".... For almost a year, the administration of President Barack Obama believed it needed to gain the confidence of Israelis if it was to have any success in diplomacy, but has little to show for its efforts:
- Many in the administration saw Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's March speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington as unnecessarily vituperative.
- Vice President Joseph Biden's March visit to Israel was intended in part to lay the groundwork for a subsequent Obama visit, but instead it collapsed in acrimony over settlements in Jerusalem.
- Even nuclear non-proliferation has become an area of contention, as Netanyahu backed out of Obama's non-proliferation summit in April; Many Israelis blame Washington for not preventing the non-proliferation review conference's final document last week from 'singling out' Israel.
- Last week's Gaza incident ........
..... despite periodic reassurances and promises of imminent announcements, it is hard to discern much forward momentum.
Palestinian problems. The public focus on the Israeli side obscures dysfunction on the Palestinian side:
- Abbas and Gaza. It is not Israel, but Abbas, who faces an existential threat from Hamas. Lifting the blockade of Gaza would have far more profound implications for Abbas than for the Israelis -- yet Abbas has used the flotilla incident to criticise the Israelis.
- Bibi-Abbas dynamic. ......Netanyahu is being criticised for being too obstreperous, whereas he should be criticised for doing too little to help empower Abbas. Meanwhile, Abbas does far too little to empower himself.
Causes of stalemate....
For many Israelis, there is too little urgency. According to an Israeli Foreign Ministry website, there were six Israeli victims of Palestinian attacks in all of 2009, and four in 2010 -- two of whom were soldiers killed in an exchange of fire with guerrillas placing explosives along a security fence. On the Palestinian side, there is a fear that at a time of political division and weakness, any deal struck would deal a mortal blow to hopes of independence rather than move them along. Abbas fears Hamas more than the Israelis, hamstringing efforts at Palestinian reconciliation; meanwhile, Hamas sees time on its side, as it portrays mere survival as a form of victory.
Washington's dilemmas. US policy remains stuck, with an instinct to change the status quo but an uncertainty over how to do it:
1. Gaza problem. Washington's efforts to loosen the Israeli blockade of Gaza will have some results -- and do something to mend the deep gash in US-Turkish ties -- but it is unlikely that any such move would build US credibility in Israel, or gain any significant credit from the Palestinian side.
2. Systemic dysfunction. The systematic dysfunction in the US national security apparatus, which is not limited to this issue, means that there is no single address for US decision-making on the Arab-Israeli issue. There are ongoing efforts among all sides to play one administration advocate or agency off another, and no consistent effort to spell out a strategy. To an extent, this is the case with all of the special envoys Obama has appointed. There are no clear rifts in the administration on Arab-Israeli issues, with the State Department lining up one way and the White House in another way. Rather, there are squabbling fiefdoms, which all claim to speak in the name of the president.
3. Israel and US security. Meanwhile, Washington is easing into its most outspoken debate in decades on Israel's role in US strategic thinking. The debate was spurred by March reports that the head of US Central Command, General David Petraeus (whose territory stretches from Egypt to Afghanistan, but does not include Israel) was discussing the indirect costs of US support for Israel on operations throughout his area of responsibility.
Subsequently, a number of public debates in Washington have questioned whether the relationship needs to change:
- One recent high profile article argued that when young US Jews are forced to choose between the liberalism of their daily lives and the muscular Zionism of the Israeli government, they shy away from the latter.
- Another asked, quite bluntly, whether Israel was becoming a strategic liability.
- Echoing the shift, the head of Israel's foreign intelligence service, Meir Dagan, told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee last week that, "bit by bit, Israel is becoming less of a strategic asset for America."
Some of the current tension is the predictable consequence of a Likud prime minister at odds with a Democratic party president, but it also seems to be the consequence of an Israeli public that feels increasingly isolated in the world and an Israeli leadership that has been less successful than its predecessors in carving out a key role for itself in US strategy.
Groping towards progress? Without a visible impetus from the region, there are again suggestions that the United States is considering floating the outlines for a peace deal in the coming months. Such rumours have cropped up sporadically for the last year, with little result. Crucially, it may make no sense to float such an outline unless there is some prospect for immediate follow up -- a prospect that does not currently exist.
In the near term, the White House is likely to be opportunistic rather than strategic until after November's midterm elections. Democratic party unease about elections is likely to keep congressional Democrats quiet about their displeasure with the Netanyahu government for the time being. Democrats' generally poor electoral prospects combine with a still-limping economy, an unfolding environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and a host of other immediate issues. In light of such electoral pressure, there is little discretionary bandwidth for a serious planning process on the Arab-Israeli front, or a willingness to invest political capital in an exercise that will not yield immediate fruit...." |
Uprooted Palestinian
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