Stephen Walt

Stephen Walt is a professor at Harvard and the author of two New York Times bestsellers. He is a highly regarded foreign policy analyst and he came to speak at Cornell last Thursday!

He is also highly praised by White Supremacists everywhere and many things in his book are shamelessly anti-semitic. Joyyyyy.

See the Cornell Daily Sun article online about his speech.

This is my response:

Letter to the Editor regarding “Walt Criticizes Obama’s Foreign Policy”

Dear Editor,

I would like to provide an additional perspective in regards to last week’s article on the speech given by Professor Walt about Obama’s foreign policy, specifically concerning Israel and Palestine.

While Professor Walt stuck to his promise after the fire alarm that he would not say anything “inflammatory,” he did leave out some key details. As stated in Joseph Niczky’s article last Friday, Walt predicted that unless Obama put greater pressure on Israel to come to an agreement, there would be no peaceful two-state solution.

This implies that Israel is the only player who holds cards in the deal. It is true that Israel holds bargaining power in the form of territory and Jerusalem, but the Palestinians also have much to contribute to the compromise, like recognizing the State of Israel and giving up terrorism.

Let’s start with recognition. An important part of a feasible peace process is the understanding on both sides that the other has the right to exist. Mahmoud Abbas, the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, told the Palestinian newspaper ‘Al-Quds’ that, “For us, there is the state of Israel and we won't recognize Israel as a Jewish state” (The Jerusalem Post, September 7, 2010).

Whether this is a personal sentiment of Abbas or not, there is not enough Palestinian support for the recognition of a Jewish State. If Abbas were to recognize Israel in coming peace talks, it is very possible that he would not stay in power long enough to implement the plans for peace.

During the question and answer portion of the lecture, Professor Walt drew a parallel between the conflict in Ireland that George Mitchell worked to resolve and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, claiming that the key to success in Ireland was the inclusion of all parties. In the conflict between Israel and Palestine, Hamas is known as a terrorist organization and therefore the US will not hold talks that include Hamas. Walt sees bringing Hamas into the discussions as a possible route to peace.

Upon further inspection of what Hamas stands for, Walt may not be so quick to suggest we invite Hamas to our peace planning parties. The Hamas Charter states: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it. (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).”

They say it takes two to tango. The US can force Netanyahu to put on his dancing shoes but that doesn’t mean Abbas is going to bring his. And Hamas doesn’t even own dancing shoes.

On to terrorism. While TIME magazine would have you believe that there has been “relative peace” in the southern region since the Disengagement in 2005 (all Jewish settlers in the Gaza Strip were forcibly removed from their homes by the Israel Defense Forces and relocated) and Operation Cast Lead in January 2009, rockets have continued to fall on Israel, some in highly populated areas. In many ways, outsiders view the terrorism as acts of individuals unrelated to the Palestinian leadership, when in fact acts of terrorism are organized by Hamas and glorified by the Palestinian Authority.

Professor Walt also mentioned territory quite a bit when discussing the conflict, specifically that the Palestinian Authority has “already given up 78% of mandatory land.” This references the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, General Assembly Resolution 181. The Partition Plan was proposed in 1947, before Israel declared independence from Britain and recommended a two state solution. The leaders of the Jewish State approved the plan but it was rejected by the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, so it was never implemented. When Walt says that the Palestinians do not have land to use as a bargaining tool in negotiations, he is correct. But to say that they have already given up 78% of what is rightfully theirs is ignoring history. The land allotted to the Palestinians during the British Mandate period before Israel’s independence never became a reality because Arab leaders refused to accept the Partition Plan.

To tackle the statements Walt made about Apartheid, I will say this: Israel is a democracy. Arab Israelis vote in Israeli elections. There are Arab parties (multiple!) in the Israeli Parliament, and at times there have been as many as 12 Arab seats in the Parliament of 120 seats. Apartheid in South Africa was a legal system of discrimination, segregation, and domination based on race. To suggest that Israel may face a similar rights violation is to fail to acknowledge the tragedy of Apartheid in the history of South Africa.

There is one thing Professor Walt said that I could have not agreed with more, and that is there is no “low-hanging fruit” in foreign policy. That could not be more true about the case of Israel and Palestine.