13 January '13..
Last night, I attended a talk by Daniel Kurtzer, former US ambassador to Israel and an outspoken supporter of a more muscular American Middle East policy.
Kurtzer is a soft-spoken man, and he built up his case that the peace process - ultimately ending with a solution along the rough lines of the Clinton Parameters or the Olmert plan - is the only way forward. One of his major arguments is that both Israelis and Palestinian Arabs support these rough parameters when asked about their support for them in a package.
In other words, he says that while both Israelis and Palestinian Arabs may say to pollsters that they want more hawkish specific policies against the other side, when presented with a comprehensive peace plan ("aggregate") along the rough outline of the Clinton parameters, both sides overwhelmingly agree.
I asked him about the Israel Project poll of 2011 that showed that when Palestinian Arabs were asked more specifically about a two-state solution, they overwhelmingly admitted that they envisioned it as a mere stage towards the takeover of Israel. He answered, disingenuously, that this poll was also non-aggregated. Yet the people who answer that they want a two-state solution are already the ones who are being celebrated as the pragmatists by the likes of Kurtzer, and the slim majority they allegedly represent what he is bringing as proof that Palestinian Arabs are ready and willing to compromise.
But let's look at the last poll of Palestinian Arabs and see if it fits Kurtzer's theory. According to him, the more radical ones would be represented more prominently in questions about specific policies, and the more pragmatic ones in questions about comprehensive peace plans.
The answers show something quite different.
(Continue)
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