Mrs. Clinton Gets Wrong Questions on Israel

"Questions for Mrs. Clinton"
A25, Tuesday 1/13/09

From an array of issues facing the new Secretary of State, experts – including the president of Georgia, a Harvard professor and Fouad Ajami – are posing policy questions.

The two questions regarding Arab-Israeli peace show a lack of expertise.

Right out of the gate, we read a point that sounds like it should be a post on an anti-Israel blog. Policy failure with Israeli-Palestinian peace is due to “reluctance of any American president to act as an honest broker, rather than as a strong, unquestioning friend of Israel.”

As elaborated upon in the same day’s post on other supposedly expert advice for Clinton, this claim about honest broker and unquestioning or uncritical is as trite as it is unintelligent.

One should expect more from Colin Powell’s chief of staff.

The chances of peace between Israel and Gaza “more remote than ever”. “The two-state solution offers little hope” for Gazans, many of whom are “impoverished refugees.” The strip, readers are reminded, is overcrowded and has few resources.

Responsible governance and normalization with Israel would easily lift Gazans out of poverty. The strip’s population density is lower than Singapore, Macau, Monaco and Vatican City: nations with little trouble providing for its citizens. In addition, as part of a two-state peace deal, Israel has proposed enlarging Gaza by swapping an equal amount of Israeli territory adjacent to the strip, for West Bank territory it plans to annex.

As for having few resources, it’s unclear if Mead is referring to Israel’s economic blockade on Gaza – in response to Hamas – or to a dearth of natural resources. Either way, it’s a flat argument which actually implies that if a two-state solution is untenable for a place with contours like Gaza, then perhaps a one-state solution – a bi-national state – is the one which Mead seeks to advocate, and very slyly.

Most Gazans understand the economic benefit of peace – a two-state solution – with Israel, remembering the increased standard of living during Oslo and the subsequent lowered standard of living following the terror war in 2000, worsened by the Hamas takeover five years later. Therefore, the question Mead poses is irrelevant.

The relevant question is: What can the Secretary of State do to convince Gazans and all Palestinians of the need to abandon this rejection, which is what offers little hope?