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What Will Happen after Bush?

[Ha'aretz] Itamar Rabinovich - A letter signed by eight famous individuals including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Lee Hamilton, Brent Scowcroft, and Thomas Pickering holds that the Annapolis conference must deal with "the substance of a permanent peace" and that it should adopt the outlines of a permanent status agreement. If Israelis and Palestinians do not manage to reach such an agreement, the Middle East Quartet will have to propose a formulation of its own for an agreement based on the partition into two states on the basis of the June 4, 1967 lines. The importance of this letter must be sought in the effort to shape the American agenda on "the day after" the presidential elections. The day after the elections will see an increase in the efforts to convince the new president that there is no better way to shake off Bush's legacy than by bringing about a far-reaching change in U.S. Middle East policy. Another context is the continuing erosion of Israel's standing in the U.S. This does not manifest itself in public opinion polls and in votes in Congress, but rather in the loss of the "moral horizon," the change that has occurred in the standing of Israel, which used to be regarded as an attractive and just state. A clear expression of this is the recent reception of Jimmy Carter's book and of the book written by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt about the Israeli lobby. These books are making waves and their authors are appearing throughout the U.S. The "letter of the eight" is another link in this chain. The author is a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. (1993-96).
2007-10-29 01:00:00
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