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Kartik asks:
Is there any hope for a sane (i.e. vaguely balanced) U.S. foreign policy towards Israel? It seems unsustainable to have a government that does not nearly reflect the attitudes of the American population at large on such an issue, but it seems to have been sustained for an extremely long time.It would be enough, I think, if the US simply adhered to its own stated definition of a sane foreign policy approach towards Israel. For instance: Bush's "Road Map For Peace" included, in Phase I, a freeze on settlement construction. Settlement construction did not freeze. Indeed, the Israelis continued expanding settlements and building "outposts" -- another word for "settlements," basically -- so aggressively that Bush actually restated his opposition. “Our position is very clear, that the roadmap is important, and the roadmap calls for no expansion of the settlements,” he said. This has long been US policy. George Mitchell, who is likely to serve as Obama's Middle East peace envoy, called for a freeze on settlement expansion. He wrote that "Palestinians are genuinely angry at the continued growth of settlements and at their daily experiences of humiliation and disruption as a result of Israel's presence in the Palestinian territories. Palestinians see settlers and settlements in their midst not only as violating the spirit of the Oslo process, but also as an application of force in the form of Israel's overwhelming military superiority, which sustains and protects the settlements." And he was right.But Israel has continued to expand the settlements. It continued expanding settlements during the Camp David peace talks, after the Second Intifada began, and after the road map was announced. And America has done nothing. Israel gets the plurality of our foreign aid and defies our most basic requests and America has done nothing. That should end. Money is fungible. When we fund the Israeli government -- which we do to the tune of some $3 billion a year -- we are funding settlement construction, which goes against our stated policy. If Israel would like to keep expanding the settlements but stop receiving our aid, that is their choice. But they should have to make that choice. And that would not, for the record, be a change in America's official position on the conflict. It would simply be a change in our willingness to enforce our stated position on the conflict. Which is exactly what many in Israel fear. That's how you get absurd spectacles like Abe Foxman opposing George Mitchell on the grounds that "Sen. Mitchell is fair. He’s been meticulously even-handed...[and] I’m not sure the situation requires that kind of approach in the Middle East.” America knows what fair is, at least by our lights. Israel knows what we consider fair. It's all been clearly stated in official government documents. The question is whether our leaders will have the political fortitude to listen to, well, themselves.
