Foreign Policy web article by Stephen M. Walt notes JINSA in discussion of U.S.-Israel “crisis,” 3/16/10
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Foreign Policy.com
Who are Israel’s true friends? (Hint: it’s not AIPAC)
Posted By Stephen M. Walt
I’ve been fighting the temptation to weigh in on the current “crisis” between the United States and Israel — Lord knows I’ve already said a lot on this issue over the past few years — but a few comments are in order.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Foreign Policy.com
Who are Israel’s true friends? (Hint: it’s not AIPAC)
Posted By Stephen M. Walt
I’ve been fighting the temptation to weigh in on the current “crisis” between the United States and Israel — Lord knows I’ve already said a lot on this issue over the past few years — but a few comments are in order.
As one would expect, hard-line groups in the Israel lobby like AIPAC, the Conference of Presidents, JINSA and WINEP are now trying to pin the blame for the rift on the Obama administration. They want to portray Obama as insufficiently supportive of the Jewish state, in order to force him to back off the same way he did during last summer’s confrontation with Netanyahu over a settlement freeze.
This view has it exactly backwards. Whatever you might think of its strategy or its tactics, the Obama administration has been genuinely committed to achieving a two-state solution before it is too late. This polichy is not an act of hostility toward Israel; on the contrary, it is an act of extraordinary friendship for Obama to keep this difficult item on an already overcrowded agenda. As former prime minister Ehud Olmert and current defense minister Ehud Barak have warned: If the two-state solution fails, the Palestinians will be occupied forever and Israel will become an apartheid state. Instead of helping Israel drive itself off a cliff — as George W. Bush did — the Obama administration is trying to prevent that disastrous outcome. And because Obama’s team understands that the relentless expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements is making a two-state solution increasingly difficult to realize, they believe that a halt to settlement building is a key part of a successful peace process. That includes East Jerusalem, by the way, whose annexation by Israel in 1967 is regarded as illegal by the rest of the world, including the United States.