Everyone talks about putting pressure on Israel. What does that mean? Here's a sage post by Steve Walt on what Obama should do in the face of Israeli intransigence re the two-state solution. Besides ending tax-deductible contributions to the settler movement, as we have argued here, and possibly cutting the aid package, Walt recommends:
The Obama administration could begin by using different language to
describe certain Israeli policies. While reaffirming America’s
commitment to Israel’s existence as a Jewish-majority state, it could
stop referring to settlement construction as “unhelpful,” a word that
makes U.S. diplomats sound timid and mealy-mouthed. Instead, we could
start describing the settlements as “illegal” or as “violations of
international law.” The UN Charter forbids acquisition of territory by
force and the Fourth Geneva Convention bars states from transfering
their populations (even if voluntarily) to areas under belligerent
occupation. This is why earlier U.S. administrations described the
settlements as illegal, and why the rest of the world has long regarded
them in the same way. U.S. officials could even describe Israel’s
occupation as “contrary to democracy,” “unwise,” “cruel,” or “unjust.”
Altering the rhetoric would send a clear signal to the Israeli
government and its citizens that their government’s opposition to a
two-state solution was jeopardizing the special relationship.
Notice how pro-Israel Walt is: a commitment to a Jewish-majority state. Even tolerance of the "special relationship." Michael Walzer had better find Steve Walt if he is sincere about his own assertion that the U.S. must bring heavy pressure on Israel to defeat the settler movement.
I am saying, Mr. Walzer– which is how we learned to address our professors back when I was his student–that Some New Political Combination is all that is going to bring about a change in policy and possibly save the Jewish state from apartheid struggle. That political combination means prog-Zionists and American realists. The only ones standing in the way of this combination are the Zionists, out of mistrust of the gentile realists gaining power against the Jewish lobby. Walzer must choose: Which do you believe in more, the endurance of anti-Semitism in the west or the endurance of the Jewish state? If you choose a, you may lose b.
