Martin van Creveld: Obama should follow Carter's example on Middle East
[Martin van Creveld is professor of military history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the author of many works on military history and strategy. Global Viewpoint/Tribune Media Services.]
The U.S. president who did most for Israel was not Harry Truman, who recognized the Jewish state almost immediately after it was founded. Nor was it John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon. Or Gerald Ford, or Ronald Reagan, or the two George Bushes, or Bill Clinton, though all of these provided America’s ally with economic assistance, supplied it with arms and stood at its side at critical moments, from the 1967 Six-Day War to the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The president who did most for Israel was Jimmy Carter — the same Carter who has sometimes been described as an Israel-hater. In numerous appearances around the world, he has never shrunk from criticizing Israel for its faults, real and imaginary; the dislike is mutual.
Back in 1977-78, the Israeli-Egyptian peace talks, which had been started a year earlier by Prime Minister Menahem Begin and President Anwar Sadat, got stuck. At issue were such questions as how much land Israel was to return, the fate of the settlements in the Sinai, etc.
Meeting now here, now there, in what increasingly looked like a traveling circus, the leaders and their advisers vainly circled each other in an attempt to reach an agreement.
Enter Moshe Dayan, the crafty one-eyed former general and minister of defense who was serving as Begin’s foreign minister. When holding the first meetings with Egyptian representatives in the summer of 1977, he had acted in great secrecy, even putting on a disguise and using an alias. Now that shipwreck was staring him in the face, he called on Begin to bring in the Americans.
Though he could never say so, the reason why Dayan wanted the Americans was to put pressure on Begin. The prime minister had come to power promising to preserve Israeli rule over the occupied territories. Changing his mind could very well cause the members of his own party, Likud, to leave the coalition; the outcome, Dayan knew, would be the fall of the government and the end of any hope for peace.
In the end, Dayan prevailed. With President Carter personally committed to the peace process, Begin found himself in a position in which he had to turn to his followers and ask them, quite literally: “Do you really want to quarrel with the United States?” The majority saw his point, and when the time to make a decision came they voted in the right direction....
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The U.S. president who did most for Israel was not Harry Truman, who recognized the Jewish state almost immediately after it was founded. Nor was it John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon. Or Gerald Ford, or Ronald Reagan, or the two George Bushes, or Bill Clinton, though all of these provided America’s ally with economic assistance, supplied it with arms and stood at its side at critical moments, from the 1967 Six-Day War to the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The president who did most for Israel was Jimmy Carter — the same Carter who has sometimes been described as an Israel-hater. In numerous appearances around the world, he has never shrunk from criticizing Israel for its faults, real and imaginary; the dislike is mutual.
Back in 1977-78, the Israeli-Egyptian peace talks, which had been started a year earlier by Prime Minister Menahem Begin and President Anwar Sadat, got stuck. At issue were such questions as how much land Israel was to return, the fate of the settlements in the Sinai, etc.
Meeting now here, now there, in what increasingly looked like a traveling circus, the leaders and their advisers vainly circled each other in an attempt to reach an agreement.
Enter Moshe Dayan, the crafty one-eyed former general and minister of defense who was serving as Begin’s foreign minister. When holding the first meetings with Egyptian representatives in the summer of 1977, he had acted in great secrecy, even putting on a disguise and using an alias. Now that shipwreck was staring him in the face, he called on Begin to bring in the Americans.
Though he could never say so, the reason why Dayan wanted the Americans was to put pressure on Begin. The prime minister had come to power promising to preserve Israeli rule over the occupied territories. Changing his mind could very well cause the members of his own party, Likud, to leave the coalition; the outcome, Dayan knew, would be the fall of the government and the end of any hope for peace.
In the end, Dayan prevailed. With President Carter personally committed to the peace process, Begin found himself in a position in which he had to turn to his followers and ask them, quite literally: “Do you really want to quarrel with the United States?” The majority saw his point, and when the time to make a decision came they voted in the right direction....