Iraq panel is wrong on Israel
December 6, 2006| By Nathaniel Ward
Heritage Middle East expert Jim Phillips takes a look at one of the Iraq Study Group’s more bizarre recommendations and finds it seriously wanting. “The simplistic connection the ISG report makes between building peace in Baghdad and building peace in Jerusalem,” he writes, “does not stand up to serious scrutiny.”
“The fighting in Iraq is caused by a brutal struggle for power, a proxy war fueled by Iran’s growing ambitions in the region and al-Qaeda’s ruthless campaign to establish a base of operations to export its totalitarian Islamic revolution,” Phillips explains. This fighting would likely continue, he argues, “regardless of events between Israelis and Palestinians.”
In any case, he continues, there’s no real prospect for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in the near future. For one thing, “the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority rejects not only peace negotiations with Israel but Israel’s right to exist.”
“If there is a link between the Arab-Israeli conflict and Iraq,” Phillips concludes, “it is the threat to a stable peace posed by terrorists supported by Syria and Iran.”
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
