nuclear ruin — look out Willie! — and is receptive to Dennis Rodman’s diplomatic efforts, or even a merry band of  Tsarnaevs intent on acquiring a rogue regime’s W.M.D.’s.

But here are my thoughts, and they are offered to you free, unhacked, and with no special offers:

Theorists are interesting. They have unique ideas. They challenge our conventional thinking. But their theories need to be mixed into the complexities of the world as it is today, not the world they theorize we will have tomorrow, next year or next century. (We’d be better off using the Congressional Budget Office to predict geopolitics. If the C.B.O’s analysis proves incorrect — and their failures are certainly more predictible than their successes  — at least we’re not surprised and the world isn’t placed at risk.)

Theories rest on assumptions.

Key Waltz’s key assumptions seem to be that the world will always be dealing with rational actors, that governments  will remain  stable and predictable, that W.M.D. knowledge or the weapons themselves won’t  get distributed to less rational actors, and that the technology behind weapons of mass destruction and the ways we fight wars will remain relatively static.

Here is an alternate theory: The ONLY way we can lessen (not eliminate) the chance for catastrophic wars and terrorism is to create more interconnectedness and dependencies so that the leadership of  countries like Iran or North Korea will  believe they have more to gain politically and economically by both avoiding the type of actions the U.S. fears and working to align their interests with ours.  Iran, North Korea, and countries like them, don’t have to be our friends. They just have to choose not to be our enemies.

No one can pretend to have the perfect formula for every geopolitical situation. Imagine WW 2-era theorists trying to project their theories to 2013 based on  the military tactics and weapons of 1945. Why should anyone assume that 68 years from now we won’t be dealing with the same type of theoretical unknowables?

Building coalitions to try to effect the change we want, and using a mix of incentives and disincentives, helps us to better avoid military actions that have (historically) eliminated immediate risks and vulnerabilities but that  have also created the type of  unanticipated long-term consequences the U.S. seems to specilaize in: Our Iraqi 30 day-victory cum multi-year hornets’ nest is certainly fresh in our memories, but it wasn’t that long ago (1979 to 1989)  that U.S. efforts to support fundamentalists fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan  led to al-Qaeda establishing a base there — a base used to organize and plan our 9/11 catastrophe.

While we can’t avoid taking military action in every conflict or potential conflict, we certainly need to more deeply consider the “days after”  and the grave risks than can befall us  if we  allow theories or theorists to substitute for thoughtful decision-making grounded in the complexities of an ever-changing world.

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Here’s a  North Korea “tree in the forest” question: If Kim Jong-un threatens nuclear annihilation, but no one believes him, did Ambassador Dennis Rodman’s newest friend really make a threat?

And if outgoing Palestine National Authority Prime Minister (a.k.a. American/Israeli stooge, a.k.a. Hamas’ Least Favorite University of Texas grad) Salam Fayyad expresses his dissatisfaction with his party and political allies, only to have his office deny it, did he really say it?

Evidently.

Fayyad’s office responded by calling the statements in the New York Times’ article “just journalist Roger Cohen’s personal impressions.” Cohen then emailed The Times of Israel and reiterated that he did, in fact, interview Fayyad and “would have no further comment.”

Do we need Rodman to break the tie? Methinks not.

Note the non-denial denial. That Roger Cohen inserted his own “personal impressions” into the article are alleged (correctly); that Cohen misquoted Fayyad is not.

So what exactly did Fayyad say that’s newsworthy? Probably not much if you prefer to actually follow the news, instead of selectively assembling your own. Probably a lot  if you’re part of the Occupy West Bank Movement, the one percenters who traffic in confirmation bias and (their) Jewish history lessons, hold an unshakable belief that the vast majority of Palestinian leaders can’t or shouldn’t be trusted, and believe that embracing Pastor Hagee’s unflinching support of Eretz Yisrael is more critical to Israel’s survival than embracing the sometimes critical or questioning support of the Jewish diaspora. It is in your honor, and in honor of the obdurate, inflexible and dogmatic supporters both east and west of the Green Line (extending to many U.S. suburbs),  that I give you these Fayyad quotes to ponder:

“Let’s be clinical. We are not going to have a state unless we are united first. (Hamas would have to agree to) “a security doctrine based on nonviolence.” That would lead to “conditions for takeoff that would not be perfect, but when did the perfect ever prevail?”

“Our story (the Palestinians’) is a story of failed leadership, from way early on. It is incredible that the fate of the Palestinian people has been in the hands of leaders so entirely casual, so guided by spur-of-the-moment decisions, without seriousness. We didn’t strategize, we cut deals in a tactical way and we hold ourselves hostage to our own rhetoric.”

But Fayyad believes the leadership deficit is shared: (Netanyahu should be willing to say to his constituency that), “Yes, it is true that we have a contract with God Almighty who gave us (the Jewish people) the land, but there happen to be 4.4 million other people on this land who want to exercise their right to self-determination, so perhaps we can adjust the divine contact a little.”

But Netanyahu hasn’t.  His actions to date suggest he won’t.

The world hears that peace isn’t possible because there is no one on the Palestinian side to talk to (that is willing and able to negotiate a peace agreement).

Translation?

There is no one Israel really wants to talk to so that  a peace agreement can be negotiated. It is an excuse used to perpetuate an awful and harmful status quo for both Palestinians and Israelis. Tactics absent strategy (Donald Rumsfeld Planning 101)  is the strategy: Bring on the known unknowns and unknown unknowns, sell fear, and pass the mistrust gene to the next generation of Palestinians and Israelis.

The no one-to-talk-to excuse  ignores the advice of six former heads of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and current President Shimon Peres. All of these Israeli leaders, along with many other prominent Israelis, argue that there are definitely Palestinian leaders willing and able to negotiate terms. They also argue that the main reason to accelerate efforts to reach a peace agreement is not to give a gift to the Palestinians; it is because the occupation is economically and politically bad for Israel. Preserving Israel’s long-term security needs are much easier to achieve if there is Palestinian peace.

Minister of Justice Tzipi Livni, who is Netanyahu’s de facto minister of Palestinian peace negotiations, has spoken often  of Israel’s need to look harder for solutions than for problems. The problems are known. If Hamas is allowed to be the Palestinian elephant that squashes peace, it can be.

But, like Fayyad, she is self-reflective and focused on the future. Why not a two step process, she asks? First, negotiate peace in the West Bank, backed by the Arab League. Then, as the Arab League and Israel work together with the new Palestine government to build a stronger Palestinian infrastructure, that success will create political pressure on Hamas to change. So rather than envisioning, as some silent and not-so-silent opponents of a two state solution do, that a peace agreement negotiated with Fatah on the West Bank  will somehow lead to a Hamas takeover there, she envisions a Hamas that is forced by changed circumstances to renounce violence, recognize Israel, and unite with Fatah, bringing complete Palestinian peace.

The no one-to-talk-to excuse also ignores the history of Israel’s militant groups battling the British.

Haganah (like Fatah) eventually moderated. Its leaders formed Israel’s first government, and then forced the more militant Irgun (akin to Hamas in world views back in the 1940′s) to eventually give up its separate military and political wings when it attacked their shipment of arms aboard the Altalena. Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion famously said, “There cannot be two armies and there cannot be two states.” The British considered (and many still consider) the Irgun to have been a terrorist group. Yet Israel’s government is now led by the Likud party, Irgun’s political descendant.

Real peace is possible. Are there obstacles? Sure. But there are also solutions if Israelis and Palestinians want to work harder to see them.

Take Google’s decision to change its “Palestinian Territories” home page to “Palestine.”  An Israeli spokesperson called this another deep setback for  Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations —  negotiations that the world certainly knows were just oh-so-close until Google decided to leap security barriers and checkpoints and conduct its own social media invasion.

Solution? Just bring in Ambassador Dennis Rodman to broker a Middle East peace deal once he finishes with North Korea.

Don’t laugh. Anyone who can sit at a basketball game with Kim Jong-un and then announce that Kim is really just a good kid Obama can make a deal with, seems to possess just the right amount of  naivete bona-fides to hop right into this desultory maelstrom of failed leadership tactics and missed opportunities. If periodically discussing historical grievances, land swaps, water rights, security procedures, holy sites, and who gets to live where hasn’t been a winning post-1967 formula, then why not try Rodman’s version of basketball and partying diplomacy? Abbas and Netanyahu can’t do much worse.

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The column I had planned to publish on Tax Day was, thankfully, not complete. Oh, I had a  snarky line about how we could solve our national debt issues if we could somehow tax every stupid statement made by every faux Middle East leader. Then I compared tactics to goals and wondered whether the Israeli-Palestinian contretemps had gone on for so long  that bombs, missiles, targeted assassinations, barriers, settlements, and pre-negotiation conditions had actually become each side’s goals: The two-state solution was now simply an ephemeral phrase; utter those words just to make it easier to  get back to your non-negotiation and missed opportunities business.

Writing about Palestinian and Israeli politics would have to wait for another day.

Or,  if my wife had her way, wait until I broadened my focus to at least occasionally include Metro, Parenting Skills, and ADL sections. (I did agree to add an AFL — Abe Foxman League — section to make it easier for discrimination fans to score the accuracy of Foxman’s celebrity attacks and personal publicity-seeking, but my wife’s Board membership, Foxman’s impending retirement, and my desire to remain on speaking terms, has so far dissuaded me.)

Boston’s April 15 afternoon caused me to rapidly change my publishing plans. (Plus, it’s easy to change: Israeli-Palestinian articles age remarkably well. Based on seven decades of Groundhog Day-like movement, it’s reasonable to assume that a column written in April 2013 would, unfortunately, probably be just as germane in April 2023.)

We  all deal with disturbing events in different ways. When an ordinary day is interrupted by something so unexpectedly evil, we aren’t sure how to act. We grasp for anything familiar.

My BlackBerry buzzed with a CNN  bulletin while I was meeting with London-based insurance underwriters. I glanced down and saw “Boston Marathon.” I expected to see race results.

Instead, I saw something about an explosion.  Had a gas line  blown up? No injuries were mentioned or even suggested. Was this just CNN moving further away from its “real news” pedigree?

Our meeting was in the home stretch of what was rapidly becoming a time zone-challenged first day. Why give up our last hour trifecta of deal points, drinks, and dinner discussions just to speculate about an explosion 1,600 miles away?

Then, another buzz.

They stopped the race? Over (what I was now sure must be) a gas explosion?

That’s all I knew at that point, and as a dedicated runner for over 35 years, that second bulletin prompted me to remember how I felt after training so hard for so long and then being told to stop short of a finish line.

It was the 1983 New York City marathon.

New York Roadrunners’ Club officials weren’t thrilled to have this unregistered runner sprinting toward the finish line. One of them ran up to me, grabbed me by arm, yelled something about race bandits giving ”his” race a bad name, and then not-so-politely ushered me — pushed would be more accurate — off of the course, two tenths of a mile short of completion. In an act of running-induced insanity, I used a  George Carlin-approved seven magic word combination, which not-so-surprisingly led me  to a short meet and greet with one of New York’s finest…even further away from the finish line.

But I digress.

The Boston Marathon may not have ended, but our meeting had.

A few minutes later, a third bulletin caused me to think about friends and relatives in Boston, some of whom, I feared, may have been at the race.

Multiple injuries? Two explosions? Maybe a third?

The previous bulletins weren’t an exaggeration. It was all-too-true.

Just as it was true, if you review the many pictures and watch the videos carefully, that there were amazing acts of heroism and bravery in the face of terror. And persistence.

You see people who just came to run or cheer racers. Then you see some of those same people running not to flee, but to help other people who now, in some cases, lay dead or severely injured.  You see runners who still, amazingly, continued to jog through the two blasts, all the while checking their watches for their post-blast time. Then you see the same runners turn back so they could  race in a different kind of race — to  help those who might never race, or even walk, ever again. Despite being mentally and physically exhausted after competing for over four hours, these runners persisted.

Their marathon continued. They ignored the mayhem and their own fears and registered themselves into a new race — a race that now had spectator-participants, a different course, and an unknown ending.

If only the participants and spectators could have been ushered off the course and away from the explosions sooner, and as easily as I was — thirty years and a different world ago.

Police, at the marathon for crowd control, and EMT’s there mostly for expected minor racing injuries, engaged in a different race.

These first responders continued to do what first responders do. With little thought of possible harm to themselves, and as most of the crowd wisely escaped to a safer area, the police and EMT’s ran directly into harm’s way. Maybe dealing with terrorism wasn’t part of their job duties at ten that morning, but by three that afternoon their assignment expanded. Dramatically.

But they persisted — throughout that day and night and, along with the FBI and local and national officials, until later that same week one alleged terrorist lay dead and another injured and arrested.

While I have been alive (and sentient, if significant parts of my college experience can be ignored and/or forgiven)  for 2,848 weeks, and the Boston terrorism was a singularly horrific event,  I  can’t remember another week that had so many shockingly awful, disparate occurrences.

Ricin attack on a senator and president?  Fertilizer plant explosion in Texas?  Thousands of deaths in Syria, including the possible use of chemical weapons? More bird flu cases and an earthquake in China? Additional Iran nuclear enrichment steps?

So much happened that Jean Segura’s backward baserunning was barely mentioned. Even recycled North Korean threats, including ones to launch missiles into Austin, faded into non-mentions.

It was oddly comforting to end the week with the almost 2,848-week familiarity of Palestinian-Israeli threats and counter threats, U.S. diplomatic efforts to bridge Palestinian-Israeli gaps, announcements of new U.S.-backed Middle East weapons agreements, and complaints about Israeli intransigence and Palestinian disunity.

Yes, our persistence in the face of terror was remarkable. But we aren’t unique in moving from the horrible extraordinary into the mundane ordinary at lightning speed. Organized and disorganized  terrorism — some jihadi-based, some tied to historic grievances, some even state-based — exists throughout the world. What’s relatively new to us isn’t new to other countries. Our extraordinary has been their ordinary for many years. Yet they recover and move on, just as we demonstrated we will also.

The risk of terrorist attacks is our new normal. We became a different country after New York’s 9/11 and we will become even more of a “See Something; Say Something” country after  Boston’s 4/15.

But let us never forget that America’s key strength is our diversity. A terrorist attack, even if it is proven to have been orchestrated by immigrants to our country, should not serve as a (misguided) call to restrict immigration or to slow down immigration reform. Immigration is what built and continues to build our country. Our pluralistic society is what makes us unique. It has enabled our economy and government to remain incredibly stable, led us to extraordinary innovation and growth, and has brought Americans freedoms and rights that few others around the world enjoy.

Sure, our democratic and capitalist-based system has left some behind. Poverty exists. Discrimination exists. Inequality exists. Sometimes we overreach. Sometimes we don’t reach far enough. Our country isn’t unique in lacking perfection. But where we do differ is in our constant striving to smooth our political system’s rougher edges.

Sure, some immigrants have committed horrible crimes. But we must recognize the many more who have brought us incredible societal benefits and who have enabled us to become the America we enjoy today.

So pray for the Boston victims. But also pray that we don’t fight the wrong war and change who we are — our greatest weapon against terrorism.

Everything has changed. We are now three columns past my Israel-Palestine-In-Waiting sojourn, Obama’s Jerusalem speech and, of course, the instant analyses, which were all heavy on the predictable confirmation bias seasoning.  But before you let the punditry class get you too depressed (or ridiculously sanguine), let me help you read between Obama’s significant speech lines and the reaction to them:

You are not alone.

Obama spoke this line to Israelis in both English and Hebrew. Using Hebrew adds emphasis: I AM YOUR LOYAL FRIEND. I WILL DO WHAT I NEED TO DO TO PRESERVE YOUR SECURITY. There are, after all, those Israelis who rooted for Romney and believe that the three billion a year in U.S. aid (pre-sequester) is almost solely a result of  Congressional action. (The standing ovations to  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2011 Congressional sermon-cum-history lesson left a deep impression.) But the audience that would have really appreciated the fealty is a Palestinian one. It’s critical they truly believe that Obama has their back, too.

Political leaders will not take risks if the people do not demand that they do.

Au contraire.

Was it “the  people” who demanded Obamacare? Or the New Deal? Or the Great Society? Or Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky? 

Well, you get the point.

These presidents didn’t rely on positive polling data to make their plans. They envisioned a better tomorrow (or in one case, better today) and acted.

Real political leaders take risks. They have visions and work to translate them into reality. (Even if certain interns tape their phone calls and save their dresses.) But after 65 years, virtually every poll reflects that Palestinians and Israelis believe in the concept of  two states living side by side in peace; they just don’t believe it’s likely to happen anytime soon.

 Real political leaders work on building that believability.

They acknowledge that the road to peace will be hard, but that traveling that road is a necessary journey. Real leaders don’t let one side’s tactical idiocy destroy their own strategic focus. They continue to look for opportunities  to reinforce the other side’s positive intentions and stress that today doesn’t predetermine tomorrow.

 Unfortunately, Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas are less likely to reach a near-term peace agreement  than Dennis Rodman is to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.  Stasis is a more comfortable known.  Both will need to be pushed by the U.S. and Arab League and by a younger generation of leaders who are not wedded to 65 year old narratives.

You must create the change that you want to see.

An applause line best directed to  Abbas, Netanyahu, and all of their acolytes.

You have every right to be skeptical that (peace) can be achieved.

Sixty five years without peace may make doubt the most comfortable choice, but it is not an obligation to be passed generation to generation. Germany, a country literally responsible for destroying half of the Jewish population, is now one of the Jewish state of Israel’s best friends. With peace, trade agreements, and bridge building (literally and figuratively) why not Palestine?

(An end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict) is the only path to true security.

 A hard sell.

Domestic issues largely drove the last election. And Israeli leadership believes that resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict  is a less critical  security priority than  focusing on a potentially nuclear Iran, militant factions in Syria, Lebanon, and (to a lesser extent) Gaza, and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government. 

A better sell?

What if Obama said: Israel’s true security, especially in a world where we are too often your only reliable partner (and U.N. vote), is best preserved when U.S. and Israeli interests are aligned.  As America continues to progress along the path of  energy independence and as  many (including some within your own government) increasingly see Israel as an occupying country engaged in anti-democratic practices, our strategic interests could start to diverge.  At that point, all the lobbying and speech-making (and you are very good at both) would serve as a poor guarantee as to how a future President and Congress will act. 

To suggest you have no one to talk to on the other side is a poor excuse for your inaction. Yes, it takes two to tango and the Palestinian leadership should ideally believe that their negotiation pre-conditions (on ending settlement expansion) aren’t necessary, but they doubt your sincerity. They watch the number of settlement units expand and wonder how Israel will ever muster the courage to move ten to twenty times (or more) the number of settlers you moved from Gaza.  

So make the first move. Palestinian leadership in the West Bank is the best you’ve ever had. If you have to stop adding settlement units to start the negotiation process, then do it.  A final peace agreement with the Palestinians  is clearly in your strategic interest. You remain a democratic, Jewish homeland. You also fulfill an American strategic interest. And responding to American interests is your strongest  long-term security guarantee. 

Given the demographics west of the Jordan river the only way for Israel to endure and thrive as a  Jewish and democratic state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.

Ah, the demography argument.  If Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel have more total Arabs than Jews, then Israel will  have two choices to make: Restrict Arab rights (further) to preserve Israel as a “Jewish state.” Then Israel would  no longer be a democracy. Or grant similar rights to Arabs. Then Israel would no longer be a Jewish state. 

But why not have one state for all Arabs and Jews? 

One, Israelis and Palestinians want and deserve their own states and creating a people smorgasbord guarantees continued conflict. Two, the Jewish homeland-democracy issue will be on Israel’s doorstep sooner than most people realize.  If just West Bank Palestinians are allowed to vote, then it would not take 50.1% of the votes for an Arab party to have control. With Israel’s coalition governing system, all it would take would be for Arab parties to unite as a bloc. While this is not something Israeli-Arab political parties have done to date,  all bets are off in a one-state future. And we only have to look as far back as the last Israeli election to see how two disparate political parties led by Yair Lapid and Natalie Bennett coalesced around enough common goals to force significant change to a government led by someone who captured less than one quarter of the popular vote.

Given the march of technology, the only way to truly protect the Israeli people is through the absence of war — because no wall is high enough, and no Iron Dome is strong enough, to stop every enemy from inflicting harm.

One hundred years ago planes dropping bombs in the general area of a target were the newest technology. We can’t even imagine where war-fighting technology will take us one hundred years from now. Iran is today’s focus. In one hundred years, everyone Israel has a disagreement with could be a threat to Israel’s existence.

Look at the world through (Palestinian) eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of her own, and lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements of her parents every single day. It is not just when settlers … goes unpunished. It is not right to prevent Palestinians from farming their lands; to restrict a student’s ability to move around the West Bank; or to displace Palestinian families from their own home.

Now look at the world through Israeli eyes. Is it fair that Israelis live under the fear of missiles and rockets? Of course not. But here are other Israeli eyes, courtesy of several settlers I met: Housing is cheaper on the other side of the Green Line. There is good Israeli infrastructure. That army controlling Palestinian movement is the settlers’ security support. Occupation? No, what the world calls a settlement, they call their homes — in Israeli suburbs,  ten minutes from Jerusalem. They doubt any Israeli government would ever force them or any other settler to move. Where would they move? There is no housing built in Israel for them. Who would reimburse them for their move and get them other jobs? Israel’s economic condition isn’t great and where will all the money come from? It will be years and years even following an agreement (which they don’t see as happening soon) before anyone  even has to consider moving.

Neither occupation or expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land.

To which Israeli Economy and Trade Minister Natali Bennett (third place in popular votes) responded: “A nation cannot be an occupier in its own land…A Palestinian state is not the right way.” 

Methinks it best to leave Bennett off of any Israeli-Palestinian negotiating team.

 (Arab states must seek normalized relations with Israel, and Palestinians must) recognize that Israel will be a Jewish state, and that Israelis have the right to insist upon their security.

To which Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri responded: “(Calling Israel a Jewish state is a racist approach….and an indication that Obama has adopted the) Zionist position regarding the right of return.”  And Senior Hamas leader Salah Bardawil unhelpfully added: “The only way is to exercise the right …to struggle until the liberation of the land, self-determination, return of refugees and the release of prisoners.”

So are these Hamas views mainstream? Swing on your confirmation bias swing and land where you’re pre-disposed. I land with Saeb Erekat and Fatah, the Palestinian political party in control of the West Bank. As Israeli Minister of Justice and designated peace negotiator Tzipi Livni has suggested on many occasions: Israel can negotiate with Fatah, get peace on the West Bank as a first step, and then watch Hamas either reform or suffer weakened control over Gaza.

 Israelis must recognize that continued settlement activity is counterproductive to the cause of peace, and that an independent Palestine must be viable — that real borders have to be drawn.

To which Palestinian Authority peace negotiator Saeb Erekat responded: “President Abbas welcomed (Obama’s speech) saying that achieving peace and the option of two states on the 1967 borders are the way to bring security for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.”

A nice diplomatic response to a speech that won’t mean anything more than the thousands of other Israeli-Palestinian speeches, unless the U.S. is prepared to push and the Israelis and Palestinians are prepared to move. A sprinkle of leadership dust would also help.

Some things change because it is their natural arc. Some things change because there is something else better. The Israeli-Palestinian contretemps will finally change when each side sincerely believes that peace is the natural arc that will vastly improve their shared futures.

More on this vision in the next column.

If you want two states for two peoples then root for Palestinian and Israeli youth.

Root for programs like Hand in Hand, an Israeli, U.S. and privately-supported network of schools that educates Israeli Jews and Arabs together in the same classrooms. Root for Generation Why, the upcoming generation of social media-connected  Israelis and Palestinians who will increasingly gain the wisdom to realize that history lessons may inform us about what has been, but not what has to be.

Why should anyone be fated to live out their parents’ and grandparents’ Faustian nightmare?

Too many Israeli and Palestinian leaders have the title, but not the will. They do their best to put the “oxy” in  ”moron.”  It matters not which side’s leadership vacuum is the widest, because this is a competition with no possible winner. Unless winning is defined as an undemocratic Eretz Yisrael, a country that retains its Jewish majority by disenfranchising Palestinians and further restricting their civil rights, or a Palestinian state  in control of virtually nothing, pockmarked with checkpoints, unemployment and misery.

We don’t need to ponder whether  a tree falling in a Palestinian or Israeli forest really makes a sound if  no one is around to hear it. Leave that to U.N. delegates who will likely pass a resolution blaming Israel for the tree rot. Focus solely on this query:  If an  Israeli or Palestinian leader makes moves that only entrench or worsen the possibility of a near term two-state solution and fewer and fewer people  in Israel and Palestine In Waiting  seem to care, is there really a solid base of support behind  a peace process?

Polls that show Israelis and Palestinians support two states living side by side in peace are legion. But you can lay those against the polls that show neither side believes it will happen.  Why is that?

Could it be that each side’s leaders constantly stress the impure motives of their future peace  partner and rarely work to build support for the benefits of a real peace process? Instead of selling their visions of  jail cells emptied, road blocks eliminated,  bomb shelters rendered obsolete, mandatory military service ended, taxes decreased, or vastly improved economies, Israeli and Palestinian leaders choose to engage in the tactical fecklessness of blame-storming.

But if the next generation of Jewish and Arab Israeli youth I enjoyed dinner with in East Jerusalem is any indication, there is reason to hope the cycle of hopelessness will end.  While the majority of Israeli and Palestinian leaders I spoke with  traveled on autopilot at thirty eight thousand feet, mostly in  jet streams of mindless platitudes, these kids, and the Arab-Israeli father accompanying them, traveled at ground level. What was real to them was the mindless idiocy of continuing policies and actions that have demonstrably failed.

Over a classic Middle East dinner of shared pizzas and beer we discussed what it’s like for Arab and Jewish kids to do all of the things American kids get to do. But first, the appellation.  It was made very clear to me that everyone considered themselves Israelis, not Israeli Palestinians, Arabs or Jews. Just Israelis. Adding a qualifier further entrenched the idea that somehow their lives were as unequal as, well, there lives actually seemed to be.

Consider neighborhoods and schools. Most Arabs and Jews  live within their own communities and go to separate schools. In addition to Arab schools, Israel has state, state-religious, and ultra-Orthodox schools, which are all seen  as better funded and  superior to the Arab schools. Community and school-based segregation quite naturally leads to  kids and their families staying within their own social groups.

High school graduation leads to  military service for Jews and work or further schooling for the vast majority of Arab teens,  who are not obligated or expected to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), even though a small number do volunteer for national or military service.  (The Druze, who speak Arabic but are considered a distinct community, are a prominent exception.) Because the military track offers Jewish kids social benefits and abundant connections that they can then use to secure a better job after their two or three year term ends, a small percentage of “brave” Arab teens volunteer to serve. I was told that this was politically unpopular within the Arab community. It’s leaders ask, Why serve the state that doesn’t serve you?  It is also evidently not too popular within the IDF —  no Arab citizen is reported to have ever served as an IDF  pilot.

I didn’t understand, and said so.

What possible benefit was there to “message sending” that risked social connections and economic enhancement or policies creating Arab-free military positions that send a “we don’t trust you as an equal citizen” message?  We passed the pizza and agreed that while neither was wise, both were products of generational mistrust.

Take  decades of Jewish-favored state policies, from immigration to schools, housing and even policing. Throw in intifadas, missiles, rockets and bus bombs. Mix in a barrier, checkpoint, and settlement. Sprinkle in a quasi-state on Israel’s border led by a Palestinian militant group that still calls for Israel’s destruction, actively supported by a country close to building a nuclear weapon. What you have is a problem that even an esteemed diplomat like Dennis Rodman can’t easily fix. An Obama phone call and HBO-produced basketball game might tickle Kim Jong-Un’s fancy, but Palestinian and Israeli leaders need a third party’s adult supervision and many more Generation Why Israeli and Palestinian adults to offer hope for change.

One story told me all I wanted to know. Ahmad (not his real name) speaks fluent Hebrew and Arabic. He can pass as a Jew. Go to a party with Jewish friends and no one suspects any different. Tell someone at the party he is an Israeli Arab with many friends in the West Bank, and, too often, after a few moments of awkward silence, he becomes the  Arab with many friends in the West Bank. When that happens, they become the Jews. Ahmad said it’s unavoidable — one reaction triggers the other.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Ahmad is determined that he and other future Generation Why leaders will be able to make a difference, although it will be a gradual process as one positive action reinforces another.  It will take more real leaders and far fewer historians wrapped in their practiced narratives. It won’t be easy. But it has to happen. There is no other choice if Israel is to remain a democratic country with a Jewish majority. There is no choice  if a fully functioning Palestine is to be born.

Next week I’ll discuss my meetings in Ramallah with Salaam Fayyad and Hanan Ashwari, two very frustrated Palestinian leaders who desperately need more Israeli and American cooperation if they are to fulfill what are mutual Israeli-Palestinian two-state peace goals.

I recently traveled to Israel and the West Bank (aka Palestine, aka Judea and Samaria, aka ten checkpoints too many) and met with political and business leaders, soldiers, settlers, one typical Arab family and several very atypical Arab and Jewish students.  Plus two cab drivers who knew everything about everything, except the most direct route to my hotel.

Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Hebron, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Sderot,  the Gaza border, a cluster of settlements in Gush Etzion, and many points in between, are tough to fully cover in six days and five nights, but if the world can be created in seven days, who am I to complain about my busy schedule?

Think Israel; think layers.

Layers of complexity heaped upon layers of contradictions.  Best embodied  in  three miles of Tel Aviv beach stretching from the Hilton Hotel down to the ancient city of Jaffa, where my jogging route took me past a gay-friendly beach area, a modestly dressed ultra-Orthodox couple engaged in a traditional dating ritual led by their shadchan; immodestly dressed runners preparing for the Tel Aviv marathon;  soldiers;  Jewish and Arab residents out for an evening stroll;  a large group campaigning for assistance to Eritrean refugees and a smaller group campaigning to send them back;  American, British and Chinese tourists, all taking pictures at sunset; a wedding party posing for pictures, many in their finest Nimrod sandals; Israelis demonstrating for social and economic justice and Arab rights; someone who seemed to be yelling about settlers’ rights (my Hebrew is poor); a lone fisherman who appeared to be sleeping as his line dangled in the water; and  a Muezzin  calling  for evening prayer.

Prayer that the entire Middle East, and certainly Palestinians and Israelis, could unquestionably benefit from.

Israel is  where the  fierce urgency of urgency is, well, urgent. How many years have we heard someone on the pro-Israel right or left announce that this must be the year that their pet urgency is finally resolved?

Have you heard? The settlement enterprise has to end or Israel will soon: 1) lose Diaspora support, 2) lose U.S. support, 3) lose Diaspora and U.S. support, 4) lose its Jewish character 5) lose its democratic character or 6) lose its Jewish and democratic character and force non-Jews to exist under South African-like apartheid.

Have you heard? The Palestinians 1) have no leaders that are able to say “yes” to anything, 2)won’t ever recognize a Jewish state, 3) don’t believe Israel is legitimate, 4) don’t really want peace, and 5)  refuse to negotiate.

Plus, have you heard about Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group? How can Israel reach peace in the West Bank as long as Hamas runs Gaza?

Have you heard? The Jewish people have lived in this narrow strip of land longer than the Palestinians, and —  just ask Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Caroline Glick or any number of people who think today’s issues can be resolved by history lessons — there is no such thing as a Palestinian.

Have you heard? Jewish militants engaged in attacks on British soldiers (and sometimes local Arab residents) so they could win their own country, and now Jewish leaders of the country they won cite Palestinian militant actions  in Gaza as a reason Palestinians in the West Bank can’t have their own country.

Have you heard? Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett,  a likely coalition member, doesn’t want a two-state Israel-Palestine solution at all. Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, also a likely coalition member, doesn’t want to divide Jerusalem. But they both agree that the ultra-Orthodox should be subject to the draft. All the easier to end Israel’s ultra-Orthodox hegemony. And punt peace negotiations further down the settlement road.

Solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become so Rube Goldberg-like because several generations of supporters now have so much vested in their talking points that the past is now seen as the only future.  But we’ll deal with the pro-Israel and pro-Palestine major and minor league fans in subsequent columns.

Today, let’s just focus on my visit to Gush Etzion, a settlement near Hebron, a regular and recent  site of often violent protests, a place where approximately six hundred Israeli soldiers guard eight hundred Israeli settlers located in the middle of over two hundred thousand Palestinians.

Gush Etzionians view the the term “settlers” as a pejorative, just as many non-settlement residents view references to Judea and Samaria, instead of to the West Bank or the “occupied territory”, as  indicative of opposition to a two-state solution.

Settlement residents see themselves as no different than those who to choose live on the other side of the Green Line — they are Israelis, without need of appellation,  the same as the residents of  Haifa, Eilat, Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Only their home is in an area most of the world wants to cede to the Palestinians.

At a lunch meeting I heard a range of views: Settler-citizens don’t want to be forced to move if Israel reaches a two-state agreement. (But they also don’t want to be forced to live under Palestinian authority.)

Israel has no housing to move anyone to if they are forced to move.  (If anyone knows how to figure out how to quickly build housing, these settler-Israeli residents certainly do. Give them a hammer and a few nails and an entire community could be relocated almost overnight. Whether they own the land they build on certainly hasn’t proven to be an insurmountable obstacle before.)

The true goal should be a one-state solution. (That’s certainly an ingenious way to solve the incredibly complex issues. Make a wish, and throw everyone together, under Jewish leadership of course, and all of the right of return, security, settlement, border, water rights and checkpoint issues magically disappear.)

The demographic studies suggesting that Israel will have to choose between being a Jewish state or democracy just aren’t true. Palestinians in Judea and Samaria and Israeli Arab citizens — this argument requires  ignoring  Gaza  — will never outnumber Jewish citizens. Jewish birth rates  are  actually higher.

(I suppose Jewish Israelis could continue to rely on  eight to ten-person state supported Orthodox litters, but it is perhaps an inconvenient fact that Israeli Arabs and Palestinians could form a solid ruling coalition with well under 50 percent of the vote — Netanyahu formed his last government with under 25 percent.)

Hearing views I didn’t always embrace (but tried very hard to understand) was a recurring theme of my visit. Just as with my trip to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian leaders like Salam Fayyad and Hanan Ashrawi. More on that dialogue  in the next column.

Are semi-automatics really the best choice to defend yourself against robbers, rapists,  armed insurrections or British CNN talk show hosts? Is paying your light bill really the best defense against 34 minute Super Bowl power delays? Is studying U.S. strategic policies and learning to give the answers you want, regardless of the questions asked, really the best way to approach a hostile Senate hearing?

No need for rhetorical thought. Let me help. Here are your answers: No, no, and yes. Let me amend. Let’s make your answers: NO, NO, and YES. And let’s focus on the “YES.”

Actually let’s focus on Obama’s recent announcement that he’s going to Israel in the spring and hope that Hagel survives his Obama-like first debate performance, vows to never speak extemporaneously, and  is asked to accompany Obama on the trip. The Middle East has survived  ongoing leadership deficits, terrorism, wars and bad taxi drivers for many years — it can survive  potential Hagel oratorical errors.

If Senate hearings were wrestling matches, Hagel would have been down for the three-count midway through Arizona Senator John McCain’s grilling. Yet Senate hearings are no more substantive exercises in decision-making  than Supreme Court queries of opposing lawyers are. Both play to the converted.

So Hagel will still get approved as Secretary of Defense because he has what it takes — sufficient Democratic support that is also sprinkled with Republican supporters who have larger pork to pry.

Hagel, an ally of McCain and the Republican party before Hagel’s pre-Iraq invasion criticism, will survive the concerted efforts of anti-Obama forces masquerading as defenders of Israel’s best interests (ECI, Caroline Glick, Charles Krauthammer), and the off and on efforts of traditional pro-Israel forces to raise a combination of anti-Semitic, anti- Israel, not anti- (enough) Iran doubts (AIPAC, AJC, Abe Foxman). He’ll also survive  some progressives ( such as Rachel Maddow) focusing on Hagel’s supposed disqualifying views on abortion, rape and LGBT rights rather than on whether Hagel is qualified to defend United State’s global strategic interests. (The military does deal with social issues, but the Defense Secretary follows the policies of a President who has strong civil rights bona-fides…. and far better speaking skills.)

Frankly, we should be much more concerned about the advice  and  tactics Hagel would recommend on  Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, North Korea, and the  strategies he would employ to facilitate Middle East peace, than on how Hagel personally feels  about policies the President orders him to follow. It just would be nice if he memorized those policies and didn’t have to phone a friend, or in this case a Democratic senator who nicely guided Hagel through his answer on our Iranian containment policy. That we don’t have.

Well known Middle East peace negotiator and author Aaron David Miller articulated his reasons why he feels Hagel is a good candidate: pro-Israel voting record, good judgment and discretion, management experience, and realistic views about what the U.S. can and can’t accomplish. Miller did create a Hagel-backlash when he quoted him as saying that ”the political reality is…. that the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here.” In Miller’s view this was injudicious, but largely accurate if “Israeli” would have been substituted for “Jewish.”

But now that Hagel has been established as the Obama administration’s anti-orator, the man least likely to be designated to appear on the Sunday morning talk shows, and the man next most likely to make a Saturday Night Live mock appearance, perhaps it will be easier for even Hagel’s opponents to become fans.

1. Israel is to the Middle East as The Wizard of Oz is to The Silence of the Lambs. Israel doesn’t fit.

Israel is located in a dysfunctional jungle of misogynistic, anti-democratic, unstable, and militarily-weak neighboring countries. Only these neighbors aren’t too self-reflective or farsighted. And they definitely aren’t fans of Israel’s Palestinian-management skills.

Here is one place where size truly doesn’t matter. Israel’s genius is in its ability to not only exist, but to thrive in an regional environment where hope’s days are clearly numbered.

So are the days of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right to far right ruling coalition smorgasbord.  The current government ranges from the religious to the secular, from the homegrown right to the Russian far right, even from the indicted (Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman) to the indictor (Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein).  Now, post-election, the government will almost certainly realign closer to the Israeli center (think Romney Republicanesque) which in the context of dealing with Israel’s economic challenges may be good, but in the context of restraining settlement growth and holding real Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, remains uncertain. Will the next act reveal Netanyahu as the negotiating Wizard of Oz, all talk with little desire or ability to deliver?  Or will it bring someone like second place finisher Yair Lapid, or maybe even first place finisher Tzipi Livni (one election ago), as scene-stealers? The movie is only nine years older than the conflict. Let’s hope we soon get to the final act.

2. Israel survives and thrives despite its New Jersey-size. (Rhyming  required, upon edict of Inaugural Day awful poetry commission.)

While Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu  has a little of  Governor Christie’s bombast,  he clearly lacks  his diplomatic skills. Christie knew who buttered his post-superstorm  Sandy recovery bread when he wrapped himself in Obama’s embrace and set off a personal neutron bomb within his own political party. Netanyahu seems to specialize in assuming that his U.S. check will always be in the mail. But, look, you know the story. Small country with nukes and U.S. backing, up against  hostile neighbors, without nukes or U.S. backing. Leaders that see their past with 20/20 vision, but too often  become myopic when looking to their future.  And, in this part of the world, good fences  haven’t made good neighbors, so past performance has unfortunately been seen as a guarantee of future results.

3. Israel is Being There. Or, more correctly, some feel that Israel’s new strongman and second place election finisher is Peter Sellers, aka Yair Lapid.

Can Yair really be as vacuous as his Haaretz profile paints him to be?

Didn’t graduate high school? Check.

Acknowledged learning disabilities? Check.

No prior political experience? Check.  

Famous for using sloganeering and  rhetorical questions as a substitute for a detailed agenda? Check.

Channeling his inner first-term Obama,  Lapid has offered a  ”hope,”  “change,” and “new politics” agenda. He has also, according to Haaretz, “made speeches where he did nothing but ask rhetorical questions.” One example cited was  Lapid’s non-explanation of how  Israel paid for its settlement  enterprise.  Why should Lapid research government budget details and offer any proposals?  He just answered rhetorically: “Where is the money?”  That non-answer also happened to  be the name of  his column.

Self-promoting 101? Certainly. An effort to broaden Lapid’s political base? Absolutely.

Answering questions with questions is so Yiddishkeit. That type of move clearly appeals to (mostly Orthodox) Yiddish-speaking voters who are, after all,  in the fastest growing procreation demographic, and  the group most threatened by Lapid’s determination to have all Israeli citizens share the military-service burden.

Also, Lapid was possibly making a point that  the government  shouldn’t subsidize settlers on the West Bank when thousands of Israelis on the other side of the Green Line couldn’t get good jobs or affordable housing. Or maybe he was making the point that listeners needed to watch his next speech or television show, or read his next column if they wanted to learn more. To be Lapid is to be fungible.

Barbara Walters-lite wannabe? Check. On his eponymously named Yair Lapid  Channel 2 show, Haaretz says he asked guests need-to-know questions about their favorite colors  and “which animal they’d be if (his guest) had been born an animal.” Well, at least he didn’t ask, a la Walters, about what tree they would choose to be.  (A quick digression down Walters-memory lane. The year was 1981.  I kept hoping that Katharine Hepburn would answer Walters by saying  she would choose  to be a pine tree, so she could alternate between dropping needles and pine cones all over Walters’ vacuous follow-up question, and maybe even throw in a few  pine beetles for good measure. Alas, Hepburn chose to be an oak, which limited her to acorns.)

Brilliant retorts? Check. Haaretz says Lapid often responded to  disagreeable questions on Facebook by attacking his questioners. In one infamous case he created an “instant-meme phrase” by simply responding: ”Okay. Bye.”

How clever. If only our political candidates knew it was that easy we wouldn’t have wasted so much time with “binders full of women,”  “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build it,” 47 percent, Big Bird, and Romnesia.

4. Israel’s politicians are political chameleons just like our politicians.

Lapid morphed from anti-settlements/pro-Palestinian peace agreement journalist to  pro- joining-the- Netanyahu coalition tactician.  Lapid wisely campaigned on  the need to address middle-class economic and social needs and largely ignored the issue most of the Israeli public and Netanyahu’s coalition now also eagerly ignore (at least until violence, world condemnation, or an intentionally leaked Obama statement  temporarily changes that focus) : What to do with our and their guys and gals on the other side of the fence?

Back in Lapid’s  columnist days, he was a tad more outspoken, with little focus on middle-class needs. Haaretz resurrected  quotes from several of his “Not Final” columns that appeared in the weekend edition of   Yedioth Ahronoth:

On fear: “We’re not afraid of   (the settlers’)  threats of civil war….. Better a civil war now, when we can still control it.”

On the familial bond: “There is no more fear of a civil war between brothers (if the settlers are moved), because we’re (Jews inside and outside the West Bank)   no longer brothers.”

On leadership and peace opportunities: “If it weren’t for the spectacle of thousands of settlers screaming and holding on to the land, Netanyahu would have made peace long ago…..”

On territorial compromise (pre-election campaigning column-writing period): “If we don’t give back most of the terroritories we will lose the Jewish majority in the country.”

On territorial compromise (post-election campaigning column-writing period): “Forget about peace, just obtain an agreement.”

Now anyone can take quotes out of context, and it is true that wisdom is not knowing as much as it is  knowing how much more  there is to know. So maybe we should have the grace to allow for the possibility that this columnist-actor-tv talk show host-tv newsman-amateur boxer-politician  is still on his educational journey.

In fact,I know this to be true. Bar-Ilan University is now in trouble because it recently accepted Lapid into a prestigious post-graduate program, even though Lapid possesses no graduate degree. Not from a  college. Not even from a high school. Haaretz columnist Asher Schechter says Lapid claims that his learning disability caused him to drop out. That was before his role as kingmaker allowed him to drop in.

It should be comforting for  true supporters of Israel to know that  in addition to all of Israel’s exisiting  connections to America — democracy, common values, strategic buffer, crazy taxi cab drivers — we have clearly added another bond that draws us both closer: politics.

5. Lapid is  whatever anyone wants or fears him to be.

Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg:  “The best way to judge an Israeli political leader is by looking at his or her list—the party’s slate of candidates… Lapid, unburdened by a primary process or party structure, hand-picked his (Yesh Atid) list. The first person he named, in a dramatic mid-October press conference in Tel Aviv, was Yaakov Perry, former director of the Shin Bet security service and a star of the Oscar-nominated Israeli documentary “The Gatekeepers,” which features six former Shin Bet chiefs discussing the urgency of Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Perry is one of the prime movers behind the 2011 Israel Peace Initiative, which enlists ex-security chiefs and business leaders to push for adoption of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative as a basis for a two-state peace agreement based on the pre-1967 lines. Restarting the peace process was one of his main motives in entering politics. He helped formulate Lapid’s late October foreign policy speech in Ariel. In the speech, Lapid attacked Netanyahu for claiming the Palestinian Authority wasn’t a partner for peace and announced that he wouldn’t serve in a government that didn’t return to peace talks.

The rest of Lapid’s list is studded with doves and progressives…It’s also worth noting that his list, unique among the parties, includes four outspoken advocates of religious pluralism and liberalization, including two progressive Orthodox rabbis and two women’s religious rights advocates.”

Daniel Levy, author, and  director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations: “Something unexpected is going to have to happen for Lapid to be more than a match made in heaven between an escapist public and an escapist candidate. He has demonstrated no strong or principled opposition to the settlements or occupation or support for equality for Israel’s Palestinian citizens. Thus far, he is all about the avoidance of hard choices. Lapid launched his campaign in the settlement of Ariel—so he is for settlements, but not too much. Lapid supports a return to peace talks—but he insists on maintaining Israel’s occupation of Palestinian East Jerusalem, so not too much.”

Journalist and author Gershom Gorenberg: “Lapid’s slogans and image enabled him to attract voters with contrary motives… Lapid did build an inclusive slate of candidates.” (Eight of 19 are women, two are Ethiopian.) ” Now he has to make choices to turn the slogans into policy….I’m not terribly convinced that he knows how.”

Journalist Daniel Gavron: “Lapid has yet to show much depth, and his refusing to join with Hanin Zuabi, a militant Arab Knesset member, was….vulgar racism. At the same time, his platform does include renewing the peace process, and Ofer Shelah, …who will enter the Knesset on the Yesh Atid list, has stated this means striving for a (peace agreement with the Palestinians) — not just lip service.”

Journalist Caroline Glick, who likely has never met anyone to her political right and specializes in uncovering left-wing conspiracies that are suppressed by the left-wing media: “Lapid,  a television personality, quit his job anchoring Channel 2′s Friday night news magazine in order to form a new leftist, anti-religious political party that (poses) as a centrist party.”

Now isn’t that all clear?

More on Yair in upcoming columns….I have reached my 1500-word wife-imposed limit, so you’ll need to stay tuned for a much broader Yair-view. A preview? Yair has much more substance than I have unfairly failed to assign to him. He has some of the most important political qualities:  He is widely known, well-liked, and he has successfully avoided deeply unpopular positions. As someone who has, at times, failed in all three categories, I recognize this man’s genius.

Just be a little more patient.

In the summer of 2016, what didn’t happen at Camp David will happen at Blue Heron. There are too many anarchists, terrorists, militarists, “sectarianists,” political apologists and lots of other “ists” — yes, even including journalists and columnists — that have too much vested in the Israel-Palestine blame recycling industries to allow peace to break out any sooner.

These industries have been built to survive any and all good news threats, so settling on 2016, the last year of the second Obama administration, and the third year that the Affordable Care Act will have been in full implementation mode, seems more realistic. (Of course, if the Supreme Court is petitioned to rule on whether Middle East peace unfairly targets pro- and anti-Israel interstate commerce, all bets are off.)

Jumpstarting the peace non-negotiations is now less about the issues and more about the people.

The evils that have been taught, learned (and witnessed), often at early ages, have to be unlearned.  Imagine: If your early education includes reading, writing, and advanced settlement, refugee and missile arithmetic, with after school parental homework focused on identifying the other side as terrorists or oppressors, how quickly will you be able to  accept that your  enemy can also be your neighbor — albeit the one who may still occasionally conduct raids or lob missiles at odd hours?

Politicians, militant groups and countries who are reflexively anti-Israel or anti-Jewish — Egyptian leader Mohamed Morsi apparently conflates his twin prejudices — will also need time to recalibrate their hatred and focus on other scapegoats. But the  Middle East confirmation bias epidemic  has become so widespread that eradicating  it won’t be easy. It will be hard to convince infected populations that the real existential threat is now that person looking back in the mirror, the one who sees their past as the only possible future.

But mark it down: 2016 is when a peace agreement will be reached. There, in idyllic Martha’s Vineyard, at  Blue Heron Farm, a 28 acre retreat owned by Lord Norman Foster, the British designer of Hebrew University’s Brain Sciences Center, Obama will once again enjoy a vacation with his family, but this time he will add Middle East peace to his agenda.

Hidden from Fox News and MSNBC  — still America’s Right and Left cheerleading squads —Obama and his special Middle East team, including former President Bill Clinton and  Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ( the 2013 new and improved Schumer-endorsed version), will help Palestinians and Israelis reach their promised lands.

Those promised lands will feature Palestinian control of approximately 96 % of the West Bank, with the  large settlement blocs  remaining under Israeli control. Bypass roads will be built to help ensure contiguous travel between Palestinian and Israeli areas.  Jerusalem will be divided into eastern (Palestinian) and western (Israeli) sectors with international forces providing security there and at the Jordanian border.  Timelines will be established for both  a gradual transfer of  West Bank settlers back into Israel and a diminishing Israeli West Bank security presence. Palestine will have its own police force, but not  its own military. Israel will also agree to admit up to 50,000 “refugees” over a ten year period, subject to acceptable security screens.

Now that was easy wasn’t it?

So you ask: Why has it taken generations of Israeli, Arab and Palestinian leaders eight decades of off and on (mostly off) negotiating?

So I answer:  Perhaps for many leaders in the ersatz leaders’ club, an uncomfortable stasis has always trumped the risk of venturing into what they see as a politically scary abyss that only seems to deepen with each passing  missile, bomb, and settlement. And with Hamas and Fatah struggling for leadership control and  Israel’s 2013 election  ushering in a huge Netanyahu coalition victory, that club only grew further.

Yet, Israel’s economy tanked in 2014 and 2015 and a center-left bloc led by Tzipi Livni, Yair Lapid, and Shelly Yachimovich rose to power in a special election called in late 2015. The Israeli public, who in 2013 had seemed to strongly support Netanyahu’s policies, became much less enamored as unemployment and inflation grew, numerous reports indicated that the Obama administration had grown increasingly estranged, and key American Jewish leaders began to publicly express dissatisfaction with Israel’s policies — particularly ones that were seen as discriminating against women, the Reform and Conservative movements, and Palestinians. With the Iran threat lessened in early 2015 — Russia was instrumental in getting Iran to agree to stricter nuclear weapon controls, including a U.N.-led inspection regime — the Israeli public became much more internally focused.

Netanyahu was also  reported to be shocked when  his 2015 Congressional address (aka Netanyahu-history lesson redux) was met with polite silence instead of the usual standing ovations. After J Street’s 2015 Washington convention almost matched AIPAC’s in size, and AIPAC featured several Israeli NGO and Palestinian speakers, Netanyahu panicked. Hoping to secure his political base and gain bargaining leverage, he called an early election — a miscalculation that cost him his job.

Fortuitously, Hamas and Fatah, who had formally united under the State of Palestine umbrella in early 2015 (after two years of periodic meetings in Egypt and Turkey coordinated by Morsi, Turkey Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, and Obama), adopted a new charter recognizing Israel and all past Israeli-Palestinian agreements, and forswearing  violence.  While missile launches into Israel by radical Palestinian groups didn’t immediately stop and Israel still conducted infrequent Gaza targeted assassinations, both Israeli and Palestinian leaders began to see these actions as exceptions to an overall improving environment.

All of this left an opening for Obama to reengage with Israeli  and Palestinian leaders he felt were finally motivated to not only negotiate, but to actually reach a peace agreement.

Maybe all Palestinians and Israelis ever needed was a Passover and Ramadan-celebrating President, freed from election constraints and willing to push his own  ”endorsed” plan —  referred to euphemistically by some commentators as the U.S. TAKE IT OR WE LEAVE PLAN, a plan no less or more radical than any plan both sides had already largely agreed to in previous years. Plus, this plan offered the added kicker of various U.S security and financial guarantees and the full support of the Arab League, who, while largely ineffectual in 2013, was now, behind the leadership of more democratically elected governments, a key player.

This vision is, no doubt, more inciteful than insightful to those who prefer to believe that it is always  ”their” — you fill in the “their” blank — fault.  But there will always be a “their” as long as the world’s worst negotiation continues. We are now at Day 23,627.  But why count days when we should be counting generations? (By the way, that wasn’t a rhetorical question. For fans of precision, go to the www.bumpspot.com website to get the negotiation length down to the hours, minutes and seconds.)

The 2016 final plan was largely drafted decades ago and was a modestly changed version of the one Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert  last discussed before they were swept up  in the Middle East’s  infectious anti-leadership/lost election epidemic back in 2008. (Olmert also caught the indictment flu in 2009, but the symptoms manifested in 2008 and weakened his negotiating position.)

It took far too long, but by 2016, reaching a peace agreement was seen as the least risky option. As Obama famously commented to Oprah Winfrey on OWN, now the second largest cable network, “After over 100 years, my Cubs finally won the World Series. That should give us all great hope for the Palestinian-Israeli future: Neither side will need to overcome the goat’s curse that gave the Cubs so much grief. Palestinians and Israelis will just need to work harder to overcome each other’s grief.  It’s all in their own hands. And while there’s no telling how long it will be before the Cubs win again, I see every reason for the world to expect many Palestinian-Israeli joint victories in the future.”

(This is an update of a previous article.)