Little Chance for Success from Annapolis

By Michael Medved

The Middle East Peace Conference in Annapolis stands little chance of success due to obviously contradictory demands by the Palestinians.

They insist, for instance, on a so-called "Right of Return"--authorizing millions of grandchildren and great-grandchildren of one-time refugees to claim homes they've never even seen in Israel. At the same time, they demand that Israel dismantle long-established Jewish communities in the future state of Palestine.

They expect Israel, in other words, to accommodate unlimited numbers of Palestinians in its territory while simultaneously refusing to accept any Jewish residents in the potential Palestine. In effect, they're pushing for two homelands, not just one: claiming both Israel and the future Palestine as refuges for their dispersed people. Israelis will accept the right of unlimited numbers of Palestinians to settle in a Palestinian state--that's the whole idea of establishing that new nation. But they'll never agree to the simultaneous right of millions of hostile Arabs to swamp the state of Israel.