Playing the 'Nakba' Card

As Israelis watched fireworks, went to barbeques and celebrated Yom Ha'atzmaut, American media coverage of Israel's 60th anniversary was overwhelmingly canned and formulaic. For every veteran of the Haganah featured, there was an accompanying interview with a Palestinian who left his home in Israel in 1948. For every examination of the significance of six decades of Israel's independence, there was a reference to what Palestinians call the "nakba," or catastrophe.

This symmetry, evident in features, articles, op-eds and interviews that appeared over the weeks leading up to the start of the 60th celebrations, may have made self-satisfied editors believe they were demonstrating their impartiality.  In fact, they established a false moral equivalency between the founding of Israel and a Palestinian "catastrophe," feeding into a dangerous misperception of what happened 60 years ago and what must happen today.

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Why the US and moderate Arabs need each other

Relating American interests in the larger Middle East to the US role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a necessary and sometimes controversial element of US policy making.

During the Cold War, two predominant models emerged.  Zbignew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, postulated the concept that protection of key American interests -- limiting Soviet influence and retaining access to Mideast oil -- required achieving as soon as possible a comprehensive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Brzezinski and Carter saw obstacles to American interests in the continuing conflict and saw great advantages for the US in the larger region if the conflict were resolved.

The problems with this approach were many and were so evident to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who sought progress toward peace, that he decided to go it alone with Israel, much to the initial dismay of the Carter Administration.  First, it was unreal to expect all the Arabs, including the radicals, to reach peace with Israel.  Second, it put an unreasonable weight on the Israeli-Arab conflict to influence the many other conflicts and challenges in the region. And third, it was a process that would inevitably lead to undue pressure on Israel, the logic being that if this was the key to all America's problems in the region, and if as anyone could see the Arabs weren't ready, then advocates of such an approach would invariably play the mind game of telling themselves "If only Israel would make the appropriate concessions."

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President Bush's push for peace

The underlying principle of President Bush's statement on the Israel-Palestinian peace process, probably his most definitive comments since his June 24, 2002 address, is that the conflict is not a zero-sum game. It is rather one that if appropriate steps are taken by both sides, all will benefit. To be pro-Israeli is not to be anti-Palestinian, and to be pro-Palestinian is not to be anti-Israel.

In the course of his statement, the President reiterated a number of fundamental points that are important in achieving peace and in reassuring Israel.

Most important is his clear position that a Palestinian state cannot happen if terrorism continues ("No agreement and no Palestinian state will be born of terror"). The lack of equivocation here should send important signals both to Palestinians and Israelis.

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