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May 25, 2006
JINSA Report #574
Palestine is Passé
President Bush called Prime Minister Olmert's unilateral West Bank
disengagement plan "bold." But if Mr. Olmert was bold in discussing the
security implications of realignment (which he said Israel could manage,
and perhaps it can), neither he nor the President was quite bold enough
to address the political reality of 2006. "Palestine" as a defined
geographic entity is rapidly becoming passé.
Mr. Olmert explained that absent a "partner for peace," unilateral
Israeli action to secure the country and its citizens is the only
option. The President didn't disagree, but still expressed his
preference for a negotiated "two-state solution" under the
never-implemented Road Map and the failed, corrupt,
repudiated-at-the-polls Abu Mazen. Both men hoped a "partner" might yet
emerge to recognize Israel's "right to exist," but both acknowledged
that Israel might end up defining the borders of Palestine without
Palestinian input.
President Bush and PM Olmert treated Hamas as if it is a nationalist
Palestinian leadership for which "statehood" is important - as if the
violent Islamic movement we fight in places as disparate as Indonesia
and Iraq had not landed among the Palestinians. As if Israel's war in
its own space is different from the Western civilizational war.
Both made the mistake the Palestinian leadership has made since 1948:
missing the moment. Time only moves forward and yesterday's political
options are gone. The Palestinians, claiming the so-called "right of
return" (ascribed to equally by Fatah and Hamas), insist the creation of
Israel was a "mistake" and demand that it be uncreated. Too late. And
too late for thinking of Palestine as a state-in-waiting whose birth and
life will solve a problem. Notional Palestine, not physical Palestine,
is part of Islamist thinking.
Hamas is an international Islamist movement, and a Palestinian "state"
of any dimension is only a step toward the larger goal - Islamist
governments in Jordan, Egypt, and the Gulf and the overthrow of Saudi
Arabia. It threatens American interests now and the threat will only get
worse as Hamas digs into the Palestinian state infrastructure in Gaza
and makes its moves on the West Bank.
With Israeli plans to realign backward, the Islamists will advance under
the banner of Hamas "steadfastness" and jihad. Islamists have their
Brezhnev Doctrine, and their firm belief that any place they control is
theirs forever has to be the basis of any future American thinking about
"Palestine" within any (temporary) borders. Even nationalist Palestinian
leaders couldn't come to grips with the legitimacy of Israeli
sovereignty, and most Arab states don't either. Thinking the Islamist
ones will begs incredulity.
With no desire to contradict Mr. Olmert on his maiden voyage or to
undermine a democratic leader with whose country we have much in common,
Mr. Bush wasn't about to dump on the idea of a future Israeli
realignment and neither are we. But U.S. support for any Israeli policy
has to be grounded in American security requirements and an
understanding of the stakes for all of us.
To view this JINSA Report online click on the link below.
http://www.jinsa.org/JINSAReports/3414
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