Kennan on Israel-Palestine

George Kennan had some views with which I disagree, on topics from universal suffrage to energy independence to the implications of technological innovation.  But I think our foreign policy commentariat today could learn a lot by re-reading their George Kennan, both in terms of how to write English prose, and in terms of looking at foreign policy not as high-schoolers look at playing Stratego late at night, but as statesmen look at the burdens of their awful responsibility.  Kennan's writing was, in almost every case, characterized foremost by a fundamental decency and candor that was uniquely American.  That decent character and candor are lost almost completely in today's discussion.  One doesn't see writing (or thinking) like this much in contemporary American foreign policy commentary.  With respect to Israel-Palestine, Kennan wrote, it was essential to

bring about an early clarification--not just vis-a-vis the Israelis themselves but also vis-a-vis the Arabs--of the limits of our responsibility for Israeli policy.  We have allowed the impression to become established throughout the entire region that we have it in our power to make the Israelis do almost anything we want, and that this being the case, we are really responsible for Israeli policy.  This assumption is reflected in a host of Arab statements.  It is, of course, wholly incorrect.  Not only can we not dictate to the Israelis, who are very well aware of the strength of their bargaining power vis-a-vis us, but it is a real question whether we ought to do it even if we could.  (More about that in a moment.)

[,,,]

[W]e have allowed ourselves to be maneuvered into a position where each of the two parties believes it can use us for its own ends, where each has the impression that it is primarily through us that its desiderata can be achieved, with the result that we are always first to be blamed, no matter whose ox is gored; and all this in a situtation where we actually have very little influence with either party.  Seldom, surely, can a great power have got itself into a more unsound and unnecessary position.

[...]

I stand firmly with [George] Ball on the need for an attempt to reach an understanding with the Soviet Union with relation to the larger problems of the region, but not on the details of a possible Arab-Israeli settlement.  That, it seems to me, should be left for direct negotiation between Israel and her Arab neighbors.  Our own role should be confined to assuring that the Israelis are strong enough militarily so that the idea of crushing them by force of arms does not offer promising prospects to anybody, and so that they have an adequate measure of bargaining power in any negotiations on these subjects they may enter into.  But we should not try to tell them, or the Arabs, what the terms of a settlement should be.  It is they, after all, not we, who would have to live with any settlement that might be achieved.  Many of us can think, I am sure, of concessions which, in our personal opinion, it would be wise for the Israelis to make; but for the United States government to take the responsibility of urging them to make such concessions is quite another matter.  There are many who would think, for example, that it would be wise for them to give up the Golan Heights.  They may of course be right.  But how can we be sure?  What would our responsibility be if we urged this upon them and it turned out to be disastrous?

From The Cloud of Danger, 1977.

Comments

[Ken Hoop]

Milquetoast when compared to Mearsheimer/Walt's expose of Zionist control
of American mideast policy. I would rather encourage politicians to read Phillip Weiss'
blog to discover a patriot American Jew's
attempts to get his people off their dual loyalty kick.

[Scott]

Yeah, my man GFK not so strong here. Didn't we pretty much do what he suggests, give Israel plenty of arms, not dictate any settlement terms, etc. And, thirty years later, they are still there (Golan, West Bank) and the United States still blamed for it--only more so.

[Justin]

Presumably he would protest (as he often did, when called on his earlier comments) that had we heeded his advice that we "bring about an early clarification--not just vis-a-vis the Israelis themselves but also vis-a-vis the Arabs--of the limits of our responsibility for Israeli policy," we would not find ourselves in this mess. I also think that his belief that the foreign policy establishment from which he emerged would long endure was a serious flaw.

In addition, one wonders at what point Kennan became aware that the Israeli nuclear genie wasn't going back into the bottle, and whether that factored in his assessment whether the Israelis were "strong enough militarily so that the idea of crushing them by force of arms does not offer promising prospects to anybody."

The fact remains, though, that while as a prediction, this doesn't look so good, it does make you wish that we had heeded the normative concepts in here. If we're to take account of the political realities in the United States, then any protest that "well, Kennan was wrong, we just should have *insisted* the Israelis give up the Golan, etc" doesn't really hold much water. What he was advocating was a slightly less improbable bargain that we would ensure that nobody could "wipe Israel off the map," to coin a phrase, but that was it.

But the concept of "preventing things that are detrimental to Israel" is now stretched to the point where a commentator at a leading intellectual journal can submit that Israel should keep the Golan because its wine industry is flourishing:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/pollak/1959

I imagine it's fair to say Kennan could not have foreseen such a disgraceful state of affairs.