Thursday, May 21, 2009
Will Palestinians ever get a state of their own?
Any rational Palestinian leader would have figured out by now what it takes to create a Palestinian state. Unfortunately the Palestinians simply can't get themselves to make the right choices and in the process they are moving the Israeli population further to the right. The absurdity of the Palestinian position is reflected nicely in Hussein Agha and Robert Malley's recent piece in the New York Review of Books where they argue that the concept of a two state solution is no longer viable because the creation of a Palestinian state has at the present time little to do with the substance of the proposed solutions to the conflict but “It has everything to do with who is promoting it, for what reason, in what way, and in what domestic and regional context. Palestinians do not judge the idea of a state on its merits. They judge it by the company it keeps.” WOW! How do we solve that one?
Monday, May 18, 2009
Stephen Walt's blogs
Stephen Walt currently has 126 blogs on his FP blog. They cover a wide range of issues in international relation and US foreign policy that are his area of expertise. Thirty-nine blogs, thirty percent, are on Israel, US foreign policy toward Israel and Israel’s influence on US foreign policy in the Middle East. The main motif in his writing on the topic is that Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians are the main obstacle to peace and that the US needs to put pressure on Israel to agree to a Palestinian state. Once such a state is created most of the problems in the regions would be solved.
Walt says that his preoccupation with Israel’s misconduct is not a reflection of some psychopathological obsession with the issue, but his concern with US interests in the area, interests that are undermined by Israel’s behavior. A foreign policy expert who is concerned with causes that can undermine US foreign policy in the Middle East would also have blogs on regime instability in the region, economic challenges in the area, oil, demographic trends, democratization, civil-military relations, leadership, WMD proliferation and terrorism, the inter-Arab conflicts as well as the Arab-Persian “Cold War.” One would be hard pressed to find any blogs on these issues that threaten US interests in the area.
Of course what is also missing are blogs that trace the causes for the absence of peace to Arab and/or Palestinian leaders. In The Iron Cage, Rashid Khalidi, who is also critical of Israeli policies, has the intellectual honesty to discuss the dysfunctional Palestinian leadership as one of the causes for the non-resolution of the conflict.
And, finally, Israeli leaders do not get credit for when they change their positions and take chances for peace. There are no blogs describing Begin's dream to retire in the Sinai and his decision to withdraw from there when he found a real partner for peace. Sharon used to say that the settlements in Gaza are no different than Tel-Aviv, yet he unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. This is described negatively as an attempt to hold on to the West Bank. And Barak doesn’t get credit for taking the courageous step to unilaterally withdraw from Lebanon because according to Walt’s reading of history Hezbollah chased the IDF out of Lebanon!
I am still reading his blog on the irrelevancy of academics to policy-makers, but reading his analysis I am relieved to know that this indeed is the case.
Walt says that his preoccupation with Israel’s misconduct is not a reflection of some psychopathological obsession with the issue, but his concern with US interests in the area, interests that are undermined by Israel’s behavior. A foreign policy expert who is concerned with causes that can undermine US foreign policy in the Middle East would also have blogs on regime instability in the region, economic challenges in the area, oil, demographic trends, democratization, civil-military relations, leadership, WMD proliferation and terrorism, the inter-Arab conflicts as well as the Arab-Persian “Cold War.” One would be hard pressed to find any blogs on these issues that threaten US interests in the area.
Of course what is also missing are blogs that trace the causes for the absence of peace to Arab and/or Palestinian leaders. In The Iron Cage, Rashid Khalidi, who is also critical of Israeli policies, has the intellectual honesty to discuss the dysfunctional Palestinian leadership as one of the causes for the non-resolution of the conflict.
And, finally, Israeli leaders do not get credit for when they change their positions and take chances for peace. There are no blogs describing Begin's dream to retire in the Sinai and his decision to withdraw from there when he found a real partner for peace. Sharon used to say that the settlements in Gaza are no different than Tel-Aviv, yet he unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. This is described negatively as an attempt to hold on to the West Bank. And Barak doesn’t get credit for taking the courageous step to unilaterally withdraw from Lebanon because according to Walt’s reading of history Hezbollah chased the IDF out of Lebanon!
I am still reading his blog on the irrelevancy of academics to policy-makers, but reading his analysis I am relieved to know that this indeed is the case.
Juan Cole and Statelessness
In his Monday, May 18, 2009 blog “Obama-Netanyahu must not be Kennedy-Khrushchev” Juan Cole argues that the main problem in the Middle East is Palestinian statelessness.
“Statelessness prevents economic security and progress. And people aren't just motivated by material things. Palestinians want a concrete manifestation of their national identity, just as everyone else does...Only a viable Palestinian state resolves this huge decades-long mess in the short to medium term. I think it may be too late but am willing to see what Obama has in mind.”
In Sowing Crisis, Rashid Khalidi argues that the colonial powers did not enable the creation of independent states in Palestine and Kurdistan. These were the people that were ignored by the great powers.
The question I have for professor Cole is, if statelessness is a major problem in the region, why is this true in the Palestinian case but not in the Kurdish case? Why is the fate of one nationality so dominant in our public discourse yet another, equally important, not appearing on our radar screens? And why aren’t Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey demonstrating the high moral ground (remember the double standard argument…) and correcting the injustices done by the colonial powers by enabling the creation of a Kurdish state?
“Statelessness prevents economic security and progress. And people aren't just motivated by material things. Palestinians want a concrete manifestation of their national identity, just as everyone else does...Only a viable Palestinian state resolves this huge decades-long mess in the short to medium term. I think it may be too late but am willing to see what Obama has in mind.”
In Sowing Crisis, Rashid Khalidi argues that the colonial powers did not enable the creation of independent states in Palestine and Kurdistan. These were the people that were ignored by the great powers.
The question I have for professor Cole is, if statelessness is a major problem in the region, why is this true in the Palestinian case but not in the Kurdish case? Why is the fate of one nationality so dominant in our public discourse yet another, equally important, not appearing on our radar screens? And why aren’t Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey demonstrating the high moral ground (remember the double standard argument…) and correcting the injustices done by the colonial powers by enabling the creation of a Kurdish state?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Is there an end to the story?
This is an example of the kind of issue Walt needs to address.
Dr. Azzam Tamimi, a Palestinian-British thinker and media mogul who was the author, most recently, of Hamas: A history from within argues in response to Helena Cobban's question that recognition of Israel is not in the cards. (http://justworldnews.org/archives/003559.html) For him, the question of recognizing Israel-- or rather, refusing to recognize Israel-- is key. Recognition to him means legitimizing what happened in 1948.
Dr. Azzam Tamimi, a Palestinian-British thinker and media mogul who was the author, most recently, of Hamas: A history from within argues in response to Helena Cobban's question that recognition of Israel is not in the cards. (http://justworldnews.org/archives/003559.html) For him, the question of recognizing Israel-- or rather, refusing to recognize Israel-- is key. Recognition to him means legitimizing what happened in 1948.
He continues,
- No, I don't like to speak about a two-state solution, because that implies it's the end of the story. I talk about a de-facto two-state situation, which might last 10 years, or 5 years, or 20 years. But it is still not the end of the story.
The problem with Walt's latest blog http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/ is one of simple logic. A drunk who is engaged in self destructive behavior can save himself by stopping to drink. A drunk who drinks because his significant other causes him to do so, can't just stop drinking. The behavior of the significant other has to change first. Israel's occupation is self destructive, but to bring about change, Palestinian, Arab and Iranian behavior has to change. Walt forgets it takes two to tango and that whenever the Arabs danced, Israel did withdraw. It would be nice to see Walt write a "nuts" and "bolts" piece spelling out what needs to be done by both sides to the conflict to achieve a peaceful resolution of the conflict, and a road map how we can get from point A to point B. Focusing only on Israel is too simplistic. It is rhetoric not grounded in history or political science analysis.
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