George Mitchell's Pointless Trip

Yes, Arab leaders want American leadership essentially to correct what they regard as Israeli sins, but they haven’t begun to understand that no American president ever would or should do as Arab leaders wish. Past American presidents have leaned on Israelis as well as Arabs to make concessions, and I’m sure the Obama administration will do the same. But what the Arabs and Palestinians will have to understand is that they will have to give some important things as well as receive some important things.

What everybody is going to have to understand in the immediate future is that American leadership can’t simply or mainly be about twisting Israeli and Palestinian arms. Those arms are not twistable in the current circumstances. Too many bad things have happened on all sides to allow for the necessary political compromises.

It is an iron law of international negotiations that one should not expect at the negotiating table what cannot be supported in the larger political arena. Negotiators can make compromises only when they are politically possible and politically supportable. And needed compromises are more difficult to come by today than they have been for many years. The political strength of those who favor compromise has been severely weakened on both sides, and the political fortunes of those who want to just dig in their heels have greatly increased.

Thus, the next big step in American leadership is not once again to parade Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table where they can only fail in the foreseeable future, but to work with both sides to build from scratch the political power of those who would fight for peace and make compromises possible at the negotiating table.

In other words, America’s main diplomatic track must be to do in the Holy Land what the British and the Americans did in Northern Ireland—to strengthen the hand of peace groups such as women’s groups and businesses. These are the actors who eventually put pressure upon Irish and Protestant leaders to make settlements in Northern Ireland and to reassure those leaders that they could make such concessions and survive politically. This is the ground-breaking task that lies ahead for George Mitchell (who negotiated and understands the lessons of Northern Ireland), the Obama administration, and the U.S. if they are to lead both Palestinian and Israeli parties to their promised lands.

Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of the forthcoming HarperCollins book Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.