Opinion: The four misconceptions about the Middle East, redux
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Former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon wrote a discussion-generating Sunday piece for the L.A. Times about the ‘four main misconceptions’ that foreign emissaries have about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Before getting to the reax, a refresher on the four myths:
1) ‘[T]hat solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a prerequisite for stability in the Mideast.’
2) ‘[T]hat Israeli territorial concessions are the key to progress.
3) ‘[T]hat ‘the Occupation’ blocks agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.’
4) ‘[T]hat the Palestinians want -- and have the ability -- to establish a state that will live in peace alongside Israel.’
Now, the reaction, starting with Carl in Jerusalem, who thinks Ya’alon should be the next prime minister, and (more importantly?) informs us that Moshe’s nickname is ‘Boogie’:
After leaving the IDF and letting his ‘cooling off’ period pass, Yaalon joined the Likud, where he is not even an MK - yet. Yaalon has the kind of fresh thinking that has not been corrupted yet by Israeli politics. He’s a straight shooter. [...] Yaalon’s fresh thinking and refusal to abide by political correctness are just what this country needs.
Matthew Yglesias in Adams-Morgan does not subscribe to this point of view:
One can sympathize to some extent with Israeli officials feeling like their country attracts a disproportionate quantity of busybodies pushing peace plans, but while it would be one thing for Ya’alon to genuinely argue that Israel should be left to its own devices, it’s another thing entirely to say that the United States should just be totally indifferent to how our most generously subsidized client state relates to its neighbors and to the millions of stateless Arabs over which it rules.
For more raspberries & attaboys, read on after the jump.
Jonathan Schwarz brings the sarcasm, in homage to Ya’alon’s IDF service at a time ‘when Israel killed thousands of Palestinians’:
I say, thank god Moshe cares so much about Palestinian society. Imagine what he’d do if he DIDN’T.
Boulder’s Anne Lieberman seconds his nomination as PM:
Why Israelis don’t elect Lt. Gen. (res.) Moshe Yaalon as their prime minister, I simply cannot fathom. [...] [The column] certainly is a breath of fresh air and we haven’t had one in such a very long time. If only Ya’alon’s pragmatic wisdom could break through the cacophony of diplo-babble.
Soccer Dad breaks down the Israeli politics angle:
It was Netanyahu who recruited Gen Yaalon to Likud. Gen Yaalon has not been active in the political world but the academic world. (Last year he was a scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; since his return he’s been ensconced at the Shalem Center.) These aren’t the activities of an ambitious politician. Surely Gen. Yaalon knows he can’t just show up primary day and expect to win. If Netanyahu is wooing Mofaz back (and Israel Matzav has made a convincing case of it), I suspect that it’s either because he has a different position for one of the two ex-Chiefs of staff in mind (such as the foreign ministry) or because Gen. Yaalon has been a reluctant politician.
P.J. Nasser of Manchester:
[S]hould be required reading by anyone who seeks to ‘solve the problem of the Middle East’.
[A] breath of fresh air among the Hamas garbage that has been filling op-ed pages of late.