By Haim Asa

May 6, 2010

Maariv

The crisis between Israel and the United States is not the result of any kind of hallucination that may or may not be afflicting the Obama administration. It is also not because of something as simplistic as a lack of chemistry between the U.S. president and the Israeli prime minister. The essence of the clash can be linked to the changed strategic global map and any attempt by the Israeli government to belittle the clash and to claim that it is merely a fleeting cloud in an otherwise clear sky is dangerously misleading. The change in the global strategic outlook is happening primarily because of the possibility that a non-state body – such as al-Qa’ida – is investing time and money in reaching the point of practical nuclear capability. And al-Qa’ida is not alone.

The reason that the change is so significant is that, from the moment that a country joins the exclusive club of nations which possess the capability to develop and use nuclear weapons, it is immediately put under pressure by other members of that club to ensure that the weapons will never actually be used. A country with military nuclear capability does not really pose any kind of threat to the rest of the world. Even an irrational country like Iran knows that if it were ever to use a nuclear weapon against someone – and it doesn’t matter who that ‘someone’ is – it would soon cease to exist as a sovereign country. We know that Iran would never use the nuclear weapon it is trying so hard to manufacture, no matter how irrational we consider Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be.

The danger of Iran, which is a terrorist state, going nuclear lies in the possibility that it would supply nuclear know-how to a global terrorist organization. There can be no deterring a terrorist organization from using a nuke, since terrorist organizations do not have the same responsibilities that states have. Given this lack of ability to deter terrorist organizations, Israel, the United States and the rest of the Western world are facing a very grave threat. There are two options available to the West to ensure that this scenario does not become reality. The first is an all-out war against al-Qa’ida, the Taliban and their supporters across the globe. But this option would entail endless bloodshed and a huge financial cost, which the West cannot keep up for year after year.

The second option is to fashion a rapprochement with the moderate Arab states and peoples, who have similar interests to the West and who live in close physical proximity to the terrorist organization. When one examines the issue of Jewish construction in Jerusalem and in the settlements – or even the very existence of the settlements themselves – in the light of abovementioned threat, one does not need to be a student of international relations to understand that this is a price that simply has to be paid. It has nothing to do with rightist or leftist ideology. It is not one of Obama’s whims or some delusional approach by his administration. Any attempt to interpret the strategic map that is emerging today in any other way will lead us to a tragic miscalculation which could turn out to be uncorrectable.

We are talking about the survivability of the United States, the possibility that it will not be able to deter terrorist organization and to defend itself in the future; the very real possibility that it will become vulnerable to a massive terrorist attack which it will not be able to respond to since there is no clear target to attack. There are times when leaders need to take a long, hard look at reality and to act accordingly. And, in this case, ‘acting accordingly’ often means changing its own outlook, going against its most basic ideology, against the empty slogans which whipped voters into a frenzy the last time there were elections. Slogans such as ‘the war for Jerusalem’ are a sad example of blind ideology, which could end up costing us not just Jerusalem, but Tel Aviv as well.

http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/28/is_the_israel_palestine_conflict_ripe_for_obama_s_intervention

By Henry Siegman

April 28, 2010

In an op-ed essay in the Wall Street Journal (04/26/2010), Richard Haass, the President of Council on Foreign Relations, argues that advocates of a more forceful U.S. intervention in the Middle East peace process have exaggerated that conflict’s impact on America’s interests elsewhere in the region.

I don’t know anyone among those who have cited the damage the Israel-Palestine conflict is causing U.S. interests in the region who believes this concern to be anything other than a secondary reason for a more muscular U.S. initiative to bring this conflict to a close. For everyone, the main reason is the human cost to millions of Palestinians who have lived under the boot of a military occupation for over 40 years, and to Israel’s citizens who, while living increasingly undisturbed and prosperous lives, nevertheless exist in the shadow of the threat of recurring wars and Qassam rockets.

The second compelling reason for a quick end to the conflict for all those who advocate it is the unrestrained expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, whose undeclared but widely understood goal it is to make impossible the emergence of a Palestinian state. This outcome would leave Israel with the choice of granting Palestinians Israeli citizenship, thus giving up its Jewish identity, or ending its democratic character as it enforces a regime that denies millions of Palestinians their individual and national rights-in effect turning Israel into an apartheid state.

Oddly enough, these concerns find no place in Richard Haass’s essay as he warns against exaggerating the bearing of a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict on U.S. interests.

Forty plus years into this conflict and into the creeping Israeli annexation of territory in the 22 percent of Palestine left the Palestinians, Haass pleads for patience for the situation to “ripen” before we try to end it by putting forward an American plan. He maintains that what is missing is not ideas, but the will and ability of the parties to compromise. Haass notes that “Palestinian leadership remains weak and divided; the Israeli government is too ideological and fractured; U.S. relations are too strained for Israel to place much faith in American promises.”

One would have thought the problem has been placing faith in Israeli promises. But more to the point, it is precisely the ability to compromise that will be the victim of further delay-for it will discredit the moderate leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad who will surely not be replaced by greater moderates. Their replacement will be Hamas-if we are lucky-or the more extreme groups in Gaza that are now challenging Hamas for what these groups consider to be Hamas’s excessive moderation.

It is true that Palestinian leadership, as Haass states, remains weak and divided. But their weakness and division is the result of Israeli and American failure to reward their moderation. As far as Palestinians are concerned, aside from marginal improvements in the economy, for which the international donor community is largely responsible, it has produced only a hardening of Israeli positions on the core issues.

More to the point, the Palestinian divisions that Haass deplores were deliberately planned and fostered by Israel and the U.S. during the previous U.S. administration. There is something less than honorable in pointing to problems that our own misguided policies created as a reason the victims of our policies are undeserving of our support.

Of course, the U.S. must stand by its commitment to protect Israel’s security. Haass must know there was never any reason for Israel to doubt the solidity of U.S. commitments on this score. Indeed, the over-the-top American assurances that there will never be “any daylight” between us and Israel when it comes to security may come to haunt us. For if we heed the advice to delay stronger U.S. intervention in the peace process for future, riper moments, we may find ourselves tied solidly to an Israeli government that-in order to preserve Israel’s Jewish identity-imposes an apartheid regime on a Palestinian population under its control that outnumbers its Jewish counterpart.

Most of the political parties that comprise Netanyahu’s government, including Yisrael Beiteinu, led by Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu’s Foreign Minister, and Shas, have left no doubt that if forced to choose between democracy and the state’s Jewish identity, they would opt without the slightest hesitation to end Israel’s democracy.

What exactly would an American president do when confronted with such a new reality, which undoubtedly would again produce a spate of full-page advertisements and AIPAC resolutions in the U.S. Congress stressing the Jewish people’s biblical attachment to the land and demanding that we stand by our traditional ally? How would a less than forthright U.S. response to such a situation play in the rest of the world? Isn’t it in America’s national interest-not to speak of the interests of the State of Israel and its people and of the Palestinian people-for an American president to exert every effort to prevent such a likely deterioration that would force our policymakers to make the most agonizing and fateful decisions?

None of these concerns seem to find a place in Haass’s calculations of a “ripeness” that should motivate an American president to move expeditiously to help put an end to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Henry Siegman, director of the U.S./Middle East Project, is a visiting research professor at the Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East Program, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.  He is a former national director of the American Jewish Congress.