The Road Map from Iraq, Part II
The liberation of Iraq proves that the UN, France, Germany and Russia can all be wrong at the same time and the U.S. plus a “coalition of the willing” can be right. Having spent political capital and national treasure (the lives of coalition soldiers) on that point, the U.S. should demonstrate no less confidence about the parameters of Arab-Israeli peace.
The liberation of Iraq proves that the UN, France, Germany and Russia can all be wrong at the same time and the U.S. plus a “coalition of the willing” can be right. Having spent political capital and national treasure (the lives of coalition soldiers) on that point, the U.S. should demonstrate no less confidence about the parameters of Arab-Israeli peace.
The President’s marker on Israel and the Arab world was contained in his speech of 24 June 2002. At its heart and at the heart of a moral American policy in the Middle East is the understanding that transnational Arab acceptance of Israel’s legitimacy as a sovereign country is the issue. Not Oslo or Gaza-Jericho, not Interim Accords or Hebron Protocols, not Wye or Sharm el-Sheikh, not Mitchell. Not, in fact, Palestinians. Israel.
The great Arab success – with the connivance of much of Europe – was to transform the war against the existence of Israel into a crusade for “Palestinian rights” that could only be obtained at Israel’s expense. In the 24 June speech, the President righted the formula. “The Israeli occupation that began in 1967 will be ended through a settlement negotiated between the parties, based on UN Resolutions 242 and 338, with Israeli withdrawal to secure and recognized borders.”
“The occupation” began in 1967.* Israeli statehood began in 1948, so there will be no “undoing” of pre-67 Israel; no Palestinian “right of return.” The 1949 armistice lines will be negotiated into “secure and recognized borders.” There will be transnational Arab acceptance of Israel, because it was the Arab states, not the Palestinians, referred to in UN Resolution 242’s call for “Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”
We haven’t seen the terms of the “Road Map” and maybe Arab responsibility for recognizing Israel is in there. But to the extent that the Road Map is focused on Palestinian-Israeli rather than Arab-Israeli machinations, it is already compromised.
Yes, the President spent a lot of time on 24 June calling for the Palestinians to reform their political and economic institutions and create new ones to serve the people. He called on them “to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty.”
And yes, they would get a payoff. “And when the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the (U.S.) will support the creation of a Palestinian state whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East.”
If that is the end of the Map, so be it. But the Road had better travel through 22 Arab capitals first.
*We’re not happy with the thought either, but we’re working with what the President gave us.