The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can be Resolved [Paperback]

I read The Case for Peace by Alan Dershowitz with great interest. Although I am basically an optimist, I have been lately quite pessimistic about the opportunities for peace in the Arab Israel conflict. There are so many obstacles to peace and so many players that the possibility of peace seemed to be remote, at best.

But Dershowitz, in a methodical analytic way approaches each of the pitfalls that I had considered and presents the consistent message that peace is possible.

This is not a pie in the sky book of dreams. It is rather a hard hitting, at times argumentative, but always convincing case for peace. The aspect of the book that I found most convincing was its avoidance of calling on the various parties to exercise "good will". The time for good will has long passed and now is the time when only hard nosed negotiation can bring about lasting peace.

Dershowitz rightfully points out that this final war for peace will be slow and painful for both sides. He predicts that terrorist attacks will continue after the peace is declared and that the parties must avoid, at all costs, the resumption of the "cycle of violence" that has been the hallmark of the intifada.

The second part of the book, entitled "Overcoming the Hatred Barriers to Peace" makes this book necessary reading for the opponents of peace throughout the world on both sides of the issue. Sadly, because Dershowitz has been such a vocal advocate for Israel and for a lasting and just peace between Israel and its neighbors, he has become the target of too many personal attacks. These attacks and his necessary defense reach a climax in his passionate call to the reader to "Marginalize and confront those who persist in their hate speech even while Israel and the Palestinians move toward peace."

The ideas put forward in this book are a great contribution to thinking in the direction of peace. However, the practical is too dominant over the ideological so that even someone from either side who is interested in peace could fell wronged by the fact that his ideological basis has not been legitimized enough. Also the length of the book impedes a better integration of its theme.

This author gets three stars and an "A" for effort here if and only if it is the case that "something" is always better than "nothing?" However, I believe it is precisely this one case -- of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- where this rule simply does not hold.

As one who spent two decades in the UN dealing with international issues of war and peace, it is clear that certain fundamental rules of international power politics cannot be violated, skirted or ignored. The first rule, as others have remarked about in their critiques of the author's proposal (the ones that appear as the last Chapter, chapter Seven called "The skeptic's Corner"): the impetus for such a proposal MUST come from the parties themselves. The reason this must be a prerequisite is because, however uncomfortable it may be to the parties involved, and however precarious to international and regional security and relations, the status quo represents a stable state of existence for both parties. It is a "saddle point" that requires committed energy to move away from in either direction. If it were not a saddle point, then one or both parties would be doing something to alter it? Being a sovereign nation by definition means having the right to make decisions about changing the status quo.

These parties have burned up a generation spending almost all of their negative and destructive energy, to no avail. Israel has put itself in an advantageous power position where it undoubtedly thinks its position will hold forever, but everyone but Israel knows that time is not on Israel's side. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have lost everything and have nothing else to lose. This makes them a dangerous and very much demeaned adversary, and moreover, they know as well as the rest of the world that time is on their side.

Thus any proposal with a chance of success must begin by addressing these and the other realities underlying the conflict. To wit, on the Israeli side, they want a Jewish state in order to safeguard against another holocaust. Does this not preclude the prospect of ever integrating with non-Jews into a blended non-racial or mixed-race state? On the Palestinian side, they want their land back and the freedoms and dignity that goes with it. What will they do to change the status quo to get it? Tack on to this very intractable tableau the fact that there is a most profound asymmetry in power between the two actors and we get to a bottom line realty that operates deeply within the consciousness of the respective nationals. The idea of a confederation attempts to raise the Palestinian to equality by fiat. It won't work.

Now we must ask an important question: Does advancing a proposal that ignores the root realities at the same time that it exacerbates the nationalist tendencies of these actors seem like it will lead to a reasonable solution? Not by my way of thinking. To ignore, or try to side step these realities is, at worse, to insult the intelligence and ignore the deep emotional investments of both sides; and at best it is to try to solve the underlying difficulties (that the proposal asks both sides to ignore) by fiat.

Yes, there may be some useful spin-off or collateral benefits from having representatives from the two half-nations sitting side by side and going through the motions of collaboration as little more than a pseudo-confederation. But it is almost the same as we used to do when I was a U.S. delegate to NATO, sitting across the table from my WARSAW pact counterparts. We all recited our formulaic talking point by heart, at the same time that we worked the daily crossword puzzles. There were literary thousands of proposals that passed through our respective delegations and literarly thousands of days when absolutely nothing happened: That is, until our respective political authorities were ready for it to happen. And then it happened over night -- and not necessarily with any of the best available proposals

A better example that always seems to have a chance at success, can be seen in President Jimmy Carter's style of negotiating -- a kind of modified shuttle diplomacy in which he outlined on his laptop at home all of the fundamental differences; approached each side separately, always addressing the key underlying issues but proposing side benefits that would entice each side to see it in its own interest to get into the game. Whenever a party got in the game, he was already "vested" in working towards a solution.

Tricky formulations that veer away from underlying realities may have a lot of sex appeal but do not solve the problem of having a side invested in the solution, nor do they guarantee any change in the status quo. Sooner rather than later the trick will be discovered and the players will want to get back to the underlying realities. This is truly a case when "something" may not necessarily beat "nothing."

I still believe that President Carter's style of modified shuttle diplomacy is a better option than a proposed pseudo-Confederation. Once it sinks in to Israel that its asymmetrical power advantages will not bring it peace in the long run; and the Palestinians discover that neither will terror; and then when both sides decide to elect leaders bend on peace rather than on nationalistic chest-beating, a beautiful proposal will emerge and it will work the first time. I will bet my house on it. Three stars.