McCain Advisers: No Active Role in Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process
Two advisers to Senator John McCain said, during a retreat hosted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy at the Lansdowne Resort in Virginia, that the Republican nominee for president would discourage Israel from holding direct talks with Syria, JTA reported earlier Tuesday. Additionally, they said, McCain would not play an active role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relation said that McCain would be a “leader who will press for more liberal democratic change ” and “is realistic about the prospects of diplomacy and just as importantly its limits.”
As such, he would not put pressure on Israel to work towards lasting peace with the Palestinians, Boot was reported as saying.
Although some may criticize McCain for taking this stance, if this is indeed his view, I think he’s correct. The United States has tried to convince both sides to accept some kind of arrangement for years, decades even. Never has it worked. Sometimes they signed some kind of treaty, only to acknowledge months or years later that the treaty was of no use (Oslo anyone?).
In the end, the conditions for peace are an issue between the Palestinians and Israelis. The U.S. can try to put pressure on Israel in order to convince the Jewish nation-state that it should accept the terms demanded by the Palestinians, but Israel is - rightfully - not willing to accept a deal that would give the Palestinian leaders what they want. After all, Palestinians want to see Israel destroyed, severely weakened at best.
The Palestinian side, meanwhile, has shown no sign whatsoever of being willing to compromise. They seem to believe that diplomacy means talking to one’s enemy until the enemy finally gives one exactly what one wants. That is, of course, not exactly the idea of diplomacy and negotiations - both have to be willing to give in to some degree - but it is the Palestinian view of both words nonetheless.
The U.S. has tried for years; let them deal with it themselves. Perhaps, even, the Palestinians will prove more willing to compromise at the moment the U.S. clearly shows it has no intention to intervene and to tell the Israelis to give in to the Palestinians’ demands.
Having said that, Syria is different. If one believes that this peace process should be left up to the involved parties themselves to decide - the U.S. should stand ready to protect Israel of course, let that be clear - one should not try to convince Israel of talking to Syria either. Doing so would be hypocritical.
Luckily - I included the if purposefully above - Max Boot himself argues that the JTA misinformed the public about what he said:
I definitely was not suggesting that the U.S. would nix a possible peace deal between Israel and Syria. In fact, I expressed no opinion at all on the advisability of Israel pursuing talks with Syria; that’s an issue for the Israeli government to decide. All I was saying was that President McCain would not pursue an American deal with Syria if the price were the betrayal of Lebanese democrats. That’s considerably different from what Klein et al. claim, but I don’t suppose they will let the facts stand in the way of their predictably intemperate attacks.
