I have written in my Spectator article today that the best way of solving the Israel/Palestinian impasse is for Jordan and Egypt to take control again — this time, legally — of the West Bank and Gaza. The Wall Street Journal today (subscription only) is saying much the same thing:

The U.S. might be better served if, instead of taking sides between unsavory factions in a Palestinian civil war, it began to call on its allies in the Arab world to show some leadership. Israel has more or less managed to contain the threat from Gaza for the time being. But Egypt, Gaza’s other neighbor, also has much to fear from a terrorist movement with historic links to the Muslim Brotherhood and current links to Iran. At a minimum, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak must finally get serious about stopping the flow of arms from the Sinai to Gaza, something he has so far done half-heartedly at best.

Jordan, which has done a creditable job of policing its border against the infiltration of terrorists, might, with Israeli cooperation, establish a security presence within the West Bank, possibly with a view to reasserting its sovereignty over most of its former domain. The Lebanese government of Fuad Siniora could also help by dropping economic restrictions it imposes on Palestinian residents, which have contributed to the radicalism and violence of its refugee camps. Above all, the flow of Saudi money to violent Palestinian factions needs to be addressed and stopped.
All of this runs contrary to the State Department’s efforts to make yet another big push toward establishing a Palestinian state. If events of the last week demonstrate nothing else, that idea has been laid to rest by the Palestinians themselves. What’s needed here is another solution — an Arab solution.

This is exactly the point. People think Israel can bring about the solution to this problem. It cannot, for the simple reason that it did not create it. The Arabs created it — and only the Arabs can solve it. Instead of propping up corrupt, terrorist Fatah, pursuing the chimera of the ‘two-state solution’ and pressuring Israel to continue to feed the beast that has torn at its throat for the past sixty years, America would do better to pressure the Arabs to take responsibility for the tragedy they have created and exploited. Jordan and Egypt are now threatened on their own doorsteps by Hamas/the Muslim Brotherhood/al Qaeda as a direct result of the fantasy politics of the past six decades. There has never been a better time to put their feet to the fire and end this whole manipulative charade.