Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s Ambassador to the US (1993 to 96), discusses What will happen after Bush? In the article he reviews the “letter of eight” recently published and what its recommendations were for the peace process. Most siognatores were members of the Council of Foreign Relations.
Now Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations in Conflict is not ripe for resolution yet, argues otherwise.
So what, then, should be done?
• First, keep expectations modest. Calls for an agreement on the most controversial elements of a final peace settlement are unrealistic. Simply agreeing to an agenda for follow-up meetings would be an accomplishment.
• Second, this meeting must be the start of a serious process, not a one-time event. Rigid timetables should be eschewed, but no one should doubt the determination of the Quartet members to see this process succeed as quickly as possible.
• Third, Palestinians must come to associate diplomacy with improvement in their living conditions. This requires improved security and inflows of aid and investment.
• Fourth, provide a path for those who do not attend this meeting to join the process at a later date. The most critical barrier for Hamas and others should be a clear commitment to forgo armed violence in the pursuit of political ends.
• Fifth, the Palestinian leadership cannot be expected to take risks for peace without political protection. Arab governments — led by Egypt and Jordan, but including Saudi Arabia and other members of the Arab League — must publicly declare their willingness to support a peace that is based on coexistence with Israel.
For some, this approach will seem overly modest. But this is not yet the time for great ambition.
And if 4 and 5 will never happen, then what?
And what will happen if Israel won’t divide Jerusalem?
As I think about people like Haass, Indyk, Ross, etc., I realize that the Arab/Israeli conflict is a bit like the crisis in the National Healthcare system in the UK. Riddled with fraud, incompetence, malpractice, embezzlement, and life-threatening operating conditions, it has become a fatted calf for politicians, advisors, consultants, authors, documentary filmakers, newspapers, blogs, academics, researchers, thinktanks, NGOs, charities, and welfare agencies. In short, the Middle East conflict is a cottage industry generating billions of Dollars/Euros/Pounds/ in revenue annually for thousands of people around the world.
With so much money up for grabs and so many irons in the fire, is it any wonder that those who should know better, i.e., Haass, continue to perpetuate the fiction that the conflict is politically resolvable if only we pursue a more “well-crafted” approach — undoubtedly one that Richard or Martin or Dennis will navigate us through.
I love revisionist history and especially from the head the infamous CFR,, If I could imagine who might fit the antisemitic epitaph Dirty Jew Hass would be at the top of my list. How dare he manipulate History is such a crude manner. Barak led a minority Government that threatened to oust him with each leak of the concessions he was offering. Even if he had concluded an agreement it would never have been ratified either by the Knesset or the Israeli people. Thats why even though he won a big landslide victory over BB the more he offered Syria and Arafat the less support he had and the People said enough and through him out for a long time. Even today with his so called comeback as DM which should have given him a big Boost in POPULARITY from a high point he is slipping back towards single digits.
Olmert while he has single digit popularity has a strong coalition numerically, this too might vanish in the wind once the trading or better yet Auction begins in earnest.
He disregards the kleptomaniacs, of PA. He makes no mention the billions of donor funds stolen by a few Big time thieves which never reached their intended use. Or maybe it was after all.
Hamas rode Haas’s policies to power and he keeps suggesting his own failed policies all over again! These guys must be not only delusional but stupid as well at least even Donkeys get the message eventually!
He is correct that the chances for breakthrough permanent settlement do not look bright but If I read the correctly they don’t want such a condition in any event. They want to weaken and shrink Israel so that at some point it can be swapped for big favors from their real friends the Saudis. This is the big problem we Israelis have with most of the neo cons especially the Jewish ones, most are in bed and naked with the Saudis.
How many times must the US supply weapons and train cadres, to supply some fiction called security. Why has no one asked what happened to all the weapons and trained personnel trained by the US and others since 1994? One could say:been there done that!
I don’t want peace with the Arabs! I just want them out of here. With our neighbors I would offer peace for peace war for war and war for terror! If the world and especially our indigenous , left do not like it I offer the first the finger and the second the door and a ticket to LA.When we had 3.5 million Jews we were stronger than we are today and I don’t mean economically of course but in every other way.It might not be a terrible trade off.
The Muslim world wants “peace” on their own terms with “the right to annihilate Israel” as part of any agreement and a “hand over your land and forget about security” clause firmly entrenched in any agreement.
To anyone with a brain, that is clearly a declaration of war against Israel. To Europe, Russia and the Muslim world, that is sound logic and a good starting point. Seems that sound logic = anti-Semitism and the next Holocaust in all but a few countries of the world.