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Clashing Visions and Competing Interests: American, Israeli and Arab Approaches to Peace with Mr. Amjad Atallah, Mr. Daniel Levy and Dr. Michael C. Hudson
Friday, July 24, 2009
Edited Transcript of Remarks by Mr.
Amjad Atallah, Mr. Daniel Levy and Dr. Michael
C. Hudson
Transcript No. 317 (24 July 2009)
Transcript No. 317 (24 July 2009)
Since the election of American
President Barack Obama and the electoral
victory of a right-winged coalition government
in Israel led by Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu, the opportunities for peace in the
Middle East has taken a new turn. Three
panelists explored the clashing visions of the
actors in the Arab-Israeli conflict and their
competing interests’ impact on the chances for
an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and
the resolution of a lasting
peace.
To view the video of this briefing online go to
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/display/ContentDetails/i/6575/pid/3584
The Palestine Center
Washington, D.C.
16 July 2009
Mr. Amjad Atallah:
Thank you, Daniel, and thank you, Samar. Samar Assad has been running the Palestine Center for awhile now and is actually, I think, one of the reasons it's been such a success and one of the reasons that it's been such an excellent forum for conventional and non-conventional perspectives and views on this conflict. I always forget to do it at the end, so I will do it at the beginning. I think everyone should give her a round of applause because she has done a remarkable job.
I am going to discuss very briefly the American approach right now to negotiations with the Israelis and the Arabs. I am going to explain it from an analytical perspective as opposed to endorsing it. But I want to present what the positives and negatives, I think from my opinion, are in the current approach. And I think as we’ll hear from the other panelists, we'll understand a little bit more why it might have a chance for success and what some of the stumbling blocks might be.
The good news is for the first time the United States has decided not just at the beginning of the administration that it's going to resolve this conflict because I do believe [former U.S. President] George [W.] Bush believed that he was going to resolve this conflict at certain points in his presidency and certainly [former U.S. President] Bill Clinton believed in the last year of his presidency that he was going to resolve it.
The different element here is that the American president believes that this conflict needs to be resolved for American national interests. And he's put it forward and right up in the front because he believes it's absolutely imperative to the war efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the war efforts in Iraq and the United States' global position against groups like al-Qaeda that the Arab-Israel conflict be removed. Not only removed and managed but that actually it be ended and resolved in a transformative way. In a transformative way that would actually help improve the American geostrategic positioning as well as gain the empathy of people in the region. Now, that's unique because I don't believe that's why President Clinton tried to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict and I don't believe that's why George Bush tried to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The imperative of having it from an American national security perspective; the imperative of having [U.S.] General [David] Petraeus say repeatedly that the creation of an Arab-Israeli comprehensive peace agreement is in fact the single thing that will help him in his war efforts the most is in fact very, very important because it also means the military establishment, the Pentagon, the people that are on the front lines fighting our battles in Afghanistan and Pakistan actually want this conflict resolved as well. Now, this happens finally to jibe with international opinion. Finally, the U.S. position on this is exactly where European positioning has been for a very long time or at least many European countries' positioning has been for a very long time.
The odd thing is, the ironic thing is that many of the European governments have been so used to toeing an American government line they didn’t agree with that they're having trouble rapidly shifting into adopting policies that reflect the new positions that the United States has put forward right now. They'll get there eventually. But it's ironic that a lot of the criticisms that European diplomats have given me and Daniel and others privately, now that they have a president who agrees with those criticisms, they are actually finding it difficult to change the mechanisms in their own government, in their own bureaucracies to change those polices rapidly.
So, the good news is, in Arabic we would say fi neyeh, there's intent. So, that's really very, very important. There is a very positive intent to end the conflict comprehensively. Now, what does that mean for the United States government? It means that it wants to resolve this by having a peace agreement between Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine and one that all Arab governments sign on to and preferably one that all countries of the Organization of Islamic Conference ultimately sign on to, and that includes Iran.
Now, that sounds like a tall order, but I believe that it is doable. I agree with the President's opinion that this is doable and that it's doable quickly. As a matter of fact, it's one of those things where if it is doable, it's only doable quickly. It's not doable over a long period of time. There have been far too many times where there have been starts and stops to the negotiations that have led to a level of cynicism that's unparalleled among the players in the region. If the United States fails to capitalize on the sense of optimism and hope that exists at this moment, immediately the players will fall back into a default mode, which will make it much, much more difficult to resolve this and will complicate U.S. national security interests around the region.
So, what is the tactical policy right now that the U.S. is pursuing in order to get to this goal? Well, one is to launch quickly talks between Israel and Syria and the Palestinians in order to resolve the issue as well as to bring in the Arab countries as a whole in an almost Madrid-like format where there are going to be constant negotiations taking place with the United States at the table. However, the United States did buy into a policy from previous administrations. The belief was that in order to get these negotiations off to a positive start, in a strong start, there needed to be confidence-building measures effectively on both sides. There needed to be steps taken that would be conducive to ending the conflict.
On the Israeli side, of course inevitably, a settlement freeze is what the United States chose because it was the single most prejudicial element of the occupation. It was the single element of the occupation that showed ongoing commitment by Israel not to have a two-state solution. There was nothing more important than getting a settlement freeze. However, the second part of that is the Arab states, which had promised normalization with Israel as a consequence to a peace agreement, should actually be asked to begin normalization processes now before the peace agreement is concluded. And we'll discuss a bit later where we are in that process. But the goal was mutual--to get the Israelis to commit to the freeze and to get the Arabs to agree to normalizing a host of steps.
I heard a report today, but I don’t know if it's confirmed, that Jordan has waived visa requirements now for Israeli citizens, which means I will not go to Jordan as an American citizen unless I can get a visa from here because I don't want less privileges than an Israeli citizen flying into Jordan.
A number of Arab states have ponied up apparently to the United States' commitments to provide a number of normalization steps for the Israelis if the Israelis will come up with the settlement freeze. Now, of course, the Israelis have not yet agreed to any manner of settlement freeze. The United States' position then is once the negotiations take place, they will quickly culminate at the point where probably they left off earlier. That at one way or another, since the Palestinians and Israelis have negotiated with each other ad nauseum, they'll actually end up very quickly where they were in prior years, and then the United States can play a role and help them jump over the hurdles and get to a final agreement. And this can all happen relatively quickly. When you ask people how long this process will take and when you say a year, they'd say, "Really? You think it's going to take that long?"
I think there is a recognition that the Israelis and Palestinians understand all the issues between them. The Syrians and the Israelis understand all the issues between them. So, it's a question of political will and not a question of having to work out the details because so much work has already been done on that.
There are some weaknesses in the approach that haven't yet been developed. That doesn't mean that it's going to fail, that doesn't mean that they can't be overcome. But it does mean that they need to be addressed in some way or another. One is the fact that the Israelis may not agree to a settlement freeze. If the Israelis don't agree to a settlement freeze and the Arabs have said they won't negotiate or give normalization steps to Israel in exchange except for a settlement freeze, how do you actually launch negotiations with all the parties instead of launching it with the positive feeling and momentum? You'd actually launch it with acrimony and mutual recriminations against each other.
I think the administration knows this well enough that Israel is saying, "Well, we'll have the settlement freeze, but we'll continue finishing 2,500 homes and we'll continue building in East Jerusalem, of course, because East Jerusalem is off the table and we will continue building in the Jordan Valley and we will continue building in Ariel, etc." All of the exceptions don't pass the laugh test yet. So, the United States hasn't yet reached a point in the negotiations with the Israelis, and probably we shouldn't have fallen into the trap of entering into the negotiations, in my opinion, with the Israelis on this issue simply because this is a no win issue. We can't negotiate where the Israelis can build because that then would be presumptive of the final status; it would be presumptive of the border. We can stick to the principle and we can say that Israel should have a settlement freeze, but we do need to get into negotiations and we do need negotiations on the final status and the borders. So, that's one problem.
The other problem is the potential to weaken the Arab Peace Initiative. The idea of normalization between the Arab states and Israel is a very worthy goal. When [late Egyptian President Anwar] Sadat came to Israel and spoke in the Knesset, he came as the leader of an Arab country that had a military deterrent to Israel. He came as somebody who had something to threaten Israel with and came as somebody who had something to offer Israel. He was offering peace and removing the military deterrent but reminding them, he reminded them in the speech that he had that military deterrent. He said, "Egypt does not come here on its knees. We don't come to beg for peace. We come here as your adversary telling you we want peace." And that had a very major impact on the Israeli psyche; it had a really major impact on Israeli public opinion. It wants some similar impact on the Israeli public that will actually incline them to feel that they should overcome the lethargy and inertia of not making peace in order to make the compromises they need to in order to have that peace.
The problem is trade offices and El Al overflights and things of that nature may not have that impact on the Israeli public. The Arabs may do these things and the Israelis may look at it and say, "Well if that’s what normalization is, ok. But is it something we should really go through? All the trauma of giving up the West Bank or giving up Judea and Samaria and moving all these people out and having all this hassle and then the risks about the Golan Heights and everything and all of that for trade offices? We don’t need the trade offices. I wasn't planning to fly to Riyadh anyway. "
So, what might happen is it may end up trivializing the Arab Peace Initiative. As the days go by, it's one of the things we will have to find a way around to make sure that the promise of peace is still as grandiose as it should be. It's not some piddling technical matter between Israel. It's not a question of visas. It's a question of relationships. It's a question of reconciliation. It's a question of how we are ultimately going to have an Israel that's accepted into the Arab world; not tolerated but accepted in the Arab world.
There are two other points, and I will stop there, which are the Achilles heels of everything the United States is trying to do right now, and one is Gaza. We don't have a policy on Gaza. So, officially, the U.S. policy is that Israel should open up to humanitarian goods and should open up the borders into Gaza. Some of the Fateh leadership and some of the PLO [Palestine Liberation organization] leadership are opposed to opening the borders with Gaza. [Palestinian Prime Minister] Salam Fayyad and many of his cabinet are adamantly for opening the border because they believe that will strengthen them and weaken Hamas and promote the position they are trying to take. Other members of Fateh think that will only strengthen Hamas and weaken them, and so they are against it. And the Israelis, of course, recognize this is an unsustainable issue, but at the same time, it's easy to keep the status quo. Why change it? And so, Gaza ultimately will explode because it's under tremendous duress. There's 1.5 million people; 750,000 of them are under the age of fifteen. When we were there just recently, the UN was telling us that half of the high school age children tested aren't even functionally literate in Arabic. This is a complete recipe for disaster. Something's got to be done about Gaza.
The other one, of course, is Palestinian governance. The issue of divided Palestinian government may be problematic enough. But, it's not Fateh versus Hamas really. Fateh itself is in a state of implosion. Fateh itself is in a state of civil war. As Fateh engages itself in a suicidal melee and Hamas tries to consolidate itself inside Gaza, it begs the question even if every other element of the policy works, what do we do if we have a completely disempowered Palestinian leadership sitting at the negotiating table that is terrified of making any compromises because it knows that its public doesn't stand behind it? There's got to be a way of working around that, and so I think those are the missing elements so far in what we are doing. And this is a work in progress. So personally, I am optimistic that in fact the president will accomplish his goals. I don't necessarily believe the current tactics are the ones that are going to get us there, but I believe he's actually got the intent to get to those goals. And if the tactics don't work, the tactics will be changed. And if the tactics work, then I'm wrong and that's great. Then, everything's on track. So, I will leave it there, and we can have a discussion afterwards about other problems that people may have identified.
Thank you.
Mr. Daniel Levy:
I'd like to thank the Palestine Center for hosting me here and all of you joining us this lunch time and Samar. Thank you, Daniel, for introducing us. I obviously get to share panels with Amjad not infrequently, but it keeps us on our toes because it makes us think about things we haven't said before to at least keep each other fresh. I've written down “laugh test” because I haven't heard you use that one before, but I like it a lot. I don't know if I have anything new, so I apologize in advance.
I want to preface what I am going to say with three comments. First of all, if I can be off-record and if that can be respected just not attributed, I'd be very happy about that because I'd like to be very open with you during this session.
The remainder of the speaker's remarks were not transcribed.
Dr. Michael C. Hudson:
Well, thank you very much to the interns here at the Center and to Samar Assad for inviting me here. But I don't thank you for the topic you assigned me, which is not really much fun to talk about, which is the role of the Arabs and approach of the Arabs at this particular juncture. My hosts did not specify what they meant by Arabs, but I will assume they meant Arab governments and probably Arab civil society and Arab public opinion and so forth. And I wish I had something dramatic or even optimist to say, but I really don't. Some of you attended, including my two colleagues on the panel who participated in, a symposium we did on Palestine last April or March at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown [University]. People remarked afterwards that it was a great meeting, but they came away thoroughly depressed. I don't know if there is much that has happened since then to relieve the depression in spite of the apparently inspiring [U.S. President Barack] Obama speech in Cairo last June.
But talking about the approaches of the Arabs, whether they have clashing visions or competing interests or what, will to the cynical raise a counter-question which is who cares? What difference does it really make? Because when one looks around the region one does not see these governments and these states weighing in in any particularly effective way, in my opinion. Arab governments, if you look from one to another, I think, have clashing visions about what they might prefer to see as the Palestinian state or the Palestinian-Israeli solution. Most of them prefer a two-state solution of some kind but perhaps not all.
Certainly, when you look at Arab civil society or Arab public opinion and especially, I think, these days Palestinian public opinion, you see a lot of clashing visions about what the future ought to be like. Is a two-state solution in fact really doable any longer? And if it is under the present conditions, given it as they see facts on the ground, who would want it? There are a lot of people, of course, who have worked hard to get this far. And, of course, sitting here in Washington, it's a bit uncomfortable to realize that after many, many years of trying to persuade an American government that a two-state solution is really doable, that the Palestinians ought to have a state called Palestine, to find that so many people including many Palestinians--well under these circumstances, what does the other state look like? And frankly, to many, it doesn’t look like very much.
Moreover, I think that there are competing interests among the Arabs, especially I think among most of the Arab governments. The competing interests are an interest in promoting the Palestinian cause on one hand and thus assuaging or improving regime legitimacy vis-a-vis domestic public opinion. But on the other hand, there are larger strategic interests, and the largest of those involves the connection with the United States. Bilateral relations between most Arab countries, most Arab governments and the United States are extremely important. The problem is how do you reconcile your interest in some kind of, I won’t say ideal, maybe a minimally satisfactory solution to the Palestinian question with your need, on the part of certain particular Arab governments, to have a fruitful and continuing beneficial relation with the United States?
The United States actually, of course, provides a great deal of security assistance to some Arab governments that are in a region that is, as we all know, fraught with dangers and turmoil.
One might add in reference to the question of time horizons. Maybe the Israelis' is very short and maybe the Americans' is a bit longer. But I think on the part of Arab regimes they don't even have a time horizon. They can wait forever and they don't have to wait for an election. They don't have to plan for next year's agenda. They can just kind of go along with things and hope that matters remain more or less under control.
Now, in fact, we have to speak of a changing regional context and a changing global context which to the Arabs in a way and Arab governments in particular makes their part of the world a bit more dangerous and problematical. We have, of course, as has been mentioned, a region now in which radical non-state actors play a disproportionate role, positive or negative. I am not just talking about al-Qaeda but I could also talk about Al Jazeera as in a way stirring the pot and causing difficulties for regimes that have trouble logically balancing their competing interests with respects to this issue. We have, of course, the American interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have what many observers see as a kind of generic disconnect between regimes and their populations across many countries accounting, perhaps, for the police state nature of so many Arab regimes. All of those things one might suppose would have generated more concern and more initiative and less lethargy on the part of Arab leaders to do something about this issue because if there is one thing I suppose that most of them really do agree on is that the unsolved Palestinian issue is a drain on their legitimacy and in some remove a threat to their security. Maybe that, in fact, has increased over time.
That may account in part for the one major important Arab contribution lately to this issue, which is the Arab Peace Initiative first proposed at an Arab summit meeting in 2002. It is set mainly on the initiative of Saudi Arabia reiterated in another Arab summit in 2007 and reiterated again just last March at another Arab summit. So in a sense, if you just look at the document, you would think the Arab states have stepped up to the plate and are doing their part. They’ve got a plan that is firmly rooted in UN Resolution 242 calling for full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194--that has to do with Right of Return--and the acceptance of a sovereign, independent Palestinian state. In return, the Arab states consider the conflict ended and they recognize Israel formally and completely without reservation, providing for security of all the states of the region, establishing normal relations, etc. That, of course, is the core of it. And if you could measure performance, just in terms of declarations and diplomatic initiatives, you might say, "Well, that's not so bad."
The Arab states did the right thing. But, is that really all we can say? And if it is, why has nothing much happened? That suggests to me that the Arab states and the Arab states' system has been largely paralyzed and dysfunctional but mainly not all that supremely energetic and interested in trying to turn that diplomatic initiative into something that people will pay serious attention to. President Obama, in his speech in Cairo June 4, actually referred to the Arab Peace Initiative. He said 'terrific, that's a good first step but the Arabs need to do more.' It has been reported that prior to that, when President Obama had gone to Saudi Arabia, he came away somewhat disappointed because the king of Saudi Arabia didn’t sort of clearly step up and say we are ready to do more and this is what we are ready to do.
So, what was being requested or demanded of the Arabs, having taken this initiative, was 'well that's good but keep on giving. Do more.' Well, do what? Well, we have already heard about some of the things that might be done. And there is discussion lately that American diplomats and others have received inklings from some Arab governments and leaders that they are ready to do something. If it's a question of lifting visa restrictions for Israelis; if it's a question of El Al overflights, those are nice--what diplomats would call confidence building measures coming from one side. Although it's not clear what is coming, if anything, from the other side. But, even more than that, one reads that Arab leaders have spoken privately of the possibility or the readiness even of major concessions or reinterpretations of the Arab peace plan on two of the most contentious final status issues that have concerned everybody, one of those being the question of refugees and the Right of Return [and] the other one being the question of Jerusalem. So, hints are being dropped or at least reports are being made of hints being dropped that Arab governments are ready to sweeten the pot. That's clearly what Obama explicitly asked for in Cairo. So, all they have to do is more. And we will see if some interpretation of a settlement freeze can be implemented. And who knows, maybe something after that.
I was lately in Lebanon as an observer with the Carter Center for the Lebanese elections. And I don’t think I am speaking out of turn to say that in a meeting with [former U.S.] President [Jimmy] Carter, which was not about Lebanon at all but was about the Palestine-Israel conflict, somebody remarked because they had just heard Obama's speech that this sounds really good. That the United States sounds, even the [U.S.] Secretary of State [Hillary Clinton] sounded, quite categorical about insisting upon a settlement freeze. The former president piped right up and said, "Well yeah, but that's not the point. The point is dismantling settlements." This is coming from the former president of the United States. And I think the remark, which I still find rather amazing, highlights the kind of nit-picking, time consuming warp that we have gotten ourselves into in trying to spending a lot of time and energy negotiating something that is actually, in the larger scheme of things, rather small. But that is where we are.
Now, let me say a word about Obama's speech and the reaction to it. And I think that this is pretty well known. What we call the moderate Arab governments--Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Palestine Authority and some others in the Gulf--were quite pleased with it. The official media and the official press were praising the very nice things that President Obama said. And everybody realizes that this speech, whatever the content actually may have been, as an event, was if not a game changer at least it certainly seemed to lift the atmosphere. And I believe public opinion polls taken shortly after the speech indicated a very significant rise in the approval rating of Arab public opinion and Muslim public opinion for the president and even for the United States. Although, overall, the United States still remains in single digits in terms of its popularity throughout the region.
Now, the reaction among what we call here rejectionist elements or extreme elements, of course, was quite negative. Hamas was negative, although not perhaps as negative as al-Qaeda or Iran or Hizballah. So, it was clear not only with the Cairo speech but indeed leading up to the Cairo speech that something was different with the American approach. Would this substantially change the way Arab civil society and public opinion look at the prospects for Palestinian-Israeli peace? I don’t know the answer to that, but my sense is now that many weeks after the Obama speech has somewhat faded, we have not seen any substantive breakthroughs since then. And my sense is, at least among the kinds of professors, students and intellectuals we talk to, is that skepticism is growing. The idea that the United States really was making a substantial shift is taken now with more grains of salt than it had been previously.
My sense is that as time goes on, and unless dramatic things happen on the ground, the feeling will grow that this was just another speech and President Obama, whether he is sincere and determined himself as an individual about changing things as Mr. Atallah has suggested, they will think that even if that's the case, maybe he just can't do it. And, after all, Obama has other things on his mind besides Israel and Palestine.
That said, it is clear that there has been a certain shift lately. And one of the most interesting examples of that--there are two really that are interesting. One is on the Syrian front. We now find that there is a growing diplomatic connectivity between Washington and Damascus which will be consecrated, I believe, quite shortly with the appointment of an American ambassador back to Damascus after a long absence. Certainly, there have been relatively calm and kind words spoken by the Syrian government about the Obama administration and hopes, I think, rose in Damascus that the United States is ready to be at least more helpful on the Syrian-Israeli front than was true in the past.
The other kind of example of softening on the Arab side was with Hamas itself. Hamas, through its leader Khaled Meshaal, in a speech at the end of last month said what other people had just been whispering that Hamas really is interested in, if not full acceptance of American and Israeli demands, at least acceptance of some of them. And so, that is an interesting development.
But finally, I think one has to say in trying to answer the question that I posed at the beginning, why haven't the Arabs played a more central, forceful role in this? I think the answer is in a remark that actually Amjad made early on. It has to do with carrots and sticks. If Sadat and Egypt could go into negotiation with a military capability and with the ability to exert coercion or the threat of coercion, that often focuses peoples' minds and moves diplomatic processes forward.
Unfortunately, at this juncture, the Arab states seem more committed to carrots and not really very much committed to sticks. It just doesn't seem proper. But in the world of international relations, sometimes sticks are important even if they're not used. In balance, we have to say that the Arab governments, while they have talked a good game, they have not really played it well so far.
Thank you.
Amjad Atallah is co-director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation. Daniel Levy is senior fellow and co-director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation. Dr. Michael C. Hudson is both director of the Contemporary Center for Arab Studies (CCAS) and the Seif Ghobash Professor of Arab Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
This transcript may be used without permission but with proper attribution to The Palestine Center. The speakers' views do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jerusalem Fund.
To view the video of this briefing online go to
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/display/ContentDetails/i/6575/pid/3584
The Palestine Center
Washington, D.C.
16 July 2009
Mr. Amjad Atallah:
Thank you, Daniel, and thank you, Samar. Samar Assad has been running the Palestine Center for awhile now and is actually, I think, one of the reasons it's been such a success and one of the reasons that it's been such an excellent forum for conventional and non-conventional perspectives and views on this conflict. I always forget to do it at the end, so I will do it at the beginning. I think everyone should give her a round of applause because she has done a remarkable job.
I am going to discuss very briefly the American approach right now to negotiations with the Israelis and the Arabs. I am going to explain it from an analytical perspective as opposed to endorsing it. But I want to present what the positives and negatives, I think from my opinion, are in the current approach. And I think as we’ll hear from the other panelists, we'll understand a little bit more why it might have a chance for success and what some of the stumbling blocks might be.
The good news is for the first time the United States has decided not just at the beginning of the administration that it's going to resolve this conflict because I do believe [former U.S. President] George [W.] Bush believed that he was going to resolve this conflict at certain points in his presidency and certainly [former U.S. President] Bill Clinton believed in the last year of his presidency that he was going to resolve it.
The different element here is that the American president believes that this conflict needs to be resolved for American national interests. And he's put it forward and right up in the front because he believes it's absolutely imperative to the war efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the war efforts in Iraq and the United States' global position against groups like al-Qaeda that the Arab-Israel conflict be removed. Not only removed and managed but that actually it be ended and resolved in a transformative way. In a transformative way that would actually help improve the American geostrategic positioning as well as gain the empathy of people in the region. Now, that's unique because I don't believe that's why President Clinton tried to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict and I don't believe that's why George Bush tried to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The imperative of having it from an American national security perspective; the imperative of having [U.S.] General [David] Petraeus say repeatedly that the creation of an Arab-Israeli comprehensive peace agreement is in fact the single thing that will help him in his war efforts the most is in fact very, very important because it also means the military establishment, the Pentagon, the people that are on the front lines fighting our battles in Afghanistan and Pakistan actually want this conflict resolved as well. Now, this happens finally to jibe with international opinion. Finally, the U.S. position on this is exactly where European positioning has been for a very long time or at least many European countries' positioning has been for a very long time.
The odd thing is, the ironic thing is that many of the European governments have been so used to toeing an American government line they didn’t agree with that they're having trouble rapidly shifting into adopting policies that reflect the new positions that the United States has put forward right now. They'll get there eventually. But it's ironic that a lot of the criticisms that European diplomats have given me and Daniel and others privately, now that they have a president who agrees with those criticisms, they are actually finding it difficult to change the mechanisms in their own government, in their own bureaucracies to change those polices rapidly.
So, the good news is, in Arabic we would say fi neyeh, there's intent. So, that's really very, very important. There is a very positive intent to end the conflict comprehensively. Now, what does that mean for the United States government? It means that it wants to resolve this by having a peace agreement between Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine and one that all Arab governments sign on to and preferably one that all countries of the Organization of Islamic Conference ultimately sign on to, and that includes Iran.
Now, that sounds like a tall order, but I believe that it is doable. I agree with the President's opinion that this is doable and that it's doable quickly. As a matter of fact, it's one of those things where if it is doable, it's only doable quickly. It's not doable over a long period of time. There have been far too many times where there have been starts and stops to the negotiations that have led to a level of cynicism that's unparalleled among the players in the region. If the United States fails to capitalize on the sense of optimism and hope that exists at this moment, immediately the players will fall back into a default mode, which will make it much, much more difficult to resolve this and will complicate U.S. national security interests around the region.
So, what is the tactical policy right now that the U.S. is pursuing in order to get to this goal? Well, one is to launch quickly talks between Israel and Syria and the Palestinians in order to resolve the issue as well as to bring in the Arab countries as a whole in an almost Madrid-like format where there are going to be constant negotiations taking place with the United States at the table. However, the United States did buy into a policy from previous administrations. The belief was that in order to get these negotiations off to a positive start, in a strong start, there needed to be confidence-building measures effectively on both sides. There needed to be steps taken that would be conducive to ending the conflict.
On the Israeli side, of course inevitably, a settlement freeze is what the United States chose because it was the single most prejudicial element of the occupation. It was the single element of the occupation that showed ongoing commitment by Israel not to have a two-state solution. There was nothing more important than getting a settlement freeze. However, the second part of that is the Arab states, which had promised normalization with Israel as a consequence to a peace agreement, should actually be asked to begin normalization processes now before the peace agreement is concluded. And we'll discuss a bit later where we are in that process. But the goal was mutual--to get the Israelis to commit to the freeze and to get the Arabs to agree to normalizing a host of steps.
I heard a report today, but I don’t know if it's confirmed, that Jordan has waived visa requirements now for Israeli citizens, which means I will not go to Jordan as an American citizen unless I can get a visa from here because I don't want less privileges than an Israeli citizen flying into Jordan.
A number of Arab states have ponied up apparently to the United States' commitments to provide a number of normalization steps for the Israelis if the Israelis will come up with the settlement freeze. Now, of course, the Israelis have not yet agreed to any manner of settlement freeze. The United States' position then is once the negotiations take place, they will quickly culminate at the point where probably they left off earlier. That at one way or another, since the Palestinians and Israelis have negotiated with each other ad nauseum, they'll actually end up very quickly where they were in prior years, and then the United States can play a role and help them jump over the hurdles and get to a final agreement. And this can all happen relatively quickly. When you ask people how long this process will take and when you say a year, they'd say, "Really? You think it's going to take that long?"
I think there is a recognition that the Israelis and Palestinians understand all the issues between them. The Syrians and the Israelis understand all the issues between them. So, it's a question of political will and not a question of having to work out the details because so much work has already been done on that.
There are some weaknesses in the approach that haven't yet been developed. That doesn't mean that it's going to fail, that doesn't mean that they can't be overcome. But it does mean that they need to be addressed in some way or another. One is the fact that the Israelis may not agree to a settlement freeze. If the Israelis don't agree to a settlement freeze and the Arabs have said they won't negotiate or give normalization steps to Israel in exchange except for a settlement freeze, how do you actually launch negotiations with all the parties instead of launching it with the positive feeling and momentum? You'd actually launch it with acrimony and mutual recriminations against each other.
I think the administration knows this well enough that Israel is saying, "Well, we'll have the settlement freeze, but we'll continue finishing 2,500 homes and we'll continue building in East Jerusalem, of course, because East Jerusalem is off the table and we will continue building in the Jordan Valley and we will continue building in Ariel, etc." All of the exceptions don't pass the laugh test yet. So, the United States hasn't yet reached a point in the negotiations with the Israelis, and probably we shouldn't have fallen into the trap of entering into the negotiations, in my opinion, with the Israelis on this issue simply because this is a no win issue. We can't negotiate where the Israelis can build because that then would be presumptive of the final status; it would be presumptive of the border. We can stick to the principle and we can say that Israel should have a settlement freeze, but we do need to get into negotiations and we do need negotiations on the final status and the borders. So, that's one problem.
The other problem is the potential to weaken the Arab Peace Initiative. The idea of normalization between the Arab states and Israel is a very worthy goal. When [late Egyptian President Anwar] Sadat came to Israel and spoke in the Knesset, he came as the leader of an Arab country that had a military deterrent to Israel. He came as somebody who had something to threaten Israel with and came as somebody who had something to offer Israel. He was offering peace and removing the military deterrent but reminding them, he reminded them in the speech that he had that military deterrent. He said, "Egypt does not come here on its knees. We don't come to beg for peace. We come here as your adversary telling you we want peace." And that had a very major impact on the Israeli psyche; it had a really major impact on Israeli public opinion. It wants some similar impact on the Israeli public that will actually incline them to feel that they should overcome the lethargy and inertia of not making peace in order to make the compromises they need to in order to have that peace.
The problem is trade offices and El Al overflights and things of that nature may not have that impact on the Israeli public. The Arabs may do these things and the Israelis may look at it and say, "Well if that’s what normalization is, ok. But is it something we should really go through? All the trauma of giving up the West Bank or giving up Judea and Samaria and moving all these people out and having all this hassle and then the risks about the Golan Heights and everything and all of that for trade offices? We don’t need the trade offices. I wasn't planning to fly to Riyadh anyway. "
So, what might happen is it may end up trivializing the Arab Peace Initiative. As the days go by, it's one of the things we will have to find a way around to make sure that the promise of peace is still as grandiose as it should be. It's not some piddling technical matter between Israel. It's not a question of visas. It's a question of relationships. It's a question of reconciliation. It's a question of how we are ultimately going to have an Israel that's accepted into the Arab world; not tolerated but accepted in the Arab world.
There are two other points, and I will stop there, which are the Achilles heels of everything the United States is trying to do right now, and one is Gaza. We don't have a policy on Gaza. So, officially, the U.S. policy is that Israel should open up to humanitarian goods and should open up the borders into Gaza. Some of the Fateh leadership and some of the PLO [Palestine Liberation organization] leadership are opposed to opening the borders with Gaza. [Palestinian Prime Minister] Salam Fayyad and many of his cabinet are adamantly for opening the border because they believe that will strengthen them and weaken Hamas and promote the position they are trying to take. Other members of Fateh think that will only strengthen Hamas and weaken them, and so they are against it. And the Israelis, of course, recognize this is an unsustainable issue, but at the same time, it's easy to keep the status quo. Why change it? And so, Gaza ultimately will explode because it's under tremendous duress. There's 1.5 million people; 750,000 of them are under the age of fifteen. When we were there just recently, the UN was telling us that half of the high school age children tested aren't even functionally literate in Arabic. This is a complete recipe for disaster. Something's got to be done about Gaza.
The other one, of course, is Palestinian governance. The issue of divided Palestinian government may be problematic enough. But, it's not Fateh versus Hamas really. Fateh itself is in a state of implosion. Fateh itself is in a state of civil war. As Fateh engages itself in a suicidal melee and Hamas tries to consolidate itself inside Gaza, it begs the question even if every other element of the policy works, what do we do if we have a completely disempowered Palestinian leadership sitting at the negotiating table that is terrified of making any compromises because it knows that its public doesn't stand behind it? There's got to be a way of working around that, and so I think those are the missing elements so far in what we are doing. And this is a work in progress. So personally, I am optimistic that in fact the president will accomplish his goals. I don't necessarily believe the current tactics are the ones that are going to get us there, but I believe he's actually got the intent to get to those goals. And if the tactics don't work, the tactics will be changed. And if the tactics work, then I'm wrong and that's great. Then, everything's on track. So, I will leave it there, and we can have a discussion afterwards about other problems that people may have identified.
Thank you.
Mr. Daniel Levy:
I'd like to thank the Palestine Center for hosting me here and all of you joining us this lunch time and Samar. Thank you, Daniel, for introducing us. I obviously get to share panels with Amjad not infrequently, but it keeps us on our toes because it makes us think about things we haven't said before to at least keep each other fresh. I've written down “laugh test” because I haven't heard you use that one before, but I like it a lot. I don't know if I have anything new, so I apologize in advance.
I want to preface what I am going to say with three comments. First of all, if I can be off-record and if that can be respected just not attributed, I'd be very happy about that because I'd like to be very open with you during this session.
The remainder of the speaker's remarks were not transcribed.
Dr. Michael C. Hudson:
Well, thank you very much to the interns here at the Center and to Samar Assad for inviting me here. But I don't thank you for the topic you assigned me, which is not really much fun to talk about, which is the role of the Arabs and approach of the Arabs at this particular juncture. My hosts did not specify what they meant by Arabs, but I will assume they meant Arab governments and probably Arab civil society and Arab public opinion and so forth. And I wish I had something dramatic or even optimist to say, but I really don't. Some of you attended, including my two colleagues on the panel who participated in, a symposium we did on Palestine last April or March at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown [University]. People remarked afterwards that it was a great meeting, but they came away thoroughly depressed. I don't know if there is much that has happened since then to relieve the depression in spite of the apparently inspiring [U.S. President Barack] Obama speech in Cairo last June.
But talking about the approaches of the Arabs, whether they have clashing visions or competing interests or what, will to the cynical raise a counter-question which is who cares? What difference does it really make? Because when one looks around the region one does not see these governments and these states weighing in in any particularly effective way, in my opinion. Arab governments, if you look from one to another, I think, have clashing visions about what they might prefer to see as the Palestinian state or the Palestinian-Israeli solution. Most of them prefer a two-state solution of some kind but perhaps not all.
Certainly, when you look at Arab civil society or Arab public opinion and especially, I think, these days Palestinian public opinion, you see a lot of clashing visions about what the future ought to be like. Is a two-state solution in fact really doable any longer? And if it is under the present conditions, given it as they see facts on the ground, who would want it? There are a lot of people, of course, who have worked hard to get this far. And, of course, sitting here in Washington, it's a bit uncomfortable to realize that after many, many years of trying to persuade an American government that a two-state solution is really doable, that the Palestinians ought to have a state called Palestine, to find that so many people including many Palestinians--well under these circumstances, what does the other state look like? And frankly, to many, it doesn’t look like very much.
Moreover, I think that there are competing interests among the Arabs, especially I think among most of the Arab governments. The competing interests are an interest in promoting the Palestinian cause on one hand and thus assuaging or improving regime legitimacy vis-a-vis domestic public opinion. But on the other hand, there are larger strategic interests, and the largest of those involves the connection with the United States. Bilateral relations between most Arab countries, most Arab governments and the United States are extremely important. The problem is how do you reconcile your interest in some kind of, I won’t say ideal, maybe a minimally satisfactory solution to the Palestinian question with your need, on the part of certain particular Arab governments, to have a fruitful and continuing beneficial relation with the United States?
The United States actually, of course, provides a great deal of security assistance to some Arab governments that are in a region that is, as we all know, fraught with dangers and turmoil.
One might add in reference to the question of time horizons. Maybe the Israelis' is very short and maybe the Americans' is a bit longer. But I think on the part of Arab regimes they don't even have a time horizon. They can wait forever and they don't have to wait for an election. They don't have to plan for next year's agenda. They can just kind of go along with things and hope that matters remain more or less under control.
Now, in fact, we have to speak of a changing regional context and a changing global context which to the Arabs in a way and Arab governments in particular makes their part of the world a bit more dangerous and problematical. We have, of course, as has been mentioned, a region now in which radical non-state actors play a disproportionate role, positive or negative. I am not just talking about al-Qaeda but I could also talk about Al Jazeera as in a way stirring the pot and causing difficulties for regimes that have trouble logically balancing their competing interests with respects to this issue. We have, of course, the American interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have what many observers see as a kind of generic disconnect between regimes and their populations across many countries accounting, perhaps, for the police state nature of so many Arab regimes. All of those things one might suppose would have generated more concern and more initiative and less lethargy on the part of Arab leaders to do something about this issue because if there is one thing I suppose that most of them really do agree on is that the unsolved Palestinian issue is a drain on their legitimacy and in some remove a threat to their security. Maybe that, in fact, has increased over time.
That may account in part for the one major important Arab contribution lately to this issue, which is the Arab Peace Initiative first proposed at an Arab summit meeting in 2002. It is set mainly on the initiative of Saudi Arabia reiterated in another Arab summit in 2007 and reiterated again just last March at another Arab summit. So in a sense, if you just look at the document, you would think the Arab states have stepped up to the plate and are doing their part. They’ve got a plan that is firmly rooted in UN Resolution 242 calling for full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194--that has to do with Right of Return--and the acceptance of a sovereign, independent Palestinian state. In return, the Arab states consider the conflict ended and they recognize Israel formally and completely without reservation, providing for security of all the states of the region, establishing normal relations, etc. That, of course, is the core of it. And if you could measure performance, just in terms of declarations and diplomatic initiatives, you might say, "Well, that's not so bad."
The Arab states did the right thing. But, is that really all we can say? And if it is, why has nothing much happened? That suggests to me that the Arab states and the Arab states' system has been largely paralyzed and dysfunctional but mainly not all that supremely energetic and interested in trying to turn that diplomatic initiative into something that people will pay serious attention to. President Obama, in his speech in Cairo June 4, actually referred to the Arab Peace Initiative. He said 'terrific, that's a good first step but the Arabs need to do more.' It has been reported that prior to that, when President Obama had gone to Saudi Arabia, he came away somewhat disappointed because the king of Saudi Arabia didn’t sort of clearly step up and say we are ready to do more and this is what we are ready to do.
So, what was being requested or demanded of the Arabs, having taken this initiative, was 'well that's good but keep on giving. Do more.' Well, do what? Well, we have already heard about some of the things that might be done. And there is discussion lately that American diplomats and others have received inklings from some Arab governments and leaders that they are ready to do something. If it's a question of lifting visa restrictions for Israelis; if it's a question of El Al overflights, those are nice--what diplomats would call confidence building measures coming from one side. Although it's not clear what is coming, if anything, from the other side. But, even more than that, one reads that Arab leaders have spoken privately of the possibility or the readiness even of major concessions or reinterpretations of the Arab peace plan on two of the most contentious final status issues that have concerned everybody, one of those being the question of refugees and the Right of Return [and] the other one being the question of Jerusalem. So, hints are being dropped or at least reports are being made of hints being dropped that Arab governments are ready to sweeten the pot. That's clearly what Obama explicitly asked for in Cairo. So, all they have to do is more. And we will see if some interpretation of a settlement freeze can be implemented. And who knows, maybe something after that.
I was lately in Lebanon as an observer with the Carter Center for the Lebanese elections. And I don’t think I am speaking out of turn to say that in a meeting with [former U.S.] President [Jimmy] Carter, which was not about Lebanon at all but was about the Palestine-Israel conflict, somebody remarked because they had just heard Obama's speech that this sounds really good. That the United States sounds, even the [U.S.] Secretary of State [Hillary Clinton] sounded, quite categorical about insisting upon a settlement freeze. The former president piped right up and said, "Well yeah, but that's not the point. The point is dismantling settlements." This is coming from the former president of the United States. And I think the remark, which I still find rather amazing, highlights the kind of nit-picking, time consuming warp that we have gotten ourselves into in trying to spending a lot of time and energy negotiating something that is actually, in the larger scheme of things, rather small. But that is where we are.
Now, let me say a word about Obama's speech and the reaction to it. And I think that this is pretty well known. What we call the moderate Arab governments--Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Palestine Authority and some others in the Gulf--were quite pleased with it. The official media and the official press were praising the very nice things that President Obama said. And everybody realizes that this speech, whatever the content actually may have been, as an event, was if not a game changer at least it certainly seemed to lift the atmosphere. And I believe public opinion polls taken shortly after the speech indicated a very significant rise in the approval rating of Arab public opinion and Muslim public opinion for the president and even for the United States. Although, overall, the United States still remains in single digits in terms of its popularity throughout the region.
Now, the reaction among what we call here rejectionist elements or extreme elements, of course, was quite negative. Hamas was negative, although not perhaps as negative as al-Qaeda or Iran or Hizballah. So, it was clear not only with the Cairo speech but indeed leading up to the Cairo speech that something was different with the American approach. Would this substantially change the way Arab civil society and public opinion look at the prospects for Palestinian-Israeli peace? I don’t know the answer to that, but my sense is now that many weeks after the Obama speech has somewhat faded, we have not seen any substantive breakthroughs since then. And my sense is, at least among the kinds of professors, students and intellectuals we talk to, is that skepticism is growing. The idea that the United States really was making a substantial shift is taken now with more grains of salt than it had been previously.
My sense is that as time goes on, and unless dramatic things happen on the ground, the feeling will grow that this was just another speech and President Obama, whether he is sincere and determined himself as an individual about changing things as Mr. Atallah has suggested, they will think that even if that's the case, maybe he just can't do it. And, after all, Obama has other things on his mind besides Israel and Palestine.
That said, it is clear that there has been a certain shift lately. And one of the most interesting examples of that--there are two really that are interesting. One is on the Syrian front. We now find that there is a growing diplomatic connectivity between Washington and Damascus which will be consecrated, I believe, quite shortly with the appointment of an American ambassador back to Damascus after a long absence. Certainly, there have been relatively calm and kind words spoken by the Syrian government about the Obama administration and hopes, I think, rose in Damascus that the United States is ready to be at least more helpful on the Syrian-Israeli front than was true in the past.
The other kind of example of softening on the Arab side was with Hamas itself. Hamas, through its leader Khaled Meshaal, in a speech at the end of last month said what other people had just been whispering that Hamas really is interested in, if not full acceptance of American and Israeli demands, at least acceptance of some of them. And so, that is an interesting development.
But finally, I think one has to say in trying to answer the question that I posed at the beginning, why haven't the Arabs played a more central, forceful role in this? I think the answer is in a remark that actually Amjad made early on. It has to do with carrots and sticks. If Sadat and Egypt could go into negotiation with a military capability and with the ability to exert coercion or the threat of coercion, that often focuses peoples' minds and moves diplomatic processes forward.
Unfortunately, at this juncture, the Arab states seem more committed to carrots and not really very much committed to sticks. It just doesn't seem proper. But in the world of international relations, sometimes sticks are important even if they're not used. In balance, we have to say that the Arab governments, while they have talked a good game, they have not really played it well so far.
Thank you.
Amjad Atallah is co-director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation. Daniel Levy is senior fellow and co-director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation. Dr. Michael C. Hudson is both director of the Contemporary Center for Arab Studies (CCAS) and the Seif Ghobash Professor of Arab Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
This transcript may be used without permission but with proper attribution to The Palestine Center. The speakers' views do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jerusalem Fund.