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America Pressures Israel Plenty

(Foreign Policy) Leslie H. Gelb - Scholars, pundits, propagandists, and journalists have created two dangerous pieces of conventional wisdom about the Middle East: that Israelis, not Palestinians, have been the main stumbling block to peace, and that the U.S. has failed to use its influence to pressure Israel for serious compromises. Both propositions are largely untrue. Israel has a long and compelling history of making major concessions to Arabs. Israel agreed to return the entire Sinai Peninsula, booty of a war it did not start and an act of territorial generosity unprecedented in modern history. When Israel departed Gaza in 2005, it uprooted 9,000 Israeli settlers. In return, Israel got rockets and a terrorist enclave run by Hamas. At each step in the tortuous negotiating process, the U.S. has pushed Israel toward concessions, but received little or no credit from the Arab side because they think the U.S. is capable of exerting even more pressure on Israel. Nonetheless, the American role has been real and substantial. The writer is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
2011-01-07 08:02:27
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