We need to stick to America First
President Donald Trump’s recently unveiled peace plan for the Israelis and Palestinians begs this question: What U.S. interest was served or advanced by its promulgation?
Serving and advancing American interests was supposed to be the hallmark of Trump’s foreign policy. And in a way that defined actionable interests much more narrowly than the foreign policy establishments of both the left and the right have done so.
And in the Middle East, he vowed to get the United States less rather than more involved.
Unilaterally promulgating an IsraeliPalestinian peace plan contravenes all of these precepts.
It is different from efforts by his predecessors, in that there was no pretense of bringing the parties together in negotiations facilitated by the United States. That would be difficult since the Palestinians are refusing to talk to the Trump administration, after it moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
Instead, this is a declaration of the United States regarding what, under Trump, it believes the parties should agree to.
The arrogance of that is breathtaking. We aren’t a party to the dispute. We have no security interests in the area. Our lives and livelihoods aren’t at stake. We have proven that we have no particular insights about the geopolitics of the region. In fact, just the opposite. Our interventions have generally been hamfisted and counterproductive.
Yet, here we are, telling people whose lives and livelihoods are at stake what, in our view from 6,000 miles away, they ought to do and how they ought to do it.
Trump’s move of the embassy to Jerusalem was a useful reality check for the Palestinians. Under previous administrations, the Palestinian strategy was to get the United States to force Israel to make concessions it would not on its own. Extinguishing that hope is a step toward the possibility of productive peace negotiations between the parties.
The Palestinians need to accept that they have to deal directly with Israel. That Israel is not going away and no outside party is going to force Israel to take risks it deems unwise. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem, a promise made and reneged upon by previous presidents, was a highly useful and powerful symbol of that reality.
This peace plan, however, is useless fantasy. And one contrary to the true
U.S. interest in disengaging from the snake pit of Middle East geopolitics.
Previously, the Trump administration had released an economic plan for the Palestinians. In it, a new state of Palestine becomes a fully functioning democratic capitalist country. It has an elected government, an independent judiciary, and the rule of law. A modern system of finance and banking. Health care and education that reaches the whole population. And modern infrastructure that includes high-speed transportation corridors, reliable electricity and universal internet access.
Of course, the Palestinian territory currently has none of this. Its governance is divided between two factions both operating by decree, their electoral mandates having long expired. It’s an economic basket case.
The Trump economic plan is silent about how the Palestinians get from where they are to becoming the Switzerland of the Middle East. And about who pays for all the infrastructure that helps make that possible.
The peace plan is slightly less pie-inthe-sky. In it, after the Palestinians somehow transfigure their existing chaos into a non-threatening and functioning governance structure, they get to have a state of sort.
But a state that remains, for the foreseeable future, an Israeli protectorate.
The new state of Palestine would have to be, and remain, demilitarized. Israel would be responsible for protecting its borders. And retain substantial control over who and what crosses them.
Rather than disengaging, the United States would take on additional responsibilities. We would resume aid to the Palestinians and oversee a trust to compensate Palestinian refugees. And we would serve on a security review committee determining the extent to which the Palestinians can assume responsibility for internal security.
As an opening gambit, the Palestinians aren’t going to accept a state that is less than truly sovereign. And, contrary to the hopes of the Trump administration, the Sunni despots in the region aren’t going to force them to accept it.
Perhaps something similar might emerge, as an interim condition, from direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. That is where a true peace, if it is to be had, will be forged.
And if both parties want the United States to play the role of a true facilitator, as Jimmy Carter did for the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, we should be willing to do so.
In the meantime, we should stay out of it. And shut up about it.