Foreign Policy In Focus

In response to Palestinian demonstrations on Israel's borders last month, and the upcoming 2nd Gaza Freedom Flotilla later this month, the IDF's new Chief of Staff Benny Gantz outlined the actions the IDF will take against such demonstrations from here on out:

The spectrum of the threats, in light of the changes in the Middle East, has broadened significantly – from daggers to nuclear weapons. There is a focal player in the Middle East – the street – and it is clear to us that in the coming months we can find ourselves in broad popular demonstrations, which gain public resonance. The IDF is preparing for these demonstrations.

Gantz discussed the implications of the fall of Mubarak in Egypt as well, and addressed security concerns regarding Lebanon and Syria.

For this reason, we will act with great fire power and full force at the very beginning of the confrontation. Anything the camera can stand or could stand in the first three days of fighting – it will not be prepared to put up with thereafter.

Gantz's statements were collaborated by reporting from Ynet News and Electronic Intifada. The full text of the IDF Chief of Staff's statement on the response to mass demonstrations is available in Hebrew and in English.

"Israel, it would seem, like other regimes in the region, knows of no other way to respond to people demonstrating for their legitimate rights than to shoot at them," commented Electronic Intifada. Ynet News reported Gantz as saying that "the next conflict will be brief but intense.

Further Nabka demonstrations are currently being planned in Israel's Arab neighbors.

Paul Mutter is a graduate student at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at NYU and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

(Pictured: France's Foreign Minister Alain Juppé and President Nicolas Sarkozy.)

"The status quo cannot be maintained, things need to get moving... if there is a single chance, it must be grabbed," declared French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé to Le Monde before departing for a diplomatic trip to Israel and the West Bank with the goal of relaunching the peace process. After a layover in Rome where he met with PLO Chair-President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, he flew to Ramallah to speak with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and met Benyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Juppé was hoping to convince each party to come back to the negotiation table at a conference to be held in Paris before the end of July.

The conference was originally planned as a meeting of potential donors to the state of Palestine, but France now wants to expand the scope of the event to a resumption of peace talks toward the two-state solution. "We are convinced that if nothing happens before September, the situation will be very difficult for everybody at the UN General Assembly," Juppé said on Thursday, referring to Mahmoud Abbas's plan to request international recognition of the State of Palestine on the 1967 border and admission as a full member of the United Nations at the September assembly.

The negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization broke down last Fall. Netanyahu's conditions for their resumption include Abbas' break of relations with Hamas and the recognition of Israel as the nation of the Jewish people, while Abbas is requesting the immediate freeze of the expansion of settlements in the West Bank. However, Juppé believes that grounds have shifted significantly enough to hope to revive the process; according to him, the context of the Arab Spring, the Fatah/Hamas reconciliation and Obama's acknowledgment of the 1967 borders are factors that have the potential to create a new opportunity to resume discussions.

The French Foreign Minister further echoed Nicolas Sarkozy's previous statement that France would be ready to "take on its responsibilities" at the UN General Assembly in September, a "strong message," according to Juppé. The innuendo is most likely to be interpreted as a decision for France to recognize the state of Palestine, an option that Sarkozy has already declared to be considering "in consultation with [France's] European partners;'" yet his preference lies in a resumption of peace talks, which would prevent France from taking such a critical foreign policy decision.

Juppé's trip fits into Sarkozy's increasingly prominent will to see France play a larger role in the Israel-Palestine peace process. "Americans won't succeed on their own," he said in an interview in May. But while France is attempting to present itself as an alternative mediator, it is evident that its position does not differ from the United States' in any significant way. In opposition to the U.S., Alain Juppé welcomed the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas as a "positive development." The demarcation, however, stops there.

Indeed, Juppé specified that were the proposed Paris peace conference to take place, it would proceed according to the roadmap President Obama recently outlined. Phyllis Bennis and FPIF senior analyst Stephen Zunes have vehemently emphasized the flaws of Obama's line. "President Obama identified the principles of U.S. diplomacy and Israeli demands as the 'foundation for negotiations.' But he is wrong. The only foundation that will work is that of international law and human rights," writes Bennis.

Juppé further follows in the US footsteps by maintaining a rhetoric which revolves around the security of Israel first and foremost, with no mention for Palestinians' security. His recent statement that "We must drive Hamas to evolve in the direction we are hoping for, which means renouncing violence and recognizing the state of Israel" is representative of the usual double-standard though which demands are made of Palestinians but not of Israelis: Juppé is not demanding that the members of Israel's government who refuse to recognize Palestine do so, nor is he denouncing Israel's crimes against Palestinians. Juppé conveniently chooses to push back the issues of refugees and Jerusalem to the following year, focusing only on the issues of borders and land swaps.

When, in a recent radio interview, Juppé was faced with a journalist who questioned France's potential to be heard, he answered, "Who is heard these days, can you tell me?" implying that the international community was powerless at large to influence the situation. Yet his assessment is incorrect in the case of the United States: it is not that Obama is not heard, it is that he does not speak up. In a recent interview, Phyllis Bennis explained how the U.S. has failed to put proper pressure on Israel: "We never saw real pressure, what we saw from the US president Obama was a series of requests: 'Please stop expanding settlements!' Israel said no, the US continued to request, Israel continued to say no and the US stopped requesting. Real pressure would have meant that when Israel said no, that the US said 'all that 30 billion dollars we're paying you in military aid over these ten years, you can kiss that goodbye.'"

France's leverage is much more limited, revolving primarily around its position as president of the G8 and G20 and the potential moral impact that its recognition of the state of Palestine would have at the next UN General Assembly. Whether or not Israel and Palestine come to the table that is offered to them in Paris, it is unlikely that a safe, secure and sovereign Palestinian state might result from the process as long as the United States do not use their own extraordinary leverage to push Israel to respect human rights and international law.

New at Right Web, it begins:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s newest tactic in advancing the Likud Party’s hawkish approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is his demand, first enunciated in his response to Barack Obama’s June 2009 Cairo Speech and now an ubiquitous talking point, that Israel be recognized by the Palestinians and other adversaries as either “the nation-state of the Jewish people” or “the national home of the Jewish people.” This demand is unprecedented in the history of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and the United States has, to its credit, rejected the framing. Indeed, how could such a concept—that a nation-state belongs not necessarily to its own citizens or even an exclusive subset of its citizens, but to an abstract if not fictitious transnational entity—serve as a principle of international law?

In the wake of Obama’s May 2011 speech on Middle East policy and Netanyahu’s exaggerated response to it, this precondition requires additional scrutiny because of its growing prevalence in hawkish discourse on the so-called peace process. The demand to grant official recognition to the Jewish nationalist narrative is now a regular neoconservative talking point, particularly at Commentary magazine’s “Contentions” blog. It has also been adopted by Obama administration allies like J Street, which seems to invoke the slogans of Jewish “nationhood” in order to remain kosher in the eyes of the American Jewish establishment.[1]

Origins and Opposition

Israel has always held that it is a state not merely of its own people but a transnational entity called “the Jewish people.” In his June 2010 book, The Invention of the Jewish People, the Israeli historian Shlomo Sand chronicled how this concept was created in the nationalist ferment of nineteenth century Europe and owes more to the historic doctrines of modern nationalism than to historical Judaism. Sand provocatively begins his book by illustrating that as far as the Israeli government is concerned, there is no such nationality as “Israeli”—only the universal “Jewish.”

To read the rest of the article, visit Right Web. 

The same day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's received his “wildly receptive” welcome from the U.S. Congress Financial Times Associate Editor Philip Stephens wrote that “Elsewhere, Britain has been frustrated by Washington’s refusal to back publication by the international community of the essential parameters of an Israeli-Palestine peace agreement.” Translation: It is the U.S. that is preventing the major world powers from expressing the international consensus on the way forward in “peace process.” Stephens continued, “The president’s willingness to offend Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s obdurate prime minister, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for progress in the region.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron’s government has already said it might support the Palestinians when they go before the United Nations, as expected in September, and ask for a resolution affirming Palestinian statehood in the Israeli occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. If you rely on the major U.S. media you would never sense it but what Obama likely heard in Europe last week is that the rest of the world is even more certain than the British to back the UN move. Evidently in his meeting with European leaders, Obama tried to talk the others out of supporting Palestinian statehood when the matter comes up for a vote in the UN.

“The march to isolate Israel internationally -- and the impulse of the Palestinians to abandon negotiations -- will continue to gain momentum in the absence of a credible peace process and alternative,” Obama told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a group that has become little more than a lobbying mechanism supporting the policies of Netanyahu’s governing rightwing coalition. “So in advance of a five-day trip to Europe, in which the Middle East will be a topic of acute interest, I chose to speak about what peace will require.”

President Obama didn’t exactly launch any “initiative” and his endorsement of a Middle East settlement based on the 1967 Armistice borders wasn’t nearly as bold as it is being portrayed. It is the consensus position of the vast overwhelming majority of the people and governments of the world. It has been for a long time, and everybody knows it.

The effect of the media reporting on Netanyahu’s visit to the U.S., his talk with Obama, his rapturous reception at the annual AIPAC powwow and his over the top reception by the U.S. Congress has created a delusion here in the U.S. The verbal sparring between the two leaders, the haughty lecturing tone of Netanyahu’s response to the President, and the 28 or so standing ovations the Congress gave to him are only part of the story and have to be viewed in the context of the opinion of the rest of the world. It doesn’t even adequately reflect the views of the members of Congress. Their repeated standing ovations are more a testimony to the political power of the Israeli lobby than to their private convictions. Even some of Israel’s most adamant supporters amongst them are gravely concerned over Israel’s growing international isolation.

The cable news commentators that referred to the Israeli leader’s seeming political conquest of official Washington as “political theater” got it right: members of Congress, some of whom are otherwise knowledgeable and reasonable people, falling all over themselves to applaud what most of the rest of the world – including our most trusted allies—reject.

The dynamic on display this week in Washington between the two leaders has actually left the Palestinian leadership little choice but to appeal to the international community.

"The world will blame Israel as the main culprit if violence escalates again should the Palestinians unilaterally declare their independence this autumn,” said The Financial Times Deutschland in Germany. “Whether this blame would be correct or not, a government leader must act in such a situation. The Arab revolutions have made the situation even more urgent and increased the Palestinians' impatience.

"But even before his speech yesterday, Netanyahu willfully squandered this chance … despite his promises and declarations; he apparently wanted to play the blocker and the hardliner. And it served him well -- at least domestically."

"But it's a catastrophe for Israel's foreign policy,” said the paper. “Sure, Netanyahu was applauded in Congress, and he thanked Obama repeatedly for his support of Israel. But the audience for his speech and visit weren't just US politicians, who would stand by him anyhow. Instead of an Israeli vision of a peaceful Middle East, once again only the memory of Netanyahu's many refusals will remain in the mind of the global audience."

All hands appear to be on deck to try and head off a UN resolution. “Having the U.N. General Assembly pass a resolution recognizing an independent Palestinian state will only rally Israelis around Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, giving him another excuse not to talk,” wrote New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman May 25. That’s just silly talk. Bibi doesn’t need another rationale for intransigence. He opposes any settlement based on any borderlines that doesn’t ratify the colonial conquest of Palestinian land.

That a new UN resolution will not produce a Palestinian state is so obvious that it’s curious that Obama bothered to say so, but as Retired Brigadier General Michael Herzog, a veteran Israeli negotiator has noted, “it is likely to isolate Israel and escalate Israeli-Palestinian tensions.”

While in Europe Obama was no doubt told again what he already knew: that the European Union fully backs the position that will be laid out in a General Assembly resolution. The Congressional applause had hardly died down when the EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, backed Obama’s stance.

“Netanyahu's rejection of peace based on the 1967 borders is self-important and arrogant…especially given that Obama explicitly stated that a variation from the 1967 borders would be possible under a mutual land swap,” Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told Spiegel last week. “Netanyahu is suppressing the political reality and betting on a stalemate instead. For the peace process, that is deadly.

“We need to make an attempt to draw Hamas into a democratic process and bring it on to the path of freedom -- just as we succeeded in doing with Fatah during the 1990s. That would also include informal talks with Hamas.

“And that's a position we Europeans are going to maintain,” continued Asselborn. “Still, you can't just put conditions on the Palestinian side, as they're not the only source of the violence. Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into a prison. There, 1.7 million people live in an area one-seventh the size of Luxembourg. To shut its borders and to only allow certain goods into the country and hardly any out -- this is also a form of violence. In the West Bank, Israelis continue to build settlements on expropriated land. It is a constant provocation.”

One might think that it would shore up political support for the rightwing politician at home but that would be a mistake. “American Jews have been dragged over the past few days into the controversy between their government and Israel's government, and that is neither to their benefit nor to the benefit of the State of Israel,” was the editorial comment of Haaretz, considered by some to be Israel's most influential daily newspaper.

“Unlike the many American politicians who turn Jewish organizational conferences into election rallies, Obama did not make do with rousing declarations about America's commitment to Israel's security and to the unity of Jerusalem, said the newspaper. “Though he is already thinking about his upcoming presidential election campaign, Obama looked the Jewish community in the eye and told the truth.

“The refusal by Netanyahu and his political allies to recognize the 1967 borders as a starting point leads permanent-status negotiations into a dead end. From there, the road is short to violent confrontation with the Palestinians, diplomatic isolation and perhaps even economic sanctions,’ said Haaretz.

“The large Jewish peace camp in the United States must support the president and reject political activists who have turned Israel's fate into a ball on America's domestic political court. The time has come for the Jews of New York and Illinois to stand beside their worried brethren in Jerusalem and Sderot, who have welcomed Obama's message and are hoping for it to become reality. Between loyalty to Obama's way and loyalty to Netanyahu's way, they must choose loyalty to the future of the State of Israel.”

Obama “knows that, given Netanyahu's political constraints and his worldview, chances for productive negotiations with the Palestinians are practically zero,” says Carlo Strenger, Tel Aviv University philosopher and psychoanalyst and member of the Permanent Monitoring Panel on Terrorism of the World Federation of Scientists. “He also knows that the Palestinians' bid for recognition by the UN general assembly, where the US does not have veto power, is likely to receive more than two-thirds of the vote, probably including Britain and France.

“So Netanyahu is losing,” says Strenger. “But the real victims of his rightwing government's disastrous policies are the people of Israel. The specter of Israel's ever-growing isolation and increasing international pressure on it looms large. As Israeli prize-winning historian and political scientist Zeev Sternhell writes in Haaretz, ‘Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state’.”

“The clear losers in Netanyahu’s shortsightedness, wrapped into grandiose verbal pyrotechnics, are the citizens of Israel. Once the dust of the media storm settles down, we will be faced with the stark truth: the specter of Israel’s ever-growing isolation and of increasing international pressure looms large. Once the Palestinians succeed in their bid for statehood, the Netanyahu government will be facing international criticism of its settlement policies unprecedented in force and intensity.

“The tragedy is that Israel's growing isolation and the Palestinians' unilateral move could be avoided. Instead of fighting Palestinians' bid for recognition, Israel should support it.”

Fareed Zakaria wrote May 25 in the Washington Post: “The problem is that Netanyahu has never believed in land for peace. His strategy has been to put up obstacles, create confusion and wait it out. But one day there will be peace, along the lines that people have talked about for 20 years. And Netanyahu will be remembered only as a person before the person who made peace, a comma in history.

“It was a tactical triumph for the Israeli premier,’ said the Financial Times. “But it is Israeli citizens, not the US Congress, who will have to live with the consequences of a leader who will not make the compromises needed for peace with the Palestinians – and with an Arab world reinvigorated by the wave of revolution against tyrants Israel has come to rely on.”

“History has been in the making all over the southern bank of the Mediterranean, and it won’t skip the Palestinian territory,” commented the French newspaper Le Monde. Everywhere, the ‘Arab spring’ is bringing together people with the same demands for dignity, democracy and freedom, and there is no reason why it should not reach the Palestinians, too.’

On May 28, at Group of Eight summit in the French seaside resort of Deauville, leaders of world's richest countries gave “strong support" to President Barack Obama's stance on pre-1967 borders. In a draft statement at the G8 summit in they urged Israelis and Palestinians "to return to substantive talks with a view to concluding a framework agreement on all final status issues.

"To that effect, we express our strong support for the vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace outlined by President Obama on May 19, 2011."

On the same day, over a dozen Israeli intellectuals and public figures sent a letter to European governments urging them to ”officially recognize a Palestinian State,” noting that "the peace process has reached its end,"

The letter, initiated by Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement, said in part, "Peace has fallen hostage to the peace process. As Israeli citizens, we announce that if and when the Palestinian people declare independence of a sovereign state that will exist next to Israel in peace and security, we will support such the announcement of the Palestinian State with borders based on the 1967 lines, with needed land swaps on a 1:1 basis."

The letter was signed by former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, former Foreign Ministry Director General Alon Liel, and former Ambassador to South Africa Ilan Baruch, Nobel laureate Professor Daniel Kahneman, and Israel Prize Winner Professor Avishai Margalit.

"We urge the countries of the world to declare their willingness to recognize a sovereign Palestinian State according to these principles," the letter read, adding "the Palestinian appeal to the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian State does not harm the Israeli interest and is not at odds with the peace process."

Carl Bloice, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, is a columnist for the Black Commentator. He also serves on its editorial board.

Like many people, I expected little from Obama’s performance at AIPAC. He has to straddle parallel universes: the real one, in which most countries recognize Israel as tantamount to an international scofflaw, and the American domestic political universe in which Israel is always right. The US’s real allies and the rest of the world have long wearily resigned themselves to how, as with his speech at the State Department, the President has to pander to pro-Israeli organizations and the Congress members whose support he needs on domestic issues. 

Obama congratulated himself, deservedly, for continuing to raise unpalatable issues with elections in the air, and while pandering in a traditionally nauseous way, there was some reassurance from the sound of silence in his speech.

AIPAC’s conference is a mind-numbing experience. “My country right or wrong” is a rightly derided principle. But at AIPAC ten thousand people are assembled dedicated to the proposition that someone else’s country should be supported, right or wrong, even if it flouts every principle they support at home -- and even if its civil laws on marriage  and conversion deny the branches of Judaism to which most practicing American Jews adhere.

The organizations tend to be donor-driven rather than grass roots motivated. American Jews, true to their liberal roots, voted for Obama in higher proportions than any other ethnic group -- even as a raucous minority of the community questioned Obama’s citizenship and Christianity. That minority is disproportionately represented in the counsels of AIPAC and many of the “official” organizations and tends to Republican, Likudnik hawkishness.

But they also tend to think in slogans and catchphrases, without comparing them to reality, let alone with Robert Burns’s “giftie to see oursel’s as others see us.” They have been helped to remain in their parallel universe because presidents and secretaries of state have pandered (with the notable exception of James Baker) for decades to AIPAC -- and no one notices. As is customary, dogs are biting men.

The media attention to President Obama’s address is significant since for the first time in twenty years, there is visible crack showing between the White House and AIPAC -- and Israel. It is going too far to say that Obama is biting the dog -- but he is sinking his gums into the Lobby and Netanyahu. He is doing so to the background of an American Jewish community that is split more than ever before, and certainly more so than the “official” spokesmen and organizations reveal.

While admitting there are problems with a unity  Palestinian government, “We will continue to demand that Hamas accept the basic responsibilities of peace: recognizing Israel’s right to exist, rejecting violence, and adhering to all existing agreements,” Obama did not exclude negotiations, but in effect put conditions, which Hamas has, in reality, already gone a long way to meet and is on the way to go further.

One hopes that he realizes that the key phrases he used, such as the need to accept Israel’s “right to exist,” were introduced by Israeli leaders precisely because they were unacceptable to Palestinians. He might even have noticed how quickly Israel switched from refusing to negotiate because the authority was divided, to refusing because it is united! It is like demanding that American Indian tribes accept that their dispossession was right and goes beyond acceptance of the obvious fact of Israel’s existence and its now nearly universal acceptance as an established state. 

Such phrases have traditionally been used in the Levantine blame game in which the purpose of negotiations is not to reach a solution but to blame the other side for failure. But there is always a way to wiggle -- a phrase that would irk some Israelis would be for the Palestinians to recognize Israel’s “right to exist under UN Decisions!”

One hopes that the president is now playing this game with Netanyahu. One also hopes he harbors grudges. For the world’s most benefitted welfare queen to publicly dress down the president of its benefactor at the White House should give most Americans some frisson of indignation. 

While in the real world, Obama’s insistence on the 1967 boundaries as a basis for negotiation for land swaps has been generally accepted, Palestinians irate at this admitted denial of the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force,” may have missed, along with nuance-free AIPACers, his endorsement of the Palestinian people’s “right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state,” which presumably implies that in return for giving up some of the settled area, the Palestinian state will have a land bridge between Gaza and the West Bank. One can see why he might not have chosen to spell that out for AIPAC!

While he stated a fact, “No vote at the United Nations will ever create an independent Palestinian state,” he did not state a principle. He said, “The United States will stand up against efforts to single Israel out at the UN or in any international forum. Because Israel’s legitimacy is not a matter for debate.” He did not say that the US would veto a UN acceptance of Palestine as a member state.

Indeed, he challenged the sloganeers with reality. “The number of Palestinians living west of the Jordan River is growing rapidly and fundamentally reshaping the demographic realities of both Israel and the Palestinian territories. This will make it harder and harder – without a peace deal – to maintain Israel as both a Jewish state and a democratic state.” Secondly he pointed to how atavistic the old obsession with territory as security is since “technology will make it harder for Israel to defend itself in the absence of a genuine peace,” and finally, he pointed to the changes in Israel’s neighbours, so peace can no longer be bought with few local kleptocrats. “Going forward, millions of Arab citizens have to see that peace is possible for that peace to be sustained.”

If the US is retain influence in the region, it can no longer pay exclusive attention to Israeli public opinion while sending a few billion to local rulers. It, and Israel, have to show ordinary Arab citizens that they are serious about peace. Obama cannot regret the consequences to Palestinians of occupation while carrying on passing the ammunition to Israel.

It is unlikely that Netanyahu will voluntarily relinquish the not so secret Likud desire for an Arab-free state all the way to the Jordan. Obama has, perhaps deliberately and adroitly, maneuvered the Israeli Prime Minister into insulting the President of the US. He now has to follow up and show that there are consequences for Israel.

Obama balked at his best opportunity, which was the UN resolution on the settlements. He should stop equivocating and come out plainly with a declaration that if Netanyahu continues to refuse to come to terms with reality in the region, then he cannot take a US veto in the Security Council against Palestinian membership for granted nor even a nay vote in the General Assembly against a declaration of statehood. 

Ian Williams has written for newspapers and magazines around the world. He is currently writing a book on the Americans who blame the UN for all the US's ills. For more by Ian Williams visit Deadline Pundit.