Experts Dampen Expectations of Israeli-Palestinian Peace Deal
President Barack Obama met Wednesday with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and his special envoy for the Middle East, George Mitchell, who has just returned from his first official visit to the region, to discuss ways to bring stability to the Mideast.
But several prominent experts caution that the prospects are slim for a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians any time soon, despite high expectations for the Obama administration to revive the stalled talks.
New presidents typically receive a great deal of advice on what they should do, especially on the long-standing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Several leading Arab-Israeli experts gathered at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington this week to give President Obama advice on what not to do in the region, based on the inability of past U.S. presidents to broker a lasting peace.
Robert Satloff, the Executive Director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, delivered a set of “10 commandments” on what the Obama administration should not do.
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“Don’t pursue the peace process for the wrong reasons. Don’t pursue the peace process for illusionary, romantic reasons. The peace process is not a solution to the problem of global terrorism. The peace process will not dry up recruits to al-Qaida in Pakistan or Yemen or Somalia,”
Satloff said the Obama administration should also learn from the mistakes of past U.S. administrations and not try to look for a “perfect” Palestinian leader.
“Don’t play the Palestinian leadership game,” he said. “Don’t try to identify, pick, and put on a pedestal our chosen Palestinian leader. We have tried this. This is always a losing effort.”
The United States supports Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his power struggle with the Iranian-backed militant Islamic group Hamas.
Robert Malley is with the International Crisis Group in Washington. He has been deeply involved in the peace process, helping to organize the 2000 Camp David summit as a special assistant to former President Bill Clinton.
Malley summed up the bleak view of peace prospects held by all three panelists at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
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“The basic agreement, I think, is that none of us is going to recommend, and, in fact, all us will recommend against, rushing towards a grand, comprehensive, end-of-conflict deal between Israelis and Palestinians,” he said. “I think you will hear that we don’t think that the time is ripe at this point for an end-of-conflict, comprehensive agreement between the Israeli people and the Palestinian people.”
Malley said that all of the parameters that guided the Clinton administration’s peace efforts in the 1990s have shifted. He said there are no longer two coherent entities that could sign a peace treaty, if one were forged. He noted Israel’s election next Tuesday, with polls showing hardliner and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the frontrunner. But Malley also cited the fact that there is no longer a national Palestinian movement with which to negotiate.
He said that during the past eight years, U.S. credibility in the region has declined.
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“We no longer have the ability to be taken seriously. Now that could very quickly shift as well, and President Obama has the capacity to do so. But we can’t, we can’t imagine today, that simply just because the U.S. puts its imprimatur on a deal that it would be accepted.”
Malley proposed that the best way to begin restoring U.S. credibility in the region would be through a massive humanitarian effort to help people living in the Gaza Strip.
Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center who has served as an adviser to six secretaries of state, said the Middle East peace process has been stalled for nearly two decades, and advised the Obama administration not to pursue what he called “big, transformative diplomacy”.
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“This region, as best I can understand it, hates big ideas. Particularly those big ideas imposed, crafted or orchestrated from outside. And frankly, transformative diplomacy was the essence of the previous administration’s approach to this region. Regime change, democratization, grand bargains, grand rhetoric, one-size-fits-all,”
Instead, Miller called for “transactional diplomacy” based on small, pragmatic steps like getting Israel to open up Gaza for reconstruction efforts. Miller said President Obama should save his “big ideas” for dealing with the economic crisis in the United States, and take small, incremental steps in the Middle Ea
Bad.
Good.
Listen folks! As if anyone cares what I have to say.
As an outsider, an American a distance from Israel who by the way is in my heart and prayers.
First of all the U.S. should not get involved in any way shape or form suggest to the Israelis about a peace plan.
What the U.S. should do is provide unconditional support to Israel and leave it to them to decide for themselves. They don’t need help . The support I am talking about military assistance etc.
We have to recognize that as much as anyone wants to believe there can not be a peace settlement with the Palestinians while they occupy any part of Israel. I mentioned several times on Caroline Glick’s website the Palestinians and Jews mix like oil and water. It’s not space science, it wont happen and don’t try to force it.
I mentioned in my recent comment under Frank Gaffney’s article, in essence, all of Israel belongs to the Jewish Nation. Why is it so important for the Palestinians to create a statehood in Israel? There is no good answer.
Now think, I hate to repeat myself (I am a repeater, Caroline will attest to that). My oldest son tells me “if you hate to repeat it , don’t”.
I tell everyone go to Google World map. Scan the entire Middle East and check out the vast land occupied by the Arab world. Don’t move fast, you just might pass over it. There is a little sliver of a county named Israel. You compare this to the Arab world and you wonder “how the hell does this little Jewish Nation survive the hits they take from the various Arab terrorist group. Answer, God is on their side.
Next, with this a picture, this vast Arab world, you begin to wonder why the hell the Palestinians need to occupy any part of Israel?
Well, maybe since they are unable to defeat the Jews on the battlefield, why not dilute the landscape and work themselves into control of the government.
I suggest that since Egypt is a partner in the tunneling between Egypt and Gaza, they should close the tunnels, build a One-Way Express Highway leading the Palestinians out of Israel and they could provide the Welcome Wagon and I am sure they could find a nice cozy place for them to reside. By the way take Hamas the Boy Scout Troup, or better know as the Political Organization Jimmy Carter refers to.
THERE IS A ONE STATE SOLUTION
ONE ISRAELI STATE
ONE JEWISH STATE
ALL ONE IN THE SAME
Ron, every country in the world except the US and perhaps Micronesia or Palau, hates, and consistently votes against (or at best, abstains) Israel in the UN; 80% of Europeans also believe that Israel is the greatest threat to world peace (I kid you not — These are poll results). The exercise you suggest, of looking at a map or satellite picture of the Middle East, only points out the fact that nearly everyone in the world is so debased in their thinking capacity that they don’t know how to read a map (or even a picture).
Hatred of Israel (and of Jews — the two are essentially the same) is completely blind, and not based on any sense of logic or reality. Once the Jews figure that one out, REALLY figure it out, they can act in a reasonable fashion. As it stands, the greatest Jew-haters in the world are, as they have always been, secular and ultra-religious Jews; and the greatest obstacle to Jewish unity is, as it has always been, the most observant and religious among them.
True, Jews and Arabs are like oil and water; but Jews and Jews are like nitric acid and glycerine. THERE IS NO SOLUTION to the problem, short of a miracle — and that miracle has to happen somewhere within Jewish skulls. The best hope you have, of bringing Jews to their senses, is insisting that they behave like fools: they will (momentarily) become reasonable, just to spite you.
Outside of what you suggest they behave like fools, I would prefer a miracle.
I am clueless, trust me. I can’t imagine what the Jews ever did to deserve the label of being the greatest threat to world peace.
I can understand why the Arabs feel the way they do. They are jealouse of their success and they use this hatred to draw attention away from their own failures. Just look how they treat their women and citizens. Like crap. With regards to their human rights, on a range of 1 to 10 they score a -30.
Forget the UN. What a worthless body. I have always suggested they move the headquarters out of NY and to some remote place in the world. See how many would show up to work. NY is just a fun place for them.