Yeah, I’m a sucker for a little optimism, and this guy Mark Perry* makes some sense. And like anybody awake, I appreciate his honest ‘one-party government’ take on U.S. foreign policy, in this case specifically Israel/Palestine policy. Anywho, he talks optimism after naming the politically near-identical ‘bipartisan foreign policy’ suspects guiding all three of the major candidates:
Clinton’s advisors include a large number of near-greats from her husband’s administration (Richard Holbrooke, Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger and Wes Clark), while Obama’s list is peppered with experienced officials (former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig, Africa expert Susan Rice and former NSC chiefs Zbigniew Brzezinski and Tony Lake) and some surprises (former Clinton envoy Dennis Ross and Reagan Defense Department stalwart Noel Koch). John McCain’s administration-in-waiting, however, is by far the most interesting – and imposing: Richard Armitage, Brent Scowcroft, Colin Powell and Lawrence Eagleburger.
None of the candidates has said a word about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that would ruffle any feathers (“we’re not even going to talk about the issue during the campaign,” a senior campaign official told me) and all have expressed their uncompromising support for Israel, their unyielding condemnation of terror and their disdain for the irrational shortsightedness of Israel’s enemies. . . . Which is not to say that a few headliners have not caused concern either in Israel or among its most adamant American friends. For example: Clinton advisor Wes Clark has been widely derided for calling Israel’s war against Hizballah a “serious mistake” (no, really, it was a great idea), [Obama advisor] Zbigniew Brzezinski has been called “an Israel hater” (his friendship with Menachem Begin must have been a charade), while John McCain has been taken to task for once suggesting that peace between Israel and the Palestinians would require “concessions and sacrifices by both sides” (now there’s an idiotic concept). [Yippee, one ‘off-the-reservation’ remark by each team!]
These breathless rantings aside, it is clear that Clinton, Obama and McCain will break with the policies of George Bush. The reason has nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but with America’s disaster in Iraq. Bush’s claim that the road to Jerusalem leads through Baghdad is so thoroughly discredited that it has now been turned on its head: peace between Israelis and Palestinians is now quietly accepted by each of the candidates as a prerequisite for regional stability-and not the other way around.
There is, then, this emerging consensus: that while America will guard its friendship with Israel (which reached its apogee under George Bush), it will not do so by sacrificing its larger interests in the region. The commodity at stake here is not oil, but blood-and after Iraq we have none to spare. Such a consensus does not mean a reshaping of the American-Israeli strategic alliance (the removal of even a large number of settlers-who hate us anyway-would never put that in jeopardy), but rather a focused, serious, detailed, day-and-night effort by a senior mediator (with a presidential mandate) to resolve the conflict in as short a period of time as possible.
Of course, it might well be that President Clinton, President Obama or President McCain will decide that the search for peace is far too painful and the chance for failure too politically fatal to make the effort. But I wouldn’t count on it. . . . an increasing number of influential policymakers of both parties are convinced that an almost unbelievably miniscule portion of the world’s population (there are only 10 million Palestinians) can not only not be bought off by airy promises of a “contiguous, economically viable state” – but cannot be defeated. And that, even worse, . . . they have effectively paralyzed America’s Middle East policy for 50 years.
*Mark Perry is a military, intelligence and foreign affairs analyst and the co-director of Conflicts Forum, a private group that calls for increased dialogue between Western countries and Islamic movements and political parties. A former adviser to Yassir Arafat, Perry has worked for long periods over two decades in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. He is the author of seven books, including A Fire In Zion (the recipient of the 1995 Jewish-American Community Book Award). . . .
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