Obama and the Middle East

By Hussein Agha and Robert Malley
The New York Review of Books
Volume 56, Number 10, June 11, 2009

Edited by Andy Ross

President Barack Hussein Obama's agenda for the Middle East centers on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Attending to the conflict is a matter of US national interest. The administration seems prepared to devote considerable capital to achieve a comprehensive, two-state solution.

President Mahmoud Abbas cannot continue to talk peace with Israel when Israel is at war with Palestinians. And Palestinians cannot make peace with Israel when they are at war with themselves. President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert were incapable of reaching a settlement in 2008. After months of talks, Abbas declined a far more concessive Israeli proposal than the one Yasser Arafat turned down in 2001.

If the Obama administration is determined to push for a final agreement, the President might bypass negotiations between the parties and, with support from a broad international coalition including Arab countries, Russia, and the European Union, present them with a detailed two-state agreement they will find hard to reject.

A workable two-state agreement would preserve Israel's Jewish character and majority, provide it with final and recognized borders, and maintain its ties to Jewish holy sites. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza would live free of Israeli occupation, they would govern Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, and refugees would have the opportunity to choose normal lives through resettlement and compensation.

A Palestinian state alongside Israel is not a Palestinian ideal. Partition means accepting less than the whole area of the British Mandate of Palestine and barring the return of refugees who were expelled or fled in 1948. For most of its history, the Palestinian national movement wanted nothing to do with it. Israelis, for their part, saw the concept of Palestinian statehood as both artificial and dangerous.

Palestinian embrace of the idea of statehood was the handiwork of Yasser Arafat. He made compromise feel like conquest. When it came to selling a two-state solution to his people, his record of militancy was his greatest asset. Palestinians judge the idea of a state not on its merits but by the company it keeps.

President Bush framed the idea of a Palestinian state as the answer to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and then hurriedly narrowed the challenge to the mundane task of building state institutions. Gone was the revolutionary aura with which Arafat imbued the idea. Today the idea is alive for Europeans, for Americans, and for Israelis who see it as the answer to the threat of Arab demographics. Many Palestinians feel the idea has been hijacked.

Today, many Palestinians see their leaders as instruments of foreign designs. Abbas came to power in 2005 with the historic legitimacy of forty years of arduous struggle and with authority that neither Fatah nor Hamas dared to challenge. His legitimacy was eroded by the West's suffocating embrace and his authority was blunted by intrusive US meddling.

Statehood could again be a Palestinian achievement. President Obama has a unique ability to speak to a foreign audience and, without diminishing America's dignity, elevate theirs. His apparent determination to broaden the talks to involve tens of Arab and Muslim states might give American diplomacy a lift. With time and tenacity, a strategy of building an international coalition for a final two-state solution might succeed.

To transform the political atmosphere, the strategy needs to focus on fundamental Israeli and Palestinian concerns and aspirations. This involves presenting a solution to Palestinians as the outcome of their national struggle and to Israelis as the culmination of their historic quest. America can reconnect with both sides if it acknowledges and redresses injustices suffered by Palestinians and provides Israelis with the recognition and normalcy historically denied them.

Peace camps on both sides have long been sold on the two-state idea. But the more they are identified with the proposal, the less appealing it will be. The United States should reach out to skeptical constituencies such as the settlers, an active and dynamic Israeli group that the outside world typically denigrates. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict will have to be tackled within the 1967 boundaries, but it can be resolved only if it deals candidly with its 1948 genesis, which includes an open acknowledgment of the plight of the refugees.

The United States must modify its dealings in Palestinian politics. Abbas must appear as the president of all Palestinians. The more the peace initiative is polarized between moderates and radicals in order to bolster the former while harming the latter, the more opposition will be energized.

Obama must win over the large pool of disaffected Arabs and Muslims who have ceased believing in the United States. The time will come to unfurl a grand diplomatic initiative. The more urgent task is to counter the skepticism that has taken root in the region. It is time for a clean break.
 

AR  This is a problem where the two-state solution is blocked by perverse incentives. Palestinians see the solution as setting their defeat in stone. They want all of Palestine, all of Jerusalem, all the refugees to return. Many would rather go down fighting than settle for less. Israelis see the solution as risking their security. A sovereign state can organize to attack them. Many would rather stay firm, expand settlements, and prevent the Palestinians from forming a rival state.

The Palestinian "all" position is doomed. They face millions of well organized and resourceful people who would bring down a nuclear calamity on the whole region rather than be pushed back into the sea. The Israeli "all" position is doomed in a different way. Even if the Arabs cannot defeat Israel in a military confrontation, the Iranians may soon develop the capability to do so. Only the rest of the West could save Israel, and the price would be to accept two states.

So the two-state solution, in some form, is inevitable. The biggest open question is how much violence we need to endure before we achieve it. The Islamic world is in uproar, and it will not be settled until the whole issue of Western influence in the region has been settled. For me, this opens the can of worms called worship of the God of Abraham. We need to put religion in its place in a rationally defensible worldview. I have my own views on all that.