Growing numbers of progressive U.S. leaders are calling for a different White House policy on Israel. The latest is Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, who described Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an obstacle to peace. (Netanyahu responded on CNN by calling Schumer’s comments “totally inappropriate.”)
Richard Haass has long been seen as a bellwether in the U.S. foreign-policy commentariat. A former head of the State Department’s policy planning team, Haass ran the Council on Foreign Relations for more than 20 years before stepping down last year.
Speaking on FP Live on Monday, he described what he thought Israel had gotten wrong since Oct. 7, 2023: “It was a war of necessity for Israel to respond, but there was a wide range of possibilities as to what it actually did—for example, its use of military force. It could have been much more targeted with small units rather than various types of aerial and bulk bombardment, which was sure to cause large numbers of civilian casualties. Israel could have been much more forthcoming on opening up land routes for humanitarian assistance.
“Above all, Israel could have introduced a significant political track. The parallel here I have from my time as the U.S. envoy in Northern Ireland and what the British did in Northern Ireland is they introduced a significant police and military presence during the three decades of the Troubles, from the late 1960s to the late 1990s.
“But they also opened up a political track. And what they essentially told the Provisional IRA (Irish Republican Army) and other paramilitaries is, ‘look, you will never shoot your way to power. But if you give up arms, you hand them over and you enter the political track, you may not get everything you want, but you will get some of what you want. And you will get a lot more than you would ever get by using force.’ That has been almost entirely missing from Israeli policy.”
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