Tag: Israel/Palestine
The lemonade gambit
Regular readers of www.peacefare.net will know that I don’t usually refer to Tom Friedman, who often strikes me as more facile and glib than profound. But his What To Do With Lemons in yesterday’s New York Times seems to me right on: there is going to have to be a UN General Assembly resolution on Palestine this fall, so why not make it one that says something useful and gets the peace process restarted?
His proposed resolution would read:
This body reaffirms that the area of historic Palestine should be divided into two homes for two peoples — a Palestinian Arab state and a Jewish state. The dividing line should be based on the 1967 borders — with mutually agreed border adjustments and security arrangements for both sides. This body recognizes the Palestinian state as a member of the General Assembly and urges both sides to enter into negotiations to resolve all the other outstanding issues.
Friedman suggests this be passed not in the General Assembly, where resolutions are like pre-season football games (sometimes well played but they don’t count in the standings), but instead in the Security Council.
What are the tradeoffs here? The Palestinians get General Assembly membership (Friedman’s wording on this point needs some work though) and reference to the 1967 borders as the basis for any adjustments as well as reference to security arrangements. Security is generally regarded as an “Israel” issue, but there are many ways in which it applies also to Palestine. Israel gets recognition as a Jewish state, something Friedman notes was mentioned explicitly in the original 1947 UN partition resolution.
I’d have some concern that the specific wording Friedman suggests could be abused by Jewish extremists, some of whom would like Arabs to leave Israel and go to the newly independent Palestine, but that could be fixed. New population displacement would be an unwelcome development.
More important: Friedman’s suggestion does nothing to guide resolution of two other critical questions: return of refugees and Jerusalem. I imagine he would say these issues should be resolved in the subsequent negotiations. But the temptation of the parties to want any new resolution to tilt in their favor will make it difficult to leave these issues out.
The important thing here is not the specific wording: it is the idea of getting a resolution, whether through the General Assembly or the Security Council, that makes a positive contribution. That would be far better than a one-sided resolution that isolates Israel and the United States in the General Assembly, or is vetoed by the United States in the Security Council.
Something similar was achieved last fall, when a Serbian demand for General Assembly resolution on Kosovo was turned into a generally acceptable appeal for Belgrade/Pristina talks on practical issues that are reportedly now close to reaching some modest conclusions. The Middle East diplomatic challenge is orders of magnitude greater, but the Friedman gambit–to turn lemons into lemonade–might still work.
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Marvel the Syrians!
From Hama, yesterday:
You’ve got to admire the fortitude and organizational capability of the Syrians. Josh Landis has the most complete coverage I’ve seen of both the “Friday of the Children of Freedom” and the opposition conclave Wednesday and Thursday in Antalya, Turkey.
The demonstrators inside Syria managed to turn out in good numbers to protest the torture and murder by security forces of a 13-year-old boy as well as other atrocities against children, despite shut-down of a large part of the internet and cell phone systems. Damascus and Aleppo, the country’s two biggest cities, are still not turning out big numbers, but yesterday’s demonstrations were widespread and energetic according to the reports that have leaked out. Several dozen people appear to have been killed.
The opposition meeting in Antalya that ended Thursday not only reached agreement on a statement (not yet available in its entirety) but also elected an executive board. So far as I can tell, the program focuses on getting rid of Bashar al Assad in favor of his vice president and holding free and fair elections within a year. There is talk as well of maintaining separation of state and religion as well as Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity (Kurdish representation in Antalya was strong, so this is significant). The Washington Post reported:
The statement also called for the creation of a democratic, secular Syrian state, in which freedom of worship would be guaranteed, but religion would play no role, and the rights of the country’s minorities would be respected.
All of this is fine, but of course the big problem is the regime’s determination to hold on to power. My understanding is that the protesters are not promising amnesty to Bashar al Assad, who therefore has a choice of using maximum repression to stay in power or expatriating himself to some safe haven. All indicators are that he is determined to hold on.
The protesters now have the challenge of maintaining nonviolent discipline and unity while under enormous pressure from the security forces. They also need eventually to spread their mass mobilization efforts into the centers of Damascus and Aleppo. Only when some of the security forces begin to hesitate–when they refuse to fire on protesters or even join them–will the revolution in Syria begin to see the fruits of its labors. Connecting with the army, some units of which are believed to be less committed to Bashar al Assad than others, needs to be a priority objective. This is likely to happen earlier in the provinces than in the major cities, where Assad will station the most loyal troops.
The international community is still proving ineffective on Syria. No UN Security Council resolution has emerged, despite expectations earlier in the week. Washington is sounding a bit more stentorian, but nevertheless holding on to the slim hope that Assad will institute reforms. The Wall Street Journal had a good article Friday detailing Obama Administration efforts to win Assad over to a settlement with Israel and a break with Hizbollah, Hamas and Iran. The odds of that now seem vanishingly small, but I suppose someone in the White House (and in Senator Kerry’s office) may still harbor hopes.
The die is cast. Either Assad will succeed, as his father did, in repressing the protests with state violence or he will have to yield to what is beginning to look like a more or less united, determined and focused revolution.
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A soggy version of the Arab spring
Big Carnegie Endowment/Harvard discussion of Arab Spring yesterday. Outcome: pretty gloomy. But these are experts, who admittedly failed to see the budding of the Arab Spring and are unlikely to be able to predict its course either. They all acknowledged the many unknowns and the difficulties of prediction.
Marwan Muasher, who prefers reform from above, thinks doing nothing in response to the protests is no longer an option but also noted there is more “empire strikes back” (Libya, Yemen, Syria) and “buying time with money” (the Gulf) than “promises of reform” (thin in Jordan, a bit more serious in Morocco). And his criteria for successful reform from above were exacting: it has to be holistic and inclusive, power has to be shared seriously, it should be gradual and measurable. Nothing makes the cut yet.
No optimism from Marina Ottaway either. She noted that even in Tunisia and Egypt there are problems of political will to complete the reform process, that some of the politicians formerly associated with the ruling parties will be able to recycle themselves, that secular parties are weak and fragmented, that Islamists may be a bit stronger but also fragmented, with Salafi influence rising. It is not clear yet what the protesters will be able or willing to do politically, and it is too early to count the military out.
Tarek Masoud did not like what he sees in Egypt. He noted the intense conflict among political forces and between political forces and the military, with the military wary of democracy. They don’t want democratic oversight, fear the demand for justice and don’t want to break with past policy on Israel and the U.S. The military would like to reign without ruling, keeping out of the public eye and avoiding responsibility for governing. They have already made mistakes by scheduling the constitutional referendum, then having to fix the amended constitution with their own constitutional declaration. Early elections will favor Islamists, and opening the constitution to a constituent assembly will open the question of the relationship between state and religion, which is not a good idea. The future holds more discord.
So spring wasn’t so cheery. How about the U.S. policy response?
Nick Burns praised President Obama’s relatively rapid and thoroughly nuanced response in a difficult international situation. He was not too late to support the Tahrir protesters, correctly hesitated about Libya but signed on in response to the Arab League appeal in light of Gaddafi’s threat to Benghazi, and gave the Gulfies more slack because there was no rebellion to sign on to in Saudi Arabia, Oman or Qatar. Only under questioning did Nick state baldly that he could not understand why we hadn’t zapped Bashar al Assad earlier and admit that in Bahrain Washington had chosen interests over values. Nick urged that we focus on Egypt, decrease out focus on governments and security, increase our focus on development and outreach to people, move on Israel/Palestine and shift to a containment policy on Iran.
Agreeing that the case-by-case contextual approach was the right one, Steve Walt concluded that we would soon face Arab governments more sensitive to public opinion, that there would be no easy fixes for the problems of over-centralization and corruption in the Arab countries, Western governments are not flush and would find it hard to ante up, Israel’s position would be weakened as Egypt and Jordan became less compliant to U.S. wishes and that U.S. strategy in the region is obsolete even if its interests are the same as always: unhindered flow of oil and gas, nuclear nonproliferation, countering terrorism and protecting Israel. A more effective policy would pay more attention to Arab public opinion, embrace reform, sustain multipolarity in the region, get U.S. troops out (to an offshore balancing role, naturally, that would still prevent others from exerting control), internationalize the Israel/Palestine peace process (including encouragement of European support for the Palestine resolution at the GA and a possible settlement imposed by the Security Council). Most importantly: we need to stop threatening Iran, which gives Tehran incentives to build nuclear weapons and attempt more creative (unspecified) diplomacy. In response to a question, Walt said he also thought we need a residual force in Iraq to counter Iran.
Chris Boucek, focused mainly on Yemen, warned of economic meltdown, suggested we manage the Saudis better and noted that the youthful protesters are espousing our ideals.
There was a good deal more, but this gives you the flavor: the U.S. focus on stability, peace and democracy has failed: no stability, little prospect for peace and not much for democracy either. Burns and Walt, each in his own way, thought the U.S. could still play an important role, but no one was sanguine about the prospects for the Arab spring or U.S. interests in its aftermath.
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Veh is mir!
The issue is not the 1967 border–President Obama did not ask the Israelis to accept it, but to use it as the basis for negotiation of territorial swaps that would result in a more secure and defensible Israeli border. There is nothing controversial about that. It is what all Israeli prime ministers before Netanyahu have accepted.
Nor did Netanyahu use his speech to Congress to pick at that scab. In fact, he was at pains to close ranks with President Obama as much as possible. But note that he did not talk about “swaps,” which imply equal exchanges of territory, only about generosity.
But he made it clear that he is asking much more than other Israeli prime ministers have been prepared to accept. He wants explicit recognition of Israel as a Jewish state (the existing PLO recognition of Israel tout court is not sufficient), he wants all of Jerusalem (which would presumably preclude part of it being the capital of Palestine), he wants Israeli troops along the Jordan river (not clear to me which way the guns will be pointing), he wants no return of Palestinian refugees to Israel (even though Israel would end up with the lion’s share of the land).
And he expects American support for these positions, which would wreck any near-term hope of a negotiated agreement. So does he really accept the two-state solution? I think not, despite his explicit reference to it as free, viable and independent.
The next big move in this diplomatic game will be at the General Assembly in the fall, when the Palestinians attempt to get a resolution that will “recognize” their state. This is a bit silly, since the GA doesn’t recognize states, and GA resolutions are cheaper by the dozen and often ignored. But Israeli and American opposition to the resolution has made it symbolically important. The GA does recommend states for UN membership, but President Obama has signaled clearly that the U.S. would veto that in the Security Council, which has the final say.
My grandmother would support Netanyahu. I say what she taught me: “oy, veh is mir.”
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Netanyahu channels Jefferson
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke last night at AIPAC. The speech was notable for three things:
- No vision of what peace with the Palestinians would look like–he promised that for today in Congress.
- His assertion that “Israel is America’s indispensable ally.” I thought it was the other way around.
- His welcoming of the Arab Spring, and his related claim that Arabs have equal rights in Israel.
On this last point, I’m glad Netanyahu took the line he did on the Arab Spring, but I’m afraid he was as insincere as the slave holder Thomas Jefferson, whose memorial he visited. Rather than debate complex issues, I’ll quote the State Department’s last human rights report:
Principal human rights problems were institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against Arab citizens…
In Israel proper, see the New Israel Fund. For the occupied territories, pay a visit to B’tselem. Prepare to not like what you read.
The question of whether Israel is indispensable to the U.S. or the U.S. is indispensable to Israel is an important one. The fact is that the U.S. is indispensable to Israel. The United States would survive without the Jewish state, but Israel would not survive without American support.
Like most Americans, I am glad for that support, which helps to ensure Israeli security. But when an Israeli prime minister gets the basic relationship backwards I’ve got to wonder what we are doing wrong.
The answer is too much support and not enough questioning. President Obama did well last week to make clearer what everyone (including Israeli prime ministers before Netanyahu) has always assumed: that a peace settlement would include 1967 borders with land swaps. Putting Netanyahu on the spot was far better than conspiring with him, as Aaron David Miller would have preferred.
I’ll be listening today for what Netanyahu has to say about his vision for a peace settlement between Israel and Palestine. I hope it proves better than what I expect.
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The two face solution
President Obama’s statement of the obvious yesterday–that the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine should be based on Israel’s 1967 borders, with agreed land swaps–has created a furor. This is difficult to understand. All the serious talks on borders have started with 1967 as the basis, even if that hasn’t been explicitly endorsed by American presidents and secretaries of state.
Rob Satloff of the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs waxes passionate but incoherent on the subject:
The idea of land swaps, which may very well be a solution that the parties themselves choose to pursue, sounds very different when endorsed by the president of the United States. In effect, it means that the U.S. view is that resolution of the territorial aspect of the conflict can only be achieved if Israel cedes territory it held even before the 1967 war.
Yes, that’s right, if Israel wants to preserve some of the settlements on the West Bank, it will have to give up land it held before 1967, precisely the idea that the Washington Institute explored thoroughly in a January 2011 publication and one of its stalwarts supported in an op/ed yesterday.
So why do Prime Minister Netanyahu and his supporters get so upset when the President says something that other Israeli prime ministers accepted long ago? The answer, I am afraid, is that Netanyahu is not like other Israeli prime ministers. It is not just the 1967 borders as the basis for negotiation that he rejects. He also rejects the idea of a two-state solution. He has occasionally talked the right talk, under strong pressure and with caveats about recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, but he does not walk the walk.
This is because his attachment to the settlements is far stronger than that of other Israeli prime ministers. This is apparent from the efforts of his supporters to claim American support for settlement activity that simply does not exist, as explained by former Ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer. Netanyahu has no intention of being the Israeli prime minister who recognizes a viable Palestinian state, because he knows this means abandonment of settlements to which he is committed for ideological and practical reasons: they make the land of Israel whole and provide him with ample political support.
Obama has called Netanyahu’s bluff. Netanyahu has demonstrated that he says he supports the two-state solution while in fact trying to block it. His is a two face solution.
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