The President and his foreign policy crew have shown remarkable naivete regarding the relations of Israel, the "Palestinians," and the rest of the Arab states. Perhaps it is unfair to characterize the Nice Young Man From Chicago and the Not So Nice Older Woman From New York as "naive." It would be more apropos to describe them as having accepted the post-Intifada new narrative of Israel-as-bully.
Admittedly, the new narrative crafted by an interesting assortment of liberals and cultural relativists has more than a small grain of truth. The grain grows to almost boulder size when considering the territories occupied by Israel after the 1967 Six Day War.
It is important to recall two important facts regarding the Six Day War and its aftermath. They are critical in understanding both the old narrative, Israel-as-victim and the new one, Israel-as-bully.
The administration of Lyndon Johnson knew the war was coming months, even years before the Israeli government took advantage of the precipitant actions of Egyptian dictator Nasser to justify a "defensive" preemptive war. The Johnson administration had been warned within the context of the Israeli request for long-range fighter/bombers and main battle tanks in 1964 by both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and CIA that the Israeli Defense Forces would launch an attack against the Arab "frontline" states as soon as the equipment was fully integrated.
(The JCS recommended substituting shorter range jets and tanks which would have met Israeli defense needs but lacked the ranges necessary for offensive operations. The administration ignored the suggestion.)
The Johnson administration also knew (or should have known) from CIA and State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research reports that the government of Israel was of the habit of creating "facts on the ground" which served to render negotiations nugatory. The implication was simple: If sufficient time elapsed between the taking of land and the end stage of negotiations, the government of Israel would assure the creation of facts on the ground which had the effect of nullifying the results of diplomacy.
There was no legitimate reason for the Johnson administration to have been taken by surprise by the commencement of the Six Day War or by the unwillingness of the government of Israel to respond positively to either UN resolutions or the importuning of the administration that land be exchanged for peace. The IDF acted as predicted during the war. The government of Israel acted as predicted during both the runup to the war and its aftermath.
The Israeli position regarding the West Bank and the Golan Heights at the time and for all the weary talk-filled decades subsequently was that the territory taken and occupied was utterly essential for the physical security of Israel. The military technology of the time certainly provided a plausible justification for the Israeli refusal to surrender the land in exchange for anything other than an enforceable comprehensive peace.
All the while, particularly after the Yom Kippur War, the Israeli government created facts on the ground in both the West Bank and Golan Heights. The "settlements" as these new urban centers were charmingly entitled as if they were small, temporary frontier shantytowns, were crafted with both military and diplomatic imperatives in mind.
Militarily, they provided means of both local defense and canalization of presumed armored thrusts from Jordan into pre-arranged killing zones. Diplomatically, the investment in the "settlements" provided a means of assuring that negotiations would never provide for the return of the previously sparsely or unoccupied real estate to either Jordan or some hypothetical "Palestinian" state.
Yitzhak Shamir made his long career as Israeli Prime Minister on the basis of talking-while-building. Benjamin Netanyahu studied at the master's feet. Talk, talk and build. Build worked then--and now, as the Obama administration has found out to its discomfort and dismay.
The brutal reality is that Israel contemplated expansionist war, prepared for it, and, when a proper, plausible pretext arrived, waged it. The Six Day War was a land grabbing deal. Period.
Had the US been in a position to back the UN resolutions with pressure of its own before facts were planted all over the occupied territories, there is reason to believe that a comprehensive Mideast peace might have been worked out. Not a lot of reasons, to be sure, but some.
Domestic political considerations including the wavering support for the already seemingly endless Vietnam War nudged the Johnson administration and its follow-on, the Nixon Gang, to lean only very, very lightly on Israel. Encouraged by the constant US support, the government of Israel stopped talking in a meaningful way about retreating from the occupied territories and kept on building.
The same combination of domestic political considerations and Israeli genius for talking only to undercut any potential benefit from the talks by building operated throughout the next two decades. Sure, Israel did return the Sinai in return for the cold peace it has had with Egypt, but the notion of keeping the Sinai in perpetuity never crossed the Israeli governments' collective minds. And, it gave a nice gloss to the notion that Israel really wanted peace with its neighbors.
Throughout these years the American (and to a major extent, European) liberal constituency accepted the Israel-as-victim narrative. The sea change in view started with the dramatic imagery coming from the First Intifada. Coming as they did after the controversial Israeli invasion of Lebanon and its concomitants including the refugee camp massacres and the exposure of American troops to terrorist bombs, the visuals from the First Intifada made thinking of Israel as the Seven Hundred Pound Gorilla permissible.
Had Arafat and his fellow Fatahmen been at all competent at the negotiation game in Oslo and elsewhere, they would have been able to get a better deal at the table--even offset some, but certainly not all, of the advantages gained by the Israeli "settlement" policy. They weren't. Indeed, Arafat and company set a record for sheer incompetence in negotiation which has never been equaled by the Bozos of the current Abbas directed Palestinian Authority.
Despite the sheer lack of Arab skills in the assorted rounds of talks from Madrid to Annapolis and regardless of the degree of external support offered by foreign interlocutors, the Arabs have been the continued beneficiaries of the new, post-First Intifada narrative, Israel-as-(intransigent) bully.
The Obama administration entered the fray with whoops and hollars, most notably the demand that Israel end the "settlement" construction. Worse, there has been a set of mixed messages coming from the mouth of the President personally, including ones delivered at the UN over the past twenty-four or so hours.
Is the US demanding a (temporary or permanent) end to "settlement" construction? Is it requiring a rollback of the several hundred thousand Israelis from the "settlements" erected on the (arguably) illegally occupied territory of the West Bank? If so, is the US taking the position that the buildings, the infrastructure, be turned over to the Palestinian Authority as a turn key proposition? With compensation or without? The hazy, even contradictory language used by Mr Obama and others in his administration leave all interpretations equally open--which is fatal to meaningful negotiations.
Hard cases--those where equal amounts of justice sit on both sides--make not only for bad law, they make for very bad policy. Forty years ago, even thirty, the idea of an Israeli rollback would have been both just and logical. Today, the concept of rollback is neither just nor logical. And, it is not practicable in that Israel is not about to either (forcibly) evacuate several hundred thousand of its citizens from the "settlements" or turn the physical plant over to the Palestinian Authority.
This means any sort of "return to the pre-1967 borders" is as likely as whales flying. It also implies that stopping the admittedly highly elastic "natural growth" of these "settlements" is not probable. The Obama administration was pursuing a red herring in this context.
A contiguous Palestinian Authority state can be created using the current "facts on the ground." It will not be all that the Palestinian Authority and its citizens might want, or even, from the perspective of abstract justice, they might deserve. But it would be better than the current situation of turbulence.
In return, the government of Israel might have to drop its demand that the Palestinian Authority recognize Israel as a "Jewish State." It might even imply that the government of Israel drop its not illegitimate requirement that the new Palestinian Authority state be de-militarized, although that proviso is well justified by the reality seen in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. It is not a perfect exchange, but it seems to be one which is good enough. In diplomacy more than most areas of human endeavor, the perfect is always the enemy of the good--or good enough.
In any event if the Obama administration is to have more effect than its predecessors on the endless "Mideast peace process," it must abandon both the old and new narratives. Israel--and the Palestinians--are neither bullies nor victims. One is a sovereign state. The other is a pretender to that status. This means that neither can be seen in stereotyped human terms.
Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have a single coinciding national interest. Both would live a lot better if they both lived in peace. Trading land for peace is the only way to get to that national interest in the real world. The Palestinian Authority will have to accept the "settlements" as facts on the ground and make the best territorial deal it can. Israel will have to drop the peripheral issues such as "Jewish state" and even de-militarization.
The Obama administration will have to stop pressuring Israel. And, not pressure the Abbas crowd. This is a time and place--unlike Burma--where engagement rather than coercion, where inducements, even bribery, is preferable if results are wanted rather than threats, sanctions, boycotts, or the other impedimenta of pressure.
And, the President should remember--and remind his people--this is a normal part of dealings in diplomacy, particularly diplomacy in the Mideast where the clocks sometimes seem to run in reverse.
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