The Saudis Are Hitting Their Worry Beads

The House of Sand--oops!  Bad Geek!  It's the House of Saud--is having a serious Xanax moment all because of what is going on in Egypt.  No, it's not because the feudal regime is all that worried about being the next domino falling in the Arab world.

The Saudis have their burnooses in a twist because Egypt has been a very critical ally in the ongoing conflict between the reactionary Sunni regimes and the flatly paleolithic Shiite theocracy in Iran.  The fear is that a new Egyptian government may ooze closer to the stream of Islam best called political.  Should that happen, the Saudis will find themselves more isolated in the contest with Iran.

Saudi Arabia has been more keen than even the US in pursuing a strategy of isolating Iran.  Egypt has been a very important associate in this endeavor.  The support of Cairo has been key in offsetting the efforts of other Muslim majority states such as Qatar and Turkey to lessen the impact of sanctions and other isolation enhancing mechanisms.  Should Egypt under a new government slack off on these efforts, the result would be not only a lessening of Saudi influence but a collateral increase in that of Turkey.  The net outcome would be a species of defeat for the House of Sand.

While not having received any great play in American MSM, the cold war between Riyadh and Tehran has been the highest priority within the Saudi government.  The fear felt in Saudi Arabia concerning the ambitions and reach of the mullahs has been high and continues to grow.  The Saudis fear not only the military capacities of Iran, including the impending nuclear one, but also the growth of its direct and indirect influence within the smaller states of the region.

The growth of Iranian influence was behind the frantic efforts made by Saudi diplomats--and the Saudi king--to come to an understanding with Syria regarding the political arrangements within Lebanon.  The failure of these efforts not only indicated that Damascus had fallen deeper into the Iranian gravity well, but that Lebanon was being dragged in as well.  This meant simply that as of two weeks ago only Egypt was a solid backer of the Saudi play.

Should, as seems quite likely, the next Egyptian government will include the Muslim Brotherhood under some guise, it is almost inevitable that Egypt will back down from its solid pro-Saudi stance.  This, in turn, will enhance the ability of Qatar to wean at least some of the other, lesser Gulf States away from the Saudi line with a corresponding increase in the numbers and power of the soft-line-on-Iran bloc.

Because the centuries old split between Sunni and Shiite Islam is at the center of the current Saudi-Iran cold war, the Saudis have injured their own cause with the position taken by the Kingdom with respect to Iraq.  The Iraqis have as much if not more to worry about when looking at Tehran than the Saudis--and the Saudi government undoubtedly knows this.  But, because Iraq is majority Shiite in its demographics, the Kingdom has stiff armed the requests and importuning of Baghdad repeatedly.

It does not seem to matter to the Wahhibists of the Kingdom that the Iraqis are Arab.  Nor does it seem to count for much that more that a third or more of all Iraqis are Sunni.  It doesn't appear important to the strategists of Riyadh that the national interests of the Kingdom and Iraq coincide at several key points.  None of these considerations have offset the big one: Iraq is majority Shiite.

The chance of losing Egypt as an anchor ally may prompt some more realistic thinking in the Kingdom.  That is to be hoped for as an alliance between these two oil giants would be a force for political stability in the region.

Nice as such a development might be, it does not address the key problem for the Saudi regime as it contemplates an Egypt without Hosni Mubarak.  The dilemma for Riyadh is how to find and cultivate more allies.  It is no help for the Kingdom that it is autocratic even by the standards of the Mideast.  This means that insofar as the disaffiliated citizens of any state see their own less than legitimate authoritarian regime embracing the Saudis, it weakens the local structure.

Consider Jordan.  On the one hand Jordan seems a very obvious and attractive state for the Saudis to cultivate and support.  Jordan needs money.  Massive infusions of Saudi cash would assist greatly in meeting the needs for subsidization of consumer prices, the creation of jobs through public employment projects, even direct subventions to students and their families.  The list of potentials for order enhancing bribery are legion.

And, now for the on-the-other-hand department.  The current king of Jordan, Abdullah II, has none of the popularity of his father.  That is important given how much depends on personal relations between monarch and tribal chiefs.  And, at root, order in Jordan depends upon the strong support of the Bedouin tribes against the Palestinians.  Complicating the personal factors at work in Jordan is the severe unpopularity of the queen, Riana, whose let-them-eat-cake attitude came into harsh relief during her birthday bash a while back.  Going beyond the personal, the government has a record of exceptional inefficiency.  Finally, there is the intense friction between the traditional tribesmen: the "old" Palestinians and the "new" Palestinians.

The upshot is that a too obvious, too open, too close relation between Abdullah II and the House of Saud would rebound to the disadvantage of the monarchy.  It is not going too far to assert that moving too fast and far in the direction of Saudi Arabia would produce significant disorder in Amman.  As both the King of Saudi Arabia and the King of Jordan are under the pressure of fear complicated by a perception that time is running out, the probability of a too rapid, too open movement is high.

The other alternatives are no more attractive.  The more or less constitutional monarchy of Morocco is both too distant geographically and too fragile to be of much use to Saudi Arabia.  Algeria has its own problems with violent political Islam which may--or, more probably, may not--be helped by a more open and comprehensive alliance with Saudi Arabia.

The takeaway is the House of Sand has few options when it comes to replacing Egypt as an ally against Iran.  By any realistic assessment, the least-worst approach if for Riyadh to mend its relations with Iraq.  This would fry off the clerical establishment of the Kingdom.  The elderly, ailing King Abdullah and his almost as old, nearly as frail successor(s) have already taken actions which have annoyed the religious hardliners, so this should be an acceptable cost of maintaining the House in power.

As a companion move the House would not be out of line to push a "reset" button in its relations with Turkey. The Ottoman Empire has been gone long enough to forget about the bad old days.  The AKP is religiously conservative enough.  Turkey's diplomatic trajectory is oriented to the Turkic speaking regions of Central Asia.  And, Turkey would benefit from the one product other than oil which Saudi Arabia exports--cash.

Diplomatically, which is to say, in the creation of areas of strategic interest, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are complementary.  At the same time Turkey and Iran are rivals in that both see room for the expansion of influence in the same geographic region.  Thus, there are real limits to the degree to which Iran and Turkey can work in alliance.

If Saudi Arabia is actually as worried about Iran as seems to be the case, it should be possible for the government to reexamine its stance with respect to Syria.  As the abortive effort in Lebanon shows, it is possible for the Kingdom to push the Wahhibists to the side in pursing national interest.  Syria, of course, looks to be the model of authoritarian order but as recent events have made clear, appearances can differ markedly from substance.  The embrace of Iran by Assad's government is not universally supported by the public or even the elite.  The Syria-Iran hook-up is one of convenience from the perspective of Damascus and is far less certain than the oft repeated protestations of undying love made by the Syrian government would seem to indicate.

This means the House of Saud has maneuvering room regarding Syria.  Saudi Arabia has two very important commodities it can bring to the table: money and its relation with the US.  Both of these could have high value in Damascus.  In comparison, Tehran has very little to offer.  Its money is not as unlimited as that of Saudi Arabia and it has no relation with the US.  One not need to be the most sophisticated diplomat since Bismark to see the opportunities or how to play them.

There is no question that the elderly bunch running Saudi Arabia are worried.  Nor is there any doubt about the genuine nature of the worries.  The only question is whether or not the fugitives from the moribund ward in Riyadh have the wit and will to address the anxieties with speed and effect.

Borders First--Peace Later

The best way to cut through the who-is-going-to-duck-first dynamic currently at work in the Israeli-Palestinian contretemps is not the freezing of the Israeli "settlements" as the Obama administration has been attempting. Nor is it the effort to cozen or coerce the assorted Arab states led by Saudi Arabia to make cosmetic "concessions" to Israel as the letter signed by seventy-one US Senators has urged.

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.

When Does It Get To Freezing In Israel?

At least one report of the Israeli government having agreed to a temporary, total freeze on new construction in the "settlements" on the West Bank as a "confidence building" measure is bumping the Obama administration's joyometer up. As is so often the case with Israeli government promises to end or reduce or limit or stabilize or naturally grow the "settlements," there is less than meets the eyes of the NYT.

In a move worthy of a world-class prestidigitator, the Government of Israel (GOI) waves its right hand while deftly shoving a rabbit into the hat with the left. Presto! One "illegal" so-called "outpost" constructed by nationalist Israelis is gone. And, shazaam! fifty new homes are approved for the displaced families. The new subdivision has been approved by the GOI's Defense Ministry for inclusion in a "settlement" near Jerusalem.

At the same time, almost to the minute, GOI announced it is expropriating some land near the Dead Sea. To read GOI's version of the land in question, all fifty-four square miles is somewhat less desirable real estate than some crater on the backside of the moon.

The Arabs don't see it that way.

As if it were stop-the-presses-I've-got-a-remake-of-page-one-for-the-bulldog level news, the Arabs resident in the affected region are hacked off. Royally. But, the GOI crooned in response that those who are annoyed by this latest bit of thaumaturgy have forty-five days in which to appeal the adverse impact upon them.

Put together the three related developments put a thumb in the Obama administration's eye. It shouldn't though. Not if the administration had the slightest bit of historical sense.

The real deal is simple and easily seen on the great videotape of history. Israel and its government, not just this government, but any of the many governments going all the way back to the thirty years of Labor Party domination has had no, repeat, absolutely no interest in losing the land of the West Bank. One ministry after another has firmly rejected any commitment to exchanging land for peace where the West Bank has been concerned.

All the way back during the international war phase of the two stage Israeli War of Independence, the government and many citizens of Israel wanted the West Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem (or East Jerusalem, if you prefer the alternate denomination) so bad they could taste it. When King Hussein made the major blunder of joining the other "confrontation states" in the Six Day War of June 1967, Israel satisfied its long standing desire for the land--and the Old City.

As the Israeli government well knew from its never-ending "secret" meetings with Jordan's King Hussein, the monarch was willing to break ranks with the Arab states generally and sign a separate peace with Israel in exchange for the lost territory of the West Bank and the Old City with its Number Three In The World Muslim holy site. From Golda Meir on each and every Israeli prime minister said, "No!"

Even when King Hussein sweetened the deal by allowing some border changes to acknowledge the new "facts on the ground" created by the GOI's "settlement" plan as well as allowing IDF outposts in the West Bank, the Israeli's remained totally rejectionist. GOI's intransigence in large measure depended upon the continued support of the US.

The Nixon and Ford administrations, which contained Henry Kissinger as National Security Advisor and later SecState, backstopped the Israeli position with vigor and determination. In the wake of the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Henry Kissinger redoubled his efforts to assure that the West Bank would stay under Israeli occupation. Declassified documents detail how Kissinger cozened, manipulated, and flatly lied to King Hussein in order to separate the sticky subject of the West Bank from the matter he really wanted to address.

Peace with Egypt. Kissinger wanted to pull off the "deal of the decade" by gaining a trade of land for peace between Israel and Egypt. In this ambition he was joined by Anwar Sadat, who had scant regard for either the Arabs of the West Bank or Jordan and an offsetting great regard for himself.

In the conduct of the Yom Kippur War Sadat had lied to his cobelligerent, Assad of Syria, as well as King Hussein. Then, after the Egyptian army reclaimed its testicles in the first few hours of the attack across the Suez Canal, Sadat was more than willing to do what was necessary to extract Egypt from its Soviet mentors, sign a deal with Israel, and scarf up American money.

The deal went down and peace was made. The losers were the Arabs of the West Bank and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

Life for the West Bankers and Jordan did not improve any with the coming of President Carter and his Camp David Accords. Intentionally, Jordan was excluded so that glittering generalities could be made about the West Bank without any necessity of actually doing anything. Both Israel and Egypt were happy with the West Bank status quo albeit for different reasons.

And so it went year after year. No GOI had any interest of seeing the West Bank effectively removed from Israeli domination even should physical occupation come to an end. Certainly no GOI contemplated the most remote possibility of the "settlements" either being abandoned or their expansion materially decreased. Indeed, no GOI would have politically survived any move in that direction.

Trading Sinai for peace was one thing. Trading the West Bank was and is something quite different. Bear in mind that it took thirty or so years for Israel to finally agree that a pure Arab city such as Jericho should be under non-Israeli rule. The notion was first discussed by King Hussein and his Israeli interlocutors in the wake of the Six Day War but the reality did not come to pass until a new century dawned.

The Obama administration is now finding out what the Carter administration did in the days after the shake-and-grin over Camp David. GOI is long on promising--or seeming to promise--an end to the "settlement" plan and very, very short on delivering these commitments. Jimmy Carter went ballistic when he discovered that GOI had flat out lied about the "settlements." The American president thought he had a guarantee of a permanent halt. GOI said it had never intended more than a short term hiatus "for confidence building" with the Arabs.

So, there you have it, Mr President, short and not at all sweet. If you go to the videotape you can see the entire drama of deceit, duplicity, ambition, greed and politics, Israeli style. You can also see the key players who lurk on the edge of the camera's view, the Israel Lobby, the Congressmen and Senators seeking election and the money that takes, the media misleaders, all the motley crew which serves to condition and limit American foreign policy and constrain the means by which it may be conducted.

It's all there, Mr President. There is no need for you to be surprised or see yourself as President Carter did, a victim of world-class hornswagglers. Yeah, land for peace sounds so fine. Too bad it's not going to happen soon--or perhaps, ever.

Diplomacy Is Harder Than Swatting Flies

The Geek applauds President Obama for his skill at fly swatting. The capacity for rapid target identification, engagement and neutralisation is an essential for survival in desert or semi-desert areas such as Iraq, Afghanistan or the mountains of southern New Mexico. Fortunately all that fly swatting requires is good eye-hand coordination and fast reflexes.

The Geek bets that Mr Obama wishes that diplomacy required no more than that.

The major difficulty in diplomacy is not that it requires the meshing of disjunctive national interests. That can be the easy part. What makes the game of diplomacy a very hard one to master is that at root it demands the harmonizing of very different views of the world. The basic orientation of a government's, a people's, a culture's understanding of what is central to existence, central to the defining of a national identity is typically in play when countries disagree over specific policies or actions.

Different countries will also differ, even take antipodal positions, on the real nature of the historical trajectories at work or brought into sharp relief by a conflict. For the country most directly involved, the understanding of history and its effects is necessarily subjective. For the other country, the outsider in the matter, history is something else again. It is either a cold, dead objective set of past events of little moment in the current issue or it is something that should be, in effect, outgrown or set aside.

Americans in their formulation of foreign policy and execution of diplomacy see history as being both irrelevant and an influence to be outgrown. Mr Obama likes to mouth history (usually with remarkable and easily avoidable errors) while sponsoring diplomatic demarches which run counter to the historical trajectories governing the interlocutor's behavior.

Take, for example, the current contretemps over the issue of "natural growth" in the assorted towns and cities created as "facts on the ground" by the Government of Israel (GOI) on land seized from Jordan during the Six Day War of 1967. There is a background to the Great Land Grab of 1967. And, this background was and is a powerful determinate to the current disagreement between the Obama Administration and the GOI.

As has been mentioned in a recent post, representatives of the emerging state of Israel came to an understanding with the King of Jordan, Abdullah I, regarding the way in which the Jewish armed forces would cooperate with the Arab Legion of Jordan. The Israelis would not oppose the Arab Legion as long as it moved into those areas of Palestine which had been given over to the Arabs by the UN Partition Plan. In return the Arab Legion would not enter territory assigned to the Jewish state by the partition plan.

Both sides would fight it out in Jerusalem as the UN had kept the city separate from the partition. The result was the Arab Legion could concentrate its efforts on holding the Old City and the Israelis could have the new sections of Jerusalem.

During the run-up to the Six Day War, GOI warned Jordan to stay out of the affray. The clear message passed through numerous channels to King Hussein was that the IDF would not attack Jordanian territory either in the West Bank or the Old City.

The US was completely aware of the warnings. The Johnson administration not only conveyed them to King Hussein but reinforced them as well. As the documents in the LBJ archives demonstrate clearly, the US both believed the honesty of GOI's warning but was ready to back them.

(Note to the Obama administration, the LBJ archives are at the University of Texas in Austin. You would do well to take a look at them.)

For reasons having to do with both the internal political climate of Jordan as well as the pressures long exerted on King Hussein by Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it was seemingly impossible for the King to take the warning and act on it. As numerous post-hostility writings both governmental and historical show, King Hussein did not believe his throne would survive if Jordan did not enter the war.

There can be little if any doubt but GOI fully anticipated this and issued the warning simply to protect their collective hind ends from American disapproval. Israeli intelligence regarding the political dynamics in Amman was simply too comprehensive for GOI not to have known that Jordan would not and could not sit on its hands.

As both GOI and King Hussein well knew, the Hashemite Kingdom's army was no match for the IDF. Israeli troops gobbled up the West Bank and the Old City. The fighting was intense, far more so than in the IDF walkover in the Sinai, but the end was never in doubt.

The long-standing Israeli desire for the West Bank and, far more so, the Old City with the final relic of the Temple, the West Wall, was accomplished at a cost quite acceptable to Israel. They had stolen the land fair and square. By all past customs and usages of post-war diplomacy, this land was now their land. The West Bank and Old City were by all past standards available for whatsoever use GOI might wish to make of them.

However, the "international community" or at least the UN tossed a big curve ball at GOI. In previous hostilities, provided the country stealing the land at gunpoint had not been the aggressor, it was customary for nation-states generally to accept the verdict of war, the old "right of conquest."

Now, the rules were changed. Now the UN issued its resolution demanding that Israel return the lands taken during the war to their previous owners--even though a strong argument could be made that Egypt and its partners were the aggressors. (It might be noted in this context that the Geek has been convinced for a long time on the basis of the documents that Israel planned and manipulated events so that it could wage aggressive war under a plausible cover of acting in self-defense.)

The US supported a land-for-peace usage for the conquered and occupied territories of Jordan, Egypt and Syria. The political realities here at home prevented the US from pressing its case strongly with GOI. In any event, GOI and the Israeli public would have been exceptionally reluctant to see land-for-peace as a viable option. This was particularly true with regard to the West Bank and, even more, the Old City of Jerusalem.

The US tacitly or even, on occasion, openly supported the GOI creation of "facts on the ground" in the West Bank. Much of the mass of "settlements" was built directly or indirectly by US foreign aid funding.

Israel put the new real estate to work. Not only did Israel have a high total fertility rate, GOI encouraged immigration from all over the world. Including the Soviet Union.

Indeed, the US strongly supported GOI in its immigrate-all-you-Soviet-Jews policy. One need only recall the efforts of Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson to underscore the crucial nature of US support to fill the new "settlements" by Soviet Jews seeking escape from the Workers and Peasants Paradise and its new style pogroms.

US support coupled with the rise of the nationalistic Likud Party to assure the "settlements," the "facts on the ground" proliferated with startling rapidity and effect. The result was simple.

The West Bank, regardless of Fatah's terrorism or the terrorism of other groups and in total disregard of the UN Security Council's Resolution became Israeli in all but name. Stripped to its essentials, the contention of GOI and its supporters in the US government was the same as had been made in American history for the conquest and occupation of land previously held by the Native Americans.

Here it is short and brutally honest. "We make better use of the land than you did. Anyway, you are a passel of bloody minded, aggressive, primitive heathens."

Rightly or wrongly, ethically or otherwise, the West Bank "settlement" areas as well as the Old City were now Israeli. And, at least from the perspective of repeated governments, that fact was neither negotiable nor changeable.

Sinai could be traded for peace. Portions of the West Bank could be traded as well. But, not the areas which had been designated even before the Six Day War as suitable for development by Israel. Period. End of debate.

The decision was and remains so final, so completely off any table that limiting the continued growth of the developed regions is a non-starter. No Israeli government could survive consenting to a dictated ending of "natural growth." While no new towns, no new cities will be built on land which exists outside the ambit of the past development will be built, neither can the slow growth and consolidation of the previous "settlements" be ended.

It does not matter what the Arab states, the Palestinian Authority, let alone Hamas might demand. Neither does it matter that the reading of history by these entities and their citizens, subjects or members is frankly opposite to that of the Israelis. It doesn't matter that GOI may well have planned and executed a "breach of the international peace" and waged aggressive war forty-two years ago.

History is a strait jacket. Its trajectory brought forth the "settlements" and these "facts on the ground" must be recognised by all interested parties and accepted as to their power and persistence if any move toward the elusive goal of peace is to be successful. That is a hard and quite brutal truth. So is much of the history of the world. As the old cliche goes: "Read it and weep."

The Obama administration's current emphasis on ending "natural growth" as a confidence and trust building mechanism which will bring some sort of positive response from the Arab states and Palestinian population is both a wilful misunderstanding of the power of historical trajectories and doomed to fail. The reality is that the Obama crew must take the "facts on the ground" and the history which called them into existence as they are and not as the Nice Young Man From Chicago might wish them to be and have been.

The "natural growth" controversy now raising great quantities of smoke and giving no light on a complex problem is one example among many of the futility of pretending history never existed or, if it did, it should not have any influence on the present. The "natural growth" affray is an example in miniature of why diplomacy requires not simply a policy consistently followed for success.

Unless and until Mr Obama and his coterie come to understand the ongoing power of history in the affairs of nations, he is best off swatting flies on TV. It's a lot easier and far more personally rewarding than trying to swat nation-states into compliance with the American view of the perfect world.

Falling Between Two Stools

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his major policy speech on the two state solution, the Obama demanded halt to "natural growth" in the West Bank settlements, and the general subject of Israeli-Arab peace. To say it contained no genuine surprises or capitulations to Obama administration requirements is to state the obvious.

The centerpiece of the speech was the PM's acceptance of a "demilitarised" Palestinian state. In reality there is no need to read further. The requirement for the hypothetical Palestinian state to be demilitarised is completely unacceptable to even the so-called "moderates" of the Palestinian Authority. This point was made clear by a member of the PA's inner circle of government instantly following the Netanyahu speech.

Nabil Abu Rudeinah declared the condition of demilitarization "sabotaged all initiatives" and "paralysed all efforts" being made by the Americans and the Palestinians. Then, in a volte face remarkable even by Arab diplomatic standards, he went on to dismiss the demilitarization requirement as a "detail" and not a matter of substance such as the halt to West Bank settlement growth and the need for a "Palestinian right of return."

Nor was the instant, total rejection unique to the close aid of Mahmoud Abbas. One Saeb Erekat who is described as a "senior Palestinian negotiator" blew the Netanyahu speech away by demanding that President Obama decide whether or not the Israeli PM was to be treated as being "above the law," a choice which would result in chaos, violence and similar icky-poo things.

As to the question of just who or what might assure any Palestinian state might be "demilitarised" as such would be defined by the Israelis, the PM had the answer. It is a completely unworkable, even irrelevant answer, but it is the only one Netenyahu could give. He placed the onus on the "international community."

The notion of a "demilitarized" Palestinian state is not new. Several Israeli governments made the same requirement before. As far back as 1968, less than a year after the victory of the Six Day War, the Israeli response to a Johnson administration suggestion of land-for-peace brought a more or less affirmative response with the critical qualification that the West Bank occupied at that time by the IDF be completely demilitarised if it were to be transferred to an "Arab authority." At the time that authority presumably would have been the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The idea was a non-starter for reasons organic to Israel and its internal politics even more than the rejectionist position taken instantly by Yassir Arafat and Fatah as well as most Arab states (including, in public at least, Jordan.) The idea was equally lost at the starting blocks when it was periodically revived.

The deliberate creation of "facts on the ground," as previous Israeli governments called the act of building large "settlements" on militarily critical terrain in the occupied territories, assured that the chance of finally putting a two state solution in place was minimised. Further, the design, construction and location of the new towns and cities gave the IDF some built-in advantages (it was hoped at the time) over any new Arab attacks across the Jordan and through the West Bank.

As events of the post-Oslo years have made clear, the possibility of the fiction called the "international community" guaranteeing a demilitarised Palestinian state is zero. The violent takeover of the Gaza Strip by Hamas has made a complete mockery out of any policy of demilitarization. Even the efforts by the US, Egypt and a few other countries to stop the flow of arms from Iran to Hamas have been less than spectacularly successful.

In short, the Palestinians will reject demilitarization as they are of the view that without a genuine armed force the Palestinian state would be a hollow shell, a castrated version of a genuine nation-state. The utter dedication of groups such as Hamas and states such as Iran to the destruction of Israel means that without a leakproof interdiction effort, no demilitarised state is possible. Considering the deep divides which separate the Great Powers as well as critical second level powers, the chance of gaining and maintaining a leakproof interdiction effort over time is Zero.

No Israeli government can accept a Palestinian state which possesses weapons beyond those appropriate for internal police and security needs. Even the most peace oriented government cannot take a chance with the lives and physical safety of its population.

Bottom line? The Netenyahu caveat means no two state solution.

At the same time, the PM's seeming concession has alienated (infuriated?) the political right of Israel. The nationalists, who have a capacity for zaniness equalling that of the Islamist jihadists without the love of dying while killing civilians, are announcing their defection from the PM. It is too soon to assess whether or not the move by some of the religious and nationalist right and ultra-right will have any real world impact, but in the fandango which is politics Israeli style, all is possible.

It is also too soon to evaluate the actual impact of the Netenyahu message on the Obama administration. Of course, the first words out of the White House were the usual ya-da-ya-da. Ever ready press mouthpiece Gibbs called it an "important step forward." But, then, what else could the flack say? Presidents don't piss on the Prime Minister of a friendly, critical ally.

No more than Obama's Address To The Arab And Muslim World did Netanyahu's proposal and request for immediate, unconditional negotiations change the foundation dynamic of the Israeli-Arab conflict. The instant response of both the Arabs of the PA and the far Right Wing of Israel makes that clear.

With the (limited) exceptions of Egypt and Jordan, which made a sort of peace with Israel, no Arab state has shown the least willingness to accept the basic reality of the situation. They know what the reality is; they have rubbed their collective noses in it for sixty years and more. Israel exists.

Whether the Arabs like it or not--and they most certainly do not--Israel exists. It is the ultimate "fact on the ground." And, it is not going to go away.

Arab leaders know that as well as they know the direction of Mecca. But, any effort, any genuine attempt to officially recognise the reality in front of them, is damned by the Islamists in their midst--and in Tehran.

Hosni Mubarak knows precisely what brought him to power. King Abdullah II, whose father had more guile and guts per square centimeter than any other Arab head of state in the past fifty years, knows what killed his grandfather, King Abdullah I, and tried to kill his father more times than can be counted conveniently.

Occupants of shaky thrones and places of power from Morocco to Iraq know the history of their own region--at least as it has manifested itself in violent death inflicted on those so unwary or so realistic as to attempt peace with Israel. They know darn well that the "international community" can do nothing save send representatives to the funeral should any of them follow the examples of Anwar Sadat or King Hussein.

Giving peace a chance means to invite the assassin's bullet or bomb. The Obama administration cannot be so hopelessly out to lunch as to be unaware of this. (Or can they?) Similarly, the Obama crew cannot be so ignorant of the past fifty years of Mideast history as to really, really believe that Arab states can be cozened or forced into a comprehensive peace treaty no matter how many concessions they might wring from Israel. (Or are they?)

Netanyahu made no concessions. He offered nothing new. He did not throw his own country off the sled and into the mouths of the wolves so close at hand. At the same time he hacked off the far Right of his own country. And, probably did the same to the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Falling between two stools is all too easy. And, all too painful.

First There Have To Be Two States

President Obama has stated that the position of the US is the settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict on the basis of what is called "the two state solution." According to the herd called the "media" this is also the position of that mythical beast, "The International Community."

The idea is commendable. It is also one of long historical standing. All the way back to the earliest UN resolutions on the matter issued before the dust of World War II had begun to settle. The notion of two states, one Jewish and the other Arab/Muslim emerged in the distant mist of the past, way back before World War II and the Holocaust.

In those far away and ancient days when British statesmen and Royal Commissions still meant something, a body officially called the Palestine Royal Commission but generally known after its chairman as the Peel Commission offered the prototype two state solution complete with humane ethnic cleansing. (The 300,000 Arab/Muslims living within the borders of the proposed Jewish state would be removed voluntarily or otherwise to either the Arab portion or out of the region altogether.)

The original "Two State Solutions" in both the Peel Commission and UN versions were torpedoed by the Arabs who would be the chief beneficiaries of the concept. Unable or unwilling to accept a guaranteed sixty percent of the loaf, the Arabs of the disputed area with the support of their ethnic and religious confreres throughout the Mideast flipped a collective and self-destructive bird at the proffered solution.

Had the Arab Muslims of what is now Israel and coterminous territory possessed the slightest degree of diplomatic or political acumen there never would have been a conflict with the Jews of the emergent state. Whether 1937 or 1948 the Arabs would have been happy to have received the larger chunk of the disputed pie and gotten on with their lives.

Instead, demonstrating what seems to be a constitutional characteristic of the people and the region, the leaders of the Muslim Arab population in the old British Mandate of Palestine chose rejection, defiance and violence in the hope that some Higher Power would reward their effort with the exclusion of Jews and the Zionist vision of a state from the region. Demonstrations, assassinations and finally conventional war conducted by an Arab coalition failed in the object of rendering the two state solutions nugatory by force of arms.

That the Arabs were wrong is to belabor the self-evident.

Now, President Obama and a myriad of others have dragged the two state solution back from the grave to which the Arabs consigned it not once but twice. Such faith in the power of the presidency or the international community to revive the dead is touching but scarcely realistic.

Events of recent years have demonstrated that the Arab Muslim population and its leadership have in no way abandoned their faith in the efficacy of intransigence, defiance, rejection, and the power of violence and terror. Events have also shown the existence of a new, quite fatal impediment to the viability of the two state solution.

The new, fatal impediment?

Simple, bucko, there is only one state involved. The name of the state is Israel.

In 1937 and again a decade or so later, the assumption was that the artificial state then called Trans-Jordan, which had been created by the machinations of British and French bureaucrats during World War I and validated by the Versailles Peace Treaty, would be the basis of the Arab state in Palestine. This assumption was continued during the first couple of decades of the Arab-Israeli conflict but was finally unilaterally abandoned by Jordan.

The cause of Jordan's withdrawal from the role of core of Arab Palestine was (get ready for the big shock) the actions and words of Yassir Arafat and his terrorist group, Fatah. Arafat and Fatah's outgrowth, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, had ambitions. Among these until September 1970 was the takeover of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

The Palestinian bed was simply not big enough for both Arafat and King Hussein. Had Arafat had the good taste to have been blown up by one of his own bombs or shot by one of his own trigger pullers, the two state solution might have had a continued viability since Jordan was and is a genuine, legitimate state with a responsible government which by and large plays by the rules.

Thanks to Arafat's presumptuous ego and lack of any perceptible capacity for statesmanship, the situation today is characterised by the Arabs of "Palestine" having neither an authentic state nor a responsible, rule-following government. And, not to be too simple minded about it, without a second state, there can be no two state solution.

Instead of a single Arab Muslim state with a government which follows at least most of the norms of civilized behavior such as preventing armed attacks against a neighbor being launched from territory under its authority, there are two geographic expressions. One is headed by a semi-government, which at least makes the occasional pretense of following acting like a government is supposed to. The other, the Gaza Strip, is run by a criminal terrorist syndicate possessing the additional liability of being the servant of a foreign power, Iran, which is implacably hostile to Israel and rather incapable of abiding by many, if not most, forms of international good citizenship.

The two so-called governments are hostile each to the other. Using methods of dispute settlement and creative power sharing more suited to the Chicago underworld of Al Capone than normal political processes, Hamas and the PLO derived Palestinian Authority are putatively seeking the formation of a government of national unity. Unless and until Hamas and the PA bury the hatchet (and not in each other's back) there is not even the remote possibility of the two state solution becoming viable.

It is to be hoped that President Obama, SecState Clinton and special envoy George Mitchell have been exposed to both the past history of the assorted two state solutions as well as the present realities regarding the absence of the necessary Second State. Their public remarks, however, give no hint that such might have been the case.

The President and his people need to take a firm grip on a couple of realities. The first is that the US lacks the leverage necessary to push Hamas into some pretense of agreement with the PA. The second is that pressuring Israel to make significant (and politically risky) concessions in return for a desert mirage will not prestidigitate a Second State into existence.

Hamas is the rabid eight hundred pound gorilla at the dinner party. Period. Behind Hamas are the masters of intransigence, defiance, rejection and faith in terror and violence--the mullahs of Iran. And, short of complete compliance with the policy requirements of the perpetual Bad Boy of the Mideast including its nuclear ambitions and desire for acceptance as regional hegemon, the US has no leverage with the turban-wearing, Koran-thumpers of Qom.

That's a fact, Jack (and Barack, Hillary and George.)

There can be no two state solution without a Second State, the Arab/Muslim one. There will be no Second State without Hamas either surrendering its vaulting ambitions for total authority over the Arabs of "Palestine" and an end to Israel as a state or its ceasing to exist as an actor in the region.

Even without the Hamas barrier, there can be no two state solution unless the governments and peoples of the Arab states can bring themselves to accept Israel as a reality. The historical record gives no real reason for optimism on this. Even if the Arab Muslims most directly involved, the people of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, have reached a condition of war-weariness sufficient to accept a peace of exhaustion, this is no guarantee that the people and governments of other Arab states will go along with the idea.

The potential of the Arab states singing "give peace a chance" remains slim to none as long as the mullahs running Iran remain intransigent, defiant and rejectionist on the subject of Israel's right to exist without remaining forever as a garrison under siege. No bookie will give odds on that happening regardless of how much pressure is put on Israel or smiles bestowed on Tehran.

Whether President Obama and the "International Community" like the idea or not, the two state solution remains today what it was back in 1937 or 1947--a non-starter. The two state approach is no more viable now than seventy-two years ago for the same reason.

To have a two state solution there must be two states, two governments ready, willing and able to enter into meaningful negotiations and keep meaningful agreements. Today there is just one state. And, no real probability of a second one emerging from the wreckage of past Arab intransigence, defiance and rejection.

That's a fact, Jack (and Barack, Hillary and George.)

Doing The "Heavy Lifting"

Jordan's King Abdullah II has delivered the same message to the White House and Congress. The other intended recipients of the King's views were the congeries referred to as the "Arab and Muslim" states.

The message came in four major parts. (1) The Two State Solution is the best (read "only") game in town. (2) The US is the Player-Who-Matters-Most. (3) That being said, Israel is still the country which must make a choice. It must choose between living in a friendly 'neighborhood" or continuing to exist as Fortress Israel caught in the stasis of hostility. (4) The "Arab and Muslim states" must assist the US in the heavy lifting of bringing the seemingly eternal "peace process" to an end with the implementation of the two state solution.

King Abdullah's final point puts a large onus on the Mideast's "frontline" states as well as other, more distant governments to take a firm hold on the short, dirty end of the reality stick. It includes the states of the region which have found it comfortable to both hide behind and exploit the Arab population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the sake of their own national and domestic political purposes. The Jordanian fourth point demands that the regional governments face the rage of the Islamists who will go fast boost exo-atmospheric in fury over any substantial moves to assure peace with Israel.

The Obama administration is quite obviously ready, willing and eager to do all it can to bring the Two State Solution into existence. It is quite probable that the president is willing (although certainly not eager) to brave the resistance of the Israel Lobby, which has shown quite often that it is more strident and extreme in its positions than is the government of Israel.

Obama and his close senior advisers may well view the ending of the festering, running ulcer of the Mideast as an absolute essential as a precondition for pursuing its larger, domestic agenda. To them, the risks involved with ramming a Two State Solution through are well worth running.

It is possible that Bibi's recent hairy-chested oratory regarding the Israeli readiness to abate the Iranian nuclear menace with or without US approval and support is the sort of reassuring tough talk such as he engaged in often during his last period as PM. Israelis may be a passionate people for whom politics is nearly a full-contact sport, but the government has (usually) had a good eye for the military and diplomatic realities of the day.

By all rational calculations the ball now rests well and truly in the Arabs' court. What the several governments and quasi-governmental entities do in the next few weeks will determine whether or not they are willing to meet King Abdullah's challenge or not. History gives a mixed message regarding the probability of the Arabs rising to the occasion.

It must be recalled that the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as those whose homes once were located in Israel but who are now scattered around the world are in their present situation because of repeated Arab intransigence and incompetence. For the past eighty years, back to the days far preceding the Partition and the Israeli War of Independence, the Arabs have a splendid record of blowing every opportunity for a negotiated end to their confrontation with, first, the Jewish immigrants to the Mandate, second with the UN teams charged with establishing peacefully an early version of the Two State Solution, and, finally, with the UN mission headed by Ralph Bunche who sought an end to the 1948 war on terms which were highly favorable to the Arabs.

Continuing their successful effort to prove that they were the Chicago Cubs of diplomacy, the Palestinian (as they renamed themselves) screwed their collective pooch in the negotiations which occurred under the Oslo and Madrid processes. To quote a line from an old Air Force ditty, "I'd tell you more but it make me sick."

Showing a haughty disregard for the mundane matters of changed realities on the ground, the Arab League's proposal for peace, which was brought back from the graveyard of diplomatic fatalities by Saudi Arabia, focused on demanding the clearly unacceptable by Israel. With an arrogance which must come from sitting on too much overpriced oil and listening too often to Islamist clerics, the Arab League/Saudi proposals required Israel to withdraw to its pre-1967 borders abandoning countless billions of dollars worth of post-1967 urban development and housing expansion as if this would be of no more moment than pulling out of those miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles called Sinai.

As if that deal killer were not enough, the diplomatic oafs wanted the government and people of Israel to accept a perversion of the Israeli Right of Return granted to Jews. Specifically, the proposal would have the Jewish state accept back all those who left their homes in 1948 (or their descendants) in response to the stimulus of Israeli ethnic cleansing and Arab appeals to have faith in the soldiers of Islam. That requirement was clearly no-go considering both the financial and demographic impact it would have on Israel.

Unless and until the Arab states can see the folly of their past demarches, they will continue to be a heavy drag, not heavy lifters. Of course, the Sunni states of the Mideast do have one rather pressing reason to gain a greater appreciation of reality. That reason is Iran.

By meeting the challenge of Abdullah's point four, the "conservative" states of the Gulf as well as Egypt and even North Africa can form a "neighborhood" (to use the King's term) which is at peace internally and can form a united front against the the troublesome mullahs of resurgent Persia. (After all, even the most dedicated, observant Muslim can see the Israelis have a lot more military capacity up to and including the nuclear than do the devotees of the Mahdi in Iran.)

Then there is Hamas. Hamas, like Hezbollah, is a dependency of Iran. Unlike Hezbollah which can be controlled by Syrian and other national forces if allowed to by the US, Hamas is not susceptible to normal pressures--including the threat of armed attack. Unless and until Hamas genuinely abandons its position of denying Israel the right to exist, the US will not participate in any conversations with any hypothetical "unity" government which may emerge from the Egyptian brokered talks between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.

The probability of Hamas actually abandoning its The-Zionist-Entity-Must-Be-Destroyed line as opposed to invoking the Islam sanctioned doctrine of tactical deception for the benefit of Islam or the equally approved doctrine of agreeing to a temporary truce in order to gain an advantage for the Koran-wavers, is about as high as Nancy Pelosi genuinely welcoming Newt Gingrich back to the House. The words, "forget it!" come to mind.

In principle, the Arab states of the Mideast have the leverage to deal with Hamas. It certainly is in the interests of these states to abate the political and social nuisance represented by Hamas. It is questionable, however, whether or not the Arab states, including Jordan, have the political will and foresightedness to accurately assess the risk/benefit ratio of dealing robustly with Hamas. Even more debatable is the question of these states having the courage to take the risks of taking on Hamas even though the benefits would be vast in potential.

Peace, like war, has costs. The price of peace may be lower in blood and even treasure, but it can be higher, much higher in political and social consequences. A change in the long established pattern in the Mideast brings automatic uncertainties in its wake. No government which is inherently comfortable with the well-established and well-known readily embraces a change, a new order of affairs.

Since World War II, the Mideast, the Arab states generally, have experienced a plethora of wars, coups, countercoups and other political tumult. None of these have brought any fundamental change in either politics or social structure.

Peace in the "neighborhood" would bring real change in regional economics, politics, social structures, cultural values and norms of behavior. The real question which underlies King Abdullah's fourth point is this: Can Arabs and Muslims accept, even eagerly embrace change?

The sweep of history over the past thousand years suggests the answer to the question is a resounding, "No."