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When the Gaza Dust Settles

[Washington Institute for Near East Policy] Robert Satloff - Once the immediate crisis comes to an end, the Obama-Clinton team will face a choice in how to fulfill the new president's commitment to invest heavily and early in the Arab-Israeli peace process. On the Israeli-Palestinian track, there are two principal schools of thought, reflected in two sets of studies produced by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a joint effort by the Council on Foreign Relations/Brookings Institution. The Washington Institute studies call for a combined top-down/bottom-up approach toward strengthening the Palestinian Authority and enhancing prospects for Israeli-PA negotiations; the relevant chapter in the CFR/Brookings study calls for findings ways the U.S. can engage Hamas. It is important to recognize that these are "either/or" options. It is not possible to engage Hamas and build up the PA at the same time. Engaging Hamas would undermine whatever popular support remains for the Mahmoud Abbas-Salam Fayad government, bring an abrupt end to the Dayton (U.S. security coordinator, Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton) effort to "train and equip" PA security forces, compel Egypt and Jordan to change course in terms of their own approach toward the PA, and buoy radical actors from Gaza to Beirut to Tehran. Given both personnel choices and strategic imperatives, it is unlikely that the Obama-Clinton team will choose to engage Hamas. The writer is executive director of The Washington Institute.
2009-01-14 06:00:00
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