Why are newspapers dying? One reason: because original thinkers are coming out of the academy and sharing their learned ideas on-line, and their journalism is better than the journalists'. Steve Walt today says that Netanyahu's expansionist policy is national suicide. And then he comes out for a blueprint to save the Jewish state. It's what I've said here before, Walt and Mearsheimer are the Israel lobby's best friends right now, they're realists who support the two-state solution. (Oh but for how long!) Walt:
My question is this: What is Netanyahu thinking? Doesn't he
realize that time has nearly run out for the two-state solution, and
that failure to achieve it is by far the most serious threat facing
Israel? The prime minister and his allies keep harping about an
"existential" threat from Iran, but this bogeyman is mostly nonsense.
Iran has zero — repeat, zero — nuclear weapons today, and even if it
were to acquire a few at some point in the future, it could not use
them against nuclear-armed Israel without committing national suicide.
Let me say that again: national suicide.
And could
someone please explain to Netanyahu that a group of devout Muslim
clerics aren't likely to fire warheads at a land that contains the
third holiest site in Islam? Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has
said some remarkably foolish things about the Holocaust and repeatedly
questioned Israel's legitimacy (as in his oft-mistranslated statement
about Israel "vanishing from the page of time"), but he's never
threatened to murder millions of Israelis (and Palestinians) with
nuclear weapons. Just last weekend, he even told
ABC's George Stephanopolous that if the Palestinians reached an
agreement with Israel, then Iran would support it…The real threat to Israel's future is the occupation, and the conflict with the Palestinians that it perpetuates….
two-state solution is not an ideal outcome; it is merely the best
available alternative. If Netanyahu wants to safeguard Israel's future,
therefore, he would not spend his time inventing new conditions and
doing his best to make the peace process a charade. Instead, he would
get on the phone to the White House and urge them to get moving as soon
as possible to establish a viable Palestinian state, and he'd ask Obama
to commit the resources necessary to make it work. He'd also be on the
phone to Abraham Foxman of the ADL, Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference
of Presidents, David Harris of the American Jewish Committee, and
Howard Kohr of AIPAC, urging them to pressure the White House and
especially Congress to broker a two-state solution before it's too
late. While he's at it, he'd denounce false friends like the Reverend
John Hagee of Christians United for Israel and he'd invite Jeremy
Ben-Ami of J Street to come to Jerusalem and help him map out a
strategy to turn the Titanic around before it hits the approaching iceberg.
There
would still be lots of hard bargaining to do, of course, and Netanyahu
would have to make sure that a final-status agreement protected
Israel's legitimate security concerns. But by acting in this way,
Netanyahu would be helping preserve Israel's future instead of putting
it in jeopardy.If Netanayahu can't figure this out, then Barack
Obama and George Mitchell are going to have to sit him down and explain
the situation to him. And if they do, one can only hope that Israel's
supporters here in the United States abandon their usual modus operandi
and back Obama and Mitchell up. If they don't, they may someday have to
explain to their grandchildren why they watched Israel drive itself off
a cliff and did nothing to stop it.
