The usually perspicacious Walter Russell Mead makes a dubious assumption regarding the just-announced new political alignment in Israel. (A new, broad centrist alignment has formed and Netanyahu has canceled the forthcoming elections.)
By contrast, the new centrist coalition relegates extreme parties to its fringe, increases Netanyahu’s maneuverability on everything from Iran to the economy to the peace process, and allows him to embark on much-needed electoral reform to reduce the influence on small extremist parties. But just as crucially, the new government will also put greater internal pressure on Netanyahu to deal with the Palestinians (Kadima and Mofaz are on record in support of a more conciliatory approach).
It is a mixed picture for Obama. On the one hand, this government may be a little easier to work with on Palestinian issues; on the other, it may be politically easier for the Israelis to launch an attack against Iran.
Keeping up the pressure against Iran, consulting with Israel as nuclear negotiations proceed, and looking for ways to start some kind of meaningful discussion between Israelis and Palestinians looks like the most fruitful course the US administration’s Middle East diplomacy could take right now. For President Obama, who has pretty much been locked into a tough policy approach to Iran without being able to get anything significant from the Israelis on negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, that looks like a step forward.
If he plays his cards well, and if he is lucky (always a vital component of successful policy moves in the Middle East), President Obama just might emerge as the victor in Israel’s election that never was.
Mead’s, admittedly tentative, conclusion has a major weakness. It depends on the Palestinians, or a significant component of them, actually wanting a two-state solution. Sadly, there is little evidence of that. Less and less, in fact.
Importantly it will also allow a new law to replace the Tal Law. This is the law which grants exemption from military or government service to Haredi Orthodox as well as Israeli Arabs. Requiring everyone to serve will help to unify the country and make it better able to deal with its enemies.
Sure they would be in a better position to sign a deal with the Palestinians but there is no interest from the other side.
There may be as many as 50% of the Palestinian who would be overjoyed with a two-state solution, maybe 80%, maybe 99.44%, but they are afraid to open their mouths, they are not the ones leading the place, and you just can’t get there from here.
Every poll I’ve seen puts support among Palestinians for a two state solution at about 20%. The 80% want war. Hamas won the election partly based on Fatah’s corruption, but also because Hamas was anti-negotiations.
In fact, even the Palestinians acknowledge this. The PA claims it hasn’t stopped the violence because they can’t, that it’s too popular and their government is too unstable to accomplish this. It’s been twenty years since the PLO was recognized, in exchange for a promise of peace. Either they’re lying, or the vast majority of the Palestinian people won’t accept a peace deal. (Correct answer: both. The people don’t want a deal, and their leaders wouldn’t stop them if they could. In fact, they’re coordinating the violence.)
I’d say that a majority of the *people* want peace, and a majority of the leadership want war. That’s an important distinction!
That’s my point, the (Palestinian) people don’t want peace. That’s the whole point of these polls– that it’s not just evil leaders taking advantage of a peace-loving populace. You may think that not wanting peaceful coexistence is irrational, and I certainly agree. Wanting a war they can’t win is also obviously irrational. People sometimes support irrational things.
That’s what the polls are saying. They seem to overwhelming support continued violence, leading to the destruction of their enemy. It’s hard as Americans to believe, because it’s such an alien viewpoint. But that’s what we’re dealing with.
please, Roger Simon, any victory for Obama is a big loss for Israel and America. The two-state solution, worst of all.
You’re assuming that Obama’s goal is a two-state solution, and that he’s just being naive.
I don’t believe that Obama’s goal is a one-state solution (the Palestinians getting Israel, and the Israelis relocated to Europe or the United States). But it’s hard to imagine if he did want that how he’d act any differently than he has.
No, I think his real goal is similar to Clinton’s. He wants to “manage” the conflict. Partly, this is because this is how VIP Senior Diplomats talk, and sounds very smart and sophisticated and wonkish. Managing a crisis ensures nice, permanent, influential jobs for the managers, who only have the best interest of the sad nimwits being managed at heart. But mostly, because the crisis isn’t really solvable in any way that anybody would want.
Which I actually agree with. Can anyone see a realistic end to the conflict? Anyone? I can’t. We can go on about “if the palestinians just accept a peace deal” till we’re blue in the face, but the reality is that they won’t. And Israel is too powerful to destroy, at least until Iran gets a nuke.
So why not “manage” the conflict? American Presidents have wanted peace, but if you accept that that’s not going to happen, the next best thing is a media-friendly peace agreement. Clinton’s attempt to shoot the moon at Camp David was only the most notable of many, many, many, many meaningless paper deals that let the American president reap a nice bump in the polls.
It’s not like he’s sacrificing a real deal to accomplish crass political ends. There is no real deal, so why not cash in? The only risk is to Israel’s security, and, in the end, it’s their lives at stake, not ours. And there’s an election coming (isn’t there always).
the two-state solution because it’s the two-stage solution, whittling Israel down into oblivion.
I wouldn’t underestimate the saber rattling going on in Egypt’s parliament. 6 million having 85 million declare them enemies once again, and without the restraint of a pragmatic if not loving Mubarak, is going to make a lot of Israeli’s nervous.
Some people just never learn, and you can bet the Egyptians 10 years from now are going to be crying to the U.N. about giving them back the Sinai once again, the same way the Palestinian Arabs suddenly had a respect for international law, only after war and terrorist attacks were constrained.
In fact, Egypt can’t make a move though the salafi’s and Muslim Brotherhood are dying to do so. My prediction is that the Israeli’s will finish their railroad to siphon off business from the Suez, and then align themselves with the South Sudanese tired of Muslims to the north persecuting them.
A few dams later, and Egypt will effectively be put in a basket, with the next war being an Egyptian-N. Sudan alliance against a South Sudan that will have its own allies guarding those dams and the U.N. not able to do a single thing but join in in defending them. Good luck wahhabi salafis, you’re going to need it.