Love of the Land: Are They Being Smart Yet?

Are They Being Smart Yet?

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
09 March '10

Joe Biden arrived in Israel. A ticker-tape parade he did not receive. As this report notes:

Vice President Biden arrived in Israel on Monday to boost U.S. efforts to mediate talks between Israelis and Palestinians amid criticism that the Obama administration has set back the peace process.

Biden’s four-day visit — in addition to reassuring Israeli leaders about the U.S. commitment to curb Iran’s nuclear program — is designed to prod Israel and the Palestinians to get talks moving again. With a speech in Tel Aviv on Thursday, he will also try to court the Israeli public, some of whom felt snubbed in the past year by President Obama, who has visited Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia but has yet to come to Israel.

All George Mitchell could muster were so-called “proximity” talks, indirect discussions between parties that have little to discuss and, in the case of the Palestinians, little authority or willingness to make a “deal.” So the grousing has begun:

After so many years of direct talks that wrestled with the core issues of the future of Jerusalem, borders, security and Palestinian refugees, Mitchell’s announcement felt to some observers more like a setback than a success.

“It’s hardly a cause for celebration that after 17 years of direct official talks we are regressing to proximity talks,” said Yossi Alpher, co-editor of a Middle East blog and a former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Saeb Erekat, the longtime Palestinian negotiator, told Israel’s Army Radio that the indirect talks were a last attempt “to save the peace process.”

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Are They Being Smart Yet?

Love of the Land: When Bibi Meets Biden

When Bibi Meets Biden

Allison Kaplan Sommer
Pajamasmedia.com
08 March '10

As Joe Biden’s plane fueled up to head in the direction of the Middle East for today’s arrival, even the most optimistic of Israelis were viewing the U.S. vice president’s trip to Israel with skepticism — and the more pessimistic anticipated his mission with outright suspicion.

Publicly, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu waxed enthusiastic and “praised” the upcoming visit by his “personal friend of 30 years,” even as a “senior diplomatic official” (presumed to be either Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman or Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon) was quoted as angrily asking why Israel must settle for second best. President Obama, the official pointed out, seems to have no trouble showing up in person to woo Arab countries — and yet he keeps his distance from Israel.

“If the president speaks to one side, why do you send the No. 2 to speak to us? He can’t give a speech in Cairo to the Arabs, and suffice with speaking to us through videos.”

The answer isn’t complicated. In the Obama playbook, countries that are hostile to the U.S. deserve a charm offensive. Allies like Israel can be taken for granted. But to be fair, even the most supportive presidents have rarely graced Israel with their presence, unless there was a significant diplomatic achievement to take pride in. And at this moment in time, diplomatic progress has never seemed further from sight.

And so, with the possible exception of Netanyahu, Israelis weren’t exactly waiting for Biden’s arrival with bated breath. On Sunday’s news programs, news of preparations for his visit followed stories of multiple car accidents, coverage of crimes, and long discussions of the chances of Israel’s entry Ajami to win the Academy Award for best foreign-language film (with the mini-scandal that accompanied the entry after one of the directors, an Israeli Arab, declared that his “film shouldn’t represent Israel because Israel doesn’t represent me”).

When the hosts of the morning news shows finally got around to talking about U.S. envoy George Mitchell’s meeting on Saturday night with Defense Minister Ehud Barak to prepare the ground for the Biden arrival, they rolled their eyes and exclaimed, “Déjà vu!” Indeed, it seems as if Mitchell has been dropping in on a weekly basis as the latest Sisyphus of the peace process. His comings and goings have become part of the landscape.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: When Bibi Meets Biden

Love of the Land: Past Anti-Israel Diplomacy Makes Obama's New Peace Push "Doomed From The Outset" Because Of Inflated Palestinian Expectations

Past Anti-Israel Diplomacy Makes Obama's New Peace Push "Doomed From The Outset" Because Of Inflated Palestinian Expectations

Omri
Mere Rhetoric
13 January '10

On one side of the vaunted Palestinian territories, Hamas absolutely refuses to negotiate with Israel, thereby confirming every single thing they've ever said. On the other side Fatah can't handle their own terrorists let alone go after Hamas or Islamic Jihad infiltrators. It's an open question whether they even want to any more:

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday spurned a new US effort to revive Mideast peace talks, sticking to his position that he will not resume negotiations unless Israel freezes settlement construction. With Abbas digging in, an upcoming diplomatic mission by US Mideast envoy George Mitchell could be doomed from the outset... the US has failed to get Israel to halt construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, lands the Palestinians want for their state... Abbas said on Tuesday he will not resume talks under the current conditions... "We won't agree to resume negotiations without a full settlement freeze, especially in Jerusalem, for a certain period." The Obama administration has recently suggested bypassing the settlement issue by getting the two sides to discuss the borders of a Palestinian state. US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said that by focusing on the endgame, such talks would defuse the problem of settlements.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Past Anti-Israel Diplomacy Makes Obama's New Peace Push "Doomed From The Outset" Because Of Inflated Palestinian Expectations

Love of the Land: George Mitchell: “Fatah Believes in Nonviolence”

George Mitchell: “Fatah Believes in Nonviolence”

Noah Pollaak
Contentions/Commentary
10 January '10

One more item from Obama Mideast envoy George Mitchell’s appearance on the Charlie Rose show (transcript here). Mitchell said:

Well, that’s the principal difference between Fatah and Hamas. The Palestinian authority which is basically the Fatah party, believes in nonviolence and negotiation.

This is silly stuff. Fatah, of course, proudly maintains terrorist groups, such as the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades and the Tanzim militia, within the party structure. The gunmen who murdered an Israeli rabbi two weeks ago were not just members of Fatah but also on the Fatah payroll. Just last week, the heroically moderate president and prime minister of the PA could be seen publicly celebrating Fatah terrorists and acts of terrorism.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: George Mitchell: “Fatah Believes in Nonviolence”

Love of the Land: Mitchell fails to understand Palestinian goals

Mitchell fails to understand Palestinian goals

FresnoZionism
09 January '10

Quoted in Steve Rosen’s blog, a snippet from an interview with US Mideast envoy George Mitchell:

George Mitchell: …Israel annexed Jerusalem in 1980….for the Israelis, what they’re building in, is in part of Israel. Now, the others don’t see it that way. So you have these widely divergent perspectives on the subject. …The Israelis are not going to stop settlements in or construction in East Jerusalem. They don’t regard that as a settlement because they think it’s part of Israel….

Charlie Rose: So you’re going to let them go ahead even though no one recognized the annexation.

GM: When you say let them go ahead, it’s what they regard as their country. They don’t regard — they don’t say they’re letting us go ahead when we build in Manhattan or in the Bronx or –

CR: But don’t the international rules have something to do with what somebody can do to define as their country?

GM: There are disputed legal issues. .. And we could spend the next 14 years arguing over disputed legal issues or we can try to get a negotiation to resolve them in a manner that meets the aspirations of both societies. [my emphasis]

This is remarkable, both because Mitchell appears to understand and appreciate the Israeli position, and because he doesn’t spout the usual rubbish about ’settlements are illegitimate’ that we’ve heard from both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Mitchell fails to understand Palestinian goals

Love of the Land: Stuck in Oslo with George Mitchell

Stuck in Oslo with George Mitchell

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
08 January '10

Yes, the man has an impossible job. But making himself complicit in the Palestinian Authority’s desire to have it both ways on terrorism — talk up PA security cooperation in English but celebrate terrorism in Arabic — isn’t going to make it any easier.

As I wrote a couple of days ago, one of the Obama administration’s diplomatic rules appears to be that the Palestinians will never be publicly criticized. Israel, of course, gets publicly criticized by the administration on a near weekly basis. Predictably, this has given the PA room to engage in its favorite double game.

Over the past couple of weeks, the PA leadership has repeatedly lauded Fatah terrorists and their acts of murder. Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad have personally engaged in the celebrations. This finally provoked the Israeli PM’s office to protest to the Americans that:

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: Stuck in Oslo with George Mitchell

Love of the Land: Interesting George Mitchell Interview

Interesting George Mitchell Interview

Steve Rosen
Middle East Forum (MEF)
07 January '10

Mideast Envoy George Mitchell made some interesting observations in an interview with Charlie Rose.

Obama's Demand for a Settlement Freeze

Charlie Rose: The New York Times editorial [says] that the past year has not been successful because the administration stressed a settlement freeze....By focusing on a settlement freeze, which Israelis were unlikely to agree to, you created disappointment from the beginning, because it was an unachievable objective.

George Mitchell: If you want to get 60 percent, do you begin by asking for 60 percent?

Charlie Rose: No. You ask for a hundred.

George Mitchell: Oh, there you go, Charlie. You've already figured out negotiations. So what we got was -- what we got was a moratorium, ten months, far less than what was requested, but more significant than any action taken by any previous government of Israel for the 40 years that the settlement enterprise has existed, ten months of no new starts in the West Bank, less than what we asked, much, much greater than any prior government has done. And we think over time it's going to make a significant difference on the ground.

Getting Talks Started

Charlie Rose: You hope to accomplish this in two years. The moratorium is for ten months....That gives you an incentive to say to the parties ...better get something done before the moratorium ends because I don't know if we can get it again.

George Mitchell: Charlie, will you come with me on my next visit and make that little spiel? Because it might sound better coming from you. I have made it several times....We have suggested to the Israelis .. a series of steps and actions that they could take that would encourage President Abbas to enter the—

Charlie Rose: So why can't you tell me what they are, that's my question.

George Mitchell: Well because I want to discuss it with them before I discuss it you.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Interesting George Mitchell Interview

Love of the Land: First, Do No Harm

First, Do No Harm

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
07 January '10

After Israeli media reported yesterday that White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel had threatened to curtail U.S. involvement in Israeli-Palestinian talks, the White House rushed to deny it. That’s a pity — because curtailing U.S. involvement would be far more helpful than what special envoy George Mitchell is actually doing.

Interviewed by PBS yesterday, Mitchell (as Jennifer noted) declared: “We think that the negotiation should last no more than two years … Personally I think it can be done in a shorter period of time.”

That, frankly, is ridiculous. In 16 years of talks, the parties have yet to resolve a single final-status issue. Just 15 months ago, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas rejected an Israeli offer of 94 percent of the West Bank, territorial exchanges for the remainder, and international Muslim control over the Temple Mount. Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will certainly offer no more, and probably not as much. So what does Mitchell think will happen in the next two years to suddenly make Abbas abandon positions he has stuck to for the last 16 — or else make Israel agree to suicide by, for instance, accepting Abbas’ demand that it absorb 4.7 million Palestinian “refugees”?

Nor need one be “anti-peace” to recognize this. Here’s the first sentence of a column published in the left-wing Israeli paper Haaretz yesterday by its leftist, pro-peace diplomatic correspondent, Aluf Benn: “Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is right: During the next two years Israel will not reach a permanent status agreement with the Palestinians.”

Love of the Land: First, Do No Harm

Love of the Land: What Happened to “Defensible Borders”?

What Happened to “Defensible Borders”?

Rick Richman
Contentions/Commentary
29 December 09

The Jerusalem Post reports that George Mitchell will return to the Middle East in early January and quotes an Arab diplomat saying that Mitchell will present “two draft letters of guarantee, one for Israel and one to the Palestinian Authority” as a basis for renewing negotiations. The Post reports that a senior Israeli diplomatic source said “the terms of reference Mitchell is reportedly bringing would probably closely resemble [Hillary Clinton’s] statement” last month, which read as follows:

We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.

Letters of assurance have previously played an important part in the peace process. In 1997, Secretary of State Christopher wrote to Israel to assure it that the U.S. supported “defensible borders” for Israel as the conclusion of the peace process. In 2004, President Bush reassured Israel of the “steadfast commitment” of the U.S. to defensible borders. In his “Let Me Be Clear” address to AIPAC in 2008, Barack Obama stated that “any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders,” reflecting the longstanding U.S. commitment.

(Read full post)

Love of the Land: What Happened to “Defensible Borders”?

Love of the Land: Obama Aims to Impose a Solution on Israel

Obama Aims to Impose a Solution on Israel

Ted Belman
American Thinker
07 December 09

President Obama has surrounded himself with a host of vehemently anti-Israel advisers including Lee Hamilton, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and Gen. Jones, many of whom advocate imposing a solution on Israel.

So it was no surprise that Obama started his term of office by attacking Israel, America's best and most steadfast ally, and demanding a complete settlement-freeze east of the green line, including Jerusalem. He went so far as to repudiate the U.S. commitment set out in the Bush 2004 letter to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Elliot Abrams and others involved in the negotiations that led to Bush's letter testified otherwise.

In January 2009, before Obama had gotten his act together, Haaretz reported:

Mitchell told Israeli officials that the new administration was committed to Israel's security, to the road map, and to the 2004 letter by President George W. Bush stating Palestinian refugees would not return to Israel and the border between Israel and the Palestinian Authority would take into consideration facts on the ground, meaning large settlement blocs would remain in Israeli hands.

Within a few months, that commitment was history.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, who had campaigned on the rejection of the two-state solution and on continued settlement growth, attempted to deflect or resist the pressure. One can only imagine theTools of Persuasion that Netanyahu was subjected to. Finally, on June 12, 2009, Netanyahu made a major speech at the Begin Centre in which he shocked Israelis by agreeing to a two-state solution.

We do not want to rule over them, we do not want to govern their lives, we do not want to impose either our flag or our culture on them. In my vision of peace, in this small land of ours, two peoples live freely, side-by-side, in amity and mutual respect. Each will have its own flag, its own national anthem, its own government. Neither will threaten the security or survival of the other.

Never mind that Netanyahu had only limited sovereignty in mind.

He went on to demand as a precondition that "Palestinians must clearly and unambiguously recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people" and that a Palestinian state be demilitarized, "with ironclad security provisions for Israel."

(Continue reading)

Love of the Land: Obama Aims to Impose a Solution on Israel

Love of the Land: Gilo and Diplomatic Dismay

Gilo and Diplomatic Dismay

Rick Richman
Contentions/Commentary
19 November 09

Noah, as you note, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’s statement that the administration is “dismayed” at the construction of more housing in the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem — because “neither party should unilaterally preempt negotiations” – is a non-sequitur. Last May, Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the White House for his first meeting as prime minister with President Obama and announced he wanted to commence negotiations “immediately,” without preconditions, which has been his position ever since.

What unilaterally preempted negotiations was the Obama/Abbas precondition of a settlement “freeze” that (1) was not previously demanded in any prior negotiations, (2) contradicted a six-year understanding about the meaning of a “freeze” (no new settlements, no expansion of existing settlement borders, and no financial incentives for new settlers), (3) could not be defined in practical terms even by George Mitchell, and (4) was not a condition that any Israeli government, Left or Right, could accept.

There was a little comedy silver at the State Department press conference yesterday, as spokesman Ian Kelly repeated the notion that the expansion of housing in Gilo was “dismaying” because it could “unilaterally” preempt negotiations. One of the reporters asked Kelly if he could “give us just a brief synopsis of the progress that Senator Mitchell has made in his months on the job” — to which Kelly responded that the administration had gotten both sides to agree on a goal:

(Continue article)

Love of the Land: Gilo and Diplomatic Dismay

Love of the Land: Next, Locusts?

Next, Locusts?

The abject failure of the Obama administration's Middle East policy

Eliot Abrams
The Weekly Standard
11/16/2009, Volume 015
Issue 09

Can anything else possibly go wrong for the Obama administration's Middle East policy? In the past ten days, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has twice reversed herself publicly on her attitude toward the Israeli settlements. Palestinians have refused her direct request to rejoin peace talks with Israel, and Palestinian Authority president Abbas has said he will not run for reelection. U.S.-Israel relations are in a state of frozen mistrust. The New York Times and Washington Post, among others, are calling Obama's policy a complete failure--in news stories as well as editorials. The only thing missing is a plague of locusts.

The policy is indeed a complete failure. In ten months the administration has managed to offend and demoralize Israelis and Palestinians, lose the support of Arab governments, and reduce previously excellent relations with the government of Israel to levels unmatched since the James Baker days. Meanwhile, George Mitchell's trips to the region are increasingly reminiscent of the Colin Powell visits in 2002 and 2003--producing little but embarrassment. The Israeli "100 percent settlement freeze" and the Arab outreach to Israel, early goals of the Obama team, are now forgotten, as is an early resumption of serious Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

These disasters are mostly the product of an ignorant and belligerent attitude toward Israel and especially its prime minister. The ignorance was most evident in the administration's view that a total construction freeze could be imposed not only in every settlement but in Jerusalem itself. But the U.S. policy was worse: We demanded a freeze that would apply to construction by Jews, but not by Arabs; could any Israeli leader be expected to support such a position? One does not need to be a member of the Knesset to understand that such a freeze was impossible for Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition as it would have been for any Israeli prime minister--but apparently this fact was beyond the understanding of Mitchell, Rahm Emanuel, and all the other "experts" on the Obama team.

The belligerence toward Netanyahu has been evident all along, but is best shown by the refusal to tell Israel's prime minister whether or not the president will see him this coming week when Netanyahu (like the president) addresses the United Jewish Communities annual general assembly in Washington. The Israelis gave the White House weeks of notice that Netanyahu had agreed to speak, would be in town, and hoped to see Obama. The White House reaction has been to keep him twisting in the wind, with news stories several days before his arrival saying the president had not decided yet whether to see Netanyahu.

Think of it: Our closest ally in the region, critical issues at stake (from Iran's nuclear program and the recent Israeli seizure of an Iranian arms shipment meant for Hezbollah to Abbas's announcement), yet the Israelis get no answer. Obama and his "experts" may think they are reminding Netanyahu who is boss, but they are in fact reminding all of us why Israelis no longer trust Obama--and making closer cooperation between the two governments that much harder.

Love of the Land: Next, Locusts?

Love of the Land: The Wrecking Crew

The Wrecking Crew

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
05 November 09

In yet another “My, how they messed it all up!” assessment of the Obami’s Middle East peace efforts, the Washington Post finds consensus: “the administration’s efforts have faltered in part because of its own missteps.” The reviews are in and they’re not pretty:

Daniel Levy, a veteran Israeli peace negotiator now at the Century Foundation in Washington, summed up the administration’s efforts in recent days as “amateur night at the Apollo Theater.” He said the administration did not game out the consequences of its demands on the parties — and then flinched. “They just dug deeper and deeper their own grave,” he said. “All of this talk of negotiations doesn’t cut the mustard in the region.”

Turns out, just as conservative critics argued, the key error was in adopting the Palestinian bargaining gambit as our own — namely, insisting on an unattainable absolute freeze on settlements. This of course encouraged Palestinian intransigence and Israeli mistrust. The amateur show reached its climax as Hillary Clinton, like a flighty teenager, first praised Israeli concessions as unprecedented and then rushed to soothe the scorned Palestinians, assuring them that the absolute settlement freeze was still the U.S.’s aim.

As they were knocking over the furniture, the Obami felt compelled to deny the Bush-era agreement with Israel for reduced settlement activity. Rather than spruce that up with a bit of self-serving rhetoric and garner some credit for advancing the “peace process,” the Obama brain trust embarked on its fruitless quest for a settlement freeze, ultimately alienating both sides. As Elliott Abrams, George W. Bush’s deputy national security adviser, observed, “We had nine months of nonsense.” The Obami have earned the contempt of both sides and left the parties so estranged that face-to-face talks may no longer be in the offing.

This is the “smart diplomacy” set. This is Middle East strategy brought to us by Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, the sage gurus of international diplomacy who we are told egged Obama on and figured they might outfox Bibi Netanyahu or, better yet, orchestrate his downfall. For this they give the Nobel Peace Prize.

In many administrations, heads would roll. You’d see a shake-up of the advisers who presided over this debacle. But so sign of that yet. Emanuel and Axelrod have moved on to running the Afghanistan war, Clinton is “reasserting herself,” George Mitchell is racking up the frequent-flyer miles, and James Jones is doing whatever it is James Jones does. Should the mainstream American Jewish community be pleased with this display? Well, they’ve gone a bit mute, perhaps abiding by the advice that if you have nothing nice to say, better to be quiet. Nevertheless, those who vouched for the Obami’s brains and Zionist credentials were, we now know, duped.

As for the country as a whole and our allies, it is a sobering sight — the full extent of the Obami’s incompetence and arrogance and the results of both, that is. For those hoping to “restore America’s place in the world,” it’s about time to realize that our standing, at least in the Middle East, has never been lower. And let’s not forget: the same underachievers are supposed to be devising an Afghanistan-war plan and working to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. Do you feel safer yet?

Love of the Land: The Wrecking Crew

Love of the Land: Mitchell's Mission Impossible

Mitchell's Mission Impossible

Efraim Inbar
BESA
Perspectives 93
22 October 09

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Senator George Mitchell, US Special Envoy to the Middle East, has an impossible task. American clout in the region has waned over the years, and Mitchell faces a situation where a US president advocates a quick end to the conflict, an Israeli prime minister insists on negotiations without preconditions, and a Palestinian society lacks a united leadership – fragmented by Abbas' rule in the West Bank and Hamas' rule in Gaza. Mitchell, and with him a large part of the international community, fail to understand that the ethnic conflict being waged in the Holy Land will end only when the parties tire. So far, Israelis and Palestinians still have energy to fight for what is important to them.

The appointment of Senator George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East in January 2009 elicited great expectations for progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track, particularly since the new American president, Barack Obama, eloquently communicated his intent to renew peace negotiations and end them successfully within his first term in office. After nine months and many trips to the Middle East, a plethora of meetings with the leaders in the region and even an Obama-Netanyahu-Abbas summit in New York last month, Senator Mitchell seems unable to report success to his boss.

There are several reasons for this outcome, some conjectural and some structural. First, Obama's behavior has not been helpful. He has insisted on a comprehensive settlement freeze, which the Palestinians turned into a precondition for sitting at the negotiating table. So far it has backfired, indicating Washington's limitations in imposing its will on Jerusalem, as well as the diplomatic acumen of Netanyahu's government. Moreover, the arm-twisting to persuade Abbas to come to the New York summit further undermined the position of the weak Palestinian leader. On top of this, Washington rightly demanded that the Palestinian Authority defer the presentation of the infamous Goldstone report to UN forums. Yet Abbas' acquiescence in the American demand exposed him to the criticism of Hamas, the main competitor in Palestinian politics. All this hampered the PA's flexibility toward Israel and hindered the return to negotiations.

Second, in Israel, the Netanyahu government advocated a return to negotiations without preconditions – prima facie, a very reasonable position. Moreover, following Netanyahu's May 2009 diplomatic address at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, over 70 percent of Israelis, a very high figure, endorsed his policies on the Palestinian issue. This political feat made Israel less vulnerable to outside pressure. Furthermore, Israel gained American promises to secure Arab gestures as a quid pro quo for its concessions. Washington was unable to deliver, indicating again the limits of American clout in the region.

Poor Mitchell was sent into diplomatic battle when most of the region was quite impressed with Obama's rhetoric but was not convinced that words would be followed by deeds. Unfortunately, the heyday of American power and influence in the Middle East is over. When American diplomacy is not backed by "hard" power, the "soft" power extolled nowadays by Washington carries only little weight with the realpolitik-oriented Middle Eastern elites. Most capitals of the region regard Obama as weak. This does not augur well for Mitchell, as even the weak Palestinians are able to say "no."

The truth is that even a much stronger America cannot impose peace agreements. In 1991, the tough Secretary of State James Baker was successful in convening the Madrid conference, but the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Oslo agreement and the 1994 Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty were the result of bilateral interactions with no American input. Similarly, Anwar Sadat decided to go to Jerusalem in 1977 when President Carter wanted him to fly to Geneva instead for an international peace conference. Outsiders have limited ability to induce change in how Middle Easterners conduct their business, as recent American experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan indicate.

American diplomacy can hardly make a dent in the schism within Palestinian society that is the main stumbling block for progress in peace-making. As long as Islamist Hamas has a powerful grip on the Palestinian ethos and Palestinian aspirations, and as long as its ruthless rule over Gaza continues, Palestinian politics are hostage to the extremists and are unable to move toward an historic compromise with the Jewish-Zionist national movement. Mitchell cannot even prevent a draft of a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation document that does not conform to Quartet demands (renounce violence, recognize Israel and respect past agreements).

The final obstacle for Mitchell is the nature of his mandate – the pursuit of an outdated paradigm, the two-state solution. Unfortunately, the desired outcome of the Oslo process, partition of the Land of Israel into two states –Jewish and Palestinian – was not achieved and this predicament is unlikely to change any time soon. The Palestinians failed the main test of statehood: monopoly over the use of force. They allowed armed militias to erode law and order in the areas under their control. This culminated in the bloody Hamas takeover of Gaza. Even Hamas in Gaza failed to acquire a monopoly over the use of force: witness the existence of the armed groups Islamic Jihad, elements of al-Qaeda and certain clans. As noted, Palestinian society, be it in the West Bank or Gaza, is not entertaining reconciliation with the Jews. The "shaheed" (martyr) is still the role model in the Palestinian media and education system.

Mitchell, and with him a large part of the international community, fail to understand that the ethnic conflict being waged in the Holy Land will end only when the parties tire. So far, Israelis and Palestinians still have energy to fight for what is important to them.

Therefore, what is needed is a new policy paradigm. It is high-time to consider a return to the status quo ante of pre-1967. Jordan and Egypt are responsible states at peace with Israel that successfully ruled over the Palestinians. They should be induced to share responsibility for regional stability. The Palestinian potential for regional mischief is not only Israel's problem.

The author is professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University and the director of the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies. This article was first published by bitterlemons.org on October 19, 2009.

BESA Perspectives is published through the generosity of the Littauer Foundation.

Love of the Land: Mitchell's Mission Impossible

Love of the Land: Is It Blank?

Is It Blank?

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
23 October 09

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave the president a report documenting the progress made in the Middle East “peace process.” This report uses many words to explain that there hasn’t been any:

“The Secretary advised the President that challenges remain as the United States continues to work with both sides to relaunch negotiations in an atmosphere in which they can succeed,” a White House official said on background in a statement. “They also discussed the progress that has been made on a number of issues and the path ahead.”

No “Cairo Effect”? Hmm. The president was impatient, we were told, but we’re still “working to relaunch negotiations.” Well, they could make progress. (”‘Would we like to have reached the point to launch negotiations? Of course,’ an official said. ‘Are we satisfied? No. Do we still think it’s possible in a relatively short period of time to get that admittedly preliminary step accomplished? Yes we do, that’s what we’re engaged in.’”) Engaged in working to relaunch negotiations, that is.

Even a “peace process” cheerleader like Aaron David Miller seems to acknowledge that Obama hasn’t helped matters: “Those Israelis who don’t want to move ahead, have a ready made excuse. Between Goldstone, Obama, Abbas’ weakness, and Hamas, dealing with the peace process isn’t a terribly attractive proposition from this Israeli government’s perspective.” But the ultimate “excuse” not to move ahead has been handed by Obama to the Palestinians on a silver platter — the absence of a total settlement freeze (which wasn’t in the cards to begin with).

So what to do? Why, more of the same! George Mitchell (who must get paid by the mile) is jetting back to the Middle East for more meetings. That’s what he and the peace processer do — they meet. Those meetings seem increasingly divorced from the reality on the ground — for example, an emboldened Hamas, a Palestinian Authority without authority to negotiate, a rejectionist Arab world, and a nervous Israel. Maybe it’s time to try something new. The Obama Middle East peace offensive has been a bust, no matter how creatively written or spun Clinton’s report may be.

Love of the Land: Is It Blank?

Love of the Land: Obama’s Diplomacy Dilemma

Obama’s Diplomacy Dilemma

Peter Wehner
Contentions/Commentary
15 October 09

Earlier today Jen highlighted a Washington Post story, which reports this:

After nine months of shuttle diplomacy by U.S. special envoy George J. Mitchell, the gap between Israeli and Palestinian leaders appears to have grown, and it now includes not only a dispute over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, but also renewed tension over Jerusalem, disagreement over the framework for the talks and controversy over a UN report on alleged war crimes during Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter.

This report about events on the ground merits comparison to Joe Klein’s column in Time, in which he lays out his thoughts on how President Obama could earn his Nobel Peace Prize. (Even Klein admits he didn’t deserve it yet on the merits.) While acknowledging that Mitchell’s efforts seem to be “slouching toward catatonia,” Klein writes:

An opportunity for a grand gesture may be developing in the most unlikely of locales: the Middle East. . . . The moment may be at hand for a dramatic U.S. initiative, even from a no-drama President. “The two sides seem unable to make peace on their own,” says Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser. “I think it would make a lot of sense for the President to announce what he thinks a Middle East peace plan should look like.” The elements of such a plan are widely known. Bill Clinton announced a version of it in December 2000, as he was leaving office. Brzezinski cites four major components: a return to 1967 borders, with land swaps enabling Israel to keep many of its existing settlements; no right of return for Palestinians who left, or were forced off, their lands when Israel became a state; Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and Palestine; and an international peacekeeping force replacing the Israelis currently patrolling the Jordan River Valley.

I have gone on at length before about Klein’s geopolitical and national-security record and the quality of his analysis. Let’s just say he was once a fine reporter on urban issues. (Bill Clinton did announce his version of a Middle East peace in December 2000. The Israelis met almost every conceivable Palestinian demand — and in response the Palestinians declared a second intifada against Israel.)

But what of Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the architects of the many and sundry Carter calamities? I could go on at length about those, too, but perhaps it’s sufficient to draw attention to a memorandum from Brzezinski to President Carter on the topic of “Islamic Fundamentalism.” Here (found on page 564/Appendix II of Brzezinski’s paperback volumePower and Principle) is what he wrote on February 2, 1979:

The conclusion from several studies done in the intelligence community is that we should be careful not to overgeneralize from the Iranian case [the overthrow of the Shah and the ascent to power of Ayatollah Khomeini]. Islamic revivalist movements are not sweeping the Middle East and are not likely to be the wave of the future. The foreign policy consequences of this strengthening of Islamic sentiment are mixed. It is more difficult to resolve the Arab-Israeli disputes; moreover, conservative Muslims are often xenophobic. If we emphasize moral as well as material values, our support for diversity, and a commitment to social justice, our dialogue with the Muslim world will be helped.

The Iranian revolution, of course, ranks with the French Revolution in terms of its reach and influence, one of the few revolutions that actually deserves the name. And the consequences of that revolution have been harmful for America, for the Muslim world, and for civilization itself.

Apparently Dr. Brzezinski’s strategic insights and foresight were as good then as they are now.

Love of the Land: Obama’s Diplomacy Dilemma

Love of the Land: Failure Everyone Can See Now

Failure Everyone Can See Now

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
15 October 09

At some point, not even the mainstream media can spin sufficiently for the hapless Obama foreign policy. This Washington Post report is blunt:

A political crisis for the Palestinian Authority and growing doubts about American mediation have deeply undercut chances that Israeli-Palestinian peace talks will resume in the near future, according to officials and analysts on both sides.

After nine months of shuttle diplomacy by U.S. special envoy George J. Mitchell, the gap between Israeli and Palestinian leaders appears to have grown, and it now includes not only a dispute over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, but also renewed tension over Jerusalem, disagreement over the framework for the talks and controversy over a U.N. report on alleged war crimes during Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter.

In other words, Obama’s Middle East gambit, apparently inspired by those known Middle East policy wonks Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, has failed. Spectacularly so. Putting daylight between the U.S. and Israel and sneering at the Bush team for being too close to Israel didn’t really get the Obami anywhere, did it? The Post is candid that the fixation on settlements “backfired.” As virtually every pro-Israel conservative commentator predicted, “It raised hopes among Palestinians, who began to demand nothing less than a full freeze, and led to severe tensions in U.S.-Israeli relations.”

And all that ingratiating with the “Muslim World” in Cairo? Not much was gained; in fact, the parties are more estranged than ever. Our relations with Israel have not been this strained since . . . well, ever . . . and the administration’s credibility is arguably worse than any of its recent predecessors.

What can be learned from all this? Sanctimonious speeches and fractured history-telling don’t make for “peace.” Savaging your allies doesn’t get you anywhere. And ignoring hard truths — including the Palestinians’ unsolved internal divisions and refusal to renounce and root out terrorism — also doesn’t get you anywhere. Moreover, Obama’s appearance on the scene doesn’t change any of the fundamental issues; neither does chanting “diplomacy” or “dedication to the peace process.”

This should be a wake-up call for the administration. The Obama team might want to consider letting domestic pols run foreign policy. And they might put away some of their egocentric misconceptions about the power of Obama’s aura.

Love of the Land: Failure Everyone Can See Now

Love of the Land: Mahmoud Abbas as Peace Partner? Dictators vs. "The Street"

Mahmoud Abbas as Peace Partner? Dictators vs. "The Street"

Khaled Abu Toameh
Hudson New York
15 October 09

The US Administration has resumed its efforts to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table. US special Middle East envoy George Mitchell is back in the region in yet another bid to persuade the two parties to revive the peace process.

But the question that needs to be asked these days is: Is there really a strong, credible and reliable partner on the Palestinian side for any deal? Or, in simple terms, can Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian deliver?

The answer obviously is no.

Even if Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Abbas were to sign a peace agreement tomorrow morning, it is highly unlikely that the Palestinian president would be able to sell it to his people.

Abbas’s credibility has been severely damaged as a result of the manner in which he handled a resolution that was supposed to be brought before the UN Human Rights Council regarding the findings of the Richard Goldstone report into Operation Cast Lead.

Palestinians were hoping that the resolution, which accuses both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during the war, would be endorsed by the Council.

Abbas, however, shocked many Palestinians by ordering his representative at the UN, Ibrahim Khraishi, to set aside the resolution.

Abbas has since been facing an unprecedented wave of denunciations and allegations of high treason from many Palestinians and Arabs. Even some of his loyalists are now calling for his resignation on the pretext that he cannot be trusted to negotiate peace with Israel on behalf of the Palestinians.

The street protests that erupted in the Palestinian territories and Arab capitals following Abbas’s controversial decision serve as a reminder of the wide gap that has always existed between Arab dictators and their constituents.

The protests also serve as a reminder that the Arab masses are more interested in punishing Israel than making peace with the Jewish state.

Abbas is under attack because, in the eyes of many Palestinians and Arabs, he “helped Israel bury its war crimes” in the Gaza Strip. In mosques in different parts of the Arab world, he has been condemned for “exonerating the Jews” and “betraying the blood of the Palestinian martyrs” killed in the war.

Abbas has offered a number of explanations for his decision to set aside the Goldstone report - explanations which have only caused further damage to his credibility.

First his aides and he claimed that the decision was taken under US pressure and threats. Then they argued that the decision was taken at the request of a number of Arab and Islamic countries. When these two explanations did not calm the Palestinian and Arab streets, Abbas ordered the establishment of a three-man commission of inquiry to look into the circumstances that prompted him to set aside the resolution.

This last move - the formation of a commission of inquiry - has been received with laughter by Abbas’s critics. As a Palestinian minister put it, “In the beginning I thought it was a joke when I heard that the president had established a commission of inquiry to investigate himself. How can anyone take him seriously from now on?”

Well, it seems that there are still many who do take Abbas seriously, especially in Washington and some European capitals. Abbas’s more recent decision to revive the debate over the Goldstone report by bringing it back to the UN Human Rights Council is seen as a pathetic attempt to save what’s left of his credibility. So is his decision to send Palestinian policemen in civilian clothes to the streets of West Bank cities to demonstrate in favor of their embattled president.

Abbas cannot be a partner to any deal: his image and credibility have been severely tarnished. Any agreement he reaches with Israel will be received with suspicion by a majority of Palestinians and Arabs.

Hamas, on the other hand, is not a partner because the movement is not going to change its radical ideology, at least not in the foreseeable future.

All that one can do now is to wait until a new, third-way party emerges in the Palestinian territories. Sadly, that option also does not seem to be realistic at this stage -- especially not when both Abbas and Hamas have a common interest in suppressing the emergence of new leaders.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab Muslim, is a veteran award-winning journalist who has been covering Palestinian affairs for nearly three decades. He studied at Hebrew University and began his career as a reporter by working for a PLO-affiliated newspaper in Jerusalem. Abu Toameh currently works for the international media, serving as the “eyes and ears” of foreign journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Love of the Land: Mahmoud Abbas as Peace Partner? Dictators vs. "The Street"

Love of the Land: What’s the Point?

What’s the Point?

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
12 October 09

George Mitchell spends lots of time traveling from Middle East country to Middle East country processing the peace. In Saudi Arabia he went in search of cooperation for a deal. Nada. In Syria he pledged his commitment to the peace process. He goes to Egypt. Not much support for peace in any of those places.

Mitchell, at a September 22 briefing following the president’s meeting with Mahmoud Abbas and Bibi Netanyahu, told us:

We do not favor more negotiations for the sake of negotiations. We do not believe in an endless, unlimited, unfocused process. We believe that the purpose of negotiations is to get a result, a positive result. We want more peace and less process. And so we are trying to launch – re-launch negotiations at the earliest possible time, but under circumstances in which there is a reasonable basis to believe that they can be successful.

The president expressed, we were told, that he was “impatient” with the lack of Middle East progress.

So Mitchell hits the road. How’s he doing? Here he is on October 8, following a meeting with the Israeli President Shimon Peres and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman: “We’re going to continue with our efforts to achieve an early relaunch of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, because we believe that’s an essential step toward achieving the comprehensive peace to which I earlier referred.” Like Avis, he’s going to try harder.

On October 10: “It has been and remains an important objective of American policy and of President Obama and the secretary of state personally to achieve comprehensive peace in the Middle East,” Mitchell explained in yet another trip to Cairo.

And now we hear that his latest visit has accomplished nothing.

So when does Mitchell pack it in if he doesn’t favor negotiations for the sake of negotiations? He seems to have nothing to show for all his journeys. His incessant invocation of Obama’s and his commitment to peace is now like white noise — a buzz in the background you can safely ignore. The purpose of all this? Well, Obama snagged a Nobel Peace Prize for caring so much and for supposedly reactivating diplomacy. But if diplomacy has accomplished nothing more than racking up air miles for George Mitchell, maybe it’s time to give it a rest.

Love of the Land: What’s the Point?

Love of the Land: Was the Nobel a Down Payment for More Pressure on Israel?

Was the Nobel a Down Payment for More Pressure on Israel?

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
12 October 09

While the rest of the world still stumbles for an adequate reaction to Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, the president’s envoy to the Middle East met Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas, following an equally fruitless stop in Cairo.

Obama’s peace prize has launched a thousand parodies as well as lickspittle tributes from his political allies on the left like J Street. But Israelis — who have rightly pegged the president as anything but a friend of the Jewish state — have good reason to fear the award will encourage him to devote even more effort to ginning up a peace process with no chance of success. They know that more peace processing means only thing: more pressure for Israeli concessions, on top of all those already made, to appease Palestinian leaders who actually have little or no interest in real negotiations.

Abbas and the P.A. are locked in a desperate duel for the allegiance of their people with the Islamists of Hamas. That means that even if Abbas were truly interested in accepting a two-state solution with Israel, which is doubtful, there is no deal he can sign that Hamas will not paint as a betrayal of Palestinian nationalism. That is why Abbas refused Ehud Olmert’s offer of a state including parts of Jerusalem and virtually all the West Bank and Gaza in 2008. His predecessor Yasir Arafat did the same eight years earlier.

Abbas continued his race to the bottom with Hamas by reversing his previous stand; he called for the United Nations to take up the bogus Goldstone Commission’s accusations of war crimes over Israel’s counterattack against Hamas terrorists in Gaza last December. Playing off the latest riot-sparking lies about Israeli threats to Muslim shrines in Jerusalem, Abbas also said in Ramallah on Sunday: “There will be no Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty until the occupation of Jerusalem ends. We are determined to safeguard the Aksa Mosque and Jerusalem.”

But the conceit of the peace processers is that a new round of Israeli generosity will always sweep away the realities of Palestinian politics. Such delusions have destroyed the Israeli political Left. But elsewhere, the realism informing Israeli voters is viewed as intransigence. The Nobel Committee believed that Obama was deserving of their prize specifically because of his Cairo speech, which espoused a moral equivalence between Israel and its enemies and which picked a fight with America’s only democratic ally in the Middle East. There is little doubt that Obama’s undeserved prize will motivate him to continue along the same path. Obama and Mitchell know there is little or nothing they can do to sway the Palestinians, so their only option will be more pressure on Israel. That was the logic of the pointless dispute between Washington and Jerusalem over settlements earlier this year. And with the president now endowed with the halo that the Nobel grants him and with a faithful cheering section of left-wing American Jews to encourage him, more such pressure is surely on the way.

Love of the Land: Was the Nobel a Down Payment for More Pressure on Israel?