MidEast

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WATCH: On Israel, Will Obama Choose Jimmy Carter Over the Democratic Party?

Throughout President Barack Obama’s administration, key members of the Democratic Party have rejected efforts to impose the terms of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement through the United Nations Security Council, warning that such unilateral actions would damage attempts to secure Israeli-Palestinian peace within the framework of a two-state solution.

Former President Jimmy Carter’s recent proposal to reverse this longstanding U.S. policy has received significant criticism from veteran American peace negotiators, including an elder statesman of the Democratic Party, who advised that such a move was likely to significantly impair Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation efforts.

 

Former Democratic Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who served as an envoy to the region under presidents Clinton and Obama, pointed out last week that for the U.S. to take sides and “unilaterally decide” acceptable outcomes of key issues, or to recognize a Palestinian state, “would be a reversal of what had been American policy for several years.”

“On this issue I don’t agree with President Carter,” he added.

Aaron David Miller, who worked on the Israeli-Arab peace process under both Republican and Democratic administrations, similarly wrote on CNN.com last week that following Carter’s advice would “leave the Obama legacy in tatters, while diminishing US credibility in the process.” A unilateral Security Council effort to impose parameters for Israeli-Palestinian peace would only serve to alienate Israel while “having little appreciable impact on the realization of Palestinian statehood,” he explained. Since the conditions for peace in the Middle East do not currently exist, Miller wrote, Obama should instead “adopt the diplomatic equivalent of the Hippocratic oath and do no harm.”

Democrats serving in Congress also rejected unilateral efforts to impose peace terms on Israel: The House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution last Tuesday stating that peace “will come only through direct bilateral negotiations between the parties.”

[Photo: WikiCommons ]