The swallows fly to Capistrano; I go to the Middle East.
Every few years I fly to Israel and Palestine and I get out my notebooks, and every time I go the experience is the same. Some world leader will have proposed a peace plan. Some set of lines on a map will be debated. Some elaborate procedure to get both sides to the table will be in the process of being hammered out.
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Over the years, the Shultz plan begat the Oslo process, which begat the Mitchell plan, which begat the road map. Even though the names may change, the grievances are the same, the intensity is the same, and the addictive three-dimensional chess game we call the Middle East peace process is fundamentally the same.
Until this year.
I just got back from a Saban Center conference that took me once again to Jerusalem and Ramallah, and I discovered the most amazing thing: the Israelis have lost interest in the chess match. They have become desensitized to the thoughts and actions of their dysfunctional neighbors, the Palestinians, with whom they used to share such an intimate feud.
The second intifada, coming on the heels of Yasir Arafat's rejection of a deal at Camp David, cut some visceral bond that used to join the two peoples. The Israelis are separating themselves from the Middle East emotionally and psychologically, and with a security barrier.
The dream of peace has been replaced by another dream, the dream of disengagement. Until I spoke to people here, I thought the Gaza disengagement might lead back to the peace process, but now I realize it's a replacement for that process. It's a step toward a new (and even more illusory) dream: the dream of disengaging Israel from its geographic and historical situation.
The security barrier has not only reduced suicide bombings; it has also helped change the nation's psychology. On the Israeli side of the barrier, there is increasing safety, prosperity and normalcy. Jerusalem's streets are crowded again. People no longer choose restaurants by how good their security arrangements are and no longer avoid tables by the windows.
While the barrier makes the Palestinians seem farther away, the Internet makes the rest of the world seem closer at hand. Israel is in the midst of a tech boom, fueled in part by the brainpower of Russian immigrants, and the nation is proud of its ties to Silicon Valley. The economy is thriving (even while income inequality soars), and Israel is developing closer bonds with China, Turkey and the world.
Over there, on the other side of the barrier, Mahmoud Abbas, a new sort of Palestinian leader, promises to impose order and defeat terror. But Israelis don't seem to feel their destiny is intertwined with his success, and they have not helped him deliver the tangible benefits he needs to have any chance of victory.
Israelis have, as I say, disengaged.
Given recent history, no one can blame Israel. The Palestinians richly deserve to be left behind. Even now they expect Israel to allow Palestinian trucks to cross its border, even though both sides know some significant portion will contain bombs designed to kill Jews.
And yet, despite it all, I wonder whether the Israelis know in their hearts that disengagement is not a long-term option.
It's not an option because while Israelis may no longer be dependent on the Palestinians, the Palestinians remain dependent on them. Today, Gaza is spiraling into the abyss, cut off from Israeli markets and abandoned by the Arab world. When Gaza sinks, the West Bank will surely follow, and if Palestine turns into Somalia, Israel will not survive untouched. The Israeli Arabs, if no one else, will see to that.
Disengagement is not an option because America will not allow it. Americans still believe in the peace process and in democratizing the Arab world, which is the opposite of disengagement. The U.S. will always pressure Israel - as it did so forcefully this week - to re-engage with Palestine, to open up trade and movement.
Finally, unilateral disengagement is no option because the Israelis will never do it well. Driven by normal self-interest and by the bitterness of war, Israelis will grab too much land, and impose too much pain. A nation of philosopher-kings could impose a just unilateral solution, but no such nation exists. Unilateral action is bound to be unjust and thus unstable.
The sad fact is that no matter how long and futile the chess game sometimes appeared, someday it will have to start up once again.
