by Mitchell Plitnick
In a debate recorded by the Institute for Palestine Studies, human rights lawyer Noura Erekat squares off with Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, about the current peace talks and the prospects of a two-state [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
In a debate recorded by the Institute for Palestine Studies, human rights lawyer Noura Erekat squares off with Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, about the current peace talks and the prospects of a two-state solution. There was a lot in the exchange that was interesting, and it’s worth your viewing. But one point in particular caught my attention.
Both of them were asked this question: given the fact that the U.S.-brokered peace process has dragged on for twenty years with no end in sight, is it time to consider alternatives to the two-state solution? Each interlocutor answered according to their general bent, with Ibish stubbornly clinging to the two-state solution and Erekat advocating the consideration of a single, democratic state. Though the exchange was somewhat testy, it also proved interesting, and an important one to have, though I think the place it leads is not entirely satisfying to hardcore advocates of either position: a re-evaluation of solutions without being wedded to either one- or two-state formulations.
Ibish dismisses the notion of any alternative to the current process. For him, any alternative exists in a “counter-factual” world. There’s certainly plenty of substantiation for this view. Ibish is quite correct in saying that there is a global consensus around the current two-state formulation, and it would, at best, take years to develop an alternative solution. Indeed, any alternative is likely to be bitterly opposed by Israel, and the United States would very likely back that opposition, making Europe and the Arab League very reluctant to go in the other direction, even if they wanted to.
But Ibish’s blanket dismissal is, itself, counter-factual. At one time, the notion of a two-state solution was as unthinkable as a single democratic state is today. Further, as Ibish himself acknowledges, twenty years of efforts under the Oslo process have yielded precious little for the Palestinians (many, myself included, would contend the Palestinians are worse off today than they were twenty years ago), the United States is not capable of being an even-handed broker, settlement construction has only accelerated over the years and the disparity of power between the parties remains an enormous obstacle to peace. His only response to this is that two-states is the only option before us and anything else is “counter-factual,” which is only a barely diplomatic way of calling it naïve fantasy. That’s dismissive, it’s not a good argument.
Erekat, for her part, looks at the same factors and suggests that a different approach is needed. Whereas Ibish’s adherence to the current formulation is akin to that of a zealot, Erekat is open to alternatives. She considers the reasons Ibish cites in support of the two-state solution as proof of why this approach has failed. After all, she argues, considering all the international consensus and politics around this notion, if there has been no progress toward this goal for twenty years, what is there to do but consider alternatives?
Yet as glib as Ibish is in dismissing out of hand the idea that a new approach might be necessary, Erekat seems also to blithely dismiss the existing international consensus and how difficult it would be to reorient the global political sphere to a whole new solution, one which Israel would bitterly oppose. What emerges from the conversation is a disconnect with real politics in both directions.
The feeling was similar at J Street’s recent conference. There was an undeniable sense that the flagship two-state lobbying group has arrived in a big way. Joe Biden, Martin Indyk, Nancy Pelosi, and Tzipi Livni headed what was by far the organization’s most impressive list of speakers in its five-year history of national conferences. There were many other members of Congress who also spoke or attended the conference’s various functions. The organization has clearly acquired the clout it wanted, and the refrain at the conference that, as Ibish contended, the two-state solution is the only solution was repeated over and over to raucous cheers.
Yet the repetition itself suggested some level of desperation. There was also a palpable sense that the two-state solution is in dire jeopardy.
J Street’s president Jeremy Ben-Ami pointed out that under the current formulation, Palestinians would have to allow an international force to defend the fledgling state’s borders. As Erekat notes, this is a severe infringement on perhaps the most basic tenet of sovereignty, the right to self-defense. Ben-Ami also flatly stated that the Palestinians would have to accept the fact that no refugees would return within Israel’s finally established borders.
When I asked Ben-Ami if he was concerned that these might be terms Palestinians could not accept, he responded: “I think the ultimate deal will involve sacrifices and compromises. I don’t know what they will be but they will be hard to sell and all of us will have a tough selling job to do and we have to be ready to do that.” On the other hand, Yousef Munayyer, Executive Director of the Jersualem Fund told me: “As far as Palestinians are concerned, the right of return is a human right. In my view, human rights are not negotiable.” Munayyer’s view echoes that of most Palestinians from across the political spectrum. Many (though far from all) are willing to negotiate on implementation, but there seems to be an universal agreement among Palestinians that the right of return must be fully recognized. This issue is being unwisely glossed over by supporters of the current process.
Ibish also stated that he saw little downside to the current talks “unless they completely collapse.” I actually see a very different danger. Collapse would not be so bad. Unlike in 2000, when the Camp David II talks collapsed, there are few who expect these talks to succeed, and the agreement to bring any deal to a public referendum alleviates concerns that the leaders will give away too much. These were the factors that had the Palestinian Territories at the boiling point thirteen years ago. Collapse today will not bring about a strong response, it will merely bring the situation back to where it was before John Kerry put so much effort into restarting the talks.
No, the danger here is that an agreement will be struck between the parties that will pass in an Israeli referendum but will fail in a Palestinian one, a concern I explained in detail recently. Such an outcome will allow the Palestinian public to be painted as rejectionists, which will likely make even the meager pressures on Israel from Europe and the even thinner ones from the United States disappear completely, making any process, be it geared toward one state or two, impossible to move forward for years to come.
What’s needed now is a reassessment. The terms of the current two-state process will not work. Palestine is expected to become a state with Israeli enclaves carved deep into it, in the settlements of Ma’ale Adumin and Ariel; it is expected to sacrifice its right of self-defense; and it is expected to give up on what is perhaps its most emotionally meaningful national tenet: the refugees. I can’t imagine a serious observer of the Palestinian public considering this acceptable, and ramming such an arrangement down the throats of either side is a recipe for disaster, not peace.
But that shouldn’t mean that the two-state solution must be abandoned, nor that a one-state formulation needs to remain off the diplomatic table. The issue is not one or two states, but a formulation where two nations can co-exist. We need to reject the notion that the Palestinians can accept less than full sovereignty and a substantive redress of refugee rights. We also have to accept that Israeli Jews are not going to be prepared to become a minority again, and that neither Zionism nor Palestinian nationalism are going to simply be eliminated or fade away in a sea of pragmatism.
In 1993, intrepid Israeli and Palestinian leaders really did produce an unprecedented breakthrough that resulted in the Oslo Accords. Politics and the disparity of power turned the deal sour. That can be done differently today. Hanging on to twenty years of failure is unworkable, but change for the sake of change is not a game that can be played in Palestine-Israel. One-staters and two-staters have been at odds for too long. If people of good will on both sides can come together, that can create an international political and diplomatic momentum to reframe a solution that can actually work.
]]>via IPS News
The optimism expressed by U.S. President Barack Obama and newly confirmed Secretary of State John Kerry about restarting the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians has been met with scepticism from many seasoned Middle East experts.
At his confirmation hearing, Kerry told the assembled Senate, [...]]]>
via IPS News
The optimism expressed by U.S. President Barack Obama and newly confirmed Secretary of State John Kerry about restarting the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians has been met with scepticism from many seasoned Middle East experts.
At his confirmation hearing, Kerry told the assembled Senate, “I pray that maybe this will be a moment that will allow us to renew the effort to bring the parties to the negotiating table and go down a different path than the one they were on in the last few years. I would like to try and do that.”
Since his re-election, there has been considerable debate in the U.S. media about whether Obama would re-engage in peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians. It is often the case that second-term presidents engage more in foreign policy and have a freer hand, not having to be concerned about re-election at the end of their term.
Hagel faced much greater opposition on this score, and his confirmation is less certain than Kerry’s was, though it is expected that he too will be confirmed. Much of the opposition to Hagel stems from a 2006 interview where he said that “…the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people (on Capitol Hill)”, and “I’m not an Israeli senator. I’m a United States senator.”
But despite Obama’s choice for the key posts, and a White House statement saying that Obama had pledged “to work closely with Israel on our shared agenda for peace and security in the Middle East,” during his congratulatory call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the latter’s re-election last week, few see a strong possibility that the new administration will put much effort into the vexing conflict.
“I don’t think that Mr. Obama is lying about his intentions, it’s simply that he’s required to say he’ll reengage,” Mark Perry, former co-director of the Washington, D.C., London, and Beirut-based Conflicts Forum, told IPS.
“The only other possible answer would be: ‘I’m sick of the whole damn thing, and we’ll just have to wait for new Israeli leadership’ – which is something he dare not say. Mr. Obama is focused on domestic matters – which will command his every attention. He will need every vote he can get to pass his domestic programme, and irritating conservative Republicans and Democrats by making demands on Israel is something that he just won’t do.”
Yet speaking in Washington in a globally broadcast address on Tuesday, outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced optimism.
“I actually think that this election opens doors, not nails them shut,” Clinton said. “So I know that President Obama, my successor, soon-to-be Secretary of State John Kerry, will pursue this, will look for every possible opening… somehow, we have to look for ways to give the Palestinian people the pathway to peace, prosperity, and statehood that they deserve and give the Israeli people the security and stability that they seek.
“I think that still is possible, and I can assure you the United States under President Obama will continue to do everything we can to move the parties toward some resolution.”
Speaking at The Palestine Center in Washington, Yousef Munayyer, the executive director of The Jerusalem Fund, noted that Israel’s ongoing occupation and settlement expansion was a very minor issue in the Israeli election.
“The issue of peace is fading because the cost of occupation has become bearable for Israel and there is no motivation (to change) if the costs are low. The question that needs to be asked in Washington is how can we create incentives so an end to occupation becomes a reality. If we continue to support everything Israel does … we cannot expect it will happen.”
PJ Crowley, former spokesman for the U.S. State Department, told the same audience that the Israel-Palestine issue was no longer the same regional focal point it once was.
“In 2009, President Obama came in knowing that the Israel-Palestine issue is the key driver in the region. We believed that to be true in 2009, but it is not true in 2013,” Crowley said.
“There are new players in region, with (Egyptian President Hosni) Mubarak replaced by (Mohammed) Morsi, who was helpful in ending hostilities with Hamas, but has a much different view of the Palestine issue and has very different dynamics domestically. King Abdullah of Jordan has his hands full with 700,000 Syrian refugees. So Israel-Palestine has been pushed from the top of the list.”
Others have focused on the personal issues between Obama and Netanyahu. Martin Indyk, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said that the two leaders have “bad chemistry” between them. This was echoed by former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Chas Freeman, who put the blame for the tension squarely on Netanyahu.
“Frankly, I doubt that Obama…is likely to invest much effort in either supporting or opposing Netanyahu’s Israel now,” Freeman told IPS. “Netanyahu has not only beaten the warmth out of his government’s relationship with its American counterpart, he has left Obama with no basis for engagement with him other than posturing for domestic political effect.”
John Mearsheimer, professor of International Relations at the University of Chicago summed up the pessimism, telling IPS, “Obama will surely go through the motions to make it look like he is serious about pushing the peace process forward.”
“I would be very surprised, however, if he makes a serious effort to get a two-state solution, simply because the Israelis taught him in his first term that they are in the driver’s seat and they are not interested in allowing the Palestinians to have their own state. Nothing happened with the recent Israeli election to change that dynamic.”
Photo: President George W. Bush of United States (center) discusses the Middle East peace process with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel (left) and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in Aqaba, Jordan, Wednesday, June 4, 2003. White House Photo by Paul Morse.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
The Israeli elections ushered in a record number of new Knesset members, yet the prospects for resolving Israel’s 45-year old occupation of Palestinian land are as dim as ever, maybe even more so. Here in the United States, some noises are being made about trying to renew the [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
The Israeli elections ushered in a record number of new Knesset members, yet the prospects for resolving Israel’s 45-year old occupation of Palestinian land are as dim as ever, maybe even more so. Here in the United States, some noises are being made about trying to renew the moribund “peace process,” but there is little enthusiasm about it. Indeed, most observers do not believe there is any real possibility for progress.
This sort of atmosphere tends to engender two responses. One was presented to me directly by Professor Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby, who said:
What the United States, Israel, and the Palestinians need is a peace settlement, not more ‘peace process.’ If Obama is serious, he should lay out a detailed U.S. plan for establishing a viable Palestinian state with appropriate security guarantees for Israel, and he should make U.S. diplomatic, economic, and military support for both sides conditional on their willingness to conform to it. If either one balks, the United States should distance itself and cut off aid.
I didn’t ask, but I feel safe in assuming that, despite the merits of this proposed course of action, Steve is well aware that the chances of this happening are roughly the same as Sheldon Adelson saluting a Barack Obama parade. Still, he is far from alone in advocating for pressure on both sides. Jewish Voice for Peace leads that call from the Jewish community, which is far more divided on this question than one is often led to believe. The global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is growing and having an impact as well, including in the United States. A coalition of mainstream Christian leaders recently called for a review of US aid to Israel. And, of course, Palestinian-American and Arab-American activists continue their own dogged efforts, despite the particular obstacles they face in the US.
The other response, favored in Washington, is to simply say that the time is not ripe and the United States must manage the situation until conditions, particularly the leadership of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, are more suitable. This view is rooted not only in Israel’s intransigence, but also in the ongoing split between the PA and Hamas, as well as a certain conservatism about any action while the region is in such a state of flux. In fact, it appears that, until something comes about to change the dynamics, this is exactly the course that the Obama Administration is likely to follow.
But there are, in fact, other options, and here’s a modest one I’d like to put forward: Obama could spend the time until other action is politically viable, either domestically or in the region, by working to correct some of the United States’ most grievous missteps. And I suggest he start by walking back George W. Bush’s 2004 letter to Ariel Sharon.
That letter, part of an exchange of such letters between Bush and Sharon, fundamentally altered the nature of negotiations and was instrumental in poisoning the atmosphere around talks between Israel and the Palestinians. However flawed the Oslo process might have been from the beginning, the promises Bush made to Sharon in his letter magnified those flaws immensely.
The significance of Bush’s letter was huge. It didn’t introduce much that was new, but it essentially gave Israel gifts in the form of matters that were supposed to be negotiated. The letter also went further in Israel’s favor with some matters than the Clinton Parameters. Those Parameters were and are the essential basis for Israel-Palestinian negotiations.
The biggest departure Bush made from the Clinton Parameters was on Palestinian refugees. Clinton included at least some acknowledgment of the importance that the Right of Return has for Palestinians and listed five possible destinations for their relocation, one of which was within Israel proper. Bush summarily executed that idea. The relevant text from his letter:
It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel.
To date, this framing has ruled. It has been considered an established fact that refugees would return somewhere other than Israel and that even any token return, as was occasionally discussed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, would happen on an insignificant level.
It was not unfair for an analyst, in 2004, to expect that such would be the outcome. But that would have been an expected result of negotiations, not an established fact preceding them. With an American president’s imprimatur, the entire framework of negotiations was changed, and the idea of refugees returning to Israel — something that is anathema to most Israelis and sacrosanct to most Palestinians — was simply decided by fiat in favor of Israel and removed from the negotiating arena.
Another passage has had even more impact: Bush’s assurance that Israel would not go back to the 1967 lines. The Clinton Parameters proposed that Israel keep the “major settlement blocs” as well. But it was Bush’s statement, again, which removed the issue from the negotiating table. In essence, he handed Israel an assurance that it would keep the “major population centers” that had grown up in the West Bank and, ever since then, Israel’s excuse for building in those settlements has been based on the argument that “everyone knows” they are going to remain in Israeli hands anyway. Again, the text of Bush’s letter:
In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.
Whereas the Clinton Parameters tied the retention of the settlements to a specific (if unbalanced) swap of land, no direct mention of the Palestinians receiving anything in exchange is made here. That has enabled Israel not only to use the US position as a cover for settlement expansion, it has also allowed them to essentially pocket these settlement blocs and negotiate over what else or how big a swath around them would be kept.
There are other points in the letter which are unworkable or inconsistent with international law, existing US policy or both. But those two points fundamentally altered the negotiating framework.
What Obama can do during his second term is walk these points back and return them to the Clinton Parameters. He can cite the Parameters’ five options for the refugees (return to the new state of Palestine or to the areas Israel swaps to that new state, settlement in the states they currently reside in, resettlement in other states or return to Israel) and reaffirm UNGA Resolution 194 as the basis for a resolution, as stated in the Parameters and in the now 10-year old Saudi peace proposal. This would be framed as a basis for negotiation, not as a finished proposal.
On the land issue, Obama could reaffirm the ’67 borders as the basis for talks, with agreed upon modifications that would amount to equivalent value when quality and quantity are accounted for. This does not amount to a map, and allows plenty of room for negotiation, including over the use of the West Bank aquifer, which is fully on Palestinian land but crucial for Israel’s needs.
If, in this context, Obama also reaffirms support for full Palestinian sovereignty and international guarantees of security for both Israel and Palestine, he could also address the condition of a Palestinian state being de-militarized, which is an impingement on Palestinian sovereignty and is a much more bitter pill for Palestinians to swallow than it was in 2000.
Of course, Congress will go ballistic, as will Israel, as the point of all of this is to take Palestinian demands just a little more seriously. But as much as Congress, AIPAC and Israel would like to deny it, that is a sine qua non for any substantive progress at this point and such a proposal would likely play very well in the EU, the UN and even with Russia and China. The Arab League will likely support it enthusiastically.
Obama would have to approach the process gradually and take the time to lay the groundwork for it. But it certainly appears right now that he has that time; he doesn’t seem to have many other cards to play in the Israel-Palestine milieu right now either. This is something that can actually be done and can have lasting effect, well after Obama is out of office. It also opens up a chance to rethink the whole outline of a two-state solution, which is the only thing that can possibly save that idea from the failure of Oslo. Obama would be well advised to try it.
Photo: President Barack Obama walks to his desk in-between meetings in the Oval Office, Oct. 20, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
]]>What if a Jew says he wants to live in Ramallah because it’s a nice place? Arabs live in Nazareth and other places in [...]]]>
Victor Davis Hanson: With Obama and his moral equivalence, Israel is hardly any better than Hamas or Hezbollah or the Palestinian Authority. I wonder, though, if they really believe that.
What if a Jew says he wants to live in Ramallah because it’s a nice place? Arabs live in Nazareth and other places in Israel, so what if a Jew says he wants to be a Palestinian citizen?
Michael J. Totten: That’s impossible.
VDH: Jews aren’t allowed there.
MJT: It’s crazy, isn’t it?
VDH: That fact all by itself should tell the Obama administration that there’s something weird about that place and there’s no moral equivalence.
–Interview with Michael J. Totten
VDH’s implication — that Palestinians are free to move to Israel at will, while Israelis are not similarly free to move to the West Bank — is, to say the least, peculiar. Still, he has no need to worry. Any Jew who takes a fancy to the Ramallah area — whether or not they’ve so much as set foot in the region before — is free to move to any of the several settlements that surround the city, where he or she will enjoy tax breaks, cheap housing, and government subsidies. But what about the reverse? What if a Palestinian from Ramallah decides that he or she wants to live in Tel Aviv (“because it’s a nice place”)? More to the point, what if a Palestinian whose family was driven from the Nazareth area in 1948 wants to move to Nazareth? VDH settles for implying (rather than stating explicitly) that they are free to do so, because he clearly knows (but chooses not to dwell on) the fact that this would be impossible. To allow it would be to open the door to the right of return, and thus — as VDH would surely warn apocalyptically — the “destruction of Israel”.
It should surprise no one that VDH displays an understanding of the issues at stake that is almost entirely backward. Still, it’s revealing that he holds up this particular example as proof that “there’s no moral equivalence” in the conflict.
(For anyone who hasn’t read it, now is as good a time as any to plug Chase Madar’s brilliant VDH parody from last year’s American Conservative.)
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