Publications

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I was struck by your recent observation about the Israel-Hamas conflict: “The world is watching tragic moment after tragic moment unfold and wondering when both sides are going to come to their senses.”

I can only imagine your dismay, in light of the hopes that President Obama and you had placed in Israeli-Palestinian peace, and all of your jet-setting, tongue-flapping and arm-twisting to make it happen. To encourage both sides to come to their “senses,” however, I suggest that not only do they have important roles to play. So, too, do you.

As the parents of three Israeli teens live their worst nightmare, their sons the latest victims of terror, the drama can now follow a well-worn path of Palestinian triumphalism, Israeli revenge and global moral blindness. It is but another teaching moment - lest anyone still needs one - about why Israeli-Palestinian peace will not come soon and why the basic assumptions behind the "peace process" are so off-base.

The poll numbers are undeniable. Disillusioned by Afghanistan and Iraq, focused on domestic concerns, Americans increasingly want their nation to reduce its global footprint and stop trying to solve the problems of others. A cautious, poll-driven President Obama responds predictably, defining America’s global interests more narrowly and eschewing calls to address humanitarian horror, protect human rights and advance freedom far from home.

The new Palestinian unity government of Fatah and Hamas puts the lie to fundamental assumptions on which the U.S. approach to Israeli-Palestinian peace have long rested, most prominently within the Obama administration.

The future path of U.S.-led nuclear negotiations with Iran, which have now reached a crucial stage, may be foreshadowed in the U.S. agreement with Syria to dismantle its chemical weapons program. Any U.S.-Iranian deal-making that follows the Syrian model, however, would prove nothing more than a pyrrhic victory, leaving the Middle East more dangerous and, ultimately, the United States less secure.