The Top-Down Fallacy. Many observers believe that the way to resolve the conflict is a final peace agreement, or “final status” in diplomatic parlance. Such a deal would form a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, while giving security assurances to Israel. Since the disputed areas are small, measured in a few square kilometers, frustrated statesmen (like Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice) argue that the endgame is known and the only problem is getting there. President Bill Clinton’s Parameters of December 2000, which presented a final status blueprint, are often depicted as the most reasonable model for solving it. Alas, Clinton’s plan didn’t work. He believed that the most sensitive issues, determining the future of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees, are a matter of formulations, rather than practical reality. But he was wrong. The conflict relates to the most sensitive aspects of national identity, which both duelers are reluctant to compromise and would rather die, and kill, for. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas insists on “final status or nothing,” while Israel’s Olmert is ready only for an interim deal that would leave out the core issues—final borders, Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees.
The Bottom-Up Fallacy. Aware of its predecessor’s failure to bring peace, the Bush administration advocated the opposite: changing realities on the ground. Believing that gradual progress would lead to a “tipping point” for peace, it asked the Palestinians to fight terror and the Israelis to ease travel restrictions. A succession of plans was laid out in vain: Mitchell, Tenet, Zinni, the Roadmap and, more recently, Gen. Keith Dayton’s “benchmarks.” Both sides refused to go beyond token moves, meant to please the Americans. When Ariel Sharon removed the settlements from Gaza in 2005, it was seen at first as an unimaginable breakthrough, but has not brought the solution any closer. Gaza is turning into another Somalia, Afghanistan or Iraq, controlled by an Islamic group that advocates Israel’s destruction.
The Majority Fallacy. Desperate op-ed writers and would-be peacemakers cite public-opinion polls as proof that most Israelis and Palestinians are ready to compromise for peace. The sad answer is that the majority doesn’t count. Reality is set by the determined few—the suicide bomber, the Qassam rocket squad, the settler on the hilltop—and not by the indifferent masses.
The Mediator Fallacy. Well, the pundits say, you have a point. Scarred by decades of mutual killing, Israelis and Palestinians need an American mediator, a presidential envoy who would bang heads and force a deal. Israel, after all, is dependent on American support and therefore should obey Washington and end its West Bank occupation. The absence of a strong American arbiter is usually blamed on the stranglehold of the pro-Israel lobby in America. Wrong: it’s neither bad intentions nor indifference nor the fear of lobbyists. It’s the lack of real interest.
When the Clinton and Bush administrations opposed Israeli arms sales to China, they mercilessly twisted Jerusalem’s arm until Israel behaved, while its supporters on Capitol Hill sat still. Settlements and checkpoints, however, are hurting Palestinians, not Americans. Washington’s actions are tailored for its interests, rather than for some moral or legal principle. The same is true about the more vocal, but equally idle, Europeans and “moderate Arab governments.” The Saudis, the most recent champions of Palestinian-Israeli rapprochement, never go beyond issuing their peace plans from a distance, while remaining stingy on aid for the Palestinians and diplomatic gestures that would melt Israel’s resistance. No outside power is willing to play the tough arbiter.
- The Nostalgia Fallacy. Devastated by all the above, the key players are turning to delusion. This month’s 40th anniversary of the Six Day War produced a flood of nostalgia about a rosy world that might have been. The Palestinians dream of a “right of return” to their pre-1948, or even pre-Balfour Declaration, community without alien Jewish immigrants. Israeli leftists dream of a pre-1967 “small but just” Jewish state, admired by a Holocaust-traumatized Western conscience. Israeli rightists dream of their pre-Oslo heaven of undisturbed settlement construction. In reality, one can’t go back. If anything, these daydreams only prove the difficulty of resolving the conflict (go back to fallacy 1).
