"There’s no doubt that both the Arab world and Hamas will accept Israel’s right to exist in peace within 1967 borders," - Former U.S. President, Jimmy Carter.
”In a hopelessly divided and largely dysfunctional Arab world, no single issue still resonates everywhere more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
-Aaron Miller, former senior State Department negotiator.
Maybe There Is A Way Out
Most of the books about The Middle East – those published in America at least, are brimful of hackneyed phrases and irrelevant detail about all the mistakes that have been made in the past They tell about how the Palestinians are always "missing opportunities" and praise the "painful concessions" Israel has offered.
Few if any – other than those by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter – offer a realistic picture of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Carter has been labelled an anti-Semite for his efforts. In fact that label is applied to most people who criticise Israeli policy or question how that country behaves.
James Baker III, George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of State is disliked by many pro-Israel North Americans, because of his hard-nosed approach to negotiations in the past. Baker developed a reputation for not caving in to the usual American sentimentality around issues concerning Israel. Like Carter, Baker was always a realist.
The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace
Now, an American expert on the subject has come along, who happens to be Jewish and who has picked up that ball of realism. He takes a tougher and more rational stance than any American politician – other than Carter and Baker – ever has. But if the pro-Israeli lobby dislikes his work enough he will also be labeled – but not as anti-Semitic, since, after all, he is Jewish; Jews who are out of favour with the pro-Israel lobby are sometimes called "Self-Haters"…a category the famed American linguist Noam Chomsky finds himself in.
The name of this new realist is Aaron Miller – an American with impeccable credentials and close Republican ties. He is someone who knows and understands the background of Mideast politics better than most. Mr. Miller has been a senior advisor to 6 U.S.
Secretaries of State, including both Republicans and Democrats. He was president of "Seeds for Peace", a non-profit organization dedicated to finding solutions to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He’s highly respected in the highest circles.
So Mr. Miller’s book is a refreshing change of approach. He tosses out many of the myths American politicians have about Israel. He argues that George W. Bush will be no more successful at bringing peace, than were previous U.S. Presidents. The problem, Miller points out, is they have mostly approached the problem in the same way, have offered nothing new and invariably portray Israel as "the good guy". He says, for example, that "the United States has given Israel too much leeway and failed to push it to live up to commitments and make painful choices".
This is, of course, the central problem with the vast majority of North American writing about Palestinians and Israelis. Americans and Canadians have a great deal more sympathy for Israel because our populations in both countries are almost always pro-Israel; they are also well-informed and keen participants in our democratic institutions; their electoral support is important to any political candidate’s chances of success. That means accepting just about everything that Israeli authorities say and do, even if it’s patently wrong.
Mr. Miller says that what Israel needs is a strong dose of "tough love" and American officials must resist American partisan pressure to give in always to Israeli demands.
Here is his advice for the next American president contemplating Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy: “If you’re not prepared to reassure the locals (ordinary Israelis and Palestinians), while cracking heads as needed (and both will be needed), don’t bother.”
You can order The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace
