Will there be peace if Palestinians lay down their arms?

[Shaktimaan]

22. Backwards.

What a joke. You are fantasizing far more power than they possess, and at the same time obscuring who truly does hold all the power.

You have the causality reversed here. No one is saying that the Palestinians have the power to unilaterally impose peace. But that's the tricky thing about any conflict. No one side ever has the power to do such a thing.

The Palestinians, as powerless as they are in many respects, do possess one critical ability. The power to reject a peace that's on any terms they oppose. We've seen Israel attempt several treaties for permanent two state solutions, all on terms rejected by militant palestinian groups like Hamas. Hamas has the ability, proven during Oslo and after the Gaza withdrawal, to scuttle any peace whose terms they reject.

This is far from being "powerless." We've already seen that Israel is willing to make concessions for peace and stand by their agreements. They've done it before. But we've yet to see if Palestine has the ability to negotiate a peace they can enforce from their end.