Is It Wise to Push for Peace?

by Daniel E. Levenson

April 27, 2010

Last week I wrote an editorial responding to Ambassador Indyk's piece in the New York Times in which he analyzed the current state of US-Israel relations and the ways that Prime Minister Netanyahu might be able to help alleviate some of the stress on this important relationship. For all of the talk, however, in the media about the importance of finding a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict for American national security, I have to admit that I am somewhat puzzled as to exactly what the relationship is between the two, and why it is necessarily more urgent to force both Israelis and Palestinians to accept a solution right now. Yes, the United States is fighting two wars in the region (and conducting covert operations, most likely, in an area that extends beyond the officially defined theatre of war) but the details of how the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is affecting American men and women in uniform seems rather murky to me. From what I can tell, the real immediate threat to American military personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq comes in the form of Islamic fundamentalists, IED's and having to conduct security operations in very unstable, unfriendly places every day. It does not come from Hamas or Hezbollah, from what I have read or heard from people I consider knowledgeable about the current situation in the region.

To step back for a moment and take a look from a policy level, I also find it hard to understand how the Palestinian-Israeli conflict poses a threat to US interests in the region, except in so far as the US is an ally and if another full scale war were to evolve out of the current low-intensity conflict, American forces would be drawn in. This unlikely scenario aside, it seems to me that the real threats to America in the Middle East, now and in the near future, include a political and cultural mess in Afghanistan where a lack of human security seems to have hobbled some of the most hopeful reconstruction projects, as well as issues relating to spillover into Pakistan. In addition, The State Department, White House and Pentagon are dealing with a highly unstable political and security situation in Iraq which poses a threat to American lives every day, as well as to the long-term stability of the region. Above all, in terms of the long-term US interest in the region, I would think that maintaining access to a ready supply of oil would top the list, and for this reason, I think the possibility of a nuclear Iran which would feel empowered to expand its influence and perhaps even act aggressively toward Saudi Arabia, would be the number one US priority in terms of security interests in the region.

So this brings us back to the question of why this recent focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? I am at a loss to explain this, except to say that perhaps there are people who see the election of a new president, in this case, Barack Obama, as an opportunity to reinvigorate a perpetually stalled peace process. But I am not the only one to see this effort to focus on brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace as slightly askew. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Council on Foreign Relations President Richard N. Haass noted that "The danger of exaggerating the benefits of solving the Palestinian conflict is that doing so runs the risk of distorting American foreign policy. It accords the issue more prominence than it deserves, produces impatience, and tempts the U.S. government to adopt policies that are overly ambitious." Mr. Haass goes on to say that he does not advocate disengagement from the issue, and neither do I, but I think that when it comes to considering what American policy should be in the Middle East in terms of the direct impact on the security of the United States, a disproportionate amount of ink (digital and otherwise) has been spilled on connecting it to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I have been, and believe I will always be, an advocate for peace between Jews and Arabs, but putting more pressure on both sides because it seems somehow politically attractive in the United States does not seem like it will lead us to a solution in this conflict.

Copyright Daniel E. Levenson 2010