Still Waiting to Seize the Moment – Editorial from the New York Times.
Despite longstanding pledges, the Israelis are refusing to stop expanding settlements while the Palestinians aren’t doing enough to halt violence against Israel.
A Middle East Commitment – Editorial from the Washington Post
So far U.S. prodding has failed to induce Mr. Olmert and Mr. Abbas to take initial confidence-building steps they have repeatedly promised, such as the dismantlement of illegal Israeli outposts in the West Bank or a campaign to stop incitement against Israel by Palestinian media and schools.
It’s come to the point where this hackneyed boilerplate passes for analysis. The halting of terror was a premise of the whole peace process. There is no equivalence between terror that is encouraged and perpetrated by the PA and Israel building more homes for its citizens. The former violates every premise of peacemaking and yet it’s treated as a “confidence building measure.” On the latter, I’m reasonably certain that if Israel stopped building everywhere else but continued building in places like Gilo, Ramot and French Hill, that these august newspapers would still fault Israel.
Getting back to the NY Times:
For the first time, Mr. Bush did say that Israel must compensate Palestinians who left or were driven from their homes in what is now Israel. He also warned both sides that they are going to have to make difficult compromises on their borders.
Why is Israel responsible for Palestinians who left their homes? And why is there no mention of Jews who were driven from their homes? And as Amb. Dore Gold pointed out yesterday in a conference call of bloggers, Israeli territorial compromises are not just difficult but, based on past experience, dangerous too.
As bad as the NY Times editorial is, the Washington Post’s is worse.
In 2001 he disparaged and quickly abandoned President Bill Clinton’s personal attempt to broker a final peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians during his final months in office. Seven years later, ending his first visit to Israel as president, Mr. Bush set a goal of finishing that peace treaty during his own final months; said he would personally involve himself in pressuring both sides; and, like Mr. Clinton before him, laid out his own parameters for a deal.The only significant difference between the two sets of presidential ideas was that Mr. Bush was unwilling, unlike Mr. Clinton, to discuss a solution for Jerusalem, where the largest concessions will have to come from Israel. Instead, he mainly sketched the painful sacrifices required from Palestinians, including the surrender of some West Bank territory and the payment of compensation rather than the “return” of Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948. Still, none of what the president said was novel. Mr. Bush’s statement merely confirmed that seven years of bloodshed, unilateral actions and diplomatic stasis, during which both Israelis and Palestinians sought to change the terms suggested by Mr. Clinton, have been a tragic waste of lives and time.
I won’t disagree that the past seven years there has been a tragic waste of lives, but it isn’t due to the president’s disengagement. It’s worth noting that the terror war waged against Israel that was going on when President Bush took office, occurred in the wake of the some of the most intensive diplomatic efforts ever undertaken in the Middle East. In fact it’s incredible that the editors don’t acknowledge that the the violence of seven years ago took place despite the Clinton parameters. This shows that the terror war was not a function of the lack of an agreement.
It’s also an amazingly ignorant argument given that during President Bush’s term in office Israel withdrew from Gaza. That led not to greater compromise and understanding but strengthened Hamas and put Israelis living in “non-occupied” Israel at risk from Qassam missiles. There hasn’t been “diplomatic stasis” over the past seven years, diplomatic progress has been made; it just has produced the exact opposite results that the Post’s editors assumed that it would.
In Here we Go Round the Mulberry Bush, Barry Rubin lays out a summary of the past seven years based on observation not wishful thinking.
In 2000, a seven-year-long peace process was due for completion. The Gaza Strip and much of the West Bank had been turned over to the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) led by Yasir Arafat. The PA had been given billions of dollars and military equipment, becoming a virtual client of the United States. Despite these efforts, there was anarchy in the PA-ruled territory, constant incitement to violence against Israel on the official news media, no psychological or ideological preparation of the Palestinians by their leadership for peace, and a massive wasting of funds.Later, some analysts would explain away the failure by saying it was a mistake to force Arafat to the negotiating table for a decision. At the time, though, all one heard was how Arafat needed progress or he would lose control of his people and that the window of opportunity was closing. The U.S., Israeli, and European governments also wanted diplomatic progress for interests of their own. The result was not only the Camp David summit but also, and in some ways even more important, the Clinton plan that followed. The Palestinian leadership rejected both and instead opted for war.
Bush’s new policy may be a big change for him but, after all, he is merely making the same analysis and offering the same terms as his predecessor. It was an understanding of what went wrong with Clinton’s thinking and his generous bid–in part taught them by Clinton itself–that explains the Bush administration’s lower level of effort for most of its time in office.
The problem then isn’t the lack of American involvement, but the lack of a Palestinian commitment or ability to make peace.
Even if there was a Palestinian leader able to transcend all those pressures he would still restrained by knowing that to make a deal might not only be personally fatal but–far more certain–would destroy his reputation and career. Nobody will act like Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in making peace with Israel because look what happened to him (reviled, boycotted by the Arab world, and assassinated).Nor do Palestinian leaders feel a need to run such risks. A far easier, successful policy is to take billions of Western aid dollars while doing nothing and blaming everything on Israeli intransigence and U.S. mistakes.
Calls for more American involvement in the peace process are based on a false belief that American pressure can help make peace. American involvement, instead, seems to have accomplished just the opposite. It has created an atmosphere that rewards (Palestinian) intransigence in the chimerical belief that enough foreign aid can somehow change deeply held beliefs.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
