The Foreign Service Journal, December 2006

his vision of the final settlement of the conflict in his exchange of let- ters with Bush in 2004: no with- drawal of major Israeli settlement blocs, no return for Palestinian refugees, and maintenance of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state (meaning no equal rights for more than one million citizens of Israel who are Palestinian). But after the latest fighting in Lebanon, the lim- its of unilateralism were exposed — neither the unilater- al withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 nor that from Gaza had brought peace. Olmert’s plan for unilateral with- drawal has completely disappeared from his agenda, its absence formalized in a speech laying out his program for the coming year at the opening of the Knesset’s winter session on Oct. 16, 2006. In spite of Bush and Olmert’s attempts to paint a glow- ing victory, Israel’s own politicians and public do not believe its objectives were met. Several analysts and commentators argue for a different approach. Professor Mathiopolous quotes other retired army generals as say- ing it is “time for Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria. The military’s preference, the generals say, would be for the Heights to be ceded back to Syria but still con- trolled by Israel on a long-term lease. If nationalistic sentiments in Syria made such an arrangement impossible, then it should still be possible to negotiate the area’s demilitarization.” They further note that the conditions for peace are never going to be per- fect and negotiators have to work with what they had. Many in the region believe Hezbollah’s resistance has made this a very different Middle East. Rice referred to the moderates in the region seven times in her speech at the ATFP dinner. But the new Middle East is one in F O C U S D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 37 Washington deals with Israel and the Palestinians as though they were equal adversaries, which they are emphatically not.