Why America's Undying Devotion to Israel Guarantees New Peace Talks Will Fail

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MARTIN INDYK: I’ve tried to account that honestly. And what Norman Finkelstein has done is simply distort my argument and load it up with his usual paraphernalia of legal resolutions and so on.

AMY GOODMAN: Well—

MARTIN INDYK: But if people want to understand just how difficult it is to make peace, then I hope that they will read for themselves, rather than accept his propaganda.

AMY GOODMAN: During Martin Indyk’s debate on Democracy Now! with Norman Finkelstein, I asked Indyk for his advice to President Obama on how to conduct future Middle East peace talks. Indyk said the U.S. needs to be mindful of cultural differences with the Arab world.

MARTIN INDYK: The American role is indispensable. But we need to be wiser. We need to be more flexible. We need to understand that there are huge differences between us and them. And we need to pay a lot more attention to their culture, their values and their politics, rather than assume that they are like us. And I know that’s a very general proposition, but from that can come the getting of wisdom when it comes to the details of peacemaking.

AMY GOODMAN: Yousef Munayyer of the Palestine Center, can you respond?

YOUSEF MUNAYYER: The single greatest failure of U.S. mediation has been the inability to put pressure on the Israelis. People often say, "Well, you know, you need to pressure both sides." The reality is, the United States already supports a brutal Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territory. The Palestinians are under enough pressure to begin with, so much so that even the concept of a two-state solution requires a Palestinian concession of about 80 percent of Palestine. That’s tremendous to begin with. But it’s the Israelis, not the Palestinians, that are building settlements on Palestinian territory. So, if you’re going to get a territorial compromise in some way, it’s Israeli behavior that needs to change to get a border drawn, for instance, and to get a agreement on Jerusalem and to get an agreement on refugees, if we’re talking about a two-state framework. But Israel is in a position of power. And instead of using its leverage to change Israeli behavior, the United States has only emboldened Israel in the negotiations, allowing it always to demand a maximum and never allowing the Palestinians to get what is the minimum required by international law for a just solution to this—to this dispute.

AARON MATÉ: Norman, so, in your debate with Indyk that we just played, you made this point that Yousef just said, that Palestinians have made the bulk of the concessions. So, given that, what are your expectations for how this process is going to go?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, the Israeli position, backed by the United States, is very clear. If you look at the maps that were presented in Taba, the last stage of the Camp David negotiations in 2001, and you look at the route of the wall now, in 2001 Israel was asking for about 9.2 percent of the West Bank, and the route of the wall will absorb about 9.5 percent of the West Bank. If you look at the end of Indyk’s book, he outlines what he thinks should be the solution. So what’s the solution according to Indyk? He says we should take the route of the wall. Israel will get Jerusalem, name—East Jerusalem, the urban center. The Palestinians will get what they call the suburbs. The refugee question, Palestinians will get the right of return to the Palestinian, quote-unquote, "homeland." And the solution will leave Palestinians with nothing. That’s not hyperbole.