The Middle East Peace Industry

George Mitchell (below) has arrived in Jerusalem and the ‘proximity talks’ have started, but it is not at all clear what will come of them.

The Middle East peace process is the longest running piece of diplomatic theater on the world stage.  Dating from World War One, the effort to reconcile the aspirations of the Jews and the Arabs for statehood in the lands seized from the Ottoman Empire by the Allies in World War One and assigned to the British has inspired wave after wave of commission reports, diplomatic ventures, formal and informal negotiations direct and indirect between the parties, debates and resolutions in the League of Nations and the UN, passionate political debates within the region and beyond, one war after another, and waves of ethnic violence and terrorism by both Arabs and Jews.