Before Israel was founded, the State Department was anti-Zionist. Since Israel’s founding, the State Department has been hostile to Israel in ways great and small. (Marco Rubio seems to be a wonderful exception to this rule, helped by a pro-Israel president.) And, of course, the Democrat party and its media outlets hate Israel. That’s why two former State Department employees have taken to the pages of the New York Times to complain that, with Israel achieving military victories, the Trump administration must force it to surrender.

The authors of the think piece are Aaron David Miller and Steven Simon, whose joint bio at the Times states,

Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator, is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President.” Steven Simon teaches at Dartmouth and held senior positions in the State Department and at the National Security Council. He is the author of “Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East.”

In their guest essay, the two men carefully explain that Israel, by successfully creating a buffer zone between itself and those who wish to kill it, is now too big and dangerous for the Middle East. Instead, to make the Palestinian people happy (something that should be the administration’s highest priority), Israel must effectively surrender many of its strategic and national security gains:

Israel’s response to the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, has fundamentally altered the Middle East balance of power in a way not seen since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It is time to acknowledge that Israel now looks like the region’s hegemon.

Enabled by the United States, its Arab treaty partners and key Persian Gulf states, the Israelis have broken the Hamas-Hezbollah ring of opposition and revealed the vulnerability and weakness of their patron in Tehran while also degrading Iran’s air defenses and missile production. Israel has expanded its occupation of Syrian territory, taken control of areas of Lebanon just north of its border and undertaken aggressive tactics in the West Bank not seen since the second intifada, which ended 20 years ago.

[snip]

The Trump administration, assuming it still considers peace between Israel and the Palestinians a top priority, will find it harder than ever to persuade Israel to convert its newfound military dominance into enduring political agreements with its Arab and Palestinian neighbors. There are no deals on the cheap here, to be scribbled on the back of cocktail napkins. President Trump and his team will need to put in the time and effort and press key Arab states and the Palestinians to do their part and, in an even tougher task, push Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to make concessions. Mr. Netanyahu’s recent visit to Washington suggests that Mr. Trump isn’t yet ready to try.

There you have it: Israel has subdued Iran’s proxies and established around itself a buffer zone from which no more attacks can be launched against it. That is an unsustainable position for these former State Department employees. Instead, Israel must make concessions to make its defeated enemies happy. The combination of malevolence and naivete is stunning.

The malevolence is obvious: These men think it’s a bad thing that Israel has defeated armies—and, by extension, their paymaster, Iran—that had as their stated objective Israel’s complete destruction as a nation and the death of all its citizens.

The naivete is less obvious: These seasoned State Department employees actually believe that making concessions to Arabs will bring peace to the region. Or, as they frame it in the puffy language of diplomacy,

Israel’s form of hegemony has engendered a temporary stability. But it won’t last without converting Israel’s military dominance into arrangements and agreements with its Palestinian and Arab neighbors that reflect a balance of interests rather than the current asymmetry of power, which sooner or later will lead to more confrontation, violence and terror.

That’s not how it works in the Middle East. Osama bin Laden understood the Arab psyche, and it has nothing to do with revering magnanimity: “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse.” Israel is the strong horse—and an intentionally dangerous one. What makes it different from other historically strong nations in the region is that it has no desire to expand its territory. It simply wishes to be left alone.

I’m no longer surprised when State Department employees and the New York Times display their antisemitism and stupidity. I am, however, invariably disgusted.

Image by AI.