Why did president Obama fail in his attempts to stop israel building settlement and prevent the Palestinians from applying for UN membership? Essay (Critical Writing)

Thesis Statement

Diplomacy is one of the fields of study that has taken root in the modern international system. It pertains to the efforts that states make in order to achieve national interests both locally and abroad. The US has not used its veto power to block Palestine from becoming a state. This is due to a number of reasons including safeguarding national interests. This paper explains why Obama refused to block Palestinian move and why use of force is dangerous as well as necessary in solving world political problems.

1. Prevention of building settlements
2. Rationale
3. Why it failed
4. Israeli-Palestine Conflict
5. Public opinion
6. Obama’s standpoint
7. Foreign Policy
8. Use of force
9. Use of consultation
10. Bibliography

Obama assumed power guaranteeing a more dynamic and unbiased approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, beyond some supercilious speeches as regards to Palestinian agony, he has presented no significant policy change or precise plan for taking consultations a notch higher.

Obama’s effort to prevent Israel from building settlements in the seized regions failed when he gave in to Israeli obstinacy. The government then had the courage to sanction a nonbinding U.N. declaration accusing the very settlements Obama himself had criticized. The Israeli premier mocked the president’s exciting proposal that consultations for a two-state resolution be derived from the 1967 boundaries with territory exchange.

Obama’s proposal is not new since every US president has suggested it. The proposal is based on the Oslo treaty. The president’s suggestions to Netanyahu and the Israeli extremists have made the U.S. seem feeble in the international arena. Obama had no other option than to confirm to the globe that the U.S. is not Israel’s fanatic. He had to cut short his plans of preventing Palestine from being a state.

The majority of Americans support Israel in their fight against Palestine. However, research reveals that most Americans think the U.S. must not support one side over the other in the crisis. Leaders from the media industry, armed forces and foreign relations observe that US foreign policy to Israel is rigorously detrimental to America’s welfare and image around the globe. Basing on the 2008 J Street research, 78% of American Jews backed a two-state resolution and 81% would like the U.S. to force both sides to terminate the crisis.

There is one extra rationale to back the Palestinians’ proposal at the United Nations. This is in line with ethical consideration. During his initial presidential crusade, Obama alleged that no one was distressed more than the Palestinian citizens were. Currently, he has the chance to meet his own values and pledges and to offer the Palestinian populace with similar sense of self-respect that Harry Truman offered Israel 60 years back.

The suggestion that force and risk of force is an essential apparatus of peacekeeping and have a responsibility in foreign strategy is part of the conservative perception of statecraft. It is factual that history and modern incidents support the observation that attempts to cope with crises between countries exclusively by way of nonviolent peacekeeping do not forever thrive and may perhaps lead to extensive harm to one’s public welfare.

Alternatively, one locates in history several cases in which risk of war or real employment of force were frequently not only expensive but also unsuccessful. Since historical occurrences support the inevitability of choosing force and risk of force sometimes, but also stress the perils of doing so, we are left with a vital issue in the assumption and practice of overseas strategy.

The issue is, under what situation and how can force and risks of force be utilized successfully to achieve diverse forms of foreign strategy goals at a suitable level of cost and danger[1].

Attempts to tackle the above issue have caused a sharp division among world think tanks, for instance in the American government where there was a divided opinion over the Korean conflict. Following the Korean conflict, several martial and resident strategists claimed that the United States must never once more fight an incomplete or questionable warfare.

Either it must keep away from such crisis in general or if it intrudes, it must employ whatever martial force needed in a decisive military conquest. Individuals who believed in this message rapidly came to be referred to as Never-Again School.

The tactical principle they supported concerning American military intercession was suitably branded all-or-nothing. This meant that either the United States must be ready to do everything needed to prevail or it must not intrude at all. Other overseas strategy consultants depicted a quite diverse example from the Korean War incident. They claimed that the United States would have possibly to engage in incomplete wars.

One had to anticipate that other local clashes would happen in which the United States considered wise to intrude due to vital interests at risk. Relatively, individuals who depicted this particular example from the Korean conflict were referred to as advocates of the Limited War School. The incongruity over policy between advocates of the Never-Again and the Limited War perspectives has been on ever since and has had an effect to American foreign policy in numerous successive conflicts[2].

From the above analysis, it can be noted that use of force has both strengths and limitations. As scholars had observed earlier, it reaches a time when the only language a man understands is violence. Man is brutal and selfish hence peaceful resolution of conflicts is not always possible.

The international system exists according to the Hobbestian state of nature. This means that power is hierarchically arranged that is, without a common power. There is no a leviathan in the international system meaning that we do not have an international government.

For this case, each state is sovereign and no state is more sovereign compared to others but it is true that some states are more powerful in contrast to others. Powerful states have strong influence in the international system and use of force is sometimes justified to bring peace and tranquility. The more powerful states, such as the US, can use force to achieve both national and international interests though national interests are given priority.

Use of force is necessary because the aggressor does not have to give conditions for cooperation. Peaceful negotiations sometimes take time, which can lead to untold sufferings among citizens. Employment of force guarantees compliance as well as conformity to international standards. Aggressive members in the international system are subjected to global regulations the way they are that is, without comprise.

This has seen tyrants charged in the international criminal court of justice at The Hague and democracy has been restored in the shortest time possible. Conversely, use of force has led to several tribulations to both the aggressors and the world powers. To the aggressors, they are not given any chance to express their views pertaining to particular events. They might have carried out a certain actions with reason but they never have time to explain because they are hit without notice.

Use of force taints the image of the superpower and reduces its popularity in the international system. Soldiers are usually accused of violation of human rights. States spend many resources when they opt to intervene militarily[3]. War can only be fought by rich nations hence the weak cannot engage in wars with the strong. Finally, wars have consequences such as loss of lives and deterioration of economies.

Bibliography

Barston, Ronald. Modern diplomacy, Prentice Hall: Pearson Education, 2006.

Berridge, Gilbert. Diplomacy: Theory & Practice. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005.

Nye, Joseph. The Powers to Lead. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008

Footnotes

1. Berridge, Gilbert. Diplomacy: Theory & Practice, 3rd edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005.
2. Barston, Ronald. Modern diplomacy, Prentice Hall: Pearson Education, 2006.
3. Nye, Joseph. The Powers to Lead. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008