US 'Fabricated Symmetry' Bad for Middle East Peace Process

One of the most frustrating things about the American policy towards the Middle East is how Israel always seem to be treated symmetrically with the Palestinians, whether there is cause for such symmetry or not.

This false symmetry was crystal clear last week when US President Barack Obama unjustly chided Israeli and Palestinian leaders equally. The US, who along with the EU, Russia and the UN make up the Quartet, is entrusted to evaluate the performance of the two parties committed to the " roadmap to a permanent two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict".
Phase I of this "roadmap," which was adopted as UN Security Council Resolution 4862 in May 2003, calls on the Palestinians to ensure a cessation of violence, while Israel is expected to withdraw from all areas it occupied in October 2000, to dismantle outposts and freeze all settlement activities, including those allowed for natural growth.

In his public statement in front of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama praised the Palestinians for their progress in the field of security and thanked the Israelis for easing movement for the Palestinians. He then chided Israel for having "discussed important steps to restrain settlement activity, but they need to translate these discussions into reality on this and other issues." The Palestinians were criticized for "not moving
forward on negotiations" and for not doing "enough to stop incitement."

By trying to show symmetry, Obama erred; his words encouraged the violator and did not publicly reward the complier.

There is no doubt that Palestinians have greatly improved on the security front. Senior Israeli army officials have declared so publicly. It is also a fact that Israel has not withdrawn to the October 2000 lines, has failed to dismantled outposts, and instead of freezing settlement activities, has in fact approved hundreds of new settlement buildings in addition to continued provocative housing practices against Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

It is ironic that Palestinians are criticized for not moving forward on negotiations when the roadmap (the only game in town according to Western powers) relegates negotiations until phase I is implemented. In fact, upon taking power, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeatedly stated that Israel should immediately freeze all settlement activities as a prelude to permanent status negotiations. Not only has the Obama administration caved in to the Israelis, but Obama chided the Palestinians for adhering to the spirit and letter of the roadmap, which the Quartet is supposed to monitor, to see all parties' compliance.

But perhaps the worst case of false symmetry was Obama's six words about Palestinian incitement. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Palestinian education institutes, as well as television stations, have been remarkably clear on this accusation. Upon taking power as president, Mahmoud Abbas ordered a major shift in Palestine TV. During the month of Ramadan, Palestinians enjoyed political satire on Palestine TV, which made fun of the president, the prime minister, Hamas and Fateh. USAID, as well as senior US officials, have been so pleased with the performance of the Palestinian ministry of education that they are demanding all their grantees, using taxpayer money, to work closely with it. Abbas is known to publicly admonish the "militarization of the Intifada" and has repeatedly criticized the Hamas rocket attacks as "acts of foolishness." At the recent Fateh congress, Abbas publicly declared to his own hardline base his rejection of violent resistance, saying he has chosen diplomacy over the armed struggle.

The Palestinian president and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are regularly attacked by Hamas and other radical Palestinians for this position and for their close cooperation with the American and Israeli security.

Not even the Israeli government has raised the issue of incitement in recent years, and neither the Olmert government nor the Netanyahu administration have made any public statement or presented any research detailing any Palestinian incitement to violence. A quick search on Israeli government websites, as well as the site of the right-wing foreign ministry, provided no evidence of any such Israeli accusation against Palestinian institutions.

US Ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer and Scott Lasensky produced a handbook with 10 lessons on how the US should deal with the Middle East. Lesson five in their book, "Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East," states the following: "The United States must ensure compliance through monitoring, setting standards of accountability, reporting violations fairly to the parties, and exacting consequences when commitments are broken or agreements not implemented."

Obama was right in speaking out against the delay in movement in the peace process. Instead of this false symmetry in which charges are fabricated to appear balanced, the US president should simply lay out who was responsible for the delay. Only by chiding the right party can there be hope of real progress in this decades-old conflict.

 

 

Follow Daoud Kuttab on Twitter: www.twitter.com/daoudkuttab

Comments

[mommamia526]

To be sure, Israel is not without fault. On the contrary. There are those, and it has also branched out, who, with the help of others, even try to force their way by forcing their hand in the U.S. The silly lady Taitz is not working in total isolation and on her own. And she represents a *voice* which is clearly heard both in Israel and in the U.S. It is not the voice of Israel, just of a certain group. It is not the voice of the U.S., just a certain group in the U.S. The rightwing Israeli voice is one of fear and despair. They feel they have tried, and that nothing but brute force is all Palestinians understand. But, let me again say something else. Palestinians are not isolated and driven together in Israel proper, but it is the case outside of Israel. In Lebanon, in Syria, in Jordan/PA territory and in Gaza. Interestingly, we see that same phenomenon in Europe with muslims having a tendency to group together in tenements. As a former immigrant I have to ask, when does one stop being an immigrant? One makes a choice. Children born elsewhere also make a choice. Children born in new countries, however, are citizens of that country and should participate and be part of the countries where they live.

[myopinion2]

Last week, Palestinians stoned a tourist group on the Temole Mount because they misidentified them as religious extremists seeking to hold a Jewish prayer service. Israeli police had to enter the Mount to restore order. Instead of calling calm, the PA officials broadcast the lies that Jews wetre storming the Temple Mount to take it over, and called for Palestinians to defend the Mount. Yesterday, Istraeli police again had to enter the mount, and found wheelbarrels full of stones, ready to be used to assault jews praying at the Wall. Again, the PA officials lied and condemned Israel for limiting access to the Mount until conditions cooled and stabilized.

It is unfortunate that the PA, like Netanyahu, is wedded to incitement and accusations. Olmert tried to make peace, but the PA refused to agree to a division of East Jerusalem and give up the alleged right of Return for 4 million people who have never been inside Israel.

Israel has dismantled scores of checkpoints in the past six months. If the PA acknowledged that truth as a step in the right direction, it could help build trust . instead the PA acknowledges nothing, and continues to condemn and accuse. Netanyahu should acknowledgethe progress and accomplishment of Palestinian security forces, and Abbas should acknowledge that Israeli forces stay out of several palestinian towns as a result. But neither one says anything., Again. a missed opportunity to build trust.
Obama blames both sides because both sides are to blame.

[lbsaltzman]

Daoub Kuttab is right that there is no moral equivalence between the actions of the Israelis and Palestinians. Israel is engaged in the attempted destruction of the Palestinian people. Israel, despite its' delusions that is the victim, is the aggressor. The fact that a few groups of Palestinians have done criminal acts in the resistance pales besides the scope of Israeli state terrorism against the Palestinians.

[myopinion2]

your post is symptomatic of the virtual impossibility of having a rational discussion of this issue. As IHateNeoCons posted below, the problem is that an overwhelming number of pro-Palestinian posters concemn Israel but deny, minimize and excuse all Palestinian actions, while an overwhelming number of pro-Israel posters engage in the mirror image. Until each side can acknowledge their own failings, give up the blach hat /white hat cartoonish carichature, we will never be able to deal with the reality of the grayness.

[alexa07]

Once again, yet another American adm (this time Obama's) is avoiding not just the high road, but is choosing to take the very lowest road of all. The result points to very negative consequences not only for Palestine, but for the USA as well.

[IhateNeoCons]

I largely agree with you. Now let's see your reply where you admit that Oslo was blown up by the fact Arafat didn't want to start something that he felt would lead to civil war among Palestinians as he would rather protect his own neck. You see, this goes both ways. I'm not bringing this up to justify ANYTHING from the Israeli side. Frankly, the past only gets in the way, for both sides, and trying to make moral equivalencies etc. is just a waste of time. Forward movement is what is necessary. But that starts with this small move on your part to show that you are capable of stepping up and applying your criteria to yourself. If Obama's administration erred in false equivalency, then you admit when it was blatant self interest among the Palestinian elite that derailed what might otherwise have led to peace. Then we know you are sincere, and not just another propagandist willing to seize upon Israeli misdeeds while ignoring the equivalent or greater misdeeds of those on your side of the argument. As I pointed out, the past is moot at this point, so you lose nothing. Should be quick and painless. I won't hold my breath.

[MosheDayanHero]

Educating the next generation of peace makers
Typical Passage:Palestinian textbook.
"Due to their {Jewish} trespassing they believe that the Euphrates is theirs, that
the Nile and the Nobel Kaaba [in Mecca] are their borders."
[Arabic Language and the Science of Language, grade 12, p. 80]
Nice.

[MosheDayanHero]

re."But perhaps the worst case of false symmetry was Obama's six words about Palestinian incitement. Nothing could be farther from the truth."
Wrong.
Historical context: 1978 Palestinian terrorist attack initiated from Lebanon on a highway in Israel. 37 civilians lost their lives More than 70 people wounded
March 11 2009 Fatah TV :..." The most important and prominent special operations, executed by Palestinian revolution by sea,on the coast between Haifa and Tel Aviv. This operation... carried out by a team of heroes, and led by the heroic fighter Dalal Mughrabi..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNo7vTOAWN4&feature=PlayList&p=A8BC17B276E0E47A&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=60

Heroes?

Next subject...

[Aussieposter]

Several small Jewish groups had been linked with terrorist attacks against Arabs in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. None of these presented a significant security problem to the IDF as of 1988. The best known of these organizations, the Gush Emunim Underground (sometimes called the Jewish Terror Organization), was formed in 1979 by prominent members of Gush Emunim, a group of religious zealots who had used squatter tactics to carry on a campaign to settle the West Bank after the October 1973 War. The underground perceived the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1979 Treaty of Peace Between Egypt and Israel as betraying the Begin government's policy of retaining the territories conquered by Israel.

The principal terrorist actions of the Gush Emunim Underground were carried out between 1980 and 1984. In 1980 car bombings of five West Bank Arab mayors resulted in crippling two of the mayors. In 1983, the Hebron Islamic College was the target of a machinegun and grenade attack that killed three Arab students and wounded thirty-three others. In 1984 an attempt was made to place explosive charges on five Arab buses in East Jerusalem. This plot was foiled by agents of Israel's internal security force, Shin Bet, leading to arrest and prison sentences for eighteen members of the underground. The security services also uncovered a well-developed plan to blow up the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam's most sacred shrines, on Jerusalem's Temple Mount.

[myopinion2]

I'm not sure what your point is, but to me the facts, accurately set forth in your post, shows that Israel had the ability and will to take action against its own extremists to prevent terrorism against Palestinians. Admittedly, that will is now fraying a little, as relatively minor, isolated incidents by settlers against neighboring Palestinians go unpunished.

[Fein]

One BIG Terrorist group that is linked to ALL Terrorist attacks against Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank is the IDF.

[MosheDayanHero]

re aussieposter" "This plot was foiled by agents of Israel's internal security force, Shin Bet, leading to arrest and prison sentences for eighteen members of the underground."
Exactly. Israeli police caught arrested and imprisoned these extremists.

In Palestinian controlled territories schools,libraries are named for people like this.These terrorists are celebrated in song, movies and textbooks.
Example: Al-Shuyukh, schooled renamed “the Dalal Mugrahbi School,” in honor of a woman terrorist involved in the 1978 Tel Aviv Highway massacre of 37 people, many of whom children .Also there are:"Dalal Mughrabi Girls High School" "Dalal Mugrahbi Summer Camp in Rafiah"

Nice people....

[MosheDayanHero]

"But perhaps the worst case of false symmetry was Obama's six words about Palestinian incitement. Nothing could be farther from the truth."

June 8,
Palestinian Authority television broadcast a sermon by Sheik Ibrahim Madhi Excerpts:

"... We must prepare the ground for the army of Allah that is coming according to the [divine] predetermination. We must prepare a foothold for them. Allah willing, this unjust state will be erased - Israel will be erased; this unjust state, the United States, will be erased; this unjust state, Britain, will be erased - they who caused this people's Nakbah [the 1948 'catastrophe']..."

"... Shame and remorse on whoever refrained from raids [against the enemy] or refrained from preaching to himself [to raid]; shame and remorse on whoever refrained from raising his children on Jihad..."
"Blessings to whoever waged Jihad for the sake of Allah; blessings to whoever raided for the sake of Allah; blessings to whoever put a belt of explosives on his body or on his sons' and plunged into the midst of the Jews, crying "Allahu Akbar, praise to Allah, There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger."'

[MosheDayanHero]

"There is no doubt that Palestinians have greatly improved on the security front."
Seems Mr. Kuttab never heard of Gaza.

[vascopyjama]

Mr. Obama will do what every President has done before him, drag it out til the end of his term and then hand it over to the next President who will do the same. It's called the Middle East Peace Process.

[StCuthbert]

At the end of the day, all America can do is moderate. It's up to the Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate with each other and come to a consensus.

[eileenflemingWAWA]

Author, Professor Jeff Halper, an American Israeli and Founder and Director of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, who has lived in Israel since the Vietnam era and witnesses on a daily basis how, "Israelis are insulated from the occupation and its eroding effect. The Israeli economy is better than the USA, tourism is back and Israeli banks are buying up-shoring up the American dollar.

"Israeli Jews have been told there is no political solution and the Arabs are our permanent enemies, but terrorism as its called has been reduced to nothing and the framework of being the victim relieves them of responsibility and accountability.

"The reason Barak flipped over the Goldstone Report was because it placed victims and perpetrators on the same playing field.

"The occupied territories are a laboratory for government and corporations and the arms industry…Israel could not get away with what it does without USA cover in the UN and the support in government."

Excerpted " The Politics of Impossibility on the Battleground of Moral Legitimacy with the Goal of a Just Peace in Palestine Israel"

http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1447&Itemid=225

[Macready]

thank you for posting Eileen . . .

Daoud I am totally disgusted by Obama . . he isn't living up to his speech in Cairo .. . . it's the same old same old regarding israel . . there will be no peace in the Middle East until the US and the West change this blind support of israel . . . it's criminal . . .

[lbsaltzman]

I have long felt Israel is trapped in a paranoid system of thinking. The material you have just posted reinforces that view. Israel uses the Holocaust to bolster its' cause by attempting to shame any who criticise the Israelis with a false charge of anti-semitism. It is as if they are still living the Holocaust in Israel underneath all the prosperity and macho bravado.

But that rigid structure that the Israelis have constructed is failing. More and more people in more and more countries no longer accept the excuse of anti-semitism as a justification of Israeli actions. I suspect Israel will continue to pull inside itself and view the entire world as hostile. Unfortunately the Palestinians, the Lebanese and now the Iranians will bear the brunt of this disturbed worldview by Israel.

[TheLonelyGod]

Saltzman, for the hundredth time, accusing Israel of always playing the antisemitism card is simply *wrong!* Find me one example from the past *week* where someone making a legitimate accusation of Israel was accused of antisemitism. There's been a lot of criticism to go around, so I'm sure it will be easy.

Accusing Israel's supporters of "always" accusing their critics of antisemitism is like accusing Obama's supporters of "always" accusing their critics of racism. It just doesn't happen.

[DeniseA]

Well, anti-Semitism HAS been a problem for the past 2000+ years. Until 1948 the Jew haters didn't have an Israel to attack and lie about. A fair number of Israeli Jews are survivors, relatives of survivors or have family members who perished in the Holocaust or pogroms.

Look at the 1973 war where 9+ Arab states attacked Israel with the intent to destroy her.
She is surrounded by nations that hate her. How would you feel living in such circumstances?

[mommamia526]

This is full of the usual onesided partisanship notions. Let me just point to one neutral issue in this harangue. The U.S. dollar is in decline and Arab nations together with several others, a.o. China, are looking for a new standard for the sale of oil.

Terrorists are not a nation. They are a group with loose temporary associations committing crimes. There is no justification for criminals and terrorists who attack civilians. The only point they make is that they are criminals.

Crime, or terrorism, is not a national issue, or an international issue, in the sense of war. It should not belong on the table in UN discussions. It should be fought, no matter what nationals commit these crimes, for what it is, criminality, and the way that is usually done, via police force and international intelligence. Changing territories and borders, does not change these criminals and their activities. They have no legitimacy and should not be made to feel that they are important strategical contenders. Using criminality to win international territorial contests is not, I believe, a legitimate means recognized bythe UN. Let us call it what it is, and place it where it belongs.

[GZLives]

Goven what's currently happening in Jerusalem this is farcical. First, there's the usual Arab rumours. (Remember those from 1948?) that "fanatical Jews were about to take over al Aqsa Mosque" which caused countless wheelbarrows of rocks to be brought to Temple Mount to be thrown at Jews ...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3785996,00.html

Incitement hasn't subsided, its gotten worse

[stardust835]

Please read the article. Mr. Kuttab is referring to incitement by Palestinian institutions, not the "rumors" you refer to.

[MosheDayanHero]

re."But perhaps the worst case of false symmetry was Obama's six words about Palestinian incitement. Nothing could be farther from the truth."
Now for facts:
Palestinian TV run by Fatah,July 17, 2009, “Jews exaggerate every action There is a place called Memorial for Holocaust which tells of the killing of 6 million Jews, but it is known that in all of Europe there weren't 6 million Jews.”
Abd Al-Rahman Abbad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWlrICrghBY

[phute]

Arab rumours? Care to substantiate?
The bottom line is intimidation by israel - and too many in Congress are so ignorant that they fall for it. They have no idea the extent to which they are being insulted - that's why the farce goes on and on.

[Garioch]

I don't remember them from 1948 not having been alive them but I do know by looking at the historical record (mainly Israeli) what happened there and the rumors turned out in many instances to be substantially true with the resident Palestinians being forced out of their homes when they had not already done so. Of course this has nothing at all to do with the article or form any part of the peace process.

[phute]

sorry Garioch - the rumours I referred to were those contained in gzi lives' post.
Apologies.

[BLBass]

Welcome to the world of the American progressive: Obama's policy is rife with false equivalencies, and it's frustrating to watch and actively frustrates action at every level.

I do doubt a little your statement that Palestinian security achievements -- while impressive -- are sufficient to merit the distinction you draw, especially given Obama's predilection to avoid such distinctions wherever possible. If this case were to be the exception, it would most likely have to be a stark difference which I find plausible but not exactly likely based on existing evidence. Of course the balance of Israel's activity is harmful to the peace process, but (with Israeli/US help) the PA should be expanding its reach into Gaza to remove the pretext for this behavior in the form of Hamas's continued reliance on eliminationist rhetoric and tacit (if not explicit) support for terrorist action.

[Darwin256]

"with Israel's help" is the key phrase here. Israel can start by not violating cease fires.

[BLBass]

Absolutely right. However, the difficulty I was pointing out is that those cease fires are not in fact preventing danger from terrorist action, and therefore expecting Israel to abide by them unilaterally is a mistake.

[StCuthbert]

So when the Palestinians fire rockets, it's no big deal, but when Israel counter-attacks, THAT's a violation of the cease-fire?