Defending Robert Malley, ineffectually
Samantha Power may be gone from (or have been relegated to the shadows of) the Obama campaign, but Robert Malley remains. And Malley's positions regarding Israel and the Palestinians, though perhaps more conventional than Power's, are at least as noxious. For example, as Eric Trager reminds us, Malley has gushed over Arafat and has suggested that the 2000 Camp David summit failed because Israel was interested in making Arafat look bad rather than in giving the Palestinians a state, a view that Bill Clinton disputes.
Malley is also a booster of Hamas, Arafat's most faithful heirs. He not only argued that we should move towards engagement with Hamas, but welcomed last year’s brief period of Hamas-Fatah “unity governance,” predicting incorrectly that a “wholesale breakdown of relations between the two groups” was unlikely. In addition, Malley has argued that we should favor an Abbas flirtation with Hamas so that Abbas will be empowered to talk with Israel, and criticized the U.N. for not talking to Hamas. A more complete list of Malley's greatest hits (as compiled by Ed Lasky) can be found here.
Yesterday, Aaron David Miller, a self-described "close friend" of Malley, rallied to Malley's defense in the pages of the Los Angeles Times. Some defense. Miller fails to address any of the substantive criticism that has been leveled at Malley. Instead, he attributes the criticism to "Jewish paranoia." As Trager points out, "Miller’s charge that Jewish identity politics – rather than Malley’s own faulty ideas – have informed public scrutiny of Malley is profoundly ironic" because "insofar as Miller depicts criticisms of Malley in 'us versus them' terms, he is guiltiest of playing identity politics."
Malley's friends might be better advised to engage the points raised by Malley's critics, instead of indulging in ad hominem attacks. But that would require them to defend Malley's positions which, in turn, would likely add to Obama's embarrassment.
