No Peace in the MidEast

Looking for an answer on the Gaza borderAs if healthcare, the financial crisis and climate change weren’t enough, Obama is in the middle east pushing for a renewed fervor around the peace process- it doesn’t seem to be going any smoother there than it is over here according to Reuters.

James Besser of Jewish Week wrote that 16 years ago Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin shook hands at the White House and “there was a sense among most mainstream Jewish leaders that the long Israel-Palestinian impasse could soon be broken." Well, that was 16 years ago. Now there is a “new consensus crystallizing that says that the status quo is about the best that can be hoped for."

Is the status quo, with periodic peace trading off with seemingly unavoidable conflict, the best that can be hoped for? It’s certainly better than all out war or constant conflict.

Last week Obama arranged a meeting between Israel’s Netanyahu and Palestine’s Abbas- and nothing came of it.

"We're in a corner. Obama is running out of steam. He was expected to set the direction in the first six months. But now it's the politics of no choice, of deadlock," said Zakaria al Qaq, foreign affairs director at Al-Quds University.

While this may be justified, I find it difficult to put the blame on Obama for Israel and Palestine not getting along or moving their peace process forward. Indeed, it’s a bit of a misnomer to call it a peace process if it’s been decades since there was any kind of lasting peace and the 16 years since leaders shook hands have left the situation pretty much like it was at that same time.

Netanyahu doesn’t want a Palestinian state, that’s obvious. And why should he? Abbas doesn’t like Israel- and why should he? Israel keeps building settlements in occupied territory and the Palestinians keep lobbing bombs at them.

Aaron David Miller, experienced Mideast counsel to several U.S. secretaries of state, writes: "to all but the terminally obtuse," the chances of a deal right now are about zero.”

So, we’ve got a lot of pessimism. You could say that Obama is too busy for this stuff- and why does it fall on the U.S. anyway?

Miller continues by saying that Obama may soon have to decide "whether to get out of the serious peacemaking business ... or get more deeply involved and consider an unprecedented American effort to bridge the gaps."

Is it really an option for the U.S. to not be the leader in Mideast peace efforts, though, even if those efforts are not working? This has been a hallmark of U.S. foreign policy for decades (as has the U.S.’s propensity to start fights- basically, the U.S. is an international meddler).

While continuing to even care about the Mideast conflict with everything else going on right now does show some commitment on the part of Obama. There are calls from activists to do things that are more dramatic- to push the issue.

Not the time, I say. The key sticking points are basically that:

1. 1.5 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip. Their authority does not recognize Israel so there can be no formal negotiations between the two.

2. Israel is all worried about Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Status quo it is for the rest of this year, that’s for sure. 2010? We’ll see.