Blinken’s blinkers

“Blinken to Ashkenazi: Palestinians, Israelis must equally enjoy democracy” (April 4) informs us that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “emphasized the administration’s belief that Israelis and Palestinians should enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity and democracy.”

By itself, this goal is a worthy one. But Blinken goes on to opine that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria “exacerbate tensions and... undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution.” He also mentions actions of the Palestinians’ “incitement to violence, providing compensation for individuals in prison for acts of terrorism. That, too, moves us further away from a two-state solution.”

The absence of elementary logic in this familiar flawed argument is mind-boggling. For example,

1) The notion that there can be a viable two-state solution was deeply flawed from the start. How can that be achieved if one side defines its long-term objective as the elimination of the other?

2) The malignant attribution of the moral equivalence of the maintenance of peaceful communities to incitement to and compensation for acts of terrorism is frankly disgusting. Intifadas that killed thousands of civilians continue to be disregarded.

3) The reintroduction of US funding for the corrupt PA is a meaningless bribe that has not and will not alter their behavior.

4) The dishonest view that somehow Israeli settlements are a primary cause of the Palestinians’ inability to enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity and democracy is a downright lie. The main problem is the failure of the population to throw out their corrupt leaders who are the reasons for these inequalities and to take responsibility for their situation. The corrosive ideology of removing any responsibility from those who claim victimhood – condemning them to continue in their deplorable situation – seems to be back in fashion.

Moreover, the new administration’s incomprehensible submission to the most outrageous demands of the ayatollas in Iran just to participate in indirect negotiations with them indicates that this is part of a malignant mindset that ignores reality in the name of juvenile wishful thinking. After all, no regime in the Middle East is as culpable as Iran in sponsoring horrendous violence, both at home and all over the region, in undermining existing regimes, and in threatening to destroy the only truly democratic state in the region. And yet the US blissfully ignores the pleas of the victimized citizens of Iran for assistance in regaining their freedom.

Apparently the Democrats have learned nothing from their recent history, where bribing and therefore rewarding enemies is considered to be sophisticated diplomacy and abandoning their traditional and loyal allies is considered to be even-handedness.

HARVEY LITHWICK

Ra’anana