Posted By Daniel Levy
Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - 8:14 PM
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A new round of speculation regarding the U.S. administration's Middle East peace efforts has been set off by this David Ignatius op-ed in Thursday's Washington Post and this report by Helene Cooper in the New York Times, both revealing a meeting hosted by current National Security Advisor Gen. James L. Jones with his predecessors and a presidential drop-in that became the occasion for a pow-wow on a prospective U.S. peace plan.
Elliott Abrams -- previously a senior advisor at the National Security Council and now resident dog-whistle for the neoconservative attack machine at the Weekly Standard, was first out of the traps describing talk of a plan being borne of "frustration" and ultimately "dangerous." Others have suggested that this might be a trial balloon or a head fake whose real purpose is to extract Israeli gestures on East Jerusalem settlement expansion by hinting at something more dramatic being in the works. In general, the tone of commentary on the Israel-U.S. spat of recent weeks has tended to depict U.S. moves as whimsical and anger-driven. So what are we to make of this news?
These leaks imply something different is at play -- a premeditated strategy leading to an American peace plan, an idea that it seems has been kicked around for some months, notably by General Jones. Recent developments may have accelerated the potential timetable and won new converts to the strategy, possibly tipping the balance in favor of this approach among administration principals.
To understand the genesis of this story, one needs to cast one's mind back to before Barack Obama was in office, to the final year of President George W. Bush. In November 2007, the Bush administration re-launched peace efforts at Annapolis. The main impetus was a belated recognition of the centrality of advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace for the broader missions and challenges the United States was pursuing in the region. British Prime Minister Tony Blair had raised the need to advance Palestinian statehood as he got on board in selling and then mounting the Iraq war effort in 2003, the U.S. secretary of state at the time, Gen. Colin Powell, was similarly inclined. Nothing was doing then.
It is a theme that was taken up by Gen. David Petraeus in his much-commented-upon testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee last month in which he argued that the unresolved conflict impaired America's ability to achieve its goals throughout the region. Despite the headlines his testimony generated, Petraeus was doing nothing more than paraphrasing his own testimony of a year earlier, and repeating what all other Centcom commanders since 9/11 -- Gen. Tommy Franks, Gen. John Abizaid, and Adm. William "Fox" Fallon -- had recognized.
The Bush administration had not been convinced, even when the Iraq Study Group report of December 2006, led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, took this call to a new level by drawing an explicit linkage between enlisting Iraq's neighbors for a successful outcome there and re-engaging in Israeli-Arab peace efforts. Finally the president and his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice got on board with great fanfare in hosting the Annapolis gathering. The new converts ambitiously defined their goal as a peace deal within 12 months and Bush subsequently made his first presidential visit to Israel, this in his eighth year in office (making it somewhat amusing to read Elliot Abrams, who served in that administration, attacking President Obama for not having visited Israel yet after all of 15 months on the job, and for Obama having the nerve to suggest a peace deal can be reached in a more leisurely 24 months).
This sunset period of the Bush administration established not only the intellectual but also the practical foundations of an emerging U.S. strategy. The content of the Annapolis negotiations will no doubt feature prominently if there is a future peace plan, and the then-departing National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley is reported to have left a note detailing progress made across a range of issues. But more significant perhaps was the participation of General Jones himself in that Annapolis effort -- brought on board by Secretary Rice to devise the security components of a two-state deal. Jones is now reported to be leading the peace charge, and his involvement then, his familiarly with the terrain, and exposure to Israeli-Palestinian realities will be a precious asset for the president if and when a peace plan strategy moves forward.
The evidence that a possible Obama peace plan was born of strategy rather than caprice rests on more than fin-de-siècle Bush administration precedent. Even during the campaign, in a departure from the standard operating procedure, then Senator Obama committed himself to an assertive peace effort, embedding that commitment in a reading of both U.S. and Israeli interests. In May 2008, in a campaign stopover in Amman while traveling from Iraq to Israel, Obama asserted that he would "be actively engaged with the peace process" and that his goal was "to make sure that we work, starting from the minute I'm sworn into office, to try to find some breakthroughs." Indeed on day two of his administration, former Sen. George Mitchell was appointed U.S. special envoy for the Middle East and later President Obama rededicated himself to "act now" and "personally pursue" a two-state solution in his ground-breaking Cairo speech.
Having established an Israeli-Palestinian two-state deal as a priority and strategic interest, the question was always going to be how the new administration would go about it. It came as something of a surprise when the kind of policy review undertaken on other issues was avoided on Mideast peace. The approach that appeared to be adopted went along something like the following lines:
Let's rebuild some confidence between the parties with steps on the ground, including gestures by Arab states. Off the back of that we'll re-launch negotiations without any terms of reference, have the U.S. and the new special envoy actively involved in those talks, and if, as is perhaps likely, they reach an impasse, then we'll introduce U.S. bridging proposals.
Aspects of this approach were inherited and deeply flawed -- having failed to gain traction for well over a decade. As former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel C. Kurtzer described in powerful testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month:
We have known for years that interim, incremental, or step-by-step approaches will no longer work. We know that confidence-building measures, in a vacuum, do not work and instead inspire lack of confidence ... combined with a determined leadership role by the United States, strong terms of reference can make the difference between negotiations that simply get started and negotiations that have a chance to end with success.
There is an irony to this story.
It is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has, inadvertently, confronted the administration with Kurtzer's truisms and helped create a learning curve of what one might call "policy review by painful experience." Netanyahu helped provide a moment of clarity, demonstrating that confidence cannot be built incrementally, that settlements will not be frozen, and that East Jerusalem cannot be ignored. If one is to ascribe strategic foresight to the Obama administration (and that may be merited), then what they have done is to walk the Israeli prime minister down a corridor in which, in part due to his own actions, the exit routes are being sealed and a moment of real choice is approaching.
As I argued here back in September, the Obama settlement-freeze strategy took Netanyahu out of his comfort zone (of interim measures and economic peace). In rejecting the freeze, Netanyahu found himself not only facing but embracing the thing he most abhors -- endgame peace negotiations. The latest round has taken this a step further, now making a discussion of Jerusalem inescapable. The more Netanyahu demands recognition of Israeli neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, the more obvious and unavoidable the flip side becomes -- namely, that Palestinian East Jerusalem and Palestinian neighborhoods will need to be recognized as part of the Palestinian capital and state. He continues to be walked down that corridor.
If, as reported, the administration is working toward a peace-plan script and not shooting from the hip, then the focus is turning to when to present a plan, what is in it, and how it might succeed.
The when (and by extension the if) will be as much about domestic political considerations as it is about developments in the region. On the latter, a word of caution is in order. Anyone feeling threatened by such a peace plan might seek to create a distraction, with violence being a predictable default option. So there is a need to monitor and prevent any escalation in violence and some urgency to pushing forward. It will be argued that the long-awaited proximity talks and even direct talks first need to be given a chance and only their failure can legitimize the United States presenting its own ideas. That would be a mistake; it creates a dependency on the very actors who may be comfortable with paralysis and ignores the opportunity to pivot that has already been created.
In a way, everything the Obama administration has done on the issue to date could be retroactively explained as preparation for this great moment of pivoting to a plan - "we sincerely tried to do everything to build confidence, especially on settlements, but it is clear that the only answer is to know where Israel ends and where Palestine begins, and therefore to delineate a border."
The political calendar would seem to dictate something either rather soon (before midterm elections become an all-absorbing focus) or post-November. And while the politics won't be a cakewalk, they may not be all that daunting, either. Polling amongst Americans in general (and also amongst American Jews) suggests broad support, the zeitgeist is visibly shifting, especially if the president wraps this up in U.S. national interests while articulating a strong pro-Israel narrative for such an initiative -- and of course if he is flanked by the uniformed military. Despite the neocon apoplexy that would be generated and predictable GOP attempts at political point-scoring, there will still be no shortage of responsible, adult Republicans who can step forward to give the plan bipartisan support. The key congressional Democrats, including from the Jewish caucus, would prefer that the issue just go away, but if the chips are down they are most likely to support their president, even if they come under pressure not to do so.
The Times' Cooper goes into some detail on what a plan might look like regarding borders, security, refugees, and Jerusalem, and in truth most of the details are already known. Ignatius drops a tantalizing hint that the plan may go further in his reference to Syria and the broader Arab world.
The spectrum of a plan's possible content essentially looks like this: At one end, a comprehensive regional peace plan including an Israel-Syria deal, and implementation of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative's offer of comprehensive normal relations with Israel; in the middle, a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement addressing all the core issues and with some regional add-ons; and at the minimalist end (yet not to be sneezed at), a deal that fixes two states, an Israeli-Palestinian border delineation, and security arrangements, but defers closure on all details of, for instance, refugees, Jerusalem's Old City, and an end of claims. Even a one-sentence frame of reference might move the ball forward dramatically. It could read like this:
Establish a border based on the 1967 lines with an agreed, minimal and equal one-to-one land swap taking into account new realities on the ground (settlements close to the Green Line), whereby the Palestinian state is on 100 percent of the '67 territory and is demilitarized with security arrangements overseen by a multinational deployment.
If it is to happen, then a key component of the sales pitch, particularly for Israel and the pro-Israel community, will be the effect of resolving the Palestinian issue on regional dynamics and notably in dramatically reducing Iran's capacity to mobilize hostility to Israel and to avoid further isolation and pressure on itself.
Moving forward with any of the above may ultimately depend on whether a compelling case can be made that any of this can succeed. As General Powell is quoted in the Times piece as saying, what do we do in "acts two, three and four" if someone says no?
It requires a longer answer, but the central premise of a "yes, we can" approach is that the Israeli and Palestinian systems are capable of making the right choice (even if it takes a little time) if they are consistently and insistently asked the right question -- and that has to be about the endgame. In fact, they are only likely to produce the right answer if asked the right question -- yes or no to a specific peace plan -- and one that comes with an attendant set of incentives and disincentives.
Daniel Levy directs the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation and is editor of the Middle East Channel.
AFP/Getty Images
Transtrist, under what is described here the Palestinians would be giving up something. They would be giving up areas of Jerusalem and others over the green line for exchanges land, they would be giving up the full trappings of state (note the 'demilitarized' reference), and presumably they would be giving up the so-called right of return. If these are the parameters, then if Netanyahu plays his cards right I don't see that he would have to oppose it. The Palestinians would. It is basically the same thing they were offered at Annapolis.
If it was truly and end of conflict agreement, it sounds very good for Israel. The other side of the coin is that history shows that concessions by Israel always bring fleeting goodwill, but that evaporates quickly when they act to defend themselves from Palestinian terrorism. And it is a very safe bet that Palestinians would not stop their terror attacks just because a few of them signed a piece of paper.
Finally, the agreement would have to be framed in such a way that Israel had complete control of its own security. There is no reason for Israel to trust Obama. Objective evidence shows he can't be taken at his word or be expected to live up to past agreements between the US and Israeli governments. And putting Israel's security in the hands of European or international guarantors would be folly.
Let's hope no one with real power will listen to you.
Well, you'll be happy to hear there's no danger of that in the near future :-).
Elliot Abrams -- previously a senior advisor at the National Security Council and now resident dog-whistle for the neoconservative attack machine at the Weekly Standard...
It does not reflect positively on this blog that one of the editors has a compulsion to make silly ad hominem attacks on those with whom he has policy disagreements.
It also shows that the fears I and others voiced at the blog's inception about the slant it would take were not altogether unfounded.
In fact, I think from here on out, your reactions to the plan (and the articulations of it by various people here at foreign policy) can act as a very accurate inversely related measure of how good the plan actually is.
OK, but from the details I've seen I like the plan.
And my point wasn't that I was offended (I wasn't) or that Levy's personal attack on Abrams was unfair. If an editor of this blog stoops to the level of trying to dismiss everything another pundit says via an ad hominem attack, rather than addressing his specific arguments, it's not unreasonable to think that same bias and poor judgement permeates all of his editorial decisions here.
Personally, I view Abrams as a self serving sleezy politician, but I agree with the continuous stigmatizising of anybody who disagrees with a leftist point of view.
New plan, just like the old plans, is still only half a plan
There have been no shortages of peace plans offered, declared, studied, tabled, re-invented, revised, renewed, whatever from a host of authors. In fact, the peace plan business is probably almost as contineous a gig as providing opinion and punditry about the Arab / Israeli conflict.
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The problem, however, lies in the execution of the plan, or more specifically, how to actually push the Arab world into normal and peaceful relations with the independent Jewish state of Israel.
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To date, we've seen Israel hand over land to Egypt, Lebanon, and the Palestinians. We have also seen it solidify and demark its border with Jordan. Two of these agreements have ended with so-called "peace treaties". And yet, up through today, Egypt considers Israel an enemy state, Jordanians considers Israel and enemy state, the Palestinian Authority continue to reject the idea of an independent Jewish state, and both Hizballah and HAMAS, proxy armies of Iran, hold to the central idea of the extermination of Israel.
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Going forward, Syria's dictator, Bashir Assad, is publically on record that even if Israel hands over all of the Golan, he's not going to create normalized peaceful relations with Isreal. Indeed, he has outright stated that he refuses to break his alliance with either Iran or Hizballah.
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Several months ago, Foreign Affairs published an article, how to handle HAMAS, noting that after four years after the groups ascendency in Gaza, its leadership has yet to offer any sort of moderation of its extremist and violent docterine and clings to its rejectionist ideals.
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Several months before that, Saudi Arabian leaders published an op-ed in the NY Times reiterating how they couldn't possibly even contemplate the barest of recognitions of Israel, until every last Arab demand is conceded.
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Meanwhile, The last several hundred Yemenite Jews were forced to flee for their lives, from threats of and actual violence; completing the ethnic cleansing of that nation's religious minority.
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Given both the prior track record and current actions of its neighbors someone needs to come up with something more than "Israel just needs to make more 'grand gestures', concessions, give up more disputed territory, and all will be well as the be all and end all of negotiations.
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The unfortunate reality is that the words and deeds of the Arab world have shown the bankruptcy of the idea of land for peace behind UN 242 and 338.
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Really, why bother with actual peace when you can get all that you want by actual threat or having others threaten for you.
I will know Obama is serious when he threatens to not write any more checks to Israel with my tax dollars.
Zionists: Americans want their $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ back in the US of A.
You've screwed us for too long.
Who says that they are just your tax dollars Mixx
Sorry, but I'm an American citizen and taxpayer too. And if we're going to get funds back, there are plenty of other foreign nations that are getting off cheap on my work.
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That's fine Taxi, but just as long as we're willing to debate
about all aid.
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Personally, I'm not sure why my tax dollars need to subsidize the sugar and corn industry.
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So too, I'm not sure why US tax dollars are subsidizing the Japanese and Korean economies.
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So too with Europe.
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Might as well toss in the Egyptian dictatorship as well.
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And a whole host of other expenditures.
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This is the new and improved Obama paradigm via its ever-ready 24/7 watchdog, the MSM: all Obama's random ADD ramblings from this to that to the other subject with little to no hands-on effort are now being reframed as part of a brilliant holistic solution to every problem the world currently experiences, but, unfortunately only the enlightened liberals can see the clear patterns behind his apparent madness. What crap!
There will be no peace in the middle east until there is an Islamic reformation. If Israel were to approve any of the many plans that require it to give up something for nothing that get thrown its way on a daily basis, and were they to do it tomorrow, adjacent Arab countries would push for yet another set of appeasements until there was so little left of Israel their enemies could push the remaining Israelis easily into the sea. Solving the Israeli/Palestinian kerfuffle before mideastern Muslims reform their still-stuck-in-the-7th century religion would only result in catastrophe. In the process, there would be a bloodbath of unprecendented brutality and genocidal totality. Pundits, such as the clueless Levy (who's too busy insulting conservatives and their few media outlets to really care about this issue), have it exactly backwards. Reformation first, then two state solution.
"Elliot Abrams -- previously a senior advisor at the National Security Council and now resident dog-whistle for the neoconservative attack machine"
You are one class act Mr. Levy.
I recommend every other article Daniel Levy has written in the past 5 years for the same exact content framed around events at the time.
Seems from Daniel's article that Obama has all the answers, what happens if the approach is wrong?
Here is Obama's theme:
Israelis are so stupid about their country, situation, and region on life-and-death issues which they deal with daily that they must be saved in spite of themselves by people who have no knowledge or experience on any of these things. No other country in the world is so frequently told this kind of thing.
Is it so hard to comprehend that Israeli views and behavior are based on years of experience and study? That Israelis know best how to save themselves and have been doing a far better job of it, against tremendous odds and unhelpful kibbitzers,than many others? That heeding their prescriptions would be disastrous, in fact have already proven so?
After all, the tragic history of the last 20 years has largely resulted from listening to the same advice people that are in charge of the State Department.
THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH IS, of course, that nothing more can be done on the part of Israel. Unintentionally, Olmert took the veil of moderation off the face of the PLO. When the claim is raised that the PLO would actually suffice itself with a symbolic gesture concerning the thorny refugee issue, its refusal to accept Olmert's proposals proves that the PLO truly intends to apply the "right of return" of refugees to their original homes in Haifa and in Jaffa, in Lod and Beersheba. PLO leader Ahmed Qureia (Abu Ala) explained lately to Haaretz that "it's not fair to demand that we recognize you [Israel] as the state of the Jewish people because that means... a predetermination of the refugees' future, before the negotiations are over. Our refusal is adamant." To prevent misunderstanding, Mahmoud Abbas, in his Washington Post interview, rejected the possibility that the PLO recognizes Israel as a Jewish state because it would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement of refugees.
The real dispute does not concern the natural growth of Ariel but the natural right of the Jewish people to sovereignty in Carmiel (in the Galilee).
THIS IS not a futile theological debate but a practical and vital issue. Its severe significance was proven 2 years ago, when in the course of talks PLO negotiators were explicitly asked whether, after an agreement is reached to their satisfaction, they would agree to include in it a specific article stating that this puts an end to the dispute and terminates all further claims. The Israeli government did not bring to the public's attention the fact that to this simple question, the PLO leadership ominously answered in the negative. The necessary conclusion therefore is that the moderate organization for the liberation of Palestine from Jewish sovereignty is not interested in the "two- state solution" but rather in a "two-stage solution." In the first stage, an Arab state is to be established alongside Israel and in the second stage, following the resettlement of refugees within Israel, one Arab state is to be established, stretching from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean Sea. In an attempt to test this conclusion to the utmost and to refute it, Israeli governments have resorted to all possible political experiments.
All excuses have by now been used up. In other words, as a mechanism for establishing permanent peace west of the Jordan River, the "two-state solution" cannot be realized. There will be no end to this dismal hundred-years dispute so long as the position of the Palestinian leadership does not fundamentally change.
I am even not addressing Hamas which view is even more radical than the Fatah or the PLO. Fayyad confirmed that what PLO and Hamas wants is not Palestine adjacent to Israel but Palestine instead Israel.
As you probably know, there is a complete consensus in Israel about the right of return... Israelis will not commit national harakiri. Why would they?
Proof that not all Jews are smart " Mr Levy " is a good example
There are so many falase assumptions in this article that it is hard to look at it without thinking we have another Obama worshiper that doesn't know what he is talking about.
It is like being a little kid and wanting something now without caring about anything else or how to get there.
America CANNOT force peace on people and that is a fact, it has never happened in the history of the world people need to make peace between each other.
You must be naive to think that Iraq's neighboors will all of a sudden decide to make a democratic peacefull Iraq if there will be peace in Israel. The Iraqis are killing each other beacuse of Shia and Sunna and it has been going on for centuries. Iran wants power and it could care less about the palestinians and the Syrians care only to keep the allawis in power we saw what assad sr did in the city Hama, and we see how they treat palestinians in their country.
"we sincerely tried to do everything to build confidence, especially on settlements, but it is clear that the only answer is to know where Israel ends and where Palestine begins, and therefore to delineate a border."
Let me remind the writer that boarders are not the main issue. Israel withdrew from lebanon, it withdrew from Gaza and all it did was embold the terrorists more.
The only reason we don't have negotiations is Obama and now he is going to make peace it makes no sense ,he can't even get the parties to talk after 17 years of direct talks because of his foolish demands the palestinians cannot demand less ask abu mazen. The Obama administration is not helping by talking to hamas representatipes in Jordan, how would America feel if Israel decided to talk with Al Qaeda.
This article is just a bunch of nice words on papaer just like the agreement the palestinians will be able to sign and not really deliver. Israel can really deliver , can we say the same about Hamas, we are ignoring that there are 2 palestinian entities, one in Gaza and one in the west bank and everyone seems to either forget or ignore the fact that in this tribal society these feuds are rarely ever solved, the palestinians can't even make peace with each other how are they supposed to do so with Israel.
I think maybe instead of Israel being the problem to solve Iraq and Iran and Syria. Maybe it is the other way around maybe if the Iranian regime will not be in power we will have a better chance for peace, who will sponsor hizbullah and Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and call on proxies to attck when there is any progress in the peace process. Iran knows that once there is peace they cannot export the revolution anymore, they can but it will be harder to sell, now Sadam is gone and no one sends money to Suicide bombers, if the syrian regime will change maybe no one will supply weapond to hizbullah and take over Lebanon, and host all the terror organizations in the world, and kill americans in Iraq same with Iran. How can Israel be the problem here.
Conclusion inherantly flawed cuz premise is totaly false
It is the dream of every Israeli PM to see themselves go down in the history books as the PM who brought peace.
Mr. Levy falsely asserts it is Netanyahu who will be 'forced to make the walk down the corridor.' Mr. Levy seems to be completely oblivious to the fact that it is the PA, Abbas et al who will not only refuse to be walked down the corridor they won't even enter the metaphorical building.
The peace plan Mr. Levy alludes to, aka the Clinton plan, was not rejected by Israel. It has been and continues to be rejected by the Palestinians.
It is the PA that doesn't want a formal peace agreement because the greatest fear of all the Palestinian leadership is to go down in history as the one who signed off on a peace agreement that renounced all further land claims on Israel or what they call 'Historical Palestine' or waive their so called 'right of return'.
Abbas, Fayad et al, never mind how incredibly weak they are, will never put their names on such an agreement so it won't matter how far the US 'walks Mr. Netanyahu down the corridor' because he will be alone when he reaches the end. There will be no one at the end of 'said corridor' for Mr. Netanyahu to sign a Peace Agreement with.
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