Ends and Means
Our FP colleague Marc Lynch notes that Obama’s principled stand on Israeli settlement expansion and a two-state solution may be paying off in other ways, most notably in an easing in checkpoints, etc., on the West Bank. This is encouraging news and I don’t want to sound like a killjoy, but it is important to ...
Our FP colleague Marc Lynch notes that Obama’s principled stand on Israeli settlement expansion and a two-state solution may be paying off in other ways, most notably in an easing in checkpoints, etc., on the West Bank. This is encouraging news and I don’t want to sound like a killjoy, but it is important to keep the big picture in mind.
After all, as Marc notes, at the same time that Israel is easing restrictions on the West Bank, they’ve apparently approved the construction of another 240 homes at an outpost near the Palestinian city of Ramallah. One hand giveth, the other hand taketh away.
At this point, freezing settlement expansion, lifting checkpoints, building up more effective and professional Palestinian security forces, reforming Fatah, trying to get Hamas to recognize Israel, etc., are all just means to an end; they are not ends in themselves. As Obama appears to understand, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will not be put to rest until there are two states for two peoples, and the Palestinian state cannot be some sort of permanently crippled Bantustan akin to the open-air prison that now exists in Gaza. Until Israelis, Palestinians, and their supporters elsewhere get to that finish line, in short, we haven’t really solved anything.
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Stephen M. Walt is a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University. Twitter: @stephenwalt
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