Middle East Peace Talks, Again

When Arafat died, November 11, 2004 at age 74, it was rumored he held some eight billion dollars in Swiss bank accounts. He was so intent on being buried on the Temple Mount, but to save his own live, he was sent to Paris, France to qualified doctors.

During that trying time, CNN's Ted Turner sponsored a televised forum for Palestinian political representatives to confront Israeli politicians and what was most revealing were the Palestine politicians themselves. Almost all Palestine political representatives were medical doctors.

My family lives in California, on the Central Coast where one of the finest hospitals attracts some of the best doctors, and our ethics committee keeps this community hospital staffed with only the most judicious health care professionals.

At that time, 2004, in California the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula had an approved plan to upgrade the hospital for some $500 million with their $55 million CRT scanner equipped with broken earphones, such that the patient would not be able to access or listen to the music library while undergoing the scan inside the tube. Only the technicians could access the extensive music library during the procedure.

With some $55 in hand, one of the $75 an hour tech.s could run downtown into Monterey, California and buy a pair of very fine earphones. The commute from out lying towns, where the three technicians lived, a fraction of some distance to get new earphones was somehow out of the realm to resolve such a problem.

What does one man's family do without a nearby hospital when his helpers have come from all over the world to sit outside his bombed out building and contemplate Arafat's role upon his death? What will his widow do with the eight billion US dollars in their Swiss banks?

Now that Arafat had died, and the money did not go to building a memorial hospital, unless it was kept from the International Press; the mere presence of Palestinian politicos on the West bank and most of them medical doctors back in the US to discuss Peace in the Middle East seems bizarre.

If Israel can spend billions to build walls, what stops Palestinians from building schools, Granges, hospitals? Why do they defy international procedure and refuse to enter legitimate Israel ports and open the shipments to inspections like in every other country in the world; but insist on defying sovereign rights by landing on open beaches to avoid the inspection of shipped goods?

Peace in the Middle East behind the chant "Peace at any price!" should simply be "Peace at a legitimate price [tag]!" Or simply, "Peace: Pay the Price." "Peace! Pay for it, it's only money." "Peace: Get it if you want it! Pay for it if you have it." "Just pay the two dollars."

Oh, yeah. Bring a broom and a vacuum cleaner and some plans for sewer systems, too. We the Americans now use the French 'charbon aire' sewers from 1991. On year after Israel gave some Palestine citizens West Bank land with two five star hotels, the Arabs were living on the beach in cardboard boxes the hotels were still closed up. Electricity, sewers, and water still hooked up and no one willing to go inside.

Welcome to Washington, D.C. 2010 so as to make it work this time, maybe.