By Henry Siegman

August 10, 2011

The National Interest

In their near-hysterical efforts to prevent Palestinians from asking the United Nations to recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination and statehood in the West Bank and Gaza, Israel and the United States have put forward a number of insupportable arguments that cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.

The claim that the UN is not the appropriate address for bringing about Palestinian statehood that underlies the various legal, political and prudential arguments mustered against the Palestinian initiative can only be described as a lie. Not only was the UN set up to deal with issues of war and peace, it set the indisputable legal point of reference for all subsequent Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts—Security Council resolutions 242 and 338.

Indeed, one of the main purposes of the UN was ending colonial domination and promoting the self-determination of native populations in former mandated territories. It is the UN’s action in its Partition Resolution of 1947 that established the legitimacy of a Jewish State of Israel in a part of Palestine, at the time a British mandate, a fact celebrated in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. That same resolution established the legitimacy of Palestinian patrimony in an Arab state whose territory was twice as large as Palestinians claim for their state today.

Even more wrongheaded than the notion of the inappropriateness of bringing this issue to the UN is the alternative venue advocated by President Obama—a return to the deadlocked bilateral “peace process.” So far, this “peace process” has enabled the transfer of over half a million Jews from Israel into Palestinian territory and East Jerusalem, but not one square inch of Palestinian sovereignty.

There is an even more fundamental misrepresentation at play here: Security Council Resolution 242 declares unequivocally the impermissibility of acquiring territory as a result of war, no matter who started the war. What this means is that it is the party whose territory is under occupation whose consent to changes in the pre-conflict border must be obtained, not the consent of the occupying party. If the occupying power fails to obtain that consent, it must either return to the Security Council to obtain its permission to retain any part of that territory, or withdraw without any territorial changes. The assumption that in the absence of an agreement, the occupying power can retain its permanent hold on the occupied territories is absurd. But that is the absurdity that has defined America’s peace efforts—as well as the EU’s—to this day.

The alleged legal objection to the Palestinian initiative is that it violates the terms of the Oslo accords, which preclude measures by either party to resolve unilaterally any of the permanent status issues. If it were true, as Israel’s government maintains, that an impermissible unilateral measure frees the other party from the Oslo accords’ obligations, then Palestinians were freed of Oslo’s obligations long ago, for both the UN and the International Court of Justice have declared that Israel’s settlements in the West Bank are not only impermissible unilateral acts but in clear violation of established international law.

More fundamentally, however, it is simply not true that the proposed Palestinian initiative violates the Oslo agreement. Palestinians do not intend to ask the UN to address any of the permanent status issues they are required to negotiate with Israel. If the UN were to declare that Palestinians have achieved the requirements of statehood—as they have in fact been found to have done by the IMF and the World Bank—and a Palestinian state were accepted into full UN membership, Palestinians would still have to reach agreement on each of the permanent status issues with Israel.

The United States and Israel have warned Palestinians to abandon their UN initiative on prudential grounds as well, for even if they were to succeed in obtaining UN recognition of their right to statehood in the Occupied Territories, nothing would change on the ground, for Israel’s government would be as indifferent to such a UN declaration as it has been to countless other UN directives. Indeed, Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has threatened that in those circumstances Israel would feel free to annex far more West Bank territory than it already has.

But if were true that UN action would have no effect whatever in advancing the Palestinian cause, except perhaps to spur an even greater Israeli land grab, why is Israel engaged in such frantic efforts to prevent a UN showdown? Indeed, why does it not welcome the Palestinian initiative?

The answer is that what the Netanyahu/Lieberman government fears most is an international confirmation that the 1967 border is the point of reference for Israeli Palestinian territorial negotiations, for despite Prime Minister Netanyahu’s alleged acceptance of a two-state solution, he remains as committed to the retention of most if not all of the West Bank as are most other members of his government, most of whom belong to the “Whole Land of Israel Caucus” in Israel’s Knesset. (Imagine what would have been the U.S. reaction to a Palestinian parliamentary caucus for the retention of the “Whole Land of Palestine.”)

A formal UN designation of the 1967 border as the starting point of negotiations, especially if it includes a provision for “equal land swaps,” would likely spell the end of the Whole Land of Israel dream. For if Israel had to yield as much Israeli territory as it seeks to acquire from the Palestinians beyond the 1967 border, it would wind up with no more of the Land of Israel than it already possesses. That, too, is why Netanyahu behaved so outrageously in trying to get Obama to back down from his May 19 statement that the 1967 line and land swaps are the essential elements of a territorial agreement.

What is so shameful is that not only have we failed to support a legitimate Palestinian demand but we threaten to punish them severely for it by denying them further U.S. financial support. Have we ever issued such threats to Israel, even when its governments engaged in behavior considerably more reprehensible than turning to the UN?

We have put forward our democracy as a model for the rest of the world to follow. But in seeking to bludgeon Mahmoud Abbas into foregoing the United Nations and returning to predictably futile negotiations with Benjamin Netanyahu, the United States is placing its diplomatic leverage at the service of Israeli policies aimed at preventing Palestinian democratic self-determination. That is how the world will see it, no matter how this administration will try to rationalize its actions at the UN in September.

Henry Siegman, President of the U.S./Middle East Project, is a non-resident research professor at the Sir Joseph Hotung Middle East Program, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

By Leonard Fein

August 9, 2011

The Forward

“The People demand social justice.” That’s the slogan, the chant of more than 300,000 people in dozens of sites across Israel. And just maybe, the State of Israel is now entering the third chapter of its history as independent.

During the first chapter, which extends from Israel’s founding in 1948, to 1977, 29 years of Labor hegemony embedded principles of social democracy. This was a remarkably inefficient bureaucracy that ineptly subverted the vision of building Israel on the Scandinavian model.

“The third way,” as it came to be known, tried to make a path between the raw capitalism of the United States (little did they know how raw it would become) and the brutal tyranny of the USSR. This was a restless system, marked by an abundance of voluntarism as well as a surfeit of favoritism and stifling paternalism — in all, the consolidation of statehood.

And then, in 1977, came the displacement of the old elite, David Ben-Gurion, et al., by Menachem Begin and his populist nationalism (spilling over into jingoism), and then by Begin’s heirs and, in particular, by Benjamin Netanyahu, devotee of radical privatization, indifferent to rapidly growing income inequality, a transition from obsession with the collectivity to a much greater focus on the individual, a chapter that would last for 34 years, up until — well, up until July 2011.

Now, in the wake of the utterly surprising social protests that have engaged hundreds of thousands of Israelis — there’s even talk of a million-person march in early September — one can see the outlines not only of a shift from the unbridled privatization that has marked the Netanyahu administration, but also of a generational shift. Netanyahu appears increasingly out of touch, locked in a stale and utterly unpersuasive rhetoric, surrounded by a cast less of has-beens than of never-weres.

However all this plays out — and, as promising as it seems, one cannot discount the ability of anachronisms to hang on long after they have been discredited — there is a near giddy sense of hope that infects much public discourse these surprising days. It is captured in an endless flood of e-mails and blogs, expressing a sense of wonderment: Just when the veteran social justice activists were readying themselves to recite prayers of mourning, just when they feared the battle for a humane and responsible Zionism and for a humane economy was lost, a whole new generation has taken to the streets, demanding social justice.

Amos Oz, in a front page article in Haaretz, had this to say about the resources that might be directed toward social justice in Israel: “First, the billions Israel has invested in the settlements, which are the greatest mistake in the state’s history, as well as its greatest injustice. Second, the mammoth sums channeled into the ultra-Orthodox yeshivas, where generations of ignorant bums grow, filled with contempt toward the state, its people and the 21st-century reality. And third, and perhaps foremost, the passionate support of Netanyahu’s government and its predecessors for the unbridled enrichment of the various tycoons and their cronies, at the expense of the middle class and the poor.”

As Oz goes on to say, it is “profoundly moving to see the protest veterans of all generations, who for years were a voice calling in the wilderness, spending time in the tents of the youngsters, who are wisely leading the new protest.”

It is, indeed, tempting to herald a new day. But such an announcement remains, for now, tentative and possibly premature. The policies and proposals that have led to these monster demonstrations, which have resulted in a proliferation of tent cities and in the swiftness of entrenched forces to dismiss the protests, offer a sobering reminder of how divided Israeli society has become. Forty-two members of the Knesset, including a number of government ministers, have responded to the protesters’ demands for more affordable housing by urging that new housing be built for them in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Forty Knesset members have offered a bill that would change Israel’s classic self-definition as a ”Jewish and democratic state” to “the national home of the Jewish people.” That same bill also ends the status of Arabic as one of Israel’s official languages. Thus, the denigration of democracy that has been a-building these past many months has now become explicit, enthusiastically supported by the settlers and the vast majority of Russians.

But the weightiest challenge to the protesters comes not from the outside. Sooner rather than later, the protesters, who are a very mixed multitude, will have to define what they mean by “social justice” and will have to develop a political structure reflecting that definition. They, who are overwhelmingly middle class, will have to make room for the full-fledged participation of Israel’s working class and its disadvantaged sectors, and also its Arabs (21% of the population). They will have to understand that the existing system of privilege, which is the source of the protest’s outrage, has immense organizational advantages and a cadre of beneficiaries who can and will show up early in the morning, every morning, and stay until very late at night, in order to protect their privilege.

In short, it will have to move beyond demonstrations and into Israel’s tangled political web, while preserving the enthusiasm and the hopefulness that characterize it today.

No small challenge, all that. But hey, the nearly empty glass is suddenly half-full. So, just maybe, these really are the rays of a new dawn we are witnessing.

Available here:  http://www.forward.com/articles/141083/

By Efraim Halevy

August 2, 2011

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

The options for Israel and the Palestinians basically can be boiled down to these: a permanent agreement, an interim agreement, a de facto interim agreement, and a situation of no agreement. The best possible option – a permanent agreement – is not operable at this time and is the least probable.

Since the leaderships of Israel and the Palestinians are faced with the reality of a no-solution situation, one in which a permanent solution is not workable, both sides will have to do what people often do in life – they settle for less, settle for something which is less permanent, less perfect. There will have to be an interim solution.

In the year 2000 I paid a clandestine visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, to what is called Solomon’s Stables, where I saw beautiful, 2,000-year-old columns. They do not exist anymore because they were destroyed by the Muslims, believing that if they destroyed the remnants of the Temple area, they would destroy Jewish rights there.

There can only be an ultimate reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians if there is a mutual acceptance of rights. I believe we have a right to Jericho, and they believe they have a right to Jaffa. I would say that if they recognize my right, I will recognize their right, and now let’s see how we can live together.

It is a mistake on our part to cringe every time the Palestinians say they are going to do something unilaterally. The end of all this might be a de facto dual unilateral process. After the UN vote in September, the PA will say that Israel is now an army of occupation in a sovereign state. Let them go to the International Court of Justice and, in the meantime, Israel will not cooperate. Israel needs a bit of stamina, strong nerves, and not to take them all that seriously. We should exercise more self-respect.

Identity in the Middle East

Many of the borders in the Middle East are straight lines, the result of negotiations between the colonial powers after World War I. Even to this day, the problem of whether or not there is a border between Lebanon and Syria is an open question.

In addition to states, there are non-state actors that are becoming important in the region like Hamas, which controls an area and a population in the southwestern part of what was formerly Mandatory Palestine, and Hizbullah, which controls an area in southern Lebanon and is also part of the Lebanese government. There is also the Kurdish province in the north of Iraq, where the Kurds enjoy a large measure of independence.

There are also tribal presences in countries which are key players in the Middle East. In the Arabian Peninsula, if you ask someone where they are from, they will first answer with the name of their city, then their tribe, then their religious stream – Sunni or Shiite – and finally their nationality. Identity in the Middle East does not begin with nationality, and this has far-reaching consequences. For instance, whether or not Libya remains a unified state will be decided by the tribes. One of the problems in the fighting there is that it has evolved into a tribal conflict, and it is very difficult to assess the power or the capabilities of a tribe. That is why so many countries appear to be slow in their response because they are not sure and do not want to end up on the losing side.

What is most important is not ideology but capability. In intelligence we have to deal with intentions and capabilities. What is going to count in the end is our capability, the Palestinians’ capability, the limits of their capability, the limits of our capability, and the limits of international capabilities.

There Is No Solution to the Arab-Israeli Conflict that Can Be Implemented

There is a new initiative being launched by a group of eminent Israelis that offers a blueprint not only for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but for the entire Middle East. But it is a solution which cannot be implemented by all the parties, regardless of their wishes. In the Arab-Israeli conflict, both parties are constrained by their capabilities. The problem is not simply what Prime Minister Netanyahu or President Abbas want to do, but what they can do. I do not believe it is in the realm of capability of either the prime minister of Israel or the president of the Palestinian Authority to implement a permanent solution to the conflict.

The prime minister of Israel is on record as being supportive of a two-state solution with a whole list of arrangements. This would entail, first and foremost, a massive Israeli population movement. I do not believe that it is in the capability of Israel today to effect a massive population movement. It could be that there is a large majority in Israel and the Palestinian Authority which supports this solution, but the degree of mistrust that the population in Israel has toward the intentions of the other side, and the degree of mistrust that the other side has toward the intentions of the Israeli side, preclude the implementation of such a permanent solution. Secondly, opinion in Israel is divided and at the moment there is not the kind of consensus which is necessary to bring about such a solution.

On the Palestinian side, not only is there no consensus, but there is no control of all the segments of Palestinian society or territory. Even if Mahmoud Abbas were to sign a peace agreement, his capability to implement it in Gaza would be questionable, to say the least.

Moreover, the time from the moment an agreement is signed until the final act of implementation will probably have to stretch over five or ten years. Assuming that there is a capability and a will on both sides to do this, nobody can guarantee that Mr. Netanyahu will be prime minister, and nobody can guarantee who will be the leader of Palestine. Israel has already had one such experience when it signed the Oslo Agreements, which were scheduled to take place over a span of five years. Over those five years, on the Palestinian side there was continuity. In Israel in that period of time there were three prime ministers, and normally leaders do not like to implement agreements reached by their predecessors.

Possible Options for the Future

We have ended a two-year effort in trying to map out what we call the future borders between Israel and the Palestinian Authority: principles, scenarios, and recommendations. The options for Israel and the Palestinians basically can be boiled down to these: a permanent agreement, an interim agreement, a de facto interim agreement, and a situation of no agreement. I think the best possible option – a permanent agreement – is not operable at this time and is the least probable. At the other end of the spectrum, the possibility that there will be no agreement is not desirable because it risks a situation unfolding in which the parties lose control of the scene.

Even during the Second Intifada, both sides maintained some control over the situation, although there were exceptions on both sides. I was head of the Mossad when the Second Intifada broke out in 2000. I did not believe then and I do not believe now that it was preplanned by Arafat. I think Arafat planned a series of reactions after the failure of the Camp David talks, but he did not believe that this would spin out of his control, which is what happened.

Israel overcame the main aspects of the intifada at crucial points. It essentially broke the back of the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank in Operation Defensive Shield in 2002. In addition, the defense establishment in Israel reached a conclusion that, for operational reasons which Prime Minister Sharon originally did not accept, it was not possible to maintain the necessary level of security in Israel without creating the security fence.

At the same time, there was a growing realization in the Palestinian Authority that there had to be a change, and they adopted a new constitution that created the post of prime minister in addition to that of president. Then Sharon decided on the unilateral disengagement from Gaza while Israel, by and large, maintained control in the West Bank.

If by the end of this year there is no tangible movement, based on some kind of understanding between Israel and the Palestinians, I believe that the Palestinian Authority may not survive if the statehood it promised does not materialize. There is the possibility that Israel will have to move in and take over control again, which is the least desirable of the options.

It is my view that in a situation in which the leaderships of Israel and the Palestinians are faced with the reality that we might be on the verge of a no-solution situation, and one in which a permanent solution is not workable, both sides will have to do what people often do in life – they settle for less, settle for something which is less permanent, less perfect. There will have to be an interim solution in places – like a state with interim borders. This is not something which is desirable, and it is a solution which the Palestinians are now rejecting, but they may have to face the situation ultimately and choose between no solution and second best.

The Advantages of Settling for Less

An interim solution is easier for each side to implement in part because each side can tell its constituency that it is not final. The Palestinians can say this is a step towards the ultimate. Israel can say that it is reversible, even if it is not entirely reversible. It is one step in the direction of maintaining the quality of the Jewish democratic system of government which we wish to maintain, in which the Jews are the majority of this country. This country was created ultimately to be the epitome and the expression of the Jewish People and Jewish nationalism, although we have an Arab minority which should have full rights. We did not fight the War of Independence in order to create a multinational state.

Jerusalem

Some of the more painful problems will be left for the future, including Jerusalem. I do not believe that it is possible to solve the problem of Jerusalem in a manner which either side can swallow. Israelis cannot and should not swallow the division of Jerusalem. But there are elements the Palestinians cannot swallow, such as our status and presence in some of the eastern parts of Jerusalem and our historic claim to a status on the Temple Mount. Even Prime Minister Ehud Barak would not give up Israeli claims to the Temple Mount. Everybody is talking about the Western Wall, but if we have rights to the Wall, a wall is part of a building, so we have a right to the building of which the Wall was a part.

In the year 2000 I paid a clandestine visit to the Temple Mount, to what is called Solomon’s Stables, where I saw beautiful, 2,000-year-old columns. They do not exist anymore because they were destroyed by the Muslims, believing that if they destroyed the remnants of the Temple area, they would destroy Jewish rights there. There can only be an ultimate reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians if there is a mutual acceptance of rights. I believe we have a right to Jericho, and they believe they have a right to Jaffa. I would say that if they recognize my right, I will recognize their right, and now let’s see how we can live together. There cannot be reconciliation if we must recognize their rights and they do not have to recognize our rights. Since this is not in the cards at the moment, I believe the only way forward is not to reach for the ultimate.

Delegitimization?

I do not think that Israel has a real problem of delegitimization and I believe that the legitimacy of Israel is not in question. I believe it is a mistake on the part of Israel to adopt the narrative of our enemies and to fight the war on their terms. If they question our legitimacy, I do not want to respond to their claim at all because Israel is legitimate from the day it became an independent state in 1948. It is legitimate because it was created as a result of a resolution of the UN General Assembly on November 29, 1947, and because Israel was accepted as the 59th member of the United Nations. Now there are almost 200 members and the majority of the states were accepted after Israel was accepted. There is today a vast majority of the states of the world that maintain relations with Israel.

I see no merit in appealing every day to Mr. Abbas to come to Jerusalem to talk to us. The first man who got up and said that Israel had committed genocide in Operation Cast Lead in Gaza was Mahmoud Abbas. The people who initiated the Goldstone Commission were the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas. In the morning they accused Israel of genocide and in the evening the PA called up and asked us to do something real to hurt Hamas.

The Upcoming UN Vote and Israeli Self-Respect

I think it is a mistake on our part to cringe every time the Palestinians say they are going to do something unilaterally. It could well be that the interim solution will be the result of two unilateral acts.

The end of all this might be a de facto dual unilateral process in which both sides will not end up on the 1967 borders. After the UN vote in September, the PA will say that Israel is now an army of occupation in a sovereign state. Let them go to the International Court of Justice and, in the meantime, Israel will not cooperate. They will wither in the sun. We need a bit of stamina, strong nerves, and not to take them all that seriously. We should exercise more self-respect.

Regarding the new Palestinian maneuver, Israel should say that this is a process which we believe is illegitimate and we will not be a party to it. Tell the UN that they can vote for it. We simply will not respond to it. We are very glad that the Palestinians after more than 60 years have decided to implement the UN resolution of 1947. As far as the borders are concerned, we go by UN Security Council Resolution 242. I cannot see American or UN troops moving into the West Bank to push Israel out of five or ten kilometers.

Overcoming Iran

The ultimate way in which we can overcome Iran is not only by military means, but also by creating a viable network of states and actors in the region who will see the Iranians as a threat to them. Even if the Egyptian prime minister says that Egypt wants to repair its relations with Iran, Ahmadinijad is not going to be a very welcome figure in Cairo because the Shiite message is not one which the Sunni majority of Egyptians are going to like. It is not in the nature of things.

The U.S.: Still the Leader of the Free World

The United States is still the leader of the free world, a world which is perhaps a little less free than it was and the United States a little bit less of a leader, but nevertheless, we in the free world ultimately benefit from the fact that there is such a power in the world. We have a stake in the success of the United States and its policies.