The best approach is one which focuses on establishing borders between Israel and the proposed Palestinian state on the West Bank. At the same time the matter of a workable border between Israel and Syria which returns the Golan Heights to Syria must be addressed. This would leave only the Shaba Farms as territory disputed between Lebanon, Syria, and Israel in abeyance.
Now, Bucko, let's take a dekko at each border question in turn.
The Israeli "settlements" are an irreversible fact on the ground. This includes the belt which has been constructed around East Jerusalem and East Jerusalem itself. The necessary starting point is to acknowledge that the oft spoken of "Green Line" was an artifact of the 1949 Armistice, which ended active hostilities between Israel and the Arab coalition which had sought to throw the Jews into the sea.
More importantly, it must be acknowledged by all parties--including the Obama administration--that the "Green Line" was drawn where it was because of a deal between King Abdullah I of Jordan and the emerging Israeli government. The deal was based on a mutual agreement that Israeli forces would not move into those portions of Palestine reserved for the Arabs under the UN formula if Jordan's Arab Legion refrained from entering those areas reserved by the partition to the new Jewish state.
The agreement between Jordan and Israel held. The Arab Legion did not enter Jewish portions and the infant IDF stayed out of the areas reserved for Arab occupation. Since the Old City of Jerusalem was not specifically partitioned by the UN, the Arab Legion did successfully defend that place against attacks by the Jewish fighters. This meant, of course, that the West (or Wailing) Wall remained in Jordanian hands.
When the IDF opened the Great Land Grab War of 1967, the government of Israel warned Jordan to sit it out. Unfortunately Jordan's King Hussein felt this was an impossibility given the external and internal Arab pressures brought to bear upon him. As a result, the Jordanian forces were defeated and both the Old City and West Bank occupied by Israel.
It is important to note that contemporary documents including those of the Lyndon Johnson administration show that Israel would not have entered either the Old City or the West Bank had the Jordanian army remained on a purely defensive basis. This would have been the case despite intense pressures within both the people and government of Israel to gobble up the West Bank, and to an even greater extent, the Old City of Jerusalem.
When push comes to shove, the real deal is that the decision by King Hussein to enter the war alongside Egypt and Syria brought about not only the defeat of the Jordanian Army but the consequent occupation of the West Bank and the Old City. This is the ground truth even granting that no one in the government of Israel was at all disturbed by Jordan refusing to accept the warning. Indeed, there is powerful evidence that the relevant Israeli decision makers were betting the ranch on King Hussein reacting as he did.
Having acquired the West Bank and the Old City by what used to be called "right of conquest," the government of Israel wasted no time perfecting their claim on the new lands by creating what the government termed, "facts on the ground." These facts were reinforced by the official annexation of the Old City (or East Jerusalem) within months of its having been taken.
As had been the case in 1948-49, the removal of Arabs from the newly acquired lands was encouraged by the Israeli governments as well as the assorted Arab governments. Both population relocation and the creation of facts on the ground were in no way influenced by the actions and stances adopted by the US or the UN.
Available declassified documents suggest powerfully that the government of Israel not only never contemplated the exchange of land for peace in the West Bank but was of the view that the Arab population of the disputed territory would accommodate itself to the changed reality--or leave.
The government of Israel was wrong as events of the past forty years have demonstrated amply. Arguably, the best course of action would have been the immediate return of most of the West Bank to Jordan while Israel retained East Jerusalem and the land necessary for what was initially conceived of as a species of defensive belt. But, most of the movers and shakers in Israeli politics were convinced that the Jordanian monarchy's days were numbered and that the number wasn't large.
The negotiations conducted by Arafat and the rest of the Fatah combine which resulted in what is now the territory of the Palestinian Authority were poorly conducted by the Arabs. The government of Israel took full and complete advantage of the Fatah-men and spun circles around them. The Fatah types were too eager for some semblance of success and were willing to sign almost any deal, even one which left the under-construction Palestinian Authority with too little land, even less water, and an absence of territorial integrity.
The Arab's failure cannot and should not be blamed on the government of Israel. The chickens which are roosting today are purely those of an Arab provenance.
The fact of the matter (as lawyers like to say) is that the government of Israel is not going to abandon the majority of the "settlements" and relocate the 300,000 Israelis living in them to "their" side of the ancient "Green Line." For the Arabs to expect this is purely hallucinatory.
This implies that the crux of the border issue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is finding a means of redrawing the no-longer-operative "Green Line" so as to accommodate current reality. This means the new border must include most, but not quite all, the post-1967 construction on the Israeli side. In return the Israelis would concede barren land from Israel's side of the "Green Line" to the Palestinian Authority so that the latter could honestly state that the new Palestinian state had the same number of square kilometers as the pre-1967 West Bank.
That would be the easiest of the several "border" issues to settle. The issue of East Jerusalem is much, much tougher. The starting point here is the reality of Israeli annexation. While that act has never been recognised internationally, there is no chance that Israel is going to undo the annexation. No Israeli government could survive politically.
At the same time the Arabs have declared that Jerusalem is to be the capital of the Palestinian state. This declaration has been reinforced by the Muslim view of the Dome of the Rock as the third most holy site on the Islamic map.
As President Obama has found out, the status of Jerusalem is the worst sort of regional third rail. There is no real probability that either the Israelis or the Palestinians will continence the other having sole proprietorship of the place. There is no high probability that some sort of joint government can be worked out, at least in the next few years. This is true even though it is the most likely to work over time arrangement for Jerusalem.
Perhaps some sort of Jerusalem "neutral zone" agreement can be achieved with both Israel and the PA agreeing to jointly administer the municipality while neither claims it to be the capital and Israel provides the infrastructure services. In this way there is some slim possibility that propinquity can breed trust. Admittedly, this is a slight and frail reed on which to place much hope, but there aren't a lot of alternatives.
The Golan Heights is second only to Jerusalem as one tough problem. The Israelis want the water of the Golan. This flow currently provides Israel with roughly fifteen percent of its water. Syria wants the Golan. Both the land and the water. Syria is facing a diminishing amount of surface and sub-surface water which has already heavily and negatively affected the country's agriculture.
Israel is flatly lying when it maintains that its national security depends upon holding the Golan Heights. The national security dodge might have been true in 1967 or even during the 1973 war when Syria came within millimeters of breaking through the final Israeli defense line. (Note, it was US provided intelligence that allowed the IAF to redeploy its aircraft from the Sinai front to the Golan in finest "cavalry-to-the-rescue" style.)
There is no way that Israeli national security depends upon occupying let alone effectively annexing the Golan today and into the future. Not only has the change in offensive and defensive weapons technology militated against this contention, the continued presence of the UN truce monitoring force is an additional guarantee for both sides.
Israel is going to have to give up the Golan Heights if it wants a comprehensive peace treaty. Take a grip on this. The status of the Golan is the best measure of Israeli good intentions. On that basis, considering the recent statements of ForMin Lieberman, Israel has no interest in a comprehensive peace. None.
The Obama administration would be very well advised to focus on Syria. If it can lever the government of Israel into reaching an agreement with Syria which sees the return of the Golan then there will be a reasonable basis to believe that Israel is willing and able to achieve a general peace. If not, well, then the true color of Israel's intentions will be evident for all to see including the seventy-one senators whose names appear on the recent letter to Obama.
The Obama administration seems willing to accept that the march to peace in the Mideast will be a slow one. The Deep Foreign Policy Thinkers appear ready to accept the one-step-after-another approach to peace. The problem resides in their collective failure to identify the right first step.
The right first step is borders. Within that step, the first move should be on the Syrian matter. If nothing else, Syria is a rational actor with a single well delineated goal. And, the will and ability of Israel to make a concession based deal on the Golan is a very good, an unbeatable test of its sincerity and flexibility.
It's worth a try.
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