A Tough Call In A No-Win Situation

Secretary of State Clinton after her "call-it-like-it-is" visit to Pakistan has hit the Mideast with the force of a multi-megaton bomb. Sounding almost like Israeli PM Netanyahu, the Secretary has both praised the Israelis for "unprecedented concessions" and called upon the Palestinians to come on back to the never-ending peace gavotte. In this apparent backing down from the Obama administration's previous demand for a total halt to Israeli "settlement" construction Ms Clinton is once more openly acknowledging reality.

Netanyahu has urged the Palestinians to "get a grip" and accept the Israeli offer of talks without precondition. Not surprisingly the first reaction from the Arab side was to quote the most often employed word by Soviet diplomats--particularly at the UN, "Nyet!"

When reality rings--in the middle of the night or any other time for that matter--it is tough to answer the phone. To her direct credit--some of which must splash back on the President--Ms Clinton has picked up the phone and responded correctly to the call.

It is a hoary tradition in the law that hard cases make bad law. The hardest cases are those where equal measures of justice accrue to each side.

In the Mideast, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, equal measures of justice can be said to reside on both sides of the great divide. This makes for a hard diplomatic case.

Right now the stalling point is the matter of the Israeli "settlements." It can be argued without injustice that the Israeli government did wage a successful war of aggression under the plausible cover of a preemptive defense back in June 1967. The pretext used by the Israelis to cover the war was threadbare but believable enough given the past record of Arab aggression.

When the dust of battle settled, the Israelis had occupied the entire West Bank of Jordan. This was a long delayed ambition. Initially, the Israelis had hoped to get the area as part of the Wars of Independence but were forestalled by an agreement with Jordan's King Abullah I. When the Jordanian King Hussein ignored the warnings to stay out of the war due to both internal and external pressures, the IDF rolled over the defenders of the West Bank.

The same dynamic past and present applied to the Old City of Jerusalem. When the Jordanian army resisted, the IDF chewed them up. And, the Israeli flag flew over the ancient City of David.

The IDF also successfully gained the Golan Heights from Syria. This action was justified at the time by the use of the commanding heights for indiscriminate bombardment of civilian centers in Israel by the Syrians.

The occupation of the Sinai was the last of the three territorial acquisitions of the IDF. It was also the only territory which was intended from the beginning to be used by Israel as a bargaining chip--exchanging land for peace.

Despite UN resolutions and American disapproval, the government of Israel set about creating what were known then and now as "facts on the ground. One fact was legal first and material later--the absorbing of the Old City of Jerusalem into Israel proper. The other fact(s) existed in the material world rather than the demimonde of law. This was the building of "settlements" in the West Bank.

Now, forty years after there are some half million Israelis living in the "settlements." That is a lot of facts on the ground. Anyone who really, really believes that the half million either will be abandoned to the tender mercies of the Palestinian Authority or evacuated to pre-1967 Israel has a poor grip on reality.

The Netanyahu government did not bend to the will of President Obama as if anyone actually thought it would. It did, however, grant an important symbolic concession of slowing the continued development of the "settlements." This is what Secretary Clinton acknowledged.

In essence she was bowing to the political reality that the Netanyahu government could not do more and survive with any capacity to make deals with the Palestinians in the future. While this may perturb many J Street adherents, there is no widespread support within Israel for more.

It has been recommended by one (small) school of Israeli opinion that the Obama administration take a more, much more, hardball approach to Israel. Leaving aside the probable political implications of such a move, one question remains: To what avail?

Militating against the effectiveness of taking a harder line with Israel is the nature of Palestinian politics as well as the wider context of Arab/Muslim interests in play. An even greater bar to effective US pressure on Israel to give up more in return for vague promises of something later from the Palestinians and Arab governments is the consequences of Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

The Israelis exchanged land for the promise of peace. Or, failing that, the promise of international support and understanding if the Gaza Strip became the launching pad for terror attacks.

Not only was there no peace, the "international community" stood by with folded hands as the Islamist jihadists of Hamas took over Gaza and promptly started a multi-year campaign of terror. Worse, the same "international community" or at least a large segment of it excoriated Israel for Operation Cast Lead.

The same members of the "international community" have embraced the condemnations of Israel contained in the Goldstone Report. This wanton rejection of the justice on Israel's side of the case continues even as Hamas officials publicly confirmed their full support and assistance for all terror actions by all terror exponents in the Strip.

With this experience there is no real probability that this Israeli government or any for that matter will do more than the Netanyahu one has done to date. The spineless way in which the major countries of the world as well as the UN observed the fall of Hamas rockets and mortars with total passivity as well as the embrace of the Goldstone Report assure that Israel looks to itself and to no one else for its security.

This greatly limits the American leverage. Secretary Clinton's burst of laudatory candor implicitly recognizes the current state of affairs.

In a way it is a simple--if unjust--equation. The more the Palestinians and the Arab states generally remain both intransigent and willing to accept and even encourage terror attacks under the rubric of "resistance," the more unwilling to do more than palaver the Israelis will be. The June War of 1967 may have been a barely disguised war of conquest. Its territorial adjustments may have occurred against the will of the UN. But, the facts on the ground are now there and will not change.

The Arabs have done their own cause great harm on numerous occasions since the 1930s. In one diplomatic forum after another the ambitions and intransigence of the Arab side has led to their own diplomatic defeat. Or, their propensity for terror tactics has reversed the progress made or being made at the bargaining table.

Whether the Palestinians or their supporters like the idea or not, the Israelis are in the catbird seat. They control the pace and to a significant extent, the outcome of the peace conversations. That is as much of a fact on the ground as the aggregate of the "settlements."

The Palestinians may have much justice on their side, but the world of diplomacy has little, if anything, to do with justice in the abstract. Power, the sources of power, and political will count for infinitely more than justice when the affairs of nations are in play. In these areas Israel holds the best cards, the highest hand, and the greatest potential of either allowing a relatively equatable endgame or, in effect, settling the matter on their own terms.

That is another reality on which the Palestinians had best get a grip for it is clear the Israelis already well understand it.

Whatever Happened To "Comprehensive Peace?"

After all the hoopla, all the hype, all the No More Settlements! declarations, after all the pressure, what is going on with the Obama administration's quest for a comprehensive peace settlement in the Mideast? The short answer is, nothing.

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.

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.

Palestinian Bargaining--An Insider's View

As the Palestinian Authority sees matters, the Israeli's are steadily weakening over time, so there is no reason for the PA to move quickly. Time, as the Arabs see it, is on their side.

In an interview from three weeks ago recently made available to English readers, Saeb Ereqat, the head of the PA's Negotiations Department, projected a confident attitude. Reflecting over the last offer made by the former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, the Palestinian opined that Israel's political will was eroding to the extent that there would be no need for any Arab concessions on territory, the right of Arab return, or monetary compensation to fugitives and their descendants.

Saeb Ereqat made his assessment without any reference to the pressure being placed upon the government of Israel (GOI) by the Obama administration. Had he done so his confidence might have been greater. Adding in the recent Solana Ultimatum and today's partial embargo by the UK on weapons sales to Israel would have boosted the confidence index to stratospheric levels.

Among the critical points made by Ereqat was the continuation of the Palestinian demand that Israel recognise the PA's sovereignty over all of the West Bank territories seized by the IDF from Jordan during the Six Day War. He contended that this recognition must precede any talks of land swaps such as that proposed by the fading Olmert ministry at the end of nearly two hundred meetings under the provisions of the Annapolis agreements.

The land exchange proposed by Olmert would have seen the small land areas currently housing the overwhelming majority of Israeli citizens in the new West Bank "settlements" for an equal number of square kilometers of unused land as well as a passage zone thirty klicks long and 150 meters wide linking the Gaza Strip with the PA's West Bank territory. Ereqat did not make any objection to this proposal in principle but stated categorically that it could come only after the Israeli recognition of complete PA sovereignty over all the land in question.

What the PA negotiations chief left unmentioned was one simple, small but critical fact. In the event that Israel recognised PA sovereignty over all the territories in question there would be no impetus for the PA to undertake the land exchange. The PA would have all the land including that occupied by Israeli citizens under their full, absolute, and legal control. They could have their cake and eat it too as the old cliche runs.

GOI would be out of its collective mind were it to grant the demanded recognition on nothing more than a PA promise that the land swap would be worked out later. Nothing in the history of Israel indicates that any government no matter what the external pressures might be and regardless of the desire for peace would surrender the fate of nearly 200,000 Israelis to the mercies of the new Arab state.

This would remain the case in the unlikely event that the Palestinian entity swore mighty oaths that Israeli Jews would enjoy all the rights, privileges, and immunities of their Arab colleagues and could continue the quiet enjoyment of their residences and businesses in the "settlements." The first duty of GOI is the protection of Israelis. So the Palestinian demand is both a non-starter and a deal killer.

Even the hyper-confident Ereqat must know this. He has to be hoping that the combination of external pressure by the US and EU coupled with the continued annoyances from his Hamas counterparts in Gaza will continue the slow, steady enervation of Israeli political will which he so obviously believes to be a continuing process.

Another point which Ereqat makes repeatedly is the requirement for both some sort of Arab "right of return" for those displaced from what is now indisputably Israeli territory during the 1948 and 1967 wars. He also asserts that financial compensation for those who do not wish to exercise their "right" must be forthcoming. Importantly, both the "right of return" and the compensation are not limited to those directly affected, but includes descendants without limit so the forty-six great-grand children of an Arab who heeded the call of his brothers to flee so that he could return with the victorious Arab armies would be entitled to full compensation or the right to move back to the old family house (which is now a multi-story apartment block or a shopping center.)

Repeat after the Geek, please, "Non-starter and deal killer."

Turning to political matters, Ereqat spins a fine piece of sophistry regarding Hamas. In his view there is no requirement that Hamas change one single syllable of its charter (which calls for the destruction of Israel) even though it won election in the Gaza Strip and, after expelling the PA by force of arms, has acted as sovereign in the district. No, opines Ereqat, all that is required by the assorted UN Resolutions as well as the agreements undertaken in Madrid, Oslo, Annapolis, and sundry other points is that the PA acknowledge Israel's right to exist with defined borders in peace with its neighbors.

Well, golly, perhaps Mr Ereqat believes that bit of tendentious reasoning, but it is more than simply difficult for a less biased and involved person to accept it. Practically speaking, Hamas is commensual with the Fatah originated PA.

The blood-and-guts view of life espoused by Hamas is at least as popular on the Arab street as the give-the-appearance-of-peace-a-chance stance tactically adopted by the PA. The same might be said of the Islamist purist approach of Hamas, but the jury is out on that one. In any event, by isolating Hamas in the way Ereqat does, the PA can take the ostensible high road while winking at Hamas conducted or inspired terror attacks on Israel.

Saeb Ereqat indicates that the PA is just as ready, willing, and able to fight as is Hamas. He allowed that following the establishment of Palestine there would be no reason why the PA could not fight alongside Hamas and others to establish a unified Arab state, a new caliphate. This posture is difficult to reconcile with a man or an organisation dedicated to the peaceful ending of a long standing conflict. Neither does it indicate any basic predisposition to live in harmony with a Jewish state.

Only once, at the very end of the interview does Mr Ereqat show any slackening of ebullient confidence. That is on the subject of Iran. Clearly, the PA sees Iran as a major, perhaps the single most important, supporter of the PA. But, he fears the US effort to positively engage the Iranians in conversation might fail. He sought to reassure any American who might read his analysis by quoting the former head of the IAEA, Mohammad ElBaradei, as telling him that it would take Iran "fourteen to sixteen years" to acquire an atomic bomb. So, he advises, "We must change this worn out record."

Right, dude. For sure. And, the Netanyahu ministry is all ready to toss in the towel and turn over a whole bunch of Israelis to your violence prone, quite anti-Semitic excuse for a government.

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.