It is often said that crises beget opportunities. This statement is nowhere truer than in the realm of U.S.-Israel relations.
Israel's approval of 1,600 new housing units for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem during Vice President Joe Biden's recent visit has sparked the most significant crisis in U.S.-Israel relations in nearly 20 years. Some observers have suggested that the Netanyahu government's actions underscore a growing U.S. impotence with respect to the peace process. Yet if history is any guide, the present crisis might have left President Obama in a fairly strong position to advance peace.
In the mid-1970s, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger viewed Israeli inflexibility over a partial withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula as undermining his attempts to broker an Israeli-Egyptian agreement. His frustration with Israeli intransigence led the Ford administration to threaten, in March 1975, a reassessment of bilateral relations -- a move that increased tensions with the Israeli government and prompted public expressions of concern by scores of U.S. senators and advocacy organizations such as AIPAC. Yet President Ford's tough love, coupled with Kissinger's persistent diplomatic efforts, paid off six months later with the signing of the Sinai II agreements, in which Israel and Egypt pledged to resolve their conflict by peaceful rather than military means.
Another example of how crisis prompted progress is evident from the tenure of President Jimmy Carter, who butted heads frequently with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. In the spring of 1978, relations between the two leaders reached a nadir when Begin and Carter openly clashed over the future of the West Bank and Gaza. Carter warned that "further settlement activity would be inconsistent with the effort to reach a peace settlement," while Begin defiantly rejected U.S. demands to halt settlements and show a willingness to withdraw from the occupied territories. Carter's relentless pursuit of Middle East peace, however, led to the Camp David talks in September of the same year, and those negotiations paved the way for the Egypt-Israel peace treaty of 1979. While Begin refused to budge on the West Bank, he ultimately agreed to withdraw from the entire Sinai Peninsula, which was enough for President Anwar Sadat of Egypt.
The last major crisis between the U.S. and Israel took place in 1991 when President George H.W. Bush withheld Israel's request for $10 billion in loan guarantees to help resettle Soviet Jewish immigrants due to Israel's aggressive settlement activities. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's hard-line policies prompted an exasperated Secretary of State James Baker to declare: "When you're serious about peace, call us." The Bush administration's tough approach raised alarm bells among some segments of the Jewish community, but in Israel, the crisis played a key role in Shamir's 1992 electoral defeat. The lesson learned from this episode was that the Israeli public values highly Israel's relationship with the United States and is prepared to punish leaders who place it at risk. Indeed, the election of Yitzhak Rabin led to a historic breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian relations.
Today, just as in previous crises, the Netanyahu government's obstinate stance threatens to undermine American peacemaking efforts between Israel and its neighbors. The Obama administration's sharp rebuke of Netanyahu, and its demands that all settlement construction in East Jerusalem be halted, have been denounced by hawkish elements in the American Jewish community. Rather than bowing to their pressure, however, President Obama would do well to embrace the calls of the increasingly vocal majority of American Jews, who are urging the President to step up his involvement in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, including by applying pressure, when necessary, on Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab leaders.
After a largely disappointing first year for the administration's peace efforts in the Middle East, the latest U.S.-Israel crisis presents a unique opportunity to recalibrate American efforts for Arab-Israeli peace. Would an American decision to pressure Netanyahu lead to a change in Israeli policy? Israeli public opinion polls published in Friday's papers are encouraging: although a majority of Israelis do not support the American demand to stop building in Jerusalem until the end of the negotiations, an even greater majority view Obama favorably and think their prime minister has acted irresponsibly. Obama should therefore take a page from his predecessors, whose determined efforts to bring about Mideast peace - even at the cost of quarreling with a friend - may have exposed them to criticism but also led to significant breakthroughs in Mideast peace.
All Arabs in both states will be citizens of Jordan and will vote for Amman’s Parliament. All Jews will be citizens of Israel and will vote for the Knesset in Jerusalem.
Though, Arabs who will stay and live in Israel will be Jordanian citizens and Israeli residents, that mean, they will be regular Israeli civilians (not in the status of citizenship!), working in any private or public job they choose and so on.
King Abdallah represents, in the eyes of the Arab Palestinians themselves, the Hashemite Saudi Bedouin foreign occupier of the Eastern part of Palestine. The Fatah’s Arafat tried to throw down King Houssein from 1968 until 1974, with huge clashes in 1970 “Black September”, while 20,000 Fatah members had been killed. The Palestinians never forget Jordan, but from their political sense they don’t talk it out. The Palestinian in Jordan and Israel should elect their leader and let him walk them out of their chaos.
You have to understand something which you try hard to ignore – The Arabs in Palestine don’t accept the very existence of the Jewish Palestinian state! The Arabs see the Holy land as “Dahr el Islam” (Islamic space) which no other’s nations but Islamic, can have their state to be. Even Egypt while signing a peace treaty with Israel didn’t allow such clause to be put in the agreement! The usual slogan of those who don’t recognize the right of the Jews to have their own national state in Palestine is the use of the phrase: “The Zionist entity” (as Eichmaninajad, Hisballah and Hamas always claim).
The root cause of the conflict is the imperialistic and expansive nature of Islam.
There were NO settlements prior to 1967, yet there was no peace. The mere existence of the sovereign nation of Israel was reason enough for the arabs to declare an illegal war of aggression and intended genocide.
To this day the arab media, inclusive of even children's cartoon shows demonize Israel, not for "settlements" but for its existence. Muslim clerics across the region exhort their congregations to reject Israel and wage violence upon it, not because it is a non muslim state.
The conflict is not about land, it is a religious war, and until this is acknowledged by those dealing with the region there is little reason to think there can be peace.
members of congress do not support israel strictly because of AIPAC...conspiracy theories...AIPAC is a lobby group which presents its point of view aggressively and when you lay out the facts and take out the anti-israel propoganda, our congressfolk see the reality of situations.
while it is very important to resolve this conflict, and while i do believe this will really help all moderate camps in the region, it is very flawed to think that the israeli-palestinian conflict is going to all of a sudden 'peacify' the region . the radicals will find a new way to spread hate against the west.
and isn't the US, our purpose, to help out the minorities? it's very easy to say, the world hates israel so F them and let them be destroy. Poor israel, surrounded by 800x the amount of land arab countries, and yet all the focus is on them - always hate on them, b/c they have succeeded in defending themeslves. this issue is deeper than 1,600 houses and sad the far left turns against israel
Fanned.
jordan takes away palestinian citizenship EVERYDAY from palestinians to continue this mess and isolate Israel...it is RIDICULOUS!
That's the unfortunate reality.
I hope that all of Jerusalem gets settled before Israel is forced to give in to all the insane demands imposed on them by the US.
Have you seen the list that Hillary sent Netanyahu of what the US demands? At first I laughed than I wondered precisely, what is the current administration interested in, doesn't look like peace to me.