The Only Language He Understands

When it comes to cringe-inducing platitudes, the Israel-Palestinian conflict has yielded far more than its fair share. Here are a few: (1) “Everyone knows what the final-status solution will look like. It’s just a matter of getting both sides to say yes.” (2) “The pandering of [insert name of right-wing Israeli politician] to an increasingly extremist electorate is making the possibility of a peace deal ever more remote.” (3) “Unless there’s a two-state solution within [insert suitably alarmist timeframe], demographic realities will force Israel to choose between being a Jewish or a democratic state.”

Since none of these well-worn slogans or many others of similar cast can withstand scrutiny, there is reason to welcome the work of a writer aiming to move beyond them. That is what Nathan Thrall sets out to do in The Only Language They Understand, a book whose stark, contrarian, and emphatically non-ironic title signals its message: to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians, only external force will do.

Thrall is an analyst at the International Crisis Group, an NGO staffed by many former high-level UN officials whose mission is to “prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world.” In the case of Israel-Arab affairs, however, the policies followed by the U.S., the Europeans, and international organizations have actually “entrenched the conflict” by giving the parties every incentive not to make peace but to go repeatedly through the inevitably sterile motions of a peace process. Needed instead, Thrall declares, is a policy that will painfully and relentlessly raise the cost of such perpetual heel-dragging higher than the cost of compromise. In brief: all stick, with the carrot to be awarded later.