Prospects for Peace

This article was first published at the Guardian Online. 

There was a moment of rare clarity this week for America's efforts to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace. The US vice-president Joe Biden was on a visit, ostensibly a charm offensive to an Israel that has been heretofore neglected by the Obama administration's most senior echelons, and an opportunity to discuss broad regional issues, notably Iran. By coincidence, Biden's trip coincided with special Middle East envoy George Mitchell's launching of indirect, or proximity, talks, between the Israelis and Palestinians. Perhaps less coincidental, Biden's presence was greeted by announcements of dramatic new plans for Israeli settlement expansion in East Jerusalem. A crisis in the relaunched Israeli-Palestinian peace talks had apparently arrived a little earlier than expected – day zero to be precise. Not that those resumed negotiations were being greeted by much more than scepticism anyway. For most observers and even participants, the customary and polite suspension of disbelief that normally accompanies a new round of peace talks was barely on display.

Both sides seemed ready to settle down to a predictable and protracted game of placing blame for failure at the other's door. Then, on the day of Biden's arrival, Israel announced plans to market 112 new housing units in the West Bank and bettered that 24 hours later (shortly after the Biden-Netanyahu confab) when a district committee gave planning authorisation to 1,600 new units in East Jerusalem.

What provided this episode with refreshing clarity was the way in which it exposed the deeper dynamics that are driving contemporary Israeli realities.

Netanyahu seems to have been genuinely blindsided by this development. Israel's settlement addiction proved stronger even than the prime minister's desire to spend a few days going settlement cold turkey. Israel's leadership scrambled to summon their best explanations and apologies – the decision was insensitive, ill-timed, a local initiative, and a mere technical planning detail. If only the decision had been taken two days or two weeks earlier or later everything would have been OK. And so in one fell swoop the naked Israeli settler reality was exposed in all of its absurdity.

For the rest of the world, East Jerusalem, just like the West Bank, is occupied territory; all settlements over the Green Line are illegal (even if not everyone always uses that word). For Israel's leaders, the timing may have been unfortunate, but the impulse to settle Palestinian land is fundamentally sound. Palestinian land is claimed as state land or confiscated, plans are authorised, tenders are issued, construction begins, and settlers move in. After more than 40 years, and endless seemingly trivial and mundane bureaucratic decisions, over 500,000 Israelis now reside beyond the Green Line (for a detailed analysis of this process, read East Jerusalem settlement experts Daniel Seidemann and Lara Friedman here). The settlers and their sympathisers are entrenched in every relevant nook and cranny of Israel's bureaucracy and security establishment. The momentum that they can now generate (especially but not only when their sympathisers hold senior government office), is stronger than Israel's demographic concerns, is stronger than fear of Israel acquiring an international pariah status, and as was proven this week, is stronger than the needs of the US-Israel relationship. America's vice-president has just seen this dynamic first hand and up close.

Mainstream Israeli commentators were apparently shocked to discover the power of the settler momentum. Pundits such as Ari Shavit, known for their staunch nationalism and vilification of human rights groups working in the territories, had a rude awakening. In Ha'aretz he described "the settlements in the West Bank that serve the centrifuges in Natanz [Iran]. If sane Israel does not wake up, it will be defeated by the metastasising of the occupation and the lack of the central government's ability to stop it."

And that, in a nutshell, is why Benjamin Netanyahu may be our last, best chance for a two-state peace deal.

The extremism and excesses of his government may finally open enough eyes and lead to enough local and international action to roll back this settler behemoth. More moderate Israeli governments, even those perhaps sincerely committed to a variation on the de-occupation, two-state solution theme, have definitively failed to halt the settlements march. When Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert were negotiating on paper potential Israeli withdrawals, the settlements and the occupation were being expanded and entrenched on the ground. Even when Ariel Sharon was removing 7,500 settlers from Gaza, he was adding a greater number to the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But under Netanyahu, what you see is what you get.

And perhaps this clarity and this exaggeration is exactly what is needed. Everything else, all the relevant actors, were stuck in an ugly paralysis. The Palestinians remain divided and devoid of strategy. For 20 years the Fatah-led PLO had been waiting for the US to deliver Israel for an equitable two-state outcome. The only alternative to negotiations to gain any traction had been indiscriminate and unjustifiable violence. The Arab states had produced a breakthrough peace initiative in 2002 but it never translated into a programme for public diplomacy or even pressure to be brought to bear on Israel, America, or the Quartet. The US and EU continue to place their faith in confidence-building measures and unmediated negotiations between the parties, hoping against hope that a formula which had failed for over a decade would produce a breakthrough and that rational argument might prevail.

Not surprisingly, none of this was going anywhere. It has taken a Netanyahu-led extreme right, religious government in Israel (the defunct Labor party of Ehud Barak can be justly ignored as window dressing) to send a signal strong enough to perhaps pierce this paralysis. Israelis and Palestinians, it is clear, are in an adversarial relationship, talk of partnership is premature, talk of confidence-building is naive. Transparently run Palestinian institutions and well-groomed Palestinian security forces will not remove the settler-occupation complex. And neither will gentle persuasion. The naked extremity of the Netanyahu government is producing new international initiatives and new coalitions.

In Jewish diaspora communities, there is a determination to reclaim a more moderate and progressive vision of what it means to be pro-Israel and to apply Jewish ethics and Jewish values, that helped guide civil rights struggles in the past, to contemporary Israeli reality. Such efforts are gaining ground – notably the emergence of J Street in America. Inside Israel, a new progressive discourse, still lacking real parliamentary representation, is struggling to make its voice heard in civil society—notably in weekly demonstrations at Sheikh Jarrah. On the Palestinian side, alternative strategies to the negotiation dependency or violence that dominated the past are gaining ground – especially in non-violent resistance to land confiscations and the separation barrier. Prime Minister Fayyad's plan for statehood by mid-2011 could become a significant hook if it develops some teeth.

European actors have been toying with initiatives of their own in adapting to this new reality. All 27 member states achieved a remarkable consensus in endorsing the most powerful and comprehensive statement of EU policy last December. Lady Ashton, at least declaratively, has gotten off to an impressive start and will be visiting the region next week, and crucially Gaza will be on her itinerary. Britain is taking the lead in imposing labelling on settlement products, and the French and Spanish governments are exploring options for advancing Palestinian statehood even in the face of peace process stalemate.

None of this would likely have happened if the government in Israel was nice-sounding and well-intentioned, but ultimately hapless in the face of the settler-occupation complex. Nothing is also likely to really come to fruition without the US assuming leadership. These new developments may serve to create an environment in which there is more political space for the US to operate in.

US administrations have helped generate moments of decision for Israel in the past and not only in the Egyptian peace deal and full evacuation of the Sinai brokered by President Carter. President Bush confronted Yitzhak Shamir with the withholding of loan guarantee monies, leading to the election of Yitzhak Rabin in 1992 in a campaign in which settlements and opposition to them featured prominently. Benjamin Netanyahu's first term in office ended abruptly when President Clinton challenged him to sign, and then implement, the Wye River Memorandum of 1998, something his coalition could not sustain and which led to the election of Ehud Barak, ushering in at the time a moment of great hope.

The realities today are no longer the same. The Israeli inability to confront its own settler-occupation demon is more deeply entrenched. Israel will have to be presented with clear choices, clear answers to its legitimate security and other concerns, and clear consequences for nay-saying. A successful effort will also have to be more comprehensive and more regional in its scope, almost certainly involving Syria and bringing Hamas into the equation. No one should expect this to be easy. But if one person can generate American will to lead such an effort and an international alliance to see it through, then surely that person is the Israeli leader who we saw on display in all his glorious stubbornness this week.

 This piece was first posted on ForeignPolicy.com - The Mideast Channel.

It took a little over 24 hours, but in the end a version of events was agreed on that allowed for the resumption of something resembling business as usual in Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu had not known about the planning approval of 1600 housing units in Occupied East Jerusalem - this was all terribly embarrassing, Israel was sincerely sorry for the unpleasantness caused, and the minister directly responsible displayed appropriate contrition. You see, the relevant district planning committee in Jerusalem had its timing wrong, completing the approval process would anyway take several more months, and actual building on the ground would only happen some time in the distant future.

A technical solution was even invented for preventing such shenanigans from happening again - from now on, the Israeli prime minister himself would oversee sensitive planning and building authorizations and announcements. It's just the kind of pragmatic and sensible solution that America could expect from that reasonable oasis of democracy in the region, Israel. Phew. The deepening chasm that separates the interests of Israel and America's governments could be papered over once again.

The Middle East, like anywhere, loves a good conspiracy theory - and conspiracies there often contain a degree of veracity lacking in the American truther/birther variation. There were at least four competing conspiratorial versions of the events that unfolded in the last 48 hours: (1) This was all about domestic Israeli political turf battles - one-upmanship within the leadership of the orthodox Shas party, between Shas and other parties, and the ubiquitous settler presence in bureaucracy setting down another marker. (2) Look broader to the regional big picture - this has everything to do with Iran and setting priorities. Israel has created an equation whereby the U.S. is so concerned about Israel going rogue on Iran in irresponsible ways that the U.S. would not open a second serious front of confrontation with Netanyahu's government over settlements - hence the administration's climb-down from its call for a comprehensive settlement freeze last year and the acceptance of a weak compromise, especially on east Jerusalem which paved the way for this week's debacle.

(3) We were witnessing American domestic politics being played out in Jerusalem. The links between Likud/settler Israel and the American right have become particularly tight over the last decade or more. This episode therefore was an attempt by some within the pro-GOP wing of Israeli officialdom to embarrass the VP and Obama administration. After all, there has been a concerted and often coordinated anti-Obama campaign inside Israel and within the American Jewish community from day one.  (4) Finally, perhaps this has everything to do with Benjamin Netanyahu's personal history with U.S. presidents. During his first term of office in the late 1990's, Netanyahu lost his coalition and his job after clashing with then President Clinton and being cornered into signing the Wye River Memorandum in late 1998. Understandably, Netanyahu is keen to avoid a repeat performance. One option would be to make nice with President Obama by demonstrating real flexibility on the peace front, but that is both tricky in domestic coalition terms and perhaps not in Netanyahu's own political DNA. So the other alternative is to ensure that the Obama administration never has sufficient trust or traction within Israel to speak over the prime minister's head directly to his public (after all, Obama is a new and unknown quantity and his middle name is Hussein, while Bill Clinton already had great credibility and ratings with Israelis by the time Netanyahu entered office in 1996). The goal in this context would be to turn Biden's visit from a love-fest into a pissing match, neutralizing Administration efforts to start afresh with Israel's public.

Any or all of the above could have a plausible connection to this week's developments, but the official explanation that ultimately carried the day-the unfortunate bureaucratic hiccup one-is probably closest to the truth. It may be less sexy than what the conspiratorial menu had to offer, but this explanation is almost certainly the most damning of all in its implications for U.S.-Israeli relations and policies.

America and Israel are largely talking past each other, and either the U.S. just doesn't get it and fails to understand the dynamics at work in Israel or it has convinced itself that for its own political reasons it is unable to act in anything approaching a decisive manner. Both may be correct. Neither bode well for the future.

Biden's decision to stick to the existing charm offensive script in his Tel Aviv speech while adding a small dose of home truths about the need for peace was probably a wise choice on this occasion. His rhetorical criticism of the settlement announcement was not significantly different from statements by the many senior U.S. officials embarrassed during Israel visits by settlement misbehavior in the past. The last time an American president declared settlements illegal was under President Carter, and the last time consequences were created for settlement misdemeanors was under President George H.W. Bush. Those happened about thirty and twenty years ago, respectively.

Understanding the Israeli reality is crucial to charting a smart policy as Sen. Mitchell seeks to advance peace negotiations. The Obama administration would hardly be alone in failing to appreciate the deep and structural dynamics that are in play in Israel. Many very smart Israeli analysts, commentators, and practitioners are in denial themselves (for example, Amos Harel here, putting this latest spat down to incompetence). It is all too easy to blame the Shas minister directly responsible, Eli Yishai, or Netanyahu's poor management, or coalition intrigues.

Of all the words Israeli officials have uttered in walking back this episode, one has been conspicuously missing - that it was "wrong".  Netanyahu is reported to have said the following in yesterday's cabinet meeting, "Approving that plan when the vice president of the United States is visiting here is first-rate insensitivity... We will continue to build in Jerusalem." Aye, there's the rub.

Today's Israeli press is full of stories of future settlement expansion in East Jerusalem - 7000 units according to Yedioth, 50,000 if the (probably exaggerated) Ha'aretz numbers are to be believed. Israel does not view East Jerusalem as occupied or any different from Tel Aviv, and it does not view West Bank settlements as illegal or illegitimate (the Obama administration has used the latter word, and in line with all previous administrations since '67 and in line with the rest of the world does not recognize Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem).

Under the U.N. partition plan of 1947, a Jewish national home was to be accorded 55% of Mandatory Palestine. After its war of independence, Israel was in possession of 78% of that territory. Many in Israel apparently see no reason why 78% cannot become 80% or 85% or 100%. The pragmatic, state-building and solidifying variety of Zionism is now in a life or death struggle with its maximalist, expansionist and sometimes messianic twin brother, and the latter is winning almost without breaking sweat.

After nearly 40 years of occupation and settlements beyond the green line, settler Zionism and its sympathizers are deeply embedded across all the relevant bureaucracies of the government and security establishments. That is what's made the existence of 500,000 Israelis living over the '67 lines possible and that's what was behind this new episode. If the U.S. looks at this week's events and sees an essentially rational ship of state having indulged in a little ill-timed irrational exuberance - sloppy management, understandable coalition politics - then it is fundamentally misreading the situation. There is a powerful, structural logic to what happened this week and one that will not be reversed until the 1967 occupation has ended by creating a Palestinian state and an Israeli-Palestinian border demarcation whereby pragmatic Zionism finally confronts settler Zionism.

Some would argue that Ariel Sharon's disengagement from Gaza in the summer of 2005 proves the opposite - that pragmatic Zionism has the upper hand and that left to its own devices, rational Israel can still make the right choice. But even when they were at loggerheads, Sharon allowed the settler movement to further entrench itself in the West Bank, and in the five years that have elapsed since disengagement, the overriding lesson seems to be that there will be no repeat of Gaza in Judea and Samaria. It was too costly, the results unedifying (perhaps by design), settlements proceed apace and even the separation barrier has failed to create a new de-occupation momentum.

Perhaps the Obama administration does get it. Biden did say in his Tel Aviv speech today, "...quite frankly, folks, sometimes only a friend can deliver the hardest truth."

Perhaps America will present Israel with a real choice and with consequences for recalcitrance. Thus far, that has not been the case. The U.S. backed down (again) over settlements last year and the suspicion of course exists that domestic political considerations continue to constrain an American president's freedom of action when it comes to securing an Israeli-Palestinian deal.

Israel is unlikely to make a choice until the U.S. makes its own choice, and this week demonstrated that papering over the chasm now existing between U.S. and Israeli positions is an ever-more transparently flawed exercise. America may only be paying attention when the vice president is in town, but the Arab and Muslim world views America as the enabler-in-chief of Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and of the indignities being visited on Gaza's civilian population, every single day.

In the absence of decisive American leadership, Israel is likely to dig itself deeper into a hole, burying the last vestiges of hope for pragmatic Zionism. And America too will not emerge unscathed. The president can give any number of Cairo speeches and appoint Sen. Mitchell as special peace envoy, Sec. Clinton can appoint Farah Pandit as representative to Muslim communities and Rashad Hussain as envoy to the O.I.C., but these officials had all better be given the cellphone number of the Israeli interior ministry, Jerusalem district planning and building department, because that office and others in Israel's bureaucracy still have the deciding vote in framing America's image in the region.

 This piece was first posted at TPM Cafe.

The Arab Foreign Ministers meeting today in Cairo gave a begrudging nod to the Palestinians to resume indirect peace negotiations with Israel, suggesting that they were willing to give US efforts another chance but that the talks should initially be limited to four months.

PLO Leader Abbas has been calling for clear steps to be taken in advance of resumed talks in order to avoid the pitfalls of the past, including a comprehensive settlement freeze, clear terms of reference for the talks, and a timeline for their completion. Having been rebuffed on these points, the Arab Foreign Ministers’ decision offered a way of providing political cover for PLO Leader Abbas to say ‘yes’ to the US-proposal of beginning indirect talks.

The Fatah/PLO leadership will undoubtedly though face further domestic political fallout for resuming any kinds of talks under these conditions, especially in light of recent Israeli government announcements regarding religious sites in Hebron and Bethlehem, and building expansion in East Jerusalem. Hamas has already seized on this latest PR gift.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has been expressing his support for resuming negotiations without any conditions for several months. He has though in parallel seemed to shrink the potential, substantive content of those negotiations through a number of policy statements, including by declaring Israel would retain the Jordan Valley area of the West Bank, by ruling out any Palestinian political status in East Jerusalem (which has been a mainstay of all official and unofficial peace plans), and by insisting on continued settlement expansion.

Although the original US aim was to convene direct Israeli-Palestinian talks, the indirect or proximity format is worth embracing as a blessing in disguise. It makes the talks less susceptible to daily Palestinian-Israeli tensions as it will be the US that is sitting with the respective parties and that will have a far greater role in guiding and defining the contours of those talks as they take shape.

In any case, progress will likely be a product of the influence America and other third parties can bring to bear on the Israelis and Palestinians respectively rather than any direct Israeli-Palestinian meeting of minds.

If the talks don’t immediately go down in flames, then the challenge for Special Envoy Mitchell and the Obama administration will be how to advance the substance of the negotiations as and when they encounter entrenched positions (notably Israel’s addiction to settlements and its continued presence in the Palestinian territories), whether the US advances its own bridging proposals, the quality of those proposals, and how it responds to anticipated foot-dragging or nay-saying by either party.

In addition, the US will need to take a new look at how it related to Gaza, Palestinian divisions, and broader regional tensions, as my colleague Amjad Atallah and myself explain in this American Prospect piece.

When the US called for a full settlement freeze, including East Jerusalem, and was met with an Israeli ‘no,’ there was no indication of having gamed out what to do next. As talks resume, the Mitchell team will this time have to be planning several steps ahead.

 This piece also appears online at Haaretz

In his keynote address at last week's Herzliya Conference, Ehud Barak summoned up the most dramatic case for changing the status quo:

If, and as long as between the Jordan and the sea, there is only one political entity, named Israel, it will end up being either non-Jewish or non-democratic...If the Palestinians vote in elections, it is a binational state, and if they don't, it is an apartheid state.

This quote is particularly remarkable for the specific wording chosen by Israel's defense minister: He (perhaps unintentionally) suggested that the existing situation could already be described as apartheid.

Considering the Labor Party's collapse, one may dismiss its leader's comments, but Barak's speech does matter, not because of its author, but because it articulates the core narrative of the centrist-pragmatic trend in Israeli-Jewish politics - from Likud realists like ministers Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan, to Kadima and the remnants of Labor and Meretz. Let's call it the "retractionist camp" - ready to support a withdrawal from the occupied territories that meets the minimum necessary requirement for the creation of a dignified and viable sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel, and therefore a sustainable two-state solution.

They show realist tendencies, but there is a powerful disconnect (one that was pervasive in Barak's speech) between most of this camp's diagnosis of the situation (an "end of the world as we know it" threat of apartheid or binationalism) and their prescription for addressing it: resume negotiations, blame the Palestinians, more of the same. It's like telling someone they have life-threatening yet treatable cancer and prescribing two aspirins a day.

If the situation is so dire, then bolder steps are surely called for. There are any number of game-changing options to consider. Maybe it is possible to engage Hamas (as is happening in the ongoing Shalit negotiations), to lift the Gaza siege, and to accept Palestinian unity instead of vetoing it, so as to facilitate an empowered negotiating and implementing address. After all, Israel spoke to the PLO before its charter was amended, and the United States engaged Sunni ex-insurgents in Iraq and is encouraging dialogue with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Alternatively, Israel could encourage internationalization of the conflict, handing the territories over to an international protectorate and international forces, or could embrace Salam Fayyad's two-year plan for statehood and scale back its Area C presence, or even withdraw to the 1967 lines while negotiating over a way settlers could reside under Palestinian sovereignty. Perhaps a Quartet-driven or imposed plan could be encouraged. Anything but business as usual.

Yet most of those in the camp that favors retracting Israel's occupation - let's call them "soft retractionists" - eschew such bold positions. Their opponents, the "retentionists," support retaining all, most or at least enough control of the territories to render impossible a real two-state outcome (indeed, a commitment to retain all of Jerusalem under exclusive Israeli sovereignty is enough to negate a workable two-state option). Again, most retentionists belong in the "soft" category - they are ready to use the language of two states, and support negotiations, economic peace, even a partial easing of the West Bank internal closure. At the heart of both the retractionist and retentionist camps, in their "soft" manifestations, is a basic element of denial. Soft retentionists pretend that ongoing occupation can coexist with preservation of Israel's democratic character, its security, international acceptance, and a consensus about it in the Jewish world. Making noise about peace and throwing money at public relations will do the trick. Soft retractionists pretend that the occupation can be undone without a fundamental change in approach, and in particular while maintaining existing incentive and disincentive structures (which produced and preserve the current realities).

But while the respective "soft" narratives are more pleasant to the ear, and easier to market, both are not only wrong but also increasingly irrelevant to Israel's future. The real struggle for the country is between what are commonly labeled as the extremes.

Hard retentionists know they will have to rewrite the rules of democracy, and plead a special exemption clause for "Jewish democracy" and for the elevation of Jewish-only rights. Palestinians are to be dehumanized, human and civil rights groups and international humanitarian law excoriated and a vocabulary created for laundering and justifying an apartheid reality.

Hard retractionists will need to stand up for (long-ridiculed) Jewish values, ethics and morality, for the unloved "other" in society, hold up a mirror to the nations' warts, and ultimately support international campaigns that distinguish between Israel proper and the occupied territories.

Both camps have a vision for the country's future: the Jewish Republic of Israel - equal parts ethnocracy, theocracy and garrison state on the retentionist side, while for the retractionists, well, something that lives up to the words of Israel's Declaration of Independence.

Retentionist cooperation with racist European Islamophobes and American dispensationalist evangelists (for whom Jews have a particularly unenticing role to play during the anticipated Rapture and Second Coming) is considered legitimate and necessary and is embraced by the mainstream. But when retractionists make common cause with the global civil and human rights community, they are vilified as traitors by the mainstream.

The dominant discourse in Israel massively stacks the odds against the hard retractionists. The soft retractionists continue to feed that discourse even though it undermines the very outcome they know is necessary. Their frequent silence, no less than the settlers' noise, is drowning out Israeli democracy. The hard retentionists are very well represented in the Knesset, while the hard retractionists can barely rely on a tiny and shrinking number of Jewish MKs.

It is the human and civil rights community, the New Israel Fund, the demonstrators at Sheikh Jarrah and the few brave public figures who have joined them - including David Grossman, Moshe Halbertal and Ron Pundak - who are now the standard-bearers and source of hope in this decisive phase of the struggle for Israel's future.

This piece was originally published at Ha’aretz.

 
A peculiar if familiar ritual is currently playing itself out in Middle East diplomacy. A concerted push is under way to restart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, though none of the chief protagonists show any signs of believing they will change anything. We have all been here before, many times over.

If this is the case, then why the great hubbub of activity around such a redundant endeavor? The intentions and strategies behind the activity - in Israel, Egypt, the PLO and the United States - are not entirely on public display. So here is a brief guide to deciphering what they might be.

On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands that absent the cloak of legitimacy bestowed by participation in an internationally endorsed peace process, all kinds of undesirable scenarios may start to play out. There may be more questions and recriminations abroad surrounding efforts to maintain, let alone entrench, the occupation, and various third-party actors may start to develop their own independent initiatives.

Ideally, Netanyahu would have preferred an exclusively bottom-up peace process, focused on improving conditions on the ground and postponing discussion of big-ticket items. However, when the Obama administration insisted that improving the daily environment begins with freezing settlements, the prime minister discovered that unanchored permanent-status negotiations might be a cozy comfort zone after all. If history repeats itself, Netanyahu could drag out talks indefinitely. Once negotiating, there is ample opportunity to create diversions, distractions and provocations, with escalating tensions on the border with Gaza being a recent favorite.

There is one caveat: The history of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is not preordained to repeat itself. The immediate future will largely depend on the Obama administration's approach. For now at least, Netanyahu seems confident that the combination of Obama's political clock (midterms, then reelection), more pressing American priorities, American timidity and internal Palestinian divisions will shield him from having to make hard political choices.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is a fervent advocate of resuming negotiations, an unpopular position at home and in the region. The Mubarak regime never gave much weight to its popular, democratic mandate, deploying variations on crude Egyptian nationalism as a legitimizing vehicle as and when necessary - most recently in its World Cup altercation with Algeria and the showdown with Hamas over protecting "national sovereignty" on Egypt's Gaza border.

Increasingly, though, Egypt appears to be entering a new phase of regime-succession obsession. For Mubarak, playing the game of peace broker buys him cover against U.S. pressure for political reforms and freedoms, as well as American support in a future leadership transition. His embrace of Netanyahu's Israel is a necessary part of this, and as a bonus, it buys Mubarak certain security and intelligence protections, which Israel is good at providing. Such is life for a sclerotic regime driven more by familial than national or even political self-interest.

Other regional states are watching or even assenting to Egypt's efforts to pressure the PLO-Fatah leadership to restart talks, without themselves going out on a limb. The more grounded in democracy those states are, the weaker their enthusiasm for the Netanyahu-Mubarak negotiation groundhog day (Exhibit A: democratic Turkey).

The PLO-Fatah leadership, so far at least, has cast itself in the role of skeptical party pooper. Its members know the consequences of another meaningless negotiation process for their national - not to mention party-political - cause. Many outsiders have been surprised, and some impressed, by the determination displayed over the last several months by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in refusing unconditionally to resume talks. Yet that same leadership has not offered an alternative strategy to replace negotiations, nor has it reunified the Palestinian national movement. The PLO-Fatah leaders are viewed by all sides as the weakest link, hence the full-court press currently being applied to them. Should they succumb, they will no doubt have to justify such a move by clinging to whatever political fig leaf they are offered, but that will not shield them from what are likely to be harsh domestic political consequences.

The main wild card in this equation is the Obama administration. Year One combined early engagement and a strong declarative commitment to Israeli-Palestinian peace with a frustrating lack of new thinking or political daring from the George Mitchell team, while the president was not personally involved and did not take ownership of the issue. The United States may be satisfied with a convenient and showy re-launch of negotiations, followed by the plodding predictability of process over substance.

President Obama may, however, take seriously his own admonition that this issue matters to American strategic interests. That would translate into U.S. leadership in shaping a breakthrough, preferably with EU and Quartet support, creating real choices and deploying new incentives and disincentives with the parties, notably Israel.

Ultimately, for all the noise and speculation regarding their resumption, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are likely to prove rather inconsequential. Success or failure in achieving de-occupation and two states will depend primarily on the conversation between Obama and Netanyahu, their political calculations, priorities and persistence. And that conversation has barely begun.

It’s not what you think -- and it may not even matter, compared to how they see Israel's own situation.

BY AMJAD ATALLAH, DANIEL LEVY

This article also appears in Foreign Policy

Perhaps a U.S. president's approval rating among Israeli citizens is somewhat trivial. After all, Barack Obama's re-election will be decided in Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, not in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Netanya. Nevertheless, the notion persists that a U.S. president's approval rating in Israel can significantly affect his ability to conclude a comprehensive peace agreement. That is why Obama's alleged rock-bottom 4 percent approval rating among Israelis -- a result within the margin of error -- has become cause for concern.

In fact, however, the number is a red herring. Our own survey results suggest that the stalemate in the peace agreement has little to do with Israeli perceptions of Obama -- which are far more favorable than one might think -- but is actually more deeply linked to Israeli complacency and comfort with the status quo.

The 4 percent figure, now a ubiquitous marker of Obama's failure in the Middle East, originally came from a Jerusalem Post survey this summer. But it wasn't an approval rating. The survey question asked whether Israelis believed Obama was "more pro-Israel," rather than "more pro-Palestinian" or neutral. The Western media have adopted this statistic (as in this recent New York Times editorial) often to argue that the president doesn't have the Israeli support necessary to bolster his efforts in the peace process.

But the number is misleading. To clarify Israeli public opinion, we commissioned a poll of 1,000 Israelis, undertaken by Gerstein Agne Strategic Communications and recently released by the New America Foundation, shedding new light on Obama's actual standing in Israel. And the bottom line is that, particularly given how little Obama has invested in speaking directly to the Israeli public, he is viewed in a relatively positive light. The favorability rating our results show, 41 percent (with 37 percent unfavorable) is 10 times that claimed by the Jerusalem Post. While this is not astronomically high for a U.S. president, it is notably stronger than the favorability ratings for Israel's foreign and defense ministers, and a mere seven points below that of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This is not to say that Israelis don't have concerns about Obama: For instance, 50 percent believe he is weak on terrorism, and only 42 percent agree that he supports Israel.

In a panel this week at the New America Foundation, Gil Tamary of Israel's Channel 10 News explained that much of Obama's relative unpopularity in Israel is a direct consequence of the Israeli press's daily attacks on him. But based on our survey results, should Obama decide to make a direct pitch to the Israeli public, his starting position would be one of relative strength. Obama has not yet reached out to Israelis in the way he has to the Muslim world, with his historic trips to Egypt and Turkey. A similarly momentous state visit to Israel could build a tremendous amount of goodwill with an already receptive Israeli public.

However, when it comes to building peace in the long term, the poll's other findings on Israeli public opinion may prove even more consequential for an administration that finds itself at an impasse. According to the poll, Israelis would support any peace agreement reached under Netanyahu by a margin of 59 to 34 percent. They even favor a U.S.-defined peace deal, like the one attempted by President Bill Clinton at Taba in 2001, by 53 to 45 percent. The only problem is that Israelis do not seem to think that peace with the Palestinians and neighboring states is an urgent priority or that its absence carries any sufficiently immediate and negative consequences. 

So in effect, Obama's popularity or lack thereof has little to do with the prospects for peace. The real problem is, simply, Israelis are happy with the situation as it stands and have little motivation to change it. Only by a small majority of 4 percentage points do Israelis believe that they cannot shoulder the economic and security burdens of the status quo, and even fewer think that U.S. support for Israel will decline if there is no peace (by 49 to 47 percent, within the margin of error).

Given the daunting challenge of moving a number of the 500,000 Israeli settlers living beyond the green line, the country's original 1949 borders, (or leaving some under a future Palestinian sovereignty), one begins to understand why the current cost-benefit calculation weighs in favor of maintaining the status quo.

If there's any encouraging news for the Israeli government in our results, it's the pronounced Israeli capacity for pragmatism. This is evidenced in Israeli popular support for Netanyahu's negotiations with Hamas over a prisoner exchange, border-crossing issues, and informal understandings on a cease-fire. Although only 36 percent of Israelis consider their own prime minister "honest and trustworthy," according to our results (this compares with 55 percent who attribute these qualities to Obama), a commanding 69 percent approve of Netanyahu's handling of security. Indeed, the poll suggests that Netanyahu has far more wiggle room on the Palestinian issue than is generally assumed.

In the end, the poll shows that Israelis care most about regular bread-and-butter issues. When asked what would be their top reasons to support a peace, a "more normal life for our children" and "economic growth" come in first and second (polling 50 and 37 percent, respectively). Even recognition by 22 Arab states -- so ardently pursued by the administration and promoted by Congress -- motivates only 15 percent of Israelis.

In other words, Israelis see few reasons not to continue the occupation and are perhaps being offered the wrong kinds of incentives for choosing a different path. The behavior of Israel's leadership is consistent with a short-term political calculation that Israelis aren't willing to disrupt the present scenario. Continuing and even entrenching the occupation, for example, avoids hard and coalition-threatening political choices at home, incurs the most minimal international and domestic costs, and is not seen to defer new and meaningful benefits that Israelis would enjoy conditional on a peace deal. For any new peace effort to have a chance at breaking the logjam, then, its starting point will need to be the creation of a new architecture of incentives and disincentives -- and Obama's popularity, or lack thereof, will be left up to the people of Virginia.

This piece also appears in The Huffington Post

Israeli PM Netanyahu announced today his cabinet’s decision, “To suspend new construction in Judea and Samaria.” (Yes, they still call it Judea and Samaria). The Obama Administration responded within hours with a statement released by Secretary Clinton followed by a press briefing from Special Envoy George Mitchell. 

On the face of it, this was a step forward by the Israeli government, acknowledged and welcomed (though not blessed) by the US government, and a move that one hopes will facilitate Palestinian agreement to resume negotiations.  But if one digs just a little bit deeper, it becomes very evident that it was nothing of the sort. Rather, today’s events closed the first chapter in a game of dare being played out between the new leaderships in Washington and Jerusalem.

Today’s statements appeared to be part of an elaborate and ongoing dance of suspicion between the two supposed allies. During his first term as prime minister in the late 90’s, Benjamin Netanyahu made an enemy of then US President Clinton and played the Republican congress against the Democrat president. This directly led to the collapse of Netanyahu’s government and his fall from office. Judging by today, Netanyahu is keen for a repeat performance albeit under circumstances even less propitious for him politically. The response of the Obama team might be an interesting pointer as to where things might be headed on the peace front.

The Obama administration has been calling on Israel to make good on a settlement freeze commitment dating to the 2003 Bush-era Road Map (and, questionably to the 1993 Oslo DoP).  Netanyahu has been unwilling to do anything of the sort. He sought to codify a set of exemptions to a settlement freeze or in plainer English, guidelines for ongoing settlement expansion, and to have those blessed by Washington. The Obama team refused to become the first ever American government to formally authorize settlement expansion. That is the situation we have reached with today’s announcement.

Netanyahu’s cabinet clarified its so-called “settlement restraint” policy with today’s decision (some have called it a “moratorium” or a “freeze” but as you will see shortly, it is nothing of the sort, and those words are an inappropriate description). 

The only apparent restraint in the Israeli cabinet decision was to suspend issuing of new permits or beginning new construction in the West Bank for ten months. The less restrained side of the equation is this: 3000 units already under construction will continue; all public buildings and security infrastructure will continue to be built; no restrictions would apply to occupied East Jerusalem; and construction would resume after ten months.

Netanyahu also repeated the totally (meaningless)commitment of no new settlements or land confiscations (meaningless because since 1993, the official policy is no new settlements yet via expansion, new neighborhoods and outposts, the West Bank settler population has grown from 111,000 then to over 300,000 today, and because although the built-up area of settlements constitutes only 2% of West Bank land, double that amount is slated for growth, and a total of 40% comes under the Settlement Regional Councils, therefore land confiscation issue is a red herring).

While it is technically true that this “restraint” is a new Israeli commitment, its practical relevance is of very limited significance – building 3000 units in ten months neatly dovetails the regular annual settlement construction rates. Moreover, Netanyahu made sure to assertively mention all these caveats in today’s announcement – in effect, poking the Obama administration, the international community, and the Palestinians in the eye.

While some claim this was a politically courageous act by Netanyahu, the real litmus test is easy to apply: Has this led to any shakiness, any crisis, any resignations in the most right wing coalition ever in Israel’s history? The answer: absolutely not, and resignations in Israeli politics are about as rare as Turkeys on Thanksgiving. Netanyahu’s so-called “restraint package” was so minimalist that it kept his coalition happy while doing nothing to advance a genuine peace effort (Yes, there is some criticism from the far-right, and Netanyahu’s supporters will point to it as proof of his bravery, but as I say, the real test is in his coalition – and there: not so much as a wobble).

The interesting development today, indeed the unprecedented development, was in the US response. Yes, Senator Mitchell did pro-forma explain why this is new, why this was progress from the Israeli government. But the real American response came elsewhere, in Secretary Clinton and Envoy Mitchell’s statements. They did not bless the Israeli non-freeze, explaining it fell short and that they expected more, and that “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements”. (Admittedly they could have explicitly said that after ten months and the 3000 units, their expectation was for not a single new home to be built, they didn’t).

But the new language came in Secretary Clinton’s description of what American expects the outcome of negotiations to be – for an “independent and viable [Palestinian] state based on the 1967 lines”. Senator Mitchell quoted Clinton in repeating the call for a Palestinian state “based on the 67 lines.”

Every conflict and every situation has its own lingua franca. In the Israeli-Palestinian context, a state based on the 67 lines is the dog-whistle for what constitutes a real, no-B.S. two-state outcome. It is also language that the US has conspicuously avoided using – avoided that is until today.

Previous administrations would speak of UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 (but those are interpreted differently by the Israelis and Palestinians); the Clinton Parameters of December 2000 suggested percentages on territory, but never mentioned the 67 lines; in June 2002, President Bush used the phrase, ending the “occupation that began in 1967.” That language was adopted in the 2003 Road Map and used verbatim by President Obama in his September United Nations General Assembly speech. It is language very much open to interpretation. The “1967 lines” language add a far greater degree of clarity – and, as such,  is an anathema to the Greater Land of Israel, anti-peace forces (many of whom are represented in today’s Israeli government).

Interestingly, Secretary Clinton had begun to play with this language during her recent Middle East trip but had never been so explicit – until today. It is true that this adoption of new language comes late (perhaps too late) in the process and will need to be backed up by more concrete steps. It is though progress.

So the subtext of what went on today – the Obama administration is beginning to up the ante, at least declaratively, in the signals it is sending in response to Netanyahu’s stubbornness on settlements, and in setting the table for the next phase of its peace efforts.

The question of course is – what next? Senator Mitchell gave some hints about that also. He suggested that the US was still pursuing a comprehensive peace effort and notably discussed Syria at some length. He briefly mentioned the option of resuming regional multilateral talks with Israel and various Arab states on issues such as water and energy at an appropriate time. Most interesting perhaps, Senator Mitchell explained that negations, “will proceed on a variety of tracks,” and while he continued to push for the resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian talks, he also spoke of parallel talks that the US would conduct with each of the parties.

This combination of back-to-back negotiations – US-Israel and US-Palestinians – combined with the reference to the 1967 lines may signpost the way out of the peace impasse. The US will need to elaborate and put flesh on the bones of its “based on the 1967 lines” parameter and then pursue a conversation, mostly with the Israeli side, on how to implement that, and if necessary go public with a plan and  tie incentives/disincentives to its acceptance/rejection.

This piece also appears in Haaretz

Is the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leadership, which is currently proposing to seek United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 border, about to shake up the Israeli-Palestinian paralysis in a game-changing way? The answer for now would appear to be "no." Both U.S. and EU officials were quick to distance themselves from the idea and label it premature. For their part, the Israelis took umbrage at this hint of Palestinian unilateralism. In case anyone failed to notice how much irony was dripping from this indignation, days later Israel indulged in yet another unilateral act of its own: advancing plans for the expansion of Gilo in East Jerusalem.

By mid-week, some Palestinian leaders were busy retreating to a more minimalist version of the "statehood now" plan. The option of a unilateral declaration of independence was more a reflection of frustration and desperation than it was a profound development in Palestinian strategic planning capacity or political smarts. It seems that talk of the move was both tentative and ill-conceived.

No plan was revealed that would address the obvious questions arising from such a strategy. Would the Palestinians maintain the Palestinian Authority in this scenario, given its overwhelming dependence on Israel? What would be the status of the mission of U.S. General Keith Dayton to train the Palestinian security forces in this new context? What would happen with taxes and border crossings, and how would the PLO advance its struggle internationally?

The list of questions goes on, but the paucity of answers from the PLO leadership suggests that it has yet to seriously consider a strategic alternative to its 16-year dependence on negotiations with Israel. In fact, the entire episode looked like another example of the PLO trying to leverage its weakness rather than rediscover or create new strengths.

Despite all this, the Palestinian flirtation with a new approach does have some significance. It is part of a new fluidity and questioning of assumptions that have entered the Israeli-Palestinian arena. Palestinian civil society, for instance, has long ceased to rely on its leadership's strategies for achieving de-occupation. Inside the territories, nonviolent resistance, notably to the separation barrier, continues to gather adherents and momentum. Outside, the campaigns for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel are growing to dimensions that should make Israel's leaders sit up and take notice.

Hamas leaders are stepping up efforts to break their international isolation and slowly absorbing the implication for their future actions of the Goldstone Report's accusation against them of war crimes. Overall, there is an increasingly pervasive new sense of uncertainty in the region. Opposite this, Israel's leadership demonstrates an impressive capacity for tactical maneuvering, but is as bereft as the PLO of a strategic outlook.

At this stage, it is unclear whether any new strategic direction will come from the Obama administration; so far it has kept both sides guessing. The sharpness of U.S. criticism of President Mahmoud Abbas for not returning to negotiations was unexpected, given American investment in his leadership. The White House's admonition of Israel for advancing the approval process of a new neighborhood in Gilo was highly unusual, too.

Prime Minister Netanyahu's seeming addiction to poking American presidents in the eye seems to be souring relations with the Obama administration even more quickly than happened with President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s (an unwise predeliction that directly triggered Netanyahu's fall from political power at the time).

So it is still Washington rather than Ramallah that is likely to shape the next phase of any peace effort. After 10 months of the Obama team's efforts to pursue essentially the same old peace process (albeit with greater vigor), the collapse of that edifice is increasingly visible. A half-baked declaration from Ramallah is unlikely to chart a fresh path forward. Instead, Washington should be reviewing the reasons why that worn-out peace process architecture cannot deliver, and embracing a course correction.

For all the talk of resuming direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, no one really expects them to bring about a breakthrough. If the aim is to resolve the 1967 issues (borders - including those of Jerusalem; settlements, two states and security), then the focus needs to be on an agreement between the international community and Israel on the details and conditions for de-occupation, and between the international community and the Palestinians on the transition to Palestinian assumption of sovereign responsibilities (international oversight of security, for instance). If the aim is to resolve the 1948 issues (Israel's creation, the refugee narrative, and ending all other outstanding claims), then American or Quartet mediators will need to pursue a far broader, bolder and more inclusive conversation than the technical fix approach that has previously held sway.

Either way, U.S. or Quartet-led back-to-back negotiations with the Israelis, on the one hand, and Palestinians, on the other, are more likely to produce results than putting the current Israeli and Palestinian leaderships in a room together. But absent such American initiative, we should not be too flabbergasted if next time around, a Palestinian declaration of political reorientation is actually matched by a strategy and a plan, or if it reshapes the conversation.

This piece also appears in The Washington Note

This was not a good week for the Obama administration's Middle East peace efforts. Speaking alongside Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in Jerusalem last Saturday, Secretary Clinton seemed to be praising the distinctively partial limitations that Israel was willing to implement on settlement non-expansion. During the following days in Morocco and Cairo, she walked those remarks back, but the damage had been done.

By Thursday, the American-sponsored Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was sufficiently exasperated to announce that he will not be standing for re-election, and all week the media and political commentary on the U.S. approach was scathing about America's efforts--even by Middle East standards.

Speaking to the Washington Post, I described the U.S. approach of the past days as amateurish--a perhaps harsh, but unfortunately apt, label. On the positive side, I think the administration folks are themselves aware that this is not going swimmingly. The overall administration scorecard on Middle East peace is slipping into the red.

But first, let's be fair about that record.

The Obama administration merits significant credit for having acknowledged from the get-go that advancing a solution on Israel-Palestine, or at least reaching a post-occupation equilibrium, is a key American national interest--a realization that was belatedly groped at by the Bush administration and was set forth from day one by its successor. That displays a keen understanding of the centrality of how the Israeli-Palestinian issue impacts America's standing and ability to advance its goals, including the push back against extremism in the region and beyond. National Security adviser General Jones repeated the assertion last week at the J Street conference. Credit, too, for the administration for acting on this. A senior envoy, Senator Mitchell, was appointed on day two, and deployed shuttling back and forth to the region. The President delivered a ground-breaking speech in Cairo, the Arab world was deeply engaged (unlike the past), and a marker was set down on settlements. It was on this latter issue of settlements, however, where things began to unravel.

The Obama team's call for a comprehensive settlement freeze was consistent with past U.S. policy (notably Bush's Roadmap of 2003), although it was perhaps treated with more seriousness coming from the new 'hope and change' President. The Israel Prime Minister's answer came in June, and it was a rejectionist one: no full freeze, and no limitations whatsoever on settlements in East Jerusalem. That is when the malaise set in.

The administration had three possible options in responding:

1) Stick to its guns and calibrate a set of escalating consequences in response to possible ongoing Israeli recalcitrance.

2) Make a smart pivot by declaring, for instance, that if Israel could not for its own reasons freeze settlements, then this would make all the more urgent the need to quickly define and agree a border for an Israel-Palestine two-state solution. And the U.S. could reasonably have adopted a formula regarding that border (such as based on the 1967 lines, minor mutual modifications to accommodate settlements close to the Green Line in a one-to-one land swap). The U.S. could have explained to its Israeli friends that absent a defined border, the settlement freeze would have to be comprehensive, but in the discussion on borders, there could be more flexibility given the one-to-one land swaps.

3) Dig themselves into a hole. Insisting on a freeze, heightening expectations, without a plan for achieving that end, and by then acceding to talks with the Israeli government over koshering aspects of settlements expansion.

It is certainly legitimate for the administration to have not chosen option one, and to have decided that this was the wrong issue and/or wrong timing to escalate with the Netanyahu government. My own preference would have been for option two, and indeed, the administration could reasonably be perceived to have laid the ground deftly for such a pivot. Unfortunately, they went for option three, and it all came crashing down around their feet this week.

The Secretary's last minute stop in Cairo to round off the trip said it all. The Mubarak regime tried to help salvage some American pride, lining up behind the Secretary's efforts. Except that it is precisely the Mubarak government whose credibility is so severely questioned in the region, it is the largest Arab recipient of American financial assistance, and is obsessed with leadership succession--in short, getting a smile out of the Egyptian leader doesn't even register on the congratulatory charts.

There is nonetheless potentially good news in all of this. Those who are writing off the administration's peace efforts, friend and foe alike, are being premature in the extreme. This is a benefit of starting on day one--you can acknowledge the need for a course correction in month ten. In fact, it is not the new approach of the Obama administration that has failed, but rather, this is a moment of clarity regarding the bankruptcy of the old approach that has guided policy for over a decade and that the Obama team had inherited and embraced.

As Rob Malley and others have argued, what is needed now is a review (as has been conducted in other foreign policy areas) and a testing and likely abandonment of many of the prevailing policy assumptions. These might include the notion that one can incrementally build confidence between the sides when the prevailing reality is one of occupation, that bilateral negotiations between representatives of an occupied people and the occupying party can deliver de-occupation, that Palestinian political division should be encouraged (not overcome), or that proven self governance capacity under occupation is a precondition for freedom and independence.

If the goal still is Israel's security, recognition, and a guaranteed future as a democracy and a Jewish national home, alongside a secure, viable, and post-occupation Palestine and advancing America's national interest, and this should be the goal, then a new path is needed for reaching that destination. It will certainly require more international and U.S. lifting.

The Obama team is perfectly capable of charting a course from a bad week to a game-changing success, but more of the same won't get them there.

 This piece appears at Foreign Policy online

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped from the frying pan into the fire this weekend, when she sparked a controversy regarding U.S. policy toward Israeli settlements right after some tough days of public and private diplomacy in Pakistan. But was the controversy as serious as it seemed? And what does it means for the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts? Here, a fact check on some settlement myths and misconceptions.  

1. What is the significance of Clinton's linguistic acrobatics? 

Standing next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night in Jerusalem, the secretary seemed unequivocally to line up with the Israeli leader in relation to the ongoing dispute over the settlements. Clinton described Israel's offer of a policy of settlement "restraint" (i.e., not freeze) as "unprecedented." Prime Minister Netanyahu looked pleased as punch as Clinton placed the dead cat firmly at the Palestinians' door.

Monday, Clinton rushed to correct the impression of a policy shift, delivering remarks with the Moroccan foreign minister at her side in which she described Israel's restraint policy as falling "far short" of America's position or preference. She also reiterated America's 40-year opposition to Israeli settlement policy and rejection of "the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements" -- all things that she had failed to mention at the presser in Jerusalem. The Obama team's image of credibility and competence had taken a serious hit.  The Arab League's Secretary General, Amr Moussa, went on record to say "failure is in the atmosphere ... all of us are deeply disappointed" and that "we're not impressed".

In a sense, Clinton's prevarications aren't hard to understand. Since September's U.N. General Assembly tri-lateral meeting, the administration has been trying to extricate itself from Netanyahu's blunt refusal to meet the U.S. demand for a settlement freeze.  The Obama team chose not to escalate in the face of this rejectionism from its ally in Jerusalem. The U.S. message to both sides became: "Good Israeli progress on the settlements -- we expect more, but in the meantime, let's re-launch negotiations." Clinton was in effect reiterating that message with greater force during this trip -- and perhaps venting frustration at the Palestinians' lack of enthusiasm for this formula. However, that does not change the bottom line: The United States created an expectation for a settlement freeze, did not meet it, and is now paying a price of diminished standing in the region. 

2. Was Clinton right in describing the Israeli concessions as "unprecedented"? 

One of the more criticized aspects of Clinton's remarks was her repetition of Israel's policy of "restraint" toward settlement growth as "unprecedented" -- suggesting that the U.S. condoned that policy. Technically, yes, the policy is unprecedented -- Israel has not before publicly delineated a limited number of specific housing units (only those already under construction) beyond which it would not build in the West Bank. 

In terms of substantive impact, use of the term "unprecedented" is on flimsier ground. The approximately 3,000 housing units that Israel will continue to build is par for the course for its annual settlement expansion. And of course, the exclusion of East Jerusalem renders the arrangement a nonstarter to the Palestinian and Arab side, since no two-state solution can be envisaged without a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. 

The arrangement could, however, become genuinely unprecedented if the 3,000 units already under construction were explicitly acknowledged as the final settlement expansion of any kind, full stop. That may be the logic of the U.S. effort, but it has not yet been unequivocally articulated.

3. Should a settlement freeze be a precondition for negotiations?

The Palestinian leadership has been arguing that absent a settlement freeze, there is little point in resuming negotiations on a two-state solution. The original Oslo Agreement states that "Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations." This is a clause that the Palestinians have consistently referred to in claiming that settlement building is a violation of past signed agreements. Yet the Palestinians never before made such a stand on the issue. In Jerusalem on Saturday night, Netanyahu reiterated that, in the 16 years of previous negotiations since Oslo, a settlement freeze has never been an explicit precondition for talks -- and he was backed up by Clinton, who confirmed that "what the prime minister is saying is historically accurate." Netanyahu and Clinton were both right.

It is also worth noting that, contrary to much reporting, the Obama administration never made negotiations conditional on a settlement freeze. Rather, they argued that the freeze would be part of the actions needed to create an environment conducive to successful talks.

Nevertheless, the United States should view the current Palestinian insistence on a settlement freeze as a long overdue course correction. Had a settlement freeze been insisted upon when talks began in 1993, an agreement today would be dramatically more attainable. Back then, 111,000 Israelis resided in the West Bank alone, while today that number has surpassed 300,000. For most Palestinians, this belated insistence from their leadership is better late than never and perhaps the only way to revive any faith in the efficacy of a negotiated path to Palestinian freedom. For the PLO leadership, negotiating over an ever-shrinking territory has been an exercise in political self-emaciation. It is an exercise they can ill afford to continue, especially given the internal political challenge they now face from Hamas.

4. Do settlements really matter?

Yes, and then some. No single development during the peace process has done more to undermine Palestinian confidence in the possibility of the two-state solution. Likewise, nothing is as politically foreboding for an Israeli prime minister who is actually ready for a viable two-state deal than the awaiting confrontation with the settlers and their supporters.

Clinton seemed to be commending Netanyahu on a restraint policy that includes a commitment to "build no new settlements, expropriate no land." While this sounds like an impressive concession, the actual impact of this policy on the ground will be very limited.

Since Oslo began, Israel has considered it diplomatically impolite to officially create new settlements. Successive Israeli governments found convenient alternatives -- expanding existing communities, creating new suburbs of existing settlements (sometimes several kilometers from the original site), and most notably facilitating the establishment of over 100 new "outposts." The outposts are not formally authorized but they normally have the necessary infrastructure, water, electricity, and security needs provided by Israel's governing authorities and they are not removed -- settlements by another name.

Over 40 percent of the land of the West Bank is already within the municipal jurisdiction of the settlements, even though only about 2 percent is currently built up. So "no new land confiscation" is an empty and irrelevant gesture. For a full settlement freeze to really be meaningful, it would have to include a prohibition on advancing permits for planning and zoning of new settlements, and it would have to deal with the entirety of the settlement infrastructure. Netanyahu's jargon regarding the settlements needs translation -- and the translation is that such commitments are meaningless. 

5. So, what's next?

The Obama administration still seems to be pushing the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations as the key goal. Under current circumstances, that would be a hard pill to swallow for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, especially if Palestinian elections are on the horizon. But even if talks were restarted, many in the Middle East are struggling to see the point of yet more negotiations after all these years.  The issues and their solutions are largely known, but the expectations that negotiations would deliver anything meaningful are nearly nonexistent. Another option for the U.S. would be to initiate back-to-back talks with the respective parties -- this approach may actually be more productive than bilateral talks between two parties who have proven that they cannot resolve this conflict on their own.

After all of my questions, it is worth recognizing the question that is actually being asked of America from the citizens of the Middle East themselves: When will there be a serious American implementation plan for a two-state solution that recognizes the asymmetries of power and vital needs of each party and that is determinedly pursued by an administration which has, from day one, made Israeli-Palestinian peace a strategic American priority? On this question, we are all still waiting for an answer.

Marc Lynch has been kind of enough to allow me to publish this guest post on his blog at Foreign Policy with five observations on the latest deterioration in the internal Palestinian political situation.  

Rumors have been circulating in recent weeks of the imminent signing, in Cairo at the end of this month, of an Egyptian-brokered Palestinian reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas. There is even what purports to be an agreed draft document in existence. Over the past week, that unity deal appeared less and less likely, notably against the backdrop of the fallout from the PA’s abandonment of the Goldstone report at the UN Human Rights Council and the dramatic impact that had on the already compromised standing of the Fatah leadership (and the way it strengthened Hamas’s hand).

Well as of yesterday, the reconciliation agreement has been put on indefinite hold. PLO Chair and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas gave a televised speech in Ramallah in which he explained and defended the PA Ramallah’s position and launched a frontal verbal assault on Hamas. Within hours, Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal responded from Damascus with an assertive pushback, a withering critique of Abbas’s leadership and a definitive ‘no’ to any unity under current circumstances. Deposed Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh weighed in today from Gaza in support of Meshaal’s position, and on the flip side, some of Fatah’s leaders have begun to rally around their embattled leader.

It is not clear what Egypt’s next steps will be or how this will unfold in the coming weeks. Marc Lynch has been kind of enough to allow me to post this guest blog with five observations on this latest deterioration in the internal Palestinian political situation.

1. Abbas tries to shore up his base, Hamas overplays its hand

Mahmoud Abbas’s account of the PA/PLO’s management of the Goldstone report and his insistence that it will now be acted upon will do little to sway or convince his domestic political opponents or just about anyone in the NGO/human rights community, or third party/independent political forces in the Palestinian territories or diaspora. But they were apparently not his target audience in yesterday’s speech – rather, he seemed to be appealing to his home base inside Fatah.

To recover from recent setbacks, Abbas has apparently decided he needs to first of all re-establish his standing inside Fatah, and he has started to do that by taking off the gloves and offering lots of red meat in his attacks on the enemy… not Israel, stupid, but Hamas. After a summer of impressive politicking by Abbas with the Fatah conference and filling of vacancies in the PLO’s Executive Committee, everything was beginning to fall apart as key Fatah members joined the unprecedented outpouring of anger expressed over the PLO’s Goldstone decision.

Abbas provided just enough yesterday to give those parts of the Palestinian press that are PA-controlled (and who also found themselves having to join the criticism), and the PA-Fatah nomenklatura a just-about-plausible narrative to fight back with.

Abbas received help from an unlikely source – Khalid Meshaal, who overplayed his hand by abruptly saying ‘no’ to reconciliation, thereby allowing some of the blame in the public debate to shift from Fatah to Hamas. This was picked up eagerly by the pro-Abbas elements of the PA-Fatah echo chamber, for instance in today’s editorial in the pro-PA Palestinian al-Quds.

2. The Abbas-Fatah-PA Position Remains Tenuous
Even though Abbas came out punching in his press conference and has shored up some Fatah support, it is still very unlikely to be enough to reverse the trends of the past weeks which run heavily against his leadership group. Even yesterday’s statement failed to provide a reasonable explanation on the Goldstone affair, to really accept responsibility, or to draw a line under this episode. The criticism of Abbas & Co. in the past fortnight has been dramatic. The handling of the Goldstone report was the latest and by far the most damning of a series of setbacks.

First Abbas attended the New York trilateral meeting without initially securing an Israeli settlement freeze, contradicting his own commitments (and the claim that he was just attending a meeting, not resuming negotiations–while actually quite logical and diplomatic–was not effective in political terms). Even prior to New York, a powerful anti-PA narrative existed regarding its ongoing security and economic cooperation (for the critics, read: collaboration) with Israel, suggesting the PA was acting for personal and patronage self-interests, and as a subcontractor of the occupation, rather than standing up for and defending Palestinian interests. Then came the release of 20 female Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Hamas producing video evidence of Gilad Shalit’s well-being (and Abbas hosting the released prisoners in Ramallah fooled nobody).

The Goldstone debacle was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and yesterday will do little to reverse that tide. Abbas continues to be in an unenviable position. That is likely to remain the case until there is either a shakeup in Palestinian politics or until Fatah presents and acts on an alternative to its longstanding strategy of being exclusively negotiations-dependent. The Fatah leadership is simply still bought-in to a political strategy that has been fatally undermined and flawed, namely that with US support it will negotiate with Israel a way out of occupation and to independence, and will do so without a serious effort to mobilize international pressure or domestic resistance whether of the non-violent or violent kind (I’m not advocating any of the above, just setting out the debate).

The US, put simply, has not delivered Israel. The Israelis are not dismantling the occupation of their own free will, and the PA-Fatah strategy has precious little traction with its own people.

3. Can any good come out of this latest spat?

In actual fact, the collapse of the latest Cairo effort may not be such a bad thing. The draft document under discussion raised more questions than it answered, and a unity effort based on such a document would likely have collapsed in very short order. One of Abu Mazen’s closest confidants was heard recently to say that if the previous unity agreement lasted three months, this one would have barely lasted three days. Partly this reflects the state of play and more deepened animosity between the key actors in Fatah and Hamas. But it also has something to do with the mediation effort.

The Egyptian monopoly in leading the reconciliation effort is just not helpful or conducive to success. Egypt has a role to play but it cannot be the exclusive mediator. Following the visit of Saudi King Abdullah to Damascus last week and the ongoing rapprochement between the Syrians and the Saudis, there is a strong case to be made for broadening the mediation effort to include these two key actors and perhaps others in addition, notably Turkey, Qatar, and if they were willing to play a role, Jordan too.

A reconstituted Palestinian polity and national movement is likely to be crucial to any successful peace effort, and an optimistic take on the latest set-back to unity is that it could presage a redoubled effort in the future that is more effectively and solidly structured.

4. A Pyrrhic victory for Israel

The Israeli government has largely refrained from commenting thus far on these developments. If previous positions are anything to go by (and in this case, they most certainly are), then Israel’s political leadership will be encouraging further Palestinian division and enjoying every moment of it. At first glance, it would seem to make sense for Israel to favor a divided, and thereby weakened, Palestinian interlocutor/adversary.

For any Israeli government seeking to maintain the status quo and avoid any hard choices on peace, a logic of win-win may even apply here. If the Palestinians remain divided then Israel can bemoan the lack of domestic legitimacy or capacity to implement of its Palestinian partner (“What’s the point of cutting a deal with Abbas? He can’t deliver anyway,” they would say).

If there is a unity agreement, then Israel can claim that the Palestinian interlocutor has done a deal with the devil (as in Hamas), is now tainted with terrorism, and is therefore no longer a legitimate negotiating partner. In today’s circumstance, one can even throw a further ‘win’ into the mix – the Palestinian political standoff will make it even more difficult for Abbas to begin negotiations  without a settlement freeze, Israel ain’t doing a settlement freeze, and the Palestinian can be blamed for the lack of progress!

The Israeli government’s standard modus operandi would now be to very publicly declare the need to strengthen its Palestinian partner, throw them a few economic bones, maybe a new frequency for a second mobile phone operator, or even a minor and highly sectarian prisoner release. The entirely predictable effect of this is, of course, to further stigmatize and delegitimize the Palestinian recipient of this faux largesse.

Such a strategy may all seem terribly smart to its Israeli designers but I would suggest that this is an enormously costly and tragic pyrrhic victory. The net effect of this ongoing approach is to render ever less viable and likely a two-state solution. That in itself is far more threatening to Israel’s future than to the Palestinians (who, unlike any adherent to Zionism, can accept or even prefer a one state outcome).

5. What does it all mean for America’s peace efforts?

I’ll keep this brief. Abbas is now in an even worse position to sign up for the new formula of resuming negotiations sans settlement freeze. Such bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations would anyway now be rendered even less likely to produce a groundbreaking or even constructive outcome.

I’ve argued elsewhere that for all the criticism that it has encountered, the Mitchell approach actually has its advantages and has created some useful potential pivots for the US peace effort. The diplomatic shuttling of Special Envoy Senator George Mitchell between the parties is likely to prove more productive at this stage than getting the parties to sit together. The most important conversations will anyway need to take place between America and each of its interlocutors – the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the Arab states. Those conversations should now be shifting to a more sustained focus on the nature and details of a post-occupation two-state reality.

The US needs to continue to work towards an appropriate moment, in the not too distant future, for presenting an internationally backed American implementation proposal for a viable and dignified two-state outcome.

In that effort, the lack of a resumption of direct talks does not represent a setback, but the deepening division inside the Palestinian polity does. The Obama Administration cannot continue for much longer to sit this one out (de facto encouraging the split). A public U-turn is unnecessary; rather, the US should be quietly encouraging its allies and non-allies in the region to step into the breech (the aforementioned Saudis, Syrians, Turks, Qataris …etc) to supplement Egyptian efforts, and to help restructure a Palestinian national movement that can carry forward a serious peace effort.

 Israel's parliament, the Knesset, reopened today after a long break for the summer and the Jewish holidays. In line with protocol, Israel's president opened the winter session and Shimon Peres had this to say on the linkage between reaching peace with the Palestinians and addressing the Iran issue:

In my opinion, if we move forwards with peace and make peace with the Palestinians, and if we start negotiations with Syria and Lebanon, we will remove the main pretext for the Iranian madness - against us and against the other residents of this region. (President Peres, October 12th in the Israeli Knesset).

Now Mr. Peres is in reality not exactly the dove he is portrayed to be (he authorized many of the settlements, he supported Israel's recent wars with Lebanon and Gaza, and he never really earned his own Nobel peace prize), but this was nonetheless an interesting acknowledgement of the linkage from Israel's head of state--and it seems to directly contradict the messaging coming from Israel's ambassador to Washington D.C., Michael Oren.

Here's Michael Oren in an interview on October 3rd for Newsweek:

Q: Do you believe that the Arab states would make their support of action against Iran contingent on progress in the peace process?

A: No, there is no linkage whatsoever. The Arab states understand that the peace process is going to take a while, and we don't have a while with Iran. The peace clock and the Iranian nuclear clock are running at completely different speeds.

Oren was simply, and spiritedly, sticking to a lame PR line that has now been exposed as rubbish by none other than Israels' own president. On entering office six months ago, Prime Minister Netanyahu tried a similar trick, arguing that Iran would have to be dealt with first and that the Palestinian issue could be placed on the backburner. But President Obama wasn't buying any of that, insisting that both issues be addressed in parallel, and much to the chagrin of the Likud hawks, making Israeli-Palestinian peace a priority--something he repeated when responding to being awarded the Nobel peace prize last Friday.

The linkage, though aggressively denied by occupation apologists, is all too real (and credit to President Peres for acknowledging that). Here's how it works.

Iran's ability to spread influence and use leverage in the region is partly a product of the largesse it spreads around and of the allies it has through denominational allegiance or simple patronage. But crucially, it also depends on the narrative that Iran espouses--and the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central to that. Iran does not have an appealing story to tell the region when it comes to it system of governance based on an interpretation of Shia jurisprudence (Velayat-e Faqih) or when it comes to its internal freedoms and achievements.

Rather, the narrative which allows Iran to speak to the Muslim and notably Sunni street, above the heads of Arab leaders, can be paraphrased as follows:

Only we, Iran, are standing up to the Israelis and the Americans in defense of our downtrodden Palestinian brothers and sisters; you, the Arab leadership who are close to America, host American troops, visit Washington and do Washington's bidding, and are even openly or sometimes secretly in contact with the Israelis--all these friendships have done nothing to help the Palestinians or address their grievance; our version of resistance is therefore honorable when compared to your shameful collusion.

It may be grating to the ear and make us feel uncomfortable, but that is a message that resonates. And that is what President Peres seemed to understand in suggesting that peace with the Palestinians would, in his words, "remove the main pretext for the Iranian madness."

Ending the occupation and delivering peace would fundamentally undermine Iran's narrative and its leverage.

Realizing a comprehensive peace can be done as part of a process of U.S. dialogue with Iran in which these issues are also raised, or it can be done in parallel to an engagement with Iran (it should not be done as part of a blunt, unsophisticated frontal assault on Iran, as was tried at Annapolis during the Bush presidency).

 This piece was co-written with my colleague Amjad Atallah, with whom I direct the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation.

It was first published at the Guardian.

This article also appeared in Haaretz

After his triumphant United Nations visit and trilateral New York summit, the verdict apparently is in: Benjamin Netanyahu is the heavyweight diplomatic champion of the world, defeating Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by a knockout and U.S. President Barack Obama on points. How do we know? Well, we are told, the preeminent goal of the second Netanyahu premiership is now within reach, namely urgent and unconditional permanent-status negotiations with the Palestinians on all issues, with active American shepherding.

Really? Does Netanyahu really want, at the earliest opportunity, to be negotiating the 1967 borders, land swaps, settlement evacuation, and the sharing or dividing of Jerusalem, while there are Palestinians and Americans in the room? I don't think so. So what did he think he was getting himself into?

The much derided and scorned Obama team actually has pulled off one of the more difficult moves in diplomatic choreography. They now have a tricky interlocutor, in this case Israel's leader, enthusiastically embracing their target (endgame two-state negotiations) as his own.

This does not mean we have entered the home stretch, or that a two-state deal is now a foregone conclusion. Netanyahu will no doubt pursue new exit strategies, but several of his more cherished diversionary tactics already have been neutralized, and Israel's prime minister is barely even aware he has been mugged.

Not that this exercise has been cost-free for the Obama administration. A price has been paid, both in the squandering of newly earned goodwill with the Arab and Muslim worlds and in appearing to Israelis to have blinked first. Still, neither of these is irreversible.

Let's be honest: The general assumption when Netanyahu returned to the prime minister's office was that he would do everything to avoid being cornered into negotiating the core two-state issues. That was understandable, given that his opening positions, on territory or Jerusalem for instance, fly in the face of U.S. and international consensus and previous Israeli precedents. And so he did.

The initial rabbit Netanyahu pulled out of the hat to avoid the core Palestinian issues was called "Iran first." That was politely yet firmly rebuffed by a well-deployed counterargument from the Americans. The Iran file becomes harder, not easier, to manage if the Palestinian issue is neglected or allowed to deteriorate further.

Next came the "normalization first" canard: The Arab states must take tangible steps toward normalizing relations with Israel if Israelis are to have faith in a renewed two-state effort. This one showed more promise. Alas, as Nahum Barnea reported last week in Yedioth Ahronoth, when Israel's government takes a meaningful settlement freeze off the agenda, there can be no serious push for Arab gestures.

Finally, we were served the Netanyahu specialite de la maison: "economic peace first." If the Israeli official spin machine had its way, we would all be googling listings for the Nablus cineplex and marveling at the West Asian economic tiger of Palestine's West Bank archipelago. That is not happening either, some overly rosy puff pieces notwithstanding. For one thing, the case rests on flimsy foundations - severe restrictions remain on Palestinian freedom of movement, access to land and resources, and the economy remains precarious.

Just as important, the Obama team, while encouraging economic progress, has consistently insisted that interim confidence-building measures must begin with a full settlement freeze. A clear principle has been established: A prerequisite for a gradual peace effort based on mutual confidence-building measures is a comprehensive settlement freeze now; the alternative is permanent status now. So here we are, with Benjamin Netanyahu on the fast-track to endgame two-state negotiations.

This is an Obama achievement secured with consummate Obama style. He has wrong-footed an opponent without fanfare, without vitriol, and quietly reframed the terms of debate to his liking. Of course, Netanyahu may and probably will continue to seek diversions and escape routes, but his opening moves have all been foiled. It seems Obama cornered Netanyahu rather than the other way around.

However, the problem with this analysis is in its framing. Is the U.S.-Israel relationship really a zero-sum game about who can more effectively hoodwink the other? Israel must desist from making it so. The United States and Israel have certain independent and shared interests. If the latter exist only with a neoconservative, Fox News, and pro-settler evangelical America, then we are in serious trouble. And in truth, such a narrow definition of shared interests is incorrect.

America and Israel are both served by a United States that is stronger, not weaker; more credible, not less; whose message of hope and tolerance resonates louder in the Middle East and elsewhere, not softer. Israel does not have a spare America. Israel and America are also both served by maintaining their partnership and by America's ability to continue to stand by a long-time regional ally. That is why President Obama refers to securing a two-state solution, to ending the occupation that began in 1967, as a strategic interest for America and Israel alike.

We could count down the days to January 2013 and pretend that Obama is fatally naive or politically weakened (or both) - despite polls showing him to be more popular at this stage of his presidency (with 56 percent support) than either Ronald Reagan (53 percent) or Bill Clinton (42 percent) - but that would be a fool's game.

The truth, inconvenient or otherwise, is that the absence of a sovereign and viable Palestinian state devastates American interests, and that should matter for Israel and the U.S.-Israeli strategic relationship. 

Barack Obama's handshake meeting with Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu is not getting nearly the credit it deserves. In fact, Obama's Mideast peace strategy is far more sophisticated than most observers realize.

This piece also appeared in Foreign Policy

Headlines are now being prepared following U.S. President Barack Obama's convening of a trilateral Israeli-Palestinian-American peace summit today in New York. Many will seek to belittle the president's efforts thus far. The summit was being dismissed as a photo-op before it even happened.

The right, in the United States and in Israel, will spin this meeting as further proof of the young president's foreign policy naïveté. Prioritizing Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution, creating expectations in the Arab world, and publicly disagreeing with Israel, on settlements for instance, are all exhibits in the right's case against the new administration (Steven Rosen here on ForeignPolicy.com provided a boiler-plate incantation of this hawkish line).

The spin from the left, in the United States and in the Arab world, is just as predictable. The president blinked on settlements when Israel said boo, the Palestinians have been thrown under a bus, and the U.S. is pursuing more of the same failed incrementalist policies.

In large measure, both of these views are wrong. The contours of a strategic methodical Obama approach to achieving the comprehensive Mideast peace of which he speaks are starting to become visible.

The way in which today's trilateral was announced is in itself instructive. Special Envoy George Mitchell was getting played by the parties last week as they tried to leverage America's desire to see the three-way meeting take place. Sometimes that is the lot of an envoy. It is also an advantage of having an envoy, allowing the president to step in, cut to the chase, and simply announce where and when the parties were expected to report for a meeting with him. The Americans decided that this week's news cycle would not be dominated by the vagaries of Middle Eastern leaders' mood swings or the potentially embarrassing ‘will they-won't they' speculation about an Abbas-Netanyahu meet. Obama decided. The trilateral happened. It's over on Tuesday, now move on to climate change and nonproliferation.

While some on the Israeli side (with many Arab commentators agreeing) will be portraying this as an Israeli win, with Obama weakened and Abbas squaring up to a large helping of humble pie, I think that's a misreading of the current state of play.

Let's take the issue that has received most attention - settlements. Analysts will jump on the fact that a meaningful settlement freeze has not been achieved and that President Obama called today to "restrain" such activity, a seeming climb-down from his previous statements. While it is certainly true that some of the newfound Middle Eastern goodwill toward the U.S. has been squandered by the American inability to deliver a freeze and a price has been paid in America's standing and credibility, something else has also been happening that is likely to prove more significant over time.

By holding Israel's feet to the fire over settlements for a sustained period, America may actually have achieved a great deal in strategically advancing the two-state goal. The most significant effect may be this: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's preferred approach was to focus on interim issues and confidence-building measures (CBMs) and to avoid negotiating the core issues (territories, settlements, Jerusalem, etc.) on which his positions are the most unreasonable. In particular, Netanyahu has attempted to advance an economic peace agenda, with his supporters feverishly spinning the idea that the West Bank is becoming an economic paradise. The Obama team has staked out a clear position - items number 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 on the interim/CBM agenda are entitled "settlement freeze." They have been giving short shrift, including today, to the economic peace narrative (they acknowledge the desirability of progress on the economy and freedom of movement, and should even congratulate themselves that the partial progress made is mainly a result of the heat Israel feels on settlements).

The result: The settlement freeze focus has made Netanyahu's natural comfort zone -- the interim/CBM world -- a prohibitively uncomfortable place to inhabit. So paradoxically, it is Netanyahu who now feels compelled to embrace and prefer negotiations on permanent status end-game issues. That is no small achievement.

In addition, the most right-wing government in Israel's history is, in practical terms, limiting its pro-settlements proclivities, and a tantalizing pivot has been established: namely, that having failed to reach acceptable arrangements on a settlements freeze, the best and obvious alternative is to proceed now to delineate borders. In other words, the territory -- the border component of the two-state deal -- becomes the default solution to what the Americans have established, possibly in a premeditated way, as the never-ending settlement freeze saga.

The cherry on the icing emerged today when the president notably and crucially failed to give a formal blessing to continued construction in East Jerusalem and in almost 3,000 settlement units as an "agreed exemption clause." By not providing this kosher stamp, by calling for restraint, actions not just words, America (just) retained its credibility on the settlements issue. So the settlements focus can best be understood as an important exercise in setting down a marker, even though it is also an important issue in its own right.

This is also the best way to understand the Mitchell team's several months' worth of investment in obtaining Arab gestures toward early normalization with Israel. The point here was not necessarily the immediate deliverables, which may be meager, but rather to create an expectation. This administration is serious about comprehensive peace, and the Arab states will need to be serious about making good on their full normalization pledge, which is part of the Arab Peace Initiative. Mitchell has begun to seriously have that conversation and to get people's heads in the Arab world around the idea of what normalization really means.

What we have been witnessing thus far, including today, has been a table-setting exercise. President Obama's message today continued to emphasize key themes -- the urgency of achieving a two-state solution, his personal engagement and commitment, and why this is an American national interest. Starting on day one, as Obama did, rather than in year seven as his predecessor did, has its advantages. It allows one to invest several months and even to reach an impasse in order to make a point. I would argue that this administration is determinedly and inexorably moving this process toward a moment of truth that may take another several months or more to arrive, but arrive it will.

The straw-man argument that a focus on CBMs and economic peace can substitute for end-game negotiations has been defenestrated. A settlement freeze will continue to be pursued but will now be delinked from these permanent status negotiations, which will be launched in parallel, and the Palestinians will be walked back from their preconditions. Israelis and Palestinians will be brought together to negotiate directly but with an ongoing American presence and guiding hand.

More than that, in fact, one can expect the existing modus operandi to continue, with most of the serious talks and negotiations taking place on three parallel axes of dialogue: American-Israeli, American-Palestinian, and American-Arab states. Most of that will be via the continuous shuttling of Mitchell and his team, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (who is more keenly involved in Middle East peace efforts than is often acknowledged) and President Obama being deployed as and when necessary.

Over time, one imagines that those key issues that have been addressed only tentatively thus far, or that have even remained taboo, will also be taken on. Syria, for instance, will at the appropriate moment need to shift from the orbit of hesitantly engaged outlier, to being a centerpiece in a comprehensive peace effort. A way will also need to be found to deal with the Hamas "untouchables." Ultimately, that might mean an indirect engagement via a consortium of regional and other actors (such as the Saudis, Qataris, Turks, and others, including but not exclusively Egypt) or by actively encouraging and accepting internal Palestinian political reconciliation.

If there is indeed a strategy here, and I at least think one can be discerned, then it is heading towards the presentation and active promotion, at the appropriate moment, of an American plan for implementing a comprehensive peace. America will have to recognize that it is dealing on the Israeli and Palestinian sides, for all their differences, with two deeply dysfunctional polities. The parties simply cannot do this of their own volition, and this is too important for them and for America for it to be left to the mercy of the vicissitudes of their respective domestic politics. America will have to create the incentives and also the disincentives.

It is not a question of wanting this more or less than the parties themselves. It is about who is best placed to carry this effort over the finishing line -- and only determined American leadership with international support can achieve that. Senator Mitchell frequently talks about his 700 days of frustration in Northern Ireland and one day of decisive, break-through success.

Today's trilateral may register on the frustrating side of the ledger, but President Obama has set off on a path that can lead to that one game-changing day of peace-making. Given the urgency, as acknowledged again by the president today, let's hope he dramatically trims down that 700 number.

David Frum and I posted our closing statements on The Economist’s website this morning. So far, the the daily polls have been quite consistent, with about sixty percent affirming that “This house believes that Barack Obama's America is now an honest broker between Israel and the Arabs,” and forty percent voting against the motion.  

Since Frum and I posted our opening statements on Tuesday, July 21, the debate has been augmented by articles from some great guest authors: Henry Siegman (president of the US/Middle East project), John Mearsheimer (the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and coauthor of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy), James Zogby (founder and president of the Arab American Institute), Michael Singh (the Ira Weiner fellow at The Washington Institute and former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council), and Aaron David Miller (author of The Much Too Promised Land and public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C.) 
 

Once again, I encourage everyone to both follow along with the debate and vote. Below is an excerpt from my closing statement:

Assuming then that Obama's America, while maintaining and respecting the America-Israel special relationship, wants to play an honest broker role, a key question arises in this debate and elsewhere: are such efforts doomed to failure by American domestic politics, traditionally heavily favouring uncritical pro-Israel positions? I would argue not. A popular American president, who is determined, and can articulate how a particular Middle East policy serves American national security interests, while explaining how that policy also helps Israel (even if the Israeli government of the day disagrees), will eventually carry the day.

Yes, lobbies play an important role in American politics, and the Israel issue is not immune to that—far from it. But even the best-funded lobbies don't win every time. And, the so-called Israel lobby is neither homogenous nor omnipotent. There is also a changing environment. The American Jewish community is overwhelmingly liberal and is now finding new vehicles to express nuanced and progressive positions that are supportive of Israel, but not "Greater Israel". Notable are the successes already notched up by J Street, established fifteen months ago and active in online campaigning and political lobbying (full disclosure: I serve on J Street's advisory board).

So, an honest broker role that acknowledges the specificity of the American context and retains the special relationship is politically possible. It is not, though, by any means politically cost-free.

Continue reading here.

I encourage everyone to take a look. Below is an excerpt from my opening statement. Rebuttals will be posted on Friday, July 24.

"I will argue that within the context of that US-Israel special relationship, the United States can still be an honest broker, should play such a role and has done so on several occasions in the past, and that President Obama's America is beginning to occupy that political space.

Mr Obama is a friend of Israel. It is, however, a different type of friendship from the Bush years, more grown-up and grounded in reality, healthier for both parties. One should understand that the honest-broker effort under Mr Obama will be undertaken while maintaining the special relationship, not replacing it. He will, for instance, be especially sensitive to Israel's legitimate security concerns (but not its territorial expansionism).

An appropriate analogy might be a sister-in-law's role during a couple's dispute: there is clearly a closer tie to one side, but that does not preclude a sufficiently effective evenhandedness. Let us say that Mr Obama's America is now being enough of an honest broker."

 This piece appears on Huffington Post.

Last week witnessed a concerted attack against the credibility of the NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW), seeking to link supposed fundraising activities in Saudi Arabia with that organization’s criticism (“bias”, according to its detractors) of Israeli practices in the occupied territories, also claiming HRW is soft peddling on Saudi violations. It started in a Wall Street Journal piece, the Israeli prime minister’s office and spokespeople weighed in, and then AIPAC and the rightwing blogosphere got onboard. The attack on HRW has now been ratcheted up according to today’s Jerusalem Post.

The former right-wing Israeli Government Minister, Natan Sharansky (also an ex-Prisoner of Zion, President George W. Bush’s favorite author and occupation apologist) claims that HRW “has become a tool in the hands of dictatorial regimes to fight against democracies.” Ron Dermer, director of policy planning in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office adds: “We are going to dedicate time and manpower to combating these groups; we are not going to be sitting ducks in a pond for the human rights groups to shoot at us with impunity". 

The apparent trigger for this assault on a group that represents the global gold standard in human rights monitoring, analysis, and advocacy, was a visit by HRW’s Middle East-North Africa director, Sarah Leah Whitson, to the Saudi kingdom. I happened to find myself on a panel at The Century Foundation discussing the Middle East with Whitson just days before this storm broke—I went back and watched tapes of that panel discussion. To accuse Whitson of being soft on the Saudis or somehow singling out Israel for criticism is quite astonishing as I’m sure you’ll agree if you take ten minutes to listen to her presentation—of that, more in a moment.

According to reports Whitson was hosted one evening in Riyadh by prominent businessman and intellectual, Emad bin Jameel Al-Hejailan, for a private dinner which included business leaders, civil society leaders, and well-connected Saudis. It was not a fundraising event. HRW was certainly not fundraising from the Saudi government. Spencer Ackerman of The Washington Independent quotes Whitson—“We have never raised any money from the Saudi government or any other agency in the world.” That HRW does not take government money is something that is already well-known.

HRW does, of course, receive contributions from individuals and foundations—something that does not prevent them from producing releases and reports critical of the states from whence donors hail.

Does HRW’s fundraising from private sources in the US prevent it being critical of American human rights violations (and I obviously acknowledge the differences between the US and Saudi Arabia)? Apparently not. Yes, donors have agendas, but as long as the organization adheres to standards of fact-checking and objectivity, its credibility is sustained.

Sadly, these attacks on HRW demonstrate no such objectivity or credibility—they come from a narrow and misguided right-wing Israel advocacy agenda. One group that has been plowing this terrain for some years is Gerald Steinberg’s odiously named “NGO Monitor,” in the attacks on HRW he is being joined by bigger guns. Steinberg accuses HRW of being “linked to the terrorist campaign” (of Hamas …etc), and whines that "Human Rights Watch is an organization with a budget of $40 million a year; they are a superpower”. Poor Mr. Steinberg, his supporters in the anti-HRW campaign over at AIPAC only had an “$80 million purse” at their disposal.

Ms. Whitson at HRW is not rolling over, this was her response: "Please, if there is something we got wrong, if one of the incidents or attacks we described is wrong, I would love to hear it. Because the Gerald Steinbergs of this world, and I guess now the Sharanskys of this world, love to give blanket denials, love to give blanket dismissals. But let's get down to the facts and let me know, did we get the fact wrong on any of these cases."

Whitson had also been accused of using HRW’s criticism of Israel and the hits that it takes on that score in order to curry favor with potential Saudi backers. According to reports, Whitson discussed HRW’s work on both Saudi practices and on the Israeli occupied territories among other issues. Jeffrey Goldberg in his Atlantic blog shares a thoughtful exchange on this with the executive director of HRW, Ken Roth.

I would suggest that Human Rights Watch is not at fault here, but rather those whose agenda is to smear its good name. The event held in Riyadh that has come under scrutiny is undoubtedly replicated by HRW in similar venues around the world and is crucial to their work in sensitizing elites—especially in countries where violations occur—to a broad human rights agenda, including its applicability to the venue in question.

The most perfunctory fact-checking debunks the claim of HRW having an anti-Israel obsession as being patently absurd. As Ali Gharib of IPS has pointed out, of more than 30 releases in June and July (so far) about the region, Israel was criticized three times, Saudi Arabia five times, and Iran on nine occasions.

And here’s how cuddling up to the Saudis and perhaps even seeking private Saudi money led to self-censorship by Sarah Leah Whitson in her criticism of Saudi Arabia at that TCF event: Whitson attacked the lack of due process in the recent Saudi terror trials. She described Saudi Arabia, along with Syria and Libya, as being on the less free side in terms of “the most basic human rights” violations in the region. She attacked Saudi Arabia’s lack of a penal code, and Whitson had this to say about women’s rights in the kingdom: “Saudi Arabia is the absolute worst. Women are treated as legal minor, as children.” Two of HRW’s recent releases are about women’s rights and domestic worker abuses in the kingdom.

So, why this coordinated attack on HRW all of a sudden? It pains me to say it, but this is all about Israel. The Israeli prime minister’s office was shameless enough to announce that it has decided to wage a battle with human rights NGOs and started with Human Rights Watch. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s spokesman, Mark Regev, (apparently without irony) accused HRW of having “seriously lost its moral compass.”

AIPAC then promoted the attack on HRW. The timing is not a coincidence. Human Rights Watch, similar to other global, respected human rights NGOs, obviously follows developments in the occupied Palestinian territories and obviously had something to say about Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in Gaza six months ago. Their recent Gaza report focused on the use or, rather, misuse of drones during these military attacks. Amnesty International has been similarly critical of the use of drones, asserting that Israeli forces did not employ insufficient care in preventing civilian casualties.

Or maybe, just maybe, something troubling from a human rights perspective might be taking place in Gaza and the rest of the occupied territories. This is a case of “shoot the messenger” on steroids. What happened to Gaza during Operation Cast Lead is being revealed not only by international sources, but also by Israeli sources, including this latest report from Israeli combat soldiers of the Breaking the Silence group, a collection of testimonies by Israeli combatants who served in Gaza.

Unfortunately, Israel did not—as was recommended by Israeli human rights groups including B’tselem—conduct its own credible state inquiry into the Gaza events. By leaving the Israeli Defense Forces to conduct their own cursory, closed, and, ultimately, not credible investigation, Israel has sent the signal to the international community, and notably to the human rights NGO community, that it will not do the job - that they will have to.

The logic of Israel’s continued occupation is such that the steps Israel is taking to maintain and entrench its presence in the territories are leading to ever-greater human rights violations. Often these practices are exposed, obviously human rights’ NGO’s do a lot of that exposing. In that context, one can expect the attacks on the human rights community to be ratcheted up. As Matt Yglesias has pointed out, there is “an increasing tendency by the Israeli government and by hawkish Jewish organizations to respond to criticism of Israel’s human rights record by lashing out against human rights groups.”

Attempts to defend the indefensible do not make for pretty viewing, even when beloved Israel is the subject (for another example see The Israel Project’s recent defense of settlements in the West Bank).  Surely, one can both be a supporter of Israel and it’s security while at the same time, defending human rights by, for instance, advocating an end to the conflict, a two-state solution, and an end to the occupation. Surely, supporting Israel cannot be about undermining efforts to advance human rights around the world. That is not just fundamentally wrong, it strikes me as being fundamentally un-Jewish, and goes beyond the pale of what is legitimate or ethical.