Middle East peace processors beware

I have recently returned from Afghanistan, but without successfully shaking the Arab-Israeli conflict from my mind. 

 

That's because in Kabul I ran into none other than retired US Army Colonel PJ Dermer, whom I've known since his defence attaché days at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv. 

 

Colonel Dermer spent the bulk of his 30-year career in the Middle East, as a regional specialist tackling some of the most challenging issues. You can read more about him from this earlier blog post.  

Bottom line: he's never suffered fools, even though they almost always outranked him, including in the form of Middle East envoys and White House political appointees. 

 

As we ate Palestinian Makhlouba (there is actually a good place to find it in downtown Kabul), PJ told me about an article he penned in the scholarly Journal of Palestinian Studies.  It sums up his experiences liaising between Israeli and Palestinian security services.  For students of the conflict, it is worth reading in full because his analysis is both honest and insightful.

 

I wish him good luck trying to advise the Central Command leadership, perhaps on the best way to withdraw from Afghanistan. 

But those who need more luck than him are the very Middle East peace processors he disses - the ones who hope a deal can be reached through direct talks within a year. Certainly the Arab-Israeli conflict is at the nub of American problems in the Arab and Muslim world, so efforts to resolve it are certainly appreciated. But only if they are real and not a way of shoring up "moderate Arab" support to confront Iran in the event diplomacy fails.  

 

Should the Palestinian Authority agree to direct talks today as expected, I pose to them a single, puzzling question: What took you so long? 

 

Many believed all along that you'd give in to the American pressure, even as Israel continued its home demolition and settlement expansion enterprise (albeit at a somewhat reduced speed). 

 

Maybe Abu Mazen got a juicy letter penned by President Obama himself on what a Palestinian state would look like - one that replaces and updates the so-called Clinton Parameters.  Or maybe his schedule was light for September.

 

Guess we'll find out soon enough. Stay tuned.