We have written about Barack Obama's Middle East adviser Daniel Kurtzer before. We had qualms regarding his perspective on the Middle East process, given his record and after having read a book he wrote along with Scott Lasensky, Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace.
Kenneth Levin over at Frontpage shares our concern. He read Kurtzer's book-which can be seen as a blueprint that may guide Barack Obama should he become President: The key paragraph in Levin's article:
Among the explicitly stated assumptions on which they base their argument is the belief that U.S. diplomacy must focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict because it stands in the way of America building alliances with Middle East nations around other issues. Additional unsupported claims are that there is currently a broader regional acceptance of Israel, making resolution of the conflict more achievable; that the majority of Palestinians endorse a two-state solution; that addressing the conflict will boost Arab moderates vis-a-vis extremists (with Saudi Arabia cited as an example of this); and that Israel's giving up the Golan to Syria, dismantling the settlements and returning essentially to its pre-1967 armistice lines would not directly affect the nation's security and so the U.S. should push for such Israeli moves.
But none of the authors' key premises and formulations stands up to even minimal scrutiny.
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