About that offer Netanyahu can’t quite refuse
The endlessly elusive peace talks between Palestinian President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu are in limbo. The apparent need of Netanyahu to negotiate a further freeze with his cabinet is no doubt masking his efforts to ring out even more concessions from the Obama Administration via Dennis Ross.
But here is a smart analysis of where that may be going along with a bracing critique of the Palestinians and some analysis of what to do when the two-state solution passes into the dust bin of history. If this happens, new ideas and strategies will emerge, as this site suggests: http://mitchellplitnick.com/2010/10/08/giving-up-on-obama/#more-471
My intermittent posts here on Israel and the ensuing comments show how important it is that all of us keeping reading and thinking about a real peace settlement instead of clinging to unstinting support of what Israeli politicians, and their U.S. allies, decide is in the best interest of the United States. Time for the tail to stop wagging the dog!
Tags: Israel, Middle East, Palestine
Ms. S. –
Is the Israeli government somewhat like the British one, with a coalitions of factions determining who at any given time is the head honcho? Do Israeli presidents, like ours, have the power to fire cabinet members without great political fall-out? Or what?
The complexity of Middle Eastern politics is mind-boggling.
It seems to me that the U.S. and other countries have for too long subsidized both the Israelis and the Palestinians in their insistence on continuing a battle that poisons international relations far beyond their own borders; destroys the Christian community of the Middle East; and makes it difficult to visit the holy places.
Philip Gourevitch had an interesting article in the Oct. 11 New Yorker on whether international humanitarian aid extends or even causes some of the crises it addresses:
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/10/11/101011crat_atlarge_gourevitch
The article has made me wonder whether the aid being provided to both Israel and the Palestinians – military and otherwise – is enabling their conflict, however well-intended that aid may be.
Philip Rieff has made a similar case with regard to refugees particularly in Africa and post the Rwanda genocide. I haven’t read Gourevitch, but I will.
In the meantime, Paul, I wonder what proportions of U.S. aid go to Israel and what to the Palestinians. My impression is very little to the latter and an overwhelming amount of military and other forms of aid to the Israelis. Have you seen figures? And then, there is the amount of private money that goes to Israel, in particular to Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Read it: Gourevitch makes much the same case as Rieff and is focused on Africa.
The hypothetical comparison to Israel and Palestinians??? I don’t quite get the point, Paul; what’s the factual basis?
Ann Olivier: Netanyahu is the prime minister; Shimon Peres is the president. Israel has a parliamentary system in which the prime minister of the winning party forms a government. Netanyahu chose to form his government with a variety of small right-wing parties. The foreign minister in this government, Avigador Lieberman, heads such a party and is himself a West Bank settler. The theory is that if Netanyahu agrees to another settlement moratorium, Lieberman and members of the other right-wing parties will leave Netanyahu’s government.
It is my view that Netanyahu shares their irrendentist views and uses them as excuses for doing what he wants to do, making the West Bank part of the state of Israel. Otherwise, he could form another government with Kadima and Tivni Lipset, who favors, or so she says, a two-state solution and a peace agreement with the Palesinians.
Peg, my guess is that Israel gets at least a dozen times more aid from the U.S. than the Palestinians do. European Union and Arab League countries also should be factored in, though. Private donors play a role, too, for both sides. The question I have is at what point does all this aid make it easier for both parties to resist the peace process?
I’ve been wondering why the planned development of new Israeli settlements automatically means the Palestinians must refuse to take part in peace talks? Creating new settlements can certainly be seen as an act of aggression, but they can be dismantled under terms of any treaty that is reached.
Thanks, Ms. S. That certainly clarifies Netanyahu’s behavior. Sigh.
Paul: “At what point does all this aid make it easier for both parties to resist the peace process?”
Peggy: Whatever aid each party gets no doubt facilitates a resistance not so much to the peace process, but to ability to resist the distinctive claims each side makes in the peace talks (Israel keep the near-settlements, security guarantees including occupying the Jordan Valley, control of Palestinian air space and borders, etc.; Palestinians want the right of return, East Jerusalem for the capital, and the trappings of sovereignty, etc.). So the material aid may function as you suggest in preventing compromise. But consider other factors in resistance.
The U.S.’s long-standing support for Israel, moral and political, weighs enormously in favor of Israel and against the Palestinians. Palestinians face a mixed bag in their allies: Jordan and Egypt have peace treaties with Israel (in part because Jordan doesn’t want any more Palestinians in Jordan and Egypt doesn’t want Gaza or the Palestinians living there. Lebanon doesn’t want Palestinians (whom they’ve kept in refugee camps for decades). The Gulf nations and Saudia Arabia have mostly educated, professional Palestinians who in effect are not refugees. It seems to me that Israel has a more stalwart ally in us than the Palestinians have in theirs. And at least as international power arrangements go that counts for a lot (but not forever perhaps).
So I would say that material aid may help resistance but in unequal ways while Israel, in addition, has the support of the “indispensable nation” as someone once said.
Paul: why [should] the planned development of new Israeli settlements automatically mean… the Palestinians must refuse to take part in peace talks?
Peggy: They haven’t always refused to take part in peace talks while the settlements continue. They have found, however, that while the peace talks come and go, settlement activity continues unabated. Why wouldn’t the Palestinians see continued settlement as a form of aggression. They conceded in the talks at the end of the Clinton administration that the settlements close to the 1967 border might be exchanged for land currently on the Israeli side of the ’67 borders. But that got them nowhere.
Now, of course, in principle they could continue the talks and watch the settlements grow with the hope that they would be dismantled with a final peace treaty. But notice how the growing settlements have affected Israeli politics; notice how many members of the Israeli Defense Forces are themselves settlers; and notice how fears of civil war between Israelis hovers in the background of any talk of abandoning the settlements. The Palestinians see all of this and not unreasonably conclude that the peace talks are simply another delaying tactic by the Israelis.
Anyway that’s my take on those issues.
I don’t have any answers, Peg. Just questions. There are significant numbers of people on both sides who don’t see peace as being in their interest. The Palestinians can reasonably conclude that so many Israelis don’t want peace that the elusive two-state deal will never be politically possible in Israel. The Israelis can reasonably conclude the same about the the Palestinians, who are divided. The challenge for policymakers in other countries, and not only the United States, is to provide both sides with incentives to make peace and disincentives to continue the status quo.
Agreed. But what are the disincentives? And will our senator, Chuck Schumer, buy them? And lots of other senators and representatives.
I have watched the ‘peace’ process in Israel ever since President Carter ‘negotiated’ a union between Sadat and Begin. Sadat paid dearly for his concessions – Begin supposedly made none.
Every time the process has been approached in the intervening years, Israel stands firm and gives up nothing. Then, they go ahead with their plans anyway… ie: settlements in territory populated by the Palestinians.
Now, the Palestinian areas have become a concentration camp of sorts. Mimicking the words we hear from the patriachs “How Long, O Lord?”.
The official US stance on Israel, for better or for worse, is that they are ‘protecting’ our interests in the Middle East.
I would sincerely like to know what ‘interests’ those are.
It seems to me that with the amount of ‘aid’ that we give to Israel daily, both monetarily and militarily, we should have some sort of influence on them. However, we keep offering them more concessions in order to try to entice them into making concessions – this does not strike me as ‘influence’.
It is clear to me that, left to themselves, Israel will never act with justice toward the Palestinians.
Clearly, though, the US has options. First, in my mind, is to cut off all aid to Israel, while continuing to aid the Palestinians. Though, admittedly, I may be wrong, rather than protecting the US interests in the Middle East, Israel seems to be the cause of many of the problems that result in a backlash here in America. There is not a person who cannot, upon reflection, agree with me. 9/11 did not happen because of some random act by an unbalanced Muslem.
Let us then put the Israeli/Palestinian problem in the hands of the Nations that make up that part of the world, under the auspices of the UN (why else was the UN founded?).
3 major religions have their home in what is now Israel. Perhaps it is time to take the problem out of the hands of all three religions and let the ‘world court’ decide the issue.
I know that my comments here will sound juvenile, simplistic, anti-semitic, and so on. I apologise for that. It is, after all, just my opinion. However, anyone that speaks about the issue like this is branded, pro-’this’ or anti-’that’. I am neither. I am, pro-peace and pro-life. Our Pope speaks of a ‘culture of death’. Where else but in the Middle East is this more apparent?
For Israel to survive as a nation and as a people, it is going to have to learn to play nice in the sandbox.
It is hard to play nice in the sandbox when the Palestinian authority will not acknowledge that Israel has the right to exist.
The Palestinian Authority has acknowledged that… Netanyahu and his government have upped the ante.
“Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman and aide close to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, said the Palestinians had long ago recognized Israel and would not engage in defining its character or ethnicity.”
Story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/world/middleeast/12mideast.html?_r=1&ref=world
Even if it were true that long ago they recognized Israel, it appears that now they refuse to. As a mother of five who has witnessed many sand box disbutes, if both parties don’t believe that the other has the right to be in the sandbox to begin with, neither party will play nice in the sandbox.
In order to begin the Peace process, both parties must acknowledge that both parties have the right to exist, or there will never be a two-State solution.
…And when the children (of God) do not learn how to properly play in the sandbox, an adult or teacher sits down with them and explains again the rules, and then watches over them to see that they are learning.
Again, my premise is to take the decisions about the Palistinian/Israeli problem out of their hands and hand over to the responsibility to their neighbors, working carefully with the UN; all decisions, by Internation Law to be final and binding. Jerusalem ought to be a free International City with no rule by Israelis, Christians, or Palestinians. Perhaps, after the sand box lessons have finally been taken to heart and learned, in 20 or 30 years the UN can turn Jerusalem over to the rule of the Jewish-Palestinian-Christian coalition and, maybe then, they will all live together in peace.
My point being that the World Court must settle this debate and the UN must administer its decisions until such time as Israel and Palestine are comfortable neighbors and the ‘culture of death’ is finally defeated.
It is time now to de-claw both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Cut the aid.
To get a cow to pay attention to you, you can cajole, bribe, entice, threaten, but if the cow still doesn’t pay attention, you smack her ‘upside the head’ with a 2X4 as they say here in South Carolina, and then you have her full and rapt attention.
Cut the money.
Have Israel and Palestine agree to binding arbitration held by their neighbor states and the United Nations, solve the major issues, then put both groups on probation for 20 to 30 years – if they do what is chartered, the apple is control of Jerusalem.
The US’s problems in the Middle East will quickly end, and two nations, Israel and Palestine will live together in peace and cooperation.
The back channels, the front channels, indirect and direct negotiations, bribes, threats, inducements, summits and even begging have not worked. Time for the 2X4 folks!
Stick one in Hillary’s hand as she visits with Netanyahu to announce the immediate cessation of all aid, material, cash and military. Then, we will all see some action at the negotiating table.