Of Israel, the Palestinians and the United States

Roger Cohen in today’s New York Times argues that Jews ought to embrace the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama in “No Manchurian Candidate. ” Like the NJDC he sets up lots of straw men in his defense of Sen. Obama. (Of course he dismisses such inconveniences such as Sen. Obama’s embrace of Rev. Wright or the appearance of Zbigniew Brzezinski among his advisers. To Cohen, those are just questions that Jews ask. Well those questions are substantive and they haven’t been answer satisfactorily.)
Why does Cohen think that Sen. Obama will be good for Israel?

Foreign policy will roar back once this is a straight Republican-Democrat fight. A Democrat who’s going to win has be strong on core American defense principles, which include Israel’s security.Obama feels Israel in his kishkas, all right. Equally, he feels dialogue, which has been his way of getting things done since he became a Chicago community organizer in the 1980s. There would be no six-year time-outs on Israel-Palestine under an Obama presidency. “He’d be actively involved from day one,” said Axelrod.

Jews should get over the scaremongering: Obama is no Manchurian. Nor is he blind to the fact that backing Israel is not enough if such U.S. backing provides carte blanche for the subjugation of another people.

It’s funny, because President Clinton followed the exact course that Cohen advocates and his term ended with the foreign official who was honored with the most trips to the White House, Yasser Arafat, launching a terror war against Israel after he refused a peace deal. (A point working against Sen. Obama, is that the one American involved in those peace talks who feel that the failure wasn’t Arafat’s is Robert Malley, now another one of Sen. Obama’s advisers.)

Of course that last sentence is a way of dismissing any who dare disagree with Cohen’s mistaken view of what will bring peace in the Middle East. (And he talks about “right wing bullying!) The concerns about Sen. Obama are real and only a partisan of the Senator would dismiss them instead of addressing them.

As I noted, the idea that anyone who disagrees with someone like Roger Cohen is not necessarily advocating the Israeli “subjugation of another people.” Barry Rubin boils down the current prevailing view in Israel in Pay Now Nothing Later.

The central theme of Israeli thinking today is readiness to accept a two-state solution and to give up almost all the territory captured in 1967 for real peace, coupled with the view that there is no prospect of the other side making and implementing this desired outcome.In effect, the policy is to demonstrate Israeli willingness for negotiation and compromise–showing how good a deal could be–but making it equally clear that nothing material will be given unless something very real and specific is provided in exchange.

Nor does this mean that nothing has changed. Much of the Arab world–notably the governments of Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Gulf states, would like the conflict to go away. But they are not prepared to do much themselves, nor can they deliver the Palestinians and Syria, those without whom there can be no agreement, not to mention an increasingly important Iran. Thus, while shifts in the Arab world are a positive development–the fact that a war between Israel and Arab states is unlikely is a huge advance over the past–at the same time formal peace remains closer in theory but not so much in practice.

The question isn’t as Cohen presents that Israel must do something, but how will the Arab world change to accept what Israel will offer? That’s what frightens me about all of the remaining candidates for President (including my choice, Sen McCain).

How much will the next President adopt the prevailing view, that peace can only come as the result of some measure of American pressure on Israel is a problem. Cohen who believes that, also dismisses whatever President Bush has done over the last eight years. Frankly, by staying on the sidelines as much as he did, he probably helped matters. He also tried to reformulate how we should view the Arab/Israeli conflict. That he didn’t stick by his principles is unfortunate as Natan Sharansky and Bassam Eid write in today’s Wall Street Journal. (h/t Bald Headed Geek.)

The real breakthrough of Mr. Bush’s vision five-and-a-half years ago was not his call for a two-state solution or even the call for Palestinians to “choose leaders not compromised by terror.” Rather, the breakthrough was in making peace conditional on a fundamental transformation of Palestinian society: “I call upon [Palestinians] to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty. If the Palestinian people actively pursue these goals, America and the world will actively support their efforts. . . . A Palestinian state will never be created by terror — it will be built through reform. And reform must be more than cosmetic change, or veiled attempt to preserve the status quo. True reform will require entirely new political and economic institutions, based on democracy, market economics and action against terrorism.”Many critics argued at the time that linking the peace process to a transformation of Palestinian society was a radical departure in peacemaking. It was. And it was long overdue.

The prevailing view in media, academic and diplomatic circles has failed to achieve peace time and again. It has strengthened the Palestinian terror organizations by absolving them any responsibility. As the Annapolis conference has marked a return to paying the Palesitnians to behave, I wonder if the next President will reverse this backward destructive trend.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.