In regards to the writer: Linda Weissgold was the CIA’s deputy director for evaluation from March 2020 till April 2023. She spent 37 years on the CIA. Earlier than the Sept. 11 terrorist assaults, she was an analyst and chief of analytic packages on the Center East for 15 years. She additionally served as President George W. Bush’s intelligence briefer and head of the CIA’s Workplace of Terrorism Evaluation.
Mounting worldwide strain is being positioned on Israel to again away from its pledge to annihilate Hamas terrorists primarily based on a premise that almost all Palestinians need nothing greater than to attain a long-lasting peace with Israel. That is sadly a harmful case of analytic mirror imaging—assuming that others see the world the identical manner that you just do. Presuming that Palestinians and their leaders are able to prioritize peace over retribution, as a result of doing so would result in a greater future, has proved again and again to be an insurmountable stumbling block of the Center East peace course of.
This isn’t to say that the Israeli populace has been totally able to help compromises wanted for peace both. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination in 1995 by the hands of a Jewish extremist against Israeli withdrawals from the occupied West Financial institution is obvious proof of this truth. Hamas’ horrid terrorist assault on Israel has undoubtedly raised the bar for the Israeli public and its leaders to just accept any safety ensures. However there’s actual cause to imagine that the West needs peace within the Center East greater than the Palestinians do, if a current ballot performed by Arab World for Analysis and Improvement is correct. AWRAD is a public opinion analysis agency affiliated with Birzeit College within the West Financial institution, which is underneath the political management of the Palestinian Authority.
Primarily based on the favored demonstrations within the U.S., Individuals need Israel to take extra dangers than we might have been prepared to take ourselves within the aftermath of Sept. 11.
Roughly 75% of Palestinians supported Hamas’ assaults on Israel on Oct. 7, in accordance with AWRAD’s survey performed in each the West Financial institution and Gaza Strip between Oct. 31 and Nov. 7. That quantity may very well be as excessive as 86%, since 11% stated that they didn’t have an opinion, or in different phrases didn’t object. Solely 10% stated they help the Palestinian Authority, whereas 76% expressed help for Hamas. Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller terrorist faction in Gaza, loved even increased help than Hamas.
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The day by day footage of destruction in Gaza are additionally fueling one other analytic pitfall—recency bias. Recency bias is the human tendency to prioritize the most recent info we obtain. In different phrases, the horrors of warfare within the Gaza Strip turn out to be extra surprising the additional away we get from the occasions of Oct. 7. I imagine that recency bias is extra prevalent within the U.S. than the Center East, which has a extra acute sense of historical past, and it’s changing into much more rampant within the digital age. It’s tough to have a dialog with many Israelis and Palestinians that doesn’t embrace a reference to one thing that occurred a whole bunch, if not 1000’s, of years in the past. Within the U.S., it’s exhausting to have a dialog that doesn’t function prominently one thing that appeared on social media or cable information in the previous couple of hours.
Analyzing occasions within the Center East for the higher a part of 4 a long time, I’ve watched the area lurch from one disaster to a different, scrutinized individuals and governments typically at their worst, and seen the occasional glimmers of hope for a permanent peace falter. Throughout that point, I needed to put aside my private views as a result of, as an analyst on the CIA, my private opinions on occasions have been irrelevant. My job was to offer goal evaluation to coverage makers to offer them a choice benefit and preserve Individuals protected. But, I persistently have stated that we can’t need peace greater than these concerned. That’s as a result of Center East peace is isn’t a easy actual property deal. Faith, previous grievances, and a way of legacy have an effect on any rational actor calculus. Yasser Arafat’s refusal in 2000 to satisfy Israel’s far-reaching territorial compromises as a result of, as President Clinton stated in his memoirs, Arafat “couldn’t deliver himself to say sure” proved this to me.
Up to now weeks, I’ve been saddened by acts of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia within the U.S. The American melting pot is boiling over. However, tearing ourselves aside on the seams won’t change info on the bottom in Jerusalem, Gaza, or Ramallah. Irrespective of how exhausting we push for peace, it’s going to nonetheless take boldness from leaders, and the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians, to go in opposition to the prevailing winds of hatred. It takes bravery to endorse compromise. And it takes audacity to belief.
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The worldwide neighborhood, together with the U.S., might help to create the circumstances to facilitate talks, however we can’t pressure a change of coronary heart. Israelis and Palestinians should each summon the braveness to try this, however they’re presently transferring in the wrong way. Now we have but to hit all-time low.
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