The Much Too Promised Land

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Friday, July 9, 2010

The stories found in the Torah portions which we read in the late spring and early summer, portions that come from the book of Numbers, are also found in a second version in the book of Deuteronomy, which we start reading next week. The differences between the two versions can sometimes be quite striking. For example, in the story of the 12 spies, Numbers would lead you to believe that this was God’s plan, executed by Moses, but Deuteronomy, perhaps having the benefit of knowing how poorly things turn out, lays the blame from the start on the people, claiming that they were the ones clamoring for this exercise.

As I read Aaron David Miller’s book, The Much Too Promised Land, with its harsh criticism, particularly of the Clinton Administration, I was somewhat put off by its gloating Monday morning quarterbacking. Writing from the perspective of 2006, it isn’t quite as challenging to see where the land mines were in 1999.

I was also challenged by Miller’s hero worship of Henry Kissinger and James Baker, especially, his oft repeated appreciation for Kissinger’s deviousness. Miller is particularly critical of Dennis Ross, but also mentions on several occasions, Ross’s excluding him from the inner circle at key moments of the negotiation process.

Still this is an important and unique book, a history not of the Arab Israeli conflict, but of the attempts of the United States to mediate that conflict since the 1970’s.

Aaron Miller, a nice Jewish boy from the Midwest, whose parents were involved both in the Republican party and in American Zionism, switches his field of interest during graduate school, from the United States Civil War to the Middle East. He studies Hebrew and Arabic in Israel during and immediately following the 1973 Yom Kippur war and ends up writing a dissertation on the US Saudi special relationship. Following school he is grabbed up by the State Department as a documentary editor, but ends up involved in the more active side of negotiations, staying on for 24 years, working for 6 different Secretaries of State, and 4 Presidents. He resigns in 2003, in frustration as Arab Israeli peace becomes sidelined under President George W Bush.

In the book Miller presents himself as a tough hardboiled realist, though I find that hard to reconcile with his immediate employment after leaving the State Department. From 2003-2006, Miller was the director of Seeds of Peace, a most idealistic organization, which brings young people together for a summer camp program in the United States, Israelis and Arabs, Pakistanis and Indians, as a way of bridging the conflicts that exist between their peoples.

Miller points out how uniquely American is the belief that “over time and through negotiation, dialogue and compromise, the needs of Arabs and Israelis could be somehow reconciled.” He stresses that this is more of a faith statement, than we usually acknowledge. It is a reflection of American idealism and pragmatism, what he calls the “split the difference approach”, a world view entirely foreign to the Middle East. Miller points out the many differences between the American experience and that of the Israelis and Palestinians. America, he notes, “had the liquid assets of two great oceans, which gave us, at least until recently, a tremendous feeling of security”. Both Israelis and Palestinians react out of a history which has left them very insecure. He also stresses that though there is a great imbalance of power between the United States and these smaller entities, one should not dismiss the strength of a smaller power, who has so much more at stake in a particular conflict, and is not distracted by other considerations.

Miller has no end of criticisms of Arafat and the Palestinians. He quotes Abba Eban’s, “they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” He speaks directly of Arafat’s inability to govern, his refusal to abandon violence as a potential tool. He writes: “We could talk to Arafat all day about ending violence but it was like punching jello.” Further he states, “Arafat for whom dissembling and lying was second nature.” Yet where he is critical of the Americans, and particularly Clinton, it is for not pressuring Israel more.

Miller is a proponent of what he calls “tough love”, and believes that the attention of the United States and particularly of the President, should be used very judiciously, only where it can be effective. A settlement in the Middle East “will not come cheap”, and one role of the United States is to help both sides come to terms with that reality. He values very highly the special ties between the United States and Israel, the similarities of culture and values, the shared democracy, but insists that fighting with Israel is not a bad sign. In fact, he insists that it has been a necessary part of the most productive of the United States peace making process.

The book is filled with details about Israeli as well as American leaders. In one section about Prime Minister Rabin, Miller corroborates what I had heard from others about AIPAC’s failure to support Rabin in his peacemaking. He writes: “In fact not long after becoming Prime Minister Rabin warned AIPAC to stay out of Israel’s business on the peace process and after the Oslo accords were revealed, he appealed for the organization’s support.”

The book ends with some principles for moving forward. Miller notes that one can’t ignore the very tough neighborhood in which Israel is resident. He is pessimistic about the current leadership, feeling that on both sides they lack the stature and respect of their countrymen and can’t compare in vision with earlier leaders. Sharon was not easy to deal with but he commanded respect and in reinventing himself after Lebanon, also took new positions. Arafat was impossible, but he was the clearly recognized symbol of the Palestinian people. Today with the split between Fatah and Hamas, there is no one figure who can speak for everyone. Further in these negotiations, “small spoilers have a big impact,” on both sides, smaller extremist groups have done lasting damage. The gaps between the Palestinians and Israelis remain very large, even at the maximum of Ehud Barak’s offers at the end of the Clinton administration, and it is not clear that there is the will to overcome these gaps.

Last month, Miller had an article published in Foreign Affairs Magazine, called, “The False Religion of Mideast Peace-And why I'm no longer a believer”, picking up where his book left off. He urges a reorientation of the field of Arab Israeli peace making to a more realistic approach. The road to Bagdad does not necessarily run through Palestine, and though an improvement of the situation of the Palestinians could help, it will not be a panacea.

He writes: “In a broken, angry region with so many problems -- from stagnant, inequitable economies to extractive and authoritarian governments that abuse human rights and deny rule of law, to a popular culture mired in conspiracy and denial -- it stretches the bounds of credulity to the breaking point to argue that settling the Arab-Israeli conflict is the most critical issue, or that its resolution would somehow guarantee Middle East stability.”

He notes that for 40 years people argued that the lack of a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict would destroy the United States standing, yet during those years the US did succeed in advancing its core interests, containing the Soviets, and strengthening ties both to Israel and to key Arab states such as Egypt and Saudia Arabia. For all Miller’s criticism of the peace process in the 1990’s, he notes that it is the only decade without a war, and sees the most devastating fallow-out from high profile failures, being the loss of hope. Even if it is not possible to resolve all issues and come to an end of the conflict, the United States can still contribute by: “working with Israelis and Palestinians on negotiating core final-status issues (particularly on borders, where the gaps are narrowest), helping Palestinians develop their institutions, getting the Israelis to assist by allowing Palestinians to breathe economically and expand their authority, and keeping Gaza calm, even as it tries to relieve the desperation and sense of siege through economic assistance.”

Miller concludes with a touch of poetry, with which I’ll conclude as well.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, who probably didn’t know much about the Middle East, said it best: “There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.” And maybe, if that leads to more realistic thinking when it comes to America’s view of Arab-Israeli peacemaking, that’s not such a bad thing.