A guy is walking along a beach in Tel Aviv when he comes across a lamp partially buried in the sand.He picks up the lamp and gives it a rub.A genie appears and tells him he has been granted one wish.The guy thinks for a moment and says, "I want to live forever.""Sorry," said the genie, "I'm not allowed to grant eternal life.""OK, then, I want to die after the Israelis and Palestinians make peace.
""You crafty little bastard," said the genie.
Over the last few weeks I have discussed with friends and family this new John Kerry initiative to restart the peace process between the two antagonists, Israel and Palestine, and rekindle hope that one day there will be normalcy in the Middle East.
I say normalcy because without a two-state solution, where Israel and Palestine can live side by side in peace, harmony and collaboration, there is little or no likelihood that there will ever be peace, stability and a chance for the Middle East region to develop and lift itself from the doldrums of poverty, dictatorial, authoritarian and autocratic regimes that are infesting the Arab world.
Now, if I wanted to live forever, I would ask the genie for the exact same wish. Here is briefly why.
Arab Governments and Arab People
I have said this before many times, and I say it again here: Without the two-state solution, corrupt and incompetent governments all over the Arab world have been for generations, and will continue to do so, using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to maintain their ongoing trampling over their people. Their people in turn, be it factually or erroneously, will continue to resent and outright hate the state of Israel they deem responsible for their misery, their state of poverty, unhealthy living conditions and lack of freedom, let alone all of that in regards the Palestinian people. Comparatively speaking, the Palestinians are in a much worse state of affairs than the people of Israel, a fact that severely tugs at the hearts and minds of the Arab world, due to natural and understandable tribal-like sentiments and support; not unlike the sentiments and support accorded Israel from world Jewry. A two-state solution will go a long way to right all kind of matters in that region.
The State of Israel
While it is highly illogical, and exceedingly cynical, for the various Arab governments to espouse such a strategy, Israel, the strong and highly-developed nation of the region bears a huge responsibility to see to it that a two-state solution becomes a reality and not a pipe-dream, manipulated by its current crop of deceitful leaders. Israel should take the initiative, it should work hard, it should explore imaginative avenues to achieve a two-state solution. Israel being a developed nation is a fact that does not need me to articulate, this 10:00-minute video, in English with French subtitles, The Invisible Israel, should tell enough.
Israel, just like in all of the Arab world, desperately needs a LEADER, visionary, daring, charismatic, one with a worldly view, one who can think outside the box. Netanyahu, Israel's current Prime Minister, is in a padlocked box, mentally that is, the keys have long been thrown into the Mediterranean. In below 3:38-minute video, Netanyahu is caught on-camera speaking his mind about how he manages America and how he broke the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, great pity!
If Mandela was a bit younger, and healthier, my strong recommendation would be for the Israeli people to import him for a presidential term. But history is replete with fine examples, Israel should find its own and give her/him two terms to get it done.
Looking Ahead, the Way Forward
However, as the above joke goes, I for one am not holding my breath for the Middle East to become an Elysium, too much distrust, too much decades-old bad sentiments/feelings, too much enmity to overcome, especially when sincere positive intentions and truthful commitment do not really exist at the time being, have not since my childhood and in my opinion unlikely to materialize anytime soon.
Most importantly, we need:
- a declaration from Israel that a sovereign and viable Palestinian state is a must and a necessity in regards Israel security, continued prosperity, and a life free of constant threats, turmoil and uncertainty.
- a universal declaration within the Arab world from all Arab states that Israel has an undeniable right to exist, that all hostilities, of any kind, will cease and desist, and that a Palestinian state will have their full support in its quest to provide for the Palestinian people a life of dignity, health and promise of a better future.
Anything short of that means only one thing, such peace process with its many rounds thus far will continue to amount to nothing more than talks for the sake of talks, the prototype for hypocrisy and duplicity, a cruel way of cheating the hopes and aspirations of the people of the Middle East.
At the end of the day, miracles do happen, a settlement is always possible:
- only if Israel being the already-established strong state does not go for a settlement that is blatantly pro-Israel,
- only if the Palestinian authorities understand that a journey of a thousand miles should be well-planned but it starts with the first step, so define a realistic first step and get on with it while securing written commitments for the overall plan,
- only if the Arab world gets behind it with its policies and vast resources, and
- only if the US achieves the thus far seemingly impossible task of being an honest broker.
Only then, a just and lasting peace will be born.
In the first one by Natan Sachs "Prepare for the Worst," Naftali Bennett, leader of the far-right Jewish Home party and Minister of Economy, made a simple point: The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not solvable. Bennett then elaborated saying: rather than try to solve an unsolvable conflict with the Palestinians and risk catastrophe, Israel should opt for limited and practical measures to manage the reality in the West Bank. The death of the two-state solution may be unpleasant for can-do Westerners to acknowledge, he argued, but the depth of the conflict and the number of settlers now living in the West Bank preclude a peace agreement.
In the second one by Aaron Miller "Five Things to Watch for in the Peace Process," Miller
states: "One thing we do know is that with Arabs and Israelis nothing happens quickly -- except failure. Arabs and Israelis have two speeds when it comes to negotiations: slow and slower. This is going to be a lengthy and complicated process." Miller then goes on and says: "So how are we to know if this process is on the right track and won't become just another woulda/shoulda/coulda enterprise? Here are five things on the U.S. side that I'd be on the lookout for." To my knowledge and understanding, the third of these five things is the most critical, the most in need to effectively happen. Miller puts it this way "The United States will need to play a role in developing ideas and proposals designed to bridge the gap on the core issues. Look for our willingness and capacity to do that. If we're not up to it or if we're not prepared to be fair in the way we consider those proposals -- and at the last serious attempt at mediation, the Camp David summit, we weren't, instead choosing to side with or acquiesce in Israeli views -- these talks won't succeed."
Millerthen concludes by saying it will take a heroic effort on the part of leaders who are more risk-averse politicians than great leaders to reach an agreement on borders and security, leading to provisional Palestinian statehood, with commitments to negotiate the rest.
Hussein
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Prepare for the Worst
It's already time to start planning for what happens if the Middle East peace talks fall apart.
Last month in Jerusalem, I sat in on a small conference organized by the Yesha Council, the central organization of Israeli settlers in the West Bank. A featured speaker was Naftali Bennett, leader of the far-right Jewish Home party and minister of economy, who made a simple point: The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not solvable.
To underline his point, Bennett spoke of a friend from military service who suffered a shrapnel wound close to his spine -- "near his backside," Bennett said, in a line that immediately made headlines. The doctors told his friend that they could operate, but he'd run a serious risk of paralysis to his lower limbs. Alternatively, the friend could learn to live with an unpleasant but manageable problem.
The medical choice was clear, Bennett said. And the choice facing Israel was clear as well: Rather than try to solve an unsolvable conflict with the Palestinians and risk catastrophe, Israel should opt for limited and practical measures to manage the reality in the West Bank. The death of the two-state solution may be unpleasant for can-do Westerners to acknowledge, he argued, but the depth of the conflict and the number of settlers now living in the West Bank precludes a peace agreement.
It's a good story, but Bennett's parallel is, in fact, wrong. And yet Secretary of State John Kerry's motivation for pushing to revive Middle East peace negotiations was actually similar. Kerry reasoned that if the two-state solution is not achieved soon -- perhaps in the coming two years -- it might never be possible. Soon, in other words, Bennett and others who make the same point would be right.
While hoping for the best, and striving to make it reality, we should also prepare for the worst. While Kerry must lay the groundwork for giving the resumed peace talks the best chance of success, he must also plan for their failure. If the negotiations collapse, there is a danger that people will take the secretary of state at his word and conclude that the door to peace is finally shut. Whatever happens at the negotiating table, Kerry must ensure that he doesn't help convince people that Bennett, after all, was correct.
The risk of failure is real. The Israelis and Palestinians are far apart on the most important issues and, moreover, each of the sides suspects the other has entered the talks with bad intentions. Trust is hard to come by these days in the Holy Land: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas fears that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is only interested in talks for the sake of talks, in order to ease international pressure on Israel. Netanyahu suspects that Abbas, faced with a Palestinian society where most oppose a return to the negotiating table, has entered the talks just to avoid blame for Kerry's failure, and will continue to play the blame game during the negotiations.
The bad news is that they may both be right. Kerry's creative ambiguity, which was necessary to get the talks off the ground, will apparently entail him enunciating terms of reference -- notably referring to the 1967 borders as a starting point for negotiations. This will permit each side to voice its reservations about these parameters before entering into negotiations. The sides have agreed to disagree, in other words, but they have agreed to do so in the same room.
To avoid the blame game, Kerry seems to have wisely insisted on the secrecy of the talks. Maintaining the discreet nature of the negotiations throughout their duration -- and even if and when they stall -- will help prevent the parties from backsliding into blame attribution. In general, the less hype there is around the talks, the less media frenzy is likely to emerge around their conclusion. The less the United States apportions failure or blame, the less credible the sides' accusations will be.
If the talks do collapse, will Kerry find the peace process back to where it started -- or could the situation be even worse? Many fear that unmet expectations may lead to an outbreak of violence, and point to the outbreak of the Second Intifada in the wake of the much-hyped 2000 Camp David summit as evidence. In the ensuing bloodshed, more than 4,000 people lost their lives over the next four years.
But those drawing parallels between today and the Second Intifada risk learning the wrong lessons from history. Much of the events of 2000 had to do with internal dynamics and decisions of both parties before the collapse of peace talks. The Palestinian organizations -- including the grassroots militia of Yasir Arafat's Fatah Movement -- were preparing for violence long before the disappointment of Camp David. And the Israelis were already preparing a forceful response to Palestinian violence -- a response that may have helped turn the conflict into a full blown and horrifically violent intifada.
Today, the circumstances are different. Abbas is not Arafat, and the Palestinian security organizations have been thoroughly reformed under the leadership of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. At present, military cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank is good, and is supported by an ongoing U.S. effort to maintain security. On the Israeli side, too, responsible and cool-headed generals now command the forces in the West Bank -- men who are well aware of the dangers of over-reaction.
Yet even if a failure of negotiations does not lead to an outbreak of violence, it could lead to renewed demands on the Palestinian side for dissolving the Palestinian Authority. Palestinians are weary of the peace process, and there is real risk that they will increasingly prefer dangerous (and unrealistic) aspirations for a one state "solution." There is also the risk of growing demands in Israel to annex less inhabited parts of the West Bank to Israel proper: Naftali Bennett, for example,has called for annexation of "Area C," which includes all the Israeli settlements. Most in the Israeli political system still oppose a move along these lines.
Staving off worst-case scenarios is possible, but requires close attention -- even as Kerry's energy is devoted to giving his effort the best chance of success. The secretary of state will also have to lay the groundwork for keeping the possibility of future negotiations alive, even if this round of talks stalls. To do so, Washington should prepare steps that fall short of a final-status agreement. The United States, and even Israel, may, for example, recognize the state of Palestine even before agreement on its borders or its relations to Israel is finalized. This suggestion is less outlandish then it might seem: Several Israeli politicians, including the hawkish former Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon,suggested doing just that. Doing so would help protect some degree of Palestinian self-rule from rash steps in the wake of failure.
Further interim steps, while undoubtedly difficult, would go a long way for providing the peace process with a safety net. Israel, for example, may return to the idea of limited disengagement in the West Bank. Under such plans, Israel would pull out of most of the West Bank without a final status agreement, shaping its own eastern border. The authority in the vacated area would then presumably fall to the Palestinian Authority, just as it did in the Gaza Strip did when Israel evacuated in 2005. It is important that such steps be coordinated with the Palestinians as much as possible -- rather than unilaterally implemented, as they were in 2005 -- so that they encourage rather than preclude future negotiation.
Skeptics (like me) have been wrong before. This round of peace talks may succeed, and we should wish wholeheartedly for their success. Netanyahu has the political backing -- from opposition parties, if necessary -- to make bold, historic decisions. Abbas may prove skeptics wrong and demonstrate courageous leadership in the face of difficult circumstances.
And yet, even while wishing the parties Godspeed, we should also think seriously about the possibility that the talks may fail. Washington should make sure that the ultimate winners of this peace effort are not those who oppose peace.
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Five Things to Watch for in the Peace Process
How to tell if John Kerry's efforts with the Israelis and the Palestinians are actually going anywhere.
BY AARON DAVID MILLER | JULY 22, 2013
There's a great deal we don't know (yet) about John Kerry's efforts to resume negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. What assurances did the United States provide the two sides; what commitments did they make to him; indeed, what are the terms for resumption of talks?
One thing we do know is that with Arabs and Israelis nothing happens quickly -- except failure. Arabs and Israelis have two speeds when it comes to negotiations: slow and slower. This is going to be a lengthy and complicated process. And so far the radio silence Kerry has maintained about the details of what he's doing is quite impressive.
So how are we to know if this process is on the right track and won't become just another woulda/shoulda/coulda enterprise? Here are five things on the U.S. side that I'd be on the lookout for.
(1) Are there written terms of reference or letters of assurance?
Right now, the Kerry effort seems suspended somewhere between talks about talks and real negotiations. A bridge needs to be built to move from one to the other. And that bridge consists of the parameters or terms of reference -- e.g., June 1967 borders, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, demilitarization of a Palestinian state -- that will guide the negotiations. Ideally, both sides would agree to them publicly and privately. That's clearly not possible here.
More likely, commitments on sensitive matters either have or will be made privately to Kerry as the repository of the parties' confidences or come in the form of assurances that the United States will provide each side in formal letters. In 1991, then-Secretary of State James Baker used letters of assurance effectively in enticing the parties to attend the Madrid peace conference.
But Madrid was about process not substance. If two months from now the Israelis and Palestinians are still fighting about these parameters or publicly disavowing the ones they've committed to privately, we'll know the effort is running in the wrong direction. Ambiguity is part of every diplomatic process, and 10 years ago it might have worked here, too. But this process has little credibility and a lack of clarity will kill it.
(2) Is there a negotiating text (and maps, too)?
Samuel Goldwyn, the Hollywood movie mogul, said it best: an oral agreement isn't worth the paper it's written on. You'll know this process is getting serious when the negotiators start writing things down. And a negotiating text -- whether it's some kind of agenda, a framework agreement on several of the core issues, or what we used to call a FAPS (a Framework Agreement on Permanent Status) -- is critical not just to an agreement, but to how the negotiations are organized.
It's too early to expect any common text to emerge. But without one sooner rather than later, even on the level of general principles, let alone an agreement embodying the universe of details, you might as well hang a "closed for the season" sign on this process and any hope for an agreement. That's true for maps perhaps more than any other single element -- they are a critical sign of seriousness or lack of seriousness. If we're talking borders, then maps, particularly those presented by Israel, will become an early test of whether this is serious. No maps, no deal.
(3) Will there be U.S. bridging proposals?
It's too early for them yet. Kerry needs to let both sides engage directly. But he should know that, with the exception of the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty, every other agreement that endured came not from direct talks only, but from U.S. mediation. Oslo, the poster child for direct talks, failed. At some point, what is now already obvious will become stunningly so: the gaps on the big issues cannot be bridged without U.S. intervention. Indeed, this time around there is even less ownership of the process by the Israelis and the Palestinians. Kerry is already the glue holding it together.
That means the United States will need to play a role in developing ideas and proposals designed to bridge the gap on the core issues. Look for our willingness and capacity to do that. If we're not up to it or if we're not prepared to be fair in the way we consider those proposals
(4) Is Kerry bringing on a special envoy?
He must. After six Middle East trips and hundreds of additional hours spent, the secretary of state already realizes he can't be the peace process Lone Ranger. Bringing Deputy Legal Advisor Jonathan Schwartz into the negotiations was probably the smartest staffing decision Kerry has made. John is not only a brilliant lawyer and wordsmith, but he also thinks a step or three ahead, anticipating in a cool and detached manner what Israeli and Palestinian needs and requirements are when it comes to the substance. My own sense that things were getting serious with Kerry went from 0 to 60 when I heard John was involved. Right now Schwartz is the only institutional memory Kerry has.
But it will take more than a brilliant lawyer to staff this up. The other data point to look for is a decision to bring in a special envoy. If these talks turn into negotiations, Kerry is going to need someone with negotiating experience in the Middle East, authority and stature. The negotiations will soon -- if he's lucky -- become all-consuming, a 24/7 process; and despite the talents of the secretary's Senate staff, Kerry will need a quarterback reporting to him directly to manage this, to travel when he can't, to deal with the Europeans and the Arabs, and to coordinate an interagency process that will involve CIA and DOD. That individual will have to be someone who knows the players personally and the issues. And this decision needs to be made and announced soon. One candidate who has been mentioned prominently in recent days is Martin Indyk, former U.S. ambassador to Israel.
(5) Will Obama get involved?
The short answer to this question is "yes" -- if talks appear to have a chance to succeed. If not, this will remain John Kerry's peace process. This is not to say that the president won't agree to meet with the leaders, make phone calls, etc. But getting the president to commit to a full-court press -- attendance at a high-level leaders' negotiating summit to close a deal -- will depend on whether his secretary of state has brought the two sides to the point where the gaps between them can actually be closed. And we're a long way from that. But at the end of the day, the president, not John Kerry, will have to close this deal -- and risk a fair amount of political capital in the process. Indeed, a deal will mean pushing both sides farther than they were prepared to go. And in the case of Israel, this could get particularly messy.
Can Kerry Succeed?
Predicting the outcome of the Kerry effort is a pointless exercise. My own analysis on the peace process has been annoyingly negative not because of ideology, bias, or career change. My sober assessment flows from my agreement with one of America's preeminent philosophers, Groucho Marx (or Harpo) in Duck Soup: Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes? I see what I see; and it's pretty tough to persuade me that a conflict-ending accord on all the big issues, including Jerusalem and refugees, is possible now.
That doesn't mean that agreement on borders and security isn't leading to provisional Palestinian statehood with commitments to negotiate the rest. But even that will take a heroic effort on the part of leaders who are more risk-averse politicians than great leaders. Can they do it anyway if pushed and supported by Kerry and Obama? We'll find out soon enough.
"When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet, at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it -- but all that had gone before." Jacob Riis
