This just in to the Squirrel Valley newsroom:
Memo To: Secretary of State Clinton
Just a quick note regarding the vacant position in your advisory team. I gather that you have been beleaguered by “a coterie of emissaries who have made the Arab-Israeli conflict their specialty” for decades. But apparently you’re “eager to recruit a fresh face to handle the Arab-Israeli issue, perhaps reaching beyond the circle of Middle East stalwarts.” With that in mind, I wanted to offer a friendly suggestion for what you should consider in selecting an advisor–and, later, framing U.S. policy.
Obviously no one wants yes-men, but you also should reject candidates who trot out the shop-worn view of the conflict: the idea that it can be settled by placating Palestinian grievances and pressuring both sides to make concessions. No, the problem is not that this approach was tried, and that it failed. Quite the reverse. It was tried–in the so-called peace process and later in different form under G.W. Bush–and it worked . . . . to embolden Palestinian aggression, particularly by Islamic totalitarian groups like Hamas.
The problem was not a lack of imagination or creative tinkering with the basic land-for-peace formula. The problem was a failure to understand the conflict and particularly the character and motivation of the Palestinian cause. George W. Bush went further than previous administrations in promising to fulfill the supposed Palestinian aspiration for statehood–and the results have been fiercer Palestinian aggression (see also the ongoing rocket fire from Gaza).
Madam Secretary, what you need is not merely fresh faces, but a top-to-bottom re-thinking of the conflict–and a radical break with past U.S. policy.
–Elan Journo
http://blog.aynrandcenter.org/
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