Tel-Chai Nation

Barry Rubin at the Gloria Center analyzes 2 remarks General David Petraeus made to a Congressional testimony where he argues some very farfetched things about the Israeli-Arab conflict:

Statement One:

"A credible U.S. effort on Arab-Israeli issues that provides regional governments and populations a way to achieve a comprehensive settlement of the disputes would undercut Iran's policy of militant 'resistance,' which the Iranian regime and insurgent groups have been free to exploit."

On the surface this makes a lot of sense. But let's examine it closely. Let's assume there is a comprehensive settlement to which the Palestinian Authority (PA) agrees. It isn't going to happen but this is for demonstration purposes.

In order to get an agreement, the PA would have to make some concessions, let's keep them to the minimum for our discussion. At a minimum, it would have to say that the conflict is at an end, recognize Israel, renounce Palestinian claims to all of Israel, and agree to settle all Palestinian refugees in Palestine. In addition, it might have to make some small territorial swaps, not get every square inch of east Jerusalem, and agree to some limits on its military forces.

What would happen?

First, none of this would apply to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Hamas, Hizballah, Syria, Iran, Muslim Brotherhoods, and many others would renounce this as treason. Hamas would continue to attack Israel; its forces in the West Bank would stage cross-border raids into Israel and try to seize power in the West Bank.

Would the kind of people who are now prone to support revolutionary Islamism then say: "What a fair settlement. This settles all our grievances. Thank you, America for being so wonderful!"

While to many Western observers such a reaction would seem logical this is not what would happen. The Western onlooker is assuming a pragmatic, facts-based response rather than an ideological response based on massive disinformation by governments, media, religious leaders, and political movements.

And even Fatah itself does not want any peace treaty with Israel, as even recent events have shown, so it's a shame that Petraeus is blowing it.

Here's Petraeus's second statement:

"Additionally, progress on the Israel-Syria peace track could disrupt Iran's lines of support to Hamas and Hizballah."

Why would this be so? What does Hamas care about the Israel-Syria track? Why should Iran give less support to Hizballah as a result? After all, Hizballah is trying to take over Lebanon, not the Golan Heights.

Presumably, the subtext here is that Syria would be so happy to be making progress that it would subvert Iran's relationship to Hamas and Hizballah. But why should Damascus undercut its relationship with Tehran just to have talks with Israel? Shouldn't we remember the 1991-2000 period when there was "progress on the Israel-Syria peace track" and yet it had no effect on Syria's relationship with Iran or the two Islamist revolutionary movements?

And sooner or later, Syria, if they don't abandon their own jihadist culture, would likely break any treaty signed. It's worth considering that they're an autocracy, and if they don't abandon that and start incorporating democracy, that's one more reason why it wouldn't work out. Read all of Rubin's discussion in full to understand why Petraeus is not well versed on this.

Update: according to Max Boot, the news about Petraeus was inaccurate. He asked a military official about this, and it's all a distortion of Arafat-worshiper Mark Perry:

He told me that Perry’s item was “incorrect.” In the first place, Petraeus never recommended shifting the Palestinian territories to Centcom’s purview from European Command, as claimed by Perry. Nor did Petraeus belittle George Mitchell, whom he holds in high regard. All that happened, this officer told me, is that there was a “staff-officer briefing … on the situation in the West Bank, because that situation is a concern that Centcom hears in the Arab world all the time. Nothing more than that.”

I further queried this officer as to whether he had ever heard Petraeus express the view imputed to him by Mark Perry — namely that Israel’s West Bank settlements are the biggest obstacle to a peace accord and that the lack of a peace accord is responsible for killing American soldiers. This officer told me that he had heard Petraeus say “the lack of progress in the Peace Process, for whatever reason, creates challenges in Centcom’s AOR [Area of Responsibility], especially for the more moderate governmental leaders,” and that’s a concern — one of many — but he did not suggest that Petraeus was mainly blaming Israel and its settlements for the lack of progress. They are, he said, “one of many issues, among which also is the unwillingness to recognize Israel and the unwillingness to confront the extremists who threaten Israelis.”

That’s about what I expected: Petraeus holds a much more realistic and nuanced view than the one attributed to him by terrorist groupie Mark Perry.

Ah, so now I see. We've been taken for fools by a sick, disgusting man like Perry. Here's more on Petraeus' view at the Cable blog of Foreign Policy. In that case, we owe an apology to Petraeus for any misunderstandings.

Labels: islam, Israel, Israeli Arabs, jihad, syria, terrorism, United States