A world without Israel

In the most recent edition of Foreign Policy, Josef Joffe invites us to imagine that Israel never existed, asking: "Would the economic malaise and political repression that drive angry young men to become suicide bombers vanish? Would the Palestinians have an independent state? Would the United States, freed of its burdensome ally, suddenly find itself beloved throughout the Muslim world?"

"Wishful thinking," the author answers. "Far from creating tensions, Israel actually contains more antagonisms than it causes." Joffe thoroughly dispenses with the many myths propagated by Israel’s enemies and their dupes among the Western elites, observing, for example, that "it would take a florid imagination to surmise that factoring Israel out of the Middle East equation would produce liberal democracy in the region."

"Israel is a pretext, not a cause," Joffe rightly concludes of the dysfunctionalities of the Middle East, "and therefore its dispatch will not heal the self-inflicted wounds of the Arab-Islamic world."

While the Center vehemently disagrees with the one sop Mr. Joffe evidently feels obliged to throw to political correctness (i.e., "None of this is to argue in favor of Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, nor to excuse the cruel hardship it imposes on the Palestinians, which is pernicious, even for Israel’s own soul"), the rest of his essay is outstanding – and deserves the closest of attention from those who are inclined to respond to Mahmoud Abbas’ election with demands for potentially perilous Israeli concessions.