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Sisi's Nonstarter - 'Been There, Done That'

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JERUSALEM, Israel -- Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi is a pragmatic man. The former military chief is a natural leader, who comes across as sincere and principled. He projects a genuine love for his country and his people, and he wants to help Egypt get it back on its feet economically and culturally after ousted President Mohammed Morsi's failed attempt to empower the Muslim Brotherhood.
 
Sisi understands and appreciates Israel's role as a stabilizing entity in the region. He would like to see Israel sign peace treaties with more Middle East countries besides Egypt and Jordan, such as Saudi Arabia and possibly others.
 
So how does this well-meaning Egyptian president advise the Jewish state? He repeats the decades-old mantra that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is key to peace in the Middle East, a theory that's been repeatedly rejected by those who know the violence engulfing Syria and Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, has nothing to do with the situation in Israel.
 
With all his good intentions, Sisi's solution for peace is to uproot a half million Israelis and move them inside what the late U.N. Ambassador Abba Eban called "the Auschwitz lines" -- borders that are indefensible.
 
According to Sisi's plan, Israel must also share its capital with a future Palestinian state, not only a non-starter for the Jewish state, but also a logistical nightmare.
 
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has frequently pointed out that divided capital cities have rarely succeeded.
 
Talk of dividing the capital may remind some Israelis of barbed-wire barriers along Jerusalem's seamline. During the 19-year Jordanian occupation from 1948-67, Jews were forbidden access to the Old City, while Jordan allowed the Western Wall, the only remaining vestige of the Jewish Temples and Judaism's holiest site, to fall into disarray.
 
While Sisi may be well meaning, his advice would not only leave Israel with indefensible borders and a 9-mile waist at the center of the country, it would also leave its main international airport within range of rocket attacks. It would also foster divisiveness and bring economic hardship to tens of thousands of average Israeli families.
 
Would any Israeli government be willing to do this? So far, the Netanyahu government calls these options nonstarters. The opposition, led by Labor Party chairman Yitzhak Herzog and supported by left-leaning political journalists, intimates it would.
 
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his government are tasked with steering the country through these difficult days, practically and diplomatically.
 
But as Netanyahu said earlier this week after convening the Security Cabinet to address the latest upswing in terror attacks, "We are in a difficult struggle, but one thing should be clear -- we will win. Just as we defeated previous waves of terrorism, we will defeat this one as well."
 
Israel has no intention of returning to the pre-1967 armistice lines or dividing its capital. The solution doesn't lie with such fantasies, but rather with both sides sitting down to work through their differences and come up with a workable plan that has a realistic chance for success.

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About The Author

Tzippe
Barrow

From her perch high atop the mountains surrounding Jerusalem, Tzippe Barrow tries to provide a bird’s eye view of events unfolding in her country. Tzippe’s parents were born to Russian Jewish immigrants, who fled the czar’s pogroms to make a new life in America. As a teenager, Tzippe wanted to spend a summer in Israel, but her parents, sensing the very real possibility that she might want to live there, sent her and her sister to Switzerland instead. Twenty years later, the Lord opened the door to visit the ancient homeland of her people.