Olin panelists discuss the Middle East crisis with alumni audience

By Franklin Crawford

During his presentation June 7 at the Spencer T. and Ann W.Olin Lecture on the Middle East crisis, Cornell Professor Ross Brann brought home the region's growing body count in figures American audience members might grasp.

Panelists for the Reunion weekend Olin Lecture, June 7, in Bailey Hall include, from left, Ross Brann, the M.R. Konvitz Professor of Judeo-Islamic Studies; Peter Katzenstein, the W.S. Carpenter Jr. Professor of International Studies; and Vice Provost Isaac Kramnick, the R.J. Schwartz Professor of Government. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

As of mid-April, Brann said, more than 400 Israelis and more than 1,200 Palestinians -- mostly civilians on both sides -- had been killed. Brann converted those figures to numbers proportional to the U.S. population: 400 dead Israelis would equal about 24,000 dead Americans; 1,200 dead Palestinians would equal about 120,000 dead Americans.

"It is time for the U.S. and NATO to step into this fray," said Brann, the M.R. Konvitz Professor of Judeo-Islamic Studies and chair of the Department of Near Eastern Studies. "There is no military solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. ... Those who believe in terrorizing of Jews or in the humiliation of Palestinians are doomed to fail as surely as they will spill ever more blood."

Brann was among three members of a distinguished Olin Lecture faculty panel for Reunion 2002 speaking on the subject of "The Middle East Crisis: Reflections on the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse" to an audience of more than a thousand alumni in Bailey Hall. Brann was joined by Peter Katzenstein, the W.S. Carpenter Jr. Professor of International Studies in the Department of Government; and Vice Provost Isaac Kramnick, the R.J. Schwartz Professor of Government. President Hunter Rawlings provided introductory remarks and served as forum moderator.

Brann said he saw signs of hope for a two-state solution to the conflict, but not without political, military and economic intervention from the United States and NATO.

Katzenstein followed Brann's call to international and, specifically, American involvement in the Middle East with observations on the limits of the U.S. influence as a global power broker. Referring to the United States as the "new Rome," Katzenstein said the Bush administration, for all the collective savvy of its foreign policy experts, languishes in a Cold War geopolitical paradigm and fails to appreciate the profound domestic divisions of other nations.

"The world is no longer divided into clearly demarcated rival blocks. ... Ours is a world of regions, with the U.S. at the center of the hub ... actively engaged in all world regions," said Katzenstein. "But with the exception of Central America, [the United States] cannot dictate the political outcome in any region, including the Middle East. Local factors are typically too strong and American interest too weak to impose lasting political solutions."

As the Middle East conflict intensifies, said Katzenstein, political extremists on both sides have gained power, while the Bush administration has vacillated.

"History teaches us that the Middle East conflict is inherently intractable to mediate even for the biggest of all powers," said Katzenstein. "Only when our thinking catches up with the new realities of world politics will we have a chance, but not a guarantee, to do better."

Kramnick then delivered a 10-minute talk on "How Americans Debate the Middle East." A key figure in organizing teach-ins and other group discussions on campus in the wake of Sept. 11 and the eruptions in the Middle East, Kramnick assessed the state of Middle East debate based on observations of four key American institutions: the Congress, the president, the press and the universities.

Kramnick examined his subject by the rarified light of 19th-century philosopher John Stuart Mill, who saw democracy as a process of reasoned debate, where all opinions are examined with an attitude of tolerance and a willingness to compromise. As much interested in the tone and manner of the debate as in its content, Kramnick averred that signs of pure democracy in the American debate have been spotty at best. America's historically strong support for Israel has persisted through the current crisis, he said, "even though the Muslim population in America has come to nearly equal the Jewish population."

That support was visible in the bipartisan resolutions passed by Congress with little or no debate declaring unqualified support for Israel's military actions against the Palestinians, Kramnick pointed out.

"From the Republican Tom Delay to the Democrat Joe Lieberman there was only praise for Sharon and disdain and disgust for Arafat," said Kramnick. "... This makes it difficult for anyone in Congress to see the conflict as possibly the tragic clash of two peoples' national aspirations and thus to explore any mediated compromise solutions."

By comparison, President Bush seems willing to explore reasonable compromises between Israel and the Palestinians, he said -- but, on closer examination, the administration more closely resembles Congress and, in fact, appears to favor Israel unilaterally. As for the press, some efforts at reasonable and balanced reporting have been criticized as being supportive of the Arab cause, Kramnick said. CNN and NPR have been accused of pro-Palestinian leanings when presenting balanced views, and some New York rabbis organized a boycott against The New York Times, "claiming that it had created a false equivalency between the two sides ... and gave disproportionate attention to Palestinian sufferings."

On American campuses, pure democratic debate also has received a good drubbing but there are some signs of the Millsian concept -- right here at home, Kramnick said.

"The public discussions about the Middle East here at Cornell these past two semesters would have pleased John Stuart Mill, characterized as they have been by rational debate and the civil exchange of ideas and positions even when anger and passionate loyalty informed those positions," Kramnick said.

The panel then fielded questions from the audience.

Following the panel discussion, questions and comments came from audience members, including John Wolberg '57, an engineering professor living in Haifa, Israel. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

John Wolberg '57, an engineering professor living in Haifa, Israel, said he had just come from Israel.

"I can tell you the mood of the country is that we've come to the conclusion that they [Palestinians] really don't want to get rid of the settlements and the occupation; what they really want is to drive the Jews into the sea," he said. "We've come to that conclusion, that's the logic of the current situation."

Katzenstein responded in part by suggesting that framing the conflict in terms of "us" against "them" oversimplified complex issues and is one of the big reasons why the conflict is so intractable.