Zero plus game
Hehir, J. Bryan
WORLD WATCH J. Bryan Hehir ZERO-PLUS GAME A STRATEGY FOR THE MIDDLE EAST In this column a month ago (December 16, 1988), I argued that a U.S. debate on the Middle East was necessary and...
...An example of such a voice is Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, an eloquent and ferociously loyal supporter of the state of Israel, who has now set forth a closely reasoned, impassioned critique of Israel's response to the intifada...
...preconditions (affirming UN Resolutions 242 and 338, unequivocally recognizing Israel as a state, and renouncing terrorist tactics), and Mr...
...His most recent piece, significantly entitled...
...Hertzberg speaks for himself-in the style of the prophets of his tradition-relying on the intrinsic power of his argument to illuminate and persuade...
...1981:1988), Khalidi has argued not only the rationale for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but he has specified the size, potential power, and resources of such a state...
...Hertzberg's eloquence and analytical power is matched by Walid Khalidi...
...Two Semitic peoples locked in mortal combat over the same square miles of territory-both with memories of being hounded from their homes, left without international status or a state with which to identify-quickly decide that the struggle is ulti-mate and impervious to normal negotiations...
...The first development was important but not startling...
...Arafat kept clarifying his acceptance of the three U.S...
...The political and intellectual vigor of the Jewish community provides all the resources needed for a searching examination of how to address Israel's policies...
...Outsiders, in my view, should show an interest in the intramural discussions, but should keep an appropriate distance...
...In the U.S...
...Toward Peace in the Holy Land," concludes with two observations: "Paradoxically, a Palestinian state in the occupied territories within the 1967 frontiers in peaceful coexistence alongside Israel is the only conceptual candidate for a historical compromise of this century-old conflict...
...The Bush administration will rightfully be given a decent interval to establish its agenda and its approach to this new moment in the history of the Middle East...
...some are convinced that only a zero-sum view of the problem will preserve Israel's sovereignty and safety...
...Inviting Wiesel to a more critical posture, Hertzberg said: "We show the truest love of Israel and the Jewish people when we remind ourselves that, in strength or in weakness, we survive not on prudence and not by power, but through justice...
...My purpose in this column is not to focus on where official U.S...
...He has tried to frame the debate within the Jewish Diaspora, and to demonstrate to the Israeli government and its supporters that it is profoundly mistaken to think that unquestioning support exists for repression in the occupied territories or for stonewalling Palestinian claims of legitimacy and calls for self-determination...
...Where then are the voices in search of a positive-sum conception of the Middle East...
...In a moving and powerful exchange with Elie Wiesel in the New York Review of Books (August 18, 1988), Hertzberg argued for more, not less, dissent within the Diaspora in the face of Israeli policies in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip...
...Every article is permeated by a search for common ground with a long-time adversary...
...The specifics of the argument, rarely found in this long debate, are designed to show that such a state could hardly pose a threat to Israeli power and potential...
...But it has always been a simplism to equate this with a lock-step unity of views...
...There clearly is a solid Jewish consensus of bedrock support for Israel in the United States...
...Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East in Washington, March 8. It should be a unique example of how to join reason, moral passion, and political wisdom in addressing the Middle East debate...
...Since the Israeli inva-sion of Lebanon in 1982, and particularly since the intifada began in 1987, there has been a vigorous public argument among American Jews about the policy of the Israeli government...
...I offer here not a systematic summary, but a selectiye focus on two positions chosen by the same criterion...
...discussions stretched the grid of what many thought was either likely or possible...
...In a remarkable op-ed column in the New York Times, the distinguished Israeli, Abba Eban, confronts some of the zero-sum analysts of the U.S...
...One appropriate form of interest is to identify and support those voices seeking a plus-sum view of the Middle East...
...One place is within sectors of the American Jewish community...
...Presently, voices and views abound on the Middle East...
...In making his case Khalidi, like Hertzberg, combines eloquent advocacy for his people with a plus-sum view of the Middle East conflict...
...The debate is not about support for Israel, but about how Israel's future and its security are best pursued, and how the United States should shape its Middle East policy...
...debate on the Middle East was necessary and inevitable in 1989, because of the pace of change in the region and the absence of a coherent policyin the' United States...
...policy different from that any administration has had in the forty years of Israel's existence...
...government opened diplomatic discussions in Tunisia...
...Shultz edged toward the PLO with each new clarification...
...One would have thought the Jewish genius capable of grasping effortlessly the need for an honorable and viable settlement in light of the geographic, demographic, and ideological realities of the Middle East...
...policy process in the next few months...
...But the only possibility for grasping the potential of the new moment in the region is by shifting from a zero-sum to a plus-sum conception (there are some outcomes that benefit both parties) of the Israeli-Palestinian relationship...
...The breakthrough came as the result of a complex minuet in which Mr...
...policy may move, but to call attention to the wider unofficial, but crucially important, public debate on the Middle East that is already in full swing in the United States...
...Since then, the pace of change has quickened dramatically: the Israeli government was formed along Likud-Labor lines, and the PLO and the U.S...
...a Palestinian, long resident in Lebanon and currently at Harvard's Center for Middle East Studies...
...The year 1989 opened, therefore, with a new configuration of forces in the region and a starting point for U.S...
...The standard is finding persons who refuse to see the Middle East in what Anthony Lewis has called zero-sum terms (if I win, you lose...
...Hertzberg and Khalidi will share the platform at a convocation sponsored by the U.S...
...Today the simplism is demon-strably outdated...
...While a Likud-Labor government was not a sure thing, it was always a likely possibility...
...Which voices get a hearing and are taken as representative positions can be a significant factor influencing the U.S...
...The U.S.-PLO talks have catalyzed a new round of this debate...
...media (for example, George Will and Norman Podhoretz) and illustrates the futility of this view from an Israeli perspective...
...the opposition to a coalition of the Likud with a religious-right coalition included not only Israelis but significant sectors of the Jewish Diaspora...
...Over the last year Rabbi Hertzberg has produced a stream of lucid analysis and commentary...
...In three courageous and brilliant pieces in Foreign Affairs (1978...
...The Israeli-Palestinian conflict-the core of the Middle East struggle-readily leads to zero-sum conceptions...
...The PLO-U.S...
Vol. 116 • January 1989 • No. 2
