Brom's position is like a breath of fresh air. It's a realistic first step in breaking the impasse. First, by talking with Israel, either directly or indirectly, there is an implied recognition by Hamas of Israel. This very act starts to break down the psychological chasm between the two parties. Isolating Hamas will only make them stronger in the eyes of Palestinians. Second, it should be recognized that the popular result of the election between the PLO and Hamas was actually quite close, but fragmentation of the PLO vote amoung too many candidates tilted the final result. The Palestinian people are NOT the full throated terror mongers that the West and Israel would have us believe is the implication of the Hamas victory. Brom is rightfully cautious that talk does not mean Israeli capitulation but neither does it mean Palestinian capitulation.

When all is said and done - ONLY talking and negotiation will end this war. Olmert's unilateral border scheme will in no way shape or form cause peace.

Will you shut up with your idiotic phaseout of Zionism nonsense? Tell you what: Israel will agree to phase out Zionism if the US will agree to phase out the undemocratic system of electing 2 senators per state, regardless of the size of the state. Until that happens, the US is not really a democracy, and there is no reason why Israel should pay any attention to what the government of a nondemocratic state has to say. So get that little constitutional change on the table in the US, and then we'll see about the phaseout of Zionism thing.

This is obviously a facetious proposal. It's just meant to illustrate how totally implausible your ridiculous idea is. Stop posting about it. It's nonsense. Hey, here's a better analogy: Israel will renounce the Jewish character of the Israeli if Hamas will renounce the Islamic character of the Palestinian state. See how far you get with either of those ideas.

The amusing thing about Evans' plan is that it doesn't seem to have any constituency at all, except for him.

Thank you.  Trying to argue with someone like Arnold Evans is like trying to argue with a religious fundamentalist.  You can run circles around them logically, but they just still stick to the same script and ignore your arguments no matter what. They bob and weave, they obfuscate, they start arguing over trivia - anything to avoid confronting the essential vacuousness of what they're saying.

Well Brad, you and I at least agree on the unlikelihood of a negotiated settlement, although we probably have very different ideas about why such a settlement is unlikely.

And we certainly have different views on the path to a resolution.  See my comment in response to this Steve Clemons post.

In my view it is time for the international community, lead by its most powerful states, to draw itself up to its full potential height, assert its latent power and dictate terms to these two miserable little troublemakers.  We are all facing entirely too much blowback from the Israeli-Palestinian conflct, and too many of our individual and collective interests are compromised by it.  Enough is enough.  Each entity depends very heavily on outside financial support to stay afloat.  Both are exceedingly tiny.  And although Israel has much more power than the Palestinians, neither has a great deal of power in the international scheme of things - especially if they are cut off from their networks of outside support.

I sypathize with your impression that most proposals for dealing with the conflict are based on an implementing a ludicrously improbable series of steps.  But it is hard to avoid advocating the improbable when the only alternative appears to be weary acceptance of the awful truth.  I think improbability attaches to your own recommendation as well.  I don't see Israel ever offering citizenship to those on the inside of their yet-to-be-clarified Eastern border.  The Israelis want too much, and there are too many Palestinians inside the territories the Israelis are still determined to keep for them to offer citizenship without running afoul of the "demographic problem".  A more likely outcome, without the modification of existing trends, is that Israel will simply keep the pressure on for many years, endure occasional casualties, gradually expand the territory it controls, and finally succeed in accomplishing a sort of gradual self-transfer of the Palestinians by outlasting the will of the latter to fight.

I also worry that my own hope for averting this outcome, based as it is on a rather momentous shift in US policy, is beyond the range of probability.  Certainly the political elite of neither party shows any sign of terminating their debased and comical groveling before AIPAC.  Yet outside that political elite, and the not-inconsiderable, yet ultimately rather small cadres of Christian Zionists, I sense that much of America is growing tired of our Israeli problem child and is open to a new approach and a harder line.  What it will take is an emerging class of new political leaders who do not cower in fear of the Israel lobby.

We'll just have to see. 

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that your intentions are honorable and you're not just a pure Israel-hater like Arnold Evans.  Nevertheless, what you state here amounts to sort of liberal orthodoxy in its analysis of the conflict.  As such, it fundamentally misunderstands the history and the nature of the two parties involved.

Myth #1 is that both sides are equally at fault in the perpetuation of the conflict.  As I have argued many times, no one who looks at the conflict in a fair minded way could possibly conclude that.  Yes, Israel has done things that make the conflict harder to solve. Yes, it is true the Palestinians have legitimate grievances.  But from the start of the conflict more than 60 years ago, one side has always been amenable to a final settlement and one side has not.  You just can't get around that fact.

Myth #2 is that with enough international pressure, Israel would acquiesce to a settlement that would go beyond what its own people would want.  This fundamentally misunderstands Israelis  and their mentality.  Israel has ALWAYS been willing to sacrifice anything and everything if they felt their security was at risk.  It would NEVER give in to international pressure for a deal it didn't like.

Myth #3 is that the US has lots of leverage over Israel because it is a large aid recipient and if the US withdrew that aid, Israel would fold like a house of cards.  Totally untrue.  Israel is an economic powerhouse with a GDP per capita on a par with Western Europe and an economy more than that of all its Arab neighbors combined.  Furthermore, in the 1990s, there was serious talk about phasing out the American aid.  That was shelved after the beginning of the violence in 2000, but the fact that it was on the table shows that the aid question is less significant than you think.

Myth #4 is that AIPAC is the only reason the US isn't tougher on Israel.  Without them, the US could see its interests more clearly.  Not true.  The influence of AIPAC, while considerable, is a small part of the overall picture of why US-Israeli ties are strong.  Start with the simple fact that Israel is a secular democracy in a region where very few countries can be relied on.  Given trade, security, military and cultural ties, the relationship is way way stronger than just what can be engineered by AIPAC.

As I said, I'll assume your views are the result of naivete and not hatred.  But regardless, you need to take a second look and examine your assumptions.  Many of them are the same, discredited notions that have been peddled by the left for 30 years.  It seems that no amount of empirical evidence will convince some people about their wrongness.  I hope you are not one of them. 

Purple State

What you say is not entirely without merit.  Sure, Israel wants a settlement on its terms.  What party in a negotiation would want anything else?  But the point is that the Palestinians don't want a settlement.  They want Israel gone.  At best they want a single binational state that they would dominate.  At worst, they want to kick the Jews out of their land and/or kill them.  They have never seen the two-state solution as anything more than a stepping stone to the elimination of Israel.  They've said this over and over again. 

I would also simply reply that 2000 Israel put on the table a proposal that did include re-dividing Jerusalem, did involve dismantling most of the settlements and did involve handing back all of the land save a few minor pieces, which would be compensated by land from Israel's own territory.  Now the standard anti-Israel line about this is that this is inadequate and an insult and should not have been considered serious etc.  That's crap.  It was a serious offer.  The Palestinians didn't just reject it.  They refused to say what more they wanted.  They refused to put their own plan on the table.  In fact, they have never put a plan on the table.  They have never tried to woo the Israeli public and give them assurances that they want to end the conflict, the way Anwar Sadat did.  There has never EVER been a Palestinian leader that has said "give us this and we will renounce all further claims on Israel."

One of the problems with writing about this conflict is that people tend to take either an absurdly one-sided view - i.e. it's all the fault of one or the other - or an absurdly even-handed view.  That is, they're both equally at fault.  In fact, neither of these views is accurate.  Both sides have done things to make the conflict worse.  Both sides have committed crimes.  Both sides have extremists and rejectionists that want to scuttle any compromise.  It's just that in Israel, these things are a small part of the total picture while with the Palestinians, they are most of the picture.  So maybe the apportionment of blame for the conflict should not be 100% on one side or 50% on both sides.  Call it 75% Palestinian and 25% Israeli.

As for Myth #1, Brad, I simply disagree with you.  For one thing, the fact that you see the conflict as having begun only 60 years ago suggests that we have very different views about what the nature of the conflict is.  But we have argued about this history before, and I doubt that I could persuade you or you could persuade me.  So on to more productive matters:

I disagree with you about Myth #2 and Myth #3 as well, but think the disagreement is in this case worth an argument.  I do think Israel is amenable to international pressure, particularly as exerted by the United States. As I see it, the Israel polity consists of about 1/4 to 1/3 confirmed peaceniks.  Another third are committed to expansion out of a dogmatic commitment to religious or nationalist Zionism.  The rest, I believe, are ambivalent.  (Not moderate, just ambivalent.) While not exactly backers or pushers of the settlement movement, they sympathize with the settlers and feel the state should defend Jews wherever they happen to be already, and they also lack the political will to oppose the settlers.  Some may be passive or closet supporters of expansion.  Some may rationalize the taking of land as part of a long-term, and increasingly improbable "land-for-peace" plan.  Whatever the reason, they are easily herded along by the pro-active expansionism of the settlers movement.

These are the people I think can be reached.  Israel's security depends in part of on its economic health, and its support from the outside world, particularly the US.  If the US were to adopt a clear stance in favor of Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, and back up that stance with a credible threat of withdrawn support and trrade sanctions, it would have its effect.  The Israeli middle who are committed as you say above all to Israel's security, but have no deep emotional commitment to the settlements, would be forced to weigh the options, and decide which course would do more harm to their security.  Israel is, as you say, an economically strong country, with a GDP around the same as Venezuela and Singapore - but it depends a great deal on exports, and also maintains large current account deficits, financed from abroad.  It is susceptible to coordinated economic pressure.

I agree that AIPAC is not at all the only reason that the US is not tougher on Israel.  There are a variety of cultural ties and affinities that play a role, as well as strategic calculations.   AIPAC is just the policeman that keeps potentially wavering politicians in line.  But I also think that many of the strategic underpinnings of US support for Israel have shifted, and were never as strong as advertised to begin with.  First it was the notion that Israel was a Cold War bulwark against Communist expansion.  Then there was the idea that it was a stop against the hideous tide of "Islamofascism" or whatever.  Some Americans may support Israel for ideological reasons.  But I think Americans are by and large a practical people.  As they get the message that our close identification with Israel, which many in the world view as a rogue state, incurs more costs than it yields benefits, the political calculus will begin to shift.

As far as emotions like hatred go, that's hard to say.  There is a powerful and aggressive Israeli state lined up against a struggling, but intransigent and not terribly likeable Palestinian entity.  I tend to feel more for underdogs than overdogs.  But in this case, on my worst days, I hate them both.  On most days I am just weary of them both.  I am weary of their conflict, and I resent the blowback that our entanglement with the conflict has brought to the US.  That's because, while there are several individual Israelis and Palestinians I admire, I don't know many personally, and all the people I really care about live here in the US.

I have heard Bill Clinton talk abouit Camp David.  Also, thanks to you I found online Benny Morris' review, or a part of it, of Dennis Ross' book.  Two things clear.  Bill Clinton thinks Yasser Arafat was the biggest liar he ever dealt with.  Also these participants just don't agree with your characterization.  It was in the end Clinton who put forward a settlement plan.  According to Ross, Barak with each day ceded more and more to Arafat. 

However the bottom line is rather simple.  Hilter was working on creating a museum of an extinct race in which he was going to display various things related to Jews.  It was his plan to exterminate all Jews.  With the help or indifference of most of the world he succeeded in murdering 6 million Jews.  So if Israel bothers the  American Left because it won't put the lives of Israelis at risk to stop the Palestinians from whining who the hell cares.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

If you hate them both equally or are weary of them equally, why is your prescribed course of action so one-sided?  Why is your focus exclusively on the pressure that the US can place on Israel and not at all on the question of what international pressure should be brought to bear on the Palestinians?  It seems you just can't escape this idea that Israel has the power to settle the conflict on its own if it just gives back more land. 

The fact is that if there were to be peace, it would require both sides to give up their goals and renounce further claims on the other.  In order for that to happen, the Palestinian Authority needs to be able to control its population.  Right now, it can't.  That's why I say that Israel could acquiesce to everything the Palestinians want and STILL there wouldn't be peace because (a) the rejectionist factions are not under control of the state and (b) all evidence shows that concessions merely encourage the terrorists into thinking that it was the terror that got them what they want and so it should continue.

Where's the "peace" in this land-for-peace formula?  Best I can tell, Israel gives up land, and AT BEST gets a chaotic, terror-supporting, unstable, Iran-loving, corrupt mess on its eastern border, a mere nine miles from the sea.  Why would any Israeli go for this?

You're right that the Israeli population is about a quarter peacenik, and a quarter rightist.  But it's wrong to say that the rest are ambivalent.  What they are is persuadable.  Not the same thing.  In the mid-90's these were the people that made up the majority supporting the Oslo peace process.  It's why Benjamin Netanyahu, an opponent of Oslo, could not jettison it completely.  But the experience of the last five years has shown that the peaceniks are completely out of their mind, while the rightist "Greater Israel" types were always out of their mind.  That's how the Sharon/Olmert notion of unilateralism came into being.  Forget the negotiated settlement.  It won't happen.  Forget yanking 400,000 Israelis out of their homes.  That won't happen either.  Draw the border, put up a wall and let the Palestinians stew in their own dysfunction.  Palestine will be like Lebanon: an irritant, but not really a major threat.  But the fewer interactions between Israelis and Palestinians, the better for everyone.

Daniel,

It is the problem that Hilter and Stalin also both killed Jews.

Not quite.  While Hitler was arguably an idealogue, Stalin was nothing more than a thug (for example, can you really picture Stalin staying up late reading Marx?).

What I will submit is that conflating anti-Zionism entirely with the left is comparable to what libertarians do when they conflate conservationists with fascism.  It is misinformation designed to advance a broader agenda.

Brad the Dad,

But the locus of anti-Israel bias has always been more on the left than the right. 

I appreciate your point, and I am not saying it isn't there.  But rather than cave in to the shameless political opportunism of Kristol, Podhoretz, Pipes, Horowitz et al, there are avenues available for self-policing from the liberal side of the spectrum, such as Engage, the World Union of Jewish Students, and the National Jewish Democratic Council; and plenty of examples among Western liberal political leadership and intelligensia to promote and emulate, such as Pierre-Andre Taguieff, Pilar Rahola, Joschka Fischer, and Ilka Schroeder.

It is one of great irony on matters of the Middle East Buchanan and Novak and Dan K, Evans and Hack are all on the same side.

Which side is that?  I suppose I can't blame you for feeling that from where you sit we all look the same.  Yet from my own perspective, it seems like I disagree with each of the people you mentioned at least as much as I disagree with you and Brad.

Locking most of these Palestinians behind a wall on a tiny piece of land is not a just solution and is unlikely to be peacefully accepted by the Palestinians. Negotiating something more fair, while difficult, actually seems more promising to me.

First, all the of the West Bank on the east side of the proposed barrier is not exactly a cattle pen (even if you exclude the Jordan Valley which could be transferred to a stable, peaceful Palestinian state should one ever exist).     

Second, right now, there is no indication that the Palestinians are willing to accept any solution that does not involve flooding Israel with the decendants of Palestinian refugees.  Furthermore, there is no Palestinian to the right of Sari Nusseibah who even is willing to cede the Palestinian "right of return."  You might as well suggest that the Palestinians negotiate with the Israei far-right which still rejects the concept of the Palestinians as a nation. 

We should be clear.  Israeli unilateral drawing of borders will not bring about peace.  However,  by disentangling the populations, it will facilitate peace.  The Palestinians need to get the Hamas experiment out of their sytem before their ready to seriously negotiate.  Sympathetic observers should be focusing on keeping Palestinian democracy alive so that Hamas can actually be held accountable for its actions by the Palestinian electorate.

Can anyone here deny that there are but two realistic scenarios for Israel/Palestine:

1)Wall off all of Israel and Palestine both in Gaza and the West Bank.

2)An armistice for one generation (20-30 years) in which the current generation allows their heirs to decide whether to fight or pursue peace.

When both sides are willing to fight to the death over the same piece of land, chances are no diplomacy will work.

Please point to an example of you running circles around me logically.