Category Archives: Palestine-Israel

A Peace Package for the Middle East

Three highly-dangerous Middle East problems — Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the bloody civil war in Syria, and the long-festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict — pose a grave challenge to President Barack Obama and his foreign policy team of John Kerry at State, Chuck Hagel at Defence and John Brennan at the CIA, notes Patrick Seale.

Three highly-dangerous Middle East problems — Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the bloody civil war in Syria, and the long-festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict — pose a grave challenge to President Barack Obama and his foreign policy team of John Kerry at State, Chuck Hagel at Defence and John Brennan at the CIA. America’s vital interests in the Middle East, its political reputation, its ability to project power and influence are intimately tied up with the way it deals — or fails to deal — with these problems. So what advice might one be bold enough to give to President Obama and his team?

Each of these three problems is profoundly destabilising for the region as a whole and risks triggering a war of unpredictable consequences. Taken separately, each of them has so far defied resolution. One suggestion is that tackling them as a package might prove more effective.

Consider, for a moment, how closely inter-connected they are. No one is more concerned than Israel about Iran’s nuclear programme, which it sees as a threat to its military supremacy and ultimately to its security. It fears that a nuclear capable Iran would restrict the freedom — which Israel has enjoyed for decades — to strike its neighbours at will, when they seem threatening.

Iran, however, does not stand alone. Its fate is closely linked to that of Syria, its principal regional ally. Syria has also been the most ardent champion of Palestinian rights and of Lebanon’s freedom from Israeli control. Indeed, the so-called ‘resistance axis’ of Iran, Syria and Lebanon’s Hizballah has sought to deter or contain Israeli attacks while challenging U.S.-Israeli hegemony in the Levant.

Needless to say, Syria’s calamitous civil war has gravely weakened the resistance axis. Israel’s dearest hope is to destroy what remains of it by urging the United States and its allies to bring down the Tehran and the Damascus regimes, thus freeing Israel from any constraint from these powers in its relentless drive for a ‘Greater Israel’.

It can thus be seen that Iran’s nuclear programme, Syria’s existential crisis and Israel’s land hunger are inextricably linked. Attempts to deal with these problems separately have so far failed. The obvious conclusion is that they may be better dealt with as a package. These are not marginal problems which can be left to fester. If the United States wishes to protect itself, its interests and its allies in a highly turbulent environment it must make a supreme effort to resolve them.

Moreover, this is a unique moment: President Obama has been re-elected for a second term. His political authority has been enhanced. The world is looking to him for leadership. Although many other foreign policy problems clamour for his attention — the rising colossus of China first among them — he knows that the Middle East, for all its maddening complexity, latent violence, and the current resurgence of Al-Qaeda, not least in Syria, cannot be ignored.

He should consider the possibility of a trade-off between Iran’s nuclear programme and a Palestinian state. The proposal is simple enough: If Iran were to agree — under strict international supervision — to give up, once and for all, its ambition to become a nuclear-capable state, Israel would, in exchange, agree to the establishment of an independent Palestine on the West Bank and Gaza, with its capital in East Jerusalem. The exact terms of the trade-off would evidently need negotiation and refinement, but the main lines and necessary mutual concessions of an Israeli-Palestinian deal have been extensively debated and are widely known.

Such a bargain between Iran’s nuclear ambitions and an Israeli-Palestinian settlement is not as far-fetched or as fictional as it may sound. Iran has boxed itself into a corner. It knows that the United States will not allow it to become a nuclear power. It wants a dignified exit from its present predicament and an end to crippling sanctions. Israel, in turn, faces international isolation — not to speak of the permanent threat of terrorism — if it insists on stealing what remains of the West Bank. It, too, needs a dignified exit from the insanity of its fanatical settlers and religious nationalists who, if unchecked, would condemn Israel to pariah status and permanent war. A trade-off would resolve two of the region’s most intractable problems to the great benefit of everyone concerned. Peace and normal relations with the entire Muslim world would be Israel’s very substantial reward.

What about Syria? It lies at the very heart of the regional power system. Its on-going civil war is threatening to destabilise its neighbours — Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. Israel itself will not be immune. Islamist fighters, some linked to Al-Qaeda, are flowing into Syria, while refugees are fleeing out to neighbouring states in very large numbers. The toll of dead and wounded is heavy, material destruction great and human misery incalculable.

It is by now abundantly clear that there is no military solution to the conflict: Neither the regime nor its opponents can hope to win an outright victory. No outside power wants to intervene militarily. Yet the regime and its enemies are incapable of negotiating an end to the conflict without outside help.

What should the international community do? First, the United States and Russia (with active support from other powers) should join together in imposing a ceasefire on both sides of the conflict. This could involve deploying an international force around Syria’s borders to prevent the inflow of fighters, weapons, and other military equipment to both government and rebels.

Secondly, major external powers — Arab, Western, Chinese, Russian and others — should solemnly pledge to contribute to a Syria Reconstruction Fund of some $10bn-$15bn. The money would be entrusted to the World Bank and disbursed only when a permanent ceasefire is in place and when some clear progress is made towards a negotiated settlement. The existence of the Fund will provide a real incentive.

Thirdly, the United Nations Secretary General, with unanimous backing from the Security Council, should summon a conference of national reconciliation in Damascus attended by regime representatives as well as by all Syrian factions, groups, parties and prominent individuals prepared to renounce war.

The task will not be easy. The wounds of the conflict are very deep. But for the sake of Syria and its neighbours — for the sake of peace in the region — a supreme effort must be made to prevent the collapse of the Syrian state and its possible fragmentation. The difficult task will be to reshape Syria’s political system on democratic lines. Political freedoms will have to be guaranteed, individual rights respected, police brutality ended, the rule of law observed, government services restored and minorities protected. An essential goal must be the preservation of the Syrian Arab army as the indispensable institution of the state. In Iraq, it was the disbanding of the army which led to the collapse of the state, triggering the catastrophic civil war from which the country has yet to recover.

If Barack Obama were to adopt the programme outlined above and throw his full weight behind it, his place in history as a great peacemaker would be assured.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press).

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=56710

Obama’s Hollow Words on Palestine

September 26, 2011

President Barack Obama struggled to explain his planned veto of UN recognition of a Palestinian state just a year after he welcomed the idea. His speech was a painful example of a leader knowing what is right and calculating that he can’t do what is right, notes Lawrence Davidson.

By Lawrence Davidson

On Sept. 21, President Barack Obama delivered his latest message to the United Nations: “I would like to talk to you about a subject that is at the heart of the United Nations – the pursuit of peace in an imperfect world.”

Actually, one thing that makes the world imperfect is the lopsided power distribution at the UN. This allows the permanent members of the Security Council (particularly the U.S.) to decide when peace does or does not get pursued.

But Obama did not call attention to this problem. Instead he pointed to Libya and the alleged achievement of freedom, security and peace in that North African land. Actually, what Libya amounted to, at least in part, was the destruction of a nation with a standard of living approaching that of Spain.

This destruction happened not because it was ruled by “the world’s longest serving dictator,” but because that particular dictator had a 40-year record of being an incredible pain in the rear end of the Western ruling elites.

Be that as it may, Obama was stuck with the conundrum that the people of Libya (and Tunisia and Egypt and maybe Yemen and Syria but, of course, not Bahrain) deserve self-determination and peace, while the Palestinians are apparently still out in the cold.

Obama explained that “I believe … that the Palestine people deserve a state of their own.” However, they only can have it if they follow a course which, over the last 20 years, has proved utterly bankrupt.

Indeed, Obama saved his most emphatic language for the moment when he insisted that bankruptcy is the only way to national success for the Palestinians: “Ultimately it is the Israelis and the Palestinians – not us – who must reach agreement … that is and will be the path to a Palestinian state.”

Very odd. The President tells us that Washington won’t dictate national self-determination, but it damn well can dictate the route the Palestinians must take to get it. Even if that route has proven worthless and will, most likely, lead them to their ultimate destruction.

Two Critics

Robert Fisk, the famous reporter for the British newspaper The Independent, wrote a scathing report on President Obama’s speech. Here is part of what Fisk said:

“After praising the Arab Spring … the man [Obama] dared to give the Palestinians 10 minutes of his time, slapping them in the face for daring to demand statehood from the UN. Obama even – and this is the funniest part his preposterous address to the UN — suggested that the Palestinians and the Israelis were two equal ‘parties’ to the conflict.”

Fisk is angry and frustrated and one can only empathize with those feelings. But his piece leaves a lot unexplained. So let us look at Uri Avnery, founder and leader of Israel’s Gush Shalom peace movement, who commented on the speech this way:

“A wonderful speech. A beautiful speech. The language expressive and elegant. The arguments clear and convincing. The delivery flawless. A work of art. The art of hypocrisy. Almost every statement in the passage concerning the Israeli-Palestinian issue was a lie.

“A blatant lie: the speaker knew it and so did the audience. … Being a moral person, he [Obama] must have felt the urge to vomit. Being a pragmatic person, he knew that he had to do it if he wanted to be re-elected.”

Now that is more to the point. Avnery tells us why Obama was lying. Because in a land of the deceived, only really good liars get … what? Get elected and then re-elected?

Well, that is probably true. However, in this particular case things are a bit more complicated. This might sound a bit shocking but, taken literally, Avnery is inaccurate. You can be critical of Israel and even sympathetic to the Palestinians and still, at least potentially, get elected to office in the United States.

Consider a recent poll by the Pew Research Center. It indicates that 42 percent of Americans are in favor of U.S. recognition of Palestinian statehood as against 26 percent opposed. Nearly one-third, 32 percent, had no opinion.

That means an energetic and savvy politician running for national office, who is also publicly in favor of Palestinian statehood, would have a pool of 74 percent of American voters to work on.

The numbers are even more impressive when considering only Democratic voters. There 54 percent are in favor of Palestinian statehood and only 14 percent opposed. These are telling numbers for a politician with pro-Palestinian sympathies– if the voters are really the end game here.

Neglected Voters

Unfortunately, they are not. Voters are only important at the actual time of election. At all other times the politicians’ constituencies are special-interest groups. It is the special interests that supply the resources the politicians actually use to manipulate the voters at election time.

The political parties know this very well. They know that what political suicide actually consists of is putting forth a candidate that displeases the special interests. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, 95 percent of the time both Democrat and Republican parties won’t even nominate a candidate who expresses opinions favorable to the Palestinians.

Therefore, such candidates hardly ever reach the voters. So, it is not quite as Avnery puts it, that Obama speaks lies so as to be re-elected. More accurately, he speaks lies so he can be re-nominated.

There is no politician in America capable of getting a presidential nomination who could or would have made a speech more sympathetic to the Palestinians than the one given by Barack Obama.

The conclusion one can draw is that on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, public opinion presently has no leverage.

And, for it ever to actually have leverage, it must reach a point where it overwhelms the standard factors of special-interest influence: giving campaign funding to a candidate or choosing to give it to his or her opponent; generating lots of TV air time in favor of the candidate or creating negative attack ads against him or her; and the overall control of the information on the subject of interest to the special interest that goes to the candidates and their staff.

In other words, unless you can get the public riled up on this subject to the point where millions see it as a voting issue, politicians and their party leaders won’t respond to polls such as that recently put out by Pew. Such information simply does not indicate a level of public focus that will sway the party choices of candidates at the nomination level.

To make the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a voting issue within the American political milieu is a tough goal, but it is not an impossible one. A growing number of local and national organizations are already engaged in this effort seeking to change public attitudes to the point that American voters will react to Israeli behavior as they once reacted to apartheid South Africa’s policies.

To name just three, there are the U.S. Campaign Against the Occupation, the Council on the National Interest, and Jewish Voices for Peace. Many others are active as well. In Europe, the effort to build public opinion to the point that it has voting leverage is also going on apace.

About ten years ago, I had a heated conversation with the Charge d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Israel. He told me that if I believed that the U.S. Congress could be freed from the influence of the Zionist lobby I was crazy.

“It will never happen” he told me. I disagreed with that sentiment then, and still do today.

The Pew Poll numbers show that there is fertile ground for an eventual sea change in popular opinion. And, with a lot of hard grassroots work, that change will have a powerful political impact. One must never say never.

Lawrence Davidson is a history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing America’s National Interest; America’s Palestine: Popular and Offical Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood; and Islamic Fundamentalism

A win-win strategy for the Palestinians

A win-win strategy for the Palestinians
In any bargaining game, the key to success is leverage. Thus, even if their bid for statehood through the U.N. fails, the Palestinians still win.

By Barbara F. Walter and Andrew Kydd
September 29, 2011
Everyone knows that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ bid for statehood through the United Nations Security Council will fail. Even if the Palestinians get the nine votes needed , the United States will veto it. And yet the strategy is brilliant. Why? Because the Palestinians win even if they lose.

To understand how this seemingly doomed effort is designed to work, one has to recognize the strategic game Abbas is playing. Abbas knows that time and public opinion are on his side. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can denounce the move, President Obama can end it, those opposed to it can call it foolish and self-defeating. But world reaction to Abbas’ request has been overwhelmingly positive and will become increasingly so with every move by Israel and the U.S. to block it.

The Palestinians are playing a long-term bargaining game, and any move toward the goal of statehood has to be considered a victory. Statehood will not come immediately, or when a vote is taken in the Security Council. What will happen is that support for it will slowly and surely increase among average citizens around the world. The extreme positions of Israel and the United States — their refusal to pursue real efforts to allow Palestinians to rule themselves and be free of military occupation — will be increasingly revealed, and tolerance for these positions, even among Israelis and Americans, will decline. Going to the Security Council knowing the bid will be publicly and persistently rejected, therefore, is an inspired strategy. Palestinians appear peaceful and reasonable. Israel and the United States do not.

In any bargaining game, the key to success is leverage. The Palestinian Authority has two broad sources of leverage. It can implicitly condone violence under the assumption that the more costly the conflict, the more likely Israel is to make concessions. Or it can pursue a nonviolent strategy mixing protest and diplomatic pressure.

For more than five years, the Palestinian Authority has pursued a disciplined nonviolent strategy against Israel. It has focused on building a state within the West Bank and rebuilding the infrastructure that was destroyed in the second intifada. The Palestinians have engaged in security cooperation with Israel to root out terrorists, and their security forces have been U.S. trained and supported. Certainly, the Palestinians have work to do. They still need to figure out their relationship to Hamas, as well as the Palestinian Authority’s willingness to tolerate violence. But Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are as good as they get. These West Bank Palestinians are the long-hoped-for partners that Israel needs to have a secure and lasting peace.

The nonviolent strategy, however has failed to generate sufficient leverage against Israel to motivate concessions. Many Israelis attribute the current lack of violence to the wall they constructed to fence off the West Bank, ignoring the equally important shift in the Palestinian Authority’s strategy. Believing that the security problem has been solved by concrete and barbed wire, most mainstream Israelis feel no real need to negotiate. With the center demobilized, Israeli hard-liners have a clear field. The result is that Israeli maximalist dreams about ruling indirectly over a quiescent Palestinian population — or even better, gradually easing them off to Jordan — go uncontested because of the lack of urgency.

These dreams, however, will never lead to peace. Many, if not most, Palestinians are willing to settle for less than the 1967 border, less than full sovereignty in security terms and less than a full right of return for refugees. However, they will not settle for nothing, and the rest of the Muslim world, newly awakened by their spring and summer revolts, will support them. This leaves the Palestinian leadership in a familiar quandary. Palestinians can continue to pursue nonviolence, but this has failed to bring any movement from the Israelis. They can return to violence, which is temporarily popular and puts pressure on Israel but is immoral and self-defeating in the long run.

What Palestinians need is a third strategy that is nonviolent yet generates significant pressure on Israel to negotiate. Going to the U.N. is designed to do just that.

By asking for recognition at the U.N. while scrupulously avoiding violence, the Palestinians are, finally, pursuing an intelligent foreign policy that has the prospect of isolating their adversary and bringing international opinion on their side. If recognition as a state is achieved, the whole international context of the struggle shifts and the Israeli occupation becomes starkly anomalous. If the bid fails, public opinion will shift in the Palestinians’ favor and greater pressure will be placed on the U.S. and Israel to seek resolution on statehood. This is why Israel is fuming and Washington is frantically trying to divert attention back to the stalled peace process. Absent this move by the Palestinians, the U.S. would not even be talking about the topic. Now it dominates the international agenda.

The U.S. response has been reactive and hapless, as it was in the Arab Spring. President Obama’s political position is relatively weak, and his mild effort to pressure Israel to halt settlement expansion was resoundingly defeated. In fact, Israel this week approved plans to built more than 1,000 housing units in East Jerusalem despite pleas from U.S. and European diplomats. The political strength of Israel’s supporters in the U.S. ensures that there will be no political daylight between U.S. policy and that of the sitting Israeli prime minister. This is especially true if Republicans turn support for Israel into a partisan issue.

If the U.S. were more concerned with peace in the Middle East (and in protecting its interests) than with domestic politics, it would support the Palestinian bid for statehood. If the Palestinians see that nonviolent strategies can produce real results, and the Israelis face reality that despite the lull in terrorist attacks there is a growing price to be paid for continued occupation, the increasingly untenable stalemate will be one step closer to resolution.

Barbara F. Walter is a professor of political science in the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at UC San Diego. Andrew Kydd is an associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-walter-palestinianbid-20110929,0,320923.story?