I claim no special expertise in matters Middle Eastern/Near Eastern. Yet, applying a more general knowledge of diplomacy and a bit of common sense, I find a lot of what's being said currently about the Israel, Palestine, and peace in the region - and the U.S. role - rather curious.
Writing Thursday in The New York Times (ever a staunch supporter of Israel), Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers offered this assessment:
"The extraordinary tableau Wednesday at the United Nations underscored a stark new reality: the United States is facing the prospect of having to share, or even cede, its decades-long role as the architect of Middle East peacemaking."
It seems to me there's a lot wrong with that fairly simple sentence. For one, it's unusual for the Times to provide underpinning for the jingoistic idea that we must be in the lead on everything.
Beyond that, however, the concept that the U.S. has a leading role seems pitifully lacking. If we have indeed been the "architects," what has been built over those decades? Not even a Kansas sodbuster's hole-in-the-ground. It may be time for a new architect to seize the project and run with it.
It's true, as this article asserts, that current conditions (in which a strong conservative Republican cohort encourages Israeli inflexibility) makes this a particularly difficult time politically for the U.S. to try to accomplish anything regarding Israel. But I would argue that things haven't changed all that much. The U. S. has historically been in thrall to its Israel lobby, and that in turn has prevented it from truly being seen as an honest broker. Our "leadership role" over "decades" is largely wishful thinking. No one else was doing it, and we kept trying, but that's the best that can be said.
It would be ironic if Obama's effort to break out of that mold (encouraging a Palestinian state a year ago) and the Israel lobby's efforts to reverse that (with seeming success, as his latest UN speech suggests) were the factors that might lead toward a workable solution, designed by a different architect, engineered by a new group of builders, and leaving us with little or no influence in the process. Ironic, but possibly beneficial to the cause of real peace in the eastern Mediterranean.
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