by Thomas W. Lippman
To understand why Israel and Hamas keep fighting, and why Secretary of State John Kerry was unable to forge a permanent peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, it helps to do some homework. Read Volume 8 of the State Department’s “Foreign Relations of the United States” series [...]]]>
by Thomas W. Lippman
To understand why Israel and Hamas keep fighting, and why Secretary of State John Kerry was unable to forge a permanent peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, it helps to do some homework. Read Volume 8 of the State Department’s “Foreign Relations of the United States” series for 1977-80, the years of Jimmy Carter.
It is a 1,303-page compilation of declassified documents—presidential letters, intelligence assessments, memoranda of conversation—covering the 20 months of intense Middle East diplomacy between Carter’s inauguration in January 1977 to his decision to convene the famous trilateral summit at Camp David. The principal characters are Carter, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, but much of the heavy lifting is done by their foreign affairs ministers, Moshe Dayan of Israel, Ismail Fahmy of Egypt, and Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, along with their professional staffs.
What the documents show is that despite herculean efforts, especially by Carter himself, and huge investments of time, diplomacy failed. Sadat undertook his daring trip to Jerusalem in November 1977 and Carter summoned the other two to Camp David because only extraordinary, game-changing gambles produced any real movement on the intractable issues the negotiators faced. Suspicion ran deep, antagonisms were entrenched, and history was implacable, especially for the Israelis. Not even the combined weight of the United States and Soviet Union could bring the Israelis and Egyptians—to say nothing of the Syrians—to the comprehensive, once-and-for-all regional solution that all professed to want.
The fate of the West Bank, which Israel referred to as Judea and Samaria, defied every formula offered for resolving it, just as it does today. As for Gaza, it was a stepchild of the negotiations throughout—nobody really wanted it. And while everyone agreed that peace must be based on US Security Council Resolution 242—the “land for peace” formula adopted after the 1967 war—the negotiators spent endless hours arguing about what that resolution required.
Resolution 242, which even today provides the theoretical framework upon which negotiations between Israel and the Arabs would be based, stipulated the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and recognized “the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.” It also called for the “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict,” but it did not say “all territories” or even “the territories.” Israel said any withdrawal from the lands it captured in 1967 was negotiable and would not necessarily apply to all of them—the Sinai Peninsula, which belonged to Egypt, the Gaza Strip, which had been under Egyptian administration, Syria’s Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which from 1948 to 1967 had been part of Jordan. The Arabs naturally argued that since 242 declared the acquisition of territory by war inadmissible, the resolution obviously applied to all the occupied lands.
Another major stumbling block at the time was the refusal of Israel, supported by the United States, to have any dealings with anyone associated with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which it regarded as a group of terrorists decided to Israel’s destruction. Israel’s view was that before 1967 the West Bank belonged to Jordan, and its inhabitants were citizens of Jordan, and therefore its future would be negotiated with Jordan alone. The problem with that was that an Arab summit conference had stripped Jordan of its claim to the West Bank and declared the PLO to be the “sole legitimate representative” of the Palestinian people.
And then there was the composition of the delegations that would negotiate at Geneva. Syria’s Hafez Assad, father of the current president, fearful that Sadat would strike a separate peace with Israel and abandon the other Arabs, wanted a single, unified Arab delegation. That was unacceptable to Sadat, who understood that nothing would be accomplished if every Arab participant had a de facto veto over decisions by the others.
Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who understood that Sadat was impatient but the Israelis were not, told Carter that “the priority of Israel’s policy now seems to be to make a fairly attractive offer to Egypt in order to tempt Sadat into a separate deal. This would allow Israel to put off movement on the Syrian front and to avoid the Palestinian-West Bank issues altogether.”
He was right about Israel’s negotiating strategy. Begin’s Likud Party was elected in the spring of 1977 on a platform that called for keeping the West Bank and encouraging Jewish settlements there. The Labor Party, which had run Israel since statehood in 1948, had been somewhat more forthcoming about the possibility of territorial compromise, but Begin was a hard-line Zionist who believed in Israel’s right to all the land from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
In the quest for the Holy Grail of Geneva, everyone traveled extensively in an endless summer of fruitless haggling over how to proceed. These were negotiations about negotiating, arguments of stupefying legalistic tedium about who would participate, under what circumstances, and what the agenda would be. Would there be a single Arab delegation, or several? If single, would there then be “working groups” for specific country-by-country issues? What would Israel accept on the subject of Palestinian refugees? Who would speak for the Palestinians? Would Jordan participate? Would Syria? What would be the role of the Soviet Union, co-chairman of the proposed conference? Should there be agreement beforehand on a “declaration of principles?” Would the specific language of 242 be the basic reference point, or would it be somehow modified? Would Geneva be a ceremonial event, at which agreements already reached would be signed, or the forum for the hard work of negotiating? If Israel were somehow to agree to pull out of the West Bank, who should take over now that Jordan had been stripped of its claim?
Carter, who had stunned everyone in March by volunteering the view that peace would require the establishment of a “homeland” for the Palestinians, soon concluded that Israel’s positions were the biggest obstacle to peace and let his feelings show in public—stirring anger in the American Jewish community and anxiety among his political advisers. Camp David was a last-ditch, high-stakes shot at a breakthrough.
Some of the roadblocks on the path to peace were removed at Camp David and in the subsequent negotiations over the peace between Israel and Egypt, a treaty that left the Palestinian issue unresolved and was achieved only when the United States and Egypt gave up on Geneva. Other issues, such as Israel’s refusal to negotiate with the PLO, were resolved years later, at Oslo.
The Arabs argue today that one of Israel’s greatest issues, the refusal of Arab nations other than Egypt or Jordan to recognize it or accept its existence, was resolved when all members of Arab League endorsed a plan offered by Saudi Arabia to offer peace and recognition in exchange for Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines. But Israel is no more inclined to accept that formula today than it would have been in 1977; after all, Hamas and Hezbollah are not members of the Arab League and not parties to that offer, and are supported in their intransigence by Iran. Even if Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party abandoned the “Greater Israel” policy of Begin’s time, anxieties about security would still prompt Israel to demand substantial revisions in the 1967 lines, as well as demilitarization of Palestine, including Gaza. If the proposed “two-state solution” is still viable—if it ever was viable—it is hard to see how Gaza could be part of it if Israel believes Hamas workers resume digging tunnels under the border from which they could attack Israelis.
At the end of 2011, according to the Foundation for Middle East Peace, there were 328,423 Israeli settlers in the West Bank. If future negotiations about the future of Palestine are to include Gaza as well as the West Bank, it is hard to see how Gaza’s status can be resolved until the question of those West Bank settlers has been resolved as part of some overall agreement. A far-reaching deal that would end the Gaza conflict by including it as part of a Palestinian state and linking it to the West Bank by some kind of corridor—as envisioned at the time of Oslo—seems far in the future. The Gazans would live better lives if Israel were to allow them greater access to the outside world, but they will still be living in a stateless limbo.
Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat with US President Jimmy Carter at Camp David in 1978.
]]>by Henry Precht
Thirty-five years since the Iranian revolution should be adequate time for aspiring Iran hands to turn a deaf ear to the “Death to America” chants from Tehran and the more polite “They can’t be trusted “ pundit wisdom from Washington. Perhaps, modestly and cautiously, we can draw a few [...]]]>
by Henry Precht
Thirty-five years since the Iranian revolution should be adequate time for aspiring Iran hands to turn a deaf ear to the “Death to America” chants from Tehran and the more polite “They can’t be trusted “ pundit wisdom from Washington. Perhaps, modestly and cautiously, we can draw a few lessons from those bad days for the present moment of hope.
First, what we didn’t know back then was a lot and it did hurt us. Our ignorance was profound. We didn’t know the Shah was condemned by cancer. Had we known, we might have treated him more as we did Marcos and less like, say, our toleration of the Greek colonels. Today’s question relates to President Hassan Rouhani’s political health, his physical health seemingly OK. Should we be nervous, i.e., should we act as if he were politically vulnerable? Or should we consider him in adequate shape to engage with our demands? If he faces trouble, can he be saved by respectful attention? Or should we write him off as a foredoomed aberration? The signs from Tehran incline me to believe that he is worthy of considerable political risk on our part.
We knew nothing about dealing with such a massive movement of millions of people in support of the revolution — a phenomenon rarely if even seen before on the globe. Nor did we have a clue about an Islamic government — another development never before achieved on earth. Today, Iran remains a dark zone. We can’t accurately assess the strength of the reform or conservative movements in Iran. How strong is Rouhani and how wide can he maneuver? I expect the White House is better at evaluating its American support for an agreement with Iran. But can it match Rouhani’s willingness to confront critics? We can only hope that authentic, balanced expertise on Iran is available and listened to in the White House.
Second, Washington 35 years ago was unable to address the crisis in Iran because (1) the White House, State Department and other agencies could not agree on an analysis of the reality in Iran and (2) hence could not settle on a sensible policy. The Shah looked westward for guidance; the West looked inward at domestic critics and commentators. The product was drift towards increasing danger. Today, the administration seems more intent on appeasing senators — whence the real threat — rather than educating its public and building unity.
Third, we appeared to think that because everything had always worked out for the Shah, everything would again swing his way. In our superior self-confidence, we ignored the revolutionary demand for “independence” from our sway. We, in our history with Iran, were a big part of our problem. We declined to shift off any initiative to Europeans who might have been more persuasive, who might have helped moderate the crisis. Today, we resist any move by allies to accelerate the pace of an accommodation with Iran, e.g., easing more sanctions.
Fourth, we grasped at other models to fashion a response to Iran. In some quarters of Washington, officials thought the Shah’s generals and their troops might crack down or even stage a coup when it became necessary. But the generals were appointed mainly on the intensity of their loyalty upwards, not their patriotism, creativity or soldierly virtues. Iran was not Pakistan or a South American republic. And its troops were from the same religious background as those fellows on the other side of the barricades. Today, we should at least question whether in their many sub-groups Iranians hold differing opinions on the nuclear question or are more — or less — willing to question the nature of the regime. Preconceived dogmatic certainties preclude realistic analysis.
Fifth, back in 1978-79 we worried that if we treated the Shah rudely, other autocratic friends — Saudis, Sadat, smaller fry — would get the idea that the US would willingly sacrifice them if it became hard-pressed. While it shouldn’t be necessary to learn a patriotic lesson from another’s revolution, America should always put its interests in front of those of smaller, loudly complaining buddies who are rarely totally satisfied with our behavior.
Sixth, Washington’s attention to the slowly, then quickly moving Iranian crisis was blocked by the enormous attention given to the Camp David peace effort with Israel and Egypt. One crisis at a time, if you please. Can Secretary of State John Kerry and the White House handle Iran, Palestine-Israel, Syria and Egypt, et al, at the same time? They must — in some fashion or another.
Finally, the Shah badly needed American advice or, rather, orders on dealing with his rebellious people. President Jimmy Carter, it was said, was confused by the conflicting advice he received and reluctant to take the responsibility of telling another chieftain how to run his country. So no one did. Tough love and courage are requisites of leadership.
Americans are not particularly good at history. We gather a few facts, stick with them, often creating a myth from out of date supposed truths. Now is the ripe time for opening up to changing realities in Iran, modifying myths and constructing a more hopeful future.
]]>The CIA has just declassified a raft of documents related to President Jimmy Carter’s historic meeting at Camp David in September 1978, with Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin. At least a cursory reading of the most salient documents does not reveal a lot that has not [...]]]>
The CIA has just declassified a raft of documents related to President Jimmy Carter’s historic meeting at Camp David in September 1978, with Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin. At least a cursory reading of the most salient documents does not reveal a lot that has not already been reported and commented on a thousand times in the last thirty years. But taken together, they say a lot, and point to what can — and perhaps cannot — be done with the current US-brokered negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The first thing that leaps out is how much President Carter was both in charge and deeply engaged. While some historians have faulted him for focusing too much on details during his presidency, at Camp David he proved that he could deal with both “trees” and “woods.” He could deal with minute and difficult details; but he never lost sight of the big picture, which was necessary to bring to bear the political leadership that ultimately created success. It is also evident from the documents — and was evident at the time — that Carter was supported by an immensely able, talented, knowledgeable, and experienced team, from Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski at the top, to key advisors. These notably included Assistant Secretary of State Harold Saunders and NSC staff director for the Middle East, William Quandt. Together, they molded a successful US position.
Of course, so much credit also has to go to Egypt’s Sadat and Israel’s Begin , two very unlikely peace partners only a short time before Camp David, but both with a vision for their peoples that enabled them to take decisions that would have likely eluded lesser men. Sadat, as much as anything, wanted to get Egypt out of the business of having to confront Israel on behalf of other Arab states, to no benefit (and a lot of risk) to Egypt and its people. Begin wanted to eliminate Israel’s principal enemy from the Arab military balance, without which — Egypt — no coalition of Arab states had any chance of besting Israel in combat. And so it proved to be. In pursuing this goal, Begin gave hostages to his political enemies, including those who stoutly opposed Israel’s evacuation of Jewish settlements on the Egyptian side of the old Egyptian Israeli border, but which Begin agreed to do and then made happen.
The US had a major geopolitical stake, as well. On three previous occasions, the 1956 Suez War, the 1967 Six-Day War, and the so-called Yom Kippur War of 1973, conflict posed risks of confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union — and at least in 1973 came perilously close to becoming the second most risky moment of the Cold War after the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Camp David Accords, which took Egypt out of the Arab military balance, thus not only dropped the risk of a plausible Arab military attack on Israel almost to the vanishing point, it also dropped the risk of a US-Soviet confrontation in the region virtually to zero. Everyone gained.
Since then, there have been a series of attempts to build on the Camp David Accords and the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. Israel has peace with Jordan and Lebanon. It has evacuated Gaza (though this has not brought peace, for a variety of reasons). But the struggle between Israel and the Palestinians of the West Bank (and Gaza) is not all that much advanced from where the first talks began in the mid-1980s. (Note: I assumed the Arab-Israeli portfolio at the NSC after the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty was completed, and served for nearly two years as the White House representative to the so-called Autonomy talks over the Palestinian territories). Indeed, any negotiator from that time would recognize all the issues are still in play 33 years later.
That should not be surprising. Unlike the first Camp David and the resulting treaty, there is no common interest among all the parties in reaching a basic deal. Israel (at least its government) is not keen on relinquishing much of the West Bank and at least some of the Jewish settlements (that now include half a million people): this is a deeply conflicted issue in Israel, with no obvious direct security payoff. For their part, the Palestinians want gains that go beyond what any Israeli government has been willing to contemplate. Gaza, meanwhile, is isolated by Israel and the West, thus making almost impossible a united negotiating posture on the part of the Palestinians. And while the “West” is committed to a resolution of the conflict, getting there remains in the “too tough” category, especially when the only potential arbiter, a succession of US presidents since Jimmy Carter, has not seen such a resolution as being of anything like the magnitude of peace between Israel and Egypt, at least in terms of gaining security for the United States (the Soviet Union has long since disappeared).
President Bill Clinton did try, by convening Israeli and Palestinian leaders at Camp David in late 1980. But he had waited until too late in his second term, without the prospect that he would still be in power to help foster the implementation of any agreement that would be reached — a necessary requirement. Neither Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, or the PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, had the political backing needed to take major “risks for peace,” and there was not a sufficient overlapping of interests. Nor did Clinton undertake the careful preparations that marked Jimmy Carter’s efforts a generation earlier, and which are revealed in the newly-declassified documents. And he did not take with him to Camp David a ”first team” of experts able to provide both the institutional memory or capacity to help work a deal. What Bill Clinton did achieve was the enunciation of a set of principles, a few days before he left office, and which can be found here. They are relatively simple as a set of compromises that could lead to a settlement — something that just about every serious negotiator over the last three decades would attest to. Simple to state but, so far, impossible to gain politically.
Now there is a third try to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave negotiations a wide berth, secretary of State John Kerry has placed this high on his agenda, as did President Obama in his address this fall to the UN General Assembly. But the chances of success are still remote, for all the reasons that have bedeviled the last three decades of effort. Further, other events in the region work against hopes for ending the conflict anytime soon. Israel is preoccupied with turmoil in Egypt (where the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty remains the cornerstone of its security and thus of its sense of confidence in the future); Iran poses a critical challenge; and the situation in Syria also provides no comfort. Together, these three crises grossly limit the capacity of the Israeli government to take risks for peace, even if it were predisposed to do so, which is far from evident. Meanwhile, there is little or no prospect of fostering a basis for serious negotiations on the Palestinian side, in major part because of the domination of Gaza by the radical group Hamas, which is ratified in power by the Israeli-Western blockade.
Further, like Bill Clinton, Barack Obama has not made the sustained commitment to move the peace process forward, given any indication that he would take the risks in US domestic politics that would be needed, or created a top-class team of advisors and — below Kerry himself — negotiators needed to increase the chances of success. Given the low probability that the talks will produce results, none of this can really be faulted.
Jimmy Carter’s legacy lives on; but neither objective circumstances, leadership of the contending parties (Israel and the Palestinians), or a strong US team argue for a repetition of success any time in the foreseeable future. The new documents show what can be done if all three factors come together. Regrettably, however, none of them now exist.
Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat with U.S. President Jimmy Carter at Camp David in 1978.
]]>by Henry Precht
The recent telephone conversation between Presidents Obama and Rouhani — and their positive descriptions of the exchange – are precisely on target for bringing an end to the Iran-US Cold War.
Distrust has been the background noise for that conflict for more than 35 years. It need not have [...]]]>
by Henry Precht
The recent telephone conversation between Presidents Obama and Rouhani — and their positive descriptions of the exchange – are precisely on target for bringing an end to the Iran-US Cold War.
Distrust has been the background noise for that conflict for more than 35 years. It need not have been so.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the US observed a restriction on dealing with Iranians that was virtually unique in our diplomatic relations: we refused to have contact with the sovereign’s opponents. Even on American soil we declined to sit with anti-regime Iranian students. Once in the 1970s, an enterprising political officer in Tehran made an appointment to call on a prominent bazaar mullah. The Ministry of Court called Ambassador Richard Helms and said the visit would be unwise. The appointment was cancelled. In 1975, visiting Senator Charles Percy was briefed at the American and Israeli embassies. The latter told him that the mullahs were the regime’s greatest threat. Such an analysis was never heard from the Americans.
Come the revolution of 1978 and it soon became apparent that we were in touch with only one-half of Iranian politics — the losing half. Slowly, cautiously, Embassy political officers began to talk to oppositionist Mehdi Bazargan and his friends. In Washington, however, Deputy Secretary Warren Christopher forbade me as an Iranian desk officer to meet with Ibrahim Yazdi who was on his way to serve Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris.
That gentleman, leader of the revolution, remained off limits until about a month before the end game. Bill Sullivan, ambassador in Tehran, proposed that Washington send a representative to meet with the Ayatollah. President Jimmy Carter agreed. Retired Ambassador Ted Eliot was picked to do the job of explaining US policy towards the conflict and urging a more moderate approach for the revolutionaries. The Shah was informed and shrugged, “A great power must protect its interests.”
Carter and his advisor Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski left for the Guadeloupe summit of world leaders and returned with an altered perspective: the call on Khomeini was cancelled without explanation. Sullivan — on a secure phone line — cursed eloquently whoever made that “stupid decision.”
Would it have made a difference if there had been an American meeting and exchange with Khomeini? Might it have overcome the abiding conviction of the Iranian revolutionaries that we were unalterably committed to the Shah’s rule?
Perhaps not. Many on the wrong side of the barricades were convinced that Washington was determined to keep Iran as a subservient ally. But a meeting might — just might — have generated some reflection and questioning of customary wisdom. With follow-up meetings, talks could have led to a more moderate and balanced view of the American role in the region. As it was, in the months that followed, Iranian officials regularly scolded American embassy personnel for “not accepting the revolution.” Assurances to the contrary did not ring true when we refused even to talk to the revolution’s leader.
That was the backdrop for Washington’s efforts to construct a new and more normal relationship with Tehran. In the spring of 1979, Washington named a new ambassador, Walt Cutler, and Charge Charles Naas prepared to depart. Naas proposed that he seek a meeting with Khomeini to absorb the angry old man’s ire but leave the precedent of an exchange for Cutler’s benefit. Washington approved. Iran’s interim prime minister, Bazargan, was enthusiastic; here was evidence that the US was taking a new, fresh attitude towards the revolution. Perhaps a first step towards easing distrust? We hoped so, too.
But it was not to be. The Iranians executed a wealthy Jewish businessman and friend of the Shah, one of a series of judicial murders against the old regime. Led by Senator Jacob Javits, the US Senate quickly condemned revolutionary Iran in a resolution that was drafted without Executive Branch input.
Khomeini was furious at the perceived insult and interference in Iran’s affairs. He was also cautious. “Don’t break relations with them,” he told his associates. “But make them know they can’t treat us like the puppet Shah.” The agreement for Cutler as ambassador was nullified; the visit of Naas to Khomeini was cancelled.
Distrust blossomed. Washington had lost two openings to explain its policy toward Iran and gain a clearer insight as to where the country was headed. When the embassy was seized in November, we Americans had no established connection with the one man who might have ended the crisis. We could only shout at each other across an ocean.
Obviously, talking to an antagonist alone can’t fundamentally alter a relationship. But it can enhance understanding and cast doubt on dogma. Distrust breeds where one doesn’t hear, “on the other hand” or, “have you thought about the issue from this perspective?”
Not talking opens doors and windows to those who would further embitter a relationship out of ignorance, accident or design. The US-Iranian connection is replete with long periods of destructive silence.
If tensions between Tehran and Washington are to be eased, it is imperative that leaders in the two capitals keep up the flow of exchanges — at the most senior level and also between cadres of officials on both sides. Before too long, that would mean reopened embassies and revitalized exchange programs.
Iran is a land nurtured by poetry and rhetoric. Free speech is a prime American value. Relying on these aural talents, it is time for a continuous and growing exchange between the two nations.
]]>by Mitchell Plitnick
Some days, it must be really difficult to be the State Department’s spokesperson. It doesn’t seem like a bad job to have at all, but on certain questions it’s impossible to not look like an idiot. A lot of those questions are connected to de facto policies which differ [...]]]>
by Mitchell Plitnick
Some days, it must be really difficult to be the State Department’s spokesperson. It doesn’t seem like a bad job to have at all, but on certain questions it’s impossible to not look like an idiot. A lot of those questions are connected to de facto policies which differ from de jure ones. And there is no better example of that than US policy on Israeli settlements.
Back in the early years after the 1967 war, the United States made it clear that the settlements were illegal according to international law. As recently as 1978, the State Department legal adviser confirmed that all Israeli settlements beyond the Green Line are illegal, and through the Carter administration, this was explicit US policy. That policy has never been explicitly revoked, but beginning with the Reagan administration, de facto policy has been ambiguous. Reagan began the trend when he stated that while the settlements were ill-advised, provocative and that further settlement was not necessary for Israel’s security “I disagreed when, the previous Administration refereed to them as illegal, they’re not illegal. Not under the U.N. resolution that leaves the West Bank open to all people—Arab and Israeli alike, Christian alike.”
The problematic nature of Reagan’s statement — implying that “Arab” equals “Muslim” and “Israeli” equals “Jew”, and more importantly, citing the “U.N. Resolution”, which is not the basis for the illegality of the settlements (the Fourth Geneva Convention is) — notwithstanding, this was the beginning of the US’ refusal to label settlements illegal, terming them instead, at most, “illegitimate.”
The problem for spokespeople arises when they have to parse what that means. Last Monday, in Colombia, Secretary of State John Kerry made what turned out to be an interesting statement. “As the world, I hope, knows, the United States of America views all the settlements as illegitimate,” Kerry said. The use of the word “all” might have worked in Reagan’s day, even in Bill Clinton’s. But today, when the US has allowed Israel to assert that certain settlements are essentially guaranteed (the so-called “settlement blocs” of Gush Etzion, Ariel and Ma’ale Adumim) that little word carries heavy implications.
Israel insists that it’s okay to build in the settlement blocs and the Palestinians should have no problem with that because they’re going to keep them anyway. Israel bases its case on the fact that they have repeatedly stated this publicly without being contradicted and on George W. Bush’s letter to Ariel Sharon in 2004. While that letter did not explicitly state that Israel should keep the blocs, it profoundly altered the diplomatic landscape by promising that the borders between Israel and the envisioned Palestinian state would not be the same as those that existed in 1967 and that alterations would reflect the changed demographics in those, at that time, 37 years. Israel took that to mean it would keep the blocs, and no one, other than some Palestinians (and not the lead spokespeople at the time) said otherwise.
So, when Kerry said all the settlements were illegitimate, it prompted AP reporter Matthew Lee to enter into the following exchange with spokeswoman Jen Psaki:
QUESTION: He said the United States doesn’t see all of the settlement activity as legitimate. Is it correct that – is that correct, that all settlement activity is illegitimate? And I don’t want to get into this illegitimate or illegal, because as far as I’m concerned it’s a distinction without a difference. Does the United States believe that all Israeli settlement activity along – and we can include in that East Jerusalem construction – is all of it illegitimate?
MS. PSAKI: Well, our position on Jerusalem has been clear and has been consistent for some time, which is that we believe it is a final status issue in terms of the discussion of that – of Jerusalem, right?
QUESTION: Mm-hmm.
MS. PSAKI: That is part of the discussion. We have, of course, expressed concerns about construction in East Jerusalem. That hasn’t changed. Our position on settlements we have stated a number of times, and I just stated, and that has not changed either.
QUESTION: Okay. So you do not regard the construction in East Jerusalem as illegitimate. Is that correct?
MS. PSAKI: Well, I think I just stated what we – what our longstanding position has been on construction.
…
QUESTION: But it’s not – hold on, Said. But it’s not that it’s illegitimate?
MS. PSAKI: I don’t have anything more than what I just stated.
QUESTION: Because it is a final status issue?
MS. PSAKI: It is a final status issue that we discussed and worked through.
QUESTION: So one of the questions – okay. So one of the questions that I had that Marie said she would take yesterday –
MS. PSAKI: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: – was about the 900 homes that were announced for construction in East Jerusalem. Is it fair to say you do not regard those as illegitimate?
MS. PSAKI: Well, we – in terms of those specific – that specific announcement –
QUESTION: Right.
MS. PSAKI: – you know we oppose any unilateral action. Certainly we would include this, that attempt to prejudge final status issues, including the status of Jerusalem. That’s where that building is taking place. That’s our view on it.
QUESTION: Okay. So you’re opposed to it, but you don’t say that it’s illegitimate?
MS. PSAKI: I think you know our position.
QUESTION: Okay. So in terms of illegitimacy then, this legitimacy issue, are existing settlements illegitimate in the eyes of the Administration in the West Bank? Settlements in the West Bank that currently exist now, are they illegitimate, meaning that they should not be part of Israel once there is a peace agreement?
MS. PSAKI: Well, obviously, the question of borders will be worked through and is part of the discussion that will take place and will be ongoing in the weeks and months ahead.
QUESTION: So are existing settlements illegitimate?
MS. PSAKI: Well, we have concerns about ongoing continued settlement activity.
QUESTION: Okay. Do you understand that there’s a serious problem here? Because if you talk about – if all you’re prepared to say is that you don’t accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity, you are only calling illegitimate settlements that have not been announced, settlements that are, say, a twinkle in the Housing Minister or whoever’s eye. Once they are actually announced or built, you stop calling them illegitimate, and they – and you start saying that that’s a – that’s something to be decided between the parties. Okay?
MS. PSAKI: Well, this has been our position for a number of years.
QUESTION: That’s – well, right. But –
MS. PSAKI: So –
QUESTION: And I’m surprised that no one, and especially me, has picked up on this before, because you have essentially – you don’t oppose settlements at all, because once they’re built or once they’re announced, once plans for them – plans to build them are announced, you’re not opposed to them anymore, because it’s something for the parties to decide whether they’re legitimate or not.
MS. PSAKI: Well, certainly it will be – a big part of the discussion will be that process moving forward.
QUESTION: Right. Do you understand the problem? Do you understand the –
MS. PSAKI: I understand what you’re conveying, Matt. I’m happy to talk back with our team and see if there’s any more clarification we can provide.
QUESTION: Okay. So tell me, am I wrong in thinking that the United States has no position at all except that it is to be decided by the parties on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of settlements that exist in the West Bank today?
MS. PSAKI: I believe you are wrong, Matt. We’ll get you some more clarification.
QUESTION: You believe I’m wrong? Okay.
MS. PSAKI: We’ll get you some more clarification.
QUESTION: Jen –
MS. PSAKI: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: – in fact, your longstanding position, going back all the way to 1967, and through George Herbert Walker Bush when he was representative at the United Nations, and on to Andrew Young, and on and on and on, that the settlement, that Jerusalem – East Jerusalem, the West Bank, all territory occupied is contrary to the Fourth Geneva Convention, and any alteration stands contrary to that, that you will not support. That is your position, not to reconcile yourself to the facts on the ground, as has been suggested.
Earlier, Lee said to Psaki “Back in 1978, President Carter said that, quote, ‘We don’t see these settlements as being legal.’ Why can’t you say that they aren’t legal?” Psaki, of course, had no answer.
Ultimately, the only people making the argument that the settlements are legal are the Israelis and a handful of apologists who try to bend and twist international law into an interpretation that fits their needs. Otherwise, there is virtually universal agreement that all settlements beyond the Green Line are illegal. Technically, that is also the US position, since there has never been any official statement from a government representative charged with understanding and interpreting international law to reverse the conclusion reached in 1978. But in reality, the political upheaval that would ensue from re-stating that position makes it impossible to do so.
This was made even more interesting when, on August 12, the Washington Post’s internet edition apparently misquoted Kerry saying that the settlements were illegal, rather than illegitimate. When I saw the original version I almost fell over. Had that occurred, it would have been a major game-changer. Quickly, however, the Post corrected the error. I’m sure it was, indeed, an error, because I cannot imagine Kerry actually saying that.
Yes, I cannot imagine the US’ Secretary of State stating what remains the official legal interpretation as set forth by the State Department’s legal adviser and which, outside the US and Israel, is nearly an absolute consensus view. Interesting, even the most pro-Israel of Presidents, be it Reagan, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, has seen the settlements as a serious problem. They would all have liked to see Israel put a halt to them. But when George H.W. Bush, who, during his time as Ambassador to the UN, explicitly stated the settlements were illegal and acted to slow them, he was called anti-Israel. And we can all recall what happened when Obama asked Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze settlements so peace talks could continue (and, no, despite Bibi’s statements, the freeze never really happened — as Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now explains here).
These are the results of a schizophrenic policy, where the policy as enacted nearly opposes official statements of it. Good luck to Jen Psaki trying to explain it.
Photo: A new neighbourhood under construction in the West Bank’s Ariel settlement. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS
]]>by Henry Precht
The starting point for understanding Egypt’s August 14th massacre is Black Friday — September 8, 1978 — during the Iranian Revolution.
On that day, 35 years ago, the Shah’s troops killed an untold number of demonstrators in Jaleh Square in south Tehran. Martial law had been declared the day [...]]]>
by Henry Precht
The starting point for understanding Egypt’s August 14th massacre is Black Friday — September 8, 1978 — during the Iranian Revolution.
On that day, 35 years ago, the Shah’s troops killed an untold number of demonstrators in Jaleh Square in south Tehran. Martial law had been declared the day before, but Iranians opposed to the Shah weren’t aware and filed into the square to be confronted by gunfire from soldiers. The government said that fewer than a hundred were killed; the opposition claimed over 1,000. The latter figure was believed by most Iranians.
The same calculus is true of the August 14 shootings in Cairo: the government reports some hundreds killed; its opponents claim thousands have been gunned down.
Few outsiders understood after Black Friday that a turning point had been reached in Ayatollah Khomeini’s struggle against the Shah. It was downhill for the ruler from then on. The Shah was at war with his people, it can be seen in retrospect; there was no way that he could prevail. The Carter Administration, like most outsiders, failed to grasp that. Focused on talks between Israelis and Egyptians at Camp David, the president, together with his Middle Eastern guests, issued a statement of support for the Shah and hope for his “liberalizing” promises.
Something of the same — support [for a return to democracy] and hope [for nonviolence] was President Barack Obama’s message after August 14. He recognizes that Egypt is sharply divided, the Muslim Brotherhood has close to a popular majority, the military have the guns and the US is distrusted and often despised by both sides. Treading carefully, he cancelled next month’s joint military exercise — perhaps aware that visiting American troops might be in danger of deadly attacks by extremists. But he left on the table for now the next tranche of military aid (over $1 billion) — perhaps aware that cancellation would be deeply offensive to nationalists and the blocked contract for F-16 aircraft a burden on the US budget.
Unwisely, he didn’t go far enough.
If Obama is to be true to American values, he should avoid hurting the Egyptian people, but support their aspirations for democracy and dignity. That means no sanctions against the country as a whole or the military as an institution. It does not mean that individual Egyptians responsible for the killings should be immune from US sanctions.
The president should ban any official US contact with General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, his appointed president, prime minister, minister of the interior and any other officials who can be deemed guilty of authorizing violence after the coup and in the subsequent crackdown. The president should call on them to withdraw in favor of a small and politically balanced committee formed by resigned vice president Mohamed ElBaradei (no friend of the US). This committee, in turn, Obama would suggest, would select three individuals — one from the Muslim Brotherhood, one from the military ranks and one distinguished, independent Egyptian — to form a governing triumvirate. Each of the three would be acceptable to the other political elements.
The US would try to enlist other outside powers — EU members, Turkey, Russia and the Arab League — in backing some such scheme. Together they would demand an end to violence by all parties and the release of political prisoners. President Mohamed Morsi, after a very brief return to office, would resign for the good of Egypt — encouraged by the US and other outsiders and, with luck, by some of his MB colleagues. The constitution and parliament would be restored pre-coup. In effect, August 14 would represent a reversal of the coup rather than the beginning of a civil war.
If a plan of reasonable compromise is not worked out very soon, the threat of prolonged sectarian and civil strife is very real. A point of no return is approaching. Every death on the streets creates new martyrs willing to sacrifice themselves. Think Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. Think Iran in 1978.
Photo Credit: Mohamed Azazy
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
…we have reached the conclusion that there is not enough recent progress in our bilateral agenda with Russia to hold a U.S.-Russia Summit in early September…Russia’s disappointing decision to grant Edward Snowden temporary asylum was also a factor…
— White House Office of the Press Secretary, August 7, 2013
[...]]]>by Robert E. Hunter
…we have reached the conclusion that there is not enough recent progress in our bilateral agenda with Russia to hold a U.S.-Russia Summit in early September…Russia’s disappointing decision to grant Edward Snowden temporary asylum was also a factor…
— White House Office of the Press Secretary, August 7, 2013
…Having in mind the great importance of this conference and the hopes that the peoples of all the world have reposed in this meeting…I see no reason to use this [U-2] incident to disrupt the conference…
— President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Paris, May 16, 1960
The cancelling of a projected summit meeting next month with Russian President Vladimir Putin by President Barack Obama has probably attracted more attention than anything substantive likely to have occurred in that meeting. Or at least anything that could not have been achieved through ordinary diplomatic means. In other words, the significance of this meeting was overrated from the beginning, like most other summits in modern history.
Summits involving the Russians have featured in world politics since Napoleon met Czar Alexander I in 1807 on a raft in the middle of the Neman River in the town of Tilsit. Notable were the three World War II summits wherein Marshall Stalin met with the US president in Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam — with the British prime minister tagging along — that dealt with wartime strategy and the future of Europe. Not so much was at stake this time around.
Admittedly, Obama is not cancelling his attendance at the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg, also in Putin’s Russia. But even the G-8 summits are not worth much in terms of substance, compared with what could be achieved, again, through so-called ordinary diplomatic means.
This is not the place to review the full history of modern summitry. In the main, they are held because publics (and politics) expect them and demand “results.” The invention of the airplane and global television, not the seriousness of the agenda, is the causative agent. Almost always, summit agreements, enshrined in official communiqués, are worked out in advance by lower-level officials, with perhaps an item or two — a “sticking point” or “window dressing” — to be dealt with at the top. To be sure, a forthcoming summit, like “the prospect of hanging” in Samuel Johnson’s phrase, “concentrates the mind wonderfully” or, in this case, provides a spur to bureaucratic and diplomatic activity. Issues that have been sitting on the shelf or in the too-hard inbox may get dusted off and resolved because top leaders are getting together with media attention, pageantry, ruffles and flourishes, state dinners and expectations. This is not something to be left to chance nor to risk a potential blunder by the US president or his opposite number, whether friend or foe.
This is not cynicism, it is reality. Yours truly speaks from experience, having been involved with more than 20 meetings of US presidents with other heads of state and government. I witnessed only two where what the president and his interlocutor worked out at the table made a significant difference: President Jimmy Carter’s 1980 White House meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Meacham Begin and (two weeks later) with Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat. Serious decisions were taken because the US president was the American action officer for Arab-Israeli peacemaking; he “rolled his own.”
Summits can also cause damage, as did the 2008 Bucharest NATO summit, where European heads of state and government balked at the US president’s desire to move Ukraine and Georgia a tiny step toward NATO membership. Instead, they made the meaningless pledge that, in time, it would happen. Both the Georgian and Russian presidents read this as a strategic commitment. The upshot was the short Russia-Georgia war that set back Western and Russian efforts to deal with more important matters on their agenda.
Most notorious was the summit President John Kennedy hastily sought in 1961 with Nikita Khrushchev. Their Vienna meeting was represented as having set back the untested president’s efforts to establish himself with the bullying Soviet leader. Some historians believe this encounter encouraged Khrushchev to take actions that produced the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Even worse than the expectations of success that summits generate is the notion that good chemistry between leaders can have a decisive influence. Nonsense. Of course it is better for there to be positive relations, the ability to “do business” as Margaret Thatcher once said about Mikhael Gorbachev — provided, of course, there is “business” to be “done.” Indeed, assessments of chemistry or the lack thereof just get in the way when they obscure realities of power, the interests of nations and leaders’ domestic politics, which are the real stuff of relations between and among states. Many of history’s worst villains have been charming in person.
Cancelling the Obama-Putin summit has taken place over developments that in the course of history are relatively trivial, confirming that it was unlikely to have been significant. If something of importance was to be settled, ways would have been found to finesse the distractions.
Russian misbehavior included not handing over Edward Snowden, the master leaker of sensitive US information, and the Duma’s passing a law against gays and lesbians. US misbehavior included Congress’ condemnation of the Russian trial of a dead man, Sergei Magnitsky, who had been a thorn in Putin’s side. Notably, the reasons for cancelling this summit lean heavily on domestic politics, not matters of state.
What happened with Eisenhower in 1960, referred to above, was much more consequential. The leaders of the four major powers (the US, Soviet Union, Britain and France) were to meet in Paris, for the first time in years, to reduce misunderstandings between East and West that were making inherent dangers even worse.
Ironically, the triggering event then was also about intelligence; this time it is Snowden, that time it was Francis Gary Powers, the hapless pilot of a US U-2 Reconnaissance aircraft shot down over the Soviet Union less than two weeks before the summit. What then transpired — Obama cancelling in 2013 and Khrushchev displaying his patented histrionics in 1960 — fed into the domestic politics of each side. Just as Obama and Putin must both be wishing that Snowden had gone to Venezuela instead of Hong Kong and then Moscow, Khrushchev may well have cursed the Soviet Air Defense Forces for their untimely shooting down of an American spy plane that both sides knew reduced fears of an accidental nuclear war. Ike probably also cursed himself for letting the CIA launch a U-2 flight so soon before the Paris summit.
The comparison of 1960 and 2013 can be taken a step further. Then, at a particularly dangerous moment for the world, the Soviet Union was one of the two most powerful countries. Now Russia is a second-rate power whose greatest importance to the US lies in what it could well become in the future and its current impact, by facts of size and propinquity, on places and problems the US at the moment cares more about.
But a new Cold War? Again, nonsense. Rather, as political analyst William Lanouette has jibed, a “Cold-Shoulder War.”
To begin with, “Cold War” needs to be defined with precision. It refers to the period when the US and Soviet Union were psychologically unable to distinguish between issues on which they could negotiate in their mutual self-interest and those on which neither could compromise. They were so locked into their perceptions and rhetoric that they could not even fathom possible common interests. That is clearly not true, now, and will not be.
The US-Soviet Cold War began to end in the 1960s, when the two countries developed the weapons and doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which in practice meant that each side accepted responsibility for the others’ ultimate security against nuclear annihilation. This spawned détente, the eventual end of the Cold War, and the sinking of the Soviet Union and European communism through their internal contractions.
Do US-Russian relations matter? Certainly, but not like US-Soviet relations before 1989. The difference is visible in today’s elevation of US concerns over internal developments in Russia, although, for Russia to be fully accepted, respected and trusted on the world stage, it must conform to growing civilizing tendencies in international relations and state behavior within at least a fair amount of the globe. Far more importantly, there are US-Russian differences, both in view and national interests, which make relations difficult at times but must be sorted out in one way or another.
A key focal point of today’s differences exists in the Middle East. The US objects to Russia’s unwillingness to assist efforts to depose the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, which the US president called for before thinking through the means or implications. It is also not confident that Russia truly supports the US-led confrontation over Iran’s nuclear program.
But both US positions beg big questions: on Syria, what the consequences would be there and in the broader region if the US got its way with Moscow, given the unlikelihood of a good outcome in Syria, the slow-rolling Sunni-Shiite civil war underway in the heart of the Middle East, Washington’s lack of clarity over what it is prepared to do militarily and even what outcome would best serve US interests. Russia might thus be cut some slack over its temporizing.
Regarding Iran, the US wants Russia, China and Western powers to hold firm on sanctions (while Congress wants to ratchet them up, despite the inauguration of a new Iranian president who could be better for the US than his predecessor). But Washington has yet to demonstrate that it will negotiate seriously with Iran, and, as states do when there is a vacuum, Moscow is taking advantage.
In addition to dismantling some remaining Cold War relics, notably the excessive level of nuclear weapons both countries still deploy (some absurdly kept on alert), is the issue of when and how much Russia will regain a prominent role in international politics, how and how much the US will try to oppose that inevitable “rebalancing” while its own capacity to affect global events has diminished significantly and if Washington and Moscow can work out sensible rules of the road with one another in the Middle East, Southwest Asia and elsewhere. Russia needs us as partner in some areas; in others it will inevitably be our rival and vice versa.
As two great hydrocarbon producers with interests and engagements that touch or overlap — such as concerns about terrorism, desires that the Afghan curse not cause both of them further troubles in Southwest Asia and the need to influence the rise of new kids on the block (China and India) — the US and Russia have lots to talk about.
But Obama and Putin wining and dining one another has little to do with it.
]]>While Carter’s voice is repressed in the United States, he is respected internationally. Last month he was interviewed by one of Britain’s most renowned journalists, Jon Snow, in an auditorium packed full with 2,500 people.
At the age of 87 Carter speaks with authoritative intelligence. Of particular interest in the clip below are his comments about Israel-Palestine, Osama Bin Laden’s assassination, the execution of Troy Davis and why he found it easier to work with George Bush Senior than Bill Clinton.
]]>