Andrew J. Bacevich’s May 5 op-ed “Peace between unequal parties” presents a disregard for both history and the larger regional realities in the Middle East.
The notion that “even before founding their state, Zionists were intent on acquiring a surplus of power” is an unremarkable truism. Were the Arabs in 1940s Palestine any less focused on acquiring power than the Jews? The historical reality is that Zionism was a response to a generations-long tradition of European anti-Semitism that resulted in pogroms across Eastern Europe and culminated in the Holocaust. Its primary motivations were Jewish survival and self-determination, not “a surplus of power.”
Israel today is, without question, a regional power. However, this power, so necessary for Israel to defend itself, must be seen in a regional context. Israel today faces circles of strategic threats, and to ignore these regional dynamics is to pretend that the dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians could ever be as “level” as Bacevich’s proverbial one between Norway and Sweden.
Advertisement
The Palestinian people have been ill-served by leaders — both their own and in the larger Arab and Islamic worlds — who have encouraged a culture of violence and rejectionism rather than accepting the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own in a shared homeland. This rejectionism has brought much pain and grief to the Palestinian people over the past century, and needs to be part of any conversation about the ultimate path to peace.
There is little question that the only viable solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians will require two states for two peoples in a limited geographical area. Most Israelis, including the current Israeli government, are clear that it is in their ultimate interest to do all they can to make this a reality. The United States would do well to encourage the conditions that will bring all interested parties to come to the same conclusion.