The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the United States and Egypt are discussing an agreement which would see the Middle East, including Israel and Iran, become a nuclear free zone. The Daily Telegraph newspaper in England reports that President Obama is threatening to turn the peace process over to the international community if it remains deadlocked until the fall. In the meantime there may or may not be a resumption of talks on Monday, depending on who you're listening to.

All of this ignores the most salient factor of all.

Peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not possible because Islam won't permit it and militates against it.

Islam is a religion of intolerance toward unbelievers, with perhaps the most hatred reserved for Jews because of their ancient refusal to recognize Muhammad as the last and greatest prophet and Allah as the supreme being.

This hatred of Jews translates into a hatred of Israel, which in turn translates into an obligation to obliterate it and remove it from the face of the earth. When Palestinians and other Muslims demonize, vilify, attack and kill Israelis, Jews, they are really doing so in the name of Islam and because Islam commands them to. Israelis, Jews, are infidels and are seen as occupiers and interlopers at best with no right to the land they live on, historical or otherwise. Their presence is viewed as an affront and an insult.

Nothing will change until these misguided beliefs do. Since they go back 1400 years, are rooted in the Koran and are basic to Islamic thought and action peace is not going to come soon, if it ever does. The best we can hope for is some sort of grudging ceasefire, enforced by a third party that isn't the United Nations. Islam itself is the cause of the conflict in the Middle East and there is no possibility of peace until Islamic countries recognize and accept Israel's legitimate right to exist and stop trying to annihilate it. That is a contradiction of terms so don't hold your breath.

Israel ignores or glosses over this at her peril and so does the U.S. Israel is the Little Satan but America is the Great Satan and also in the line of fire.

Peace? Forget it in this day and age. Maybe in another 1400 years though...