Palestinian Priority

Two foreign policy heavyweights weigh in with some advice for Barack Obama—and Hillary Clinton—in today’s Washington Post: Fix the Arab-Israeli dispute soonest. “Immediate attention to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute would help cement the goodwill that Obama’s election engendered,” write Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski in a co-written Op-Ed. Resolution would allow Middle Eastern governments to support the United States in solving regional problems without alienating their publics, stigmatize Hamas and Hezbollah, and put Iran on the defensive. “The key element in any new initiative,” they write, “would be for the U.S. president to declare publicly what, in the view of this country, the basic parameters of a fair and enduring peace ought to be. These should contain four principal elements: 1967 borders, with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications; compensation in lieu of the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as real home to two capitals; and a nonmilitarized Palestinian state.”