The ISG recommends that the US make a significant effort to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict as a means to achieving cooperation from Iraq's neighbors. While we actively support efforts to end the conflict, we see no value in the fanciful view that the US or any foreign power has the means to end that conflict. As such, this massive undertaking as recommended by the Iraq Study Group has no place among strategic recommendations regarding confrontation within Iraq.
We support the two-state solution in principle, with the caveat that the Palestinian state – should it become one – adopt in unquestionable terms statements and policies that recognize and validate the existence of the Israeli state. Middle Eastern nations seeking to resolve the conflict, rather
than exploiting the Palestinians to distract their own disaffected and repressed citizens, would do well to begin the process by establishing relations with Israel and permanently ending anyrelationships, formal or informal, with terrorist organizations in and around the Palestinian
territories. The abuse of the Palestinian and Lebanese people are not causes of violence in Iraq, and should be recognized as similar to the manipulation that Iraq's Shi'a and Sunni are experiencing at the hands of Iraq's neighbors.
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