Palestine: pouring money into a bottomless pit

1. Palestine is an economic basket case - run by an unelected and unconstitutional self styled head of State - Mahmoud Abbas - who refuses to sit down and negotiate with Israel without pre-conditions.
2. Elections have not been held since 2006 and there is no prospect in sight for the people to have their say as to who should govern them.
3. Hamas and the PLO remain at loggerheads allowing the West Bank and Gaza to become separate fiefdoms under different power structures that brook no opposition.

In this mire - even if Abbas returned to the negotiating table - the negotiations would founder on the following two demands made by Israel - which Abbas refuses to concede:

1. That Israel be recognized as the Jewish National Home as determined by the San Remo Conference, the Treaty of Sevres and the League of Nations.
2. That any Palestinian Arab State be demilitarised.

Israel's raison d'etre and right to live in freedom and security free of any future Arab threats are non- negotiable.

Abbas - on the other hand - has made it clear that:

1. He will never agree to abandon the right of return for millions of Palestinian Arabs and their descendants to what is now Israel.
2. He will not countenance Jews remaining as equal citizens with Palestinian Arabs in any Palestinian state

These demands can never be accepted by Israel.

So Senator Kerry's four billion dollars will only serve as a pinprick in the demand for continuing financial aid to prop up entrenched institutions of power bringing little relief to a long suffering population which could have had its own independent state in 1937, 1947, at any time between 1948-1967, in 2000/2001 or 2008.

Apparently this never ending game seems set to continue - as are the casualties of terrorism, violence and social upheaval.

Jordan - not the PLO - still remains the key to ending the conflict.

Continuing to pour money into the bottomless pit represented by Abbas is certainly not the answer.