The Obama administration's intense efforts to restart serious negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians have stalled once again, so far for the last month. U.S. attempts to achieve direct talks have stymied because of characteristic posturing: Once the Israelis agreed to a ten-month moratorium on construction in the West Bank, the Palestinians waited nine months to agree to direct talks, and then insisted they would not remain unless Israel extended the freeze, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused to do.
The Obama administration reacted by offering the Israelis a stunning package of American commitments, reportedly including that the US would not ask for another extension of the moratorium, that it would veto any UN Security Council initiative on Arab-Israeli peace during negotiations over the next year, that it would not object to leaving Israeli forces in the Jordan Valley for a prolonged period, and that it would provide additional security guarantees, including more fighter planes, missile defense and satellite access.
But so far the Israelis have refused to budge despite the surprising largesse from Washington so early in the talks. To all this, the Palestinian Authority has remained steadfast -- no return to negotiations until Israel resumes the moratorium. The Arab League gave Israel and the US a one-month deadline to gain a two-to-three month moratorium on construction in the settlements. Since then many Arab parties have proceeded to discuss openly going to the UN over the heads of Israel and the US to gain recognition of a Palestinian state.
The ideal next scenario would be something like the following:
After the month granted to him by the Arab League, which ends on Nov. 8, Netanyahu would agree to extend the moratorium by 60 days. He would do so after acknowledging that with the US guarantees pocketed, and the additional month utilized to assuage his right wing by opposing a renewed moratorium on the one hand, and promoting messages and legislative initiatives -- like the loyalty oath and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state -- on the other, he is in a considerably strengthened political position moving forward. Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, having spent the month flirting with the UN and with the genuine possibility of completely withdrawing from the direct talks, also returns to negotiations by pocketing American commitments to base the talks on the original 1967 lines.
In this scenario, the US, its efforts having appeared futile, would in fact gain resumed talks in the period just after the midterm elections, when presumably it is less fettered by domestic interference.
All of this could conceivably be a logical outcome of a complex peace process that would regain its footing and have a reasonable chance of moving forward.
But what if one or more of the parties errs or oversteps, especially if Netanyahu decides not to accept the moratorium in exchange for the American package? New construction in East Jerusalem and few reports of optimism that Netanyahu will accept the deal begs the question -- if there is no U.S.-Israel deal on a moratorium extension, what now?
The answer is that the Middle East will undoubtedly become, and quickly, a more dangerous place than it is today. With Hamas gaining anti-aircraft missiles and Hezbollah now equipped with weaponry capable of targeting almost all Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv, the emergence of wars potentially far worse than the Israel-Hezbollah War of 2006 and Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2008-09 are becoming more likely.
Direct talks without results are no panacea. There is no guarantee of success and they do not automatically prevent war. But talks in progress do provide an excuse not to engage in conflict, and a safety valve to limit hostilities despite the ever-present would-be spoilers including Iran, whose President Ahmadinejad recently threatened Israel from the Lebanese border. Talks in progress also enhance the influence of the U.S., and make it easier for Washington to limit the constancy of instability.
Without talks -- and in an atmosphere of clear and even ignominious failure -- all three parties would be weaker. The United States, with Afghanistan and Iraq already in deep crisis, would be seen as a paper tiger in the region. Despite a host of special incentives offered Israel, it would not have been able to coax the Netanyahu government to accept just a sixty day moratorium on settlements -- a stellar display of weakness. The Palestinians and the Arab states may move on to the UN, to Europe -- and even some to Iran, There would undoubtedly be more violence further undermining American influence in region. All would be unlikely to bring Palestinians any closer to national independence without the support of a strong U.S. and negotiated agreement with Israel. The American image would certainly plummet as a result, and the Obama administration would be reviled for starting a process with great promise and expectations, yet an ill-equipped strategy and shortsighted vision for how to succeed.
For Israel, it would be even worse. Confronted with growing multiple threats from the Iranian camp, including anti-aircraft missiles, missiles capable of attacking cities, and the ever-present danger of an Iranian nuclear weapon, the Israeli government would have chosen to forswear increased American diplomatic support, and critical military aid in confronting these threats, in order to avoid a meager two-month additional freeze on settlements. Even many of Israel's most stalwart friends in the United States would have difficulty fathoming the decision making behind such a refusal. The country's adversaries would be emboldened by Israel's self-isolation and seeming irrationality. Its apparent preoccupation with domestic politics, itself a sign of weakness, is a clear demonstration of a lack of commitment and national priority for this process.
Moreover, if Israelis do not renew the freeze, even temporarily, then the United States will be freed of its proposed commitments, such as withholding a veto at the United Nations Security Council over the next year on resolutions involving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process or promising not to request any further moratoria on settlements. Should, in the end, the Israelis reject the American offers, it would free Washington to pursue any strategy it prefers. Indeed, it would liberate the Obama administration more broadly than would have otherwise been the case, with the Israelis, in a sense, having unleashed Washington themselves.
The Palestinian Authority would also suffer from a breakdown of the talks. Already with a tenuous political mandate, without a viable peace process the leadership of Abbas and Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad will be further questioned. With Palestinian refusal to enter talks, the Palestinians are likely to face tensions with the United States, their chief benefactor in pursuing Fayyad's state-building effort. Going to the U.N. and others to sidestep the United States will unlikely prove to be fruitful, and may only make matters worse. In short, without negotiations, the Palestinian leadership will be without a viable strategy, and faced with unprecedented internal pressures.
While Israel would likely take the brunt of the blame from the international community for a breakdown in talks should it refuse the American guarantees, the Palestinians will also be faulted. It is they who wasted nine of the ten months of the Israeli freeze in diplomatic stalling, only to now insist on an extension of the moratorium. By doing so, the Palestinians have jeopardized prospects for negotiations aimed at creating their state in order to propound a principle of a settlement freeze that would be irrelevant should talks succeed.
Clearly it is in the interest of all three parties to resume direct talks with an Israeli extended moratorium on settlement construction in the West Bank. Although the Middle East is famous for everyone putting ideology before rationality, let us assume that in this case the Israelis and Palestinians do indeed reach agreement on returning to direct talks under American auspices before -- or even after -- the Arab League deadline. What then?
If the 60-day deal is to jumpstart a meaningful process, it must serve to change the nature of the agenda and the American strategy for leading the negotiations. Over the past several months many in Washington have promoted the idea of an "Obama Plan," in which the president would reveal his preferences on all the core issues from Jerusalem, to refugees, to final borders, to Israeli security. Then, either the parties would have to "take it or leave it" or the negotiations would revolve around the Obama points themselves. The president has publicly rejected this option for now, and with only a 60-day deadline, it makes no sense. Under the gun of so short a target, an Obama Plan would wreck the talks before they began as both sides would likely object to one point or another and refuse to proceed, wasting precious time the parties would no longer have.
Instead of a Plan, administration figures, especially Mideast envoy George Mitchell, have hinted that when direct talks resumed the focus would be on getting a framework agreement in which there would be concurrence on all the core issues (Jerusalem, refugees, borders, security) before practical steps were taken. In other words, the parties would agree on the end point, but then they would start implementation afterward. This strategy was always problematic, given that this approach would invite spoilers on both sides who rejected the basic principles on which there was agreement to torpedo the accord before there was ever any concrete achievement.
But if there's a two-month deadline, then there's no time for frameworks or designs. There has to be a product, a deliverable upon which to build. A concentration on borders is the logical place to start. The maneuvering by all three parties since the Obama administration began has made settlements the central issue. To move forward, this issue must be finessed or resolved indirectly. There is precedent for this approach: the second phase of the roadmap, which called for a Palestinian state on provisional borders. But the Palestinians have always rejected that idea because they feared that if they had recognition of a Palestinian state within part of the territories Israel occupied in 1967, they'd never get anything else.
Obama and his team would have to overcome this Palestinian fear -- and Israeli reluctance under the current coalition government to withdraw from any territory -- by addressing the basics of the border question through concentrating on settlements. The goal would not be a complete accord on all details of a final deal on borders, but instead would have to be an agreement on the blocs that Israel will keep in a final settlement, where 80 percent of the settlers live and which are largely dispersed along the 1967 border. That will mean that Israelis can, beginning on the 61st day, build in those areas, but the moratorium elsewhere will have to continue, with an agreed commitment that the other settlers will have to leave according to a timetable to be determined. This would also be an opportunity to address reparations and incentives for those settlers who would be departing.
Skeptics will claim that a basic agreement in principle on which settlements are going to stay in Israel and which are going to be evacuated, is not possible in 60 days. Indeed, in theory it would be nice to tuck the settlements into a larger context of other issues as well. But the Obama administration's early insistence on a freeze, the Netanyahu coalition's initial refusal to extend the freeze longer than two months, and the Abbas position that he will only return to the talks with a renewed moratorium leaves the U.S. no choice.
So why should and might the parties accept this idea?
For the U.S., the Obama administration cannot emerge from the 60-day talks without an agreement -- any agreement -- that will allow the talks to continue, and settlements are now the major impediment to that.
For the Palestinians, delineating the future of the settlements (those that will stay and those that will not) and agreeing on a 1-1 swap would mean agreeing on the basis of the Palestinian state. Much would be left, of course, including Jerusalem and refugees, the final delineation of borders, and Israel's security needs, but a major breakthrough would have been achieved. The alternative would be a complete breakdown and the loss of a chance at a Palestinian state in the near term, the strengthening of Hamas, and a probable Israeli construction spree after 60 days.
The Israelis are the most problematic here. Israel's gains in a 60-day deal are potentially enormous. They achieve U.S. and Palestinian acknowledgment that in any deal 80 percent of the settlers would remain where they are. They obtain American agreement for construction to continue unfettered and permanently in these areas. They would gain American agreement, already conferred but now official, that Israel would retain a presence on the Jordan Valley for security protection for an extended period.
But the Israeli right would finally have to give up its fantasy that it can retain the entire West Bank permanently. The 20 percent of settlers outside the settlement blocs would not be able to expand their settlements and would know they would have to leave, sooner rather than later. This will cause turmoil inside Israel, and would force the country to confront its most delicate political problem. The coalition may well collapse. Political careers would be at stake. This is a great deal to ask of any country, let alone Israel under the leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has developed a reputation for being risk-averse.
But a number of errors and inadequate strategies by all of the parties have brought themselves to the point where a two-month settlement freeze will create almost inevitably pressures for the agreement on those settlements Israel will keep and those that it will not retain.
This is not an ideal solution for either side. It puts pressure on the Israeli ruling coalition almost to the breaking point. It also brings the Palestinians to a plateau that they have feared for years. But the insistence on a freeze by the Palestinians and the odd maneuvering by the Israelis has resulted in the very scenario that both feared most: a partial and interim territorial agreement for the Palestinians and a concentration on the settlements for the Israelis. Yet, if the parties are to have any chance of success, such an agreement is likely to become the only choice for progress. In the end, this would be a major achievement, but it would not be what any one of the three parties to the talks sought out to achieve in the near term.
The U.S. cannot turn back now. If it did, its diplomatic role as chief mediator would be emasculated. And that recognition actually should give the Obama administration a peculiar strength. The administration has placed itself with a cliff at its back; it cannot step backward. The fact that if it were to stumble backward over that cliff both the Israelis and Palestinians would suffer grievously gives this sixty day deadline a chance. And it would be wrong to ignore that what is being accomplished here: The principle of a swap of territory equal in size is critical, and so is agreement on the withdrawal of the final 20 percent of the settlers who do not live in the settlement blocs.
The conflict cannot be solved in 60 days. With a great deal of luck and skill, the best the Obama administration can do is to get the settlement burden off everyone's back, and move on to addressing the rest of the key issues the two sides confront. Considering that the settlements are the ideological heart of Israel's right wing, that is no minor accomplishment. If in 60 days it is agreed which basic areas Israel will retain in the West Bank and which settlers will have to leave and the principle of a 1-1 swap is reached, there will be enough agreement to allow the talks to continue, with new momentum. That will be reason to celebrate, especially given the harsh alternatives to agreement and after the prolonged process that would have brought us to that point.
After the Holocaust, Israel was given grudging sanction to re-establish itself, because “the world wanted it that way.” The newly-reborn state was then left to itself to defend itself, in the hope that it, and its remnant of world Jewry, would disappear, this time at the hands of the Arabs. It didn’t. Over the last 60 years, at least the Arabs have been honest in declaring their ultimate goal: “Itbah al Yahud”. In the face of that “stiff-necked people”, Ski, and the world. have finally come to the point of saying, openly, “Enough with the Jews. We want it that way”.
One problem. The Jews are not ready to do what the world “wants”. And they are armed, and stubborn - determined to survive, regardless of the cost.
Two questions. What happens now? and Why?
In a letter to friends, 12 February 1914 (Quoted from Morris, Righteous Victims) “We have forgotten that we have not come to an empty land to inherit it, but to conquer a country from a people inhabiting it, that governs it by virtue of its language and savage culture.... [I]f we cease to look upon our land, the land of Israel, as ours alone and we allow a partner into our estate--all content and meaning will be lost to our enterprise.” This shows a plain and striaght forward intent to "conquer a country" from 1914 Moshe Sharett, future Israeli Prime Minister.
While so Arabs were expelled from the land during the war, many hundreds of thousands left of their own volition, out of fear, or greed. There are taped personal testimonials to that effect. But again, the same happened between Pakistan and India, Turkey and Greece, Russia and Japan, Germany and surrounding states, China and Tibet. To suggest that only what happened where Jews are involved is somehow "illegitimate" arises purely out of anti-Judaism.
Yes. The Jews began returning home in the 1800's to escape the increasing anti-Judaism in the world. Yes, the Allies needed Jewish help in WW 1 and bought it with solemn promises...promises that now are being challenged as to validity, meaning, legitimacy. Promises that were almost immediately broken. And Yes, the final impetus to the re-establishment of the Jewish state was given impetus by the unspeakable horror of the Shoa, which the world allowed to be unleashed against the Jews. Yet again, the promises were almost immediately broken. Once again, the validity, meaning, and legitimacy of the promises is being challenged, first by the extremes on the Right and on the Left, and now, daily, by a more "mainstream" world.
Skialethia, Phute, Soma, L.B. Saltzman, and so many others want the Jewish state gone; want the Jewish people gone, as have so many others, over the millenia. Even some Jews cannot accept what being a post-Holocaust Jew means.
Statements in Ben Gurion's own words.
"Ben-Gurion, twentieth(1937) Zionist Congress:
"The Jewish state now being offered to us is not the Zionist objective. [...] But it can serve as a decisive stage along the path to greater Zionist implementation. It will consolidate in Palestine, within the shortest possible time, the real Jewish force, which will lead us to our historic goal.[26]"
"In a letter to his son Amos he wrote in 1937 that a Jewish state in part of Palestine was "not the end, but only the beginning." It would give a "powerful boost to our historic efforts to redeem the country in its entirety"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_and_Palestinian_Arab_attitudes_before_1948
Copy and google if the link fails.
No one agreed to the Palestinian Arab expulsion, displacement and denial of right to return outside of the Zionists themselves and yet in the quotes above the first prime Minister of Israel states his intentions clearly.
One-sided, myopic diatribes are the hallmark of willful anti-Jewish sentiment.
At last, it has been said. By skialethea, no less, one of the more prolific, and dare i say, more intelligent posters here. In response to the question of what law or history entitles the Palestinians to a claim on Jerusalem, she responded, "Because the world wants it that way".
I am afraid that is the truth. As far as the world is concerned, it has always "wanted it that way", and throughout history, its efforts to achieve its "way" are well-documented. Its last, and best effort, was through the Nazis. If Hitler had concentrated on the extermination of Jews before he threatened the rest of the "civilized world", he might have accomplished his goal. Th Allies did not bomb the railways leading to the death camps because there was the lingering hope in the West, and East, that Hitler might yet achieve something, if given enough time, before his empire was conquered.
Also, if Zionists in Palestine knew what was going on in europe why didn't they lobby Britain and the US to do something about it? They were busy lobbying these governments for favors of their own long before WWII why didn't they lobby these governments on behalf of european Jews?
You again > "In response to the question of what law or history entitles the Palestinians to a claim on Jerusalem, she responded, "Because the world wants it that way".
A better question would be what right or law entitles Israel to take further Palestinian lands? Because that IS what's happening not visa versa.
You obviously prefer to ignore Canada, where "One is too many"; the U.S. and the St. Louis; Britain and its heinous 1939 White paper outlawing Jewish immigration.
There was no, and is no, "Palestinian land". The Jewish people have "taken" none, since it belongs to them as much as to anyone, by law, by history, and by morality. The Jewish people, however, are prepared to share. The world regrets having allowed them even a meagre "share", and now it, you, and Skialethia etc.,"want" them gone.
Cohen told Haaretz, that in a late-1969 meeting between Golda Meir and Nixon, "the United States and most of the Western world agreed to accept Israel's special nuclear status. In other words, Israel did not join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but it received special status, and pressure was not exerted on it with regard to this topic.
"Ambiguity is the Israeli-American policy. Without the West's agreement, there would be no ambiguity.
"I'm often asked why I don't drop this topic of ambiguity. I refer to historic and geopolitical circumstances, but I mainly believe that on the most basic and deepest level, ambiguity is simply not enlightened behavior, not in terms of the state's citizens, and not in foreign relations..."
All Things Nuclear Must Pass: US, Israel and Iran @
http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1881&Itemid=239
In 2006, Virginia Tilley, Professor of political science wrote:
"In his October 2005 speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad never used the word 'map' or the term 'wiped off.' According to Farsi-language experts like Juan Cole and even right-wing services like MEMRI, what he actually said was 'this regime that is occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time.'
"In this speech to an annual anti-Zionist conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad was being prophetic, not threatening. He was citing Imam Khomeini, who said this line in the 1980s-a period when Israel was actually selling arms to Iran, so apparently it was not viewed as so ghastly then.
"Mr. Ahmadinejad had just reminded his audience that the Shah's regime, the Soviet Union, and Saddam Hussein had all seemed enormously powerful and immovable, yet the first two had vanished almost beyond recall and the third now languished in prison.
"So, too, the "occupying regime" in Jerusalem would someday be gone. His message was, in essence: "This too shall pass...'"
http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1881&Itemid=239
In 1963, Shimon Peres, was Israel's Deputy Minister of Defense and he met with President John Kennedy, at the White House.
Kennedy told Peres,
"They would gain American agreement, already conferred but now official, that Israel would retain a presence on the Jordan Valley for security protection for an extended period." - The Palestinians will never let that happen nor should they, the US has no right to guarantee anything to the Israels in the state of Palestine.
"But the insistence on a freeze by the Palestinians and the odd maneuvering by the Israelis..." - That odd maneuvering is called pre-conditions, evasive strategy, deflection from settling for peace, and buying time for more illegal settlement expansion.
The border between Israel and Palestine are the 1967 lines - any illegal settlement over that line no matter how big will be in Palestine subject to Palestinian law up to and including home dispossession. Period. Let the illegal settler terrorist squats build, but they will be building in the near future state of Palestine.
The zionist dream is dying at the hands of the zionists all due to their own actions and they deserve any condemnation that comes their way for continuing the apartheid oppression of the Palestinian people, here, in the 21st century. Enough is enough.
Oh, and looks like Israel might let all those illegal settler squats stay and live in the state of Palestine.
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=22926
Enjoy!
"last week's address by Dennis Ross to AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, in Hollywood, Florida, takes on special significance. Ross is in charge of Iran and Israeli-Arab affairs at the National Security Council."
"But he (Ross) also took care to mention that Congress, with "strong encouragement from AIPAC," had enacted tough sanctions against Iran with bipartisan support.
"The entire American political spectrum views the challenge of Iran as a foremost national security priority of the United States," he declared. An American security priority, not an Israeli one; the conflict with Iran is "ours."
Obama hopes to resolve this conflict peacefully, but he is under no illusions, and is prepared to use force to realize his declared goal of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons."
Let's get back to fantasy now.....
I had previously accepted that Palestinian Arabs are "a people" & hence have a right to self-determination. I always thought, of course, that their claim to be a separate nation was not obvious: culturally, linguistically, appearance-wise, etc., Palestinians are more similar to other Levantine Arabs than say Neapolitans are to Milanese Italians. However, the determining factor for recognizing "a people" is (in my book) distinct national aspirations. Palestinians seemed to have such aspirations (they claimed they wanted an independent state of their own). So, even though such aspirations are relatively recent, I was willing to recognize their "peopleness".
However, the genuineness of those aspirations seems now very questionable. The purpose of the recent negotiations (as stated repeatedly by the US and accepted by Israel) was to establish an independent Palestinian state – i.e. the fulfillment of those Palestinian "national aspirations". Yet, the Palestinian leadership seemed in no hurry to even explore that opportunity. They preferred to squander it in return for "political advantages" from blaming the failure on Israel. Moreover, there was no perceptible movement within the Palestinian masses putting pressure on their leaders to pursue that opportunity (as one would expect from "a people" anxiously waiting to fulfill their national dream).
No genuine national aspirations – no "people". Hating Israel may be "a unifying factor". But it does not qualify as a "national aspiration".
That exactly characterizes one of M.E predicaments.
(1) Israel could not exist as it is today without having displaced the Arab population that lived in what is now Israel. (2) Irael did not allow the Palestinian right of return after the 1947 & 48 wars which is contrary to law as stated in the Forth Geneva Convention and although a signator, Israel now disputes that law. (3) As a result of the 1967 war, Israel subsequently occupied lands through force of arms which is also in defiance of the Geneva Conventions that Israel will not recognize here. (4) Israel has continued to this day in confiscating further Palestinian territory with what Israel terms as "settlements" which are also in defiance of the Forth Geneva Conventions. (5) While you claim it is the Palestinians who "squander" the oppertunity for peace, it is Israel who continues to take more land as more time goes by.
If someone came and took the land from Israel as Israel has been taking and thereby usurping the rights of the Palestinians as stated above, wouldn't Israelis feel the same way which you claim the Palestinian Arabs feel about Israel?
2) There is no "Palestinian right of return" enshrined in the G.C., or anywhere. Refugees in war are entitled to re-settlement or re-patriation within the context of a mutually agreed peace, and once they agree to live in peace with their neighbours. None of that has yet happened.
3) There are many legal arguments why the G.C. do not apply to the disputed territories that came under Israeli administration as a result of the Arab attack in 1967. These have never been satisfactorily adjudicated. Final disposition of the land awaits a mutually agreed peace, which, again, has not yet come about.
4) Nothing in the G.C. forbids Jews from living anywhere. Some individuals have chosen to live in Judea and Samaria. Their homes are built almost entirely on public land. The 2% of private land which was taken, should, and will be, compensated.
The rule of law, remember that minor detail? God bless it. Here's what I think of your plan: It's another "brilliant" idea to cheat Palestinians out of their RIGHTFUL claim. You seem to conveniently leave this "minor" detail out: they have a rightful claim to 67 borders and right of return.
Oh, here's another little something else that tears your plan to pieces: reality.
That human society is a dynamic system, and given to shifts, especially after long periods with a single power being on top, where the powers that be become the powers used to be, and those they kicked around suddenly rule the roost, is just too much for him to grasp.
The borders are merely the most important thing to resolve, not the only thing.
You spend an excessive amount of time talking about hashing out the border issues over a 60-day period, and then go on to state that the status of Israel and other issues can be decided later.
East Jerusalem IS a border issue, and I would argue one of the two most important, along with the issue of the Jordan Valley. Without a resolution of the territorial issues of East Jerusalem, there cannot be a final agreement on borders.
Why do you think the issues are separate?
It's tautological.
So why bother? Status quo is the best solution for the moment to all parties interested in real PEACE