Is Jimmy Carter the Rodney Dangerfield of presidents?  It sure seems that way.

Buried in a Times story Monday about how much our retired presidents receive in taxpayer funds was this line:

"Former presidents receive varying amounts for expenses such as an office, staff and travel expenses. The amounts paid in fiscal 2011, including the pension, varied from $517,000 for Carter to $1.3 million for George W. Bush. Secret Service protection costs are not included."

Now maybe Carter doesn't care. Maybe you don't care. Undoubtedly Dubya doesn't care.

But really, now -- a retired Bush is more than twice as valuable as a retired Carter?

I'm thinking, What's a guy got to do to get a little respect?

Carter goes around building homes with Habitat for Humanity. 

Bush shows up in the front row at the World Series.

Carter goes to North Korea and gets a captured American freed.

Bush shows up at the World Series.

Carter irritates the heck out of pro-Israel types everywhere.

Bush shows up -- oh, you know.

Perhaps alone among Americans, I persist in my belief that Carter was a president unappreciated by today's pundits and historians.  Not a great president, perhaps. But not the Edsel of presidents either.

Anyway, it appears that all of our former presidents are headed for some belt-tightening. The Times reported that the proposed Presidential Allowance Modernization Act seeks to amend a half-century-old law that sought to "maintain the dignity” of the office of the president.

The proposal would provide a taxpayer supported pension of $200,000, about the same amount that they now receive. But payments to ex-presidents for outside expenses such as office staff and travel would be cut back if their outside income exceeded $400,000 a year.

Former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush collectively received about $3.8 million from taxpayers in fiscal 2011, according to records. 

OK, yeah, that seems like more "dignity" than we can afford right now for these guys. 

Because let's face it: Most of them are well off. And that's a bipartisan position:  Clinton doesn't need the cash any more than the Bushies.

But I'm sticking by Carter. I'm betting an ex-peanut farmer could use the dough.

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Mitt Romney, the pandering chicken hawk on Iran

-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: Jimmy Carter. Credit: David McNew / Getty Images

So this is getting seriously stupid, all the campaign-season rhetoric about Iran.

First, President Obama, speaking Sunday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, says:

"I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say. That includes all elements of American power. A political effort aimed at isolating Iran; a diplomatic effort to sustain our coalition and ensure that the Iranian program is monitored; an economic effort to impose crippling sanctions; and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.

"Iran's leaders should know that I do not have a policy of containment. I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And as I've made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests."

Sounds clear and tough-guy enough, right?

COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS: Presidential Election 2012

Well, apparently not to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who, The Times reported from Snellville, Ga., reacted to Obama's speech this way:

"If Barack Obama is reelected, Iran will have a nuclear weapon and the world will change," Romney told a crowd of more than a 1,000 people at a pancake breakfast that his campaign hosted in this Atlanta suburb.

When an 11-year-old boy asked the candidate how he would keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, Romney said Obama had not imposed "crippling sanctions against Iran." "He's also failed to communicate that military options are on the table and in fact in our hand, and that it's unacceptable to America for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

"I will have those military options. I will take those crippling sanctions and put them into place," he said. "And I will speak out to the Iranian people of the peril of them becoming nuclear …. I'm not willing to allow your generation to have to worry about a threat from Iran or anyone else that nuclear material be used against Americans.”

Oh, and have some more pancakes, young fellow. I want you big and strong for when I send you off to war!

But seriously. Obama said all options were on the table -- and Romney still called him out. What is this, the second-grade playground?

C'mon, fellows, stop and think a minute. If you don't want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, does it make sense to keep bombarding it with threats of military action? I mean, I'm pretty sure they've got the picture by now. 

Do you really have to make a bunch of paranoid types more paranoid? Isn't this why Israel says it fears Iran -- because it has threatened to destroy Israel?

So how do all of these threats to attack Iran make it want the bomb less?

The bottom line: This is political gamesmanship at its worst. Romney and the GOP candidates court pro-Israel votes by taking an ultra-hard line on Iran. Which forces Obama to hew to a hard line as well.

But it's a very dangerous game. It could lead to war. It could get lots of people killed.

And yes, for me, it's personal too: I have two sons.One just turned 18, at which point you are -- yes, still -- required to sign up with the Selective Service System.

Frankly, I'm getting tired of hearing pandering politicians cast about for votes by offering up the lives of other people's kids in the name of national security.

Take Romney's sons: Did he offer them up as cannon fodder? Check out this New York Times story in 2007, the last time he ran, when he was asked about whether they had served in the military:

Mr. Romney expressed appreciation for the country's "volunteer army" and said "that's the way we're going to keep it." He explained his sons had made different career choices in life and had not chosen to serve in the military, but he mentioned a niece whose husband, he said, had just been called up by the National Guard ….

But he wound up his response with this: "It's remarkable how we can show our support for our nation, and one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected, because they think I’d be a great president. My son, Josh, bought the family Winnebago and has visited 99 counties, most of them with his three kids and his wife. And I respect that and respect all of those in the way they serve this great country."

Yes, well, Mitt, the campaign trail is a rugged place, that's for sure, especially in a Winnebago.

But ask the fathers and mothers and husbands and wives of the thousands of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan about real war.

And then, just maybe, you -- and, frankly, Obama too -- might decide to take your finger off the trigger.

And quit playing politics with the lives of American kids.

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-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: Mitt Romney speaks Sunday at a pancake breakfast at Brookwood High School in Snellville, Ga., outside Atlanta. Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

America, it's time for a little presidential poker. Republicans and Democrats need to go "all in" on Rick Santorum vs. President Obama.

Yep, it's "put up or shut up" time for all you political Texas hold 'em folks out there.

Now, the Obama bet you probably understand. After all, he's the incumbent, and he's running unopposed in the Democratic Party.

But why Santorum? After all, he's not only anathema to Democrats, it's not clear whether most Republicans favor him over Mitt Romney (not to mention Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul).

For the good of the country, though, the GOP needs to run Santorum.

Wait, wait, hold the comments, angry or otherwise. I didn't say "Santorum would be good for the country."  If you're asking me personally, well, it's a secret ballot, but no, I wouldn't put my ink spot next to "Rick Santorum."

But I'm also sick and tired of the partisan divide. It's time to call everyone's bluff.

Conservatives maintain that Obama and the Democrats are destroying the country; that we need to return to Christian values, to exceptionalism, to less government, less regulation, less spending and less taxation.

Sure, Romney touts all that too.  But he just wants the Republican nomination. With that secured, he'll pivot to the center, and pretty soon you'll never know he said half the stuff he did to get the GOP nod. With an Obama-Romney clash, should Romney lose, plenty of Republicans would complain that he wasn't a true-enough conservative.

Santorum, on the other hand, is nothing if not a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. He might pivot to the center too, but he's so far right that he can't even see the center at this point. With an Obama-Santorum battle, we'd be able to settle the liberal vs. conservative debate that's stifling government. 

And here's where the "all in" part happens.

If Santorum wins, liberals should acknowledge that the country is on the wrong path. America doesn't want gay marriage, or legal abortion, or government healthcare, or environmental protections. It wants to slash the size of government and reduce or eliminate entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. It wants religion back in public life; it wants the government out of schools. It wants to spend big on defense; it wants to back Israel no matter what. 

However, if Obama wins, all those conservative Republicans would have to acknowledge that they were wrong. That they're not America's voice. That America is OK with gay marriage and a woman's right to choose; it wants affordable healthcare for all, and a safety net that includes Medicare and Social Security.  It agrees with the separation of church and state and believes that while generating good-paying jobs is important, so is protecting the environment. It doesn't want a 1% and a 99% but a 100% that favors social and economic justice for all.

So after election day, that's it. Someone rakes in all the chips. 

If it's Santorum, then Republicans in Congress, the tea partyers and the Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck/Sean Hannity crowd can crow all the way to the inauguration and beyond.

But if it's Obama, those same folks need to face reality. They need to stop the scorched-earth warfare and let him lead.

And we can go back to the old days, when elections mattered.

Did someone say "deal"?

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 --Paul Whitefield

Illustration by Wes Bausmith / Los Angeles Times

So what have the Syrians done wrong?

When rebels in Libya revolted against the regime of Moammar Kadafi last year, the West rushed in with air power when it appeared that the insurgents would be slaughtered by government forces.

And the airstrikes continued to the bloody end -- Kadafi's bloody death included.

But in Syria, antigovernment protesters have been fighting -- and dying -- for months trying to overthrow the regime of President Bashar Assad.

So where's the NATO air power?  I mean, what's a rebel group got to do for a few 500-pound bombs? Are the lives of Syrian rebels less important than those in Libya?

The cold, hard answer is yes. Syria's rebels aren’t going to get NATO's help.

Why? 

As we used to say in the Cold War days, it's realpolitik.

In truth, what happened in Libya is the exception in foreign affairs.  Just when you think a precedent has been set, there hasn't.

An example? Nuclear weapons.  North Korea -- all Western bluster aside -– is allowed to have the bomb. But the fact that Iran is trying to acquire one brings talk of World War III.

It's much the same with Libya and Syria. The West could afford to challenge Kadafi, who in the end had few outside friends.  But Syria, and Assad, have powerful outside allies, including, as we saw this week, Russia and China.  And, of course, Iran.

Overt Western action to promote regime change in Syria, then, risks a wider conflict.  The Libya action didn't pose as big a gamble.

For an excellent update on the situation in Syria, read Times staff writers Patrick J. McDonnell and Paul Richter’s story this week.  As they point out, the situation in Syria is more like that in Saddam Hussein's Iraq than in Kadafi's Libya. And we know how Iraq turned out.

So is the world forced to stand by while Assad butchers his own people?

Of course not. There are diplomatic tools available. The Obama administration and others are using them.

But that's cold comfort for the people in Syria fighting -– and being killed daily by -- an oppressive regime.

Unfortunately, it's the only comfort they're likely to get.

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Afghanistan's future? Same as it ever was: Bloody

-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: Two Syrians evacuate an injured fellow opposition member in the northwestern city of Idlib this month. Credit: Associated Press

If Israel really planned on attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, skeptics ask, would it be talking about it so publicly? Still, rumors that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may attack Iran before this summer has opinionators screaming waiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. Waging war would backfire, they warn, ultimately causing more trouble for Israel and, subsequently, the United States. Some argue that even if this is simply Israel engaging in saber-rattling rhetoric, the threats alone are damaging enough and should stop immediately.

In a recent Op-Ed, Chuck Freilich, who was a deputy national security advisor in Israel during Labor and Likud governments, wrote in our pages:

So herein lies the dilemma: a potential risk to the nation's existence versus the uncertain results of military action, the likelihood of a devastating Iranian/Hezbollah response, the risk of an end to the peace with Egypt and even a military confrontation and regional war, severe international opprobrium and a partial rift with the United States.

Rather than wage war, Israel should wait for economic sanctions to cripple Iran, writes the New York Times editorial board:  

President Obama has spent three years rallying the toughest sanctions ever on Iran -- including a European Union oil embargo. Tehran is increasingly isolated; its economy is reeling. The administration was right to warn Iran against any attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz. We hope it is also looking to privately persuade Iran of the need for a negotiated solution.

Israel must defend itself. This country’s alliance with Israel is crucial. We hope for everyone's sake that Israel's leaders weigh all of the consequences before they act. A military attack would almost certainly make things worse. Tough sanctions and a united diplomatic front are the best chance for crippling Iran's nuclear program.

Leslie H. Gelb, author of "Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy," agrees. In an open letter to Netanyahu posted on the Daily Beast, he writes:

Economic sanctions weaken and divide them -- and often produce constituencies for compromise. Give sanctions time to play out. […]

And if it is to be war, it won't be only Israel's war. Yes, Israel will bear the greatest risks in a war now or a war if Iran has nukes. But even if Israel attacks by itself, Tehran also can be expected to strike at America, Europe, and elsewhere. And Tehran likely will unleash terrorists worldwide, possibly with chemical and biological weapons, plus hits on oil pipelines. So the decision to go to war cannot be Israel's alone. Both U.S. and Israeli officials tell me that the Obama administration is urging you to be cautious. In an interview Sunday, President Obama expressed solidarity with Israel and also said that diplomacy remains the "preferred solution." But you know, Bibi, that most times this White House is too nice about saying hard things to you. And maybe you won't get the message.

Let me spell out what I think President Obama is saying to you: the unprecedented economic sanctions against Iran are already hurting and will hurt a lot more over the next year. Let them bite more. Meantime, the U.S. and Israel are both underlining to Tehran that all options are on the table. (That's not a trivial phrase from a great power.) Israeli threats won't reinforce the pressure from the sanctions; they'll harden Iran's heart. And we'll all be heading for an incredibly dangerous war.

Juan Cole also sounds a warning to Israel via CNN's GPS section. He lists 10 reasons why Israel shouldn't attack Iran, including…

Oil prices will spike. I imagine you could easily see $150 a barrel or maybe even more. This development could throw the U.S. and Europe back into deep recession.

And he concludes…

It seems obvious to me that if all these developments actually occurred, they would be much worse for Israel than if Iran actually did start a weapons program and Iran and Israel replicated on a regional scale the Mutually Assured Destruction of the U.S.-Soviet standoff of an earlier era.

For some, Israel's rhetoric is dangerous enough. James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, explains on the Huffington Post:

If this is the game, then Israeli saber-rattling and American outrage play right into Iran's hand. […] My concern is that the escalating rhetoric by all sides poses a danger, in itself. The region is a tinderbox, and it is as if everyone is too busy playing with matches to think of the consequences of their behavior.

But then there's the Daily Beast's Niall Ferguson, who argues that an Israeli attack on Iran may actually be a lesser evil. (Note: The Atlantic's James Fallows calls Ferguson's piece "the weakest case anyone has made in public for going to war, from a celebrity professor.")

The single biggest danger in the Middle East today is not the risk of a six-day Israeli war against Iran. It is the risk that Western wishful nonthinking allows the mullahs of Tehran to get their hands on nuclear weapons. Because I am in no doubt that they would take full advantage of such a lethal lever. We would have acquiesced in the creation of an empire of extortion.

War is an evil. But sometimes a preventive war can be a lesser evil than a policy of appeasement. The people who don't yet know that are the ones still in denial about what a nuclear-armed Iran would end up costing us all.

All of this commentary is beside the point for TruthDig's Barry Lando, who says we can't asses the situation honestly until we have the whole story. He writes:

Officially, however, Washington and Israel continue the ridiculous pretense that Israel has no nuclear weapons. To this day, Israeli reporters can write about their country's nuclear capacity only if they cite foreign publications as the source. And in the U.S., Washington's official silence seems curiously contagious: How often, in the current flurry of media reports about the threat from Iran, is there any mention of Israel's own nuclear arsenal?

The bottom line is this: Whatever your view about Iran or Israel's right to nuclear weapons, how can statesmen or reporters or anyone seriously discuss the current crisis over Iran when a key part of the dispute is officially hidden from view? How can the U.S. and Israel deal with proposals for a nuclear-free Middle East when they still refuse officially to acknowledge that the region is not nuclear free -- and hasn't been for the past 50 years?

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Photo: A worker rides a bike in front of the reactor building at the Bushehr nuclear power plant near Bushehr, Iran, in this 2010 photo. Credit: Majid Asgaripour / Mehr News Agency

I guess now we can call it the "Iran rule."

You know: It's the rule that says the United States must go to war with a country or risk loosing another Hitler on the world.

In 2003, of course, it was the "Iraq rule." Remember how George W. Bush and other administration officials and conservatives justified the invasion of Iraq by comparing Saddam Hussein to Hitler?

Although, to be fair, Bush was just following in the tracks of his father, who also invoked the Hitler comparison in deciding to oust Hussein from Kuwait in the 1990 Persian Gulf War.

If I didn't know better, I'd say too many U.S. policymakers have seen "The Boys From Brazil" and assumed it was a documentary.

Today's Hitler, though, is -- take your pick -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or the mullahs who rule Iran. And they want Iran to be a nuclear power. And they must be stopped. And the U.S., of course, must do the stopping. And all options must be on the table, including military action.

Who says so?

Well, except for Ron Paul, every Republican running for president, for starters. Here's Mitt Romney:

"If we reelect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon," Romney stated unequivocally. "And if you elect Mitt Romney, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon."

But this is a bipartisan stance, it appears. As The Times quoted Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta on Sunday:

"Are they trying to develop a nuclear weapon?  No," Panetta said. "But we know that they're trying to develop a nuclear capability. And that's what concerns us. And our red line to Iran is, 'Do not develop a nuclear weapon.' That's a red line for us."

"I think they need to know that ... if they take that step, that they're going to get stopped," Panetta said, adding that he was not taking any options off the table.

Gosh, fellows, maybe you could all take a break from the Xbox and Call of Duty for a bit?  You know, get out for some fresh air?

Because honestly, I think the American people are just a bit tired of playing Hitler whack-a-mole.

And this is starting to give me 2003 deja vu: Everyone knows the Iranians are building a bomb, just like everyone knew Saddam Hussein was pursuing a bomb.

Except he wasn't. 

And even if the Iranians are, what makes everyone so sure they'd use it?

Ah, you say, just check what Ahmadinejad has said.

OK. Check what Romney just said. Check what Panetta just said. Does that mean we're automatically going to war?

If we went to war every time someone said something bellicose, we'd be going to war a lot -- uh, I mean a lot more.

We didn't want the Soviet Union to get the bomb, but it did. We didn't want China to get the bomb, but it did. Ditto North Korea. And Pakistan.

Each time, some argued -- as some, especially Israel, argue now about Iran -- that it would be Armageddon if the bad guys got the bomb.

Well, the United States has lived for more than 60 years with thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at it.

It's no picnic, but we're still here.

Plus, sanctions against Iran are starting to take their toll. They might work. At any rate, they don't cost nearly as much as a military action.

So why don't we give the war talk a rest. Hitler, after all, is dead.

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-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: A U.S. sailor in a safety boat observes a boarding team from the U.S. guided-missile destroyer Kidd after Iranian fishermen were rescued from pirates in the Arabian Sea. Credit: U.S. Navy

Phyllis Bennis, director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, responds to The Times' Jan. 2 Op-Ed article, "Bibi and Barack." Bennis is the coauthor of "Ending the U.S. War in Afghanistan: A Primer" and the author of "Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer."

If you would like to write a full-length response to a recent Times article, editorial or Op-Ed, here are our FAQs and submission policy. 

Aaron David Miller is right: President Obama does have an Israel problem. But Miller is wrong about the roots of the problem. 

The problem isn't Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or his Likud Party, or even Israel's current extreme right-wing government. Israel's fundamental policy toward the Palestinians is the problem, and that policy has hardly changed, despite the seemingly diverse sequence of left, right and center parties that have been in power.

Just look at the occupation of the territories seized in 1967 -- the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Settlement building, along with all the land and water theft that goes with it, began just weeks after the Six-Day War. And a right-wing government wasn't in power; it was Mapai, the left-wing precursor to today's Labor Party. The right wing wouldn't come to power until almost three decades after Israel's founding, when Menachem Begin led the Likud coalition to victory in 1977. 

Settlement construction and expansion started right after the war and continued under all the leftist (in the Israeli context) governments. By the time Likud came to power 10 years after the 1967 war, there were already more than 50,000 Israeli settlers living in Jews-only settlements in the occupied territories, most of them in occupied East Jerusalem, with smaller numbers in the West Bank and Gaza. Settlement expansion advanced under Labor, Likud and Kadima-led governments. Now there are more than 600,000 settlers living illegally in Palestinian territory, divided between the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

As Moshe Dayan, a former defense and foreign minister, explained, the settlements were necessary "not because they can ensure security better than the army but because without them we cannot keep the army in those territories. Without them the [Israel Defense Forces] would be a foreign army ruling a foreign population."

The different parties, prime ministers and officials sometimes used different language. Some repeated the words the international community wanted, a "land for peace" deal and "two states"; others insisted that only "peace for peace" or "Jordan is Palestine" was acceptable. Some spoke loudly in defense of settlements, while others only whispered.

But there was no diversity of substance. What happened in the real world, the "facts on the ground," continued regardless of which party was in power.  

Other things continued too -- settler violence against Palestinians, expropriation of Palestinian land and water, illegal closures, collective punishments including massive armed assault, arrest without charge, extra-judicial assassinations and the siege of Gaza. 

Of course, that's just in the occupied territories. Inside Israel, Arab Israelis -- those who survived the dispossession of 1947-48 -- live as second-class citizens. They have the right to vote, but they are subject to legalized discrimination in favor of the Jewish majority. The Israeli human rights organization Adalah reported to the United Nations more than 20 such discriminatory laws, the most important of which deny Palestinian citizens equal rights on issues of immigration and citizenship as well as land ownership. And outside, the Palestinian refugees, now numbering in the millions, have been denied their internationally guaranteed right of return by Israeli governments of every political stripe.

The whole range of Israeli political parties has continued to implement these same policies. They may talk a different talk, but they all walk the same walk.

What none of these governments is prepared to acknowledge is what it will take for a real solution, one that is lasting, comprehensive and just: human rights and equality for all based on international law. It shouldn't be more complicated than that. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifies everyone has the right to return to their home country, no exceptions; that everyone has the right to live in safety, no exceptions; that everyone has the right to an equal say in the government that rules their country, no exceptions.

Every law should treat all citizens the same, no exceptions. Every government has the obligation to live up to the treaties it has signed, including the U.N. conventions on human rights, against racism, the Geneva Conventions and more. Israel has signed them all. Yet not one Israeli government, of any party, has implemented them. 

As long as the United States provides the Israeli government more than $3 billion in aid every year, regardless of those violations, and protects Israel from being held accountable in the U.N., regardless of those violations, no Israeli prime minister has much reason to change. That's Obama's Israel problem -- not Netanyahu. Changing U.S. policy should provide the solution.

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Photo credit: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press

"Shameless" doesn't begin to describe Mitt Romney's cheap shot at President Obama in connection with Israel -- based on inadvertently overheard small talk.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was caught saying of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "I can’t stand to see him anymore; he's a liar." To which  Obama replied: "You are fed up with him, but me, I have to deal with him every day."

From this molehill of a diplomatic accident, Romney constructed a mountain of indignation. Worse, he drew a connection between Obama's comment and his Middle East policy.

"President Obama's derisive remarks about Israel's prime minister confirm what any observer would have gleaned from his public statements and actions toward our longstanding ally, Israel," Romney said.  "At a moment when the Jewish state is isolated and under threat, we cannot have an American president who is disdainful of our special relationship with Israel. We have here yet another reason why we need new leadership in the White House."

The notion that Obama is anti-Israel borders on the libelous. Yes, he antagonized Netanyahu by stating the obvious: that a peace agreement with the Palestinians should be based on 1967 borders with land swaps to accommodate Jewish settlers on the  West Bank. But to see the friction between Netanyahu and Obama as proof that Obama is  "disdainful of our special relationship with Israel" is unfair.

If Romney is elected, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hasn't been resolved, he'll take the same approach as Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Then it will be his turn to be called anti-Israel.

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Photo: President Obama and his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, made a joint appearance for a pre-recorded interview at the end of the G-20 meeting. Credit: DSK/AFP/Getty Images

German Israeli citizen Petra Marquardt-Bigman, a historian whose blog is published by the Jerusalem Post, responds to Saree Makdisi's Sept. 22 Op-Ed article, "Palestinians' U.N. gamble could backfire." If you would like to write a full-length response to a recent Times article, editorial or Op-Ed, here are our FAQs and submission policy. 

Warning that the "Palestinians' U.N. gamble could backfire," Saree Makdisi explains that there is a difference between Palestinian aspirations for self-determination in a state of their own and the much broader Palestinian cause.

Understanding this difference is crucial to understanding why an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement has remained so elusive.

Makdisi's main concern is that a Palestinian state would only represent its citizens, whereas the Palestine Liberation Organization enjoys international recognition "as the sole legitimate representative of the entire Palestinian people." According to Makdisi, the groups that make up the Palestinian people include "those living under occupation, those living in Israel and those living in exile or as refugees."

Obviously enough, for those Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, the establishment of a Palestinian state should mean a vast improvement of their situation. The same should be true for Palestinian refugees: Just as the newly established Jewish state took in hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing discrimination and persecution in Arab countries, the newly established Palestinian state could provide a haven for those Palestinians who have been kept in refugee camps for generations.

But while the Palestinians garner worldwide sympathy for their plight as an occupied and stateless people, Makdisi is not primarily concerned with ending the occupation and statelessness; instead, his priority is the preservation of the PLO's claim to represent "the entire Palestinian people."

The most notable aspect of this claim is the PLO's ambition to represent Israeli citizens. Makdisi apparently believes that this is an internationally recognized claim, and he asserts that there are "1.5 million Palestinians living as second-class citizens of Israel." This is inaccurate on two counts: Not all of Israel's 1.5 million Arabs define themselves as Palestinian, and Israeli Arabs are not "second-class citizens," even if, like minorities elsewhere, they may often face disadvantage or discrimination.

While we can only speculate how many of Israel's Arab citizens would like to be represented by the PLO, it seems unlikely that this would be an attractive proposition for an Israeli Bedouin who is a career diplomat, like Ishmael Khaldi, or Israeli Druze soldiers who serve with distinction in the Israeli Defense Forces. Doubts about the eagerness of Arabs in Israel to be represented by the PLO seem warranted in light of polls showing that even among the Arabs of East Jerusalem -- claimed by Palestinians as their capital -- many would prefer Israeli citizenship to Palestinian citizenship.

In any case, Makdisi's concerns are justified insofar as Israeli citizens who consider themselves Palestinians would obviously not be represented by a Palestinian state, unless these individuals acquired Palestinian citizenship. However, the "Palestine Papers" published in January reveal that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas believes Israeli-Palestinians should not be entitled to apply for citizenship. Characterizing his response as "strategically" motivated, Abbas explained during a meeting in March 2009 that a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship was already living in his homeland and did not need a passport "to prove" his Palestinian identity.

Makdisi may well share this view because he argues that "U.N. resolutions do not limit the Palestinian people or their rights merely to the territories occupied in 1967; General Assembly Resolution 194, for example, expressly recognizes their right of return to homes in what is now Israel."

Leaving aside the contentious questions about the validity of Palestinian claims to a "right of return," Makdisi's argument implies that establishing a Palestinian state may not be desirable if this risks diminishing the chances of the descendants of Palestinian refugees to claim Israeli citizenship. But when Israeli citizenship is prized higher than the citizenship that would come with a Palestinian state, Palestinian refugees become mere pawns in a political poker game. Likewise, the claim that Israel's Arab citizens need the PLO to represent them is revealed as rank hypocrisy.

Interestingly, Makdisi emphasizes that the U.N. has already recognized a "very broad set of Palestinian rights." But in his determination to safeguard these rights, he seems blind to the fact that whatever rights the Palestinians can legitimately claim, the "right" to deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination is surely not included.

-- Petra Marquardt-Bigman

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Photo: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas speaks before the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York on Sept. 23. Credit: Dennis Van Tine / Abaca Press 

It's as depressing as it was inevitable. Republicans are accusing the Obama administration of selling out Israel. Texas Gov. Rick  Perry says President Obama's "arrogant, misguided and dangerous" policies led to the Palestinians' plan to request statehood at the United Nations. Pressure on Israel -- presumably to freeze settlement activity on the West Bank -- had emboldened Palestinians,  Perry says. Never mind that Obama plans to veto statehood in the Security Council.

Perry is particulary shrill, but his position is the norm in Congress, which sometimes seems more pro-Israel than the Israelis. A succession of presidents, despite what they said as candidates, have tried to nudge Israel and the Palestinians to accept the only logical outcome of their conflict: peaceful coexistence, now known as the two-state solution.

Would a President Perry likewise grow in office? I'm not confident.

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--Michael McGough

Photo: Guides in the West Bank hold portraits of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas during a rally in support of a bid for statehood in the U.N. Credit: Musa Al Shaer / Getty Images