Under Pressure
American foreign policy in the Middle East now seems dedicated to putting more pressure on Israel. This should play well in Europe (and with many of the President's old friends) where they've always been willing to sacrifice as many Israelis as necessary to deal with the situation.
The idea is for Israel to commit to a two-state solution. Maybe they should, but they've done it in the past and it was a disaster. Perhaps that's because the Palestinians are the ones who don't support a two-state solution. Seems to me there would be a good place to apply pressure.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:12 AM
4 Comments:
One side wants peace. The other side wants to destroy the first side. Yeah, let's put pressure on the side that wants peace.
Lets bang our head against a wall v. lets lean on those we have the ability to influence.
The first option results in more righteous rhetoric and better poll numbers no doubt.
"What are you looking for?"
"My contact lens."
"Where'd you lose it?"
"Down the street."
"So why are you looking here."
"The light's better."
As long as the problem is one side has an open wish to commit genocide, and nothing the other side does can placate them, then any policy that tries to influence the latter side (a side that already receives all the pressure the world can force upon it) to change its ways can't work, but may make things worse. It does no good to say we can at least have some influence on one side if what that side does won't deal with the problem.
Problem one is that there is no "other side." The myth that there is a unified Palestinian will died with Arafat.
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