Why are we debating Israel?
If we learned one thing from the "Arab Spring" thus far it's that outrage over a lack of domestic political freedoms and economic opportunity - not Israel or the West Bank - has the power to bring large numbers into the "Arab street" and even topple regimes. And yet, in the aftermath of President Obama's speech on the Arab Spring, all anyone is talking about is Israel and the Palestinians.
This frame of reference is ultimately counter-productive. Whatever else one says about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it's only a strategic liability for the U.S. insofar as Washington insists on subsidizing the combatants and trying - in a ham-handed and incompetent fashion - to solve it.
