JustASC

The 2003 interview with Gen. Merrill A. “Tony” McPeak, Obama supporters’ latest headache,  is worth reading and dissecting for what it suggests about today’s definition of  “anti-Israel” and “anti-Semitism.”

I’ve  read and heard from people who think McPeak’s remarks are both, in the Walt and Mearsheimer mode.

The relevant portions begin with McPeak lamenting that the U.S. lacks an overall strategy for the Mideast: 

We don’t have a playbook for the Middle East. You know, for instance, obviously, a part of that long-term strategy would be getting the Israelis and the Palestinians together at . . . something other than a peace process. Process is not a substitute for achievement or settlement. And even so the process has gone off the tracks, but the process isn’t enough. . . . We [n]eed to get it fixed and only we have the authority with both sides to move them towards that. Everybody knows that.

Okay, I can see why many in the pro-Isrel camp would be wary — McPeak is suggesting, in fairly mild terms, that the U.S. play the nervous-making “honest broker,” willing to twist arms on both sides. Pro-Israel hawks hate even the hint of pressure being brought on Israel — although you can find many in the U.S. Jewish and Israeli “peace” camps who have begged the U.S. to play a more “active” role — i.e. press both sides.

He’s also suggesting, although anethema to some hawks as well as moderates, that settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to U.S. interests in the Middle East and its relations with Arabs and Islam. Reasonable minds can disagree, but is it automatically anti-Israel or anti-Semitic to say that it is? (Note McPeak says the I-P conflict is only “a part of that long-term strategy.”)

Q: So where’s the problem? State? White House?

McPeak: New York City. Miami. We have a large vote – vote, here in favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it.

Uh-oh. On one hand, this is a back-handed compliment to the success of the pro-Israel lobby, especially AIPAC, which focuses on Congress and not the White House and State Department. Jews are justifiably proud of AIPAC’s accomplishments (and so is AIPAC). What McPeak is saying is that strong pro-Israel political activism has convinced politicians that the U.S.’s role is not to pressure Israel to make concessions (he’ll explain which ones later).

Is that an anti-Semitic or anti-Israel statement? Try this test: If Joseph Lieberman or Malcolm Hoenlein gave a speech to AIPAC or any other Jewish audience, and said, “Thanks to your activism, our legislators have resisted calls to pressure Jerusalem, despite voices in the State Department who would demand even more Israeli concessions,” would his audience find it controversial — or would they leap to their feet in wild applause? On its own Web site, AIPAC boasts that among its “achievements” is “Prohibiting U.S. aid and contacts with the Hamas-led PA until its leaders recognize Israel’s right to exist, renounce violence and ratify previous Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements.” Here you have the lobbyists themselves boasting about their influence on Congress, and, in turn, U.S. Mideast policy. We can’t have it both ways — we can’t boast of our legislative achievements, and then label as “anti-Semitic” others who do the same.

Where McPeak does wade into Walt and Mearsheimer territory is in putting the onus on Israel and AIPAC before he mentions Palestinian culpability. He’ll get there, eventually, but it takes a follow-up question from the interviewer, and even then he remains on the Israel-as-the-obstacle theme:

Q: Actually I was thinking of the larger lack of a Middle East strategy. Does that emanate out of the State Department or out of the White House, combination of both, is it a personality struggle, what’s – what’s going on?

McPeak: I think that everybody understands that a settlement of the Arab-Israeli problem would require the Israelis to stop settling the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and maybe even withdraw some of the settlements that’ve already been put there. And nobody wants to take on that problem. It’s just too tough politically. So that means we can’t . . . you can’t develop a Middle East strategy. It’s impossible.

Again, there’s a statement a lot of Israelis and American Jews can agree with — peace is impossible without a resolution of the settlements. Isn’t that implied when the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, representing CRC’s and 14 major groups, passes a resolution declaring ”The organized American Jewish community should affirm its support for two independent, democratic and economically viable states — the Jewish State of Israel and a State of Palestine — living side-by-side in peace and security”? As to his other point, it’s a fact, not a slur, that calling on Israel to more aggressively dismantle settlements, or even rein in “natural growth,” would be a political third-rail for a politician seeking pro-Israel support.

But again, General, is it only about the settlements? Even his questioner, presumably not a pro-Israel activist, gets justifiably impatient on this point:

Q: Do you think . . . there’s an element within Hamas, Hezbollah, that doesn’t want Israel to exist at all and always will be there?

McPeak: Absolutely.

Q: Yeah. So this is – this is multilateral.

(In other words: ”I’m throwing you a life preserver, here, General. Can’t you say anything bad about the Arabs?”

McPeak: . . . There’s an element in Oregon, you know, that’s always going to be radical in some pernicious way, and likely to clothe it in religious garments, so it makes it harder to attack.

It’s not clear to whom he is referring here (the interviewer is from the Oregonian), and I’m not sure how it relates to what comes before and after. What’s the ‘it” in the sentence above? I’ve no clue. He continues: 

So there’s craziness all over the place. I think there is enough good will on the Israeli side – I’ve spent a lot of time in Israel, worked at one time very closely with the Israeli air force as a junior officer, and so – but that’s maybe the more cosmopolitan, liberal version of the Israeli population – I think there’s enough good will there – I don’t know if there is still on the Palestinian side, because they’ve been radicalized pretty well. But there’s enough good will, I would hope, on both sides that you can get the majority into some kind of a big tent, and make something better than what you’ve got now. If you do that, you’ll still have radicals on both sides doing stupid things, but that is basically a problem in internal security. Hopefully. You can handle it with police. But if you don’t do that, I don’t see any way to put together a strategy for the Middle East. I mean it’s just kind of a linchpin . . .

In other words, there are peace-loving people on both sides, and a settlement is possible, but there are hawks and radicals on both sides who would spoil it for the rest. Not a terribly controversial statement, although it took him a while — probably too long — to get there.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 10:56 am and is filed under JustASC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.