Sage Advice for Obama: First Do No Harm on Middle East

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
22 April'10

From an unlikely publication (Huffington Post) and from unlikely sources (a Wharton professor and a negotiations “expert”) comes some generally sound advice for Obama on the Palestinian conflict. The article recommends that Obama:

1. Avoid proposing simple solutions to complex problems. Look for causal linkages, not just proximity. Stopping movie downloads won’t stop the rain, and stopping the construction of new settlements won’t end centuries of misunderstanding and grievances.

2. Work with these linkages and with the situation as it is, not as he would want it to be. For example, if the Palestinians think they can get all of Palestine just by waiting, President Obama needs to create a better option, either by making it clear that they cannot just wait, or by offering them something they cannot get just by waiting.

3. Understand the complexity of the problem as it is. Making a problem undiscussable does not make the problem go away. President Obama seems to believe that use of phrases like “radical Islam” suggests Americans view Islamic states as terrorists and that the phrase should be banished; actually, this phrase suggests that the United States does make important distinctions between violent terrorists and others who disagree with us strongly but express this through different means. But denying the existence of radicals does not make them or their grievances go away.

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