Few social commentators are as notorious and prolific as Christopher Hitchens. Formerly of The New Statesman, a foreign correspondent for Harper’s, a columnist for The Nation, Vanity Fair, and the London Review of Books, Hitchens editorializes with biting wit and unremitting scrutiny. Whether indicting Henry Kissinger, doubting Elie Wiesel, or deconstructing Mother Theresa, Hitchens offers readers unanticipated insights. Without fail, Hitchens shocks, delights, and provokes, as he recently did in an interview with the HPR, after a debate at Harvard’s ARCO forum on the possibility of a just war with Iraq.

HPR: I imagine you think the new commission investigating the intelligence failures of Sept. 11 is dangerous, in that it tries to exculpate the U.S. from any blame.

Christopher Hitchens: Let me just say, I don’t believe that the attack was invited, provoked, or deserved. Any declension of any word of that kind, I reject thoroughly and energetically. It’s true, though, that the subsequent level of incompetence that’s been discovered of foreknowledge not shared, is so grave and so widespread that it has allowed some people to conclude that there might have been collusion. I’d call it the “Oliver Stone” read on it. I wondered when that argument would turn up—now it finally has. I’m completely sure it’s not true.

Now people are asking whether the administration just appointed the world’s best-known cover up artist to do the investigation. What were they thinking? I know what they were thinking, which is that the president said he didn’t want an inquiry. Ultimately, he changed his line, but only slightly: well, okay, we’ll have a commission and Henry Kissinger will chair it. Of course, that’s saying the same thing in a different way.

It’s obvious that there’s no kind of confidence in Kissinger, nor in George Mitchell, who was also a contender for chairmanship. He may be a good mediator—he certainly did some good work in Northern Ireland but he’s not at all a good investigator. The book he wrote with former Senator Cohen of Main tells about their failures as Senators to investigate the Iran-Contra matter. Mitchell is also convicted in my view as someone who is abnormally incurious, and relies too much on the presumption of innocence when it comes to the authorities, a presumption I don’t make myself.

HPR: What do you make of the mystique surrounding Kissinger?

CH: Well this is a country that, strangely, given how strong it is, and how many reasons it might have to be confident, is very insecure. Something about the demeanor of Mr. Kissinger convinces people that he is a sort of European intellectual of gravitas. Now, this really does show there is a crisis in our higher education system.

Kissinger’s three volumes of memoirs, if he had published them in the academy, would have led to the requirement that he resign because they are falsifications. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with me morally about what he did in Angola or China or Vietnam or East Timor, conclusive declassified documents have subsequently shown that the account he gives is fabrication. This scandal, therefore, involves the publishing industry, the academy, and the press. My own profession has colluded in this fabrication of his reputation. Really, it’s a cultural crisis.

HPR: Have you ever spoken with him?

CH: No, he declines. I’ve often given him a chance, but under no circumstances will he talk to me. I sued him for defamation and made him retract a remark he made in response to my book. But since this is an investigation of the ramifications of international gangsterism—we call it terrorism, nihilism—Mr. Kissinger is being sought in the courts of many countries now, not as someone who could be indicted yet, but by merely as a witness: for his knowledge of U.S. diplomatic channels being used as a means of smuggling, laundering money, and carrying out hit jobs against named individuals in democratic countries. Among other things, this means he can’t travel without consulting lawyers, though in some countries he can’t travel at all. Despite all of these defamations, he still chooses not to publish his client list, suggesting he has other interests in the Gulf.

The last major investigation using the American intelligence community was that of Senator Church. Its mandate was that it had been put in possessions of all the known facts, and he withheld crucial sections.

HPR: I’m curious about your own political development from socialism to now, kind of a Neo-Orwelliamism. That’s a pretty broad range.

CH: Yes. It would be conceited if I said I put you and myself in the safekeeping only of what I’ve written. That is the real answer. But it took me a long time to come to the point where I don’t identify with anything, any politics, let alone any political faction. In some ways I feel better for it. In other ways I miss some of my old allegiances, like an amputated limb. But working with the Iraqi exiles and the revolutionaries and the Kurdish rebels and the opposition—which I have been doing now for several years—reminds me a lot more of the better bits of my past. It feels like it. Most of the people I’m working with have similar backgrounds; I find that oddly confirming. It feels much more like being a revolutionary. I think it is more like being one than carrying a placard that says, “Hands off Saddam Hussein.” That’s a wannabe anti.

I like to think I didn’t waste my time on the Marxist idea. I learned quite a bit from it and would only be too proud to say I still had to consult it. But I can’t say it’s my guide. Eugene Debs, the only great socialist leader the United States ever produced, put it very well in a speech he delivered just before he was locked up, when it was clear to him that he had a big following. He said, “I wouldn’t lead you to the promise land even if I could, or if you knew where it was, because if you could be led in, you could be led out, or led anywhere.” In other words, you can’t ask for guides. That’s an extremely important principle for radicalism.

HPR: Do you think this war has been less or more politicized than those in the past, in Vietnam for instance?

CH: Well, in the case of the war in Indochina, the government seems to have thought that it could not risk telling the truth. So a huge campaign of falsification and lies had to be mounted, including very elaborate deceptions to get the war under way. It had to be kept secret. It was too disgusting to be admitted.

Now we have more information than we need. What’s very striking about this situation is that there isn’t anything the government is not telling us. Or that citizens can’t find out for themselves. Or that the government hopes you don’t know. The policy of this administration is to corner Saddam Hussein on the basis of resolutions that he’s signed, and to make it clear that his survival as a dictator is incompatible with those resolutions. The goal is to change his regime, making the promise that the Iraqi people will have more say in how Iraq is run. It’s worth arguing about whether this policy should prevail. With the Indochina war you couldn’t do that, because the whole war was a lie and in any case the cause was a bad one: the prolonging of French colonialism in Indochina. To a remarkable extent the administration says what it means or intends.

HPR: Some people anticipate that a war with Iraq would recapitulate the Gulf War of 1990. Do you see such a parallel playing out?

CH: I didn’t know what President Bush wanted from the first Gulf War. It was not clear to anybody, it was not clear to his own cabinet, and it wasn’t clear to me how it had got started. There was something very shady about the way you suddenly woke up and found that a former ally of ours had invaded another ally of ours. Apparently, Saddam had notified Washington in advance of his intentions, and was told, “We don’t care.”

HPR: Most people claim the reverse, of course, that the Gulf War was a legitimate campaign, and that now, George W. lacks a clear mandate.

CH: Well, yes, a member state of the United Nations had been taken off the map, even if you think, which I do, that ultimately, Kuwait is part of Iraq. I mean the original partition isn’t sacred. No one was consulted about making it a separate colonial state. Ultimately, many of the borders in the Middle East will change, especially in and around Palestine. But they’re not going to be changed by Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, just for their own purposes, by violence.

Christine A. Telyan ’04, a Social Studies Concentrator, is the Features Editor.

This interview was originally featured in the Winter 2003 edition of the Harvard Political Review. January 16, 2003.

Understanding the Palestinian plight requires a thorough historical analysis, which is replaced by this short paragraph in the name of brevity.  The British Mandate included all of present-day Israel and Jordan.  Winston Churchill, then the Colonial Secretary, decided that the westernmost part of the Mandate would be the Jewish state, and the eastern three quarters of the territory would be placed under the control of King Abdullah, a Hashemite.  British expediency dictated the matter.  Transjordan was to be a compromise of sorts: it would, “while preserving the Arab character of area and administration… treat it as an Arab province…of Palestine.”

King Abdullah of Jordan, though, has declared that Jordan will never be Palestine.  “Jordan will never be a substitute land for anyone.  It makes no sense…We should speak loudly and not allow such an idea to remain in the minds of some of us.”  Abdullah ignores the fact that the distinction between Palestine and Transjordan in the early 20^th century was arbitrary—prior to British occupation, the Jordan River had not been used as a political boundary since Ancient Egypt in 1200 B.C.  Abdullah further emphasized his refusal to assimilate Palestinians into Jordan: “Jordan is Jordan, and Palestine is Palestine.”

In recent years, thousands of Palestinians have had their Jordanian citizenship revoked.  Although Jordanian government claims these people simply haven’t kept their paperwork up to date, human rights groups accuse the government of actively disenfranchising Palestinians, who amount to a majority of the population in today’s Jordan.  Jordan, moreover, houses tens of thousands of Palestinians in refugee camps.  Upwards of 60% of these households have inadequate access to drinking water or proper sanitation; poverty as well as overcrowded living conditions are common.  (The persistence of refugees is largely due to the fact that children of refugees are defined as refugees, an uncommon definition which only perpetuates the problem.)

Iraq is far worse.  Since America’s offensive in 2003, the 34,000 Palestinians have been harassed, beaten, detained, forced to leave, and murdered.  Only about 13,000 remain in Iraq.  Many now live in refugee camps, where they have been stranded for years.  One such camp, Al-Waleed, offers refugees nothing except very basic schooling for the children and embroidery for the women.  To make matters worse, sewage runs openly outside the tents, leading to higher incidences of disease and infections.  The refugees there face, at best, an uncertain future and often have left family behind or watched them beaten or killed.

Thousands fled to Syria, only to be flatly denied entrance.  Instead, they were forced into Al-Tanf refugee camp, literally located in the no-man’s land between Iraq and Syria.  Hundreds of Palestinians who had previously immigrated to Syria were then relocated to Al-Tanf.  Refugees there face not only a severe humanitarian crisis but extreme weather conditions as well.  Sandstorms, intense heat, and floods characterize the desert region.  Those living in Syria also often face hardships associated with refugee camps, particularly crowding and water supply.

These problems are only worse for the 400,000 Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon.  Over half of the refugees live in camps, which house up to 45,000 people with no formal infrastructure.  The size of the camps is fixed, so residents are forced to build upwards without proper construction materials due to governmental rules.  In fact, refugees in Lebanon have the worst socio-economic situation of all Palestinians, even worse than those in Gaza and Syria.  Moreover, Palestinians are forbidden from practicing medicine or law in Lebanon and have severely restricted civil rights and property ownership, despite a recent human rights campaign.

The only hope for Palestinians, it seems, is to be granted amnesty by a Western country.  The Al-Tanf camp was recently closed, and its residents relocated to Belgium, Chile, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, among other countries.  Brazil, Australia, Canada, the United States, and several other nations have also accepted thousands of Palestinian refugees, largely because the Arab nations don’t want them.

This article is not about the Israeli treatment of Palestinians.  It is about the hypocrisy of the surrounding Arab countries and the very real and largely ignored plight of the Palestinians living as refugees and second-class citizens there.  They are driven from one country to the next, living in refugee camps under inhumane conditions to escape harassment and death.  Mistreatment of Palestinians abounds well beyond Israel’s borders.  Any activist truly concerned with the plight of Palestinians must strive to correct injustices wherever they occur.

Read the full article at the Harvard Political Review.  ]]> http://hpronline.org/harvard-talks-politics/sam-finegold-on-turkey-through-palestine/feed/ 0 http://hpronline.org/world/to-turkey-through-palestine/ http://hpronline.org/world/to-turkey-through-palestine/#comments Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:03:19 +0000 Sam Finegold http://hpronline.org/?p=12938 The flotilla incident of last year may have been buried in the depths of the Arab Spring, but for Turkey and Israel, the event is still very much pertinent.  Israel has stubbornly refused to apologize for the attack on the grounds that its soldiers were acting out of self-defense. Turkey, in retaliation, downgraded diplomatic relations with Israel by removing its ambassador from the country. The catastrophe, in which Israeli Commandos killed nine Turks aboard a Turkish ship that strayed into Israeli waters, is an example of stubbornness on the parts both political regimes and one of several occurrences that have contributed to the deeper fissuring of Israeli-Turkey relationship.

The National Security Policy Group of the IOP Policy Program had much to say on the approach the U.S. must adopt to calm the situation between Turkey and Israel.  The group chair and overseer, sophomore Jean-Philippe Gauthier, outlined a conciliatory approach based on the economic and diplomatic importance of ties to both countries for the U.S. This, however, procrastinates mediating the opposing views of the two countries over the Palestinian state, which threaten to clash so stridently.

From left to right: Colby Wilkason, Andrew Seo, Jean-Philippe Gauthier, Ken Liu, and Tyler Keefe

Although relations with both countries are important, Turkey is on the rise and distancing itself from the U.S. politically. Action that favors Turkey to prevent the loss of an increasingly crucial ally and punishes Israel for refusing to apologize for the attack is needed. The strongest method of expressing this is to vote for Palestinian statehood.

Now supporters of Israel will protest, and Obama pragmatists will point to the loss of the weighty Jewish interest groups essential to his campaign in 2008. Observers of the Israeli parliament will point to the heavy influence of the Orthodox community in Israeli politics and possible violent backlash from Israel. But, with the disintegration of Egypt, a global majority in favor of Palestine, and Israel’s dependence of the United States, it seems Israel has only been getting heavier to hold up. Additionally, not voting for Palestine portrays Obama as hypocritical given his claimed policy and shows that his foreign policy is built around failing to take a stance.

Then there’s Turkey! Increasingly, it’s becoming important for the United States to solidify ties to take advantage of trade and to save a secular state. Sizeable growth (Tukey’s GDP grew 8 percent in 2010) arose with the emergence of a powerful entrepreneurial class, nicknamed the Anatolian Tigers.  Turkey’s state also generates wealth from the oil pipeline it installed in 2006. Sophomore Andrew Seo, the policy group’s specialist on US long-term goals concerning Iran and Turkey, described Turkey’s ambition as a desire to become an “energy hub.”

The economic prosperity has coupled economic instability. Prime Minister Erdogan, a cunning politician, has pandered to rising Islamic groups in Turkey and played up anger at the West. For instance, Erdogan has utilized the “provocative” statements about the flotilla incident “to generate considerable political capital domestically and in the region.” Alpkaan Celik, a Turkish native and freshman, say the Turkish people view the sinking as “unacceptable.”  Although Alpkaan also stressed that the Turkish people still want a Turkish state, the continued rise of Islam may prevent Turkey from remaining a “0 problem neighbor” and tilt it towards Iran.

As Turkish politics distances itself, U.S. ties to the military have also undergone substantive shocks. Several of the key generals resigned from their posts. Additional disgruntled feelings over the Iraq and Afghanistan in Turkey have added fuel to the fire that is Turkish anger at the West.  While Alpkaan disagreed with the idea that Turks think of the U.S. as a “bad guy,” he concurred that opinion is becoming “more negative.”

A final issue lodged in Turkish anger at the West is the Palestine’s right to statehood. Furthermore, this predicament may put the nail in Turkish-Israeli relations.

America must remove worries of Islam becoming tied to Turkey’s state and cement Turkey as a nation which, “unlike most of the other countries in the Middle East…has actually shown its willingness to take the lead on the region’s most difficult problems in a sensible and responsible way.” While some dissension could break loose over the U.S. “betraying” Israel, the vote by no means rejects Israel as an ally, but merely casts America as a strong arbitrator over an issue it has tried to resolve repeatedly through civilized means. As Alpkaan said, US is “trying to stay in a central area and is avoiding taking action. You have to take definite action.” Voting in an internationally recognized institution still constitutes a “civilized” and decisive approach.

And doing so would help American relations with more than just Turkey, but with the entire Arab Spring. With America on better terms with predominantly Muslim countries, who knows? Perhaps post-spring, it may be better disposed to successfully negotiate in the Middle East…

Luckily for them, nobody imagines that UN recognition will amount to actual Palestinian sovereignty any time soon. Barring a violent paradigm shift, Israeli troops will retain control of Areas B and C of the West Bank, Hamas will maintain its sectarian police rule over the Gaza Strip, and most urban Palestinians in the West Bank will remain subjects of a hapless Palestinian Authority whose leaders have overstayed their democratic welcome.

Riding high on a wave of right-wing anti-UN populism, the likes of US Representative Joe Walsh and Israeli MK Danny Danon will welcome this continuation of the status quo. In their black-and-white take on international relations, no Palestinian state is better than a functional Palestinian state. And because the Palestinians are squatters, so a stronger version of the thesis goes – they bet that if we ignore their condition for long enough, they might just go away.

To Representative Walsh and Minister Danon’s ostensible chagrin, they’ll soon find themselves on the same side of the debate as Hamas, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, and other exponents of radical Palestinian nationalism. In their black-on-white take on international relations, the status quo is better than any conditional settlement for the Palestinians. A UN vote for Palestinian statehood would implicitly accept the right of Israel to sovereignty within its pre-1967 borders, a fact that most elements within Hamas would prefer to overturn – they bet, after all, that international public opinion will do it for them.

It’s perfectly clear that neither extreme position is just: there’s simply no morally coherent argument for displacing millions of people, Palestinian or Israeli. But whose radical wager is right?

It depends on which side is making relative gains in political capital. The extreme branch of the Republican-Likudnik coalition would have us believe that it’s Israel: after all, the US is doubling down on its support, Islamists are moving into the Palestinian mainstream, and small-a Palestinian authority is fractured and weak. Hamas and its friends on the European far left would offer that it’s the Palestinians: as the occupation continues and the Palestinian population continues to grow and bristle against restrictions, former allies are beginning to question Israel’s legitimacy as a state.

As a passionate supporter of Israel’s right to exist and thrive, I’m sad to admit that Hamas’ view of the future looks far more plausible. Israeli officials and businesses face censure across Europe, American academics delight in debating whether or not it’s fair to boycott Israeli research, and the UN spends more time condemning Israel’s actions than those of the Syrian police state, the Iranian theocracy, and the Egyptian junta combined. It also certainly doesn’t help that last year has seen the Knesset debate legislation on loyalty oaths for Israeli Arabs and the criminalization of left-wing NGO activities.

Focusing on the recent rightward trend in Israeli politics, less sanguine Palestinians have disputed this account – arguing that the failure of peace talks to produce a two-state solution since 1991 makes it clear that Israel does not want peace. This is where we part ways.

In fact, the position of the Palestinians vis-à-vis right-wing opinion in Israel has improved substantially since the days of Madrid and Oslo. While in the mid-1990s, center-left Israeli doves like Shimon Peres had to sidestep the explicit endorsement of Palestinian statehood, 2011 is a year when even Binyamin Netanyahu – security hawk par excellence – has no choice but to ultimately endorse the two-state model.

But words aren’t enough. Insisting seriously on negotiations only now that the Palestinian Authority has taken matters to the UN, Netanyahu has made a thoroughly disappointing effort toward peace – and it’s putting Israel in serious danger. With the Israeli-Palestinian conflict now framed by the world community as a question of Palestinian statehood, Israel is quickly losing the capital to determine the terms of a two-state solution. While it would make most practical sense for Israel to annex major settlement blocs, retain sovereignty over a united Jerusalem, and continue security collaboration with the Palestinian Authority, the chance for these issues to be resolved in Israel’s favor continues to wane. More than a few critics have gone a step further, proclaiming the death of the two-state solution, and with it, the end of Zionism.

Regardless of what does or doesn’t happen on the ground as a result of this week’s resolutions and deliberations, only Israel and the United States will lose out. It didn’t have to be this way: the United States could have turned up the pressure on Netanyahu, the Palestinian Authority could have resisted the temptation to make a political scene, and an Israeli government could have headed off Palestinian ambitions by making an offer that couldn’t be refused.

But not this Israeli government. Bibi Netanyahu is a reasonable leader with great strategic vision – which, given his far-right millenarian coalition constituency, makes any expectation that he’d jeopardize his political career for a risky peace gambit highly unlikely. Unfortunately, a risky peace gambit is exactly what Israel needs now more than ever – and at this stage, it might even be worth astounding the world and endorsing the Palestinian bid this week, in an effort to regain leverage and credibility. It’s not going to happen.

For the sake of Israel’s security and survival, I propose an alternative.

First, the President reasserted America’s support for democracy movements in the Middle East and North Africa. Going through a pretty thorough survey of countries in the region, Obama repeatedly praised protestors who used “the moral force of nonviolence” against their oppressive and undemocratic governments. The Presidents essentially affirmed the US’s policy towards democratic revolutions to be something like, “you start it, we’ll help you finish.”

Then, the President moved on to the issue of Palestine. As in the past, he condemned Israel’s continued settlements in the occupied territories. He also called for the 1967 borders to be used as a basis for territory swaps. (Some view this as a major turning point in US policy towards Israel/Palestine. I tend to see it as a more emotional issue: saying the word “1967” made “pro-peace” American lobby group J Street really happy and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu really mad, but functionally changed very little about the US’s actions.)

However (predictably), President Obama also noted that America’s “commitment to Israel’s security is unshakable,” and reaffirmed our position of nearly unconditional support for Israel.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to jibe with his earlier message of support for democratic and populist overthrows of authoritarian and subjugating governments. It seems to me that Palestine has all the characteristics of a people in revolt against an oppressive and undemocratic leader—why does the President make Palestine an exception to his policy?

President Obama tried multiple times to justify the distinction between Palestine and other revolting groups. For one, he declared that “Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist”—but of course, Hamas’s deputy foreign minister stated explicitly on NPR last week that “we accept this state and ’67 borders.” (Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, on the other hand, completely rejects any variation upon the 1967 borders and does not recognize Palestine as a state. Hm.)

The President also stressed repeatedly that he would support any people engaged in nonviolent protests, implying that, in contrast, all Palestinians are simply following Hamas down a “path of terror.” On the contrary, just four days before his speech, thousands of Palestinians marched on Israeli borders in nonviolent demonstrations on the anniversary of Israel’s formation on 1948. In fact, the Economist observes that “the tactics of mass non-violent protest that brought down the governments of Tunisia and Egypt, and are threatening to bring down those of Libya, Yemen and Syria, are now being used in the Palestinian cause.”

Furthermore, Israel again reacted to these nonviolent demonstrations like an oppressive occupying force, firing on protestors who were simply throwing rocks. (Obama declared in his speech that “the United States opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region”). The same article in the Economist notes that this has been the status quo for years, making small acts of terrorism unsurprising: after all, “it’s very hard to keep a non-violent movement non-violent when the government you’re demonstrating against subjects you to gunfire for a sustained period of time.”

Yes, the Palestinians threw rocks (without hitting any people, as far as we know)—but is that really so different from nonviolent protests in Yemen, where demonstrators threw rocks at local army posts? Why should President Obama approve of an action in Yemen yet disapprove of the same action in Palestine?

The only conclusion that I can draw is that the United States is vastly hypocritical and has no coherent policy in the Middle East. At the very least, it reveals that the Obama administration’s foreign policy is determined more by political concerns at home and strategic interests in the region than by a commitment to human rights or democracy.

President Obama cannot claim to support any nonviolent movement by people against an oppressive government and then fail to endorse Palestine’s bid for UN recognition. He must either specify that his policy makes an exception for Palestine (and then explain to a country full of freedom-loving Americans why it does so)… or he must support Palestinians just like other revolutionaries in the region.

In terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, little or nothing has been accomplished since March 2009. In fact, Netanyahu’s most prominent actions can be summarized in a short paragraph. He froze building settlements for 10 months, then he approved additional construction of settlements, and now he is pushing for direct talks – with existing preconditions. But the Palestinian side is also pushing back with their preconditions. Neither party is willing to compromise. Let the gridlock ensue.

Netanyahu’s government isn’t the easiest to deal with anyway. He is the Chairman of Likud Party – it is the major right-wing political party in Israel. Also as part of the current coalition government are Yisrael Beiteinu, The Jewish Home, and United Torah Judaism, all of which are extreme right-wing parties. Small parties such as United Torah Judaism tend to play an important role in the performance of a coalition government, playing a disproportionate role in politics. In hopes of promoting a radical political agenda, these parties often exploit their status in the government. This leaves Netanyahu scrambling to meet every party’s agenda lest they vote no-confidence in the government.

In addition to the pressure of coalition parties, the general public, especially those who voted for a right-wing government, expect results. Their expectations differ from those of the left-wing public. Some ask for further settlement construction/invasion, and some expect Netanyahu to strip Hamas of its powers in Palestine. Such expectations are further developed and executed by small-sized parties in the coalition. If Netanyahu manages to satisfy the needs of his voters, his chances are looking good for a second term re-election.

As elections loom near, Netanyahu will have two options: a) opt out and walk away in peace as he spends his last few years in power stalling and buying time in negotiations, and b) engage in war “against terror” and/or push for settlements building in order to buy votes for re-elections.

Netanyahu is facing a difficult decision. On the one hand, he is obliged as a leader to preserve his government against a no-confidence vote by small parties, and on the other hand, he acknowledges the dire implications of a military engagement with Hamas. Any potential war at this point is most likely to involve more than two parties as tension between Israel and other neighboring countries such as Syria and Lebanon is mounting.

With the approval of building 13,000 additional housing units after the 10-month-long freeze in the West Bank and Eastern Jerusalem, one can predict the “undesirably predictable.” Sadly enough, the unjustified act of settlement building could possibly spur a Palestinian reaction led by major military forces such as Hamas. Any resulting war would be catastrophic especially for Palestine.

It is safe to suggest from the above indicators that Netanyahu’s government is heading towards the second option during his two remaining years. Building more settlements will only worsen the situation, and Palestinians aren’t very thrilled about it, to say the least.

As we welcome the beginning of 2011, as settlers are being welcomed into their new homes, and as Netanyahu considers buying votes and satisfying partners, let’s pray we don’t reach a devastating outcome.

After all, they share what my home state in the American Northeast lacks: a beautiful climate, an around-the-clock selection of amazing food, and rolling hills of semiarid scrub.

As of this week, Israel has followed southern California in another concurrence: its dry, rolling hills have broken out into an intense forest fire. On the slopes of Mount Carmel, which overlooks the bay city of Haifa, over 40 Israelis have been killed in what appears to be the worst blaze in recorded Israeli history.

For its concentration of regional power, Israel is ultimately a small country operating under serious spatial and material limitations. Representing the Jewish state’s greatest transferable asset, army units from around the country have been deployed to curb the fire’s spread and help with evacuation efforts.

But the renowned force of Israel’s first-world army simply hasn’t been big enough to take on the blaze alone. In recognition of this bind, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has reached out for help from Israel’s allies, partners, and neighbors.

Defying the expectations of international observers, Egypt and Turkey – both recently at diplomatic odds with Israel – have pledged the assistance of firefighting planes. The usually pugnacious Foreign Minister Lieberman is reported to be very thankful. This never happens.

What can the region learn from this rare flash of amity?

For one, even Israel, somehow transformed into the Goliath of the media’s Middle East narrative, is not all-powerful. Pro-Palestinian activists on the global left should recall that Israel is a small state operating under many special constraints – an important force for understanding.

They can take solace in the fact that for however well Israel’s government can leverage its voice in the conflict, there’s only so much it can defy. Small, rationally-acting countries are, as a rule, beholden to the actors that allow them to survive.

More importantly, the realization of Israel’s limits in unilateral problem-solving has alarming implications for the fundamental assumptions of the Israeli peace camp. A common stereotype holds that liberals in Tel Aviv want “peace”: a two-state solution that will get the international community off Israel’s back and the messy problems of the Palestinians squarely out of their view.

But if Israel can’t fight forest fires alone, who could imagine an independent Palestine taking up the challenge? In spite of the genuinely admirable state-building efforts of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Palestinians would emerge from the peace process poor, infrastructurally challenged, and politically divided – occupation or no occupation.

In truth, the two-state “solution” on its own does not entail a solution. If achieved within the right framework – the expectation of trade, social collaboration, and resource sharing – it can be the best path toward thenormalization of one of the world’s most enduringconflicts. If stumbled through willy-nilly, it could be an unimaginable disaster for all but the most radical.

The best model for a successful peace process, ending in a real solution, will depend on the novel “forest fire model.” Regional cooperation is key to any vision of a lasting peace – because, at the very least, a new Palestinian state and its realigning neighbor will without fail experience internal and cross-border “blazes.” Containing them is in the interest of everyone’s prosperity and security.

Taking another cue from the Mount Carmel forest fire debacle, the most reliable local agent for exercising action and maintaining stability will naturally remain the Israeli Defense Forces. Ideology aside, experts can safely agree that the IDF ranks among the world’s most intelligent, effective organizations – and will have to step in from time to time to fill the security void left by the end of the occupation.

As uncomfortable as the idea is for Palestinians and their advocates, they have no choice but to countenance it. Independence will remain a pipe-dream or a half-losing proposition until Israelis can be assured that it doesn’t mean Hamas raining down rockets on Tel Aviv and Haifa.

As for forest fires, on the other hand, Haifa has less of a choice these days. While we hope for a quick mitigation of the disaster, let’s take out of it a lesson: nobody wins without cooperation. It sounds trite, but then again – how’s not cooperating been working for the Middle East lately?

It’s not unusual for the world community to talk about the Israel-Palestinian conflict in exceptional terms. Regional scholar William Quandt calls it “the world’s most difficult conflict,” a sentiment echoed in the disproportionate hours spent covering it in international media. Every event in the conflict and the peace process seems to take on existential meaning: every new development is a crossroads. Because things generally don’t change much, this line of argument is difficult to buy.

But on rare occasions, it’s true. I submit that the recent expiration of the West Bank settlement construction freeze is such an occasion, a moment in the Israel-Palestine peace process that truly is a pivotal crossroads. Put bluntly, the future of Israel’s legitimacy as the Jewish state depends upon its willingness to put aside settlement construction in the interest of peace.

On Monday, the ten-month moratorium on settlement construction, to which Israel’s government officially agreed, was due to expire. The Jewish state had two options: either play hardball and adhere to the freeze literally (10 months exactly), or bet on the power of good will and call for an extended freeze. Within hours of the expiration, construction had resumed. On the heels of this news, PA President Mahmoud Abbas threatened that direct talks would end because of Israel’s insistence on resuming construction.

Abbas might very well now be pronouncing the talks dead in order distract blame from the Palestinian side. Right or wrong, though, it’s his attribution of guilt that will be remembered in the history books if talks fall through now. In the midst of public relations woes, the growth of the Palestinian demographic, and the increasing segregation of Jews from Palestinians in the West Bank, Israel cannot afford another failure.

Fundamentally, if Israel continues to build without restrictions in occupied territory, it casts doubt on the state’s commitment to ending the occupation. The Jewish state’s international legitimacy will continue to plummet, and the lack of defined borders between the two polities will probably enable Palestinians to start claiming sovereignty over parts of Israel proper. After all, if Israel occupies an Arab majority in Hebron, who’s to say it’s not occupying an Arab majority in Nazareth?

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Rene Belfer Professsor of International Relations at Harvard University. He is also the co-author, with J.J. Mearsheimer, of The Israel Lobby.

HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW: Your blog is subtitled “A Realist in an Ideological Age.” When you say realist, what do you mean?

STEPHEN WALT: I think that realists in general try to analyze the world as it really is and try not to be too wedded to a particular political program that follows from some normative vision about how the world ought to be. That doesn’t mean that realists don’t have moral preferences, a set of moral standards, but the central tenet of realism is that you start by looking at how humans actually behave in international politics. Realists try to make the world better, but bear in mind what’s likely to be feasible. Realists also tend to be fairly skeptical about ambitious plans to remake the human condition. You might even say that realists have a sort of “first, do no harm” approach to foreign policy.

HPR: Is realism a sort of balance between optimism and pessimism?

SW: Not necessarily. Realism is a pretty gloomy way of looking at world politics and realists tend to highlight the inevitability of security confrontations, the pervasiveness of insecurity, and the fact that countries sometimes do really brutal things to one another. In a sense, realism is a sobering way of looking at the world. At the same time, I think realists recognize that there are certain circumstances that are better than others and that prudent statecraft can avoid some of the really big disasters. Even a realist would concede that the last twenty years of world politics have been more peaceful than the previous eighty years.

HPR: How does realism function as a lens on the situation in Israel and Palestine?

SW: You can’t understand the Middle East, either American Middle East policy or the nature of the conflicts occurring in the region, solely by applying realism, although I think realism does tell you certain things about why the conflict has not been resolved. I think that the combination of Israeli preference for land instead of peace, the dysfunctional relations within the Palestinian community, and the fecklessness of American policy are combining to make a two-state solution increasingly unlikely. However, I do think that when people are faced with a really unpleasant future, they can sometimes find the goodwill and imagination to go in a different direction. But right now, I don’t see a lot of wisdom in any of the three parties, and particularly in the American and Israeli sides.

HPR: The Onion.com recently featured an article titled “Massive earthquake reveals entire civilization of Haiti.” Indeed, Yemen and Haiti are two countries that had been largely forgotten by the developed world. Can you think of another country that has been similarly overlooked?

I think one of the things to remember about foreign affairs is there are 192 countries out there and no matter how well an administration plans its strategy and sense of priorities, there are always surprises. They always end up having to deal with something they didn’t expect, sometimes as with Haiti because of a natural disaster, sometimes it’s because of a conflict, or a government that collapses unexpectedly. It’s almost impossible for anyone to fully anticipate where some complete surprise is going to come from.

That said, I think there are some parts of the world where it’s easy for me to imagine us suddenly being forced to pay more attention than we have been up until now. I’ll give you two. One is Japan. The recent governmental change has clearly altered, to some degree, the relationship between Washington and Tokyo. I think some of that may have been overblown. There are many reasons the two will remain on good terms. But given that there is a somewhat different set of ideas and attitudes from the government in Japan, and given that you have an American administration that is up to its neck in all sorts of other problems, it’s possible to imagine the stakes being made in both places that put things in a much more delicate situation that we’ve been in a while.

The second one is Mexico. Without saying that this is going to happen or even likely to happen, you can imagine some of the internal problems that Mexico is having spilling over in the United States more than they already have. Now, it’s one thing to have a failed state in Somalia, which generates piracy problems and other issues, but is on the other side of the world, and so most Americans don’t worry very much about it. Ditto Yemen. But it seems to me, if we saw Mexico becoming ungovernable, or parts of Mexico becoming ungovernable, that would start to have repercussions that are a little different than what we’ve worried about in the past.

Those are two, but I’m not putting a bet down on either one.

Felix De Rosen ’13 is a Contributing Writer.

Photo Credit: Justin Ide Harvard Staff Photographer