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Rubin Reports: For two years, the Obama Administration has failed totally on peace process issues. Yet, even now, does it understand why this has happened? And is it going to put this on the back burner or leap still further into the swamp? Read it all.
2 comments
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lawhawk Dec 10, 2010 11:09:39am |
The peace process failed because the process and its underlying assumptions was fatally flawed.
It starts with an assumption that both Israel and Palestinians want: (1) peace; (2) a 2-state solution; and (3) are willing to make concessions in furtherance of 1 and 2.
Hamas, which comprises one portion of the Palestinian electorate (and most significantly a portion of the Palestinian Authority that supposedly represents the Palestinians), rejects Israel’s existence and refuses a 2-state solution.
So, what is to be done about that? Well, the diplomatic solution - pseudorealism at its finest - is to ignore them entirely. Make it appear that Hamas doesn’t even relate to the process and hope that Israel and Fatah go along.
Israel has repeatedly shown a willingness to make concessions for peace and meets all the conditions set forth above.
The Palestinians can’t even get out of step 1. Hamas continues its state of war against Israel; Fatah engages in ongoing revisionist history and refuses to recognize Israel’s claims to the land.
It’s little wonder the process has collapsed. It is surprising that it took this long to realize what a mess it was and that starting a process and putting Presidential prestige on the line was a big mistake.
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sliv_the_eli Dec 10, 2010 4:33:45pm |
re: #1 lawhawk
LH,
An astute analysis, as usual. I would add that the fundamental flaw with the approach of the past several U.S. administrations is that it has focused on the peace “process” and not on whether there is a realistic possiblity to achieve peace and, if there is, what substantive steps the parties must take to achieve it.
By overly focusing on “process” — or what I described a few days ago as the shape of the table — U.S. administrations have wasted precious moral authority trying to achieve talks for the sake of talks, even in the face of a vast amount of evidence that the Palestinians do not desire a true peace and that the Palestinian Authority — to say nothing of the rejectionist Hamas-Jihad Islami-Fatah front — has not only done nothing to educate its constituency for peace but, to the contrary, has continued its nefarious game of seeking to erase Jewish historical connections to the land.
Part of the problem also stems from the deep-rooted nature of the conflict, which does not lend itself to grandiose pronouncements that peace will be achieved in 12 or 24 months, and the short (by comparison) electoral cycles in the United States. The latter invariably leads U.S. Presidents to focus on process as a means of securing their re-election in a few years or, if they serve a second term, as a means of securing their “place in history”.
The recent Bush administration provides a useful case study. Whatever his faults, President Bush (GWB, not GHWB), probably had the right idea when he first took office and sought to scale back the degree of involvement by the White House. He appeared at the time to have recognized that high-level personal involvement by the White House in a situation in which no near term resolution is feasible — for the reasons you mentioned — can only degrade the moral authority of the White House if the day comes when the President’s direct involvement can actually help the two sides bridge the last gaps to an agreement. (For a good example of this problem, one need only look at the fact that many Palestinian Arabs blame the U.S. for not securing an Israeli extension of the building moratorium). Unfortunately, President Bush was excoriated by the Western media for this benign neglect, and eventually (for that and other reasons, such as 9/11 and the desire to secure his own place in history) fell into the trap of putting the prestige of his Office on the line without any evidence that the Palestinians had moved any closer to a desire for real peace and for the compromises that “we all know” are necessary for an agreement to be reached.
As Professor Rubin points out in his blog post, it remains to be seen which way the current President will go. Based upon his prior actions and the electoral concerns noted above, I am not confident that he will avoid repeating the mistakes of his recent predecessors. On the other hand, in the spirit of the season, we can at least remain hopeful.
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