Leslie Gelb’s unconventional wisdom (Jim Miles)

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Leslie Gelb

Feb. 22, 2011 (Palestine Chronicle) -- In its Fortieth Anniversary special issue, Foreign Policy magazine (now owned by the Washington Post) presents a series of articles titled “Unconventional Wisdom.” According to the editors letter, Foreign Policy endeavours “to keep alive” the “relentless determination to resist the uncritical thinking of the foreign-policy herd.” The editor states that this issue is a tribute to “the smart, reasoned, and pull-no-punches debate these articles represent.”

Most of the “unconventional wisdom,” when juxtaposed with much of the information available away from the mainstream media of corporate U.S.A., is quite ordinary and not all that unconventional. "Conventional" is given the meaning of not-natural, not-spontaneous, following tradition. In that light, is it unconventional to say growth cannot last forever? Not really, that has been postulated for many decades if not centuries. Remember Malthus? He is coming back with a vengeance. Is it unconventional to say the “rich really don’t care about the poor?” Hardly, that is as old as human states and empires. Some of the other essays on China and security would certainly go against the conventional wisdom of the Glen Becks and Bill O’Reillys of the world, but for anyone who follows non-mainstream media, there is much conventional wisdom that passes here for unconventional.

Palestine/Israel

A few of the articles make presentations that while theoretically debunking conventional wisdom, simply continue the conventional mythology as the United States wishes to see it. Leslie Gelb, president Emeritus of the Council of Foreign Relations, and from reading his bibliography well out on the right wing of U.S. foreign policy, believes he is providing some unconventional wisdom when arguing “America Pressures Israel Plenty.” If that were true, it would be unconventional, but there is nothing in his essay to support his thesis. He postulates two pieces of "conventional" wisdom -- really only one, each representing a side of the same coin -- that the Israelis are the main stumbling block to Middle East peace, and not the Palestinians; and that the United States has failed to use it influence to pressure Israel for serious compromises. From that Gelb attempts to say the opposite, that the United States has pressured Israel a lot. In this case it is truly unconventional as it is essentially not true.

Gelb argues that Israel has “a long and compelling history of making major concessions to Arabs.” He describes the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt as “booty of war” that was returned to Egypt in “an act of territorial generosity unprecedented in modern history.” The withdrawal was only one part of an overall agreement that saw both sides accepting collective parameters of peace and was a necessary part of any negotiations towards peace. It was not a gift, not a concession, not a generosity, but very much a part of the overall peace process as witnessed by UN Security Council Resolution 242:

1. Affirms that the fulfillment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East should include the application of both the following principles:

(i) Withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;

(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.

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