Wye Bother?

The Oslo Accord contained promises of changed Palestinian behavior. Based on these, Israel agreed to cede control of people and territory to the PA. Revocable promises for irrevocable territory was not a particularly good deal for Israel, but Israel undertook extraordinary risks to find a modus vivendi with its neighbors. The safety valve in Oslo was that Israel was released from its obligations if the Palestinians broke their promises. Palestinian provocation followed Palestinian provocation.

The Oslo Accord contained promises of changed Palestinian behavior. Based on these, Israel agreed to cede control of people and territory to the PA. Revocable promises for irrevocable territory was not a particularly good deal for Israel, but Israel undertook extraordinary risks to find a modus vivendi with its neighbors. The safety valve in Oslo was that Israel was released from its obligations if the Palestinians broke their promises. Palestinian provocation followed Palestinian provocation. But instead of encouraging Israel to exercise its leverage, President Clinton has engineered four additional “agreements” in four years. In each, Israel took on new obligations while the Palestinians promised to fulfill the original ones.

Now President Clinton has turned to outright bribery. Mrs. Clinton’s support for a Palestinian state; pressuring Israel; visiting the PA Parliament; and $400 million in additional aid either reflect the President’s fundamental belief that the Palestinians – not the Israelis – are America’s deserving allies, or they are desperate measures to avoid admitting failure. Either way, the Palestinians are encouraged to continue behaviors, including violence, which bode ill for Israel and the region.

We are not surprised. The Clinton administration has established a pattern of signing unenforceable contracts and reaching “understandings” with unreliable partners. Agreements with Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosovic and Kim Jong Il, as well as Arafat, have been touted as accomplishments. The President meets the inevitable collapse of these arrangements with pleas for more arrangements while somebody else pays the price for official American naivete.

Iraq is a case of talking loudly and carrying a limp stick.

The 1995 US-brokered Dayton Accords stopped the immediate bloodshed in Bosnia, but there has been almost no progress toward resolving the key issues. Meanwhile, Serbia’s Milosovic appears to have learned a lot about (the lack of) American resolve as he bloodies Kosovo and worries Macedonia.

In 1994, the US agreed to supply North Korea with oil, food and a light water nuclear reactor in exchange for an end to North Korea’s nuclear weapons project. The nuclear program continues, and this summer North Korea launched a three-stage rocket across mainland Japan toward Alaska.

The Chinese military appears to have access to American technologies provided with the proviso that they remain in the hands of the “civilian” institutions for which they were intended.

The Russian Army is selling weapons for food and what government money the military gets is going to upgrade its strategic forces and produce nuclear submarines. The administration has yet to impose the required sanctions for sales of Russian nuclear technology to Iran.

The President promotes the Chemical Weapons Convention (passed by Congress) and the Land Mine Ban (not passed) although they are unenforceable treaties with countries that cheat.

Negotiated agreements that contribute to civilized discourse and behavior should be welcomed; those that don’t shouldn’t. In the Middle East, five Israel-Palestinian paper agreements in five years are failures because the Palestinians refuse to meet minimal conditions. The President’s visit to Gaza fails by that standard as well.