July 29, 2010

Kissinger, the “Two-State Solution,” and Warrior Politics - Paul Eidelberg

Some fifteen years ago, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said there isn't enough space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea for two diverse peoples, hence for two diverse sovereign states. 

Strange that Kissinger’s emphasis on this crucial spatial or territorial factor has been ignored, especially in view of his political prestige and diplomatic experience.  It’s hard to find a scholar-statesman comparable to Kissinger, although one might mention Sovietologist George Kennan, author of the U.S. policy of “détente” who served as U.S. ambassador to Moscow. 

Kissinger is no lightweight in political science.  He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the great Austrian statesman and diplomat Prince Metternich.  Negotiation between political adversaries is Kissinger’s area of expertise. He made “shuttle diplomacy” a household term when he schlepped between Israel and Syria on the one hand, and between Israel and Egypt on the other to resolve some of their outstanding territorial disputes.

Whatever Kissinger may allow himself to say today, he once held the position, unaffected by the passage of fifteen years, that given the profound cultural differences between Jews and Arabs, the constricted land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea renders the “two-state solution” a non-solution. 

A 2005 RAND study confirms Kissinger’s jaundiced view of a Palestinian state.  Such a state would be neither economically viable nor politically stable.  The RAND Study indicates that for a small Palestinian state to have a chance of success, it would require $80 billion of aid through 2019 as well as access to Israel’s labor market.  Of chilling significance, more than two million Arabs restricted to 2,323 square miles of the West Bank, and another million Arabs squeezed into 141 square miles in Gaza, is not only a formula for economic stagnation, but also for political discontent. The envisioned state will be a cauldron of envious hatred of Israel fueled by the leaders of one or another Arab clan or group of thugs parading under the banner of Allah.

Instead of broadcasting this nonviable situation and fearful scenario, Israeli prime ministers have blithely persisted in the policy of territory for peace even though it should be obvious that the minuscule territory in question makes peace between an Arab state and Jewish state west of the Jordan impossible.  Are these prime ministers living in the real world or in Alice-in-Wonderland?  Or are they engaged in theater?

Consider the ideological dilemma.  In a previous article I noted that Benjamin Netanyahu expressed the idea that Internet and the explosion of information would overcome Arab antagonism toward the Jewish state.  Robert D. Kaplan, a serious student of history, offers a more realistic assessment of Internet.  He reminds us that “Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of movable type in the mid-fifteenth century led not only to the Reformation but to the religious wars that followed it, as the sudden proliferation of texts spurred doctrinal controversies and awakened long-dormant grievances.”
Kaplan goes on to say that “The spread of information in the coming decades [resulting from Internet] will lead not just to new social compacts, but to new divisions as people discover new and complex issues over which to disagree”—and I might add to violently disagree.

Kaplan’s book is entitled Warrior Politics.  Its subtitle is even more significant for Israel’s ruling elites: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos.  This provocative subtitle can hardly be comforting to Israeli prime ministers constrained by an ethos so nervously sensitive to public opinion¸ and so fearfully inhibited by such civilized concerns about “proportionality” and “collateral damage.”

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