The Number One Foreign Policy Dilemma

What to do about Israel? What makes us think it's up to us to do anything about Israel? Perhaps a short historical review is in order.

The Zionist movement began many years ago, but was given new impetus in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Jews began buying land in Palestine on a willing seller, willing buyer basis. Nobody forced any Palestinian to sell land, but I doubt any Palestinian seriously thought his country slowly was being bought out from under him.

When the Jews of Europe became the arch whipping boys of the monstrous Nazi regime, all the world was horrified, and in the aftermath many of the survivors vowed such a thing would never happen again, and could never happen again if they had their own homeland. Palestine was the obvious location.

Now let us consider American involvement. President Roosevelt never contemplated the consequences of this very understandable desire of the Holocaust survivors. In 1945, fresh from the Yalta Conference, he met with the leaders of the countries in that area and told them the US would not recognize any Jewish homeland without their approval.

Two months later he was dead, and President Truman soon subtly changed the promise so that the US would not recognize a Jewish homeland without consulting the neighboring nations. Then in 1948 when the nation of Israel was proclaimed, the United States recognized it within a few hours. Domestic politics almost certainly played a role in the decision.

Not surprisingly, the rulers of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and other affected states felt used and betrayed. We had effectively bought their enmity.

So in a sense, we entangled ourselves in the affairs of that part of the world and have never extricated ourselves from them. We have called Israel our ally for the last 62 years, often with rhetoric that makes the neighboring nations our adversaries.

There are many Palestinians who have spent their whole lives in refugee camps, dreaming of the day when the land of their grandparents will be theirs again. They will be satisfied with nothing less than the destruction of Israel and the expulsion of any surviving Jews from the area. There are Isrealies who will be satisfied with nothing less than the kingdom ruled by David three thousand years ago. Between these two positions, there is no chance of reconciliation. Only a peace between victor and vanquished could be made.

There are, however, people on both sides of this terrible divide who would reach a compromise in the name of peace. It is to them that efforts at a settlement must be directed.

And we've tried everything from the active diplomacy of President Carter to the brief dis-engagement of the George W. Bush administration. And still the instability and violence persist. We are embroiled in conflicts to which there is no end in sight for purposes that are, sad to say, probably unobtainable. It is ours and the world's most intractable problem.

(I hope no one was looking for a solution on this blog.)