Palestinian Territories

President Obama spoke to AIPAC today and addressed the controversy his Thursday speech had caused. He met two criticisms by backing down. On Thursday he had not mentioned the "Quartet Principles." Today he did, saying that Hamas must "accept the basic responsibilities of peace: recognizing Israel’s right to exist, rejecting violence, and adhering to all existing agreements." He also responded to the criticisms of his call for negotiations based on the "1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps." Today the president said that: "By definition, it means that the parties themselves – Israelis and Palestinians – will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June 4, 1967. It is a well known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a generation. It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes that have taken place over the last forty-four years, including the new demographic realities on the ground and the needs of both sides." Here the president was admitting error while claiming he had not made one. The error on Thursday was not saying, as he did today, that any agreed border would be different from the 1967 line. But the president failed again to recognize that the 1967 line was actually the 1949 armistice line, and that a return to it should not merely reflect "changes that have taken place over the last forty-four years, including the new demographic realities on the ground." In fact those lines would need to change even if not one settlement had ever been built. The changes must reflect Israel’s need for secure and defensible borders, which has long been the American position. Moreover the changes need to reflect that the 1949 lines were the product of aggressive war and were unjust: for example, the Western Wall of the ancient Temple was in Jordanian-occupied Jerusalem prior to the 1967 war, and is now--and obviously must remain--in Israel. The president also failed to resolve one logical contradiction in his policy--one with considerable significance--perhaps because it is impossible to do so. The contradiction is visible clearly in these lines he delivered: "we know that peace demands a partner – which is why I said that Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with Palestinians who do not recognize its right to exist, and we will hold the Palestinians accountable for their actions and their rhetoric.But the march to isolate Israel internationally – and the impulse of the Palestinians to abandon negotiations – will continue to gain momentum in the absence of a credible peace process and alternative." So Israel should and must negotiate, but Israel cannot be expected to negotiate. If Mr. Obama wonders about criticism--and he complained about it at AIPAC--he should ponder those lines in his own speech. He said today that "If there’s a controversy, then, it’s not based in substance. What I did on Thursday was to say publicly what has long been acknowledged privately." Perhaps. It does seem that Israel is being pressured to negotiate even by those who "acknowledge privately" that it has no negotiating partner. Mr. Obama is in a separate category: he is pressuring Israel to negotiate even as he acknowledges publicly that it has no negotiating partner.

I was unfavorably impressed by President Obama’s speech yesterday, and explained why both at the CFR web site and at greater length in National Review. The President’s remarks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were off the mark.   As I noted in National Review: "President Obama also said the “borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.” It is worth comparing how President Bush described the agreed, negotiated borders he sought for the Israelis and Palestinians in that 2004 letter: “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.” The Obama language is a shift away from Israel and toward the Palestinians." My friend Rob Satloff, who leads the Washington Institute on Near East Policy, made a powerful comment on the speech: "Perhaps more than anything else, the most surprising aspect of the president’s peace process statement was that it moved substantially toward the Palestinian position just days after the Palestinian Authority decided to seek unity and reconciliation with Hamas. Indeed, the president seemed nonplussed that Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, has opted for unity with Hamas, a group the United States views as a terrorist organization. This reconciliation with Hamas "raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel," the president noted -- but evidently not questions so profound and troubling to the United States that they would impede a shift in U.S. policy that advantages the Palestinians." In this context, the President’s speech to AIPAC on Sunday becomes even more interesting.  Will the President now add elements that were missing yesterday--such as a statement that the Palestinian refugee issue must be resolved in Palestine and not in Israel?  Will he correct his remarks on the "1967 lines?"  It is impossible to say, in part due to the mysterious process by which these Obama speeches are written.  Apparently this speech was being revised literally until the last moment, due to debates in the White House and changes in the President’s decisions about the speech.  Did they know what they were saying, and how far they were tipping toward the Palestinian view?  Did they mean to undermine the Israeli negotiating position?  Those questions will be easier to answer after Sunday.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal (R) talks with President Mahmoud Abbas (L) during their meeting in Cairo May 4, 2011. (Ho New/Courtesy Reuters) The agreement between Fatah and Hamas marks the end of a long period of cooperation and negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians. It’s worth reviewing the recent history briefly. In 2003, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon endorsed the two-state solution and said Palestinians should govern themselves. At a summit meeting in Aqaba, Sharon and Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (whom Yasser Arafat was forced to appoint) exchanged words of peace and Abbas explicitly renounced violence as a tool of Palestinian politics. In late 2003 and with more detail in early 2004, Sharon announced that he would pull Israeli settlers and troops out of Gaza and withdraw symbolically from four small settlements in the West Bank, and after a long political battle did so in the summer of 2005. In November 2004 Arafat died and Abbas was chosen as his successor in a free election in January 2005. Negotiations over a final settlement started up again after the Annapolis Conference in November 2007, though they ended when Operation Cast Lead began in late 2008 and have never recommenced. Despite the Hamas coup in Gaza in 2007, Israeli-PA cooperation on the ground improved from 2006 right through to 2011, allowing for a significant progress in economic conditions in the West Bank and for considerable security cooperation against terrorist groups including Hamas. Under American training, PA security forces improved greatly in the last several years, just one piece of the institutional progress that has taken place since Salam Fayyad became prime minister in 2007. In choosing to enter a coalition with Hamas, Abbas is abandoning all the advances made to date and abandoning his own former approach. Cooperation with Israel to improve life in the West Bank and security cooperation against terrorism have now been jettisoned in favor of the appearance of unity. All of Abbas’s past statements about Hamas as his enemy, Fatah’s enemy, and the PA’s enemy have been put aside in an embrace of Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader. Under the agreement, elections will be held for the PA presidency and parliament, and for the PLO bodies, in one year, and security forces are to be put under one umbrella. Why now? Why Hamas entered this coalition is easy to explain.  Its invaluable support from Syria is as shaky as the Assad regime itself, and its usual opposition to PA elections is softened by the prospect of winning them. Moreover, Hamas has long sought to enter and dominate the PLO but was kept out of it. Abbas’s willingness to let Hamas in is a considerable victory for Hamas. But why did Abbas do it? Public opinion polls suggest that Palestinians want national unity and reconciliation, so Abbas is playing to the voters. (Whether those voters will be able to distinguish real reconciliation from a façade put up by Hamas and Fatah leaders who hate each other is a different matter.) And Abbas is calling for a September UN vote recognizing an independent Palestinian state, which would be harder to win if the PA manifestly ruled over half the territory only, with Gaza wholly independent. Abbas may also have felt that with polls showing that Hamas is quite unpopular in Gaza and weaker than in 2006, Fatah should be able to win the PA and PLO elections. As to the meaning of all this for the “peace process,” well…..there is no more “peace process.” Abbas has given up on it, just as he has given up on President Obama. He recently commented to Newsweek that “It was Obama who suggested a full settlement freeze. I said OK, I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump. Three times he did it.” Abbas is turning instead to internal politics, and his message to us is “Go away and leave me alone.  I am finished with peace negotiations for now.” Of course, as he has promised not to run again in next year’s presidential elections, he himself is presumably finished with them forever. He wants his legacy to be some semblance (no matter how false) of national unity, rather than a difficult and controversial peace agreement with Israel that requires him to make compromises—and be accused of treason by Hamas for each one. In this sense he is casting himself as a transitional leader between Arafat and whatever comes next, a man too weak to lead his people across to the promised land of real national independence. It remains to be seen how the United States and the EU will react to the new situation. When Hamas won the 2006 elections, the U.S. and EU (with Russian support, briefly) adopted what became known as the Quartet Principles: “It is the view of the Quartet that all members of a future Palestinian Government must be committed to non-violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations…” Trying to get around the Principles in 2006 and again now, the Palestinian formula is that there will be a non-party technocratic government. That way, they can say Hamas is not actually participating in the PA government—not yet anyway. It is a hollow formula, and not only because it merely delays the problem of Hamas’s role until elections are held. Will “all members” of the new government now truly endorse an absolute end to violence and terror, not simply tactically but morally and permanently? In his 2003 Aqaba speech, Abbas said “we repeat our renunciation, a renunciation of terror against the Israelis wherever they might be. Such methods are inconsistent with our religious and moral traditions and are dangerous obstacles to the achievement of an independent, sovereign state we seek. These methods also conflict with the kinds of state we wish to build, based on human rights and the rule of law.” Excellent words. Will every new appointee swear to them, even though Hamas obviously rejects them? After all, it is only a month since Hamas fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus. And this week, senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar told al-Jazeera Hamas would never recognize Israel and “the rule of Poles and Ethiopians in their land.” But don’t worry about that, said Fatah Central Committee member Nabil Shaath: “many others agree with us that the old rules of the quartet were not logical, and are not workable.” Back in 2006 and 2007, it seemed to me the EU would abandon the Quartet Principles if Hamas gave them the slightest pretext—but the Hamas guys did not come through for the eager European diplomats. They wouldn’t move one inch toward the Quartet. Perhaps they will in 2011, in which case Israel will find top-level Hamas representatives being wined and dined in all the capitals of Europe. If not, the EU will likely oppose the PA effort at the UN in September, led by the Germans. For obvious historical reasons and because it is led by a principled person, Germany has already taken a tougher line. When this week President Sarkozy said "If the peace process is still dead in September, France will face up to its responsibilities on the central question of recognition of a Palestinian state," Chancellor Merkel rejected an appeal from Abbas and said "We do not think that unilateral steps are helpful." If the EU does not support the Palestinians in New York come September, the Palestinian effort will likely succeed in winning a majority but fail nevertheless. Because if the new entity does not have EU and U.S. recognition, the Palestinian effort to replace negotiations with Israel by unity between Fatah and Hamas and by unilateral diplomatic moves will have led into a cul de sac. Who cares how Zimbabwe and Venezuela and the Arab League vote, if the United States, the EU, and nations such as Canada and Australia vote against the Palestinian effort or (for those who are afraid to do so) even abstain on it? What should Netanyahu say when he speaks to a joint session of Congress in a couple of weeks? That Israel wants peace and remains committed to the two-state solution; that it realizes the State of Israel will have to give up some settlements in the Land of Israel, if peace is obtainable; that the refugee problem must indeed be solved, but the solution must be found in Palestine, not in Israel; that the fundamental problem is security, and the continuing refusal by the Palestinians to accept Israel as a Jewish State; that there can be no return to the 1949 armistice lines; and that anyone who seeks peace must regard the entry of Hamas into the PLO and into the Palestinian Authority as a grim development. And what of Washington? Due to the deal with Hamas, any hope Israel’s enemies, or its “friends” in Europe, had that President Obama would push Netanyahu into serious concessions when they meet in late May is now gone. I was one of those who, over the past few months, were urging Netanyahu to consider far-reaching steps toward the Palestinians, but that was back in the old days when the PA and Fatah were enemies of Hamas. Such steps are impossible now in both American and Israeli politics. The president would be wise to adopt a new policy now: the goal should be to try to avoid Israeli-Palestinian violence, let the Palestinians vote next year, and then see where we stand. If the president has a second term and the conditions are good he can return to this subject then; for the remainder of his first term it needs to be parked. It is fair for him to ask Netanyahu to avoid provocative actions, such as starting new settlements in the West Bank or announcing large new housing projects in Jerusalem (new projects will be started there, but Israel should seek less rather than more publicity for them). And the president should tell the Palestinian Authority leadership that we will give it aid to the extent that its officials are committed to the Quartet Principles and continue to fight terror. Secretary Clinton said on Wednesday that “we are waiting to see the details. We obviously are aware of the announcement in Cairo yesterday. There are many steps that have yet to be undertaken in order to implement the agreement. And we are going to be carefully assessing what this actually means, because there are a number of different potential meanings to it, both on paper and in practice. We’ve made it very clear that we cannot support any government that consists of Hamas unless and until Hamas adopts the Quartet principles. And the Quartet principles have been well known to everyone for a number of years. So we’re going to wait and make our assessment as we actually see what unfolds from this moment on.” This is not reassuring. The PA will not have “a government that consists of Hamas,” but a non-party technocratic government meant precisely to get around the Quartet Principles. The United States needs to be far clearer: we cannot and will not support any government where Hamas has a real influence and the security forces stop fighting terror. We must certainly not fund such a government, and indeed once Fayyad leaves we should be very wary of the financial practices of the PA. For years Fayyad has resisted Fatah Party efforts—often led by President Abbas—to put corrupt officials into the Finance and other ministries, and this is one reason Fatah leaders dislike him and want him out. But the critical test will be security work. According to descriptions of the agreement, “Among the first tasks to be tackled is the establishment of a higher security council tasked with examining ways to integrate Hamas and Fatah’s rival security forces and create a ‘professional’ security service. The accord also calls for…the release of a number prisoners held by the rival movements in jails in the West Bank and Gaza.” This suggests an integration of the American-trained security forces with Hamas terrorist forces known as the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, an end to fighting terror, and the release from prisons of terrorists from Hamas and other groups. If this transpires, it would mean the PA/Fatah leaders are choosing the armed struggle over peace with Israel, and would mean that Hamas will henceforth be the leading Palestinian faction. Perhaps not; perhaps the West Bank security forces will continue their work, given their long years of war against Hamas. Perhaps this agreement like its predecessor will soon break down, for the Hamas and Fatah leaders have been enemies for decades. Yuval Diskin, who is about to step down as the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service and who knows as much about Hamas and Fatah as anyone, said this week “I think the chance of a real reconciliation between the sides over the next two or three years is slim. The signing of the agreement creates a facade of unity, but it is unclear how they will implement the agreement on the ground.” In that sense Secretary Clinton was right to say we need to see what unfolds. But we need to be absolutely clear on the standards we will apply. We do no favor to any Palestinian who really seeks peace, democracy, and independence if we pull our punches when a murderous terrorist group maneuvers to gain power in—and then take power over—all the Palestinian territories.

Israelis and Palestinians are watching nervously to see how the tumult in the region shakes out, but with both sides using more advanced weapons technology and the peace process in the doldrums, the U.S. needs to reengage, says CFR’s Robert Danin.

In less than a week the Quartet meets. The Middle East Quartet—consisting of the EU, the UN Secretary General, Russia, and the United States—is supposed to gather on April 15, having postponed a planned March meeting. The first priority for the Quartet should be a fierce denunciation of terrorism. Since the last Quartet meeting on February 5, savage acts of terror against Israelis have occurred. The first was the  murder of a family of five, including three young children, on March 11. The Quartet issued a statement on March 13 condemning these murders but must do so again when Quartet principals, including Secretary of State Clinton, meet face to face next week. On March 23, a bus stop bombing in Jerusalem killed one person and wounded dozens more. Most recently, on April 6, Hamas fired a laser-guided missile at a school bus. According to the New York Times, officials of Hamas acknowledge that the targeting of a clearly marked yellow school bus was deliberate. One child was severely wounded, and had the missile struck just minutes earlier dozens would have been wounded or killed. This is a grave escalation by Hamas, and its timing is noteworthy. The school bus attack came just a week before the Quartet meeting. Moreover, it came a week after unity talks between Hamas and Fatah and just days before additional talks are to begin. Hamas is making clear its terms for unity: a continuation of terror. In the past weeks, Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza have shot hundreds of missiles and rockets into southern Israel. So the second priority for the Quartet should be clarity about the terms for Palestinian unity. Hamas participation in the government should be permitted only if Hamas accepts the “Quartet Principles” adopted in 2006 after Hamas gained a victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections. The Quartet stated that “all members of a future Palestinian Government must be committed to non-violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations, including the Road Map.”  Those three “Quartet Principles” were later endorsed by UN Security Council resolution 1850 (in a 14-1 vote, with only Gaddafi’s Libya opposing). It should be obvious after the school bus attack that Hamas does not meet these conditions, and the Quartet should therefore oppose any unity agreement with it. Far from renouncing and abandoning terror, Hamas is increasing it. There has been considerable speculation about the Quartet presenting the outlines of a peace plan. It should be obvious to the Quartet that if the Palestinian Authority chooses unity with terrorists, progress toward peace is impossible. A Fatah/Hamas unity government cannot be a negotiating partner for Israel. For the Quartet to present or outline peace terms without making this crystal clear would be immoral, for in this case silence would indeed be consent—consent to the participation in the Palestinian Authority government by terrorist groups who have just days before made their contempt for peace manifest. It would also be very foolish, for Secretary Clinton must know that Hamas participation in the PA would create enormous legal problems under our counter-terrorism laws, as it did after the 2006 elections, and would doom her chances to get Congress to continue financial aid to the PA. Recent World Bank and IMF reports detail the progress made in the PA on numerous important governance issues. Now the PA must choose, between continued progress toward statehood or unity with terrorists. And the Quartet, if it is to advance its goal of Palestinian statehood, must use its meeting next week to state clearly that the PA can choose a unity government with Hamas or progress toward statehood—but it cannot have both.

Egyptian security forces stand guard at the Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip (Ismail Zaydah/Courtesy Reuters) Ever since Hosni Mubarak took flight to Sharm el Sheikh, it’s been widely assumed that Egypt’s relationship with Israel is going to change.  Public opinion wouldn’t have it any other way.  The gas deal—in which Israel benefits from favorable pricing—the blockade of Gaza, and the general perception that Mubarak had aligned Egypt with Israel (and the United States) at the expense of Egyptian interests, contributed to the polarized and angry political environment on the eve of the revolution.  Still, there was no definitive statement coming from Cairo other than the military’s affirmation of the 1979 peace treaty about an Israel policy…until now. For those of us who don’t have regular access to the Egyptian television channel “Dream,” we can thank the Egyptian blogger Zeinobia for giving us a rundown of a recent interview with Foreign Minister al Arabi.  The headline, if you want to call it that was al Arabi’s statement that Egypt’s relations with Israel would be “normal” as opposed to “special,” which marked the nature of relations during the Mubarak era.  I suppose that is news to most Israelis and their partisans who complain about a cold peace, but Israel’s foreign policy and national security establishment regarded Mubarak as a “strategic asset”  (that’s direct quote, but I can’t say who said it) plain and simple. Here’s a rundown of what else al Arabi had to say: The gas deal will be reviewed; He’d like to see the UN forces replace the MFO in Sinai; Egypt does not regard Iran as an enemy and al Arabi doesn’t see a problem with Tehran and Ankara playing more influential roles in the region; He criticized the Madrid process for overshadowing Resolution 242 (this one is hard to understand given that, if I am not mistaken, Madrid was based on 242.  I’ll have to ask the boss, who was instrumental in putting the Madrid conference together); Al Arabi suggested that Egypt might seek compensation from Israel for damages related to its occupation of Sinai and the alleged massacre of Egyptian POWs (I have seen no credible evidence of the latter); And, he wants to end Egypt’s blockade of Gaza. None of this is terribly surprising.  It tracks exactly with widespread public sentiment. Of all these issues, the Egyptians should be careful about Gaza.  I hate to say it and I might get in trouble with my Egyptian friends, but Hosni Mubarak might have been correct on this one.  I know that sounds terrible.  Gaza is in bad shape and Mubarak’s strict blockade of the area helped make a terrible situation for most Gazans worse.  That said, once the Egyptians open that border, there is a strong possibility that Gaza will become Cairo’s problem.  I’ve written about this when when Hamas blew open a whole in the wall along the Gaza-Sinai frontier in 2008.  At the time, prominent Israelis (including officials) and some influential voices on Middle East policy in Washington began calling for greater Arab responsibility for Gaza. Translation:  Egyptian responsibility.  Welcome to 1948.  I am not being conspiratorial.  The Israelis have been pretty open about the fact that they’ve wanted to rid themselves of Gaza for a long time. Egyptians may well determine that having Gaza dumped in their collective lap may be well worth the price of dealing with the challenges that the Strip presents.  Playing a role in relief for 1.5 million Gazans and truly helping to foster Palestinian reconciliation rather than working to undermine Hamas is in keeping with the spirit of the revolution and will go a long way toward restoring Egypt’s lost regional luster.  Perhaps.  Egyptians should tread lightly here:  Gaza is extraordinarily complex and the Palestinians have their own interests.  Nobody—Palestinians, Israelis, and Egyptians—looks upon Egypt’s last go around there fondly.

Map of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. (Central Intelligence Agency) After my recent visit to Israel and the West Bank, I’ve written an account of the current situation as I see it. It is published in the new issue of The Weekly Standard. At bottom, the article suggests that Israel should act rather than wait fearfully for possible Palestinian Authority, Quartet, or United Nations actions. If Israelis believe that separation from the Palestinian population of the West Bank is both inevitable and beneficial, they should begin that process. Israelis and Palestinians may never live together in peace, but they can live apart in peace.

Though the turmoil in the Arab world has "excited" most Palestinians, expert Rashid Khalidi says U.S.-led negotiations for a two-state solution has foundered and the U.S. block of a UN resolution on settlements could mean the negotiation process is "seeing its last days."

The Obama Administration cast its first veto in the United Nations on Friday, February 18, killing a Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israeli settlement activity.  Its poor handling of the entire episode has left just about everyone angry at the United States, and is therefore a manifest failure of American diplomacy. The Palestinian Authority began to talk about this resolution months ago. The United States could then have adopted a clear position: put it forward and it will be vetoed. That very clear stand might have persuaded the Palestinian leaders and their Arab supporters to drop the effort early on, when it could have been abandoned with no loss of face. Instead the Administration refused to make its position clear until the final day. In its Friday edition the New York Times was reporting that “the Obama administration was trying Thursday evening to head off an imminent vote in the United Nations Security Council that would declare Israel’s settlement construction in the West Bank illegal, but would not declare publicly whether it was prepared to veto the resolution.”  It seems clear that the administration was desperate to avoid a veto, indeed desperate to go four years without spoiling its “perfect record.”  But a “perfect record” in the UN requires vetoes, given the persistent anti-Israel bias of the organization. The administration’s desire to avoid vetoes only served to reduce its bargaining power, for the credible threat of a veto has long served American diplomats seeking to achieve an outcome more favorable to our interests. On the last day before the vote, the president called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Israeli press reported that “In a 50-minute phone call, he asked Abbas to drop the resolution and settle for a non-binding statement condemning settlement expansion, Palestinian officials said.  Abbas on Friday received a follow-up call from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the issue, the Palestinian news agency Wafa said.” But apparently the president did more than ask: “One senior Palestinian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the offer, made in an hour-long phone call from Obama, was accompanied by veiled threats of ’repercussions’ if it were refused. ’Obama threatened on Thursday night to take measures against the Palestinian Authority if it insists on going to the Security Council to condemn Israeli settlement activity, and demand that it be stopped,’ the official said. ’There will be repercussions for Palestinian-American relations if you continue your attempts to go to the Security Council and ignore our requests in this matter, especially as we suggested other alternatives,’ the official quoted Obama as telling Abbas.” Abbas rejected the Clinton and Obama appeals and/or ignored their threats, in itself a sign of reduced American diplomatic influence. The American veto will have angered Palestinians even more. But it will not have gained the administration any thanks from Israel or from supporters of Israel in the United States, who were appalled by the administration’s search for a bad compromise. According to the New York Times, the administration proposed that instead of a resolution the Security Council issue a “presidential statement” that "would condemn settlements but also call on all sides to resume negotiations. That statement would be paired with a Russian proposal for a fact-finding mission on settlements, and a proposed change in how the quartet, the international group that deals with the Middle East peace process, defines the basic building blocks of negotiations ranging from borders to the political status of Jerusalem.” So the administration was content with condemning settlements, happy to establish a new UN fact-finding mission, and willing to redefine the role of the Quartet. All that just to avoid a veto of the sort American presidents have been ordering for decades. Feeling guilty about its veto the administration then issued an extraordinary “explanation of vote,” read by UN Ambassador Susan Rice. Though we had to veto, she explained, “we reject in the strongest terms the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity. For more than four decades, Israeli settlement activity in territories occupied in 1967 has undermined Israel’s security and corroded hopes for peace and stability in the region. Continued settlement activity violates Israel’s international commitments, devastates trust between the parties, and threatens the prospects for peace….While we agree with our fellow Council members—and indeed, with the wider world—about the folly and illegitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, we think it unwise for this Council to attempt to resolve the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians. We therefore regrettably have opposed this draft resolution.” This is amazing language for a diplomat: “folly,” “illegitimacy,” “devastates,” “corroded,” and so on. It’s hard to recall such a vehement statement against Israel, nor one that contains so many conclusions that are, to say the least, highly debatable. Has construction in and around Jerusalem or in Ma’ale Adumim, for example, “undermined Israel’s security?” Given that the Israelis and Palestinians concluded the Oslo Accords and the numerous other agreements while construction activity was far greater than it is today, what is the basis for saying that it “devastates trust?” No doubt the administration decided that as it had vetoed it would “make it up” to the Arabs with this statement. But emotive language such as Amb. Rice employed serves no purpose. Arab newspapers will headline the veto—assuming of course that they have space in their pages tomorrow after covering the revolts in Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, Libya, Bahrain, and Egypt—and are very unlikely to cover her speech. Only Israelis and supporters of Israel in the United States will study her language, and remember it. So, the administration emerges having damaged relations with both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Decades of American experience at the United Nations proves clearly the “folly” of such diplomatic action, which “devastates trust” in the United States and therefore “corrodes hopes for peace and stability in the region.” Next time, say you’ll veto, veto, and leave it at that. The United States will end up with fewer angry friends and fewer gleeful enemies.

Palestinian President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert arrive at the Elysee Palace in Paris to meet with France's President Nicolas Sarkozy on July 13, 2008 (Philippe Wojazer/Courtesy Reuters) Al Jazeera and The Guardian newspaper are publishing what they claim are hundreds of previously secret Palestinian documents about Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in the latter Bush and Olmert years, especially 2007-2008. My first look at these documents, which cover a period when I was much involved in those negotiations, leads to three preliminary conclusions. First, some of the papers seem inaccurate to me, going solely by memory. They put into people’s mouths words I do not recall them saying in meetings I attended. This is not shocking: written records of meetings can be inaccurate even when there’s a serious effort at accuracy. Moreover, Palestinian officials reviewing the documents after the meetings may have "improved" them, putting words in their own mouths (rather in the way our own members of Congress can "revise and extend" their remarks to improve them) or with less friendly objectives putting words in the mouths of others. Or, I may have missed parts of meetings or simply not be recalling accurately. But I would not take every one of these documents as necessarily 100 percent accurate. Second, these negotiations over possible compromises will surprise no American and no Israeli. In the United States and in Israel there have been twenty years of discussions of the compromises needed for a final status agreement. This has not been the case among Palestinians, where the debate has been far less free. There are still constant calls among Palestinians and in Arab capitals for a complete return to the 1967 "borders," which are in fact the 1949 armistice lines and to which there will never be a return. Palestinians may be surprised to learn that their negotiators understood this quite well and that the negotiations were actually about how far from the 1949 lines a final deal might go. Third, what some newspapers are calling "offers" or "agreements" made in the 2007-2008 negotiations are far less than that--are in fact most often preliminary probes or efforts to smoke out the other side. The Israelis and Palestinians never reached an agreement and in many areas, as the papers so far published show, were very far apart. It is often said that "everyone knows what a final status agreement will look like" but these documents powerfully undermine that conclusion; a good example here is the Palestinian refusal to accept that Maale Adumim, a "settlement" with a population just short of forty thousand that is actually a suburb of Jerusalem, will remain part of Israel. It may be true that the range of options is limited, but the negotiators never concluded on agreement and the proposal made by then-Prime Minister Olmert in 2008 was not accepted. The release of these "Palestine Papers" may be healthy. Anything that helps Palestinian public opinion move toward greater realism about the compromises needed for peace is useful. The impact on specific individuals is a different matter, one to be played out in the coming days.

Palestinians watch as an excavator demolishes the Shepherd Hotel in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of East Jerusalem on January 9, 2011 (Ronen Zvulun/Courtesy of Reuters) Guest post today.  My colleague, Robert Danin, offers his take on the Shepherd Hotel situation.   For those of you who don’t know Robert, you should.  He is one of the world’s leading experts on all things Arab-Israeli.  Enjoy. The Shepherd Hotel, partially bulldozed yesterday by private Israeli builders, is located just a few hundred yards from what had been my Jerusalem office until a few   months ago.  For the past several years, while I was based there working for the Quartet, I would pass the fenced off property daily thinking that the slightly dilapidated structure, built in the 1930s, must have once been elegant and grand.  It has been fenced off and unused while its fate was being fought out in the Israeli judicial system. This is not just any building.  It is of highly charged significance.  To many Palestinians, it is property belonging to the Husseini family, one of the oldest families from Jerusalem’s Palestinian nobility.  It had been built for the then Grand Mufti, Haj Amin al Husseini, a religious leader who had then openly aligned himself with Hitler during World War II.  For some Israelis, that association makes the hotel a just target today. I regularly spoke to Israeli and Palestinian lawyers involved in the case, and spoke to several of them today.  They explained that even as the bulldozers moved yesterday, a final determination over ownership had not yet been made by the Israeli judiciary.   So once the building began to be destroyed, the Israeli courts issued a temporary injunction against further moves on the ground.  Its fate now rests there. The fundamental question is not whether this is legal (I leave that to the lawyers, though I note that the Attorney General could intervene and hold this up if directed by the government), but whether it is smart policy for Jerusalem. In the face of immediate international condemnation—including a statement by Secretary of State Clinton—Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office put out a statement today.  It stated that the Israeli government was not involved in the issue and that “just as Arab residents of Jerusalem can buy or rent property in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Jews can buy or rent property in predominantly Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem.” The Israeli government should become involved.  Will having Israelis and Palestinians integrate on both sides of Jerusalem help lead  to a two state solution?  Increasingly, East Jerusalemites are seeking housing in the city’s Jewish west side for lack of housing opportunities in the east.  Meanwhile, in the case of the Shepherd Hotel, Israelis will wind up living in the heart of a largely Palestinian neighborhood.  They will not likely be greeted with cakes and cookies when they move in, nor are they likely to advance the cause of good neighborliness.  Meanwhile, Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barakat, has encouraged Israelis and Palestinians not to live intermingled throughout the city by supporting the development of separate neighborhoods for secular Israelis and ultra-Orthodox Jews. If you believe that Israelis and Palestinians should integrate and have Jerusalem and indeed all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean serve as one  polity, then perhaps this is all fine.  However, if you follow the logic, first articulated by the Peel Commission in 1937, reiterated by the UN in 1947 as the basis for Israel’s (and Palestine’s) creation, and most recently articulated by Presidents Bush and Obama: that the land should be partitioned into two states, then these developments can hardly be seen as steps in the right direction.

My colleague, Rob Danin, had an excellent CFR “First Take” yesterday on the administration’s change in direction on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.  It will be interesting to hear what Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has to say about the peace process on Friday at Brookings, but as Rob indicated, for now at least the Obama administration is moving back to “proximity talks.”  This seems like it is a step in the wrong direction, but there is historical precedent for this move.  The Egyptian-Israeli negotiations that began after Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem ultimately became proximity talks.  To be sure, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin showed up in Ismailiyya in January 1978, but direct talks went nowhere.  Camp David, the Blair House talks, and Carter’s visits to Egypt and Israel were all essentially proximity talks that led to the Egypt-Israel peace treaty. Still, I am not optimistic (have I made that clear before?) on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, whether they are face-to-face or proximity talks.  Unlike Sadat and Begin, who had a number of incentives to bring their negotiations to a successful conclusion, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have none.  Egyptian president Anwar Sadat needed to recover Sinai, and by 1977 the glow of October 1973’s crossing of the Suez Canal had faded.  If he could clinch a deal to recover Egyptian land, he would be in a better position to manage festering domestic economic and political problems.  Moreover, once he stepped off his plane in Tel Aviv on November 19, 1977 he was fully committed to seeing the process he had begun by going to Israel to end positively.  As a result, Sadat got a deal on Sinai but at the expense of all the other principles—especially Palestinian rights—that he articulated in his famous speech to the Knesset.  Begin wanted a deal because peace with Egypt would ultimately bring an end to the Arab war option.  The fact that he was able to secure an agreement with Sadat without making any serious concessions on the West Bank and Gaza Strip demonstrates Begin’s superior negotiating skills and Sadat’s relative weakness (largely of his own doing), but that’s a whole other story. It should be clear by now, but just to reiterate, President Abbas has no incentive to make a deal given his domestic political problems.  Instead, it seems he prefers rounding up international support for an independent Palestinian state in a vain effort to apply pressure on the Israelis.  Prime Minister Netanyahu has no real incentive to reach an agreement either.  He has his own political issues, in addition to the fact that there is a belief within Israel that a deal with Abbas would—unlike peace with Egypt—harm Israeli national security. Ok, now back to the Cliff Lee watch… (Photo Courtesy Reuters/Ho New)

I have it on good authority, which in Washington means that I read it in Laura Rozen’s foreign policy blog at Politico and confirmed it through various conversations with colleagues who had coffee with people who know someone who used to work with the folks involved, that Ambassador Martin Indyk and Dennis Ross may soon replace Senator George Mitchell as the Obama administration’s Middle East envoys. Indyk will use his skills to work with the Palestinian Authority, while Dennis Ross would become the Israelis’ primary interlocutor, with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton supervising both envoys. My question is: Why bother? This is not a knock on either Indyk or Ross. I admire and respect both of them. Then if it isn’t the personalities involved, why my cynicism? To be honest, I am perplexed by the Obama administration on the peace process. Don’t get me wrong, I admire their collective tenacity and maybe they will get lucky, but I am a deeply pessimistic about anyone’s ability to push the Palestinians and Israelis into productive negotiations. I know, a brave position on this issue. In all seriousness, politics on either side hardly lend themselves to progress. First, it is abundantly clear that the Israelis have not given up on the occupation. As a result, Prime Minister Netanyahu has been, and will, continue to resist American entreaties that compromise the settlement project. He has apparently learned a valuable lesson from his first turn in the prime ministry—the only people who can take down a government in Israel is the right. That has been the case since the mid-1990s after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Netanyahu’s unwillingness to extend the settlement freeze for just an additional 60 days should indicate more clearly than ever that the Israelis are not going to compromise on much. Second, the Palestinians are in a mess. Funny how little has been said about Hamas since September 1 when President Obama re-launched direct negotiations. Let’s review, however. There are two Palestinian Authorities: A Palestinian Authority-West Bank and a Palestinian Authority-Gaza. They are at war with each other. The PA-West Bank says that the only way to achieve Palestinian rights is through negotiations (though PA President Mahmoud Abbas spent three weeks in August trying to figure how to avoid direct negotiations), and the PA-Gaza argues that negotiations are an Israeli/American ruse that allows the Israelis more time to chew up Palestinian lands so Palestinians have no choice, but to fight. Abbas thus can’t compromise on much for fear of being perceived to be weak (actually, weaker), but that doesn’t really matter because the Israelis are not inclined to be “forward leaning” as they say inside the Beltway. What capacity do Indyk, Ross, Clinton or President Obama, for that matter, have to alter this situation? Early on, the administration tried and failed to impose costs on the Israelis for continuing its settlement policies, to no avail. Everyone seems to forget that Benjamin Netanyahu has spent far more time in Washington than Barack Obama. So if the reports are true, I say to Martin and Dennis best of luck. Yet, I also say in the inestimable words of Josh Baskin, “I don’t get it.” (Photo Courtesy Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)