This piece by @aarondmiller2 is remarkable for its admission that he and the whole foreign policy establishment got Arab-Israeli peace wrong, but it struggles to admit that they didn’t get it accidentally wrong but rather systematically wrong. What is the difference?

1/12 https://twitter.com/aarondmiller2/status/1308773566998085632

Even the smartest experts can make wrong predictions. That’s accidental. But when your predictions and prescriptions are consistently mistaken in the same way and by the same biases, this is more systematic.

2/12

All 3 of the mistakes @aarondmiller2 cites aren’t accidental. They are all informed by a deep-seated belief that peacemaking in the ME is (uniquely) about restoring the fallen morality of the side which won the conflict. This approach has nowhere else been tried, and...

3/12

...there was never any reason to believe that here it might work.

This is the deep ontology of @aarondmiller2’s 3 self-declared mistaken assumptions, "The status quo is unsustainable”; "Israel will become a pariah”; "Normalizing diplomatic relations is step two.”

4/12

Were it a normal case of peacemaking after armed conflict, it would be obvious that you take the new status quo and move it to a place where both sides can improve their positions with as little violence as possible...

5/12

...while not necessarily working to “solve” the conflict or attain an elusive “justice.” Were it a normal conflict, it would be obvious that normal diplomatic relations are not a reward to be used as leverage but a basic expectation of interstate relations.

6/12

Were it a normal conflict, you wouldn’t rush to assign pariah status to a particular state without taking a look around first and see what passes minimum requirements everywhere else for the conduct of normal (if occasionally very critical) relations.

7/12

I mean, look at what else is out there! Do we ordinarily worry about the Philippines or Morocco or Armenia becoming pariahs (among many others)? Well, why not? They don't seem to need tough love to rectify their moral descent from Eden.

8/12

But the @aarondmiller2's establishment wasn’t accidentally wrong about this but rather systematically wrong in a way smart people never could have been about any other int'l conflict as long as none of the belligerent countries were named Israel.

9/12 https://twitter.com/ShMMor/status/1305815211170033665

And in all of this, he says something which he should know is false. The Bush administration actually did endeavor to halt most settlement constriction and secured a tacit Israeli commitment on this issue. That administration also rewarded Israel’s withdrawal...

10/12

...from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank with a public commitment regarding final status issues, which was abjured by the new Obama administration which instead sought a public performative display of “daylight” on the settlement issue...

11/12

...as a way of demonstrating that they understood the tough-love ways of Middle East diplomacy which overly pro-Israel predecessors did not.

Well, did they? Was there anything, anything at all, to show for this?

12/12

Obviously I meant *construction, not constriction. Even I'll admit that's kinda funny when you think about it...