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by Peter A. Belmont / 2009-04-14
Prof. Walt has outlined many mechanisms for the application of power by the US but has not explored all the possible reasons for doing so.
HUMAN RIGHTS: THE OCCUPATION SHOULD BE CONDUCTED LAWFULLY
The occupation has lasted 42 years and may well last another 42 years. The US should insist (and use all the methods Prof. Walt listed to enforce this insistence) that Israel conduct the occupation lawfully. This is not an issue of “peace” or “justice” or “National Rights” of either people. It is an issue of “Human Rights” for those Palestinians (and Golanis) who live under occupation.
Following the ICJ’s July 9, 2004, advisory opinion, the US should begin (but not end) its pressure toward lawfulness by insisting that Israel remove the wall and remove the settlers. There are many more points of legality, but the US should start here.
Such insistence would not advance “peace” except to the extent that Israel would see that, to a certain extent, the “game is up.” It would not infringe Israeli sovereignty in any way.
Such insistence could be described (especially to the US Congress) as a move to support the “Rule of Law” while not threatening Israel’s security in any way, the wall being relocatable to pre-1967 Israel with equivalent security to pre-1967 Israel and the settlers being no security help whatever.
In fact, TEACHING should be a large part of the president’s arsenal of techniques. Both the US public and Congress need to learn as much about the Israel/Palestine history as Prof. Walt knows. Maintaining the US’s support for the unlawful and anti-Human Rights occupation will grow difficult through “cognitive dissonance” in public and Congress.
Even if the US’s ultimate intention were to apply pressure on Israel to make a satisfactory peace, it would be helpful to establish a “right” (as against the Congressional/AIPAC axis) to apply pressure against Israel “at all”, and a project to promote the Rule of Law would be a good “training ground” for developing such a “right.”
THE PRESENT ONE-STATE “SOLUTION”
Right now, Israel is presiding over its hard-liners’ second-favorite “solution”, the single, confessional, undemocratic, apartheid state which has existed since June 1967. Israel may be presumed to be prepared to live with this one-state solution for a very long time.
The best alternative, from a hard-line Israeli perspective is complete removal of all Palestinians from whatever land Israel ultimately chooses to declare to be its territory, and that removal will necessarily be at least violent and to some extent deadly, just as in 1948 and 1967.
The US should declare that both “transfer” (“ethnic cleansing”) and continued “apartheid” are unsatisfactory not only in the long run but in the short run. Ideally, the US should say something about the unacceptability of the results of the “ethnic cleansings” of 1948 and 1967, also known as the refugee problem.
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