Aaron David Miller: 'We always tried to influence the Israeli elections, but we never succeeded; Obama shouldn't even try'
Aaron David Miller, who was Dennis Ross' top assistant, has told YNet that the United States
'always' tried to interfere in Israeli elections, but never succeeded (Hat Tip:
Red Tulips) (link in Hebrew).
According to Miller, the US gathered a lot of information about Prime Minister Netanyahu - including his activities while a student in the United States - but no one would listen.
Miller admits that the George HW Bush administration influenced the outcome of the 1992 election to bring Yitzchak Rabin to power over Yitzchak Shamir, but he claims that's because the US set up the environment for that election through the Bush-Baker controversies with Shamir. He admits that the Clinton administration also tried - unsuccessfully - to ensure Shimon Peres' election as Prime Minister in 1996. But Peres lost to Netanyahu.
Miller says that the Clinton administration gathered information on Netanyahu and leaked it to the Israeli media. The information included Netanyahu's activities as a student in Boston and Philadelphia, his name change to Nitai, his forfeiting of his American passport, and the failure of Netanyahu's first marriage. Miller claims that it caused a scandal but had no influence.
Miller advises President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry not to even try to influence March's elections. Clinton was a President who was beloved in Israel, says Miller, while Obama is extremely unpopular (you don't say...) and any attempt to influence the March elections would backfire.
Obama and Kerry are declining to comment on the upcoming elections, although Kerry has said that he hopes that a new government will be able to conduct a 'peace process.'
Funny how he doesn't mention the Americans' greatest success - the 1999 replacement of Netanyahu with Ehud Barak courtesy of Clinton.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Hussein Obama, Bill Clinton, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, George H. W. Bush, Israeli elections, John Kerry, Knesset elections 2015, Shimon Peres, Yitzchak Rabin, Yitzchak Shamir
Can Obama 'reset' his relationship with Israel?
Here's an interesting
comment from Aaron David Miller reported by Laura Rozen at Politico.
On the administration debate after Biden's trip over how to get past continued upsets to U.S. efforts to reviving an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, veteran U.S. Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller writes that there's got to be a "reset" of the U.S.-Israeli relationship:
"This crisis is way above Mitchell's pay-grade," Miller said in an email. "The U.S.-Israeli relationship can now only be reset by the president who's very very busy now."
"Wait a month, let Mitchell tend the garden," Miller continued. "Come April/May, there has got be a Bibi-Obama meeting and effort to see if you can hit the reset button."
The key, Miller says, is an agreement on borders where the gaps between the Israelis and Palestinians are the narrowest, and to get that agreement via U.S.-brokered talks.
Miller's got it wrong for two reasons. First, this President isn't capable of pressing a re-set button with Israel because his '
moral code' goes against relations with the Jewish state being any better than they are now. As I wrote nearly a year ago on this blog:
The 'fierce moral urgency' for 'peace' in the Middle East arises from Obama's 'moral code' learned from the likes of the anti-Semitic Jeremiah Wright, Billy Ayers and Rashid Khalidi that calls Israel "an aggressive, Western imperialist power exploiting indigenous people of color who simply wish to be free." But that 'moral code' doesn't allow for Israel's existence at all, so don't look for Israel to play along with it.
Second, if the gap between Israel and the 'Palestinians' on borders is the narrowest, it's because the gaps on other issues are chasms. The gap on borders probably cannot be bridged.
Netanyahu was elected a year ago because Israelis are deeply skeptical that peace can ever be achieved by giving up any amount of land for a 'Palestinian state.' The Gaza expulsion shows that there is no return for expelling Jews from their homes. 10,000 Jews were expelled from their homes in 2005 (most of whom are still not resettled) and in return we got 8,000 rockets and had to undertake Operation Cast Lead. The vast majority of Jewish Israelis are just fine with our borders as they are right now.
The 'Palestinians' actions over the last ten years have definitely lessened Israelis' willingness to make concessions to them. This isn't the same Middle East in which Miller was a negotiator under Bush I and Clinton.
They need him more than he needs them
Former 'peace processor' Aaron David Miller believes that the source of the new controversy about Jerusalem is that Prime Minister Netanyahu believes that President Obama needs him more than he needs President Obama. And
Netanyahu is correct.
The latest to-do, Aaron David Miller told me this morning, “reflects a much-diminished administration that got off on the wrong foot from the beginning.” Prior history as well as the prospects of continued Israeli-Palestinian negotiations give Netanyahu greater leverage, according to the former negotiator. The prime minister “knows that the administration believes the only way this Israeli-Palestinian problem is going to be resolved is negotiations, and so he’s convinced himself that they need him more than he needs them,” Miller said. “I don’t think he’s looking for a confrontation, but he’s willing to stand his ground.” Especially, Miller added, since we are talking about Jerusalem here: “Building in Jerusalem is as natural as breathing.”
To be fair to Obama: The timing of the announcement again seemed calculated to provoke and to assert Netanyahu’s (new?) upper hand; East Jerusalem lies on the far side of the 1967 Green Line; and Israel also just announced the construction of more than 1000 homes in Ariel, an unequivocal West Bank settlement.
But to be fair to Netanyahu: It is nigh impossible to imagine a final deal that does not include some sort of Israeli sovereignty in all of Jerusalem; East Jerusalem was never included in any freeze deal; and even the freeze deal that was reached a year ago has since expired. “Building in Jerusalem was never considered off-limits by either the government of Israel or frankly—with respect to the Obama administration, they basically acquiesed in it,” Miller noted. He also pointed out that the neighborhood the announcement concerns is one that Netanyahu himself made a move on when he was prime minister in the late 1990s.
(Miller opined that the recent Republican surge is the least important factor here, though it does mean that Obama will have enough to worry about over the next two years without also pushing the Israelis on East Jerusalem as well. Certainly this is, as Ben Smith noted, the first post-midterms test of Obama’s stomach for foreign confrontation.)
To put it another way: Neither opposition leader Tzipi Livni, of Kadima, whose GA speech yesterday was fairly well received by the left, nor any other plausible leader of Israel is going to be any more willing to cede Israeli claims to all of Jerusalem.
Even among those who - like Livni - have been willing in the past to (God forbid) divide Jerusalem, it's always been on the basis of 'Jewish neighborhoods stay Jewish and Arab neighborhoods go to the 'Palestinians.' If that's the formula, there is no reason to protest Jewish building in places like Ramot, Har Homa, or - for that matter - Ramat Shlomo. They've always been Jewish and will always remain Jewish.
Obama is fighting a hopeless battle in Jerusalem. And he's brought it on himself.
Labels: Barack Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel
Are America and Israel drifting apart?
The Washington Post has a symposium in Sunday's edition that asks whether America and Israel are
drifting apart. Elliott Abrams and Danielle Pletka both say yes, David Makovsky and Hussein Agha and Robert Malley (the latter two writing together) say no, and Aaron David Miller comes out in the middle. Here are some highlights.
Abrams: The current friction in U.S.-Israel relations has one source: the mishandling of those relations by the Obama administration. Poll data show that Israel is as popular as ever among Americans. Strategically we face the same enemies -- such as terrorism and the Iranian regime -- a fact that is not lost on Americans who know we have one single reliable, democratic ally in the Middle East.
I'm inclined to agree with Abrams, in which case the problems are with the Obama administration and not with the United States. If Abrams is correct, when a different administration takes power (God willing, speedily and in our times), relations between Israel and the United States will improve.
Danielle Pletka: Ultimately, the more serious problem for the United States is not a distancing between us and Israel but a failure to grasp that the shared threats to both nations -- the Islamist totalitarianism that has flourished in the oxygen-free environment of the Arab world and the rise of the Revolutionary Guard class in Iran -- will not be mitigated with the resolution of the Palestinians' fate. That President Obama misses this key point is troubling indeed.
I don't believe he misses the point - I believe he's happy with the rise of Islam. Pletka also says that the drifting apart has been going on for some time. Indeed, other than the period between 2002-04 the Bush administration was not favorable to Israel. But they were far less antagonistic than the Obama administration.
David Makovsky: The incident may require more fence-mending of a different sort, but it does not mark a historic low in ties. Take the critical area of Iran. One needs a scorecard to tally the number of distinct visits back and forth at the top of the national security and foreign-policy apparatus of both countries -- just in the past two months. Among those going to Israel -- apart from Biden -- were national security adviser Jim Jones; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen; CIA Director Leon Panetta; and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry. Among the Israelis coming to the United States were Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and national security adviser Uzi Arad. This does not even count lower-level working visits on this issue.
I'd be a little more confident in this if one got the sense that the Obama administration feels the urgency of dealing with Iran that Israel feels. The reason why there has been so much back and forth is because the Obama administration feels that what's urgent is preventing Israel from attacking Iran and not preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. That is hardly indicative of a close relationship.
Aaron David Miller: Israel is still a small country that feels it's living on the knife's edge. Any American who doesn't get this doesn't get very far.
Funny, I never got the feeling that Miller got that when he was a negotiator. I always felt he was way too hard and showed way too little understanding for our predicament. Has he mellowed now that he is out of government?
But perhaps the most curious response of all comes from
Hussein Agha and Robert Malley, who have written that Israel was to blame for the collapse of Camp David in 2000 and not the 'Palestinians' (a thesis that contradicts what Bill Clinton himself has written):
The episode's more meaningful consequence lies elsewhere. Unhappy timing aside, the most telling aspect of the announcement was that it represented the Israeli government's stance on East Jerusalem in all its clarity -- unvarnished and without deceit. In this, it was less act of betrayal than moment of truth, more a message to meditate than a mistake to correct. If the United States intends to bring about an agreement between the two sides, far better that it be aware of their actual positions rather than proceed on the basis of imaginary ones. It might not be pleasant. But at least it would be real.
The announcement did indeed represent Israel's honest position. And while it would be interesting to hear whether Ehud Barak said otherwise in 2000, one cannot help but wonder whether the Obama administration will accept Israel's position for what it is or continue to try to shove their version of a deal down our throats. I'd bet on the latter, which is why I believe that as low as things are now, they could yet go lower after the 2010 elections.
Miller's exclamation point: First, do no harm
Aaron David Miller puts an exclamation point on his
abandonment of the religion of peace process with a JTA interview in which he explains why the Obama administration
should not be pushing a 'Palestinian state.'
"What I find difficult to reconcile is how you’re going to get to a conflict-ending agreement which addresses the four core issues that have driven the Israelis and the Palestinians and brought each issue to a finality of claims," Miller told JTA. "I just do not see how to do that given the gaps that exist and the inherent constraints on the leaders in the absence also of a real sense of urgency."
The four core issues are borders, security, Jerusalem and refugees.
Miller describes how the situation has worsened since the last major effort at a resolution, the Camp David-Taba talks of 2000-01: The status of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has been wounded profoundly by the ouster of his moderate party, Fatah, from Gaza at the gunpoint of Hamas; Netanyahu is bound by a right-wing coalition (of his choosing) that is not ready to countenance a full-fledged settlement freeze, never mind compromise on Jerusalem; and Obama has had 15 months, distracted by the economy and health care, to match Clinton's six full years focused on the issue.
Then there's the region: "Hezbollah and Hamas," Miller says referring to the terrorist groups in Lebanon and Gaza, respectively. "You have two non-state actors, two non-state environments who are not proxies of Iran and or Syria but who clearly reflect their capacity to want to influence events -- and then you have Iran" and its potential nuclear threat.
The prospect that Miller says unnerves him most is that the Obama administration says it will step in with a conflict-ending agreement if the current proximity talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians go nowhere.
"I’m very uneasy because at the end of the day, I don’t see what the game is, I don’t see what the strategy is,” he said. “Even if it’s an initiative, what’s the objective, what’s the strategy?"
Miller's words are having an impact on his former detractors - like Prime Minister Netanyahu - and have put the 'Peace Now - the sky is falling' crowd into a panic.
"It's had an impact, certainly for Netanyahu and his entourage," Steve Rosen, who is close to Netanyahu's advisers, said of Miller’s article in Foreign Policy. "What makes Aaron important is he's not from central casting. He's the man who bit the dog. He has credibility as someone who has been a lifetime proponent of the process."
That's exactly what irks those who advocate deep American involvement.
"We don't have the luxury of time; the tensions on the ground are too high," said Jeremy Ben-Ami, who directs J Street, the liberal pro-Israel lobby. "That's the difference between being an analyst and actually trying to assess outcomes."
Miller still believes peace is possible eventually - I'm doubtful that it is. But at least Miller is falling the basic rule of the physician: First, do no harm. Unfortunately, one cannot say the same for Ben Ami and his ilk.
'Peace processes' winners and losers
Last week, I
blogged an article that can best be described as a confessional by long-time peace-processor Aaron David Miller in which he described why he has abandoned the '
religion of peace process.' Bret Stephens argues that Miller missed a 'deeper point' and I would add that Stephens' '
deeper point' goes a long way in explaining the attractiveness of 'peace processes' to policy makers. For those who don't have access to full articles on the Wall Street Journal's website, you can find the full article
here.
In the current issue of Foreign Policy, former über-peace processor Aaron David Miller offers a refreshingly honest assessment of what he calls "the false religion of Mideast Peace." "Like all religions," he writes, "the peace process has developed a dogmatic creed, with immutable first principles." He then goes on to enumerate all the reasons why the administration's current push to midwife a credible and lasting Arab-Israeli peace deal is doomed to fail.
Mr. Miller's case is mostly unobjectionable; indeed, he could have written the same piece about the administration's failed diplomatic overtures toward Syria and Iran.
But he misses a deeper point. Even as peace processes almost invariably fail between the warring parties, they also almost invariably succeed as political theater for the peace processors themselves. Kim Dae Jung, Arafat and Shimon Peres all burnished their prestige with Nobel Peace Prizes. President Obama won one pre-emptively. And Mr. Clinton still basks in an ill-founded reputation as a peacemaker. Ironically, the only real peace he ever achieved, in the Balkans, was through the strength of American arms.
So the ship will be hoisted again. The peace processors will bask in the glow of their good intentions. And wicked men, convenient partners in this game of self-congratulation, illusion and deceit, will plot their own advantage.
The attractiveness of 'peace processes' is the prospect that one receives credit for 'doing something' even if the 'peace' is not lasting and even if the results mostly benefit thugs and tyrants. They feed upon a human desire that all conflicts be capable of peaceful resolution even though this is manifestly not the case. And they keep hundreds of bureaucrats and academics employed and occupied.
What could go wrong?
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
I will be traveling much of the day today but will try to check in again before the Sabbath starts (I am heading back to Boston). If things go well, I might actually be there mid-day.
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Friday, August 24.
1) Room for Debate -Supporting Israel
In its ongoing feature, Room for Debate, The New York Times now asks Has Support for Israel Hurt U.S. Credibility?
The contributors are Aaron David Miller, Rashid Khalidi, Michell Dunn, Daoud Kuttab, Daniel Gordis, and Dylan Williams. For the full answers and association of the authors check out the links.
The U.S. Can Still Pursue Peace by Aaron David Miller
Both are wrong. The reality is that the pro-Israeli community in America does have a powerful voice but not a veto. And a strong American president with a smart strategy and buy-in from the Arabs and Israelis can trump domestic politics every time.
Miller argues that American support for Israel does not diminish America's influence in the Middle East.
America Has Shown Which Side It’s On by Rashid Khalidi
Israelis know it. Palestinians know it. The whole world knows it. The absence of any American sense of fair play where Palestinian-Israeli issues are concerned is no secret. In fact, it will keep the U.S. from ever being a disinterested intermediary in the Middle East.
Well I wouldn't have expected anything else.
Israel and the U.S. Are Natural Allies by Daniel Gordis
In Palestinian discourse, even the Temple is “alleged.” Compare that stance to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s politically risky acknowledgement of Palestinian rights to a sovereign national homeland. The peace process is utterly dead not because of America’s values, but because of the Palestinians’. Only when American presidents of both parties insist that the Palestinians take responsibility for their future will we know that America has gotten serious about playing a constructive role in the Middle East.
This is the best answer. It turns the question around. The problem isn't American ties with Israel as assumed by the questioner, but the failure of the United States to live up to its principles.
Obama’s Fumble Cost the U.S. Its Standing by Michelle Dunne
Thus an ill-considered effort to gain greater influence in the Middle East by distancing the United States from Israel left the president in a position in which Israelis neither love nor fear him. Arabs, to boot, are extremely disappointed in Obama and inclined not to take him seriously. If Obama wins a second term, he will have to try to rebuild his credibility in the Middle East. Meanwhile, whether or not to strike Iran, or to support Israel in doing so, is not a decision that the United States should back into simply because the Obama administration has mishandled Israel.
Dunne got the sequence of events wrong in the previous paragraph, but insists that it's the daylight the Obama administration put between it and Israel that hurt America's influence.
Obama’s Promise, Broken Time and Again by Daoud Kuttab
Obama’s backsliding began three months after the Cairo speech. After having demanded a total Israeli settlement freeze, the U.S. president buckled under pressure from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and left the Palestinian leader hanging.
Kuttab defends Abbas's instransigence and of course blames the Israel lobby. Obama eventually got a more extensive freeze than any previous president had gotten and Abbas still refused to negotiate until the freeze was nearly over. This is cynical and misleading.
An Ally to Israel, but Not Unquestioning by Richard Land
America can exert significant influence in the Middle East and may be the only “honest broker” with sufficient trust from both sides and the power to make any agreements reached enforceable.
However, the Islamists who want to erase Israel’s existence will forever find America unalterably opposed to their goal.
Land's arguing that the United States needs to be an honest broker and seems to be saying that it is and has been.
Pro-Israel Groups Limit the President’s Options by Dylan Williams
Some U.S. pro-Israel advocacy groups whose policy positions are now markedly to the right of most American Jews are leveraging decades of political relationships to convince policy-makers that no progress can be made on the Israeli-Palestinian front until all concerns over Iran’s nuclear program are fully resolved. The result is to tie the president’s hands, taking powerful diplomatic options off the table that could significantly enhance multilateral pressure on Iran.
This is kind of interesting. Does the title suggest that J-Street (Williams' organization) is not pro-Israel? Williams' argument is a straw man. As former General Yaalon tweeted yesterday, "Anyone who thinks there's a connection between the Iranian issue and the Palestinian issue is mistaken and misleading."
Of seven essays, only two argued America's alliance with Israel hurt American interests. It's actually a better result than I would have expected from the New York Times. Only one participant though argued that the Times was asking the wrong question. Maybe I should just be happy that a clear majority argued "no."
2) The secular settlers
Last week, Jodi Rudoren of the New York Times wrote a flattering portrait of Dani Dayan, A Settler Leader, Worldly and Pragmatic.
TOURING the settlements with Mr. Dayan is like attending a family reunion with a proud patriarch. At a plastics factory where Jewish and Arab workers take occasional field trips together, he said, “We are much less prejudiced toward Palestinians than Israeli society as a whole.” Leaving the college in Ariel, Mr. Dayan declared, “This is exactly what I want for Judea and Samaria: it’s a university that has some ideological tone, but it’s 21st-century, and it’s integral to the fabric of Israeli society.” Sampling robust reds at the Psagot winery, he mused, “This is my dream: to make a combination of mission, ideology, good life — that’s what makes life here permanent.”
Standing on a lookout point in Elie, Mr. Dayan surveyed his empire, the red-roof settlements that dot the hills in every direction.
“When I hear Israeli politicians say there are isolated settlements that should be removed, I know they have never visited here,” he said. “I got to fulfill the dream of 100 generations. Today, it’s a day-to-day fact.”
Dayan sees his residence in the Shomron as a factor in protecting his secular and cultured way of life.
I don't know if it's a coincidence but this week The Algemeiner interviewed Ayelet Shaked, who is secular but is running for a position in the Ha-bayit Ha-Yehudi primaries. (h/t Jewtastic) Ha-bayit Ha-Yehudi is the newest iteration of what used to be the National Religious Party. When asked how she would react to someone who objected to a secular Israeli's presence in the leadership of a religious party, this is how she responded.
YM: If one of them were to contact you, what would you say to him?
AS: First of all it’s his right and I respect that. Even though we may have different views we need to respect each other. Nevertheless I would tell him that if we want to have a large party to the right of Netanyahu, one that is based on the Bible and Jewish values, then the party needs to be opened to secular and traditional Jews that identify with the values of the religious Zionist community.
I truly believe that if they open their heart and open their mind to cooperate with other people that share the same values, then we can have a big party. Otherwise the party will continue with three mandates.
3) Questions of Iran
A week and a half ago Shmuel Rosner published The analytical approach to deciding if you support an Israeli attack on Iran. Though I guess that Rosner is a skeptic about attacking Iran he seemed to have covered most bases.
Charles Krauthammer uses the Cordesman criteria to address some of the questions. Krauthammer begins his column with:
Either Israel is engaged in the most elaborate ruse since the Trojan horse or it is on the cusp of a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Given that an essential aspect of a strike on Iran is surprise, I've wondered the same thing. If Israel attacks Iran no one will be surprised (except in the context of the paradox of the unexpected hanging) and if the planes are detected while on their way, the attack would have to be aborted. However unlikely it is, it makes me wonder if Israel has a plan to disable or destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities without a direct military attack.
Krauthammer summarizes Cordesman's approach:
1. “Clear U.S. red lines.”
It’s time to end the ambiguity about American intentions. Establish real limits on negotiations — to convince Iran that the only alternative to a deal is preemptive strikes and to persuade Israel to stay its hand.
2. “Make it clear to Iran that it has no successful options.”
Either its program must be abandoned in a negotiated deal (see No. 1 above) on generous terms from the West (see No. 3 below), or its facilities will be physically destroyed. Ostentatiously let Iran know about the range and power of our capacities — how deep and extensive a campaign we could conduct, extending beyond just nuclear facilities to military-industrial targets, refineries, power grids and other concentrations of regime power.
3. Give Iran a face-saving way out.
Offer Iran the most generous possible terms — economic, diplomatic and political. End of sanctions, assistance in economic and energy development, trade incentives and a regional security architecture. Even Russian nuclear fuel.
Former head of Israel's military intelligence, Amos Yadlin (who also was one of the pilots who destroyed the Iraqi reactor in 1981) offers different criteria.
Only by framing a nuclear-armed Iran as an impermissible threat to the national interests of the United States and its allies in the Persian Gulf can President Obama bridge this gap between Israeli creed and need. He must convince Israel, Iran, Russia and even Saudi Arabia that the U.S. military option is credible and effective.
A gesture directly from Obama could do it. The U.S. president should visit Israel and tell its leadership -- and, more important, its people -- that preventing a nuclear Iran is a U.S. interest, and if we have to resort to military action, we will.
This message, delivered by the president of the United States to the Israeli Knesset, would be far more effective than U.S. officials' attempts to convey the same sentiment behind closed doors. The administration should also take five immediate steps to convince allies and adversaries alike that military action is real, imminent and doable - which are key to making it less likely.
Yadlin offers a total of five actions for the United States to take, but only agrees with Cordesman on the first about establishing a nuclear Iran as an American red line. That might be because Yadlin's focus is more about reassuring Israel than in challenging Iran.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Barack Hussein Obama, Daniel Gordis, Iranian nuclear threat, J Street, Middle East Media Sampler, New York Times, Rashid Khalidi, revenants, Soccer Dad, US support for Israel
Netanyahu and the Dalai Lama
Prime Minister Netanyahu is meeting with President Obama at 5:30 pm Israel time (11:30 am Washington time). In what is seen as a sign that
Obama is still angry at Netanyahu, the Prime Minister will
once again have to enter through the White House's rear entrance and no photographers will be present. The only other leader to be treated similarly by Obama was the Dalai Lama.
Politico claims that Netanyahu will be facing a
smug Obama at the White House (Hat Tip:
Memeorandum).
Obama’s health care victory may prove a decisive pivot point in the way he is viewed both domestically and abroad and in how powerful a negotiator he is perceived to be by foreign leaders. And nowhere is that true more than in Israel, a place obsessed with American politics.
“Every time I met with an Arab diplomat or anyone from the Middle East, including Israelis, they would invariably ask me, ‘How’s health care going?’” said former Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), who retired in December to become president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace. “And the first couple [of] times, I didn’t really realize what they were actually asking. They were asking, ‘How strong is the president of the United States?’”
Netanyahu’s aides have recently confided that they see Obama as a weak leader whose tenure they can weather, but that calculus may now have to change. After his health care victory, says Wexler, “the president is now a much stronger president, and that will play out in a variety of ways in the Middle East, and also in his direct relations with the leaders in the region, especially Prime Minister Netanyahu.”
...
“Definitely Bibi’s inner circle ... their strategy has almost literally ... been to wait out Obama,” said one Washington Middle East hand who asked for anonymity. Even as recently as last month, Netanyahu’s advisers were saying, ‘We just need to wait him out.’ They [thought] he is a one-term president and that he’s weak.”
Asked about those reports, Wexler said he wasn’t “certain that was [Netanyahu’s] strategy. But if it was, I think that strategy today is dead.”
Administration officials indicated an empowered Obama would not press any new demands on the parties. “Neither our commitment nor our goal has changed,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference the morning after Obama’s health care victory. “The United States will continue to encourage all parties to take steps that advance the prospects for peace.”
...
One former congressional Democratic staffer said the health care victory’s impact may not be so much on the Mideast peace process but on Obama himself, who saw the rewards of tenacity.
“When Netanyahu meets Obama in the White House Tuesday, he will meet a smiling Obama, who has aged a bit over health care but who has been vindicated,” the former staffer continued. “What people learned about Obama, and what Obama learned about the process [himself], is you have got to keep pushing.”
That realization is likely to affect how the Obama administration deals with other challenges both domestic and foreign, he said, including how hard to push for the two-state solution amid both resistance and cynicism from Middle Eastern leaders.
“The day after a potentially transformative president shepherds his signature health care legislation through Congress, the troublesome Israelis show up in town,” said veteran Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller.
“The storm is coming as differences between the U.S. and Israel on settlements and the negotiations loom large. The real question is: Does Obama have the smarts and the b---- to be both reassuring and tough when the time comes to push both Israelis and Palestinians to an agreement?”
Miller said he doesn’t know the answer.
I don't see this having a long-term effect on the 'peace process.' While Obama's poll numbers may enjoy a positive bounce over the next few days, they will be reversed by the taxes that will be needed to pay for Obamacare and the shellacking the Democrats are likely to take in November. Sure, Obama saw that he could get what he wants, but it comes at a tremendous price. What price is he willing to pay for a 'Palestinian state'? A lot more than Bibi Netanyahu is willing to pay. And Bibi's poll numbers are still better than Obama's.
Can Obama be waited out? The question is almost irrelevant. You wait someone out in the hope of getting someone better in the next go-round. But we have no clue whom that someone might be, and in any event, I don't believe Netanyahu is capable of giving Obama or the 'Palestinians' anywhere near what they want.
Aaron David Miller is likely right that there will be a storm between Israel and Obama, but I don't see him blowing Bibi over. The Dalai Lama stuck to his guns. Bibi will stick to his.
Obama: 'Eternally obtuse'
Eli Lake is reporting in Tuesday's Washington Times (via Twitter) that Israel has made a 'secret offer' on a 'settlement freeze' in advance of Prime Minister Netanyahu's tripartite meeting with President Obama and Abu Mazen later Tuesday. But if Lake's description of the offer is accurate, it's nothing that hasn't been reported in the media here before: Six to nine months of 'freeze' except for 2,500 - 3,000 units already approved (apparently including the extra units approved last week) and no 'freeze' in Jerusalem. But here's what's more interesting: Lake quotes former negotiator Aaron Miller - not a friend of Israel by any stretch - saying that because the Arabs have stiffed Obama, the
Israelis have him over the barrel:
A U.S. official, speaking on the condition that he not be named because the negotiations are continuing, said Mr. Mitchell has received private assurances from some Gulf Arab and North African states to grant over-flight rights to Israeli jets, open interest sections in Israel and end a travel ban against Israelis if Israel freezes settlement construction. Saudi Arabia, guardian of Islam's holiest sites, has not agreed to these steps absent a peace agreement.
"Thus far, the Arabs have stiffed Obama and the Israelis in their own exquisite way are stiffing him," said Aaron David Miller, a former senior Middle East adviser to six U.S. secretaries of state. "He is not getting a comprehensive settlement freeze. In fact, over the next 18 months, it may look like a construction boom; 2,500 to 3,000 new units is a lot of construction and to boot the Israelis will never agree to anything on Jerusalem."
Mr. Miller, however, also acknowledged that no American president has gotten the Israelis to agree on any kind of settlement freeze.
...
"The problem with the Obama administration policy is not the man, Obama or Mitchell; it's the mandate," Mr. Miller said. "It should be clear to all but the eternally obtuse that a conflict-ending agreement between Benjamin Netanyahu and a divided Palestinian national movement is probably out of reach. The question then becomes what is the connection between trying to get the Arabs to do partial steps for normalization and the Israelis to do a partial settlement freeze and the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement?"
Actually, Miller pegged the problem but did not want to say so explicitly: Obama is eternally obtuse. He put himself in this corner by raising a 'settlement freeze' in the first place, and now Abu Mazen doesn't want to let him climb down the tree on which he is stuck.
In Tuesday's JPost, Amir Mizroch argues that everyone is saying no to Obama (pictured at the top looking for a penny he lost in Russian Prime Minister Putin's office) because of the
American economy.
It's the economy, stupid.
Everyone has worked it out by now: The great secret is out. America's economy has made Obama a weak president, and he will likely remain weak throughout his first term. He has about two years to pull the American economy out of its free-fall before he begins his reelection campaign. If he can do it, and that's a big if, chances are good that he'll get reelected, and in his second term he can try to pull some geopolitical strings. But for the next three years, expect to see a world that says no to Obama. No meaningful and dramatic diplomatic initiative can come out of the White House in the next three years, as long as Obama remains weak.
Sorry, but I don't agree, at least not when it comes to Israel. The American economy was an absolute disaster when Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat went to Camp David and signed a treaty. And it was deep in recession when Yitzchak Rabin and King Hussein signed a treaty. The reason Israel is saying no is because Prime Minister Netanyahu understands that if he doesn't say no, he won't have a coalition, and because Israel understands it's in our best interests to say no. If Obama is going to be 'eternally obtuse' (in Miller's words), we don't have to play along with him.
Former US negotiator: 'Forget about Israeli-Palestinian agreement'
In a column in Monday's Jerusalem Post, former US Middle East 'peace' negotiator Aaron David Miller says that we can all
forget about an Israeli-'Palestinian' agreement.
Varying kinds of accommodations cease fires, informal cooperation and temporary arrangements may still be possible. But an agreement now or perhaps for the foreseeable future that revolves conclusively the four core issues (borders, Jerusalem, refugees and security) isn't.
Miller cites three 'realities' that make an Israeli-'Palestinian' agreement impossible:
It's not that there are metaphysical or magical reasons why these core issues can't be resolved; it's that the political will is lacking among leaders to reach an agreement and that the current situation on the ground between Israelis and Palestinians makes it impossible for them to do to. That everyone knows what the ultimate solution will look like (an intriguing notion that is supposed to make people feel better) is irrelevant if the circumstances for an agreement don't exist.
THIS BRINGS me to my second point. The dysfunction and confusion in Palestine make a conflict-ending agreement almost impossible. The divisions between Hamas (itself divided) and Fatah (even more divided) are now geographic, political and hard to bridge. Until the Palestinian national movement finds a way to impose a monopoly over the forces of violence in Palestinian society, it cannot move to statehood.
...
Third, there is serious dysfunction at the political level in Israel as well. Israel has its own leadership crisis. The state is in transition from a generation of founding leaders with moral authority, historic legitimacy and competency to a younger generation of middle age pols who have not quite measured up to their predecessors or to the challenges their nation faces. The leadership deficit is a global phenomenon, but not all states are sitting in a dangerous neighborhood on top of a political volcano. Is there an Israeli leader today who has the authority and skill to make and sell the tough choices required for Israeli-Palestinian peace?
Miller's first two arguments show why the Oslo accords - which he championed during the Clinton administration - were doomed to failure from the outset. One of the guiding principles behind Oslo was to postpone the hard issues to the end of the game. The goal was to chip away at Israel's positions until there was nothing left and Israel would have no choice but to concede on what Miller calls the 'identity issues.' When Ehud Barak very dangerously called the bluff by attempting to resolve the 'identity issues' at Camp David in 2000, the entire house of cards fell apart.
And while Miller presents the second point as being a new obstacle, it's really not new. Yasser Arafat may have been a popular leader, but the reason that he was popular was precisely because he did nothing to attempt to take control of the guns. The terror groups continued to roam the streets, Hamas gained in power and popularity while Arafat was in power and Fatah was a corrupt organization in which militias (like the Tanzim) acted on their own.
Miller's third 'reality' is misplaced. It's not that Israel has no leaders capable of leading (although the current government clearly is incapable of leading) it's that Israel's people have awoken to reality since 2000 and are not going to rush to give away all their strategic assets to a people bent on their destruction.
Miller's prescription is to go "all out" for an Israeli-Syrian agreement. But that is destined to fail for all the same reasons. Syria has no real interest in peace, will do nothing to rein in Hezbullah, and has an unpopular dictator as its leader who cannot change the way his people actually think. And the Israeli people are much smarter than they were 10-15 years ago.
Aaron David Miller admits: Status quo is good for (Israel's) Jews
Former peace processor Aaron David Miller - who seems to 'get it' much better than his former colleagues these days - writes in the New York Times that
Israel's status quo is good for Israel's Jews, and therefore is unlikely to be changed significantly in the foreseeable future.
What drives many Israelis and the government that represents them is not a Scrooge-like Christmas Eve glimpse of a terrifying future, but a strange mix of accomplishment, comfort and anxiety that reinforces the desire to maintain the status quo, particularly on the Palestinian issue. And that attitude is not going to change anytime soon.
Mitt Romney’s stumble on the Palestinian question highlighted just how comfortable many Israelis are, and the sheer magnitude of what they have accomplished. Romney mistakenly low-balled Israel’s per capita G.D.P. (about $31,000 in 2011, according to the World Bank, rather than his misstated $21,000).
...
Indeed, along with all the forecasting of gloom and doom there’s this: Per capita Israel gives rise to more startups than any other country in the world. On the U.N.’s 2011 Human Development Index, Israel — a country of seven-and-a-half million people — stands 17th out of 187 nations. The discoveries of natural gas in the Mediterranean will not only take care of Israel’s needs but by 2017 make it a significant exporter.
As for the Palestinian issue that threatens to undermine Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic state, there too the dangers seem mitigated by the current situation. The Palestinian Authority’s state-building enterprise and the security cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian services have generated more than a manageable status quo and all but eliminated terrorism.
The Arab Spring has left the Hamas leadership with few options and no real desire to wrangle with the Israelis militarily. And the approaching demise of the Assad regime in Syria will weaken Hezbollah.
If economic prosperity and a tolerable Palestinian problem seem to reinforce the status quo, the disquiet caused by instability elsewhere in the region validates Israel’s caution in not wanting to change it. Israel seems bookended by two major worries that have all but subordinated the Palestinian issue to the back burner: Egypt’s future and Iran’s centrifuges.
...
One of the biggest losers from the Iranian nuclear program may well be the Palestinians. The Israelis never bought the argument that solving the Palestinian issue would weaken Iranian influence in the region.
For this Israeli government, Iran is a much bigger priority. And if there is an Iranian-Israeli conflict or one involving the United States, the resulting turmoil would make Israeli-Palestinian negotiations almost impossible.
Given the uncertainties in the region, the odds of resolving its most complex problems — Palestine, the Iranian nuclear issue, the Arab quest for representative government — seem very long indeed. Even under more enlightened governments than the current one, the issue has never been about comprehensive solutions. Instead, Israel traditionally looks to buy time, pre-empt and prevent on the military side when necessary, and take calculated risks in pursuit of peace when possible.
It’s not an ideal strategy — and one not always well-suited to the Silicon Valley of the Middle East and to a country that wants a more peaceful and prosperous future. But it’s kept a small country living on knife’s edge alive and in remarkably good shape. And that’s got to count for something.
Read it all. What's missing is something I have discussed many times: The demographic predictions that would force us to choose between being Jewish and democratic are bogus.
Labels: Aaron David Miller, Iranian nuclear threat, Middle East peace process, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, two-state solution
Game on: Axelrod tweeting in defense of Hagel (and so is Barak Ravid)
Late Sunday night, former 'senior advisor to President Barack Obama' David Axelrod let fly three tweets in support of Chuck Hagel's nomination for Secretary of Defense. The first one is above and the other two are below.
I'm going to leave the first two tweets alone because they don't say anything substantive, but I want to respond to the third one, because I don't believe it's possible to reconcile supporting Israel and supporting Hagel's nomination.
Quite simply, there's a lengthy list of reasons why it's impossible to depict Chuck Hagel as pro-Israel. Last week, I was asked to compile a brief summary for a US Senator of why Chuck Hagel ought not be chosen as Secretary of Defense. Here's what I listed that related to Israel:
“The record speaks for itself, on issues like consistently voting
against sanctions on Iran to stop their pursuit of nuclear weapons
capability, against naming [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] a
terrorist organization, refusing to call on the European Union to name
Hezbollah — which has killed more Americans than any terrorist group in
the world except Al Qaeda — as a terrorist organization,” said Josh
Block, a former AIPAC spokesman.
- In August 2006, Hagel was one of only 12 Senators who refused to write the EU asking them to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
- In October 2000, Hagel was one of only 4 Senators who refused to sign a Senate letter in support of Israel.
- In November 2001, Hagel was one of only 11 Senators who refsued to
sign a letter urging President Bush not to meet with the late Yassir
Arafat until his forces ended the violence against Israel.
- In December 2005, Hagel was one of only 27 who refused to sign a
letter to President Bush to pressure the Palestinian Authority to ban
terrorist groups from participating in Palestinian legislative
elections.
- In June 2004, Hagel refused to sign a letter urging President Bush to highlight Iran's nuclear program at the G-8 summit. (Source).
[Hagel quotes]:
2. “Peace comes through dealing with people.
Peace doesn’t come at the end of a bayonet or the end of a gun.” (after
meeting with Syrian dictator Hazef al-Asad in Damascus in December 1998)
3. In July 2002, Hagel staked a wrong-headed position in support
of Yassir Arafat, who was later isolated by the U.S. Government for
supporting violence against Israel during the second Palestinian
intifada. In an opinion-editorial in the Washington Post, Hagel wrote
that the U.S. was erroneously “making Yassir Arafat the issue,” that
Palestinians could not be expected to make democratic reforms as long as
“Israeli military occupation and settlement activity” continue, and
that “Israel must take steps to show its commitment to peace.”
4. In calling upon President Bush to push for an
immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, Hagel said:
“This madness must stop…. How do we realistically believe that a
continuation of the systematic destruction of an American friend — the
country and people of Lebanon — is going to enhance America’s image and
give us the trust and credibility to lead a lasting and sustained peace
effort in the Middle East?… Our relationship with Israel is special and
historic. But it need not and cannot be at the expense of our Arab and
Muslim relationships. That is an irresponsible and dangerous false
choice.” Israel’s bombing of Lebanon, he said, was “tearing Lebanon apart.”
Hagel is a nominee who would thrill the Walt-Mearsheimer Lobby:
In an interview quoted in Aaron David Miller’s book on
the peace process called The Much Too Promised Land, Hagel said: “The
political reality is that … the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people
up here.”
Hagel then described a meeting he had in New York with a group of
supporters of Israel, one of whom suggested Hagel wasn’t supportive
enough of Israel. Hagel said he responded: “Let me clear something up
here if there’s any doubt in your mind. I’m a United States Senator. I’m
not an Israeli senator. I’m a United States Senator. I support Israel.
But my first interest is, I take an oath of office to the constitution
of the United States. Not to a president, not to a party, not to
Israel.”
Atlantic Council (chaired by Hagel) home blog does post entitled "Israel's apartheid policy":
To paraphrase a well-known saying, it's far better to let people say
you're an anti-Semite than to open your mouth and confirm it.
The blog pictured above is the home blog of the Atlantic Council, which is chaired by US Secretary of Defense candidate Chuck Hagel.
Critics have long used the debunked
apartheid analogy as a way to delegitimize and slander Israel. With the
buzz growing over Hagel’s potential nomination, it’s surprising that
his organization would publish such a blatant attack on Israel on the
front page of its website on today of all days.
Elliot Engel (D-NY):
In an
interview Friday taped for C-SPAN's Newsmakers, conducted jointly by
The Cable and Politico, Engel said that Hagel's record on Israel and Iran
make him a poor choice to lead the military. In particular, Engel said he was
irked by Hagel's reference to the "Jewish lobby" in an interview with former
official Aaron David Miller. (Miller
supports
Hagel's nomination.)
"I think that remark is troublesome, it's
problematic. It shows at the very best a lack of sensitivity, at the very worst
perhaps a prejudice. And I'm concerned about it, I'm concerned about the
nomination," Engel said. "If
I were doing the appointing, I would not appoint Chuck Hagel."
Engel, who
represents the Bronx, Rockland, and Westchester, said he has been hearing a lot
of opposition to the potential Hagel nomination from his constituents. He also
said that Hagel's activities related to Israel, including his statements on
Hamas and Israel's influence in Washington, show a pattern of "hostility."
"It seems there is some kind of an endemic hostility
towards Israel and that's troublesome to me and troublesome to a lot of
people," Engel said. "In the sensitive post of secretary of defense, those are
warning bells. Those are red lights."
Finally, I'd like to respond to an Israeli defender of Hagel (unfortunately, there are some). Haaretz's Barak Ravid sent out three tweets in response to Axelrod's support for Hagel. I'm embedding them below with a response to each of them.
Although I would personally oppose it, there is a huge difference between the Israeli government speaking with Hamas (and while Ravid may have some inside information, I am not aware of any current talks with Hamas, and certainly not any direct talks between Israel and Hamas) and someone else trying to force the Israeli government to speak with Hamas. The latter - which Hagel apparently favors - is clearly out of place.
Here's the second one:
Again, there's a big difference between calling for a dialogue with Iran to stop the nuclear program and opposing sanctions against Iran (as Hagel has done) which might bring Iran to the table and give that dialogue a chance of succeeding. Since Israel is Iran's first target, anything that discourages Iran from taking steps to stop its nuclear program should be deemed anti-Israel.
Here's the third tweet.
The issue with Hagel has nothing to do with Israeli government policy. The Israeli government has not taken a position on Hagel, nor will it take a position on Hagel. The problems with Hagel aren't his criticisms of Israeli government policy but his lack of support for Israel regardless of its policies.
For those who
follow me on Twitter, I've tweeted much of the above to Barak Ravid (whom I follow on Twitter) and to David Axelrod (whom I don't follow), and I will let you know on Twitter if I get any responses.
Labels: Chuck Hagel
Aaron David Miller abandons the Religion of Peace Process
Aaron David Miller arrived at the State Department in 1978, and has become known as a peace processor par excellence. Now, in a lengthy piece in the upcoming issue of
Foreign Policy, Miller refers to the 'peace process' as a religion and explains
why he can no longer believe in it.
Although many experts' beliefs haven't changed, the region has, and dramatically, becoming nastier and more complex. U.S. priorities and interests, too, have changed. The notion that there's a single or simple fix to protecting those interests, let alone that Arab-Israeli peace would, like some magic potion, bullet, or elixir, make it all better, is just flat wrong. In a broken, angry region with so many problems -- from stagnant, inequitable economies to extractive and authoritarian governments that abuse human rights and deny rule of law, to a popular culture mired in conspiracy and denial -- it stretches the bounds of credulity to the breaking point to argue that settling the Arab-Israeli conflict is the most critical issue, or that its resolution would somehow guarantee Middle East stability.
The unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict is still a big problem for America and its friends: It stokes a white-hot anger toward the United States, has already demonstrated the danger of confrontation and war (see Lebanon, 2006; Gaza, 2008), and confronts Israel with a demographic nightmare. But three other issues, at least, have emerged to compete for center stage, and they might prove far more telling about the fate of U.S. influence, power, and security than the ongoing story of what I've come to call the much-too-promised land.
First, there are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of Americans are in harm's way and are likely to be for some time to come. Add to the mix the dangerous situation in Pakistan, and you see volatility, threat, and consequences that go well beyond Palestine. Second, though U.S. foreign policy can't be held hostage to the war on terror (or whatever it's now called), the 9/11 attacks were a fundamental turning point for an America that had always felt secure within its borders. And finally there's Iran, whose nuclear aspirations are clearly a more urgent U.S. priority than Palestine. Should sanctions and/or diplomacy fail, the default position -- military action by Israel or even the United States -- can't be ruled out, with galactic consequences for the region and the world. In any event, it's hard to imagine Netanyahu making any big decisions on the peace process until there's much more clarity on what he and most Israelis regard as the existential threat of an Iran with a bomb.
...
Governing is about choosing; it's about setting priorities, managing your politics, thinking strategically, picking your spots, and looking for genuine opportunities that can be exploited -- not tilting at windmills. And these days, Arab-Israeli peacemaking is a pretty big windmill.
Even if you could make the case for the centrality of the Arab-Israeli conflict, could you make peace?
...
Looking ahead, that process looks much, much tougher -- and peace more and more elusive -- for three reasons.
First, Arab-Israeli peacemaking is politically risky and life-threatening. Consider the murders of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. At Camp David, I heard Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat say at least three times, "You Americans will not walk behind my coffin." Leaders take risks only when prospects of pain and gain compel them to do so. Today's Middle East leaders -- Israel's Netanyahu, Syria's Bashar al-Assad, and Palestine's Mahmoud Abbas -- aren't suicidal. It was Netanyahu, after all, who once told me: "You live in Chevy Chase. Don't play with our future."
Second, big decisions require strong leaders -- think Jordan's King Hussein or Israel's Menachem Begin -- because the issues on the table cut to the core of their political and religious identity and physical survival. This requires leaders with the legitimacy, authority, and command of their politics to make a deal stick. But the current crop are more prisoners of their constituencies than masters of them: Netanyahu presides over a divided coalition and a country without consensus on what price Israel will pay for agreements with Palestinians and Syria; Abbas is part of a broken Palestinian national movement and shares control over Palestine's guns, authority, and legitimacy with Hamas. It's hard to see how either can marshal the will and authority to make big decisions.
Third, even with strong leaders, you still need a project that doesn't exceed the carrying capacity of either side. In the past, U.S. diplomacy succeeded because the post-1973-war disengagement agreements, a separate Egypt-Israel accord, and a three-day peace conference at Madrid aligned with each side's capabilities. Today, issues such as Jerusalem (as a capital of two states), borders (based on June 1967 lines), and refugees (rights, return, and compensation) present gigantic political and security challenges for Arabs and Israelis. One accord will be hard enough. The prospect of negotiating a comprehensive peace; concluding three agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, between Israel and Syria, and between Israel and Lebanon; dismantling settlements in the Golan Heights and West Bank; and withdrawing to borders based on June 1967 lines seems even more fantastical.
Bottom line: Negotiations can work, but both Arabs and Israelis (and American leaders) need to be willing and able to pay the price. And they are not.
...
If I genuinely believed America could impose and deliver a solution through tough forceful diplomacy, I'd be more sympathetic -- but I don't. And here's why:
Ownership: Larry Summers, Obama's chief economic advisor, said it best: In the history of the world, no one ever washed a rental car. We care only about what we own. Unless the Arabs and Israelis want political agreements and peace and can invest enough in them to give them a chance to succeed, we certainly can't.
...
The negotiator's mystique: It's gone, at least for now. When Americans succeeded in Arab-Israeli diplomacy, it was because they were respected, admired, even feared. U.S. power and influence were taken seriously. Today, much of the magic is gone: We are overextended, diminished, bogged down. Again Summers: Can the world's biggest borrower continue to be the world's greatest power? Our friends worry about our reliability; our adversaries, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, believe they can outwait and outmaneuver us. Nor does there appear much cost or consequence to saying no to the superpower. After Obama and Mitchell's fruitless first year, I worry that the mediator's mystique of a Kissinger or a Baker, or the willfulness and driving force of a Carter, won't return easily.
Domestic politics: The pro-Israel community in the United States has a powerful voice, primarily in influencing congressional sentiment and initiatives (assistance to Israel in particular), but it does not have a veto over U.S. foreign policy. Lobbies lobby; that's the American way, for better or worse. Presidents are supposed to lead. And when they do, with a real strategy that's in America's national interests, they trump domestic politics. Still, domestic politics constrain, particularly when a president is perceived to be weak or otherwise occupied. This president has been battered of late, and his party is likely to face significant losses in the 2010 midterm elections. Should there be a serious chance for a breakthrough in the peace process, he'll go for it. But is it smart to risk trying to manufacture one? The last thing Obama needs now is an ongoing fight with the Israelis and their supporters, or worse, a major foreign-policy failure.
U.S.-Israeli relations: America is Israel's best friend and must continue to be. Shared values are at the core of the relationship, and our intimacy with Israel gives us leverage and credibility in peacemaking when we use it correctly. But this special relationship with the Israelis, which can serve U.S. interests, has become an exclusive one that does not. We've lost the capacity to be independent of Israel, to be honest with it when it does things we don't like, to impose accountability, and to adopt positions in a negotiation that might depart from Israel's. It's tough to be a credible mediator with such handicaps.
...
The believers need to re-examine their faith, especially at a moment when America is so stretched and overextended. The United States needs to do what it can, including working with Israelis and Palestinians on negotiating core final-status issues (particularly on borders, where the gaps are narrowest), helping Palestinians develop their institutions, getting the Israelis to assist by allowing Palestinians to breathe economically and expand their authority, and keeping Gaza calm, even as it tries to relieve the desperation and sense of siege through economic assistance. But America should also be aware of what it cannot do, as much as what it can.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who probably didn't know much about the Middle East, said it best: "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, then in half the creeds." And maybe, if that leads to more realistic thinking when it comes to America's view of Arab-Israeli peacemaking, that's not such a bad thing.
I don't agree with everything he says, but on the whole he makes sense, and I urge you to
read the whole thing.
Jennifer Rubin
agrees with me.
One can take exception to some of Miller’s argument, but the core of it is indisputable: the peace-process believers “need to re-examine their faith.” The peace process is not merely, as Miller argues, unproductive; it has proven counterproductive, at least in the hands of the Obami. We have reinforced Palestinian rejectionism, weakened the U.S.-Israel relationship that has been a stabilizing and peace-keeping alliance for decades, rattled other Arab leaders (whose main concern is a nuclear-armed Iran), and proven our own fecklessness. You want to promote peace in the Middle East? Stop the peace process.
But don't expect anyone in the White House to listen. You can force someone to go through the motions of abandoning their faith, but you cannot force them to stop believing in it. It's good that Miller has a job in a think tank - they'd never let him into the Obama White House after this article.
On mythology
Now that he's not part of the President's Middle East policy team for the first time in a generation or so, Aaron David Miller has been writing a lot of critiques of Middle East policy.
This one was especially significant. While I have not always
agreed with him, for the most part, I find him more even-handed since he left the State Department and the White House than I found him while he was on the inside.
Miller has another article in Sunday's Washington Post called
Five myths about Middle East peace. For the most part, they are things that Miller has written before, but this one particularly disturbed me.
2. The United States is an honest broker in the peace process.
It has been before and can be again. But in the past 16 years, under both Democratic and Republican presidents, we have failed to be as tough, fair and reassuring as we need to be to broker a solution. Our relationship with the Israelis is special -- and it has to be because of Israel's unique security position and the values that bind us -- but if we intend to be a credible mediator, it cannot become exclusive.
We cannot advocate for one side over another or clear our positions with one party in advance; our client must be the agreement itself. And we need to adopt negotiating positions that reflect the balance of interests between the two sides, not use Israel's position as the point of departure for U.S. policy. The challenge for the Obama administration is to find this balance, one that neither Bill Clinton nor George W. Bush achieved.
This formulation bothered me on several counts. First, it assumes that the United States should be an honest broker in the Middle East peace process. But should it be? Everyone else associated with this process takes a side: The Arab side. Who, if not its greatest ally, is to take Israel's side? If the United States is an 'honest broker,' Israel stands alone against the nations of the world and its 'international organizations.' Is that any way to treat an ally?
But worse than that, Miller implies that the US favored Israel during the Clinton and Bush administrations and perhaps it did. But that favoritism resulted in extremely generous offers for peace made by Ehud Barak (in 2000 and 2001) and by Ehud Olmert in 2008. Both offers were turned down flat by the 'Palestinians' without a counteroffer. Does Miller believe the United States can and should be pressuring Israel to go even further? Especially in light of Miller's myth number 4 (Pressuring the Israelis is the only way to reach an agreement) and myth number 5 (Arab-Israeli peace is critical to securing U.S. interests in the Middle East), maybe what's really needed is to push the 'Palestinian' issue off the front burner for a while, and for the US to tell the 'Palestinians' that it's not going to do anything until they call with a willingness to accept a compromise?
Ignoring the elephant in the room
Laura Rozen has an account of
Abu Mazen's meeting with 'American Jewish leaders' this past week. It's pretty much stuff we've all heard (and I've blogged) earlier this week, until this little bit at the end.
Aaron Miller writes in response that Abbas was "playing to his strengths and trying to cultivate the image of a wise and beneficent Palestinian leader reaching out, in contrast to the brashness and defensiveness [of] the Israeli Prime Minister."
But, Miller continued, "none of this will make a bit of difference. What counts is Abbas's capacity to make decisions (and Bibi's of course)."
That would be Aaron David Miller, former peace processor. And that got me thinking about
this piece of analysis by Herb Keinon that appeared in the weekend JPost.
For all the damage the flotilla incident has caused Israel, and the damage is not inconsiderable, one positive side effect may be the placing of Gaza on the international agenda, and not only the Gaza that the Turks and the Palestinians want the world to see: the Gaza of deprivation, the Gaza without coriander seeds or soda pop.
The incident has also brought into focus the Gaza ruled not by the grandfatherly Abbas, or the Western technocrat PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, but rather by Hamas terrorists.
One of the inexplicable dimensions of the diplomatic efforts since the Annapolis conference in late 2007 has been the degree to which the international community continues to talk about a two-state solution, and a peace process, without taking into consideration that there are two Palestinian authorities: One in the West Bank and the other in the Gaza Strip, and that these two groups loath each other, don’t recognize the other’s authority and – after months and even years of trying – have not been able to reconcile their differences.
Everyone talks about two states, one for Jews, and the other for Palestinians. But what about Gaza? Who rules there? How do you wrest control of Gaza from Hamas? Those are crucial questions representing a huge elephant in the negotiating room, and are questions the international community has consistently ignored.
“The flotilla presents a clear image problem for Israel,” said the European diplomat quoted above. “We in the West were looking away from Gaza and the blockade, as long as there were not hiccups in the implementation of the blockade. But because of the flotilla we cannot ignore it anymore, because there is growing pressure from our public opinion.”
But by the same token, if the Europeans can’t ignore the blockade anymore, they – and the US – can also no longer ignore the place of Gaza, or the problem it presents, in the diplomatic process.
Or, as a high level Israeli government official pointed out this week, the issue now is much broader than the flotilla, it is on Gaza and how that impacts on the diplomatic process.
“If there is going to be an easing of the blockade,” he asked rhetorically, “how will that change Gaza, how will that strengthen Hamas, how will that impact on the Palestinian Authority? This all touches on the Palestinian talks. Everything is connected.”
Miller is right. The truth is that Abu Mazen has no mandate to negotiate. His term in office expired more than a year ago. He doesn't control Gaza and he only controls Judea and Samaria because the IDF is there. It's all connected. With whom are we negotiating? And why?
Former State Department Hacks to Israel: Surrender Now!
Robert Malley was a State Department Arabist who became notorious in Jewish circles for penning
a lengthy article in the New York Review of Books in which he blamed Ehud Barak for the failure of the Camp David giveaway, despite everyone else's claim that it was Arafat's fault. Aaron David Miller was one of the three court Jews in the Clinton State Department (the others being Dennis Ross and Daniel Kurtzer).
In today's WaPo,
Malley and Miller have co-authored an op-ed, in which they claim that it is in both Hamas' and Israel's interests to work together to calm the environment so that Hamas can 'govern' and Israel can carry out its
convergence surrender plan. But for calm to prevail, Malley and Miller argue that Israel and the United States must recognize three 'realities' :
First, Hamas will not accept the three conditions put forward by the international community (recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence, acceptance of past agreements), certainly not now and certainly not under threat. Instead, these should be redefined in terms that are both meaningful and realistic: Is the government solidifying the cease-fire and restoring law and order? Is it dealing pragmatically with Israel on issues of mutual concern? Has it endorsed the Arab League's Beirut resolution, which, by calling for normalization of relations with Israel once a peace agreement has been reached, implicitly entails recognition? These are benchmarks that most Palestinians would accept -- and that most Palestinians would blame Hamas for rejecting.
This is nonsense on several counts. First, so long as Hamas does not renounce violence and actively work to oppose it, violence will continue, whether perpetrated by Hamas or by Islamic Jihad and others with Hamas' blessing. Without a renunciation of violence 'solidifying the cease fire' and 'restoring law and order' are meaningless. It would allow violence to resume at any time. Second, so long as Hamas does not recognize Israel, it will not deal with Israel - pragmatically or otherwise. In Hamas' view, dealing with Israel means making demands on it, which Israel has no reason to fulfill. Third, the endorsement of the Beirut resolution is meaningless because it is contingent upon Israel accepting the 'right' of 'Palestinian refugees' to return to their 'homes' in Israel - which Israel can never accept without forfeiting its character as a Jewish state. Sure 'Palestinians' would accept these 'benchmarks.' They'd be happy to see Israel agree to commit national suicide.
Second, U.S. efforts to starve the Palestinian government of funds may be a principled position, but they are certainly not a workable policy. The result would be humanitarian catastrophe, political chaos and domestic mayhem among Palestinians -- as well as resumption of full-scale violence. Instead (and parallel to Hamas's meeting the new benchmarks, particularly cessation of violence), the United States, without altering its own practice, should allow donor countries to engage with the Palestinian government and pay its employees through an international trust fund.
The US has no reason to allow Hamas to obtain funds without giving up terrorism. Forget for a minute that for the US to be seen as backing down from its demands on Hamas would be disasterous for US interests in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East: there is no humanitarian crisis. The 'Palestinian Authority' has money and lots of it. Hamas may not have money, but the 'Palestinian Authority' does.
Third, Israeli unilateralism, for all its shortfalls, is at present the only realistic way forward. Ensuring that it succeeds means providing Olmert with financial and diplomatic support for his planned withdrawal. But it also means setting forth unambiguous red lines to preserve the only option for resolving the conflict: a negotiated two-state solution. The United States should not recognize unilaterally declared permanent borders nor acquiesce in any action in Jerusalem that prejudges the city's future. In fact, at the appropriate time, it should lay out a clear vision of a final settlement.
In other words, Malley and Miller would deny Israel any gain from Olmert's convergence surrender plan. Ehud, are you listening?
