Obama's Middle East Team
This unusually trenchant article by Israeli diplomatic reporter Amir Oren (in this morning's Haaretz) serves as a counterpart to M.J. Rosenberg's important post below. It explores the shape of the Obama administration's likely approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, at least insofar as we can project from the appointment of Gen. James Jones as national security advisor. There is nothing new to this approach; the shape of a deal has been clear for years, which Ehud Olmert all but admitted in recent interviews. The "parameters" which first set out the deal bear the name of the future Secretary of State.
The real question is how to press the deal on two peoples, each so divided that there are really (at least) four peoples--about which more in future posts from Jerusalem. By the way, an elaborated version of last week's post on the auto industry can be read in today's Washington Post's Outlook section.
On 4 October in the Jerusalem Post, Yossi Alpher, one of the originators of Oslo expressly stated that the people, like Dr Avishai, who say "everyone knows what the agreement will consist of, it is simply a matter of forcing the two sides to sign on it" are wrong. He said there is no agreement on anything. Olmert, who offered the Palestinians an agreement on these lines (I am not sure if he accepted the Palestinian "right of return", but he certainly offered the territorial component outlined in Dr Avishai' article) also stated there has been no agreement by the two sides. For example, there is the problem of the so-called "Holy Basin". No agreement on that, and it is an extremely sensitive issue.
In 1969, there was the "Jarring Plan" (named after a UN mediator), then in the early 1970's there was the "Rogers Plan", then in the 1980's there was the "Reagan Plan", then in the 1990's there was "Oslo" which lead to the "Clinton Paramters" in 2001 and then the "Geneva Agreement". They all said the same thing as "the agreement everyone knows will be reached in the end"..i.e. Israeli withdrawal to the pre-67 lines in return for an Arab agreement not to insist on actual return of the Palestinian refugees. Each plan ended up in the garbage can, and this new "Scowcroft-Brzezinsky-Obama Plan" or whatever you want to call it will end up in the same place. The Arabs will not accept these terms even if the Israeli do. The Arabs want a "peace process", but not "peace". They want a continued infusion of American money to the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Egypt and other "moderate" countries, the Saudis and the other Gulf States want the American defense umbrella against Iran. So they want to seem reasonable, but they do not want a final peace agreement, because the existence of any Jewish state within any borders is an unbearable humiliation to them, they also fear its economic and cultural influence which threatens their conservative, religiously based society with an economically agressive, globalized, secular, materialist, consumerist culture which they oppose and fear because of its attractiveness. This is addition to the fact that it is convenient for these non-democratic states to keep their population permanently mobilized against "the Zionist enemy".
Dr Avishai, like the rest of the people pushing "this agreement that everyone knows the terms of" is a reasonable man who wants peace and he projects his wishes on values on to societies that have other values and wishes. It is this delusion that keeps the "peace process" going, but prevents a real modus vivendi from being achieved, which will only come once the Arab side realizes that Israel is not going to do them a favor and commit suicide by adopting these unrealistic "peace plans" which merely stoke Arab/Muslim extremism.
November 23, 2008 4:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
YBD, you and I probably disagree completely about who and what is to blame for the lack of peace and the best way of resolving the conflict, but we are in absolute agreement that people who believe "the shape of deal is has been clear for years" are deluding themselves. Sadly, this mass delusion is actually now an obstacle to real peace because all it does is stimulate endless rounds of pointless negotiations like we've seen since 2000. If we want to get beyond the current stalemate, people like Avishai and Rosenberg (and Blair and Clinton and Rice, etc.) are going to have to get a whole lot more creative and start looking for alternative approaches that might have a better chance of succeeding. If they continue on their current course--of repeating the same old platitudes--they will increasingly become obstacles to real progress and deserve to be condemned for their intransigence just as surely as do the extremists in Hamas and the settler movement.
November 23, 2008 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
The most conspicuous lack in the process is not substantive diplomatic creativity and effort, but substantial leadership on the part of interested third parties. The promise of the BushXLI and Clinton processes was diminished not as much from any lack of diplomatic effort, but by the timing of US electoral politics. The promise of the Arab League's Beirut initiative was not diminished as much by any responses or lack thereof on the part of the Israelis and Palestinians as by the failure of Arab League member nations to back it up with substantial initiatives, like comprehensive and sustained diplomatic exchange with Israel and the Palestinian Authority and/or suspension of the economic boycott with Israel.
November 23, 2008 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bar Kafka said:
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The most conspicuous lack in the process is not substantive diplomatic creativity and effort, but substantial leadership on the part of interested third parties.
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This is one of the most popular myths of the "peace process". "If only some outsider would get really involved and impose a solution" or some such thing. NO ONE CAN IMPOSE A SOLUTION. Obama told the Jerusalem Post this in an interview when he visited Israel a few months ago. I felt that he was beginning to understand the situation if he was aware of this crucial point.
The Israeli Left also likes to talk about "creative solutions" such as telling the Palestinians that Israel recognizes the Right of Return but then telling the Israelis that it won't actually be implemented. Or giving sovereignity of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to "heaven" or saying international troops will control a divided Jerusalem, or other such nonsense. If the Arabs don't want peace with Israel then it is not possible to reach an agreement, no matter how many summit meetings the President of the United States organizes.
November 23, 2008 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
YBD,
Nonsense. Leadership is about making choices and effectively implementing decisions. After all, it's not like there has been any shortage of interested third parties imposing problems all along....
November 23, 2008 11:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was following you, Bar, but then lost your point with this large quote. Are you saying that freelance arms dealers are, essentially, "imposing" or keeping alive the state of hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians and her other Arab neighbors?
Not sure what your point is.
November 23, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am saying that in the absence of a genuine leadership on the part of interested third parties, there will be greater interest (albeit of a more cynical short-term variety) in sustaining conflict than in solving it.
November 23, 2008 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tintin, it's a complex world, but I don't know if the US Government could technically be considered free lance when it supplied arms, ammunitions and tankers to Fatah in an attempt to route Hamas after the 2006 Palestinian election. David Rose has the story here.
Conflicts Forum has additional details:
November 23, 2008 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Continued ... (had to navigate around the 2 link limit.)
Not only did Fatah fail to remove Hamas, it failed to keep the Gaza Strip. The Wall Street Journal has more on how Hamas experienced an inventory boost with US supplied arms left in Gaza.
As always, we are free to make up our own minds.
November 23, 2008 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, I wasn't trying to equate the U.S. arms shipments with "freelancing," but was referring to folks like Bout.
Basically, I was just trying to figure out what BK was saying. I wasn't asserting anything.
November 23, 2008 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hope my explanation helped. What's your take, Tintin?
November 24, 2008 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I understand you. You make sense. I haven't thought, though, about the role of the arms industry in all of us--but undoubtedly, it plays a large, supporting, or enabling role.
But the absence of leadership, especially from a US president, is key. YBD et al seems to think this means "imposing" a solution. That's a crude description of what happens in "tough diplomacy." Sure there's some imposition. There are also some carrots. Little by little, the donkey moves forward.
But the effort has to be sustained and not locked into just one way of looking at the problem. Intractable problems are solved every day. I never thought Northern Ireland would be solved. Couldn't move Belfast to England; couldn't move the Orange out, either. This was another conflict where immovable land lay at the heart of the conflict.
I do think the US can't be seen to be supporting and abetting an inhuman situation vis a vis the Palestinians, though. We have to be seen as REALLY trying to solve it.
November 24, 2008 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed. The resentments and perpetual sense of injustice that drives the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from all directions cannot be wished away with policies and formal treaties alone. But to the extent that ideological conflicts are a constant, they can and must be managed by limiting the potential for the level and nature of the violence that animates and inflames those ideological and emotional differences.
I firmly believe there are benefits to be shared by all parties in the absence of such enabling. The tourism potential of religious destinations like Bethlehem and Hebron themselves could be an economic boon to the region. Imagine the possibilities of the "Red Sea Riviera," from Taba in the Egyptian Sinai through Eilat in Israel to Jordan's Tala Bay development, if the Powers That Be could put a lid on the arms bazaar. I look forward to a leadership that can take real strides in making peaceful constructive enterprises more lucrative than armed struggle and insecurity.
November 24, 2008 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Potential for eco-tourism, especially....
http://www.arava.org/new/index.php?/arava/about_arava/news/aies_boosts_environmentalist_hopes
November 24, 2008 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bernie baby, my fellow "con man" as you like to put it, tell your frinds in Ramallah and Riyadh: take the Taba deal that Hilary and Ambassador Ross will present them comce March or else....
My friends and I control Congress and we will absolutely control the I-P functio at State and NSC. So if you don't like it, you can go....
November 23, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or else what? Do tell!
November 23, 2008 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or else the democratically elected Government of Israel will continue to do what the democratically elected Obama Administration would do if Detroit were being rocketed by a bunch of thugs hding behind apartment buildings in Windsor: keep killing as many thugs and blockading thir territory and erecting as many checkpoints as necessary to keep its citizens safe. And there ain't a fucking thing that Jones or anybody else in D.C. will do about it.
November 23, 2008 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
How will you and your "friends" control James Jones if he is appointed as NSA?
He could be dangerous.
November 23, 2008 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Geneva Proposals.
November 23, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
To argue that the shape of a deal is not at all clear is short hand for opposition to the two state solution. The shape of a two state solution is quite obvious -- a Westbank and Gaza Palestinian state and an Israeli Jewish state more or less along the green line.
There are those who want Israeli domination of the land and resources on the Westbank -- probably about 40% of the Israeli population, the leadership of American Jewsih organizations and their minions filling this thread. However, they cannot explicitly advocate for what they really desire. Hence the endless quibbling over details and other irrelavancies designed to obfuscate the main question of national Palestinian state.
November 23, 2008 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Syvanen, I'm not opposed to a two-state solution, but I'm increasingly convinced that a two-state solution is impossible. For years now, we've been told that the shape of the deal is clear. For years, we've seen round after round of negotiation to produce two states. But we never actually get a deal--and really we never make any progress. Quite the opposite: things get progressively worse, with more extremists on both sides, more bad feelings, and more hopelessness, bitterness, and despair. At this point, I'm afraid that the illusion that we understand the solution and that the solution is a two-state solution is doing nothing but perpetuating the status quo. Increasingly, I believe that those moderates who argue for the conventionally conceived two-state solution-- despite years of evidence that it can't be implemented--aren't advancing peace but are hindering it just as surely as are the extremists in Hamas and the settler movement.
November 23, 2008 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually I also believe that it is too late for the two state solution. I agree with what you are saying and you were not included in the group I defined as holding out for Israeli domination of Westbank resources and subjugation of the Palistinian people.
My position is more pragmatic. Working towards the two state solution is the only game in town. If so then it should be pursued in a serious way and in a way that will expose the obstructionists (Aipac, Winep, the Indyks and Rosss of the think tank world, etc). Then see what happens next.
November 23, 2008 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe you're right syvanen. But I do think the two-state solution was pursued seriously under Clinton (though not under Bush). Still, after Camp David and Taba, the gap between what the Israelis would offer and what the Palestinians would accept was wide. And many areas that will need to be resolved to achieve an agreement were simply left unaddressed because everyone knew there was no solution to these issues that would satisfy both groups. I don't really see how what has occured since Taba does anything to make an agreement more likely--in fact, it seems like the problems have only intensified, especially as the Palestinian population grows and the Israeli settlments expand. My feeling is that negotiations toward a two-state solution are now actually getting in the way of finding a real solution. In fact, I fear that some are now cynically using these negotiations as a way to avoid having to come to an agreement at all. The question then becomes whether, by supporting negotiations toward a two-state solution, we are really doing anything more than advancing a conspiracy to preserve the status quo?
November 24, 2008 7:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oren's article paraphrases Brzezinski:
And who will secure Palestinian defende needs in a demilitarized Palestiniation state? Certainly, not an Israel which has had no qualms killing Palestinians over the years. And, certainly not an international (American) force tasked with securing "Israel's defense needs."
Absent any military means to defend itself, a Palestinian State will need extraordinarily powerful legal tools to ensure any Israeli leader who countenances a military attack on the Palestinian state will be subject to a most unforgiving and uncompromising international legal system. The experience of four decades of Israeli mis-treatment of the Palestinian people demands no less.
November 23, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thankfully, jew hater, your opinion isn't worth a thimble of piss.
November 23, 2008 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I take your resorting to name-calling as proving your inability to provide any substantive critique of my assessment. I am not surprised by this because it is an immediate consequence of the fundamental soundness of my earlier post.
November 23, 2008 9:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't take their insults personally. These guys are getting desperate. Sentiment is moving against them and they are howling into the changing times.
November 23, 2008 9:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
To all squabblers and arguers, insulters and insultees, Jews and Gentiles alike. I direct your attention to an article by Ehud Olmert (I’m sure you all know who he is) entitled “The Time Has Come to Say These Things” appearing in The New York Review of Books, December 4, 2008. I don’t know if it is free to the public (I am a subscriber) but here is the link:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22112
It’s must reading. With his clear and unequivocal sentiments changing his historically hawkish stance, Olmert paves the way for new progress for peace in Israel. If Hillary Clinton is appointed Secy. Of State, in fact whoever is at State, I foresee a Palestinian state within a few years. Please spare me the wretched, tedious angry rhetoric – everyone knows about Hamas and Hezbollah – a Palestinian state is necessary to reduce the state of war and to give Israel a future.
November 23, 2008 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you read Dr Avishai's article that he has the link to in Harper's Magazine, he talks about "compensation" that Israel is expected to pay the Palestinians. This is the big, dark secret the "progressives" behind things like the Geneva Plan of Yossi Beilin , "the agreement that everyone knows the outlines of". "Progressives" like Beilin and Dr Avishai tell us that Israel should recognize the Palestinian "Right of Return" which would only allow a "symbolic" number of refugees to actually return. Israel can agree to this "since it is only words and it fulfills the Arab need for 'pride'". Nothing can be further from the truth. If Israel accepts it, it is like Israel acknowledging itself to be a defeated agressor nation, accepting something like the "War Guilt" clause that was forced on Germany in the Versailles Treaty after World War I. This opens Israel to endless demands for reparations and indemnity payments. Dr Avishai, in his article, mentions in passing a demand for $137 BILLION dollars due to the Palestinians. "Obviously ridiculous", "in the end they will give up this demand". NO THEY WON'T! Why do you think they are so adamant on Israel accepting the Right of Return. Dr Avishai, like most "progressives", treats the Arabs like retarded children, whose bad habits must be indulged and whose statements are ignored. When they say that they are going to demand these exorbitant sums from Israel, they mean it. In the end, I don't believe any Israel gov't can accept the "right of return", and there goes any possibility for an agreement.
November 24, 2008 12:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dr Avishai, like most "progressives", treats the Arabs like retarded children, whose bad habits must be indulged and whose statements are ignored.
I think there is some truth in this. In fact, I'm starting to doubt that those troublesome Palestinians I'm always hearing about even exist. I can't recall ever hearing from one on TPM Cafe. I never see one of them talking on television, but only see silent Palestinians wearing a martyr's headband, or a ski mask, or waving a rifle. And I doubt there will be any Palestinian-Americans of note in any influential position in the administration. Are there even any Palestinian-Americans? I briefly heard rumors about a Palestinian named "Khalidi" during the campaign, but they must have shipped him off to Guantanamo or something, because he disappeared.
What I do find here and elsewhere are lots of Jews discussing both the Jewish and Palestinian side of the issues. This is surely a testament to the amazing liberality and, dare I say it, clairvoyance and prophetic powers of Jews! They've got the issue, like, totally covered! So many different kinds and voices: Mean Jews; nice Jews. Hopeful Jews; pessimistic Jews. Lots of Jews telling me what Palestinians will accept, and lots of Jews telling me what Palestinians won't accept. Jews telling me which other Jews are good Jews; and Jews telling me which other Jews are bad Jews. Jews who hate Arab-loving Jews and Jew-hating Jews; and Jews who only hate Jews who call other Jews "Arab-loving Jews" and "Jew-hating Jews".
With so many reflexive cycles and epicycles of Jewish discussion of Jews and Arabs, why do we need any actual Arabs at all! I think Obama should just create a Middle East team of 100% Jews, like we have here at TPM Cafe, and send them to MJ's synagogue to argue and throw things at each other, cry a lot, and then come up with a peace plan. How could any Palestinians possibly resist such an overwhelming display of genetic superiority, exquisite self-absorption, and moral omniscience?
Those Palestinians are all in Virtual Gitmo anyway, so where would they voice their reservations?
November 24, 2008 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I do think you bring up a interesting point, however unintentionally. One of the things that's been true of this conflict from the beginning is that relatively little light has been thrown on the Arab thinking and motives throughout. Not just the Palestinians, but the other Arab states that have played a role.
Unlike the Israeli files and dossiers, which have finally been thrown open by the New Historians, and translated, we know relatively little about the behind-the-scenes actions and thinking of the Arabs. Almost nothing's been translated and opened up to the scrutiny of historians.
As far as I can tell from my reading, the Arab response to this decades-long crisis has been to blame the Zionists and call it a day. One doesn't see the intense self-scrutiny and intra-family arguing, often on a public level, that one always sees among Jews. Maybe it's taking place, but one doesn't see it.
Perhaps one has to speak Arabic.
November 24, 2008 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Very funny, Dan, but sadly too true . . .
November 25, 2008 6:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
poor poor ybd, raving against the grains of change. These things you obsess about are mere details that can be worked out in negotiation. Scary word, eh ybd, negotiation.
November 24, 2008 2:56 AM | Reply | Permalink