The Third Way: A Different View of the Middle East

The Middle East peace conference, announced with much ballyhoo over the summer and convened by the Bush Administration, is struggling, with good reason.

The easiest obstacle to overcome is the one that’s gotten the most publicity: the talks between Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert attempting to devise a joint Israeli-Palestinian agreement on some framework before the conference. There are many problems here, but both parties have a vested interest in making this agreement happen. Olmert needs to do something concrete to support Abbas, both in the eyes of Palestinians and of Israelis. Abbas needs to show he can get something accomplished with Israel, or his ability to hold control of the West Bank will be seriously diminished.

Yet both sides are facing increasing pressure, both internal and external, against any real progress being made. Saudi Arabia, for instance, remains noncommittal about its attendance at the conference. This is no small point. The Saudis’ absence form the conference will significantly diminish the credibility of any agreement reached in the eyes of the Arab world. But they are not going to give their imprimatur to a conference that doesn’t seem serious about addressing the Palestinians’ rights. The Saudis are also committed to try to bring Fatah and Hamas back into one unified government. This is now a long-range plan, as the Saudis surely recognize that Fatah has little inclination or incentive to pursue this goal right now. That means the Saudis have to be concerned about building relationships with both sides. Fatah is, at best, ambiguous (one might say divided) over the conference, and Hamas is strongly opposed to it. While Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon has opened the discussion about sharing Jerusalem in Israel, an aide to Mahmoud Abbas has made the explosive claim that the Palestinians must retain control over the holiest Jewish site, the Western Wall, an obvious non-starter. This illustrates the splits within Fatah more than anything else, as the aide, Adnan Husseini, surely knows that such a claim will never be supported even by the Arab League. Thus it should be seen as an attempt to scuttle the conference more than anything else. The Saudis need to tread carefully here.

While Hamas and Hezbollah have been vocal in calling on Arab leaders not to attend the conference, the reality that a failure of this conference will have severe repercussions, including repercussions beyond Israel and Palestine, is a much more significant force in casting a shadow over the proposed meeting. One of the purposes, from the Arab point of view, of this meeting is to put together some sort of united front to counter increasing Iranian influence in the region. For the Arab states, it is imperative that this be accomplished without military action, either by Israel or the United States. But both of those countries are not so kindly disposed to a diplomatic initiative, especially the US. (more…)

Virtually any article, except for unusually long ones, necessarily narrows its focus and leaves out important aspects of the broad subject it is discussing. In facile, pseudo-intellectual attacks, those who disagree with such articles often point out what is not there, as if it is possible, in just a few pages, to consider the breadth and scope of any problem, much less one as complex as the Israel-Palestine conflict.

In the new edition of the London Review of Books, there is a pair of articles, however, which, when taken together, give a fairly rounded view of the situation as it stands now in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Making them perhaps more valuable and credible, the article criticizing Israel is written by a Jewish former executive director of the American Jewish Congress, Henry Siegman; while the article criticizing the Palestinians is written by an American of Palestinian ancestry, Prof. Rashid Khalidi.

Khalidi continues a theme explored in his superb book, The Iron Cage:The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood. Palestinians are often portrayed, by themselves and others in very distorted ways. By pro-occupation zealots, they are depicted as far more powerful than they are, and powerful enough to constitute a substantial threat to Israel. That characterization is absurd on its face, and it is a measure of the hysteria this subject can generate that there is a significant, albeit minority, number of people who actually believe it. But they are also often portrayed by their own supporters, and even at times by themselves, as completely helpless actors who are pure victims and have no role in creating the situation they now find themselves in. Khalidi’s valuable self-criticism paints a more realistic picture.

In “Shared Irresponsibility,” Khalidi draws careful attention to the actions of both Fatah and Hamas in creating the split that exists now in the Palestinian political body and which finds its expression in a geographical split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Khalidi writes, “Fatah and Hamas have been fighting for control of a Palestinian Authority that has no real authority. The behavior of both has been disgraceful…In the four decades since the founding of the PLO, there has never been such a gulf between two parts of the [Palestinian] national movement.” (more…)

Back in 2005, Jewish Voice for Peace took to the streets in San Francisco to protest the just-commencing Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. More than a few people were puzzled by this action; here was a Jewish peace group apparently echoing the stance of some of the most hard-line so-called “pro-Israel” groups who opposed Israel giving up any territory at all. What was going on?

Of course, JVP was never opposed to Israel withdrawing its soldiers and checkpoints and abandoning its settlements in Gaza. But doing the right thing in the wrong way can be just as bad, in some ways perhaps worse, than doing the wrong thing, and this was what we saw happening with the Gaza withdrawal. Sadly, this prediction has come true, leaving the Palestinians split between two governing bodies, leaving Gaza in ruin and chaos and leaving Israel with an increasingly hostile and dangerous territory on its western border.

The middle of June, 2007 will be remembered by many as the time which saw Hamas and Fatah engage in horrible atrocities against one another, further aggravating the awful situation in the Gaza Strip. While Hamas has now established full, though tenuous, control over the Strip, it remains to be seen whether it is possible for them (or anyone) to actually rein in the chaos and whether they can hold on to any semblance of authority under a tightening economic blockade and a general atmosphere of lawlessness.

How did this state of affairs come about? (more…)

On May 21 a Qassam rocket fired from Gaza killed a 35-year old Israeli woman in Sderot. No doubt, this will mean a further escalation in Israeli fire into the Gaza Strip, despite the fact that this seems unlikely to stop or deter the Qassam fire.

These events are exposing the yawning gulf of leadership on all sides. Israel, rudderless under Ehud Olmert, vacillates between a silent response to Qassam fire while maintaining the economic blockade that fuels misery and rage in Gaza, and military responses that are targeting areas far from where the rockets are being fired. Meanwhile, Olmert speaks vaguely of “political horizons” and the preconditions the Palestinians must meet before he would even engage in talks (preconditions such as forgoing the issues of the refugees, the Temple Mount and the 1967 borders).

But the leadership vacuum among the Palestinians has been demonstrated even more starkly. Commentators often used to say that it was crucial to strike a deal with Yasir Arafat because, like him or not, he was the only one that could possibly make a deal stick. Indeed, since his death what little organization there was to both the PLO and the Palestinian Authority has frayed or even shattered. This has been due in significant measure to the occupation, yes, but also to Fatah’s mismanagement and corruption, increasing sectarianism both within and between Palestinian factions and the submergence of government behind family and local affiliation in importance.

Ironically, it has been the fact that Israel has resumed its shelling of Gaza that has diminished the infighting there, something both the Hamas political leadership and PA President Mahmoud Abbas had tried and failed to do. Despite the Mecca Agreement brokered by Saudi Arabia in March, the Palestinian government has been anything but unified. (more…)

The much-awaited moment has come and the League of Arab States has reissued the 2002 Saudi Peace Plan with no changes or amendments.

It is important to understand what this initiative says and the great potential it has for putting the region on a course toward a sustainable peace. It is also important to understand what it is not — a take it or leave it offer with no room for negotiations.

In fact, it’s exactly what Israel has needed for decades–a firm opening offer and invitation to negotiations from the entire Arab world. It’s not only peace with the Palestinians. It’s peace with the entire Arab world that is being offered. And not just peace, but normal relations. This is offered in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from all territories it captured in 1967, the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and an “agreed upon” resolution to the refugee issue, based on UN General Assembly Resolution 194.

This can’t be stressed enough–the economic, cultural, diplomatic, political and social ties that come with normal relations prevent war and create a peaceful environment that no treaty or agreement possibly can. Israel needs to jump at this offer to negotiate. The Arab states know that Israel would not accept their plan whole cloth. They know Israel’s stance is that they are unwilling to go back to the 1967 borders and are unwilling to take responsibility for the refugees. But if Israel is willing to come to the table with their points and negotiate with the Arabs, progress can be made. (more…)

The Palestinian unity government has finally been assembled, and with it comes an interesting set of opportunities.

I have to admit I was mistaken a year ago. I was quite convinced that the Hamas government would not be able to sustain itself against the massive opposition it faced. With the EU, UN, and most of the Arab world joining Israel and the US in boycotting the Hamas government, and with Fatah working hard to both confront Hamas on the ground and undermine them in the government, I believed and predicted that the Hamas government would not survive the summer.

In fact, they did, and the unity government just assembled marks a major victory for them. Immediately after their election last year, Hamas called for a unity government with Fatah, an offer Fatah considered and refused. Fatah’s acceptance of it now shows they have given up trying to regain power by undermining Hamas or confronting it militarily, at least for the time being. (more…)

In Part 1 of this essay, I addressed Rabbi Ira Youdovin’s characterization of Jewish Voice for Peace as “beyond the pale” because we supported the views of former President Jimmy Carter. Now, I’d like to address his other basis for drawing his arbitrary line between JVP and the Jewish community, divestment.

Simply by saying that “JVP supports divestment,” Youdovin misrepresents JVP’s position. Our stance is explained at length here, but in sum, JVP makes two points about divestment. One, that we support selective and targeted divestment that is aimed exclusively at the occupation, not at Israel itself. Two, that other groups who do support boycotts, divestment from Israel or even sanctions against Israel are not, by virtue of that fact alone, acting either out of anti-Semitism or in an anti-Semitic fashion. Of course, it is possible that such actions can be motivated by anti-Semitic malice, but the holding of those stances is not evidence of it by itself.

JVP is in fact quite scrupulous about ensuring that we target only the occupation with economic actions. These include, incidentally, other means such as purchasing and distributing Palestinian olive oil to help Palestinian farmers, as well as efforts to support Israeli peace groups such as Yesh GVul and New Profile. (more…)