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M.J. Rosenberg is Director of Policy Analysis for , a long time Capitol Hill staffer and former editor of AIPAC's Near East Report.
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By M.J. Rosenberg
October 3, 2004
No one expected President Bush or Senator Kerry to announce any new proposals to end the Arab-Israeli conflict in their debate and they didn't.
After all, Presidential debates are about scoring points with voters. And both candidates have been told that people who care about Israel are not interested in hearing new ideas about achieving peace.
Of course, that sort of conventional wisdom is wrong because it assumes that the pro-Israel community is of one mind about the current situation -- i.e. that pro-Israel voters are satisfied with the status quo and want to preserve it. There is little evidence to back up that assumption.
On the contrary, American Jews have been most enthusiastic about Israel, and about US policy towards Israel, when the United States was actively engaged in helping Israel achieve peace. That is why both the original Camp David agreement (which produced Israeli-Egyptian peace) and the Oslo Accord (which produced mutual recognition between Israelis and Palestinians) were almost universally welcomed in the pro-Israel community.
This is not to say that American Jews do not support Israel ? or welcome US backing for Israel ? during times when the peace process is dormant. Of course they do. But it is during those times -- times like the present -- when Israeli policy is less a consensus issue among Jews than the source of contention and when Jews would prefer US leadership to be more active.
That is because the status quo is so miserable. In the last days, dozens of Israelis and Palestinians were killed in continuing violence in and near Gaza.
By the time you read this, the numbers will have changed. And, obviously, they will have only gotten worse. But the key numbers to remember are these. In the four years since Oslo collapsed following the second Camp David summit (September 2000-September 2004), 1008 Israelis have been killed in acts of terror. That is in contrast to the four previous Oslo years, (September 1996-September 2000), when 25 were killed (all but one in 1997 and not one in 1998, 1999 or through November 2000). The number of Palestinian dead in the past four years is 3222.
That is a status quo no one should endorse, certainly not friends of Israel. But, as is usually the case in politics, the voices that carry the most weight on the Middle East are not those of the majority but those who falsely claim to speak for that majority. And these are the people telling candidates that the pro-Israel community prefers the certain dangers of the status quo to the possible risks of diplomacy.
It's hard to understand. Negotiations, even with those who are less than ideal negotiating partners, are only discussions. Discussing the West Bank or Jerusalem does not mean giving them away.
At the 2000 Camp David talks, Prime Minister Barak offered to share Jerusalem with the Palestinians. But the negotiations collapsed and Jerusalem remains in Israel's hands as if Barak never put Jerusalem on the table.
Negotiations, in and of themselves, do not change anything on the ground. Only successful negotiations -- with final terms acceptable to both sides -- can do that. What is there to be afraid of?
But the fear is there and politicians certainly cater to it. And that is no favor to Israelis, Palestinians or to the United States. After all, we are deeply engaged in conflicts with the Muslim world -- from the Mideast to the Far East -- that are fueled, in part, by the Arab-Israeli conflict. As the President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharaf, told the United Nations General Assembly last week, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is "is an open wound inflicted on the psyche of every Muslim. It generates anger and resentment across the Islamic world." He also said that ending the conflict by implementing the two-state solution could well be a deathblow to Al Qaeda.
None of this is new. No other issue so unites Muslims against American interests as the Palestinian issue. This may not be fair but it is a fact. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the terrorist threat are closely linked.
In a recent column, former Congressman (and White House chief-of-staff) Leon Panetta faulted the Presidential candidates for not acknowledging the connection. "Terror," Panetta writes, "is not a cause, it is a tool of war on behalf of a cause. To say that we can win the war on terrorism is to say that we can resolve every religious, cultural, racial, economic and social conflict in the world. Not likely.
"What we can do is to confront the underlying causes and frustrations that breed terrorists. What we can do is to focus our efforts against the worst terrorists that threaten our security -- Osama bin Laden and his followers. What we can do is to again assert a strong and balanced diplomatic effort to find peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Those are winnable wars against terrorism."
But we won't win them until we acknowledge who and what the enemy is. It is terrorism, no doubt about that. But is also the deadly status quo in the Middle East. Changing it can change everything.
That may go against the conventional wisdom which insists that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war against terror are not linked. But they are and inextricably. Without progress toward an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians -- one that achieves security, peace and recognition for Israel and a viable state for the Palestinians -- the war on terror will fail.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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