— Leonard Getz, Co-President, Zionist Organization of America, Greater Philadelphia District

Thanks to a twisted,  yet inevitable turn of events, Israel for the moment is enjoying a reprieve  from the pressure to “make peace”, Prime Minister Netanyahu‘s pleadings to a  disinterested Abbas notwithstanding.  We have President Obama to  thank for this. By unilaterally raising the ante making Israeli construction  in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem the issue, Obama has made it impossible  for Israel to offer  anything less, and for the Arabs to refuse anything other than a complete and  continuous building halt. Realizing his mistake, Obama has backed off, and  paradoxically enough, Israel is enjoying for the moment a semblance of peace  from the pressures to make dangerous and unilateral concessions that will  surely undermine their security and right to live anywhere in the land of  Israel.

As I write this Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) the first Jewish representative from Arizona fights for her recovery from a gunshot wound to her head and we pray for her speedy  recovery. Back in 2006, she wrote a piece for the Jewish Federation of Southern  Arizona upon her return from visiting Israel. She wrote  

“I got to see firsthand the  sacrifices that Israelis make in the name of security because of the dangerous  state of affairs there…I will always be a strong supporter of Israel. Until  the Palestinian leadership and other hostile regimes are willing to accept  Israel’s right to exist, it will be impossible to achieve  peace.”

 Speaking of the Bush  Administration she also said,

“The failure of the current administration to  continue the peace process has been a loss to America and Israel. That is why  we need a new direction in Washington.”

Like most American, and  particularly Jewish politicians whose observations are correct and whose  hearts are in the right place, their conclusions are usually  wrong.  When  they say “new direction” what they mean is putting different people in charge  who will inevitably go in the same aimless direction that every administration  and, frankly, every Israeli government as gone. What we need is someone with  Star Trek initiative, to boldly go where no “peace process’ has gone  before.

Where should that be? The  dismantling of the United Nations Relief and Work Agency of Palestinian  Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

For over 60 years the United  States has helped feed a myth that people who are born in a particular country  are refugees instead of citizens of that country, and helped fund a United  Nations agency run by  terrorists. Former UNWRA  general counsel  James G Lindsay said, UNWRA  encourages Palestinians to fight long-lost wars, discourages movement toward  peace and employees thousands of Hamas  terrorists.

If the United States is  serious about peace, it should work towards the withering of UNWRA and let  Israel be.