Soccer Dad Speaks of Confidence Building Measures

I thought that Soccer Dad did a good job with this one. It is worth reading the whole thing, but here is an excerpt.

"For all of the euphemisms we hear about the so called peace process: "confidence building measures" is one of the most mischievous. Why? Because despite its innocuous sounding name it a) often refers to high risk concessions and b) those concessions are exclusively Israeli.
Usually these measures involve the freeing of violent prisoners - a number of whom return to their terrorist ways, allowing the Palestinians greater freedom of movement - though that allows terrorists greater freedom that have resulted in increased terror against Israel. Yet we never hear of "confidence building measures" going the other way.

Why then, didn't we hear the UN, the US or any journalist, diplomat or academic suggest that the Palestinians had a responsibility to protect the empty synagogues of Gaza as a confidence building measure? Why they wouldn't have risked anything and they could have demonstrated 1) respect for Judaism and 2) an ability to control violence and thus shown 1) a desire for peace and 2) an ability to keep that peace.
Instead the Palestinian Authority allowed and participated in the sacking of Synagogues of Gaza.

And if anyone will tell you that the synagogues were symbols of occupation and were worthy of destruction (and some of those cited below do just that!) respond that there's a long history of Muslim desecration of the holy places of other religions, especially of synagogues. Elder of Ziyon has an long (if depressing) list going back decades that's fully documented, of course. Israel Perspectives has a shorter list including more recent events."