Writing in this week’s Newsweek, ex-peace processor Aaron David Miller says the Obama administration will have to be “much tougher than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush were, if it’s serious about Arab-Israeli peacemaking.”
The article sets forth the standard peace-processor recommendations (push Israel to improve life in Gaza, stop settlement expansion on the West Bank), as well as the generic admonition that we should be “prepared to be tough with the Arabs as well.” On that latter point, however, Miller has no specific suggestions to make.
The “peace process,” as it has existed over the last 15 years, has in fact depended on not being “tough” (much less tougher) on the Palestinian “peace partners.” They always need to be “strengthened” with new concessions. Their shaky “confidence” must continually be rebuilt, with new “confidence-building” measures. They cannot be asked to affirm recognition of a Jewish state as a goal of the process – it would weaken them. They cannot be asked to educate their public on the concessions (starting with the “right of return”) necessary for the process to succeed – ditto. They cannot be held to the three-phase “performance-based” process to which they agreed: if they don’t perform Phase I and II, they go to Phase III anyway. If they cannot reach agreement, even on borders, even after a year-long process, even with the most pliant prime minister in Israeli history, they can rely on a peace processor to suggest the solution is to be tougher on Israel.
As the IDF continues its efforts to implement Phase I of the peace process in Gaza, by dismantling the terrorist organization that currently controls it, the most significant contribution the new administration can make to the process is to firmly support Israel in those efforts, to reiterate the commitments made by both the Clinton and Bush administrations to “defensible borders” for Israel, and to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem in compliance with the Jerusalem Embassy Act.
Israel — having withdrawn every IDF soldier from Gaza, dismantled every settlement, and removed all 8,000 “obstacles to peace,” and having then seen the Palestinians immediately destroy the greenhouse economy, burn the buildings that could have been used for housing and schools, turn the settlement areas into rocket launching sites, elect their premier terrorist group to control their government, and force a new war on Israel — could stand to have its own confidence rebuilt too.
What institution could domesticate the Palestinians? Jail for all their leaders?
I vote that Obama goes the Nathan Brown route–and gets a paper agreement. All the better so The One can proclaim “peace in our time”.
Nice to hear Abrams being so vocal lately. Where’s he been for the last 6 years? Abrams either did little to push this position when he was in government or it fell on deaf ears.
Of course, the peace processors love meaningless peace treaties between Israelis and Palestnians. The funny thing is that unlike Arafat/Abbas, Hamas would never pretend to sign a peace treaty. The most they will ever do is a tactical case fire (tadhiya or hudna).
I say let Dennis Ross kiss some Hamas rear end for eight years. Maybe have Haniyeh sleep over at the White House a few dozen times. That ought to cover it, don’t you think?
Hmm. Which one of the two covered up massacres in El Salvador and prostituted himself for death-squad money? What a contrast! I’m sure that, while he denies any possibility of a Palestinian state in the near future, Abrams has no qualms about mushrooming Israeli settlements during the same period.
Hurf evidently thinks there are places on earth where Jews should never live. Would he say the same about anyone else?
#1:
Somehow that reminds me of Mark Steyn’s adaption of Oscar Hammerstein II:
“How do you solve a problem like Shari’a?”
The process of securing the agreement to Palestinian peace (because this is what they want, not peace for the Israelis) is more important to the foreign policy realpolitik of liberals than it is with actually solving the problem (which would mean that they would have to confront their own beliefs about the Palestinians) of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Rubin,
Obama has made a personal value decision to associate with anti-Semitic radicals his whole life. I already know what we’re going to see. Why don’t you? How do you still hold any illusions about this guy?