Walter Russell Mead just got back, and has a report, apparently the first of more than one:
President Obama fell into a trap when he made a settlement freeze a precondition for talks. Secretly, both Israelis and Palestinian leaders are, I think, delighted that the US is now so tangled up in this demand that it has lost most of its influence over negotiations. The Palestinians are happier than the Israelis; it looks to world opinion as if it is Israeli intransigence on the settlement issue that is the chief obstacle to peace. But the Israeli government — while angry at Obama for making them look even worse than usual to much of the world — is also relieved that the settlement demand is so unpopular in Israel that Prime Minister Netanyahu pays no domestic political price for rejecting it.
This is what happens when one puts a naif in the White House because he gives pretty speeches, and has a nice crease in his pants.
[Update a while later]
Lest anyone think from the excerpt that I provided that it is all about bashing the current president and not bother to read it, I’ll add this as well:
Each of the last three US presidents made poor decisions that have made this tangle worse. President Clinton had good intentions and many accomplishments to his credit, but his final, foolhardy rush to peace in the closing months and days of his administration was perhaps the worst decision made by any US president on this issue since the controversy began. His goal should have been to shore up a faltering peace process rather than pushing it to a premature climax. The failure of his peacemaking effort was predictable and expensive, and the absence of a legitimate peace process has been a serious problem in the region ever since.
President George W. Bush inherited a bad situation and made it worse. On the one hand, he inflamed Arab and world opinion by a confrontational approach on a range of issues and serial failures in both the development and presentation of policy alienated friends and antagonized enemies. His record was not entirely bleak; he managed to nudge the Israelis back toward some kind of negotiating posture and his strengthening of Palestinian institutions and the promotion of a strong West Bank economic miracle helped to reduce tension. Nevertheless, the US agenda was in worse shape when he left office than when he first took the oath.
President Obama added his own contribution to the record of failed US initiatives. While I personally agree with him that an extendable settlement freeze would greatly simplify the task of getting a good peace negotiation going, in the real world to make that demand was to lose all initiative on the issue — and to miss the opportunity to get the Israelis to make less dramatic but quite useful concessions in its place. He has allowed Prime Minister Netanyahu to outmaneuver him diplomatically and in US politics more than once. The US president’s optimistic speeches about building bridges to the Muslim world fell hollow and flat after he linked that effort to progress on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute which his own errors placed out of reach.
Really, read the whole analysis. It’s long, but worth it.
Just about all of Mead’s stuff is “long, but worth it.”
Meh. This part
struck me a near delusional – the Palestinian side view of “enough land” is the entire state of Israel.
I also think Mead misses the really fundamental problem, which is — why should the Israelis think any Palestinian government would treat Israelis better than it treats its own citizens? But that is what would be required by any actual peace.
Haven’t read it yet, but will. Even if an American president doesn’t give Israel support that it needs, American people will. Ultimately, Israel has to solve Israels problem and to hell with what anybody else thinks. They have to stop worrying about who likes them. They have to do the right thing and stick with it. They actually spend way too much effort keeping their enemies safe. Open warfare would be an improvement to resolve a festering wound. If they actually resolve it afterward rather than give up what they’ve won.
Israel needs to man up and take responsibility.
I’ll add one more thing to AOG’s comment. The Arabs offer no land to the Palestinians. The Palestinians are just a convenient medium to attack Israel politically (and sometimes militarily). You don’t see a UN vote to consider Kurdish statehood.
“Nevertheless, the US agenda was in worse shape when he left office than when he first took the oath.”
Mead seems to think that for some reason we should give a damn about the Palestinians. So long as they continue to support terrorism, I can not see why that should be the case.
The Palestinians need to unilaterally give up on terrorism. Period, dot. Their only reward for doing so is that they will be completely ignored, and their desires considered of no worth at all, unless and until they entirely give up on terrorism.
The Palestinians must accept that Israel exists, and will continue to exist into the future, as a Jewish state. (Repeat the above paragraph for this.)
Once they have accepted those basic requirements, then negotiations should begin. Until they accept those basic requirements, they should be treated as enemies of America, and enemies of humanity. Because that’s what genocidal terrorists ARE.