I asked Steve Walt about Gaza. His response:
I keep thinking that what the US should do is work to get a sharply-worded UN security council resolution condemning the attacks. Let the French or the British sponsor it if we
want to be subtle, but then vote for it instead of issuing the usual
veto. Go ahead and condemn Hamas
at the same time, but make it clear that Washington regards Israel's
response as both morally wrong and strategically wrong-headed. That
might actually get Israel's attention, and suggest, as Martin Indyk said, that
"the era of the blank check is over." Of course, that certainly won't
happen under Bush, and probably not under Obama.
the United States and the rest of the international community react
limply to this, I worry that it will encourage Israelis to think that
the rest of the world
really won't care if they decided at some point down the road to solve
the Palestinian issue "once and for all" by another act of ethnic
cleansing. If you can bomb Gaza
with near-impunity (and maybe invade it down the road), then maybe, in
the right circumstances, you can get the world to look the other way
(or merely issue meaningless remonstrances), while you try a replay of
1948. I am not saying this will happen, but there may be more lessons
being learned here than we realize right now.
Last point: when it comes time to vet Obama's Middle East team,
there are a lot of good questions to ask Kurtzer, Ross, whoever: 1) do
you think Israel's attack on Gaza was warranted? 2) Do you think it
advanced the peace process, or made it more difficult? 3) Do you think
it was in America's national interest? 4) What steps should we have
taken to head it off beforehand?
