Calling a Spade a Spade

Israeli wariness about the prospect of living alongside a genuinely sovereign Palestinian state is entirely reasonable and perfectly justified.

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Given the vast quantities of blood, both Israeli and Palestinian, spilled over the past 60 or more years and given the current realities of Palestinian politics—weak moderates vying for power against radicals more prone to violence than to compromise—it requires a remarkable leap of faith to believe that the so-called “two-state solution” will deliver anything remotely approximating a meaningful peace. Throw in the long baleful tale of Jewish history over the past couple of thousand years, and a Robert Frost strategy—good fences make good neighbors—makes all the sense in the world.

Were I an Israeli Jew, that would certainly be my view. The status quo in the Holy Land might fall considerably short of perfection. Yet from an Israeli perspective, it certainly qualifies as satisfactory.

Why should sins committed generations ago at the time of Israel’s founding or back in 1967 still require expiation? Other nations engage in self-forgiveness—the United States offering a prominent example. Will Americans return Massachusetts to the Indians? Will they “give back” California to Mexico? Not likely. Why should Israel be held to a different standard?

By what logic should Israelis put at risk all that they have accomplished since achieving independence? And should Palestinians decide that sovereignty over just part of Palestine is not enough, why expect the world to come to Israel’s rescue?

Yet the insistence of growing numbers of Americans that the creation of a genuinely sovereign Palestinian state qualifies as an urgent U.S. strategic imperative likewise qualifies as reasonable.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this week, General David Petraeus became the only latest notable to express this view.

Here is what Petraeus had to say:

The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the [U.S. Central Command area of responsibility or AOR]. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas.

Viewed from an American perspective, Petraeus states simple, unambiguous, and undeniable truths. The language is measured, but the message is unmistakable: When it comes to deciding the fate of the West Bank and Gaza, U.S. interests and Israeli interests have sharply diverged.

By extension, any actions by the Israeli government that make a resolution of the Palestinian problem more unlikely—as settlement expansion in the West Bank or in East Jerusalem surely does—is profoundly antagonistic to vital U.S. security interests.

We remain friends, but we find ourselves at cross purposes. Furthermore, the “peace process”—moribund, if not simply fraudulent—can no longer serve to camouflage this divergence of interests. To pretend otherwise serves no purpose. It’s time to call a spade a spade.

“Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood.” So wrote T. S. Eliot in his 1930 poem “Ash Wednesday.” Neither Americans nor Israelis can afford any longer to indulge the falsehoods that have insinuated themselves into the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

Candor can’t guarantee a solution to the issues that divide us. But surely to deny reality will only cause those differences to fester and increase the likelihood of greater misunderstanding or of an outright rupture in relations that will serve no one’s purposes.