Submitted by Salomon Benzimra, Sep 5, 2007 01:22

As usual, Mr. Halkin wrote a fine article. He also wrote a fine article back in March, 2007, titled "Overrated New Initiatives". But in both of them, the basic premise is "Land for Peace". This misguided obsession has been the source of all the diplomatic failures since the "peace process" began in 1993.

I will say it again. As long as Israel, and the world, choose to eschew the fundamental question – Whose land is it, anyway? – and continue to ignore the legal provisions enshrining the title to the land to the Jews, as defined in the Mandate of 1922, all talks are futile, if not disastrous.

This most pernicious mantra of "Land for Peace" should be seen for what it is: "Rights for [an elusive] Peace". Rights to the lands of Judea and Samaria that Israel is relinquishing, in defiance of international law and against all common sense, for a "peace" that the growingly Islamist Palestinians will reject till Israel is utterly destroyed .

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