Economic Benefits Won't Solve Israel-Palestine

There are some things that are so obvious that perhaps it takes an intellectual to think that stating them constitutes penetrating insight. Perhaps that’s why some are treating the release of a new report on the costs of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the potential benefits of a stable two-state solution by the Rand Corporation as a profound contribution to the discussion about peace. The report is being extolled by some on the left as yet another sign of the Israeli government’s poor judgment since it has supposedly chosen investment in West Bank settlements and the military over decisions that could lead to a deal that would bring the country greater prosperity. But the problem with this formulation is that the history of the last hundred years, and even of the opening years of the 21st century, shows that while Israelis have always hoped that peace could be built around economic cooperation, Palestinian Arabs have always viewed the standoff with the Jews as a zero-sum conflict into which financial considerations have never been allowed to intrude.