Our basic argument is that furthering a lasting peace in the Middle East, and specifically between Israel and the Palestinians, is a principal U.S. interest in the Middle East, and indeed globally. We have further argued that this peace can only be based on a settlement which acknowledges the Palestinian right to self determination alongside guarantees of Israeli security.
In this concluding chapter, we will first re emphasize in some detail the great importance of Israeli/Palestinian peace in furthering broader U.S. interests. We will then examine, again using Nuechterlein's framework, the interests of the parties involved: the U.S. itself, Israel, the Palestinian people, and Israel's Arab neighbors. We will identify the specific points of conflict between these interests, and also discuss the emotional stumbling blocks which must be resolved on all sides in order to reach a settlement. Finally, we will outline a possible settlement, and make some remarks regarding U.S. policy actions which would be appropriate in the effort to bring such a settlement about.
Developments in the Middle East in the fall of 1990 are in a state of continual and dramatic flux, so much so that the problems faced by U.S. policy makers change from day to day, almost from hour to hour. Thus, this is written one day after violent clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police on Jerusalem's Haram al Sharif ("Temple Mount") led to the shooting deaths of at least nineteen Palestinians. The full ramifications of this development have yet to be felt, but it can be predicted almost at once that they will advance the interests of two parties only: the Israeli right, and Saddam Hussein.
They benefit because the the United States was immediately put "on the spot" between Israel and its Arab coalition partners. Arab governments, responding to universal Arab public opinion, called for harsh condemnation of police vi...