When We Do What Is Right For Palestine

"The Economist":

[E]vidently [Netanyahu's] hawkish instincts, for the moment, have got the better of him. Israel, says the right, is under no immediate threat, except from Iran. The Palestinians are weak and divided. The Arabs’ bark is worse than their bite. Fortress Israel has no visible cracks.

Richard Nixon used to say that Israel should make a deal because, while it would probably win the next war, it would be harder to win the war after that. Since he last said it, Israel's won at least two, in Lebanon and Gaza, and it will probably win the next two.

So Nixon would understand its reluctance to deal now. His point was that nations, like stubborn young people, make choices because of their own conception of their best interests, not because someone else thinks they should act in the service of some higher principle. The Palestinians' friends around the world see the issue by and large in moral terms. They deserve a homeland, and so Israel should give to to them. So far, Israel's response amounts to "make me."

What Israel's critics should understand is that this is basically a sound position. And yet most nations that make cold, hard choices, as Israel is apparently doing, can stand on their own. Because it is young and has for its entire life been beset by enemies, the U.S. had provided massive support over the years. In 1973, Israel's late prime minister, Golda Meir, said that Nixon's aid during the Yom Kippur war saved the day against Arab aggressors.

So what Israel should understand is that someday a U.S. president -- perhaps this one before too long -- may decide to make our full financial, diplomatic, and military support contingent on Israel making a deal with the Palestinians. None has done it so far because it hasn't been in his or our own nation's interests. If we ever really do stand up for the Palestinians, it will be of a piece with Harry Truman recognizing the new state of Israel in 1948. As for Israel, it may well be thinking that until we act in that fashion, we don't actually mean what we say.

Not-So-Poor Poor Meg

More from John Judis's Jerry Brown profile. First, a modern-day iteration of Harry Truman's famous "Poor Ike -- it won't be a bit like the Army" comment about the circumscribed civilian elected executive:

Daniel Zingale, who was deputy chief of staff for former governor Gray Davis and a senior adviser to Schwarzenegger, draws a sharp contrast between the two candidates. Brown, he says, “should know what he is getting into. He has always been someone who liked to rock the boat, and I think that fits the time.” Whitman, he says, “does not have any idea what the job is like ... For a CEOer like her, who is used to telling the comptroller what to do, it would be a rude awakening to discover that the comptroller is going to be running against you in the next election. She doesn’t know how powerless she is going to be.”

And Judis's conclusion:

If Whitman’s money prevails, the legislature will quickly disabuse her of her plans, and if she is smart, she will decide, as Schwarzenegger finally did, to govern from the center and not the right. But if Brown can win in spite of his shoestring campaign, he won’t have to endure a similar initiation—he knows how Sacramento works. He stands a much better chance than Whitman of breaking the fiscal deadlock, and his cleanenergy program could restore California’s place as a vanguard of American industry. And if that’s not enough, there’s another consideration: A Brown administration, whatever its faults, would be infinitely more entertaining.

MacChrystal?

David Greenberg on those who compare Gen. McChrystal's public dialogue with President Obama to Douglas MacArthur's confrontation with Harry Truman:

Like most historical analogies bandied about in the media, this one is overdrawn. As serious as it is, the war in Afghanistan hardly approaches the Korean War in its magnitude or impact. McChrystal, for his part, has nothing like MacArthur's prestige, and his testing of Obama's supremacy falls well short of MacArthur's defiance. Yet the story of Truman and MacArthur remains useful to remember—not because it directly mirrors today's but because it created a dynamic in which subsequent presidents felt unduly constrained by the prospect of military commanders undermining them.