Unoptimistic about Middle East

Condi Rice is doing her thing, supposedly bringing peace the Middle East, but I don't believe it. She's not a terrible Secretary of State, but she is not a good one either. She parades around and says the right things, but she doesn't back them up. She doesn't fight for anything. Christopher Hill got the North Korean nuclear agreement. She did support him, which is more than Colin Powell did on the issue. She was probably able to support him only because she got rid of John Bolton at State, and Don Rumsfeld and his allies were gone from Defense. Nick Burns negotiated the Indian nuclear deal, but that was much less successful than the North Korean one. The Indian deal is more likely to undermine US security than to improve it, because it undermines the whole nuclear non-proliferation regime by rewarding one of the holdouts of the regime.

While her subordinates have been out doing things, Condi has been giving interviews and making appearances around the world. But she is not going to make any tough decisions. Any progress in the Middle East will require getting Israel to make some sacrifices, and she won't do that because she and Bush won't, or don't want to, stand up to the Israel lobby, AIPAC and company. Thus, her initiative is doomed from the start.

The idea of shoring up Abbas and Fatah is unlikely to lead anywhere. Fatah meant something when Arafat headed it. The Israelis assassinated Arafat, and I think they will live to regret it. The Israelis may not have assassinated Arafat by actually killing him, although they may have. The reasons for his death given by the French hospital where he was treated were never very clear; he could have died from some virus or poison wafted into his ramshackle headquarters by Israel. Or he may have died simply because of the squalid conditions that Israel forced him to live in. In any case, he was a leader of the Palestinians who could actually follow through on promises he made. Abbas does not have they power. He is a puppet of Israel and the US and is perceived as such by the Palestinians and other Arab and Muslim states. The US money and weapons given to Fatah may help him stay in power, but it won't help him bring peace to the region. It would take a leader with more power than Abbas to do that.

Cowardice on Israel

Nicholas Kristof's column in yesterday's NYT was right. American politicians avoid criticism of Israel, no matter what Israel does. He correctly touts Jordanian King Abdullah's speech to the US Congress. And he correctly points out that there is much more criticism of Israeli policies in Israel than there is in the US. Kristof said:

One reason for the void is that American politicians have learned to muzzle themselves. In the run-up to the 2004 Democratic primaries, Howard Dean said he favored an “even-handed role” for the U.S. — and was blasted for being hostile to Israel. Likewise, Barack Obama has been scolded for daring to say: “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.” In contrast, Hillary Rodham Clinton has safely refused to show an inch of daylight between herself and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

A second reason may be that American politicians just don’t get it. King Abdullah of Jordan spoke to Congress this month and observed: “The wellspring of regional division, the source of resentment and frustration far beyond, is the denial of justice and peace in Palestine.” Though widely criticized, King Abdullah was exactly right: from Morocco to Yemen to Sudan, the Palestinian cause arouses ordinary people in coffee shops more than almost anything else.

He points out that last year while Palestinians killed 17 Israelis, of whom one was a child, the Israelis killed 660 Palestinians, of whom 141 were children.

It's ironic that Americans, especially American politicians who fear AIPAC, are so much more conservative in their support for oppresive Israeli policies than Israelis are themselves.

Thank You Jimmy Carter

It takes someone with courage to criticize Israel. You will be branded an anti-Semite and get full page attacks in the New York Times. The NY Times book review of Jimmy Carter's book on Israel and the Palestinians didn't get quite that personal, but it was certainly defensive about Israel. Many of the criticisms of Carter's book have been somewhat nit-picky, but touted as if they meant that the whole thrust of his book was wrong. The NYT review followed that tack.

American Jews should welcome Carter's book, as well as the critique of the Jewish lobby by the two professors, because Israel is in danger of going off the deep end. It has serious international, domestic, and religious problems. It is perceived by many, with justification, as an evil state. It doesn't have to be, but it needs to make changes, just as America has to make changes. I worry that America's decision to embrace torture in Iraq, Guantanamo, and other places is built on the Israeli model.

Israelis and American Jews should be thanking Carter, rather than criticizing him, because if they don't make changes now, they will pay for it later.