A recent Huffington Post article by James Zogby makes note that Arabs are a pretty jaded bunch. They are used to the fact that American politicians promise much and deliver little, and are therefore relatively pessimistic about any American-led progress on the Arab-Israeli peace front. Particularly where Israel is concerned, Arabs have little reason to believe that America will change direction any time soon.
When President Obama promised to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, however, Arabs took him seriously. More than one year later, however, they are still waiting. And their jaded attitude has returned. As Zogby comments, "credit must still be given to the President's good intentions, but it is now clear that it will take more than a year to undo the damage of the last eight."
Closing GITMO may indeed be complicated by issues of jeopardizing classified information or risking the release of dangerous individuals whose conviction cannot be secured on the basis of evidence obtained though torture. However, even if we put aside issues of justice, we would do good to think of an important question: for every individual NOT released from GITMO, how many actual NEW dangerous individuals do we create and encourage to join or assist dangerous organizations? Although this question is ultimately unanswerable, the thought exercise may help us to determine a major cost of violating the principles upon which our country was founded. Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Thisphoto, taken outside Jerusalem, is emblematic of the growing gap between Israeli settlers and indigenous Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The straight, paved, wide road can only be used by Israeli settlers (often called a "bypass" road) while the narrow, winding road is used by Palestinians.
It is easy to see why commerce and transportation are made much harder by this sort of separation. This is the sort of regime that emerged during the "salad years" of the Oslo Accords. Supposedly, the interim treaty was supposed to make life better for both Israelis and Palestinians, but instead, Palestinians found that their land was still confiscated for settlements and bypass roads, their agricultural and industrial goods still barred from export, and the economy still stagnating. In fact, Israel's settler population grew by 40% and housing units in the West Bank increased by 52%between 1993 and 2000. Not surprisingly, Israelis found that their security did not improve.
Today, success in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terrorism depends on good relations with Middle Eastern countries, who desperately want and need progress on Arab - Israeli peace. But how can we press for peace when the future Palestinian state is slowly eroding in the face of determined settlement activity? Both Israeli and American interests in the region rest on the answer to this question.
Here's a wonderful example of my ADD tendencies. As I was getting started on today's post (still unfinished) I noticed an interesting article about Jerusalem. Of course, it is summarizing and commenting on an article in this month's Foreign Affairs, which has been sitting in the front seat of my car for a week now, unread. So today's post will wait for tomorrow, and I'll comment on the newspaper, rather than the journal article.
Two thoughtful academics (don't you love them!) have proposed an innovative idea to solve the seemingly intractable problem of Jerusalem. Since the idea of dividing Jerusalem has fouled up many a deal in the past, why not create a "special regime" for the city?
The idea involves joint administration by both Palestinians and Israelis, an "internationally staffed police force"- but the plan would not constitute the "internationalization" of Jerusalem, a big fat RED LINE for the Israelis.
How this would work remains to be seen. I hate to make analogies to personal life, but sometimes it is so appropriate! If two people can't get along well enough to be married, what makes anyone believe (especially judges in divorce cases) that they can cooperate after their divorce to raise their kids? So, is there any way to expect that warring factions could closely cooperate in such a fashion?
Well, in fact, on some issues like security, I expect that it could work. And by eliminating the geographic importance of demography, many of the issues that are sensitive today would no longer be so. However, on issues where power and identity remain intertwined with politics, I fully expect the system to have all sorts of problems, including the one of expecting cooperation where there is none.
But first, not mentioned in the article, is the likelihood of even adopting such a scheme in the first place. The scholars tout the virtues of their idea, but that doesn't mean that people mired in the day to day, mundane details of power politics on the ground would think it's a great idea. So what if Jerusalem "is too small, too densely populated, too architecturally linked, and the Israelis and the Palestinians are too riven by systemic distrust for them to govern the Old City on their own"? That's very abstract for people living in Jerusalem, whose IDs get taken away if they leave Jerusalem (Arabs, that is), whose houses get demolished (Arabs, once again), who almost never get building permits (Arabs, again).
Let me just say that it's an interesting idea, and I hope it gets a lot of looks by pundits and policymakers. As an academic, I like neat little ideas, but if they don't take off on the ground and in policy circles, they will go nowhere.
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