In the recent weeks, there has been a lot of ink placed on paper about the volatile situation that seems to be brewing in Iraq. The level of sanctioned caused death, compounded with last weeks attack on places near Baghdad outside of the No-Fly Zone, requires that we take a look at our foreign policy in that region. But too many Americans the situation in Iraq seems like old news. Allow me to remind you about a Middle Eastern situation that makes Saddam Hussein look like a diplomatic novice.
The relationship between Israel and the United States has lasted since the end of World War II, and it is this situation that poses as great a threat to American interests (including oil) in the region as Saddam’s meddlings. But there have been some changes effecting the chronic death factory that has been the Palestinian situation, and both of them surround elections.
Ariel Sharon the newly elected Prime Minister of Israel signals a near guarantee of violence. For the Israeli Palestinians they were so close. Six years ago, then Prime Minister Itzak Rabin was on the verge of pursuing the completion of the Oslo Accord, granting consolations that might have led to a final settlement. While I will not be so naive to say that had Rabin not been assassinated, that the situation would now be diffused. Nothing in Palestine ever works that nicely. But the election of Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu after the murder, showed a swing of Jewish opinion against making the concessions necessary to achieve peace.
Netanyahu increased settlement expansion and sent a message to Israel and the world that the highly fractured coalition prevented him from continuing on Rabin’s path to peace, even if he wanted to. He and Ahud Barak both paid for their inability to unite the Jewish people behind the idea that peace with the Arab Palestinians is in the nation’s best interest.
The Arabs have come to the decision that they have no option but to take the issue back to the streets. In the past months we have seen a return of intifada, the period of violence, terrorism, and strikes that plagued the situation starting in 1987. As we grew up, I am sure that many of you can remember the film footage on the evening news of the Arabs throwing rocks and bricks at Israeli soldiers donned in uniforms and wielding M-16’s.
The helplessness that is demonstrated in the Arab violence is begging for a response by the international community. Current events have overshadowed former President Bill Clinton’s last ditch desperate effort to gain some kind of settlement in the region. For all of his work, we can point to the inability to move negotiations at a pace separate from what the countries are comfortable at moving. Yet the winner of the second election that effects the region should not be dismayed.
New President Bush indicated that he will leave the two sides to work out their differences on their own. This is intolerable. Throughout the U.S.’s involvement with Israel, it has been our aid, and our support that has driven countries to make peace. The same must apply here. If President Bush believes that the Israeli’s and the Palestinians will just eventually work it out, he is sadly mistaken. After decades of bloodshed, as well the risk of losing religious area, both sides are inherently jumping to their guns with every act of individual violence or protest. They must be convinced to work for peace. If that prodding isn’t there, than the result will almost definitely be war.
Yet, Americans may ask what does that have to do with us? Despite the fact that the American Jewish population is a powerful political factor, our latest connection actually involves Iraq. With last weeks air strikes, which supposedly killed two Iraqi civilians, the Iraqi threat has been heightened. Saddam Hussein knows that he is not able to strike us with his crippled military. But what he can do is strike Israel.
Israel has proven that it has no problem flexing its military might , and would most certainly strike back with swift and deadly force. If the United Nations would prove to be unable to negotiate a cease-fire, the United States will have respond, in a situation that has bigger stakes.
President Bush must use our consistent aid in a similar fashion to his father. His father threatened to withhold $10 billion in loans if Rabin didn’t stop building settlements in the occupied territories. Bush must do the same thing. If he is unwilling to actively involve the U.S. in Israel’s efforts to find peace, than the situation will prove volatile in a region that can hardly stand to loss of life. And I know that oil fed Bush will understand the importance of stability in the world’s biggest oil producing region.
