US involvement in MidEast peace talks bound to fail

Both sides, then, are moving in the right direction. But American pressure to return to the negotiating table prematurely risks killing the Palestinian state in the cradle. A focus on a final-status agreement will divert Palestinian attention from the hard tasks ahead. If the US pressures Israel to accept a Palestinian state without Fayyad’s reforms, it will not be worthwhile for the Palestinian leader to pursue them at a high political cost. Israel too will not take steps to accommodate economic development and reforms, as those steps would involve security risks and concessions that the Israelis want to save for a final-status deal.

Of course, unsuccessful American involvement in Middle East peace negotiations is hardly new. As Leon Hadar of the Cato Institute explains in his book “Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East,” such involvement “not only raises expectations that cannot be fulfilled,” but also “produces disincentives for the players involved to do what they need to do…The Israelis and Palestinians assume that they should be rewarded by Washington for making concessions that are perceived as ‘favors’ to the Americans. At the same time, the Arab and European governments refrain from assuming responsibility for trying to help resolve the conflict.”

When the alternative is stagnation and violence, outside pressure, even when it has little chance of success, may not be bad policy. But when both sides finally begin taking the steps necessary for progress, there can be no worse policy than pressuring them to “seal the deal.”

A Palestinian state, if established, will have to live side by side with Israel. Peace demands that it will be a functioning state. A failed one will not do. Efforts to establish a state before it can function will only lead to another Gaza. Surely that is not what Nobel peace laureate Barack Obama is striving for.