Washington Times, April 19, 2010.
Evidence is mounting that President Obama will unveil a new Middle East peace
plan in the coming months. While a desire for peace is indeed admirable, such a
move should be welcomed only by the enemies of America.
Not only would such an attempt inevitably fail, but it would directly harm
U.S. security by shifting our national focus away from very real - and far more
dangerous - threats in the region.
Nearly two weeks ago, the New York Times and The Washington Post reported
on the same day about a high-level meeting two weeks beforehand in which
National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones had lobbied Mr. Obama to craft
an American peace plan. Last Monday, J-Street, a left-wing Jewish group with
close ties to the White House, ran a full-page ad in the New York Times urging
Mr. Obama to impose "concrete plans for a two-state solution."
Mr. Obama himself further signaled something was in the works by stating at
the close of a news conference last Tuesday that resolving the Middle East
conflict was "a vital national security interest of the United States." Likely at
the prodding of White House officials, the New York Times ran a front-page
story two days later suggesting that an Obama peace plan could be drafted
over the next few months and introduced this fall.
But the strongest indicator of an upcoming peace initiative is Mr. Obama's own
track record to date. Health care became the defining issue for Mr. Obama's
domestic policy, and the Middle East is the logical global corollary. Far from
being content to fiddle around the edges, Mr. Obama has an appetite for broad,
sweeping change. And the Middle East is quite a tableau. When he encounters
resistance, Mr. Obama redoubles his efforts. Witness his resolve after Scott
Brown's stunning Senate victory in Massachusetts.
In other words, if Mr. Obama already has set his mind to achieving
transformational change in the Middle East, the odds that he will be dissuaded
are quite low. Should Mr. Obama embark on the quixotic quest of Middle East
"peace," there will be no oxygen left in the national discussion to focus on
threats far more insidious to U.S. national security, such as the resurgent
Taliban in Afghanistan, teetering democracy in Iraq, an ascendant al Qaeda in
Yemen and, most significant, the Iranian mullahs' nuclear ambitions.
The argument in favor of putting all hands on deck for striking an
Israeli-Palestinian deal is that it would be the first domino that would rally the
Arab states to prevent Iran from obtaining nukes and somehow pacify our
enemies elsewhere by persuading them that they misjudged America.
This is absurd. Arab dictators already want to stop Iran, as they fear the
political dominance the mullahs would achieve across the region should they
acquire nukes. As for Islamic extremists battling our soldiers, it's patently naive
to think a peace deal would persuade them to lay down their arms. U.S.
support for Israel is mere pretext for calculated flare-ups of violence in the
battlefield or on the Arab street, but the underlying reasons for hatred of
America have little, if anything, to do with the Jewish state.
Mr. Obama's Middle East domino theory is also flawed because peace is not
possible in the short term. As close as experts now say a deal was during the
Clinton administration, the only end result from those negotiations was
Palestinian terrorism. Israel gave ground repeatedly over the course of various
negotiations in the Clinton era.
Palestinians achieved most of their realistic goals - all of Gaza, 95 percent of
the West Bank and half of Jerusalem - yet Yasser Arafat walked away at Camp
David in 2000. Months later, he launched an unprecedented terror campaign he
called the "second intifada."
In the intervening decade, matters have become worse. A "two-state" solution
seems impossible, simply because it would have to be three states to account
for Hamas' control over Gaza. Some recent media accounts have reported that
Hamas would accept Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
negotiating on its behalf.
Perhaps, but a four-day blood-soaked coup in Gaza three years ago
suggests otherwise.
Hamas is far from the only stumbling block, however. Palestinian society has
become increasingly radicalized, not just by Hamas propaganda, but also
because of the handiwork of Mr. Abbas' supposedly moderate Fatah. Mr.
Obama would be well-advised to comb through the Web site of the invaluable
Palestinian Media Watch, which has documented hundreds of examples of
violent Islamic indoctrination from both Hamas and Fatah.
Simply put, ordinary Palestinians are not ready to accept peaceful coexistence
with a Jewish state of Israel. Various polls over the years have shown clear
majority support for rocket attacks and suicide bombings, and those who
disagree publicly do so on strategic - not moral - grounds.
Is a society where no one speaks out against the depravity of
brainwashing its children to become mass murderers ready to embrace peace?
