Summary
Pro-Israeli think tank whose lengthy report, prepared in advance of the 1988 presidential election, in Perceptions of Palestine’s account heavily influenced Bush administration policy in its first year: essentially a blueprint for inaction recommending a drawn-out “ripening process” over a “direct diplomatic assault”, placing the entire burden of peacemaking on the Palestinians, and serving as a stepping stone into the administration for Lawrence Eagleburger, Dennis Ross and Richard Haass, its study group convened by its cofounder and executive director Martin Indyk (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 2498-2515, 2520-2525).
Details
- The report’s stock assumptions, as Christison lists them: the PLO had to be bypassed, West Bank and Gaza Palestinians were inherently more moderate, the burden of compromise lay with the Arabs, Palestinians were not a distinct people, and Israelis had vital security needs Palestinians had no similar concerns to match (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 2516-2519).
- Indyk cofounded the institute with Ross in the 1980s as an AIPAC-backed think tank, in Falk’s account on the Martin Indyk page from another source; Christison gives Indyk as AIPAC strategic analyst and institute cofounder and executive director (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 2238-2241, 2520-2521).
Related pages
Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross, Richard Haass, George Bush, American Israel Public Affairs Committee