JANUARY 2010 ggggggggg The Deadly Price of Pursuing Peace by evelyn gordon WHEN the Oslo process began in 1993, one benefi t its adherents promised was a signifi cant improvement in Israel’s international standing. Now, 16 years later, Israel’s has fallen to an unprecedented low. Yet even today, conventional wisdom, including OBAMA’S NEXT THREE YEARS in Israel, continues to assert that Israel’s JOHN R. BOLTON #3 Commentary international standing depends on its A NEVER-ENDING willingness to advance the “peace pro- ECONOMIC CRISIS? DAVID M. SMICK cess.” So why has Israel’s standing fallen #3 WHY JEWS JANUARY 2010 : VOLUME 129 NUMBER 1 : VOLUME 2010 JANUARY so precipitously despite its numerous HATE PALIN JENNIFER RUBIN concessions for peace since 1993? The #3 PHILIP ROTH mounting evidence makes it inescapable: COMES TO THE END Israel’s standing has declined so precipi- SAM SACKS tously not despite Oslo but because of Oslo. $5.95 US : $7.00 CANADA $7.00 : US $5.95 JCC Maccabi Games 2009 Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life KORET FOUNDATION AND TAUBE PHILANTHROPIES Collaborating to support Jewish life in the San Francisco Bay Area: Bay Area Jewish Community Centers Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco Hillel at Stanford JCC Maccabi Games 2009 Jewish Chaplaincy at Stanford University Medical Center Jewish Family & Children’s Services of San Francisco Jewish Home of San Francisco Koret-Taube Initiative on Jewish Peoplehood Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford Taube Koret Campus for Jewish Life, Palo Alto Koret-Taube Grand Lobby, www.koretfoundation.org Contemporary Jewish Museum From the Editor · John Podhoretz The Danger of Normaliut N HER groundbreaking lead article this month, and deferential.” Obama, Bolton writes, “focuses not on which begins on page 17, Evelyn Gordon explores America’s virtues but on why it is ordinary.” Ithe catastrophic decline in Israel’s global standing What Israel learned, to its sorrow, is that the despite 16 years of “taking risks for peace” (Bill Clinton’s Palestinians had no interest in helping them become demand of the Jewish state), which is entirely unprec- ordinary. For America’s adversaries, as with Israel’s, edented in the annals of statecraft and diplomacy. Israel Barack Obama’s interest in retreat does not slake undertook these risks in large part to win the world their thirst for advance; rather, it makes them believe over. Instead, its actions have generated nothing but an- that the avoidance of confrontation on the part of the ger, outrage, contempt, violence, and open explosions of United States is an opportunity to secure the submis- the vilest anti-Semitism to be seen in respectable Euro- sion of others. That is what we learned, to our sorrow, pean company since the end of the Second World War. in the 1970s, when an impotent America watched as The relative positions of Israel and the United the Soviet Union and its allies began to move aggres- States could not be more different, of course. Israel sively in the Third World and revolutionary Iran kid- is tiny and isolated; the United States is gigantic and napped and held 52 Americans for 444 days without populous and still the richest and most powerful coun- fearing the consequences. For those who wish power try in the world, offering a global lifeline to and gain- at any cost, the pursuit of normaliut on the part of its ing succor from every continent. And yet there are les- enemies engenders not good feeling but contempt. sons the United States might learn from the example For all those who look to the United States for of the failure of Israel’s outreach and the conceptual leadership and as a moral beacon, American normaliut fl aw behind it. is ominous. It invokes the chaos of Yeats’s “The Second In the wake of the 1993 Oslo accords, Israeli Coming,” the world in which the best lack all convic- intellectuals began to speak favorably of normaliut, or tion, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. “normalness,” as the particular gift the deal with the Thus, even in those moments when President Obama Palestinians would bequeath to the Jewish state. An rejects the siren song of normaliut—as he has done end to Israel’s isolation would grant it full membership courageously in committing to a troop surge in Afghan- in bourgeois Western society. As the columnist Gidon istan—he speaks with an uncommon lack of convic- Samet put it in 1995, “Madonna and Big Macs are only tion. This will not do at a moment when an irredentist the most peripheral of examples of . a normaliut Islamofascist regime—whose apocalyptic millenarian which means, among other things, the end of the president speaks with complete conviction about wip- terrible fear of everything that is foreign and strange.” ing the Jewish state off the map—is coming ever closer One might say that, in the wake of George W. to possessing the world’s most devastating weaponry. Bush’s presidency, Barack Obama is promising his fel- That once unimaginable reality will soon be low citizens and the world a kind of American norma- upon us unless the president of the United States liut—only he is not promising full access to Madonna demonstrates passionate intensity of his own. He will and McDonald’s but rather universal health care and need to show an intensity of a kind that may not win European-style social democracy. To achieve this him the friendships he seems to think he needs, but normaliut, Obama needs to preside over a less inter- will win him something more important—the fright- nationally active United States. “Obama’s America,” as ened respect of those for whom the only check against John R. Bolton details in his splendidly pungent piece genocidal barbarism is a healthy fear of the power of beginning on page 24, “need only be restrained, patient, the United States. q Commentary 1 August 4 to August 11, 2010 on an Alaskan cruise aboard the Seven Seas Navigator Conference Speakers Michael Elliott Abrams Medved Council on Foreign Talk-show host Relations senior and author of fellow and former Th e 10 Big Lies chief Middle East About America hand on the National Security Council Norman Andrew Podhoretz Roberts John Podhoretz Bestselling England’s World Th e editor of Commentary author of leading historian and author of the War IV and of World War II bestselling Bush Country Why Are Jews Liberals? Bret Stephens Jennifer Midge Award-winning Rubin Decter columnist for the Commentary’s Author of Wall Street Journal chief blogger Rumsfeld and and former editor of An Old Wife’s Tale the Jerusalem Post For more information, www.CommentaryCruise.com or please join us for the fi rst annual Conference of Ideas We will bring together these writers, thinkers, and Sailing from Seward, we’ll view incomparable scholars and opinion leaders like you from across the Hubbard Glacier and Tracy Arm. We’ll make nation and the world to discuss dramatic and fright- port stops in the jewels of southeast Alaska: ening changes inside the United States and around Sitka, Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan. the world since the election of Barack Obama—how to view them, how to reply to them, how to combat them, All Suites: Th e Seven Seas Navigator features and what the elections of 2010 and 2012 portend. spacious suites—a minimum of 301 square feet! Th e existential threat to Israel; the new adminis- All with king-size bed, walk-in closet, and marble tration’s accommodationist approach to world politics; bathroom with full tub and shower. the dangers of premature exits from Iraq and Afghani- Th e Commentary Cruise includes: stan; the threats to American freedoms from aggressive • Seminars, panel discussions, and Q&As new legislation on Capitol Hill; and the worshipful em- • Dinner with speakers and fellow guests brace of the current leadership from the cultural doyens • Private receptions of Washington and the art world: these will be just some • Kosher dining option of the matters we will discuss. • Photo and autograph sessions Th e topics are profound. Th e setting is exqui- • Schmoozing with fellow conservatives site: a seven-night cruise to Alaska aboard the fi ve- • Five-star all-suite travel with just 490 guests star all-suite Seven Seas Navigator—sailing with only • FREE airfare from most gateways + transfers • All-inclusive wine/liquor/soft drinks 490 guests. Th e mood will be exhilarating as you par- • FREE unlimited shore excursions ticipate in panel discussions and Q&As, dine nightly • Complimentary kids’ programs with speakers and fellow guests, and still have • A $400 shipboard credit plenty of time to relax and tour some of the most • Optional pre-cruise tour in Anchorage, dramatic and beautiful settings in North America. Denali, and Fairbanks call 800.707.1634 or e-mail [email protected] John Podhoretz, Editor Jonathan S. Tobin, Executive Editor bDavid Billet, Associate Editor bCarol Moskot, Art Director Anthony Sacramone, Online Editor & Copy Chief bKejda Gjermani, Assistant Online Editor Neal Kozodoy, Editor-at-Large bJennifer Rubin, Contributing Editor Terry Teachout, Chief Culture Critic Sarah M. Stern, Business Director bIlya Leyzerzon, Business Associate Stephanie Roberts, Offi ce Manager bJacquie Moore, Customer Service January 2010 : Vol. 129 : No. 1 Articles Evelyn Gordon The Deadly Price of 17 Pursuing Peace Israel’s efforts to resolve its confl ict with the Palestinians have not only failed; they have harmed its image. John R. Bolton Obama’s Next 24 Three Years The president isn’t interested in foreign policy, but his ideas and approach mark him as the fi rst “post-American” president.