Former President Bill Clinton has an op-ed in USA Today offering his solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict:
After three years of intense violence, we know what needs to be done. The Palestinian terrorist infrastructure must be thoroughly dismantled and the Palestinian Authority reformed. Israel needs to evacuate settlement outposts, freeze settlement activity and withdraw from reoccupied territory. Both sides must cease acts of provocation.
While this sounds obvious and innocuous, it seems to imply a moral equivalence between PLO terrorists and acts of retalliation by the Israeli government. That’s certainly not the case. Even though I think the Sharon government is rather unhelpful, targeting terrorist leaders is hardly the same as blowing up women and children at shopping malls.
For both sides to have confidence that their core concerns will be met, they must achieve a common understanding of what peace will look like. That, in turn, can bolster peace constituencies, isolate extremists and empower Palestinian moderates to crack down on violence, all of which will energize a political process leading toward peace.
This is certainly true. But, of course, we’ve done that before without success.
For the United States, in particular, linked to the region by moral, historic and strategic ties, engagement in the peace process needs to be unrelenting and vigorous. We should empower Israeli and Palestinian citizens who support a comprehensive settlement. And we should make clear our willingness, along with the international community, to back up any agreement with military and political weight, providing the two sides with confidence that the deal will be implemented and their security ensured.
This, too, seems perfectly reasonable. But I thought it rather obvious that the US would be part of a peacekeeping force if a settlement were ever implemented. Indeed, we’re still in Sinai a generation after the Camp David accords.
