Reader Comment on Common Strategic Interests: Balancing Support for Israel Against Other American Interests
www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2010/0406/comm/benmeir_common.html
From: Benjamin Landis
Professor Ben-Meir’s article is on one level a very perceptive summary of the national and ethnic attitudes impinging on a possible settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and on another level frustratingly “wishy-washy” and opaque with respect to the achieving of such a settlement. In the brief space I am allotted here, I make the following observations:
(1) The author’s contention that “both nations would like to see an end to the…conflict” should be modified by the obvious truth that the Israeli government would manifestly be willing to reach that end only on its terms.
(2) Regardless of the author’s contention, the Israeli government cannot materially help “rein in Iran’s nuclear threat”. This can only be done by the United States in adopting a very clear policy on nuclear warfare in conjunction with the other major nuclear powers.
(3) It is difficult to believe, based on the public evidence thus far, that President Obama “has …identified the real impediments to peace and is trying to overcome them through a realistic approach.”
(4) Lastly, I am looking forward to someday being able to read an article entitled “Balancing Support for the Palestinians against Other American Interests”. It is time for the Obama administration to walk across the border into the West Bank and to look back toward Israel. Everyone seems to forget that Israel is, and has been, the aggressor nation in this region ever since its creation.