51st: Even Tom Friedman! UPDATE
Tom Friedman: “This has also left the U.S. government fed up with Israel’s leadership but a hostage to its ineptitude, because the powerful pro-Israel lobby in an election season can force the administration to defend Israel at the U.N., even when it knows Israel is pursuing policies not in its own interest or America’s….”
Now do you believe Mersheimer and Walt? Times, September 18
And Friedman concludes: …”Unfortunately, Israel today does not have a leader or a cabinet for such subtle diplomacy. One can only hope that the Israeli people will recognize this before this government plunges Israel into deeper global isolation and drags America along with it.”
Now do you believe me?
UPDATE: Stephen Walt comments on Tom Friedman’s Sunday op-ed; here is Walt’s conclusion: “The elephant has been in the room for a long time, but now it has the spotlights on it and it’s wearing a pink bikini too. It’s hard to miss, in short, which is surely why Tom Friedman wrote what he did.” Headline: “Well, Duh…”
MORE UPDATE: A blow-by-blow account of the Obama-Netanyahu relationship giving details on Obama’s efforts to back Netanyahu. Bottom line: With a friend like Netanyahu, Obama doesn’t need any enemies. New York Magazine.
IMHO, the Palestinian Authority’s effort to gain statehood recognition through the United Nations, is a watershed event that will fundamentally transform America’s role in the Middle East. I do not contest Tom Friedman’s analysis of the impact on Israel, but the impact on US policy may prove to be far more significant.
The tragic root of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that two peoples are claiming the same piece of property for their political patrimony. The zero-sum harshness of this reality has been disguised by the claim that land is fungible–land can be bargained for peace. US policy is grounded on the assumption that the Israeli and Palestinian people will accept permanent loss of some portion of their claimed homeland for the sake of peace. But the US has always defended Israel’s right to veto any land transfer that it considers a threat to its security.
The myth of a negotiated “land transfer” has been affirmed by successive US Presidents and European leaders, and it was made concrete in the 1993 Oslo agreements. Maps were drawn, the piece-meal termination of the Israeli occupation was laid out, and the PLO was enthroned as the interim co-administrator within the framework of the Israeli occupation. But in the intervening 18 years, antagonistic interpretations, unmet deadlines, and expanding Israeli settlements have led to a series of negotiations which failed to get the process back on track. Periodically the Palestinians have resorted to self-defeating—and inhumane violence—against Israeli civilians. In turn, the Israeli security forces demonstrated that peace can be maintained by the sword–without negotiations.
By going to the UN next Friday, Abbas is declaring that the Palestinians will no longer be placated by the promise of a ”future” peace process while Israeli settlements slowly sprawl further across the West Bank. More directly he is saying to the US that the Palestinians will no longer play the role of dependent supplicants awaiting a future US President to use his “considerable influence” to gain Israeli agreement on a viable “two-state” solution.
Abbas’ initiative is the initiative of the weak. It may even be judged as self-defeating. For Netanyahu will surely be the net winner. Compelled, both by the electoral realities of 2012 and the absence of a viable alternative to two-party negotiations, President Obama will have to squash the Abbas initiative. Consequently, the US, like the Wizard of Oz, will stand before the world further embarrassed by its ebbing influence in the region. The US will be seen as a “client state” of Israel, unfit to continue serving as an “honest broker.” Netanyahu will take pleasure in the discomfort of a deflated President Obama, who will be unable to challenge Israel’s policy of creating a “permanent status quo.”
Yet Abbas’ does not see himself engaged in an act of self-destruction. The reality is that he is over-turning a non-existing negotiating table, spilling cards and chips across the floor. He really has no idea whether the game will resume with new rules or whether anarchy will reign. (However, if anarchy does reign, Abbas knows that the Israeli security forces will also reign.)
Abbas is proclaiming that the Palestinians will no longer place their hopes and national aspiration on the myths of Oslo or on the illusion of the benevolent influence of the US. Neither approach has brought peace, security or national dignity. He is saying clearly to the rest of world—you come up with a different game. We’re fed up with confronting an opponent with the deck stacked against us.
If a popular New York Times columnist says it, it must be true?
Thank you JP Farry for thinking through the matter and writing.