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Will Obama Impose Terms on Israel?

(Weekly Standard) Elliott Abrams - According to David Ignatius' column in the Washington Post, President Obama and his team are frustrated by their inability to get Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate a deal, and have therefore decided we'll just impose one. The inability of Israelis and Palestinians to get to the negotiating table is an iatrogenic disease: Our diplomatic doctors have caused it by making Israeli construction plans a major world crisis, thereby forcing Palestinian leaders to back away from engagement with the Israelis. Ignatius' sources, "two top administration officials," tell him, "everyone knows the basic outlines of a peace deal." This is false and dangerous. First, if indeed everyone has known the terms yet agreement has never been reached, is it not obvious that neither Israelis nor Palestinians are willing and able to accept those terms? Does their embrace by an American president make them any more palatable to the people who will have to live with them? Second, the conclusion that all the terms are known is quite wrong. Is the fate of Jerusalem's Old City agreed? Do Palestinians accept that Israel will keep every major settlement bloc? Do Israelis and Palestinians agree on the terms needed to guarantee Israel's security once the IDF leaves the West Bank? All this will make Israeli-Palestinian negotiations even harder than they are today, for Palestinians will conclude that they have no reason to negotiate seriously, or to make concessions, when Obama may deliver what they want on a nice platter. The writer is a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
2010-04-08 08:15:42
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