On the eve of its annual visit to Capitol Hill and the White House, the Orthodox Union (OU) honored Elliott Abrams, deputy national security adviser for George W. Bush, for a lifetime of service to the Jewish community and, more broadly, to the country as a whole through his many years of government service. Abrams, in brief remarks, took on two notions about Israel and the prospects for peace that are both widespread but demonstrably false.

In praising the commitment of the OU to the defense of Israel, Abrams observed that there is one other group whose devotion to Israel, like that of the OU, avoids the ebb and flow of American politics and is founded on faith. That group of course is the evangelical community, whose support for Israel is regularly denigrated by the liberal Jewish community. “But it’s based on their religion!” the liberal Jews complain. Well, Abrams explained, what better reason is there to support Israel? It is, after all, the basis for most Jews’ affinity to Israel. (An interesting fact: only 25 percent of American Jews have been to Israel, a number that, if not already, will soon be exceeded by the number of Christians devoted to Israel who travel regularly to the Jewish state.) So those in the American Jewish community who still view evangelicals with distrust or outright hostility may want to reconsider. There aren’t that many Jews, as Abrams pointed out. We actually need additional supporters for Israel.

But the meat of Abrams’s speech was devoted to American-Israeli relations (which he candidly stated are not good) and the efforts, stretching over multiple administrations, to negotiate a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His point was simple: peace will not be achieved at the bargaining table—not at Oslo or Camp David or Annapolis. (The latter example was a frank acknowledgment that the secretary of state and the president for whom Abrams worked were gripped by this same fixation with fruitless peace conferences.)

Peace, he counseled, will not come from the top down, but from the bottom up. Only when Palestinians put aside victimology and take self-governance seriously, cease to rob their own people, build workable institutions, and control terrorism, will there be a true peace. He proposed that the solution may not necessarily be one in which Palestinians and Israelis can live in peace together, but at least in peace—apart. And he suggested a historical model for the Palestinians to follow: Jewish Zionists who came and built a nation before the nation existed, and prepared for the day when full statehood would be achieved. That hope for statehood, as Abrams pointed out,  for decades was not secured with the promise of a fixed time line.

As for Israeli settlements, Abrams rejected the notion that they are the barrier to peace. He reminded the audience that Israel has in the past removed settlements and limited their growth and can do so in the future. The barrier to peace quite simply, he said, is terrorism. He remarked that the difference between having lunch in Jerusalem and in Ramallah is that there are no metal detectors in Ramallah. The terror, Abrams explained, runs only one way.

The attendees at the OU dinner understand and share Abrams’s view. But as to the natural and beneficial alliance with the evangelical community, the majority of Jews plainly do not. It is a tribute to the faith of the evangelical community that the lack of gratitude by the vast majority of American Jews has not inhibited evangelical support for Israel. (After all, they aren’t doing it to be thanked.) And as for the administration’s view of the “peace process,” is there any chance those in the White House will see the light? Well, to paraphrase Abrams (speaking on the prospects for peace more generally), there may not be much of a chance, but there is always hope.

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