Leon Hadar in these spaces has commended as a “sensible stance” toward the Israeli-Palestinian a policy, enunciated by a prominent American politician, that “we sort of live with it, and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately, somehow, something will happen and resolve it.” Hadar criticizes “some self-proclaimed foreign-policy realists,” implying that their belief that “Washington can and ought to help make peace between Israelis and Palestinians” somehow contradicts realist criticisms of neocon ambitions to remake the Middle East in the American image. Insofar as Hadar is making a general point that there are difficult and often violent problems out there that the United States simply cannot be expected to solve, he's right about that. (For a nice statement on this theme that goes far beyond the Arab-Israeli conflict, see Daniel Byman's recent treatment.) And Hadar is certainly correct that there are other regional and global players that need to play a role in resolving this conflict.
But Hadar seems oblivious to the enormous resonance that this conflict has like no other—with its continued festering harming U.S. interests—and to the leverage that could be, but has not been, applied to resolving it.
He also seems oblivious to what actual U.S. policies and efforts have, and have not, been in recent years. When he refers to “America's preoccupation with the conflict”—taking him to mean preoccupation with resolving the conflict—one wonders what he is looking at. The last preoccupation at the presidential level was that of Bill Clinton at Camp David in 2000. Clinton's successor George W. Bush promptly made it known after entering office that he didn't want to be bothered by the Arab-Israeli issue. It was only near the end of his administration that he decided he ought to go through the motions of hosting a single conference on the subject. Barack Obama made a brief stab at addressing the main impediment to a negotiated settlement—the continued Israeli colonization of occupied territory—but promptly retreated when the Israeli government and its American supporters pushed back hard. Since then he hasn't run with the issue, much less be preoccupied with it, any more than Bush.
Hadar lectures us on how two parties will settle a conflict only if doing so is in their “core national interests” and cannot otherwise be forced to settle by some third party. Of course they can't, unless the third party exercises imperial domination—which is the sort of thing neocons would warm to in other contexts but is certainly not what any “self-proclaimed foreign-policy realists” would advocate. But this observation is not the same as saying other types of third-party participation are useless. If it were, we should find a way to revoke posthumously Teddy Roosevelt's Nobel Peace Prize for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War. Nations locked in conflict with other nations often find themselves unable, for a variety of reasons, to embark on a course more conducive to their interests. With some of those reasons, the active participation of a third party can be instrumental.
There is a tautological quality to Hadar's treatment of this subject. When a mediation effort succeeds, such as with Carter at Camp David in 1978, then he says this must have been what the parties saw as in their core national interests, but when it fails, as with Clinton in 2000, this means they did not see it in their interests. This treatment leads to the glaringly incorrect comment that the parties reached agreement in 1978 “not as a response to American diplomatic pressure.” If nearly a fortnight of personal arm-twisting by the president of the United States and his senior foreign-policy aides and billions in assistance in buying off the parties' remaining hesitations does not qualify as relevant American diplomatic pressure, it is hard to imagine what would.
The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians strikes chords of anger and resentment and shapes attitudes toward the United States, more broadly and strongly than probably any other conflict around the globe. The chords are heard throughout the Arab world and to a large degree across parts of the larger Muslim world. That is why it is a mistake simply to lump this conflict, as Hadar does, together with other long-running disputes such as the one between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. That is also why it is a mistake to disregard the extent to which this particular conflict shapes the willingness of so many people either to cooperate with the United States or to strike out against it.
The extraordinary resonance of this issue underlies this accurate observation by Hadar:
Meanwhile, America's repeated failures as an “honest broker”—a designation that quite frequently runs contrary to its commitment to be a “reliable ally” of Israel—ends up producing an anti-American backlash in the Arab and Muslim worlds, which creates even more pressure on Washington to “do something.”
Comments
You know, it's becoming more and more obvious all the time that our ME problem is that even our smartest, wisest, best intentioned guys like Pillar and Hadar have had their neural networks just totally corrupted and deformed about the issues involving Israel by working for so long in Washington D.C. It's as if an invisible bubble exists, with those working within it have just gradually but surely gained the understanding that they simply *can't* say the obvious, even if that means they are reduced to uttering propositions a ten year-old boy would laugh at. But that's okay in the bubble, because everyone does it as regards same. Thus Hadar says it would put pressure on Israel to keep pumping billions down its throat every year and *cease* pleading with it about its behavior. And Pillar is saying no, we should continue to pour those billions down its throat and *continue* that pleading despite the fact that for the past 40+ years all that's happened is that Israel has gotten ever *more* billions from us per year all the while totally ignoring our pleadings. Sheesh. As is clear to everyone, perhaps even that ten year-old, our overwhelmingly *greatest* interest vis a vis Israel is to get *out* of the consequences of pouring all those billions down its throat every year, year after year. Consequences such as the Oil Shock of 1973 and the continuing premium we've paid and continue to pay ever day for oil since, and consequences such as saving those billions, and not being a target of terrorism, and not being drawn into endless wars in the Mideast and etc., etc., ad infinitum. And other than that national interest of *not* being seen as subsidizing Israel's behavior our national interest in the country is about the same as we have in the Upper Volta where, if it disappeared tomorrow, nobody would notice. And thus our interest in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, other than the humanitarian one, is zero, and we should conduct ourselves accordingly. It ain't our business, and we oughta be absolutely neutral, period. Doing anything else can *only* hurt us in one way or another, just as it has for those 40+ years now. Sometimes gravely. (As in that Oil Shock of '73 which caused terrible economic damage to this country for at least a decade if not more, and the terrorism shock of 9-11 which can sometimes seem as if it will do us in entirely from one of many ways.) And yet what do we see from the denizens of the deep/Washington, D.C.? Even from great, smart guys like Pillar and Hadar? Written and aural goo. Impeccably intentioned but logically laughable propositions. My God the strength of that bubble....
My interpretation: After watching his dad get vilified over the settlements, observe how Bill Clinton achieved little for personally getting involved in minute details of negotiations, Bush 43 in his second term attempted a novel arrangement: put a one-year limit to negotiations and insist on a continuous geography for Palestinians ("no Swiss cheese"). We forgot foreign policy with the financial meltdown, but it would have been interesting to see how the parties might have decided. In my opinion, the State of Israel will never give up Samaria and Judea. I assume a philo-Semite will also respect the Palestinians but is their identity also based on territory or will they prefer a state from which they can build a prosperous identity? (not Jordan, but I've heard Gaza or Sinai mentioned as possibilities which typically raise a furious protest). I don't understand, because after WWI, Greeks and Turks voluntarily transferred a huge population.My comments of Bush 43 do not apply to Iraq and the insubordination of the CPA, the lousy ideas of Karl Rove in 2006 involving foreign policy (my assumptions). Thanks for a thoughtful article on a difficult subject; you push me to re-assess and test my thinking. - T.
Revised: 9:30pm for vocab.