Change they can believe in: to make Israel safe, give Palestinians their due.

• Author: Jones, David

CHANGE THEY CAN BELIEVE IN: To Make Israel Safe, Give Palestinians Their Due

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20090101faessay88105/walter-russell-mead/change-they-can-believe-in.html

By Walter Russell Mead

In almost six thousand words, Walter Mead, Senior Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, reviewed the Israel-Palestine deadlock in detail and posed iconoclastic recommendations to guide President Barack Obama as his administration engages the issue. Mead noted from the outset that engagement is a "necessary evil"--evil because it is costly and difficult and substantial numbers on both sides believe that "compromise would be morally wrong."

Although repeatedly affirming Israel's security concerns, Mead's analysis is unabashedly Palestinian-centric. To that end, he sympathetically described the circumstances afflicting Palestinians throughout the twentieth century, including the results of their diaspora following the creation of Israel.

Mead noted that after decades of negotiations, the parameters of a potential agreement are generally known. Even so, he argued that the Obama administration must "reconceptualize" the issues. Rather than the American government's previous Israel-centric stance, the "Obama administration needs to put Palestinian politics and Palestinian public opinion at the center of its peacemaking efforts." In short, the new president "must declare that the United States is committed not only to an independent Palestine but also to acknowledging the wrongs the Palestinians have suffered, compensating them for those, and otherwise ensuring a dignified future for every Palestinian family."

In so doing, the United States should speak to all parties in the conflict (although not mentioning "Hamas" by name, Mead presumably assumes its participation). He suggested that any agreement without clear Palestinian support--particularly among refugees--will fail, and that support for the classic "two state"...