Love of the Land: Forcing Israel to make peace the Chicago Way

Forcing Israel to make peace the Chicago Way

Meryl Yourish
Yourish.com
11 April '10

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s op-ed in Sunday’s Washington Post sounds like he’s picked up on the Obama Administration School of Foreign Affairs. The plan he offers is long on showmanship and pretty speeches, but short on realism (and by “realism,” I do not mean the Walt & Mearsheimer definition of “realism,” but the word that means acceding to the demands of the real world).

Here’s what Brzezinski thinks will cause both sides to agree to the plan:

Similarly, President Obama should travel to the Knesset in Jerusalem and the Palestinian Legislative Council in Ramallah to call upon both sides to negotiate a final status agreement based on a specific framework for peace. He should do so in the company of Arab leaders and members of the Quartet, the diplomatic grouping of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations that is involved in the peace process. A subsequent speech by Obama in Jerusalem’s Old City, addressed to all the people in the region and evocative of his Cairo speech to the Muslim world in June 2009, could be the culminating event in this journey for peace.

Such an effort would play to Obama’s strengths: He personalizes politics and seeks to exploit rhetoric and dramatic settings to shatter impasses, project a compelling vision of the future and infuse confidence in his audience.

Obama does, indeed, personalize politics, but not in a good way. Friends are treated like enemies; enemies are given the benefit of the doubt, and the result is nearly complete failure in foreign policy. So sure, let’s make it even better by trying to ram an agreement down Israel’s throat. I suppose the best news in this fantasy is that there’s no way Arab leaders would agree to go on Obama’s barnstorming tour. The Saudis won’t even let one of their clerics go to Jerusalem to “prove” Muslim claims to the city. There is about zero chance that Arab leaders will accompany Obama without an agreement already delivered.

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Love of the Land: Forcing Israel to make peace the Chicago Way