No Vacation From Mideast

Until the FDR era, the capital pretty much shut down during the summer.  Congress adjourned, diplomats went home, the Supreme Court was not in session and - without the tens of thousands of lobbyists who populate the area today - Washington was left to its permanent residents, civil servants and the rest.

To a large extent, the depopulation of Washington was the result of the lack of air conditioning. Even the White House was a steam bath and Presidents fled to the shore or the mountains. In fact, there is today a park in Long Branch, New Jersey called Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park because seven Presidents - Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Harrison, McKinley, and Wilson - summered in the neighborhood to escape Washington's awful heat and humidity.

President Obama did not spend Christmas in Hawaii to escape the weather but rather, like all recent Presidents, to escape the Washington scene.  Of course, he took his work with him.  The White House essentially is wherever the President is, but it must be infinitely easier to deal with carping Congressmen, focused only on the next election, and a strident media, focused only on playing "gotcha," from faraway Hawaii.

Not surprisingly, the President's "escape" from Washington was only geographic. While the President was "on vacation" the Nigerian bomber almost took down a Northwest Airlines flight above Detroit.  Almost immediately, Americans learned that there was a significant third front in the war against Al Qaeda: Yemen.  And the President's supposed holiday was consumed with examinations of the security failures that allowed the terrorist on the US-bound plane and on questions of policy relating to, all of a sudden, Yemen.

In fact, American policymakers have long known that Al Qaeda is well-established in that country.  Al Qaeda's deadly attack on the USS Cole in 2000 was carried out in the Yemeni port of Aden by Yemeni terrorists. Intelligence officials have long been aware of Al Qaeda's growing presence there and the inability of the government to extirpate it.

Nonetheless, for most Americans, Yemen is a new country to worry about. What do we do about it?  Are we ultimately going to be fighting there too?  Is it reasonable to believe that the United States can be an international fire department, rushing with our state of the art equipment and personnel to douse the fires of fundamentalist extremism wherever and whenever they flare up?

It is hard to imagine that this strategy will succeed.  At the same time, it is also clear that there are no obvious alternatives to what we are doing.  Not so with Israel-Palestine.

Compared to Afghanistan and Yemen (and, still, Iraq), the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is low hanging fruit.  Everyone knows how the United States can end that conflict.  It can bring Israelis and Palestinians to the table and negotiate a deal by which Israel withdraws from the occupied territories in exchange for ironclad security guarantees, recognition, and normalization of relations with the Arab world.  The Palestinians would achieve a state in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.  The Israelis would have the 78% of historic Palestine that constituted pre-'67 Israel and a peace agreement would be signed between Israel and the Palestinians - along with, as the Arab League Initiative stipulates, the entire Arab world.

Israel is fairly lucky in its adversaries.  Fatah, Yasir Arafat's old group which administers the West Bank, supports the solution outlined above and has since 1988.  Hamas, which controls Gaza, does not, but it does not rule it out either.  On the contrary, Hamas spokespersons have said that Hamas would not necessarily reject a peace agreement with Israel (based on the '67 borders) if negotiated successfully by the Palestinian Authority (i.e., Fatah).

Hamas is a militant fundamentalist organization which has a long record of utilizing horrific violence.  But it is not Al Qaeda.  Al Qaeda, a global terrorist federation, has declared war to the death on Christians, Jews, "infidels," etc, worldwide.  Hamas is only interested in Palestine.  It wants all of it but, in the context of negotiations, would likely settle for the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

Maybe it wouldn't.  But it is worth finding out.  Neither the United States nor Israel has done very well with refusing to deal with enemies. On the contrary, America's "surge" in Iraq was predicated on dealing with, even paying off and collaborating with, some of our worst enemies.  The United States is also looking for "moderate" elements of the Taliban who might help us in the struggle against its deadlier wings.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says he is ready to resume negotiating and there is some evidence he is sincere (he keeps trying to bring more dovish elements into his coalition so he can dump the fanatics).  President Obama should lead him to the table. Why not? Compared to the other problems on his plate, Israel-Palestine is a piece of cake.

Ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would not make Al Qaeda like us.  But that is not our goal; we want to see Al Qaeda eradicated. 

But ending the conflict would reduce the appeal of Al Qaeda among those who are driven into the ranks of our worst enemies by the perception that the United States has abandoned any effort at being an "honest broker" between Israelis and Palestinians. Instead, we are seen (correctly) as Israel's enablers. And that is dangerous.

There are numerous reports here in Washington that the President is getting ready for a big push for "final status" negotiations.  That would be a smart way to start the new year. And, in its own way, would ease America's other burdens.

Not negotiating is not a policy.  It is the absence of a policy.