The article very accurately notes Obama cannot merely declare opposition to the upcoming UN resolution, but must put an alternative proposal on the table.
President Obama must act now to prevent the Israel-Palestinian conflict from descending into chaos.
Something
-- or someone -- has got to give. With international momentum building for a
U.N. resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood, Washington is finally coming
to the realization that the Israeli-Palestinian status quo is unsustainable.
President
Barack Obama's administration signaled once again this week that it will oppose the Palestinian
application for full membership to the United Nations when the issue arises in
September. But if Obama wants to forestall a vote by the U.N. General Assembly,
he needs to do a lot more than recite the usual platitudes about the need to
revive peace talks. He needs to put his own plan on the table and take the lead
in resolving the seemingly intractable conflict. Time is not on anyone's side.
Obama
has made a convincing argument for why the world needs to move on the peace
process today. He has described how the shifting demographic balance poses a
problem for Israel, how technology will make it more difficult for Israel to
defend itself, and how the Arab uprisings and the fast-approaching U.N. vote
will pose new challenges. But he has not gone far enough. If Washington wants
to oppose action in the General Assembly, it must offer an alternative.
At
the very least, the president must lay out a U.S vision of what can be an
acceptable solution to the conflict -- much as Clinton did more than a decade
ago. That vision must include the issues of a shared Jerusalem, an agreed
solution to the refugee problem, and settlements.
No comments:
Post a Comment