On a non-financial crisis note, Jackson Diehl's column calling for a bottom-up approach to peace in the Middle East is a rather good example of the deep bias in our conversation over Israel and Palestine. Diehl is plugging the dynamic duo of Natan Sharansky and Bassam Eid, who are arguing that before peace talks can happen, Palestinian civil society needs to be entirely reformed -- and that will only come at the behest of American and Israeli power. Odd concept. A few years ago, Palestinian civil society was reformed in response to American pressure. The Palestinians held elections. Hamas won. We cut off our funding, dealing a sharp blow to their civil society. Presumably, Sharansky and Eid are looking for a civil society that they like better, but that's not the sort of thing you get to dictate. Odd spokespeople, too. Sharansky, a heroic Russian dissident, was a ferocious critic of the Osla Accords and the Geneva Accords. As Sharon's Housing Minister, he oversaw massive settlement expansion into the West Bank and approved the seizure of East Jerusalem from the Palestinians, a move that caused enough international outcry that it was reversed. As for Eid, Diehl calls him "a persuasive Palestinian partner." He's "a veteran human rights activist who has spent the past dozen years trying to act as an independent monitor of the Palestinian Authority and its security forces." In other words: A Palestinian who has built his career in opposition to much of the Palestinian political structure. That might have been a noble, even correct, stance, but the idea that Sharansky and Eid should be the new voices on how to approach Palestinian interests is rather like making Joe Lieberman and Dick Cheney your emissaries to the Democratic Party. Diehl seems to think this a Nixon goes to China moment, but it's more like watching him attend the DNC. And the fact that major national affairs columnists happily report this development with nary a raised eyebrow suggests that we've got a ways to go in understanding the desires and anxieties of the Palestinian side.
