Deluded realists
We've all heard the story of the psychology professor who was convinced that babies could swim from the time of birth. When his own child was two weeks old, the prof dumped her in a pool and the infant sank like a stone. After reviving his baby, the professor declared that he obviously had waited too long, and that the child wasn't young enough any more.
It's pretty clear that the Annapolis conference on Middle East is going to sink like the professor's baby. Noah Pollak reports that our foreign policy "realists" -- in this case Daniel Levy, Robert Malley, Ghaith al-Omari, and Steve Clemons -- know why. We won't be able to broker an agreement (or induce serious movement towards one) with the "moderate" Palestinian Authority because we haven't engaged the ultra-militant Hamas. Israel's peace partner, in short, isn't committed enough to destroying the state of Israel any more.
The "realists" don't put it this way, of course. They maintain instead that they wish to bolster the Palestinian "moderates" while engaging the extremists. It seems not to have occurred to the "realists" that, in Pollak's words, "U.S. diplomatic attention directed at Hamas thoroughly would discredit Mahmoud Abbas, whose only selling point to the Palestinian people at this point is the fact that he is the Palestinians’ only focal point for American and Israeli attention."
In addition, Hamas's charter expressly provides that “there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.” But as realists, Levy, Malley and their hero Brent Scowcroft all understand that what Hamas really means here is "please invite us to your international conference so we can give up this jihad act."
Still, Pollak's main question -- what can Israel offer Hamas other than its own suicide -- does not seem out of line. The basis for a Middle East peace agreement has traditionally been thought to be a Palestinian state in exchange for secure borders and acknowledgement of Israel's right to exist. But Hamas is on record as not even wanting the Palestinian state. According to Pollack, its goal is the violent imposition of an Islamic caliphate throughout the Middle East, not the establishment of a Palestinian state.
In other words, the "realist" sense of reality is about as robust as the doctrinaire psychology professor's.
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