Kerry gives Netanyahu a well-deserved diplomatic slap in the face

[JDPriestly]

107. They are no different from the many Jews who held keys and rights to properties all over Europe.

Some of them received monetary compensation for their losses.

How to compensate for lost property is something that must be negotiated. It's easily resolved if people really have keys and deeds and were never compensated for their losses.

As I see it, the problem is the Palestinians who claim the right to return but have no concrete proof of ownership of property in the past. It is hard to calculate or prove their losses and determine just compensation. It is also hard to know who actually sold their property to Jewish people at some point (and many may have done this). All of that can be negotiated.

Israel wants security. Palestine has thus far not be willing to negotiate that. We shall see how it turns out, but Palestinians cannot claim that Kerry does not understand the situation.

In my view, although Israel has the upper hand in military terms, negotiations really rest on the willingness and ability of the Palestinians to guarantee Israel's security under whatever terms are agreed to. Therein lies the rub.

Israel can be forced to comply with an agreement. Palestine -- not so much. And Israel cannot be expected to accept an agreement knowing it must comply but Palestine can do whatever it wants.

So Kerry is doing a good job. I trust that he will be just as tough with the Palestinians as he is being with the Israelis. Both sides have a lot of work to do.

I have said this on DU before. In the mid 1960s, I lived in the Alsace-Lorraine. That was an area that had been fought over by the French and Germans for a long, long, long, long time. The area was officially French, but the people there still spoke French and/or German and kind of a combination when I lived there. The two peoples were living in peace in spite of old grudges and injuries.

I hope that Palestine and Israel can work out their situation as the Alsace-Lorraine has. But I think it will take a very long time to achieve that. The two-nation solution can take many forms. But people need to be able to lead their lives in peace and in the present and let go of the anger of the past. As the Palestinians who lived in Israel at one time and the Israelis who remember Europe and the US as their homes gradually fade out of the picture, their children and grandchildren will approach the situation with new understanding. That is my expectation.