by Mitchell Plitnick
Former American diplomat Aaron David Miller is a frequent and worthwhile contributor to US foreign policy discussions in both Washington and the news media. His long career in Middle East diplomacy and strong focus on Israel have enabled him to clarify for the general public the many difficulties that exist under the surface of these issues. Unfortunately, as shown by his recent piece in Foreign Policy magazine, he sometimes obscures them as well.
Miller correctly points out that the Israel-Palestine conflict is not the major source of regional instability and that Secretary of State John Kerry was foolish to imply that the lack of progress on this issue had in some way become a contributing factor to the rise of the group that calls itself the Islamic State. But he also elides the enormous amount of responsibility the United States has and continues to hold not only for the Israel-Palestine conflict itself, but also for the difficulty in making any progress on the issue, let alone resolving it.
Miller states it explicitly: “Washington isn’t responsible for the impasse…The primary responsibility for fixing the problem lies with Israelis and Palestinians, and the lack of resolution is a direct result of their lack of leadership and ownership.”
That is unequivocal nonsense. It adds yet another layer to the enduring myths that surround the long-term lack of progress on this conflict. It is not lack of leadership and ownership that is the problem, it is the massive imbalance of power between the two parties that is the single biggest obstacle to a resolution. And that is an area where the United States is a major factor.
The power imbalance leads to a very simple reality: Israel has very little incentive to compromise. It is a regional superpower militarily, it has by far the most stable government in the Middle East, and it’s a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), with a relatively strong economy. Israelis would undoubtedly prefer a cessation to the Palestinian rocket fire that periodically flares up as it did this past summer, and certainly want to stop incidents such as the one on October 22, when a Palestinian drove into a Jerusalem light rail station, killing an infant and wounding seven other people. But these concerns are not nearly enough to sway Israelis into the sort of compromises that would be bare minimums for a deal with the Palestinians.
From Israel’s point of view, the Palestinians’ minimal demands include a free Gaza and West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, a shared Jerusalem and the recognition of Palestinian refugee rights. In each case, there is a huge risk perceived by the Israelis.
Indeed, because most Israelis believe the narrative telling them that when Israel withdrew from Gaza and Southern Lebanon, all it got in return was rocket fire, they see a similar but much graver risk of that repeated outcome in the West Bank. In fact, most Israelis join their prime minister in rejecting the idea of giving up the Jordan Valley, a huge chunk of the occupied West Bank.
Sharing Jerusalem, and particularly the area of the Temple Mount, conjures fears of the years from 1949-67 when Israelis could not visit the holiest site in Judaism. More than that, Israel’s capture of the Old City in 1967 has become a powerful nationalistic symbol—a compromise on this issue strikes at the very heart of Israeli identity, and that arouses passionate responses.
The refugee question, which I explored in depth recently, is also seen by virtually all Israelis as implying the end of the Jewish State, something they desperately want to avoid. Finally, Israelis remain bitterly divided ideologically on many points, and there is a deep fear that making compromises will set off civil disturbances between secular, religious, nationalist and liberal camps within the country. Recent events around the Gaza war, where demonstrators for peace were repeatedly attacked, give credence to this fear.
The point is not to argue about the legitimacy or realism, or absence thereof, behind any of these fears. They are there, and they must be contended with in some fashion. But that involves confronting those fears, which, in turn, implies that Israelis perceive some pressure—be it military, economic or political—that forces them to take risks. The rewards of peace are, at best, uncertain to Israelis who don’t trust Palestinian intentions and perceive rising militancy in the Arab world and therefore an uncertain future no matter what commitments the current Arab regimes may offer. After all, as many contend, these governments may not be around for long.
Due to its position of relative power, the potential incentives for Israel are negative. The Israeli reaction to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which has not yet had any significant economic effect (though it has certainly altered the public discourse), is a testament to how worried Israel is at the prospect of true economic pressure. The Israeli government’s reaction to the EU’s relatively minor moves to adhere to its own laws regarding partnering on projects in the Occupied Territories and labeling products imported from the West Bank is further proof of this trend.
But whenever Europe, which is an even more indispensable trade partner for Israel than the US, has started to move in this direction, the United States has worked hard behind the scenes to change European minds. In a similar, but far more visible and impactful way, the US has used its veto power repeatedly at the UN Security Council to protect Israel from any consequences of its constant violations of international law. And we do this despite Israel’s defiance of stated US policy in the region.
These are the realities that Miller’s viewpoint elides. They have nothing to do with the Islamic State, and Miller is correct to chide Kerry for trying to tie the two together. But this ongoing hand-wringing about how the Israelis and Palestinians can’t be brought together needs to end. Even more, the nonsensical view that this is due to the personal mistrust between Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas has to be shunted into the dustbin. Roosevelt and Churchill didn’t trust Stalin at Yalta. Gerry Adams and David Trimble in Northern Ireland didn’t trust each other either, and many of us who were paying attention at the time can remember the constant accusations of bad faith they hurled back and forth, which were very similar to what Netanyahu and Abbas say about each other today. Yet there are also other examples of leaders coming together. It is becoming a cliché, but it is nonetheless true that peace is made between enemies, not between friends, and it is also generally made between parties that neither like nor trust each other.
The reason this is even an issue in the Israel-Palestine conflict is because of the imbalance of power. Because Israel is so powerful and because US policymakers—for reasons that have nothing to do with the Palestinians or the occupation—continue to see Israel as an indispensable ally in security, intelligence and business matters, diplomacy has become ineffective. That’s why we keep hearing excuses for the ongoing failure. Miller makes one of the classic excuses. But it all covers up for US fecklessness and for the fact that, despite the pronouncements, peace between Israel and the Palestinians may be official US policy, but it is not a high priority. Kerry, in a credit to his character and his naiveté, tried to buck this, but found that he didn’t have the diplomatic tools he thought he had.
For all of these reasons, the US bears an enormous responsibility for the ongoing and deepening conflict in Israel and the Occupied Territories. And yet, that doesn’t mean the US needs to be doing more to resolve it.
On the contrary, the US needs to do less. The American commitment to Israel’s military superiority is now law, but even without that, the ties between the US and Israeli militaries, intelligence communities and businesses are extremely deep. There is no realistic path to threatening these things.
But that doesn’t mean the United States has to keep acting to thwart European efforts to raise the price of its occupation for Israel. Nor does it mean that the US has to keep running interference for Israel at the Security Council. Most of all, it does not mean the US has to keep insisting on its exclusive role as the mediator of this conflict.
If the United States simply refrains from doing these things, and takes no other action to pressure Israel, the change in the status quo would be enormous. But that would, itself, be a major shift in US policy on the ground. And it is not going to happen as long as we delude ourselves into believing the status quo is not our fault and that we bear no responsibility for changing it.
]]>The last few months have gone rather well for the right-wing Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, in the sense of advancing its prime objective of indefinitely extending the occupation and colonization of Palestinian territory by ensuring failure of any diplomatic efforts to end the occupation. Netanyahu’s success in this regard has been [...]]]>
The last few months have gone rather well for the right-wing Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, in the sense of advancing its prime objective of indefinitely extending the occupation and colonization of Palestinian territory by ensuring failure of any diplomatic efforts to end the occupation. Netanyahu’s success in this regard has been due both to his own tactical skill and to the luck of outside events.
Netanyahu achieved failure of the latest U.S. attempt to revive a peace process worthy of that name partly through the preemptory demand for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.” He also successfully used the stratagem of striking a deal with the Palestinian Authority that involved release of Palestinian prisoners, reneging on that deal by construing its meaning differently than originally intended, and then blaming the P.A. for not proceeding anyway with substantive talks as if nothing untoward had happened. The Israelis had to take some mild off-the-record blame for the breakdown from the Americans, but nothing that wasn’t manageable.
More threatening to the Israeli government’s strategy than John Kerry’s diplomatic efforts was the latest effort by Hamas and Fatah to bridge their differences and jointly support a single Palestinian government. These intra-Palestinian acts of reconciliation have always been a problem for Netanyahu’s strategy because they involve creating a negotiating partner that can speak for the great majority of Palestinians and because they belie the Israeli allegation that Hamas wants nothing but the destruction of Israel. The Hamas-Fatah deal and subsequent creation of a cabinet of technocrats clearly involved Hamas moving toward Mahmoud Abbas’s position rather than the other way around. This latest reconciliation appeared even more threatening to Netanyahu’s approach than the previous ones because it showed more sign of sticking. Perhaps most disturbing to Netanyahu is that the Obama administration indicated it was willing to work with any jointly supported Palestinian government that emerged from the deal.
Netanyahu has given the same vehement and unyielding reaction he has given to the previous efforts at Palestinian reconciliation, such as withholding tax revenue that belongs to the Palestinians. What most enabled him, however, to sustain his strategy in the face of this latest challenge—and here is one place where the luck of events has helped him—was the kidnapping and murder of three Jewish Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu immediately blamed Hamas and repeatedly promised evidence, which still hasn’t been forthcoming, that the group was responsible for the crime. Two men with ties to Hamas have been named as suspects. They are at large but their families’ homes have already been demolished. No proof of guilt was furnished beforehand, but Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank is an everyday occurrence anyway.
The crime provided the occasion for the Israeli government to strike back more broadly and forcefully than that. As Mitchell Plitnick has described it, “Under the cover of searching for the kidnapped youths, Netanyahu launched a massive operation to cripple Hamas in the West Bank, further humiliate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and punish the entire Palestinian population for calling for a halt to the charade of the ‘peace process’ and, worse, moving toward a unified leadership.” This forceful stirring of the pot by Israel, which has involved the detention of hundreds of Palestinians and the death of several of them at the hands of Israeli security forces, helps to put any peace diplomacy even farther out of reach. It enables American supporters of Netanyahu’s government to say for the umpteenth time that the time is not “ripe” for peace negotiations—and the government they support will do what it has to do to ensure that the time will never be ripe.
Netanyahu’s strategy has benefited recently from other distractions, which have diverted any energy and attention that might otherwise be directed toward establishment of a Palestinian state. The principal distraction that Netanyahu has relied on has been, of course, his demonization of Iran. Other events have helped him. The world’s attention was diverted greatly for a time by the crisis in Ukraine. Then came widespread alarm over the Sunni extremist group in Iraq and Syria that now calls itself the Islamic State. The latter scare has been even more useful for Netanyahu, who used it as another excuse to insist that Israeli troops must continue to occupy the Jordan River Valley indefinitely. Never mind that the chief of Mossad dismisses the notion of an Islamic State army marching across Jordan to invade Israel; the excuse still has a crude geographic appeal.
So Netanyahu has peace diplomacy right where he wants it: in the trash bin, but so far without having to shoulder unequivocal international blame for putting it there. His very success over the last few months in this regard, however, may over the next few months lead to reactions that will complicate further execution of his strategy. That the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation has gone as far as it has—farther than previous attempts—may lead many Palestinians to see it as a best shot at a genuinely comprehensive peace, one that would cover Gaza as well as the West Bank. Continued vehement Israeli rejection of this best shot may lead Palestinians to conclude that they have no shot—none, that is, at negotiating a bilateral accord with any Israeli government that looks at all like the current one. One resulting possibility—which the current volatility in the Palestinian territories shows is dangerously close to becoming a probability—is outbreak of a new full-blown intifada, an uprising with widespread violence.
Even without a new intifada, there are two other strategy-complicating possibilities. One is for the Palestinian Authority (presumably in the form of its Hamas-backed but non-party government) to drop its previous restraint in seeking the full involvement of international organizations in helping the Palestinians out of their plight and moving toward real statehood. The other is for the Palestinian Authority to dissolve itself, end the fiction that what exists in the West Bank is anything other than continued Israeli military occupation, and stop being an accessory to that occupation. Netanyahu in effect encourages Palestinians to reach that latter conclusion, and to realize that the P.A. is not really a government at all, when he does things such as disdaining Abbas’s attempts to help in finding the killers of the Israeli teenagers and berating the P.A. even though the crime occurred in a portion of the West Bank where the P.A. has no security functions at all.
But Netanyahu is always focused on the short term, and he probably is not worrying much right now about those possibilities. It also is because he is focused on the short term that success in his strategy in fending off Palestinian statehood is not at all success for Israel. In fact, it is quite contrary to the long term interests of Israel and damaging to its prospects for living as a peaceful, prosperous, liberal state. The Netanyahu strategy fails to recognize that clinging to all the land to the Jordan River makes it impossible for Israel to be both a Jewish and a democratic state.
The strategy is one that entails unending conflict and animosity. As Israel sinks ever more deeply into hard-core apartheid, a corrosive effect continues to be seen in the public attitudes and morality of many Israelis as well as many Palestinians, an effect that is disturbing to the many other Israelis who are still thoughtful and humane. The phenomenon in question has become increasingly apparent in recent years in an intolerance in Israel that has evolved into overt hatred and prejudice against Arabs, matching anti-Jewish hatred that can be found on the other side. (Anti-Semitism probably is not the appropriate term in this context, only because both Jews and Arabs are Semites.)
In this atmosphere, nonofficial acts of inhumanity and violence become more likely—such as the killing of the three Jewish teenagers and the subsequent killing, possibly after being burned alive, of a Palestinian Arab teenager. The atmosphere also infects official acts. Those acts include much of what happens in the West Bank every week, including all those demolitions of homes. It also has reportedly included in the past few days the brutal beating by Israeli police of another Palestinian teenager—a cousin of the one who was burned and killed.
The victim of the police beating is an American: a high school sophomore from Tampa, Florida who was visiting his relatives. If the reports about his beating are confirmed, this ought to be an occasion for the U.S. to pull its kid gloves off at least a bit more in dealing with Netanyahu’s government. When Israeli police are beating up U.S. citizens, the U.S. government ought to do more to steer the Israeli government off its disastrous path. Call it tough love if you prefer, but the emphasis needs to be on the toughness.
This article was first published by the National Interest and was reprinted here with permission.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
It’s a busy week for Secretary of State John Kerry. On Monday, he received Israel’s top two negotiators, Tzipi Livni and Isaac Molho. Then he packed his bags and headed off to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Kerry will have any number of important tasks in Davos, [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
It’s a busy week for Secretary of State John Kerry. On Monday, he received Israel’s top two negotiators, Tzipi Livni and Isaac Molho. Then he packed his bags and headed off to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Kerry will have any number of important tasks in Davos, but perhaps the highest profile of them will be a sideline meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. These meetings, it is said, are meant to “bridge the gaps between Israel and the Palestinians.”
If anyone was holding out hope that these talks were anything more than a sham, those words should end such hopes. The framing of the United States bridging the gap between Israel and the Palestinians belies the reality of Israeli anger and Palestinian disappointment bordering on feelings of betrayal in terms of the US’ relationship with both sides. Let’s just look at where things stand.
President Barack Obama, it was reported last weekend, sees “less than a fifty-fifty chance” that a deal can be struck between Israel and the Palestinians. That’s what he told David Remnick of The New Yorker. It leaves a lot of space, and given Obama’s general subscription to the Realist school of foreign policy, one has to think he believes it to be much, much less than fifty-fifty. Remnick’s interview with Obama was a number of weeks back; it’s fair to believe that events since then have driven Obama’s estimate even farther down.
Last week, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon came out with as brazen an insult as can be recalled by a top Israeli official directed at a major US official, rudely describing Kerry as “obsessive and messianic.” The insult itself, exceptional as it was, was highlighted by the fact that Netanyahu did not rebuke his Defense Minister for insulting Israel’s patron. That sent a strong message about where Israel stands, and it could hardly have been missed within the context of Israel’s having recently raised the bar for even a framework agreement yet again.
That was done in the first week of 2014 when Netanyahu told a meeting of his Likud faction in the Knesset that he would never consent to withdraw from Hebron or Beit El, two settlements with historical religious significance to Jews, but exist well outside the settlement blocs that Israel has long assumed (along with the US) — despite a lack of Palestinian agreement — would remain under Israeli control in a deal. One can simply look at a map and see how even the most naïve and back-bending view of a two-state solution cannot possibly see an Israel in control of Hebron and Beit El allowing for a viable and contiguous Palestinian state.
All of this is added to the already unreasonable Israeli conditions of maintaining occupying forces in the Jordan Valley under a bogus pretext of security as the former head of the Mossad recently confirmed; and on Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish State, something that is simply anathema to Palestinians, unprecedented in international relations and completely unnecessary for Israel. This leaves almost no foundation for Kerry to work with, no matter how dedicated he may be to bridging the two sides.
The Palestinians have raised other issues beyond these as well. Ongoing settlement construction, not only in the settlement blocs but crucially in the very much disputed areas of East Jerusalem, has been a major headache for the Palestinian negotiators. This is increasing pressure on the PA from within the West Bank and shifting a sizeable portion of Palestinian opinion from having lost faith in Abbas and his team to outright hostility toward them. That situation is certainly not about to abate. In response to European censure of Israel’s settlement project, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman displayed remarkable hubris in summoning five European ambassadors to rebuke them for trying to stand up for international law and basic pragmatism in peacemaking. So Israel is getting only more aggressive about its settlement expansion.
The Palestinians also voiced their displeasure last week at an early outline of Kerry’s proposal, which they said made no mention at all of the right of return for Palestinian refugees or of Jerusalem’s status as the Palestinian capital. They are already preparing plans to return to pressing their case for statehood at the United Nations in the expectation that these talks will fail.
So what can Kerry do? It would seem very little. The Palestinians are under so much internal pressure that they are standing much more firmly than they have in past negotiations. Israel keeps moving the goalposts, despite already having set down conditions that no Palestinian leader could possibly meet. In order to create a bridge, there must be firm ground on either side to start building the two ends, and there seems to be far less common ground between Israel and the Palestinians than at any time since the two sides began negotiating two decades ago. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of ground for Kerry to stand on either.
No doubt, Kerry is hoping that he has some sway now over Netanyahu. The bill in the US Senate to increase sanctions and torpedo the fledgling diplomatic initiative between the P5+1 and Iran has stalled, at least for the moment, despite having gathered an appalling 59 co-sponsors. The preliminary agreement on Iran’s nuclear program has just gone into effect and so far is going well, while the US stood firm against Iran’s participation in the Geneva II peace conference regarding Iran’s ally, Syria. Having held the Iran issue at bay, Kerry may be thinking that his meeting with Netanyahu in Davos will be an opportunity to push Israel on the Palestinian issue and perhaps get Bibi to back off on some of the thorny issues. Kerry may well be hoping that if, for example, Netanyahu relented on Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, the US may be able to convince the Palestinians to, for instance, accept a continued Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley.
Kerry may believe Netanyahu is particularly vulnerable right now, as he has heard from a group of 100 Israeli business leaders that he must reach a peace deal with the Palestinians because “the world is running out of patience and the threat of sanctions is rising.” He also heard from key coalition partner, Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party that he would quit Netanyahu’s government, threatening the governing coalition if the peace process did not get back on track.
But none of this is terribly likely to sway Netanyahu, even though it does represent more pressure to accommodate the peace talks than Bibi is accustomed to. And even if it does, it is highly unlikely that Mahmoud Abbas can afford to compromise on any of the current issues. If he allows a continued Israeli presence after an alleged “end to the occupation,” relents on Jerusalem, allows Israel to hold on to settlements outside the major blocs, or compromises on any of the issues that Netanyahu has brought to the fore in the last year, there is likely to be a major upheaval in the West Bank.
More likely, I think, is that Kerry is playing a carrot and stick game with Israel. He is smacking Bibi down for his arrogance on the peace process and his audacity in once again brazenly trying to play Congress against the Obama administration on Iran. His message in that case would be that if diplomacy with Iran is allowed to proceed apace, Kerry would allow Israel to maintain its intransigence unopposed after the April deadline for the current talks passes.
In either scenario, the Palestinians lose. There is no foundation for an agreement now between the two parties. The hope for a resolution lies not in this process, but in the growing threat of economic action along the lines of that which we’ve seen the Netherlands take recently coupled with renewed activism at the United Nations. Because above all else, it seems clear that Obama and probably Kerry as well understand that not only are the chances of success between Israel and the Palestinians “less than 50-50,” they are in fact about 50 points less.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
US Secretary of State John Kerry landed in Israel on Jan. 2, starting 2014 with an attempt to save what is increasingly looking like a doomed round of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The grim atmosphere was reinforced immediately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s words [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
US Secretary of State John Kerry landed in Israel on Jan. 2, starting 2014 with an attempt to save what is increasingly looking like a doomed round of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The grim atmosphere was reinforced immediately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s words of welcome to Kerry. Netanyahu spent all of two sentences doing this before he said: “I know that you’re committed to peace, I know that I’m committed to peace, but unfortunately, given the actions and words of Palestinian leaders, there’s growing doubt in Israel that the Palestinians are committed to peace.”
The rest of Netanyahu’s speech was entirely devoted to depicting the imminent failure of peace talks on the PA. One important note he made was that PA President Mahmoud Abbas has not condemned the recent attacks on Israelis, including a bus bomb on Dec. 22, which caused no casualties, but which has raised the alarm level in Israel. It is worth noting that an attack like this one has usually been condemned by the PA, and Netanyahu has seized on the absence of such condemnation to “prove” ill will on the Palestinians’ part.
While that argument may be self-serving, it is still noteworthy. Abbas is dealing with a Palestinian public that has no faith in the current American efforts. What little there ever was has been completely undermined by word that the US agrees that Israel will be allowed to maintain forces in the West Bank even after the so-called “end of the occupation,” and that this is reflected in the proposals Kerry has brought along with him. Particularly because no Israelis were seriously hurt in the bus bombing last month, Abbas’ silence could well reflect his sense that his position in Ramallah is very tenuous, amid growing calls to abandon the current course of action and move toward efforts in the United Nations.
For his part, Kerry strove to keep a thread of optimism alive, saying that Israeli-Palestinian peace was “not mission impossible.” But he closed by pointing to “tough choices in the coming weeks,” likely a message that the United States is reaching the limit of what it can do (or, more likely, what it is capable of doing, given domestic political constraints) and that success or failure of the process is now in the hands of Israelis and Palestinians.
Today, Kerry will be heading to Ramallah to meet with Abbas. The Secretary of State’s message is likely to be similar to the one he delivered in Israel. The smart money is on Abbas playing his own version of the blame game, but he has some options. Netanyahu cleverly postponed announcing yet another wave of new settlements until after Kerry leaves, but the plan is well known enough that Abbas can denounce it today if he so chooses. Or, he can try to take the high road and avoid the blame game, expressing a more hopeful sentiment.
Whichever course Abbas chooses, the apparent fact that the US has decided that an ongoing Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley (and possibly some other concessions to Israel regarding the pursuit and arrest of alleged terrorists) is not something he can concede. The trap for Abbas is clearly set, and he may not be able to escape it. The only question is whether or not Kerry and President Obama have learned enough from the disastrous results of Bill Clinton’s decision to break his promise and blame the failure of Camp David II 13 years ago solely on Yasir Arafat not to repeat that mistake today with Abbas. The track record of US leaders learning from history, however, is not promising.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
When it comes to the tedious dance between the United States, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the more things change, the more they stay the same. As 2013 draws to a close, we have another proof of that cliché.
As 2013 dawned, President Barack Obama began his second term, [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
When it comes to the tedious dance between the United States, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the more things change, the more they stay the same. As 2013 draws to a close, we have another proof of that cliché.
As 2013 dawned, President Barack Obama began his second term, and Benjamin Netanyahu — whose horse in the US race, Mitt Romney, had lost decisively — was winning re-election but embarking on a very difficult set of talks to cobble together a governing coalition in Israel. As there always is with a second-term US president, there was some speculation that Obama might decide to damn the torpedoes of domestic politics and put some moderate pressure on Israel to compromise. Despite some illusions, by the end of the year it became clear that this wasn’t happening.
A little less than a year ago, John Kerry was named Secretary of State and vowed not only to restart talks between Israel and the Palestinians but to bring them to a conclusion. Few believed he could get the two sides talking again, but Kerry managed it and thereby breathed a bit of life into Washington groups like J Street and Americans for Peace Now who have staked their existence to the fading hope of a two-state solution. But even fewer objective observers believed Kerry could actually fulfill the second part of his pledge, and as 2013 comes to an end, all the evidence points to the vindication of that pessimistic view.
The talks were restarted because Kerry asserted US authority, cajoled and convinced the two sides to talk again and was willing to exert some public pressure on the Israeli government as well as the Palestinian Authority to make it happen despite the political difficulties both sides faced in agreeing to them. But when it came to matters of substance, the sort of pressure that would be required — a good deal more than was needed just to restart the talks — was absent.
Recent events have demonstrated that the United States’ position on a final agreement still largely reflects Israeli concerns and de-prioritizes the more pressing concerns of the Palestinians. The key issue this time has been an ongoing Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley. For the Palestinians, this is a sine qua non. After all, it is very difficult to sell the idea that a military occupation has ended when the armed forces of the occupying country are still there.
The US’ idea of “compromise” on this point seems to be that Israel would maintain its hold on the Jordan Valley for some period of years, and then would gradually hand it over to the Palestinians if the Palestinians behaved themselves. It’s not hard to understand why the Palestinians see that paternalistic arrangement as the US taking Israel’s side, rather than as a compromise proposal.
Indeed, the US approach remains unchanged regarding Israel and Palestine, despite rather profound shifts in US policy across the region in the wake of regional changes and Obama’s re-election. The US has clearly moved to extricate itself from many of the region’s issues, has refused to take the interventionist steps its key ally, Saudi Arabia, was pushing hard for, and opened the door to diplomacy with Iran. But in Israel-Palestine, the approach remains the same: the issue is primarily viewed not through the lens of millions of innocent people living under a harsh military regime without civil or human rights, but through the lens of Israeli security.
This picture can sometimes be confusing because of the obvious dislike and mistrust that exists between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu. There can be little doubt that there is real contention between the two, and this often plays out in public. But the reality is that this tension only lies between greater and lesser extremes of Israeli intransigence. The radical right-wing view, whose most prominent advocate in the Israeli government is Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, was laid out in Ha’aretz on Dec. 27: “Ya’alon demands that the army have freedom of movement in all West Bank cities. He also wants full Israeli control in the Jordan Valley and of all border crossings, as well as of the air space.” In other words, no significant end to the occupation, ever. The more moderate position thus becomes Netanyahu’s, which would allow for Palestinian control over areas outside the major settlement blocs (although the surrounding territory, which currently falls under the jurisdiction of the settlements’ “regional councils” would likely be included in the blocs that remain Israeli), and a reduction in Israel’s presence in the Jordan Valley along the lines that Kerry is proposing as well as some American and Palestinian participation in border crossings and air space.
Obviously, that puts a middle ground between more or slightly less occupation of the West Bank, and doesn’t allow for a real end to the Israeli occupation or anything approaching Palestinian sovereignty. So, as has happened many times over the past twenty years, the Palestinians correctly see the United States as joining a rejectionist Israeli position, even while the ever-increasing popular ranks of the Israeli right, and their supporters in the US, see the very same US positions as siding with the Palestinians.
But other things are changing. Israel, including the current government, has long seen participation in peace talks as an end unto itself because it served to ease international pressure. But this time around, the effect of merely holding talks has been considerably diminished. The European Union went ahead with conditions on an economic aid package that bar cooperation with settlements and businesses housed in them. The effect of this action is minimal; it won’t affect a great many programs, and Israel has avenues to attain most of the same cooperation. But along with explicit European warnings about further actions if peace talks fail, this is a clear message to Israel that Europe is losing patience with Israeli settlements and intransigence.
There is also the growing consciousness of the occupation in civil society movements advocating boycotts against and divestment from Israel, commonly referred to as the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement. Consider the recent decision by the American Studies Association in the US to approve an academic boycott against Israeli institutions. It, too, won’t have a dramatic effect on Israeli academics’ ability to pursue their work, but the message that was sent was profound. That was clear by the nearly hysterical reaction in Israel and among the well-connected supporters of Israel’s rejectionist policies in the United States. These popular forces coupled with the impatience in Europe, a potential rapprochement between the West and Iran and the concern over the changing terrain in the Arab world are creating pressure on Israel to change. Right now, Israel’s response is to dig its heels in even deeper, but that could change quickly if more Israelis start feeling the effects of international opprobrium.
In the end, though, the biggest obstacle remains on the Palestinian side. The Palestinian Authority commands very little real sway these days among the Palestinian masses, and Hamas is not seen by many as a viable alternative. Exceedingly few Palestinians believe the PA’s reliance on the United States is a fruitful course toward their freedom, but Hamas, even beyond the obvious obstacles that were placed in front of it by the siege on Gaza, has offered no alternative strategy. Instead, the two sides vie for supremacy among an occupied and dispossessed people who largely prefer to see the two come together into an unified leadership.
There is some reason to hope for 2014 and beyond that Israel and the Palestinians arrive at a reasonable agreement. But for that to happen, the Palestinians themselves must become active participants, as was the hope after the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993. They need to be a party with their own agency and strategy, not a partner trying to prove itself to Israel’s closest ally with the dream that the US will suddenly turn to support them. The issue must be seen internationally as one of a monstrous occupation that must end for both moral and practical reasons, and that the occupation must end in a way that gives Israel a sense of security. But right now the main goal is to give Israel security while ending the occupation is viewed as a bonus. That dynamic must change, but the leadership in Washington continues to stand in the way.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
There is an odd sort of atmosphere today around the soon-to-fail Israel-Palestine talks. A dramatic gesture by the United States, presenting its own security plans to both Israel and the Palestinians, has engendered mostly yawns. Yet the events of recent days have clarified the likely results of these [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
There is an odd sort of atmosphere today around the soon-to-fail Israel-Palestine talks. A dramatic gesture by the United States, presenting its own security plans to both Israel and the Palestinians, has engendered mostly yawns. Yet the events of recent days have clarified the likely results of these talks, despite the ongoing secrecy around them.
Secretary of State John Kerry has apparently proposed that Israel agree to abandon the Jordan Valley (constituting some 20% of the West Bank and situated in Area C, which falls under complete Israeli control under the current arrangement) in stages over an extended period of time and subject to the “good behavior” of the Palestinians. The current plan seems to be that Israeli forces would remain in the Jordan Valley for ten years while Palestinian forces are “trained.”
Not surprisingly, the Palestinians, including PA President Mahmoud Abbas disapprove of this idea. But they do so in lukewarm terms, not wanting to offend Kerry, with the hope that when the April deadline for the current round of talks rolls around that the Palestinian side will not, as it was in 2000, be portrayed as the party who refused peace. Still, as former US President Jimmy Carter once told me, a continued Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley is unacceptable to the Palestinians. Indeed, it is impossible to say that an occupation has ended when the occupying army is still there. That should be obvious.
But that’s apparently not the case for Kerry and President Barack Obama. There should be no confusion on this point: however much the US administration has shifted its Mideast position regarding Iran and the broader Arab world, nothing has changed with regard to the occupation. The friction between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration can obscure this reality, but a lot of that friction is based on Netanyahu’s frustration that the United States will not follow his regional designs. With regard to the Palestinians, the rhetoric may be different, but the actions of both Israel and the United States on the ground in the real world are little different than they have been for twenty years.
The Jordan Valley issue has been a known point of contention all along. Kerry and Obama have insisted that matters like this one can be worked out, but Kerry’s proposed solution is simply the Israeli position rehashed. Netanyahu objects to Kerry’s proposal simply because he wants the Jordan Valley to be part of Israel in any final agreement. That is not workable, but a long term Israeli presence that can easily be extended — all that has to happen is the Palestinians need to be declared “not ready” at the end of ten years — effectively accomplishes the same thing, with Israel still controlling the territory, although they might not be able to build more settlements there for some time.
Palestinian forces have already been trained by the US, and even Israel agrees that has worked well, so this insistence on more training is absurd. But the real problem here is more fundamental and points to exactly how we will know that the United States is serious about brokering a permanent agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, if they can ever reach that stage.
As many critics of US policy in Israel-Palestine and the role of the Israel lobby in creating that policy have pointed out, a US President is capable of taking on the lobby and winning, but it involves a big political fight and expending a lot of political capital. This has happened in recent weeks with regard to Iran — the Lobby has backed off. When an administration wants to fight that battle for resolving the issue of the occupation, it will do so by changing the terms of the discussion. Right now, as it has been for decades, the occupation is approached in Washington as a security issue for Israel. In reality, Israel is the regional superpower, both militarily and economically, while the Palestinians have no way at all to defend themselves. When the occupation is the priority and is treated as intolerable, then the discourse can be centered around security for all within the framework of ending the occupation rather than being a security issue within which perhaps there is some way to end the occupation.
Obama and Kerry probably know this, and have chosen to work within the existing framework and just do the best they can under those conditions. They must also know that this approach will likely fail, but the very effort will augment their efforts regarding Iran and the general reorientation away from involvement in any of the other current and brewing conflicts in the region.
The reason the United States will not engage in that political battle touches on the myths that are so often heard about the Israel-Palestine conflict; particularly the one that tells us that resolving that conflict is a “US national security interest.” That is somewhat true, but it is a far less urgent concern than ratcheting down the conflict with Iran, for instance, or extricating the United States from the regional conflicts that our other “dear friend” Saudi Arabia is so intimately involved in.
Both the rapprochement with Iran and broader regional shifts offer clear benefits to the United States. In the wake of the Iraq debacle, they go a long way to ensure that such an enormous expense in blood, capital, and regional stability doesn’t happen again. They also help boost the potential for US engagement in trade and diplomacy throughout the region — engagement with Iran is a huge boon toward that goal while staying away from regional conflicts. Continuing to work with whomever is in power also allows the United States to protect future relationships with these states, rather than with only the current regimes. Threats by the Saudis to shift their business to Russia or China are empty. Neither of those countries have anything more than the smallest fraction of money and military assistance the US can and will continue to offer.
But the Palestinian issue, despite its higher profile, offers little to entice a US president to go to war politically. No one in the Muslim world will suddenly forget the decades of US support for Israel’s occupation. There are no obvious economic benefits to finally addressing the legitimate claims of the Palestinians. The military benefits are mostly the removal of some obstacles to US operations, the sort of thing David Petraeus got in so much trouble for pointing out when he said, in testimony before Congress, “…The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support.”
So, yes, this issue could be addressed, but it’s a lot less potentially beneficial than the positive results of other policy shifts Obama is pursuing, and it would entail a considerably bigger political battle. So, it’s not going to happen. Indeed, the Palestinian issue is probably being pushed now by Washington in order to manufacture a payoff to Netanyahu for his acquiescence to real US priorities.
The path to resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict has been clear for some time. The Palestinians need to abandon their dependence on the United States, which will not ever deliver the goods. They need to pursue an international strategy that creates real political pressure on Israel. The ground is fertile — Israel’s obvious unwillingness to abandon the key territories on the West Bank, well beyond the major settlement blocs, and its refusal this past weekend to permit Holland to provide an electronic scanner that would have allowed Palestinians in Gaza to export goods without putting Israeli security at risk have exposed the hollowness of Israel’s security arguments. Israel’s actions are not about security, but about power, and this fact is something the Palestinians and their supporters around the world can exploit. It can also be used by true friends of Israel who recognize that Israel’s security is at risk not because of Iranian threats that never existed (see Juan Cole’s excellent explanation of that here) or some small bands of Palestinian militants, but by Israel’s continued refusal to compromise.
Europe seems to be taking some steps toward reorienting the politics around the occupation to create the incentives Israel needs to change its policies. The Palestinians need to follow their lead, as do the many supporters of a just peace throughout the world, including in Israel. Waiting for the US to deliver the goods is more futile than waiting for the Messiah.
Photo: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the outset of a meeting focused on the Middle East peace process in Bethlehem, West Bank, on November 6, 2013. Credit: State Department.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
I’m always pleased when something surprises me in the realm of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. It doesn’t happen often. Today’s announcement that Secretary of State John Kerry has apparently succeeded at bringing Israel and the Palestinian Authority back to the table was one such surprise.
The announcement [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
I’m always pleased when something surprises me in the realm of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. It doesn’t happen often. Today’s announcement that Secretary of State John Kerry has apparently succeeded at bringing Israel and the Palestinian Authority back to the table was one such surprise.
The announcement should not be overstated, of course. At this writing, there is a proviso out there that a few details still need to be worked out. So, there’s a convenient back door that both parties can exit through.
Even if the talks did resume, there is no reason to believe they will succeed. As Stephen Walt details, Israel’s governing coalition remains hostile to a two-state solution, the Palestinians remain divided and, despite whatever pushes and prods Kerry used to achieve this outcome, the US remains politically paralyzed and feckless. Coming up with a positive scenario that is even marginally realistic is therefore not easy. But here is one shot at it.
One aspect of Kerry’s bridge-building between Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas presumably included negotiating based on the 1967 borders without stating that publicly as a specific frame. But any talks that proceed in that fashion could result in Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home party bolting the coalition. If that happens over peace talks, Labor and perhaps Meretz could join to support two states. Labor alone would increase the governing majority from 68 seats to 71 (out of 120) in the Knesset; if Meretz joins too, that makes 77 seats. Shas has also indicated willingness to support such a deal, but they have historically been pro-two-states while opposing a compromise on Jerusalem. Shahs’ joining would bring 11 more seats and potentially create a dominant majority, but they’re such a wild card that a two-state coalition might be better off without them.
A coalition that includes Labor and excludes Jewish Home would certainly be capable of approving any deal Netanyahu could conceivably sign. But it would still be restrained by the leading party, Likud’s opposition to two states and by the desire of the Israel Beiteinu party to minimize the Arab minority in Israel, not to mention Netanyahu’s own disposition against a viable and sovereign Palestinian state. Still, Bibi could probably count on enough votes outside his coalition — from Arab parties and some others — to get a deal done.
On the Palestinian side, things are more complicated. A sine qua non for any deal to actually take hold is the reunification of the West Bank and Gaza. No West Bank-only deal can possibly be acceptable. Robert Danin of the Council on Foreign Relations presented a plan to reconnect the West Bank and Gaza while marginalizing Hamas. A more ambitious route, with a much higher chance of success, would be for the US and Israel to allow and support new elections, treating both territories as a single unit and, this time, actually abiding by the outcome. If a realistic two-state deal is on the horizon — one which stands a chance of being at least minimally acceptable to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories — Hamas would probably lose such an election, and in any case, it would have to find ways to accommodate itself to such an agreement. That is far from impossible for Hamas, as they can work in a government which they consider accountable to the will of the people while holding its own stances, such as refusing to recognize Israel. On the other side, the Likud would be doing something similar.
Any realistic agreement is probably going to involve Israel keeping the three large settlement blocs, which is going to be a tough sell to the Palestinians because of the way the Ariel and Ma’ale Adumim settlements slice apart the West Bank. Conversely, any conceivable agreement would also mean sharing Jerusalem and Israel taking at least token responsibility for the creation and long-term plight of Palestinian refugees, which might be an even tougher sell.
Therein lies the rub for all of this. For the past several years, I’ve maintained that the Oslo Process is dead, and the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict needs to be reformed. This does not imply that a solution revolving around two states for two peoples cannot be reached, but that the Oslo parameters and thinking have failed. The upcoming round of talks may finally prove that thesis right or wrong.
Although it has become much more difficult as the Israeli public and body politic has drifted well to the right from where it was in the mid-1990s, there is reason to believe that enough Israelis would support an Oslo deal to make it work. It is not at all clear that the same can be said about the Palestinians.
The mistrust and frustration that resulted from Oslo has certainly hardened the resolve of many Palestinians. And while Palestinian refugees have always been central to the national narrative, few would argue that the refugees have a more prominent place in Palestinian negotiations today than they did twenty years ago. It will be much harder to sell an agreement now where Israel takes in zero or close to zero refugees than it was when the Oslo Accords were agreed upon. It will also be much harder to sell a demilitarized state to Palestinians weary and wary from years of violence from Israel.
If the United States was willing to allow a Palestinian unity government to form again, that might assuage some of the skepticism among Palestinians. Kerry was able to push Netanyahu a little more than usual this week, but that was nothing compared to what will be required to get Netanyahu to agree to sharing Jerusalem, provide some concession on the refugee issue and limit his own draconian security demands, which currently include a very large Israeli presence remaining in the Jordan Valley. There is no indication that the Obama administration is prepared to apply that kind of pressure or weather the ensuing political firestorm such a move would bring.
Still, some things have changed. It is no coincidence that the agreement to return to talks comes on the heels of the European Union’s announcement of new guidelines forbidding “grants, prizes and financial instruments funded by the EU from 2014 onwards” to be given to or shared with official entities of Israeli settlements. This was not a very significant financial blow, but even that bit of action caught Israel’s attention. It’s a lesson in what even the most moderate pressure on Israel can do, and why the major reason that peace is farther away than ever is that the US, and to a lesser extent other international actors, are shielding Israel from the consequences of its occupation.
Invited by Republican House Foreign Affairs Chairperson Ileana Ros-Lehtinin, the talking heads from Israel’s security establishment honed in on a permanent presence in the valley, which reportedly makes up about a quarter of the West Bank.
But the panelists — former Israeli UN Ambassador and JCPA chief Dore Gold and former Generals Uzi Dayan and Udi Dekel — also argued for continued Israeli control over more territory.
Many justifications were given for Israel’s eternal presence in the Jordan Valley: “strategic depth”, “Israel’s doctrine of self-reliance”, a region “engulfed in flames”, the examples of the unilateral withdrawals from Gaza and southern Lebanon, and guarantees from U.S. political figures.
Notably omitted were three other justifications: the valley’s resources, the ideological, religious and nationalist motivations of the settler movement (Israeli domestic politics), and the obstacle that holding the valley presents to a negotiated two-state solution (Palestinians are unlikely to make any deal that cedes so much of the West Bank’s already shrunken territory).
The weight of these unmentioned factors against security concerns was put on stark display last fall when President Barack Obama reportedly offered Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu U.S. support for a permanent Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley as part of a wide-ranging package of incentives in exchange for a two-month freeze of settlement construction in the West Bank. Israel rejected the offer.
The panelists also raised other issues facing Israel, including the “diplomatic assault” (an effort to have a Palestinian state recognized by the UN General Assembly), Iran’s nuclear program and Dayan’s recasting of David Frum‘s “evil axis” to include Turkey and, before the dust has settled, potentially Egypt.
Dayan sounded the alarm about Egypt, intimating that the Muslim Brotherhood was bound to take over and criticizing his host nation for not propping up deposed president Hosni Mubarak. “You were too fast to turn your back on Mubarak,” he said. “You should be careful to support your friends.”
Only a few members attended the briefing. They included Ros-Lehtinen, ranking member Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) and freshman Reps Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Jeff Duncan (R-SC). A few staffers populated the 25 or so seats, as did right-wing pro-Israel activists Noah Pollak of the Emergency Committee for Israel and Noah Silverman of the Republican Jewish Coalition.
For the freshman, the briefing provided an opportunity to rub elbows with powerful Israeli players and pro-Israel activists. “I’m looking forward to educating myself on those issues,” said Duncan from the dais, proving the seriousness of his intent by citing Hamas’s — not Hezbollah’s — worrisome presence in Southern Lebanon.
Before leaving the briefing room, Berman, the only Democrat, admitted that his question about the Lebanese Armed Forces was a “softball.”
Berman’s much-acknowledged presence gave a bi-partisan seal of good-housekeeping to a briefing otherwise dominated by Republicans. The “‘members’ briefing” — which is not an official hearing – has been used by Ros-Lehtinen since her days in the minority to air views that she could not get previous chairpersons to open up debate on.
The mechanism of a “members’ briefing”‘ also means that only the organizers of the meeting choose the witnesses. In a normal hearing, Democrats would be allowed to bring their own witness to the hearing although Berman’s presence and ‘softballs’ indicate that perhaps a Democratic witness was unlikely to be any less to the right.) The other reason for making it a ‘briefing’ was that no real U.S. government business was discussed. the whole proceeding was just the delivery of a wish list from the Israeli right.
Nothing new to see here. Just bipartisan defense in Congress for policies — pushed by the Israeli right, the pro-Israel lobby, and neoconservative activists — that are almost certain to drive the last nails into the coffin of the two-state solution.
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