Palestinian Territories

I’ve written before (here) about the epidemic of prosecutions by Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president for the "crime" of insulting him. That epidemic is spreading to the West Bank, where the Court of Appeal in Bethlehem just affirmed the one-year jail sentence of a journalist for the "crime" of insulting Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. The court also said the TV journalist Mahdouh Hamamreh had been guilty of broadcasting "false news"-- another catch-all that allows a government to throw journalists in jail for saying things the government and its leaders just don’t like. Abbas is, I think, playing with fire here. The PA is perennially short of funds and reliant on American and European aid. Turning the PA back into the kind of dictatorship we saw under Arafat will endanger that aid, as it should. Punishing people for the "crime" of "insulting the president" will appear to European and American legislators to be particularly repellent to their democratic traditions--as it is to international human rights laws. The PA Magistrates Court and Court of Appeal have now acted, and it is time for Abbas to act: to pardon Hamamreh and to order to prosecutors to stop this farce. UPDATE: President Abbas did promptly pardon Hamamreh. Smart move--but now he should instruct prosecutors that no one should ever be prosecuted for "insulting the president."

President Obama spoke at a press conference in Ramallah today and then gave a major speech in Jerusalem. I’ve analyzed what the President said in Ramallah in National Review, and discussed his Jerusalem speech in The Weekly Standard. Briefly, he abandoned his previous position on settlements, now calling them unhelpful rather than illegitimate and urging the PLO to go back to the table without a settlement freeze as a precondition. He used tough language on Iran but was vague about Syria. He was very sympathetic and supportive of Israel, but placed most of the burden on the Israelis to make peace--despite Palestinian rejection of previous Israeli peace offers and the unstable situation in the Arab world. Whether he really thinks there will be movement on the negotiations is unclear, but I did note that he said his new Secretary of State would spend a lot of time and energy on this subject; he did not say he would do so himself. Perhaps that answers the question.  

President Obama heads off to the Middle East just days after the new Israeli government’s formation. I was interviewed today by CFR.org on what the makeup of Israel’s new government will mean for the peace process, Iran, and domestic Israeli politics. You can watch the video embedded below, read excerpts from it here, or view it on YouTube here.  http://youtu.be/nI5edOktKzY Meanwhile, yesterday, I previewed President Obama’s visit to Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan in an interview with Bernard Gwertzman. I’ve posted the transcript of that interview below: President Barack Obama’s first trip to Israel as president aims to reassure Israelis that he is a friend, says CFR Senior Fellow Robert M. Danin. "The visit is a restoration visit, it’s a restoring of bilateral relations between the United States and Israel, and between the United States and the Palestinian Authority," says Danin, speaking from Israel. Still, he says, there are very low expectations from the Palestinian side about the visit, which will also include Jordan. Danin notes that the new Israeli government that was formed on the eve of Obama’s visit is such a broad coalition that there are major pitfalls for Prime Minister Netanyahu, especially on the Palestinian issue. President Obama makes his first trip to Israel as president, arriving on Wednesday. He will meet a new Israeli government with many new faces, but one with Benjamin Netanyahu still serving as prime minister. Is it an important trip or more of a good will mission? The president wanted to come to Israel early in his presidency and early in the new prime ministership of Benjamin Netanyahu before there would be a sense that he needed to produce an outcome from the visit. Early on in his term and the term of the new Israeli government he could come to really recalibrate the bilateral relationship, and that’s really what this visit is about. It’s an opportunity to re-orient the relationship after a very rocky first term for the president. He’s coming to help convince the Israeli people that he actually is a friend of Israel. That said, there are issues to discuss with the Israeli government, and there are three key issues that he wants to talk about with the Israelis. First and foremost is Iran; second are the developments in Syria; and third are the traditional issues of peace with the Palestinians. Let’s talk about Iran. Netanyahu is not very happy with the results of recent nuclear talks in Kazakhstan, although others seemed more upbeat about the talks because they’re going to meet again on April 5. What is your sense on the two sides’ view on Iran? The public message from the president is: "People of Israel, I understand the threat; I am on top of this, don’t worry, trust me." The private message to the Israeli government is: "Don’t jam me, give me time, I’m pursuing both very rigorous sanctions and other means towards pressuring the Iranians and I’m exploring whether or not there’s a deal to be had." And on Syria, there’s not much difference, is there? No. Syria is actually one where there are a lot of analytical and operational convergences. There are some operational concerns about Syria’s weapons of mass destruction, and the effect that Syria’s civil war is having on the rest of the region. The Israelis are primarily worried about Syria’s WMDs falling into the wrong hands, as well as the refugee issue and the humanitarian crisis now that more than a million refugees have been created by the bloodshed and civil war. Given that Israel is Syria’s neighbor and there has already been some spillover from Syria onto its neighbors, there’s a lot to talk about it with the United States, even if there aren’t great policy differences. Indeed, the Israelis share many of the Obama administration’s concerns about radical elements within the Syrian opposition and what will happen to Syria in the post-Assad era. Let’s talk now a bit more about Palestinian peace talks, which got nowhere in the first term of Obama’s presidency. There’s now a new government taking over in Israel. Do you get the sense in Israel that there is a desire for more flexibility? When it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, the United States has significantly downplayed this issue and lowered expectations, so that nobody is expecting the president to come here with a plan or even any sort of initiative to move forward. He’s going to likely stress the importance of this issue in his public remarks, but in private discussions I don’t think he’s going to present a plan although he may outline some aspirations for his second term and some steps that he’d like to see both sides take in the short term to try to improve the environment and get back to negotiations. But the visit is a restoration visit; it’s a restoring of bilateral relations between the United States and Israel, and between the United States and the Palestinian Authority. One thing that’s very interesting is that the president is going to visit the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Israel Museum, and that’s a very symbolic and a very important move. One of the criticisms leveled against the president is that in his previous speeches, he always rooted his discussions about Israel in terms of the Holocaust, and Israel as the haven for the Jewish people as a result of the Holocaust. Israelis took issue with this, because they felt that it shortchanged the real, more fundamental reason for Israel, which is the connection between the Jewish people and the land of Israel. And by visiting the Dead Sea scrolls, which is the most tangible physical manifestation of the ancient Jewish presence in the land of Israel, he’s shifting the narrative and acknowledging that in fact Israel was about the Jewish people’s connection to this area, and not just as a safe haven from persecution in the twentieth century. Is there any indication from the American side that they have now altered their views of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which in the first term led to constant fights with the Israelis? Settlements have been an issue between the United States and every Israeli government, and the American position has treated the settlements as everything from illegal to unhelpful. And the degree to which Israel and the United States have agreed to disagree on this has varied, but there’s always been a core disagreement about the issue of settlement activity. What is the mood of the Palestinian leadership under Mahmoud Abbas? There’s no excitement really about the president’s visit. Again, this is the product of the United States successfully lowering expectations, so I’d characterize the Palestinian public mood—and I did visit the West Bank and meet with Palestinian leaders and people—as largely apathetic about the visit at the popular level. At the governmental level there’s always a hope that the visit will invigorate a renewed effort. And he’s going to Jordan also. Is the Jordan trip an important visit? For Jordan this visit is very important. I’ve spoken to Jordanian officials about it and it comes on the heels of Jordan just having finished a new election and the king unfurling a whole series of reform measures. In many ways the visit is meant to pay tribute to Jordan for having undertaken these reform efforts, as well as recognizing the economic pressures that Jordan faces—the fact that Jordan is on the frontline with Syria and facing a real serious challenge as a result of the influx of thousands of refugees. And finally, to reassure the Jordanians that the United States is still very attentive to the peace process, which is something the Jordanians are very concerned about because they are always fearful that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians will somehow spill over and affect their own stability. Let’s talk about the new Israeli government, because besides Netanyahu, it’s led by two younger public faces that most Americans don’t know anything about. One is Yahir Lapid and the other is Naftali Bennett. We are seeing a fascinating story unfold. The Israeli elections were held on January 22, and in the intervening two months there’s been an effort to put together a coalition government. And what happened was that the two parties—Yesh Atid, led by Yair Lapid, and HaBait Yehudi, the Jewish Home, led by Naftali Bennett—formed an alliance after the election against Netanyahu. In putting themselves together they exerted a great deal of pressure on Netanyahu and were successful in extracting major concessions in terms of the government formation. What’s so interesting about it is that these two parties represent an alliance between secular middle class Israel and what I call the national religious Israelis. Yair Lapid is the liberal, and Naftali Bennett represents the national religious camp, the people who are religious and right wing but who are very much part of the Israeli mainstream—distinct from the ultra-Orthodox, who do not participate in Israeli national life; they do not go to the Army, and many of them do not work. They really live outside of the Israeli mainstream and yet reap many of the benefits of being part of Israel. So what you have now is a government that does not have the ultra-Orthodox in it for the first time in over ten years. You have this alliance that was formed between a center-left secular party under Lapid and a right-wing nationalist religious but modern Orthodox party of the right against Netanyahu. What that means is that you have a government that has formed an alliance about the need to address some of Israel’s social problems, the biggest agenda item being to equalize responsibility for national service and national participation. The effort is to try to pass legislation that will require the ultra-Orthodox to do national service in the army or elsewhere, and to really bear their share of the burden. This is kind of a victory for middle Israel, if you will. What’s interesting is that when it comes to foreign policy you have inside the coalition a huge range of opinions. So whereas the previous Israeli government had been solidly right-wing, this is a government that is much more diverse It means that you have the Likud Party that Netanyahu heads, which has become more hawkish and right-wing, but also Lapid, who insisted that one of his requirements to come into the coalition was the reinvigoration of the peace process with the Palestinians. You also have the party headed by Tzipi Livni, who ran on a platform of a two-state solution with the Palestinians. So there’s going to be a real tension inside the government between Netanyahu’s own party, which is allied with Bennett on this issue and will be very hostile to any concessions with the Palestinians, and then Lapid and Livni on the other hand, really wanting a peace process. Is Netanyahu stronger or weaker? I’d say that overall, Prime Minister Netanyahu has emerged from these elections politically weaker than he had been prior to the election. The outcome of the elections was a blow to him and his party, and the fact that he’s had to make all of these concessions in forming the coalition has weakened him further. The expectation in Israel is that this government is not going to be durable. It’s going to have sixty-eight seats—you require sixty to have a majority, so sixty-eight is not that strong a majority. It means that any one party can pretty much bring down the government.  

The President leaves for Israel tomorrow. Here are eight suggestions for what he should say when there. No doubt his speechwriters could improve on the language, but these are thoughts it would be very useful for him to express. Such statements would have a serious impact in Israel and in the entire Middle East. Of course, it would be even better if these thoughts really reflected the President’s views and policies. Appreciating Israel: This is not my first trip to Israel nor is it my last. I look forward to the day when, as a former President, I can come here with my children to show them the land of the Bible—and show them the miracles that have been created here by your hands since 1948. Getting the History Right: The ties of the Jewish people to this land go back thousands of years, and on Monday millions of Jews in Israel and out will repeat at Passover seders what their forbears said while living in exile century after century: “Next Year in Jerusalem.” Understanding and Standing by Israel: I understand that, of all the nations of the earth, only Israel faces threats to its very existence and still faces neighbors who refuse to recognize its existence. That is why my administration has maintained with Israel the closest intelligence and military cooperation ever. And only one nation faces an unending barrage of one-sided, unfair attacks in the United Nations system month after month. As long as I am president, we will consider standing by Israel to fight off military and diplomatic attacks not as a burden but as an honor. Noting the Neighborhood: The United States will use its all influence to maintain the peace treaties you have with Jordan and Egypt. And we will work together closely with you to prevent the carnage in Syria, and the assembly of terrorists gathering there, from flowing over your border or from destabilizing Lebanon or Jordan. Crediting Israel: I know that Israelis long for peace, and have made effort after effort to achieve it—most recently in the offers your leaders made to the Palestinians in 2000 and 2008. I regret that those offers were rejected and I understand that Israel does not share the blame for this. Resuming Pragmatic Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations: Nothing should be allowed to prevent Israeli and Palestinian negotiators from resuming their work. Even if a comprehensive peace is not possible during my period as president, progress is: an improvement in the way Israelis and Palestinians share this land between the Jordan River and the Sea, and work together to provide prosperity and security for both populations. Warning Iran: Let me say to the rulers of Iran what I have said in Washington, and now repeat from Jerusalem: while I am president you will never get a nuclear weapon. All the sacrifices you are making will be in vain, because the United States will prevent you from reaching that goal. What lies ahead for Iran may be an agreement, or other, much worse alternatives—but not possession of a nuclear weapon. Remaining in the Fight Against Terrorism: The United States is withdrawing forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, but we are not withdrawing from the ideological and the military battle against Islamic extremists and terrorists. In this you and we are the closest of allies and will remain so. Our enemy is not a religion, but extremists who would use violence to impose their rule and their religious views on others. Together we will remain in this struggle, for as many years as it takes. The President should read the George W. Bush speech to the Knesset in 2008; that is the competition he is up against. But I believe these eight points would take him very far toward persuading many Israelis that he wants bilateral relations to be vastly better in his second term than they were in his first.  

There must be something in the water over at the State Department that leads successive secretaries of state to decide, seemingly on their first day there, that now is the time for a big new push at a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Here we go again. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry intends to place the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the center of his diplomatic activities and to strive to achieve a breakthrough agreement between the two sides during President Obama’s second term in office, according to the assessment of well-placed sources in Washington and New York. Why? The article continues: Nonetheless, the overall impression left by the discussions conducted in recent weeks by Kerry and his advisers with European, Israeli and Arab officials, as well as American Jewish leaders, is that the former Massachusetts senator is "determined to the point of obsession," as one skeptical interlocutor put it, to change the tone and direction of relations between Israel and the Palestinians during his term as Secretary of State. "He sees it as the holy mission of his life," the source said. Kerry is convinced that his years of experience with the region and his deep personal relationships with many of its main protagonists, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, place him in a unique position to succeed where his predecessors have failed and to bring about not only a resumption of talks but a long-term agreement as well. Lest it be thought that this is the take solely of one Israeli newspaper, here is the Los Angeles Times experienced correspondent Paul Richter: As Kerry heads off Sunday on his debut trip as secretary of State to nine nations in Europe and the Middle East, his blunt exchange with Assad offers insight on his determination to use whatever it takes — even insults — to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, his personal passion. Kerry has made it clear he wants to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, a long and sporadic process whose latest collapse occurred during Obama’s first term. He is well aware that failed attempts tarnished the reputations of elder statesmen and presidents for decades, including Obama. He is not deterred. Oh boy. Two things strike me about these reports. First, our new SecState does not appear to be operating from any new assessment of the situation received from State Department or other U.S. experts, nor from Israelis or Palestinians. He is entering the office certain of what can be achieved and certain he is the man to achieve it. This is not the best way to make policy. Second, he seems unaware of or anyway undeterred by the risks and downsides. Raising hopes that are later dashed, opening negotiations that sadly go nowhere, holding ceremonial openings that never lead to tangible achievements-all of these undermine faith on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides that peace is achievable. American failures of any sort have the same effect, on those parties and others in the region. Moreover, the insistent (obsessive?) focus on breakthroughs and huge achievements leads too often to ignoring more practical, shorter-range, and achievable agreements that are sometimes derided as "small ball." Better small ball than the swing for the fences that, time after time, ends the inning in a strikeout.

The London newspaper Al Hayat carried a story on February 21 about the intentions of EU states to support Hamas participation in a Palestinian "national unity government." It seems that "the European boycott of the Palestinian Government formed by Hamas after winning the 2006 elections will not be repeated,"  according to someone described as a "senior European diplomat." France and Britain want to relaunch the "peace process," and this time "on a new basis and without preconditions."  The diplomat is quoted as saying "today there exists an international consensus on the need for the establishment of a Palestinian State....we welcome the entry of Hamas into the PLO and the fact that it accepted the PLO charter." If the story is accurate, it represents a significant change in EU policy. Previously, the EU--as part of the Quartet, with the United States, Russia, and the UN--had staunchly supported the "three Quartet principles." These required that Hamas abandon violence and terror, accept all previous Israel-PLO agreements as binding, and accept Israel’s right to exist. Now it seems the Europeans are asking far less of Hamas--in fact, appear to be asking nothing at all before applauding a role in the Palestinian Authority (PA) and in the PLO for what is officially regarded in the EU as in the United States as a terrorist group. The dangers here are great. In an article in the Weekly Standard, I discussed the legal problems that Hamas’s participation in the PA would create for the United States because it is a terrorist group. In Tested By Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, the book I’ve just published, the story of what transpired in 2006 is told. What the Quartet decided then was that Hamas could run in the Palestinian parliamentary elections but could not participate in the government unless it met the three conditions noted above. Hamas refused to meet any of them. It didn’t bargain, nor did it lie; it simply refused. That meant that the Russians and Europeans, whom I thought would have abandoned the "Quartet principles" at the drop of a hat, could not do so; Hamas refused to drop a hat. Now seven years later, Hamas hasn’t changed but the Europeans may have--and may simply be dropping any conditionality. They appear to believe this is the road to successful peace negotiations. Their theory is that President Abbas and his Fatah Party will be afraid to make the necessary compromises unless they are confident Hamas will back them--instead of accusing them of treason. This may well be true, as far as it goes: Abbas, like Arafat before him, may be afraid to make the necessary compromises. But why do the Europeans, or anyone else, believe that Hamas will back any compromises at all? Will they compromise on Jerusalem? On abandoning the so-called "right of return?" On determining a border that allows the large settlement blocs to become Israeli territory? What’s the basis for that belief? And how can the inclusion in the Palestinian government of a terrorist group that is still committing, and justifying, acts of terror persuade Israelis to make the compromises they would need to make? I have no secret information telling me whether the Al Hayat story is true or false. But if it is true, the Europeans are heading in very much the wrong direction. Giving Hamas a greater role will make peace even harder to attain, because Hamas does not seek peace.  

It would be far easier to understand Egypt if the trend lines pointed up or down, rather than presenting an immensely complex picture. But consider two groups of issues: relations with Hamas, and respect for human rights. It was reasonable to assume that a Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt would be very much more accommodating to Hamas than the Mubarak regime had been--and Hamas so assumed. But in the last week we have seen two striking decisions by the Morsi government and the Egyptian military. First, they have once again refused to allow Hamas to open an office in Cairo. The Jerusalem Post reported as follows: Egyptian security forces rejected a Muslim Brotherhood request to establish a Hamas office in Cairo after it had left its Damascus headquarters, according to Egyptian security sources quoted by Iraqi paper Azzaman on Tuesday. The security sources were quoted as saying that they put national security considerations first, especially now when Egypt is facing unrest and the new office could lead to further disturbances. The paper also quotes an anonymous security source who said there are three training camps for al-Qaida-linked groups in the northern Sinai. Here, Egypt is clearly putting security matters ahead of ideological preferences. It is doing the same thing by trying to destroy the smuggling tunnels that link Gaza to Sinai and permit Hamas to import weaponry and to gain tax revenue. Here is part of a Reuters story: Egyptian forces have flooded smuggling tunnels under the border with the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip in a campaign to shut them down, Egyptian and Palestinian officials said....Reuters reporters saw one tunnel being used to bring in cement and gravel suddenly fill with water on Sunday, sending workers rushing for safety. Locals said two other tunnels were likewise flooded, with Egyptians deliberately pumping in water....An Egyptian security official in the Sinai told Reuters the campaign started five days ago. "We are using water to close the tunnels by raising water from one of the wells," he said, declining to be named. Dozens of tunnels had been destroyed since last August following the killing of 16 Egyptian soldiers in a militant attack near the Gaza fence.... All good news. But meanwhile, what’s happening inside Egypt? On the human rights front there is reason to despair, and the chairman of the Egyptian Human Rights Organization, Hafez Abu Seada, has just written in Al Ahram that "As the situation stands, a grim future lays ahead for democratic transformation and human rights in Egypt. There is a legal edifice that fails to furnish solid human rights guarantees and the same type of gross human rights abuses that sparked the revolution are resurfacing with increasing frequency." Egypt’s new draft constitution "fails to offer the necessary safeguards for human rights. In fact, the drafters of the constitution avoided the term ’human rights’ altogether." He continues: Egyptians affiliated to religions other than Sunni Islam were clearly offended by crucial segments of the new constitution. The three representatives of Egyptian churches withdrew from the Constituent Assembly in protest against articles that would undermine the civil state and pave the way for a theocratic state under the hegemony of a Sunni religious establishment....As for rights violations, the freedom of opinion and expression is under heavy attack. Journalists and media figures critical of the policies of the president and the ruling party are being sued and reported to the public prosecutor in unprecedented numbers. For the first time in Egyptian history, the office of the president has filed suits against journalists on the charge of “insulting the president....” Abu Seada notes as well that the new constitution "chipped away at the rights of Egyptian women, deleting the stipulation of gender equality that had existed in the 1971 constitution." But here the real news is even worse: there is an epidemic of sexual harassment and rape in Egypt, Raymond Ibrahim reports. And women who take to the streets to protest publicly are often themselves subject to yet more abuses. As two female journalists based in Cairo, Sophia Jones and Erin Bianco, wrote last June, "it is an everyday psychological and sometimes even physical battle. We open our closets in the morning and debate what to wear to lessen the harassment—as if this would help. Even fully veiled women are harassed on Cairo’s streets." Lest the assessment seem too gloomy, it was confirmed to me by an American official just last week. How can we fit all these pieces together? Sadly, by seeing the new regime as an Islamist version of the old Mubarak regime. Concerned with Egypt’s national security interests, unwilling to offend the security forces or to cleanse them, uninterested in human rights, focused on retaining power above all else. No wonder Abu Seada concluded that without significant change "a grim future lays ahead for democratic transformation and human rights in Egypt."

The government demolishes some houses, saying that they were illegally built on public land. There is an international outcry. True or false? Here’s an account from 2010: Hamas police expelled Palestinian Arabs from perhaps three dozen houses along the border of Sinai, and demolished them. Hamas said those houses were illegal, being erected on government property in Rafiah. Masked Hamas policewomen beat fellow Arab women and children with clubs, until they evacuated the houses. Here’s a story from this week: Members of the Abu Amrah family in Gaza City demonstrated Tuesday in front of offices of the Palestinian Legislative Council protesting a decision by the Hamas-run government to demolish 75 houses belonging to the family in the al-Rimal neighborhood. I am unaware of any outcry across the globe. The government of Israel sometimes demolishes homes, saying that they were illegally built on public land. And of course, it is a member state of the United Nations, not a terrorist group. But when it does, one can expect various governments to condemn the action and can expect action in the UN Human Rights Council, perhaps even a debate in the UN General Assembly or Security Council in New York. It’s no surprise that  Baroness Valerie Amos, the UN under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, has said that "Palestinians are utterly frustrated by the impact of Israeli policies on their lives....They are evicted from their homes. Their homes are regularly demolished." In Israel there is actually an NGO fighting such demolitions, the Israel Committee Against Home Demolitions, a group that takes some rather extreme political positions and has chapters in the UK, Finland, and Norway. And who pays for this--who supports this organization financially? Directly and indirectly, the EU, Norway, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Denmark, the World Bank, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UN Development Program. Of course, this comparison between actions taken by Hamas and actions taken by the government of Israel will annoy some readers, and I do not mean to suggest that all such actions are the same. I mean to suggest that all those international bodies that are outspoken about home demolitions should turn their attention to Gaza as well as to Israel and the West Bank.