While critics insist the move by Netanyahu was deliberately aimed at angering the Obama administration and doubt that Netanyahu was blindsided as he insists, such an accusation seems unlikely to be true.

It was widely known that the Biden mission was a fence-mending visit designed to improve U.S.-Israel relations after a period of friction in bilateral ties during the past year. Indeed, until the incident, Biden’s comments have been pitch perfect for Israeli ears. His trip was intended to assure Israeli concerns about U.S. commitment to their security…

…two lessons must be learned from this incident. It is the second time that the prime minister of Israel claims to have been blindsided by his own bureaucracy. The first time was last November, a week after Netanyahu had what he has called his best meeting with Obama, in which no aides were present. At the time, it was announced that 900 housing units would be built in the Gilo neighborhood of East (actually southern) Jerusalem.

To read the full piece, click here.

Testimony of David Makovsky before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lugar, and Distinguished Members of the Committee:

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Committee this morning to discuss a subject whose future holds great importance for U.S. foreign policy.

To date, the Israeli-Palestinian issue has not worked out as the Obama Administration had hoped. The picture is mixed. While the developments on the ground in the West Bank have shown promise and hope, the top-down political negotiations have not only made little progress, but have even regressed. We have gone from a point where Israeli Prime Minister Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were at advanced stages of negotiations, to a point where there have been no negotiations at all between the parties for nearly a year. There may be several reasons for this, yet as President Obama himself has publicly admitted, it is due in no small measure to an early miscalculation by Washington that triggered a series of events and expectations that could not be overcome during the Administration‟s first year.

On Wednesday March 3rd, Arab foreign ministers gave their long-awaited support for Abbas to participate in proximity talks, whereby Senator Mitchell will shuttle between Israelis and Palestinians. Such talks must be a transition to direct talks between the parties themselves. In contrast, if these talks become an alternative to direct talks, they will fail. It is impossible for any party or any country to make the most vital decisions possible without the confidence of dealing directly with the other side.

The issue is where to focus on the substance of talks. My point of departure on this issue is that I think the prospect of the Israelis and Palestinians reaching a grand agreement on all the core or so-called final status issues is very unlikely at this time. The four core issues are: the rights of refugees, control of Jerusalem, security and territory/borders. The first two issues seem unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.

Refugees and Jerusalem are narrative issues, and both are tied into the historic connection of the people to this conflict. Jerusalem has both religious and nationalistic dimensions for Israelis and Palestinians and for key constituencies in and outside the region. The refugee issue taps into the self-definition of Palestinians, including many Gazans. Yet, neither Israeli nor Palestinian leaders have conditioned their respective publics to deal with these third rail issues. In the case of refugees, many of the descendents come from Gaza, which is not even under the control of the Palestinian Authority at this time, but rather is controlled by Hamas. This even further complicates the refugee issue. In short, whenever it is all or nothing in the Middle East, it is always nothing. We should not set ourselves or the parties up for failure. Too much is stake. Hamas rejectionists are waiting in the wings for pragmatists like Abbas to fail. Furthermore, Israel will be facing demographic challenges, which will threaten its goal of ensuring its future as a democratic and Jewish state. With these increasingly high stakes, it is vital that we concentrate our efforts on areas that are amenable to progress.

Instead, we should focus on what is attainable. The issue where the gap between the parties is narrowest is land. This might sound counter-intuitive to some because many think the conflict is only about land, but this is not the case. This is why I have advanced the idea of „borders first‟ for the past year, and was delighted to see that Senator Kerry endorsed it in a recent speech in Qatar. In a press conference in November, Senator Mitchell said, “My personal and fervent wish is that we will during this process at some point have a resolution of the issue of borders so that there will no longer be any question about settlement construction, so that Israelis will be able to build what they want in Israel and Palestinians will be able to build what they want in Palestine.”1

In negotiations between Olmert and Abbas in 2008 and 2009, their differences were over only 4.5% of the land. Olmert suggested retaining 6.4% of the West Bank in return for equivalent land inside Israel. In a November 2009 interview Olmert stated, “It might be a fraction more, it might be a fraction less, but in total it would be about 6.4 per cent.”2 Abbas thought the figure should be 1.9%. Both said any land taken by Israel could be swapped for an equal amount of land inside Israel. The narrow percentage differences coupled with the fact that both parties agreed to the idea of landswaps suggests that the differences regarding land are bridgeable. For example, 80% of all Israeli settlers, which is approximately 240,000 people, live in less than 4.5% of the territory being negotiated, largely adjacent to the pre-1967 boundaries. The remaining 60,000 settlers live in the 95.5% remainder of the West Bank. As these statistics illustrate, the so-called insurmountable obstacle of settlements is actually relatively open to resolution.

The only way to deal with the settlement issue is to render it moot by subsuming it into peacemaking efforts and heading straight into the final negotiations on territory. There are three distinct advantages to focusing the negotiations on territory now. First, this approach allows the Palestinian Authority to tell its people that it has obtained the equivalent of 100% of the land to be part of a contiguous Palestinian state. As such, negotiations and not Hamas terrorism will be vindicated. The Palestinians can say they obtained what Anwar Sadat received in peace talks with Israel – full withdrawal. Second, Israelis will have something to gain and not just to give. Until now, no Israeli leader has succeeded in legally annexing a single settler, let alone a large majority of them. This approach would give many of the settlers who live in the major blocs a stake in being part of the solution, rather than being part of the problem. They would have their legal status normalized as part of Israel and they would no longer live in legal limbo, where they have been human bargaining chips for several decades. Their status will be clarified. Finally, for the United States, after many years, the settlements issue would no longer be a thorn in U.S.-Israel relations.

This approach alone will not guarantee successful resolution of the Jerusalem and refugee issues. After success on land, these issues will have to be addressed and a timetable set. At that time, a conscious effort must be made by all parties, including Arab states, to condition public opinion to deal with the remaining contentious issues. Over time, Israel will need to make concessions on Jerusalem, and the Palestinians will need to concede that refugees can only return to the Palestinian state and not to Israel.

The prioritization of land negotiations is not without its problems. I would like to address some of the challenges to this idea. One such challenge is Jerusalem. A Palestinian may ask if by deferring Jerusalem, one is actually conceding this issue. This is a fair question. Obviously nobody wants to trade a political conflict for an incendiary religious one. Moreover, no border can be complete without dealing with Jerusalem. Yet having written a book about the origins of the Oslo accord in 1993, it is not coincidental that Article V of the Declaration of Principles signed on the White House lawn and sealed with a famous handshake listed Jerusalem as a separate category from the issues of borders and settlements.3 The municipal border should be the line until an agreement on Jerusalem is ultimately reached. To allay Palestinian concerns about the changing character of the city, there should be a baseline agreement between the parties, perhaps with the assistance of the United States, whereby it is understood that Jewish and Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem will not expand into each other. A strict freeze has shown to be impractical, but a no-expansion approach into the neighborhood of the other is something that should be attainable. An assurance that Jerusalem will be addressed in the future would be an important sign of confidence.

Another challenge will come from some Israelis who may ask whether such an approach will minimize their leverage in future talks, since they are playing their „land card‟ now, so to speak. Clearly, if a grand deal on all of the core issues could be struck it would be preferable, yet privately, many of the same hesitant Israelis are extremely dubious that a grand deal is achievable. Moreover, it is hard to escape the idea that there will be trade-offs between the narrative issues anyway. In other words, it is unlikely that playing a „territorial card‟ will obviate the need of addressing Jerusalem.

A third set of challenges will be the timetable of when a borders first approach will be implemented. This could be left to the parties. Some may say that a full agreement on the core issues is within reach and therefore, implementation should happen all at once. Others say full agreement will take considerable time, and therefore, it is best to implement the territorial dimension now. This second approach will create considerable political pain for Israel as it may mean Israel evacuating –many forcibly — at least 60,000 settlers when there is no guarantee of a peace treaty. (To give one a sense of context, this would be more than seven times the number of settlers who were withdrawn from Gaza in 2005. Moreover, the withdrawal would be taking place in the West Bank, which Jews deem as the heart of biblical patrimony.) In this context, it may be advisable to have not just a non-belligerency agreement, but also a statement by both sides that would have resonance. It would be useful for each side to agree in the borders negotiations that they recognize one other. Specifically, Israel would accept the idea of a Palestinian state as a homeland for the Palestinian people and Palestinians would accept the idea of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people. Each has a historic claim to the land, but it must be shared for the benefit of each. Neither party should be seen as prejudicing in any way the full civil rights of any citizen of either country, nor should it prejudice negotiations over refugees.

This will enable an Israeli leader who will lead such a very difficult withdrawal to tell the settlers that their mission is completed as there will be an acknowledgment of a historic Jewish connection to the land. (Some have argued that the settlers on the wrong side of the line should be allowed to stay within Palestine. This has surface appeal, but it will run into a host of problems. The government of Israel will not want to leave behind settlers whom it cannot protect with its own security forces, especially given the trauma between the Palestinians and settlers over the last four decades.)

A fourth set of challenges will be the issue of security. At the Camp David II talks in 2000 led by President Clinton, this was the most straight-forward issue that was technical in character. Much has happened subsequently. Security cooperation crashed in the second intifada between 2000 and 2004. Hamas came to power in Gaza, stand-alone rockets became a factor, and the idea of borders management after Israeli withdrawal has been undermined by the expansion of cross-border tunnels under Gaza for rocket smuggling. Many Israelis see the Gaza withdrawal in 2004 as triggering thousands of rockets which culminated in the Gaza war of 2008-2009. Therefore, as part of the growing cynicism of publics on both sides about the very enterprise of peacemaking, Israelis increasingly equate withdrawal with vulnerability and not security. (Palestinians and Israelis are equally jaded about the idea of grand peace conferences that do not yield results.) Therefore, the security dimension needs to be considered very carefully.

A fifth set of challenges are not unique to a borders first approach, but will be present in any serious peace effort. These challenges are related to Iran‟s quest for a nuclear weapon. I recently wrote a book with Dennis Ross, who is currently a senior White House official in the Obama Administration, entitled Myths, Illusions and Peace. In this book, we deal with the issue of linkage. There are no strict linkages between the Palestinian and Iranian issues. Regardless of progress on peace, Iran will seek a nuclear weapon. Moreover, senior Arab security officials say privately that they do not see progress on peace as decisive in influencing Arab efforts to halt Iran in any way. The Arabs face many problems, including domestic challenges, in this regard. However, a change in climate could at the margins make it somewhat harder for Iran to exploit this issue. Yet, if it is clear that Iran will have a nuclear weapon, the prospects for the Middle East peace process are very bleak. Rejectionists will be emboldened and moderates will be intimidated. Alternatively, there is no doubt that if the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority did not think Iran was on its way to being a nuclear problem and a regional power in a manner that will boost Hamas, their evaluation of risk would certainly drop.

These challenges lead many to believe the current proximity talks will fail. In order for the talks to succeed, it is important that they are not pro-forma and not just a means for the Palestinians to force the US to put forward its own plan. Historically, the Arab states and the Palestinians have always hoped that the US would “deliver” Israel, but this has virtually never materialized. Last summer, the Obama Administration raised Arab expectations that it would deliver a settlement freeze, but it fell short. Obama did not even mention these negotiations in the State of the Union. The US is smarting from the fact that the Arab states were supposed to match Israeli moves on settlements with gestures towards Israel, but failed to do anything. The Arab states may say that the settlement moratorium is not 100 percent of what they would like. No negotiation is what one side wants. Yet, even if they think Netanyahu only moved 70%, they have responded with zero percent reciprocity. It is unlikely the US will go down this road again.

There is a big difference between the US imposing a solution on the parties and the US putting forward a bridging proposal after direct negotiations have brought the parties closer to a deal. It is possible to bridge over a river, but not over an ocean. A US bridging proposal may occur, but only after direct negotiations have been tried in earnest. The Palestinians need to be careful what they wish for. If the Palestinians want the US to be explicit in its views regarding the final disposition of Jerusalem, they will get a US that is every bit as explicit about the Palestinian refugees returning to Palestine, and not to Israel.

In short, the US can supplement negotiations but cannot substitute for them. Speaking at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy last Friday, Israel‟s Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Abbas should “test” Netanyahu‟s sincerity instead of pre-supposing any outcome. Netanyahu feels he has traversed an ideological distance over the last year as he overturned his own opposition to a Palestinian state.

For all the problems of restarting peace talks during 2009, there was an important bright spot between Israelis and Palestinians. There were signs on the ground in the West Bank of economic progress, as well as heightened security cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis. Of course, economic development is not a substitute for political progress, but it is a key component that could facilitate steps forward and moderation. Economic progress enables the public to gain faith that the future can be better, and it creates political space for the leadership to gain more political capital with success. The hope is that economic improvement facilitates political moderation as people develop a stake in success. Palestinian polls consistently show that Gazans living under Hamas and West Bankers alike would prefer to live in the West Bank where there is economic progress, rather than living under the repressive hand of Hamas in Gaza.

International Monetary Fund officials report that economic growth in the West Bank is making major strides despite a world-wide recession. They say that growth could reach as much as 7-8 percent in 2010 if Israel continues its current policy of relaxing security restrictions, most notably the removal of roadblocks. It is estimated that Israel has removed all but a dozen of the 45 roadblocks that were in place to prevent suicide bombers. Among the benefits of the relaxation of restrictions is that it enables Israeli Arabs to enter the West Bank, engage in commerce and generate jobs. Unemployment in the West Bank may be high by American standards, but it has been cut by a third in the last few years.

The following examples of growth provide a glimpse of the changes occurring in the West Bank. There have been an approximately 2,000 new Palestinian small-businesses and other companies registered with PA since 2008. A second new cell phone company in the West Bank, Wataniya Palestine, was recently launched. The introduction of this second mobile phone company is expected to inject US$700 million investment into the Palestinian Territory and to generate $354 million in fiscal revenue for the PA. It will also create thousands of jobs. Another project underway is Rawabi, or “hills” in Arabic, which will be the first-ever planned Palestinian city. Located about five miles north of the Palestinian provisional capital of Ramallah, it is expected to have 40,000 residents at its formation. In Bethlehem, the rise of tourism has already yielded 6,000 new jobs, and tourists are filling up hotels in the city, marking a significant change. Previously, due to an uncertain security situation, tourists feared staying overnight in the West Bank, but the security is indeed improving. Palestinian security forces have been trained with American and European money and guidance. In 2002, it is estimated that 410 Israelis were killed in attacks emanating from the West Bank. In 2009, the figure was five.

Barak has publicly stated that a key factor in this improved situation is Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation. This dramatic drop in deaths from attacks originating in the West Bank has allowed Israel to take more risks than it would have even two years ago. The improvement in security has not just facilitated economic progress, but has meant that chaos no longer reigns in the West Bank. In a sharp departure from the past, Palestinian polls show that most Palestinians feel safe in their towns. For the first half of the decade, Israeli and Palestinian officials shot at each other, but now they are working together to prevent Hamas from expanding a foothold in the West Bank. Beyond the security establishments of both sides, there are other factors at play. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad have a set an anti-violence tone. Fayyad has worked very closely with his commanders on the ground to ensure coordination with Israeli counterparts. Added special mention should be given to the excellent work of US Lt.-General Keith Dayton and his team. Dayton has spearheaded the training of over 2,000 Palestinian troops in a bid to professionalize the Palestinian security services. Netanyahu also deserves credit in prioritizing economic growth by lifting some key restrictions. Israeli military officials say that their cushion to lift such restrictions as West Bank roadblocks is a function of the Israeli security barrier, which limits the amount of suicide bombers who can penetrate into Israel.

Perhaps the most exciting idea that emerged from the West Bank in 2009 is Fayyad‟s idea of state-building or creating institutions as a precursor to Palestinian statehood. Fayyad has won over the international community during the last few years with his focus on transparency and his opposition to corruption. He has a doctorate in economics, and excelled at the World Bank/International Monetary Fund before first becoming
Palestinian finance minister and now prime minister. The US Congress, which was reluctant during the Arafat period to give any money to the PA, no longer worries that its financial assistance will go to private coffers. This is a tribute to the stature of Fayyad.

Fayyad‟s idea of state-building is a departure from the approach favored by his predecessor Yasser Arafat. Fayyad‟s approach is nothing short of a new paradigm for Palestinian nationalism. Arafat always defined Palestinian nationalism in revolutionary terms – physical defiance, armed resistance, while Fayyad seems to be identifying institution building as the ticket to statehood.

There are profound implications to these very different approaches. Arafat viewed the Palestinian condition as guaranteeing a sense of victimhood and entitlement – Palestinians were responsible for nothing. The world owed them. In contrast, Fayyad seems to see institution building as a way of creating a culture of accountability among Palestinians. In the Arafat era, airports, railroads and sea ports seemed like adornments of a sovereign state, not central vehicles to achieving statehood. In contrast, Fayyad has said that building the PA institutions is important “to gain the international community‟s respect and pass its unjust test of building these institutions under occupation.” While Fayyad has yet to fully elaborate about how state-building would be accomplished beyond using donor aid from around the world to assist the formation of legal, economic and security institutions, he wants to maintain the momentum of his previous economic plans until a political breakthrough occurs. This way he can keep his security plans in place during a time of political void that might devolve into unpredictable violence.

It is said that after George Bush visited Israel for its 60th anniversary in May 2008, Fayyad told him that he should look to the example of the Zionists, meaning to point out that the Israelis built the institutions of their state for 30 years before they declared it. While Fayyad certainly would not accept that timetable, he accepts the principle that statehood should be earned. In general, these economic and security developments provide hope of a brighter future for both peoples in 2010.

While my remarks make abundantly clear that I have a favorable view of Prime Minister Fayyad for the important new elements that he has introduced to the political equation, I would be remiss if I did not voice caution about two sets of relationships that will be important to focus on in the future. One is the Abbas-Fayyad relationship. On one hand, Abbas‟s veteran credentials in the Fatah party provide cover for Fayyad as he pursues his course. Yet, there have been clear differences between the two over appointment of personnel and even a sense that Abbas may be somewhat envious at times of the international attention showered on Fayyad.

The second set of relations that merits attention is Fayyad‟s relations with Israel, which have cooled somewhat of late. Specifically, Israel is unsure if Fayyad‟s focus on non-violent protest will spillover in an unintended violent direction. Moreover, in a bid to cool episodic tensions on the ground, Fayyad has on several occasions in the last few months visited families of Palestinians whose sons have been involved in fatal violent actions against Israel. Israelis see this behavior as sending the wrong signal to the Palestinian people especially because it is coming from someone identified with non-violence. At least, in one of the two incidents Palestinians claim the violence was not premeditated. Finally, the third source of concern in the Fayyad-Israel relationship is his sense that institution building is a unilateral enterprise that is part of a two year sprint towards statehood. Israelis suspect that this bottom-up state-building is a unilateral move coming at their expense. The irony is that the only way for Fayyad to deliver on institution-building is by working with Israel, given the security dimension of proposed projects and Israel‟s control over West Bank land. A good working relationship is key for the Fayyad plan to succeed. In short, there are no substitutes for negotiations.

This is precisely why the bottom-up approach cannot substitute for top-down negotiations. The two must go together. Without a top-down approach, the bottom-up approach will be unsustainable over time. Palestinian soldiers will think security cooperation is designed to make Israeli control more palatable, and Israelis will harbor doubts about Palestinian state-building intentions.

While there have been important signs of progress on the ground in the last few years, one must be careful not to extrapolate too much in looking ahead. Much is at stake. If moderates on the Palestinian and Israeli sides do not come together, it will not be surprising if the extremists discredit the moderates and exploit time for their own benefit.

1 From Senator Mitchell‟s press conference on Nov. 25th, 2009; found at: http://www.america.gov/st/texttrans-english/2009/November/20091125160029ihecuor0.3026021.html.
2 From Ehud Olmert‟s interview with The Australian, published November 28th, 2009; found at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/ehud-olmert-still-dreams-of-peace/story-e6frg76f-1225804745744.
3 The Oslo Declaration of Principles, Article V, Provision 3 states: “It is understood that [permanent status] negotiations shall cover remaining issues, including: Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders, relations and cooperation with other neighbors, and other issues of common interest.” Full text can be found at: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace+Process/Guide+to+the+Peace+Process/Declaration+of+Principles.htm.

Here’s an excerpt from the review:

The scope of American power, in the Middle East or anywhere else, depends on circumstances and local conditions. Yet Washington policy wonks all too often tend to overlook this uncomfortable fact, viewing situations exclusively from inside the Beltway.

Throughout the many decades of US involvement in the Middle East, there is a pattern of success as well as failure, and it is this pattern that constitutes the backdrop to the knowledgeable and timely new book by Dennis Ross and David Makovsky—the one a veteran of Mideast peace negotiations under several American presidents, the other a seasoned journalist and analyst.

The United States has been and can be extremely powerful and helpful when either of the following scenarios unfolds: 1) a shooting war erupts and threatens to unleash dire regional or even global consequences or 2) the contending parties have already made, on their own, significant steps towards reaching an agreement but still need a helpful push from the outside. In the first case, the US can function as an effective firefighter and bring about a cessation of hostilities. In the second, it can act as a midwife and help clinch the deal.

To read the article in full at its original location, click here.

Prospects for the Resumption of Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks

By David Makovsky
January 15, 2010

U.S. Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell will return to the region next week in a bid to restart talks that have been stalled since the beginning of the Obama administration. In a television interview earlier this month, Mitchell declared that he would like to complete peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians within two years, if not sooner. Senior U.S. officials, including President Obama, have called for an unconditional return to the negotiating table. The official position of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is that talks cannot resume until Israel extends its settlement moratorium to east Jerusalem. He also wants the pre-1967 boundaries to serve as the baseline for negotiations. At the same time, he has made a statement indicating that he regrets how he reached his current position, hinting that the current impasse does not serve the Palestinian people’s interests. Is there more convergence between the two sides than is readily apparent?

Context of the Current Impasse

Peace talks have remained elusive since the first day of the Obama administration due in large part to the handling of the settlements issue. For much of 2009, the U.S. position was that Israel should not only avoid expanding settlement activity, but also freeze construction within existing settlements. Although the Obama administration insists that it never wanted a freeze to be a formal precondition for peace talks, its preferences became a de facto requirement from the Palestinian perspective. In short, Abbas felt boxed in when the administration stated its maximalist position but then sought to negotiate a ten-month, limited moratorium with Israel. He explained the problem in a little-noticed December 22, 2009, interview with the London-based pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat, where he blamed Washington for putting forward the freeze idea and then asking him to compromise. He recalled telling U.S. officials during a September meeting at the UN, “You put me on top of a tree, and now you ask me for a solution, and to climb down.” Abbas continued, “Obama laid down the condition of halting the settlements completely. What could I say to him? Should I say this is too much?”

Meanwhile, Israel has also backed off from several positions unfavorable to the resumption of talks. For example, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu originally held that there should be no further talks until the United States found a way to halt the Iranian nuclear program. He also opposed the creation of a Palestinian state. Over the past few months, however, he has adjusted his stance, endorsing statehood, abandoning the Iranian requirement, and insisting to Washington that no Israeli leader has supported a settlement moratorium to the extent he has.

Getting Back to the Table

Currently, Mitchell is exploring whether it is possible to return to the peace table after what might be called a lost year. So far, the two sides have quietly agreed to a text that could serve as a foundation for renewed talks. The subject of months of negotiations, the text was made public on November 25, immediately after Netanyahu’s announcement of a settlement moratorium. Despite the text’s release under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s name and her subsequent reiteration, it avoids staking out a new American policy position. Instead, it encapsulates Israeli and Palestinian aspirations, stating: “We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.” In effect, the text allowed Washington to say that the goals of the two sides are reconcilable, without committing itself or Israel to the 1967 lines or to land swaps that would counterbalance settlement blocs.

Discussions with officials of both sides suggest that there are more convergences than divergences between Israelis and Palestinians. To enable the successful resumption of talks, all parties will need to recognize and pursue these convergences, many of which center on avoiding past pitfalls such as those described below.

No Letter of U.S. Assurances

Some European and Arab states would like the United States to go further than the Clinton declaration and issue a letter of assurance restating U.S. support for the 1967 borders with minor modifications. This idea has several problems, however, and was publicly rejected this week by Abbas as superfluous. First, with the exception of Egypt (which has sought to restart talks), the Arab states have done virtually nothing to realize Mitchell’s hope that they would reciprocate an Israeli settlement moratorium even if it were less than the full freeze envisioned a year ago. Second, the process of drafting any letter of assurance would require its own arduous negotiations. Third, prominent Palestinians have said privately that a U.S. letter to Abbas would inevitably be matched by a similar letter to the Israelis. This letter would in turn be made public and could therefore be exploited by hardline Palestinian critics of the Abbas government.

No Annapolis II

Both Israeli and Palestinian publics tend to be jaded, having heard many speeches with meager results. Therefore, neither wants a repeat of the 2007 Annapolis peace conference, where peace talks were launched in the glare of klieg lights. Moreover, Annapolis represents an effort to resolve all the core issues dividing Israelis and Palestinians. There is too much risk of high expectations going unfulfilled, with potentially disastrous consequences. Such public peace talks could raise domestic issues for both parties, leading them to stake out positions that might lead to a breakdown.

A Discreet Channel

The past practice of holding regular executive-level meetings, such as those between Abbas and former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, does not seem to be a useful model at this stage. Currently, Abbas seems to enjoy earning political capital without making decisions. To this end, he is assisted by Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, who echoes Abbas’s indecision. In Washington, however, many are concerned that Erekat has misrepresented U.S. positions. For example, in a recent report to the Fatah Central Committee, he stated that Washington endorses the idea of picking up where the Abbas-Olmert talks left off, which is not the case. He has also long enjoyed being defiant toward Israel, apparently believing that it bolsters his domestic standing. Therefore, he does not fear that he will have to pay a political price for failing to establish any semblance of trust or working relations with Israel. In fact, he seems to believe that he is completely indispensable to Abbas due to his institutional memory of negotiations.

Erekat notwithstanding, there is more convergence than divergence among U.S., Israeli, and Palestinian officials, most of whom agree that peace talks need to be restarted because the current impasse serves no one except Hamas. To be sure, Israelis and Palestinians have different points of emphasis, but their respective formats for negotiations actually seem to go well together. Key Palestinians favor Mitchell engaging in proximity talks, believing that U.S. mediation in the substance of the discussions is crucial. Israelis, however, favor direct (though discreet) working-level negotiations. These approaches seem compatible: under the umbrella of Mitchell’s occasional visits, Israelis and Palestinians can meet discreetly at the working level to discuss the issues. In fact, this discreet-and-direct channel has been the key to all agreements between the two sides since 1993.

Focus on Territory First

On the same day the Clinton statement was released, Mitchell publicly declared his wish to focus on a borders agreement. The Palestinians have indicated that they concur. Although the Israelis say they reject the idea of a standalone borders agreement per se, they increasingly acknowledge the logic in making the issue of territory first on a wider agenda.

Conclusion

These convergences may bring the parties to the table, but they cannot guarantee the success of any talks. Procedural success will be matched by divergences on the substance of the talks relating to territory, not to mention highly charged issues like Jerusalem and refugees. Mitchell will likely find that all these differences sorely test the notion that all outstanding issues will be wrapped up in two years.

This Policy Watch can be found at its original location at the Washington Institute’s website, reached by clicking here.

http://mms.tveyes.com/MediaCenter/20230/390287.6233/BBC24_11-25-2009_20.33.44.wmv.

WASHINGTON – The announcement of a moratorium on building in the settlements ends the first chapter of U.S.-Israel relations during the Obama era. There are lessons for all.

The move by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is clearly a bid to improve U.S.-Israel relations as much as it is an effort to restart negotiations with the Palestinians. It may also be a counterbalance toward Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, against a potential prisoner swap with Hamas for Gilad Shalit.

Much of this year has been defined by the friction over settlements, which have cast a shadow. The Obama administration feels it does not always receive credit from Israel regarding close bilateral consultations on a range of issues including the Iranian nuclear threat, the Operation Juniper Cobra military exercise and the Goldstone report.

There were profound implications for the United States in setting the bar high on the settlement issue by calling for a construction freeze rather than merely no outward expansion of settlements. One lesson is that even if the Israeli opposition cannot say “yes” to Barack Obama, the United States has lost mainstream Israelis.

A second lesson is that caution is required in raising expectations. Abbas cannot be less Palestinian than the United States. So if the U.S. demands a freeze, Abbas is boxed in and not likely to agree to less. This pattern will likely repeat itself. With the United States calling for a freeze on Jewish construction in East Jerusalem, Abbas is not likely to accept less – such as no outward expansion of East Jerusalem Jewish neighborhoods.

There are also lessons for Israel. Trust at the top is indispensable. Obama and Netanyahu will both be around for some time. Israelis have bemoaned the lack of trust between the two. Israel believes it was ambushed on the issue of a settlement freeze. On the one hand, Israel is correct in claiming that the Obama administration erred by denying the verbal understanding between the U.S. and Israel in 2003 on defining the geographic expansion of settlements. This undermines the prospect of future verbal understandings with the United States.

On the other hand, trust goes both ways. Israel does not emphasize the fact that it never implemented the West Bank understanding of 2003 that it now declares to be key. Moreover, the Obama administration resented comments by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman after the United States agreed to compromise with Israel over settlements that Washington interpreted as gloating. Obama was surprised by the announcement of new construction in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo since it came just a week after a rare tete-a-tete with Netanyahu. Netanyahu insists that he is transparent but was also surprised by the Israeli bureaucratic move from below. However, the action provided fodder to Netanyahu’s critics while undercutting those wishing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Aides of Netanyahu are correct that the United States was not as stringent with Olmert as with this government. While it is partially attributed to the change in the U.S. administration, one cannot rule out the possibility that the lack of U.S. internal debate in the past was due to the certainty of Olmert’s direction. Netanyahu hopes his current move on settlements will put to rest the issue of intentions. He feels he has been unfairly singled out by this administration, given his support for a Palestinian state and for the dismantling of most West Bank checkpoints. Some in Washington may quietly say that Netanyahu’s concessions are grudging and extended over many months and therefore can be discounted. Netanyahu’s rejoinder will be that belated Israeli concessions are better than no concessions from the Arab side.

Indeed, there are lessons for Arabs, too. Despite Obama’s speech in Cairo, which raised expectations, the long-standing Arab dream of the United States bending Israel to its will did not materialize.

Therefore, the Arabs need to act to avert radicalization. In their anger at not getting a 100 percent freeze from Israel, they want to give nothing for now. Yes, they will likely restart multilateral talks on issues such as water, but only after Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are underway. As in the past the Arab states believe in never making early moves that could provide political cover for the Palestinians to make progress, preferring instead, at best, to ride on the Palestinians’ coattails. The Arab states need to contribute their share to ensure that Netanyahu’s gesture is not lost. They need to provide Abbas with political cover and declare their unambiguous support for peace negotiations now between Israel and the Palestinians.

Click here to read the article as originally posted on the Ha’aretz website

Different Perspectives
David Makovsky

With the help of German and Egyptian mediation, Israel and Hamas are trying to broker a deal that would end the 3 1/2-year captivity of Gilad Shalit, reportedly in return for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. In Israel, there are four different clusters of policymakers weighing the move. Their interests may vary, even though outwardly they will present a united front.

The first group is the cabinet. These are politicians who have born the brunt of the public campaign urging that anything and everything be done to ensure Sergeant Shalit’s release. This public campaign for one soldier’s release has been huge, which is not surprising in a small country where army service is compulsory and many parents feel that it could have just as easily been their son captured. Thus, these elected politicians will support a deal for Sergeant Shalit, as they tend to be the most sensitive to public opinion and will put a premium on the political windfall that could accrue to them.

To read the whole piece, alongside other commentary on the Shalit prisoner exchange, click here

The Palestinians’ spoiler
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArtStEngPE.jhtml?itemNo=1123062&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&title=%27The%20Palestinians%27%20spoiler%20%27&dyn_server=172.20.5.5.

Advocates for engaging Hamas often argue that if the group is given a stake in the creation of an independent Palestine by being included in peace negotiations, it will moderate its positions. This co-optation argument is based on the misguided assumption that Hamas is a pragmatic nationalistic movement, motivated primarily by calculations of how to gain power.

However, Hamas is ideologically motivated, and misunderstanding its worldview is damaging. The growing Islamification of Gaza is only one example of Hamas’ persistent allegiance to its ideological underpinnings, which it has shown no signs of abandoning. Hamas’ ideology is rooted in the philosophy of its parent movement, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas’ actions must be understood in the proper context. Its lauded cease-fires with Israel are not a sign of political moderation, but rather calculated moves of self-interest. It has been deterred since the Gaza conflict. As recently as April 2008, Hamas’ top official, Khaled Meshal, articulated Hamas’ approach when he expressed his opinion about a temporary truce, or tahadiyeh, saying, “Hamas and the other resistance factions will use the tahadiyeh to grow stronger both in terms of weapons and training, and so the people will recover and prepare for the next round of resistance.”

Moreover, Hamas feigns compromise on peace while maintaining its ideological consistency. Hamas has been given a great deal of credit – by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, among others – for its promises to accept a final-status decision as long as the Palestinian people express support in a referendum. After meeting with Hamas leaders, including Meshal, in Damascus last year, Carter returned to Jerusalem touting a breakthrough. Meshal, however, publicly contradicted Carter within a few hours – making clear that a referendum on peace must include all Palestinians in the world, not just those living in the West Bank and Gaza. This unworkable proposition was coupled with his other condition that he knows Israel cannot accept – all Palestinians worldwide will retain their “full right of return” to Israel. Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki summed up the situation saying, “Hamas offered nothing to President Carter.”

Moreover, Hamas has persistently refused to accede to the consistent demand of Egyptian intelligence head Gen. Omar Suleiman that it adhere to past Israeli-Palestinian agreements.

Clearly, Hamas’ ideological rigidity greatly outweighs its pragmatism and political flexibility. If Hamas is included without committing, however grudgingly, to the cause of coexistence, it is unlikely to make the subsequent hard choices required by negotiations. In short, Hamas is poised to play the role of spoiler from the inside and not just from the outside.

This is not just due to its positions on peace and institution-building, but also its contemptuous attitude toward unity with Fatah. Hamas views Fatah’s progress with disdain and wants to undermine U.S.-led efforts to train and equip the Palestinian Security Services. The U.S. has aided the Palestinian Authority (PA) in professionalizing its security force. Along with Israel, the PA has brought calm to Palestinian cities marred by chaos and drastically reduced the number of Israelis killed in attacks originating in the West Bank, from 410 several years ago to one this year. Hamas has vowed to remove the current PA government, which international bodies estimate is achieving 7 percent economic growth. In short, the steep price of internal Palestinian political cohesion is likely to be the crippling of nascent Palestinian institutions, as well as those boldly proposed by PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Furthermore, unconditional engagement with Hamas bears a key risk. If Hamas is engaged without having modified its program, Palestinians who stuck out their necks for a two-state solution would be branded as quislings. Hamas would be rewarded, and Abbas would be crushed. Bringing in Hamas will not give peace a chance; it will likely undo and discredit peacemaking and set a dangerous precedent for the entire region.

Yet keeping Hamas outside of negotiations requires a serious attempt to provide an alternative. This can be best accomplished by ensuring that its more moderate competitors actually do deliver. To build hope and a sense of possibility – which is the antidote to the frustration and hopelessness that Hamas exploits – there must be a peace process that has real promise. Moreover, there must be a day-to-day reality that reflects concrete positive changes. There is presently some evidence of this change, as Hamas is steadily losing public support. Even the slight spike in support for Hamas after the Gaza war has proved ephemeral. Rather, Hamas’ decline has been unmistakable. Surveys conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, led by Khalil Shikaki, found that current Palestinian support for Hamas stands at 28 percent, compared to 44 percent for Fatah. In fact, Hamas has not polled better than Fatah since June 2006.

Ultimately, successful engagement must be predicated upon common interests and goals. Therefore, empowering the PA – and not engaging Hamas – should remain at the heart of a U.S.-led Israeli-Palestinian strategy.

David Makovsky is the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Ziegler Distinguished Fellow and Director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process. He is co-author, with Dennis Ross, of the recently released book “Myths, Illusions, and Peace” (Viking/Penguin).

by Laura Rozen
11/01/10

…another Washington Middle East hand said the Obama administration had no choice but to start backing itself out of its own corner in the form of a drawn-out fight with the Netanyahu government on a full settlement freeze to try to get to the main event. “It was the policy of the early months of the Obama administration that boxed in Abu Mazen,” said the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s David Makovsky, co-author with the National Security Council’s Dennis Ross of a new book, “Myths, Illusions, and Peace.”

“Once the U.S. said ‘freeze,’ it raised Arab expectations to such a point that Abu Mazen could not agree to less. He cannot be more of a Zionist than the U.S. There have been consequences for the early approach. If the Obama administration would have said no geographic expansion of settlements from the outset instead of saying freeze, we would not have lost eight months of time and wasted the political capital of the president. President Obama would not have been at single digits in Israeli polls, and Abu Mazen would not have been out on the limb. Critically, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations would have most likely already commenced.

“Now the dynamic will be driven by whether there is a Palestinian election or not,” Makovsky continued. “A law of Mideast peacemaking is that compromises do not occur during a Palestinian or Israeli election campaign. If Abu Mazen heads for elections, he will find it convenient not to budge so he can flex his nationalist muscles. If this is his intention, Obama administration peacemaking will be on hold until the Palestinian elections end in early 2010.”

Click here to read the article in full

Seizing the moment
by Haviv Rettig Gur

Myths, Illusions and Peace is at its core an argument against the theory that has been popular for many years among Arabists and policy wonks in Washington, one repeated by too many Arab leaders to ignore: That the Middle East’s deep and abiding tensions draw much of their energy from the conflict with Israel, and specifically the unfair fight between Israel and the Palestinians.

This argument has profound ramifications for policymaking. Linkage can harm peace, as in the initial reluctance of the Carter administration to help launch the Israeli-Egyptian peace process because they were not convinced that Sadat’s idea to break with the Arab consensus could work.

Click here to read the article in its entirety.