Going through the Iron Blog topic list:
I have an occasional series entitled Palestine Now! that talks about possible solutions to maximize palestinian rights without inflicting injustice and tyranny on Israelis. The idea is what would I advise if I were hired by the palestinians to give my best and honest advice in improving their plight.
In short, my attitude is that the palestinian people need to grow up, figure out how to run a government, and create a system where not only muslims but christians and jews can live in peacefully and I explore a couple of different variants. The truth is that Israel is not a perfect society. It has some nasty societal habits when it comes to liberty and even-handed justice.
The US should not be comfortable supporting the state of Israel. It, like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and many other allies, are not countries that the US should ever be completely comfortable with on the basis of our own principles. All of these alliances have been made during the past decades because they were the best unhappy alternative from a very sorry list of choices. When President Bush talked about changing US foreign policy to increase our support of freedom, Israel should be included on the list of countries whose alliance is in doubt because of that.
This is a tremendous opportunity for Arabs. If they can become freer than Israel, more just than Israel, they will have preferential relations with the US vis a vis any arab grievances against Israel. That's the import of the current Bush policy and it is a very good one. At the same time, Israel probably has little to worry about because free and just arab states are likely not going to be so obsessed with Israel in the first place and certainly not looking to launch aggressive military operations to "push the Jews into the sea".
In a freedom and justice bidding war, the arabs, including the Palestinians are way behind Israel but Israel may have a ceiling placed on the amount of freedom it can provide internally because of its need to continue a jewish majority in Israel. This bidding war is a war that Arabs can win and they would win wealth, dignity, pride, and a place in the first rank of nations in the world.
Now they only have to understand this winning formula and it's off to the races.
Posted by TMLutas at July 29, 2004 12:54 PM