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Obama's Mideast Bribes Won't Work
(Daily Beast) Leslie H. Gelb - U.S. officials say Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama believe a new freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank for 90 days - as opposed to the freeze that failed a month ago - will trigger the elusive peace deal between the Palestinians and Israelis. But it won't. The U.S. president and his secretary of state also are said to think that if they can, finally, create an Israeli-Palestinian peace, that will dissipate vicious anti-Americanism and even terrorism throughout the Muslim world. But it won't. Anti-Americanism and terrorism among Muslims rests far less on what happens with Israel and far more on how and when American combat ends in the Middle East and upon improving how our Muslim allies treat their own people. It makes no sense to push the parties to the negotiating table with little prospect of success and a very good chance of another dangerous failure. The writer is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.