Matt Duss has a fine report on the neocon Hudson Institute gathering yesterday on whither the peace process. In the dialogue he cites, Doug Feith says It’s all the Arabs’ fault, they reject Israel’s presence and Obama fails to recognize this. Then Dan Levy slamdunks Feith, for undermining the American president.
Levy goes on to say that the wise course is neither the "hardline" rightwing (neocon, but he don’t say so, he’s polite) ideology–the claim that the special relationship does not undermine the American interest in the Middle East; of course it undermines the American interest. Nor is it the leftwing ideology, of throwing Israel under the bus and invoking Goldstone. No the middle course is to take on Netanyahu aggressively and pursue the American interest in two state solution.
Would just like to say, for the record: The Hudson Institute represented the hard right to a fare thee well. The hard left ideology can be apostrophized, but it cannot speak for itself. Muzzling. Also: I heard a hint in Levy’s comments that there will be no progress on the two state solution till the Netanyahu gov’t crumples. Levy:
I don’t rule out Benjamin Netanyahu being a Menachem Begin, who made the historical peace with Egypt and withdrew from all of the Sinai, but I don’t think we can expect it to happen of our own volition. I think we have to take seriously the option of American leadership in getting there. And I think we have to take even more seriously an irresponsible effort underway in this country to discredit an American president who is a friend of Israel, and to use and instrumentalize the U.S.-Israel relationship to score cheap points in ways that will undermine that relationship in the long term.
