It's Foreign Policy Day At Cab Drollery
So, while President Bush is in Russia, and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill is on his way to Singapore for talks with North Korea, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has just returned from the Middle East where she attempted to kick start (again) the peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians.
The White House blast faxes have already started preparing us for the fact that Russia simply is not going to sign off on the missile defense system. Chris Hill, a respected career diplomat who came very close to closing the deal early in the Bush administration before North Korea got tagged as part of the "Axis of Evil" and before the administration undercut his efforts, has a long slog ahead of him. And Sec. Rice's efforts? Well, her failure at those talks are a combination of the current administration's ineptitude and, quite frankly, the cowardice of all the administrations in the past thirty years or so.
That she failed to move things along is not in doubt, according to this op-ed piece in the April 3, 2008 Daily Star (Lebanon).
It is hard to tell if US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is being deliberately innocent and juvenile, or, as the highest American foreign policy official, she is genetically incapable of being honest when it comes to Palestinian-Israeli issues. There is now only one real test of progress, or criterion of political seriousness, in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the short term: Can the United States make Israel stop expanding its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories? If not, talk of peace is a cruel hoax that will only raise and then dash expectations, leading to unknown consequences when the backlash occurs.
Continued Israeli settlement in occupied Palestinian land is the single most destructive and dangerous reflection of the long-running Palestinian-Israeli conflict. ...
The Palestinian-Israeli "peace process" in its current form has lost all seriousness due to the severe imbalance in power between the two sides. Into this difficult situation steps the American government, vowing admirably, as it did at Annapolis four months ago, to exert vigorous efforts to achieve peace by the end of this year. Two things have been consistent since then, however: senior American officials travel to Israel regularly to push the peace process forward, and with every such visit the Israeli government announces new settlement expansion plans. [Emphasis added.]
Rami G. Khouri, the author of this piece, is absolutely correct, but this has been going on for years, and not just with respect to the expansion of settlements. Almost since the birth of modern Israel in 1948 the United States has had a special relationship with that nation and has protected its security at great cost. In the abstract, that is not a bad thing. The tiny nation, filled with a people who had been vilified and rejected by the rest of the world, culminating in the obscenity of the "Final Solution," deserved support and protection from a nation which had also begun under a similar cloud.
Certain elements in Israel, however, picked up on the US soft spot and have exploited if almost since 1948 to the extent that when it comes to foreign policy, Israel is the "third rail" that social security is when it comes to domestic policy. Every presidential candidate and many congressional candidates make the mandatory trip to Tel Aviv to make their bones. AIPAC keeps track, and their money and influence flows accordingly. As a result, American policy in the Middle East is hamstrung. The tragedy (past, present, and future) is that without a viable agreement between Israel and Palestine there can be no stability in the Middle East.
It's too late for the Bush administration (although there probably was no point at which the neocons would have dreamed of forcing Israel to conform to the standards required of a modern nation), but it's not too late for the next. All three presidential candidates have made their symbolic pilgrimages, but that shouldn't foreclose an honest reassessment of US policy and a shift to a more balanced policy.
It wouldn't take much. Hopefully at least two of the three candidates have Jimmy Carter's phone number on speed dial. He, or respected members of his Peace Center, might be just the answer towards moving Israel and Palestine into the new century.
The White House blast faxes have already started preparing us for the fact that Russia simply is not going to sign off on the missile defense system. Chris Hill, a respected career diplomat who came very close to closing the deal early in the Bush administration before North Korea got tagged as part of the "Axis of Evil" and before the administration undercut his efforts, has a long slog ahead of him. And Sec. Rice's efforts? Well, her failure at those talks are a combination of the current administration's ineptitude and, quite frankly, the cowardice of all the administrations in the past thirty years or so.
That she failed to move things along is not in doubt, according to this op-ed piece in the April 3, 2008 Daily Star (Lebanon).
It is hard to tell if US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is being deliberately innocent and juvenile, or, as the highest American foreign policy official, she is genetically incapable of being honest when it comes to Palestinian-Israeli issues. There is now only one real test of progress, or criterion of political seriousness, in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the short term: Can the United States make Israel stop expanding its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories? If not, talk of peace is a cruel hoax that will only raise and then dash expectations, leading to unknown consequences when the backlash occurs.
Continued Israeli settlement in occupied Palestinian land is the single most destructive and dangerous reflection of the long-running Palestinian-Israeli conflict. ...
The Palestinian-Israeli "peace process" in its current form has lost all seriousness due to the severe imbalance in power between the two sides. Into this difficult situation steps the American government, vowing admirably, as it did at Annapolis four months ago, to exert vigorous efforts to achieve peace by the end of this year. Two things have been consistent since then, however: senior American officials travel to Israel regularly to push the peace process forward, and with every such visit the Israeli government announces new settlement expansion plans. [Emphasis added.]
Rami G. Khouri, the author of this piece, is absolutely correct, but this has been going on for years, and not just with respect to the expansion of settlements. Almost since the birth of modern Israel in 1948 the United States has had a special relationship with that nation and has protected its security at great cost. In the abstract, that is not a bad thing. The tiny nation, filled with a people who had been vilified and rejected by the rest of the world, culminating in the obscenity of the "Final Solution," deserved support and protection from a nation which had also begun under a similar cloud.
Certain elements in Israel, however, picked up on the US soft spot and have exploited if almost since 1948 to the extent that when it comes to foreign policy, Israel is the "third rail" that social security is when it comes to domestic policy. Every presidential candidate and many congressional candidates make the mandatory trip to Tel Aviv to make their bones. AIPAC keeps track, and their money and influence flows accordingly. As a result, American policy in the Middle East is hamstrung. The tragedy (past, present, and future) is that without a viable agreement between Israel and Palestine there can be no stability in the Middle East.
It's too late for the Bush administration (although there probably was no point at which the neocons would have dreamed of forcing Israel to conform to the standards required of a modern nation), but it's not too late for the next. All three presidential candidates have made their symbolic pilgrimages, but that shouldn't foreclose an honest reassessment of US policy and a shift to a more balanced policy.
It wouldn't take much. Hopefully at least two of the three candidates have Jimmy Carter's phone number on speed dial. He, or respected members of his Peace Center, might be just the answer towards moving Israel and Palestine into the new century.
Labels: Foreign Policy, Israel
posted by Diane at 1:49 PM
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