Israeli and American policymakers continue to have cross-purposes dialogue. Even as the ammunition continues to flow, and Israelis greatly appreciate American aid, American diplomats are treating the “two-state solution” as if it were a cure for cancer. It’s amazing to hear people bring it up. For Israelis, this “solution” is as reliable as Theranos’ blood test, which was supposed to diagnose many diseases from a single drop of blood…but never actually diagnosed them.
Similarly, Joe Biden’s desire for a hostage deal and ceasefire puts far more pressure on Israel than on the Qataris, who are mistakenly Hamas’s financiers. Supported by Americans screaming in the streets, Biden could either suspend business as usual with Qatar and release them all at once until Hamas takes responsibility for all the hostages – before negotiations can continue. We should swear that we can’t reach an agreement.
To understand this growing disconnect, consider two documents. In 1776, Americans signed the Declaration of Independence. It begins “in the course of human events,” expresses “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind,” and then recognizes that “all men are created equal,” and promotes a positive liberal democracy for all. clearly shows the vision of
This declaration reflected the Enlightenment’s belief in rationality and was so broad in scope that “all men are created equal” ultimately meant that all men and women will now be included. America’s founders created a viable, though imperfect, political system that respected humanity and used human reason to solve problems.
212 years later, in 1988, the Islamic resistance movement Hamas issued the Covenant. This document, which invokes “Allah the Merciful”, is irrational, Islamic supremacist, and messianic. “You are the best people ever raised by mankind,” it begins. It warns about “offenders stricken with baseness” in general, and Jews in particular. The opening line blares, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam annihilates it, just as it annihilated other countries before it.”
Why would any rational person think such fanatics were simply fighting a border skirmish, or even accept a two-state solution?
By treating politics as transactional, Americans continue to underestimate the apocalyptic, all-or-nothing enthusiasm of most Palestinians. At Camp David in July 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat a radical compromise that the host, President Bill Clinton, showed “courage and foresight.”
President Arafat did not even fight back, but unleashed a wave of terror in Palestine, killing more than 1,000 innocent people. Twenty-three years later, on October 7, we learn what Hamas terrorists did to men and women, young and old, boys and girls, in a matter of hours – some of whom spent their lives courting their neighbors in Gaza. Assume that there were “pacifists” who came, and that the Palestinians simply wanted a reasonable compromise.
Israelis have learned what happens when “Let’s Make a Deal” is met with “Apocalypse Now.” Jihadists exploit the naivety of the West, Americans toast compromise while formulating Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speeches in their heads – and Jewish blood flows.
After the Oslo peace process in the 1990s and Camp David in 2000, 1,000 terrorist killings were caused. Considering that the liberation of Gaza in 2005 resulted in more than 1,200 murders, and in 2023 there were rapes and assaults, Israelis are distrustful of further negotiations and are reluctant to report Palestinian brutality. It is easy to understand why they resist aiming for statehood because they are
Assessing the past 30 years, how can any self-respecting policymaker approach Israelis with the same mantra, repeating the same mantra, without adjusting, updating or recognizing the lessons learned, and saying “no”? It’s even harder to understand how you can expect anything other than that.
Silver lining: Americans are ignorant but not anti-Semites
Still, for Jews, there is a silver lining in this red-white-blue cloud that prevents Americans from recognizing the evils of fundamentalism that define much of Palestinian political culture. When many people try to bully Israel into stupid solutions. Condemns Israel for defending itself. Or calling Israel’s disciplined and morally justified self-defense campaign against Hamas “genocide” feels anti-Semitic in its capriciousness. Fortunately for Jews, but unfortunately for the free world, American stupidity is ignorance, not Jew-hating.
Americans self-defeatingly continue to wear transactional blinders against all kinds of apocalyptic enemies. Barack Obama and now Joe Biden have long downplayed the evil and deceit of the Iranian regime as America has been outmaneuvered, outmaneuvered and outplayed. This is why President Obama disappointed the streets of Iran during the Green Revolution, which was canceled in 2009, but 13 years later he admitted that his silence was “a mistake.”
Recently, Biden and his team have been irresponsible toward Iran and Qatar, even as America has absorbed dozens of attacks from Iranian “proxies.”
Both Iran and Qatar are far more vulnerable to American pressure than these despicable dictators would like to admit, and Americans know it.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is equally naive about Russia’s messianic megalomaniac Vladimir Putin. In February 2017, then-President Trump said, “I wish we could get along with Russia…I love to negotiate things and I do it very well…” but both parties The president unwittingly encouraged Putin’s aggression. They underestimate his ruthlessness and overestimate their ability to “negotiate….”
In the 1930s, as godless, apocalyptic dictators spread their tentacles, President Franklin Roosevelt also dreamed of being rational, transactional, and neutral. Fortunately, FDR transitioned quickly before most Americans did. Yet it was only the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor that drew America into a necessary war against totalitarianism.
Immediately after this assault, FDR declared: Only complete victory will reward the defenders of tolerance, civility, freedom, and faith. ”
Most Israelis remain committed to fighting Hamas until we achieve “total victory” over Hamas’s military might. As our friends in America seek creative solutions for “the next day,” we continue to hear the message of a great Democratic president: “There can never be a successful compromise between good and evil.” I hope you don’t forget.
The author, a senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People’s Policy Research Institute, is an American presidential historian and author of the Jewish People’s Library (www.theljp.org).