A Reagan Republican On Peace In the Middle East

Marshall J. Breger was a special assistant to President Reagan and is now a professor of law at the Catholic University of America. He also served in senior positions at the Bush ’41” White House.  His article from Moment Magazine on “A Republican’s Case for Peace” is quite interesting. 

Here is his introduction:

There is a partisan edge in the air. The commissars of political orthodoxy in the Jewish community are out and about. For them, you cannot be a Republican and be a rodef shalom—a pursuer of peace. You certainly can’t love Israel and support a two-state solution. In fact, if you support the peace process you must be a left winger and you certainly are a wimp. They view themselves as hard-headed realists and others as naïve ideologues.

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Some of these “realists” are quite candid in admitting that there is no place for Arabs in the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. Others hide their views (or fool themselves, engaging in mauvoise foi) claiming that they would love to create a Palestinian state but that there is no partner for peace, that territorial compromise of any kind means “Auschwitz borders” and, most recently, that it is not sufficient for the Palestinians to recognize the legitimacy of the state of Israel, they must further accept the legitimacy of Israel as a “Jewish” state before one can talk with them. Others propose a Palestinian entity in the areas Jewish settlers don’t really care about, seeking a fractionated Palestinian entity reminiscent of South African “Bantustans.”

The five bulleted points that follow are quite incisive, in my view, and should be consulted by anyone who is following the debate on the worsening situation in the Holy Land.  

By the way, it looks as if I will be returning to the Holy Land the first week in August for a week of meetings with religious, cultural, and political leaders in both Palestine and Israel.  

 

Author

  • Deal W. Hudson

    Deal W. Hudson is ​publisher and editor of The Christian Review and the host of “Church and Culture,” a weekly two-hour radio show on the Ave Maria Radio Network.​ He is the former publisher and editor of Crisis Magazine.

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