TEL AVIV - Two years ago, Israeli journalist Bradley Burston wrote an article
in the form of 10 pieces of advice to then newly elected United States
president. He cautioned Barack Obama: ''Israelis and Palestinians both will
greet your arrival with maddening moves, some of them designed specifically to
derail your progress, some of them simply having this as a side effect.'' [1]
In light of the deadlock over the West Bank settlement moratorium, Burston
appears prescient.
Clearly, time is running out on the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, even as a
massive American-led effort is underway to save them. Amid conflicting media
reports, it is not easy to determine the exact parameters of ongoing
bargaining, and the official sources
are unusually tight-lipped. United States think-tank Stratfor writes: ''The
Israelis have resumed settlement construction but do not want the peace talks
with the Palestinians to end... This might either be an extraordinarily clever
ploy of which the meaning is not yet evident, or just an incoherent policy. It
would be nice to figure this out.''
To many observers, it appears that something close to a miracle is needed to
keep the peace process going. In the analysis of Foreign Policy editor Blake
Hounshell, ''We're no longer in the middle of a negotiation; we're well into
the blame game, with each side trying to hang the likely failure of the talks
around the necks of the other.'' [2]
According to a report in Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, work on 350 new housing
units has started in the settlements since the settlement moratorium expired
late last month: an impressive construction effort, carried out in part by
numerous Palestinian workers who themselves face threats of persecution from
the Palestinian Authority.
For his part, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly threatened to
walk out on the negotiations if the settlement freeze is not extended - and
even to resign and to dismantle the PA down the line. Likely alluding to the
latter scenario, he ominously promised to ''declare historical decisions''
during an Arab League meeting called to address the crisis.
Attesting to the intense negotiations underway to avoid an abrupt end to the
peace talks, the summit was already delayed twice and is expected to take place
on Friday.
The Obama administration seems desperate. The US president called for a
two-month renewal of the Israeli moratorium on settlement construction and,
according to a report last week by David Makovsky, offered a letter with
wide-ranging incentives and guarantees to Netanyahu. [3] The offer, which
Harvard Professor Stephen Walt denounced as a form of ''begging'', [4] and
which US officials attempted to deny as soon as it was leaked out, [5] further
polarized an Israeli government already divided over the issue. It is unclear
whether Netanyahu, even if he wished to oblige Obama, would be able to do so,
since a number of his ministers have rejected the idea out of hand.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, one of the staunchest opponents of
an extension, broke protocol recently and delivered a speech at the UN in which
he expressed his view that peace would not be possible in this generation. In a
subsequent interview, he added that the American push for an extension of the
moratorium was a dangerous ploy to impose a withdrawal to the 1967 lines on
Israel. On this issue he is supported by the religious party Shas, which has a
number of supporters living beyond the Green Line.
The most prominent supporter of extending the moratorium, on the other hand, is
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak - the leader of the Labor party which
represents the moderate wing of the Netanyahu government. Rumor has it that
Barak was instrumental in drafting Obama's letter. Meanwhile, several other
Israeli ministers are undecided, while, according to Jim Lobe, a number of
pro-Israeli lobbies in the United States are pushing Netanyahu to accept the
offer. [6]
According to several recent Ha'aretz reports, Netanyahu has already agreed to
extend the moratorium. ''Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will convene his
forum of top ministers on Tuesday afternoon to debate extending Israel's
moratorium on construction in West Bank settlements for 60 days,'' wrote
Ha'aretz on Monday. As of Wednesday evening, however, no such meeting had taken
place. The Israeli prime minister, moreover, has insisted that ''restrained and
moderate construction in Judea and Samaria in the next year will not even
affect the peace process.''
Furthermore, for all the hype over the American letter, it is unclear that
Obama promised Netanyahu anything that the Israelis did not expect to receive
anyway. Some of the military hardware mentioned in the report by Makovsky - for
example, the F-35 fighter jets - has already been approved for sale to Israel.
Far from craving additional units, the Israelis have been debating the high
cost of the jet and considering scaling down their purchases. [7]
In the diplomacy field, to give another example, Obama's commitment to Israel's
security needs is also something that the US president has voiced previously.
This stance is unlikely to change: a majority of the American voters support
Israel, as does a majority of congress (a support that is likely only to
increase following the November mid-term elections).
Obama admittedly does not have much of a leeway to be generous - any offer to
the Israelis that would appear too capitulating to the Palestinians could
destroy his credibility as an honest broker, and thus torpedo the talks and
defeat its own purpose. Consequently, one way to overcome the domestic
opposition to the freeze is for Netanyahu to make a significant concession to
his right-wing partners in addition to Obama's letter.
There are signs that this is already in the works: on Wednesday, the Israeli
prime minister approved a draft law that requires anyone applying for Israeli
citizenship to swear an oath of loyalty to ''Jewish, democratic Israel''. [8]
According to Ha'aretz's Jonathan Lis, ''allies at both ends of the political
spectrum and the Labor party hope that his latest concession is a sop to
right-wingers ahead of a decision to renew a ban on settlement building in the
West Bank.''
Whether the measure will pass, or make Lieberman more accommodating, is
unclear, as is whether that would make things much easier for the US
government. Several Israeli-Arab leaders have already responded angrily, and,
moreover, the law seems directed specifically at the Palestinian Authority's
refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish national state; [9] for an analysis of
the significance of this issue, see
This isn't about semantics (ynetnew.com, September 15, 2010). Even if
Abbas, under US pressure, stomachs this blow without leaving the negotiations,
his internal position would weaken and this would make him less forthcoming
subsequently.
While most of the above analysis is focused on Israel, it is important also to
take into account the US pressure on the Palestinians as well as the internal
bargaining that is taking place on their side, too. Abbas, for example,
recently renewed his efforts to reconcile with his rivals in Hamas, something
that is likely directly related to the negotiations and reportedly angered the
Israelis. It remains to be seen what, if any, further concessions he will be
able to extract from the Americans in exchange for continuing the talks.
The future of the peace process is uncertain, but it is hard to avoid the
realization that the two sides, in a way, have so far supported each other's
tricks on Obama's peacemaking efforts, despite their seemingly diverging goals
and aspirations. For example, Netanyahu likely calculated the timing of his
freeze so that it would expire right before the US congressional election, when
Obama's hands would be tied, and he would be able to bargain from a superior
position.
Such a calculation, however, hinges on the assumption that the talks would be
at most in their early stages when the moratorium expired, something that Abbas
helped ensure by refusing to enter direct negotiations until a month before the
end of the freeze. Until practically the last moment, the Palestinian president
stuck to his decision not to enter direct talks, perhaps in an effort to
increase the American pressure on Israel and thus to cause Netanyahu's
government to collapse. [10]
Perhaps, in fact, both leaders have sensed Obama's weakness: the US
administration publicly set peace in the Middle East as one of its top
priorities and consequently implicitly declared its willingness to pay a high
price for its achievement. By continuously playing brinkmanship, Netanyahu and
Abbas are not only trying to squeeze more out of each other, but also are
collectively squeezing the Americans.
It could also be argued that such a strategy constitutes a desperate attempt
from both sides to keep America's attention (and aid) focused on the region. It
is no secret that Obama wants a breakthrough on the Middle Eastern peace front
to a large extent in order to concentrate more efficiently on other policy
issues. An American shift away from the Levant is neither in Israeli nor in
Palestinian interest, and one way to interpret the actions of both sides is as
a pre-emption of such a development. Regardless whether this interpretation is
correct, both Israelis and Palestinians are giving Obama a harder time than he
likely ever anticipated.
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