Rice’s Mideast Minefield

By David Ignatius
Washington Post
Wednesday, March 21, 2007; A15

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is crossing a modest threshold in her efforts to mediate the Palestinian problem: She is signaling her willingness to meet with some members of the Hamas-backed “national unity government,” even though the Israelis have publicly opposed such a move.

Rice doesn’t do anything impulsively, least of all jump into the world’s most intractable conflict. And the space she has opened between U.S. and Israeli positions is quite small. But as she prepares for another trip to the Middle East late this week, Rice is sending the message that despite the complications posed by the Palestinian unity government announced last weekend, she is pressing ahead with her diplomatic efforts to broker the creation of a Palestinian state.

Henry Kissinger called this incremental approach “step-by-step diplomacy” when he was secretary of state during the 1970s under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. In Rice’s case, there have been only baby steps so far. But she appears to recognize that as she moves forward, she will need to engage the Palestinians more broadly, even though these contacts will upset some Israelis.

Rice’s position is that she won’t refuse to talk to Palestinians just because they have become members of the Hamas-dominated government, if their past public statements have recognized Israel’s right to exist. She is prepared, for example, to meet the new Palestinian finance minister, Salam Fayyad, a former World Bank economist. In a sign of the new U.S. policy, Fayyad met yesterday with the U.S. consul general in Jerusalem, Jacob Walles, according to Israeli press accounts. State Department officials also don’t rule out the possibility that Rice might meet with the new foreign minister, Ziad Abu Amr, a former political science professor with a doctorate from Georgetown who is friendly with Hamas.

Israel’s policy, by contrast, is that it “will not be able to work with the [Palestinian unity] government or any of its ministers” until that government recognizes Israel and renounces violence, according to a formal statement issued last weekend. Israel isn’t happy about the U.S. deviation from this policy, but Israeli officials don’t want to pick a public fight at this point. They remain confident that the United States and Israel share the same strategic goals, even if their tactics have begun to differ.

Since direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians are out, Rice will adopt the mediator’s role of holding separate “parallel communications” with both sides. (In Kissinger’s day, such meetings were known as “proximity talks.”) In these conversations, she will explore further what she calls the “political horizon” for the Palestinian state. Specifically, she hopes to develop a common agenda of issues that need to be resolved for that state to exist. Her chief Palestinian counterpart, for now, will be Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is acceptable to Israel.

Rice will discuss with Abbas and his advisers the tools that would allow a Palestinian state to function effectively. For example, she plans to explore how security might be maintained in a demilitarized Palestinian state — including the role that might be played by outside security forces, such as the European Union personnel who now act as monitors at checkpoints at Gaza’s border crossings with Egypt and Israel. A final item on Rice’s agenda will be steps to build solid governance in a future Palestinian state, including financial and technical support for ministries.

To add some balance to her effort, Rice is urging Arab states to reanimate their offer of peace to Israel, as expressed in Saudi King Abdullah’s 2002 peace initiative. For example, Rice hopes the Arabs will discuss interim steps, such as ending hostile propaganda and exchanging trade missions and other low-level contacts. Rice’s argument, in essence, is that a broad Arab-Israeli engagement is necessary during efforts to solve the Palestinian issue, instead of as icing on the cake after a peace deal is concluded.

Israel’s worry is that Rice is giving ground in ways that will only embolden Hamas. The militant Islamic group won concessions from Abbas in the formation of the unity government, including a right to submit any peace agreement for a referendum or parliamentary vote that would include Palestinian exiles. Abbas also failed to deliver on his promise that Hamas would release captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit before formation of a unity government. Meanwhile, Israeli security officials see Hamas expanding its military force in Gaza, with 12,000 troops and longer-range missiles with more-lethal warheads.

That’s the deadly standoff into which Rice is venturing as a mediator. She has started down a road that even Kissinger couldn’t navigate. But she understands the diplomat’s obligation that, having started a peace process, she cannot now stop.

The writer co-hosts, with Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria, PostGlobal, an online discussion of international issues athttp://blog.washingtonpost.com/postglobal. His e-mail address is davidignatius@washpost.com.

From the Churches for Middle East Peace, Americans for Peace Now, and Brit Tzedek: 

Senators Bill Nelson (D-FL) and John Ensign (R-NV) are currently circulating a sign-on letter to Secretary Rice. The letter expands sanctions against the Palestinian Authority by urging a ban on US contact with ALL members of the PA, if the unity government doesn’t meet the Quartet’s demands.

The letter seeks to block constructive US diplomacy with Palestinian moderates and severely undermines US efforts to promote Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

The Nelson-Ensign letter’s main request is that the US “continue to hold firm and insist that these very basic international principles do not change — no direct aid and no contacts with any members of a Palestinian Authority that does not explicitly and unequivocally recognize Israel’s right to exist, renounce terror, and accept previous agreements.” This letter goes beyond current US policy and law by urging no contact with the entire Palestinian Authority, which would prevent diplomatic engagement with Palestinian moderates who seek peace with Israel, such as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and independent Salam Fayyad (likely to become the next Minister of Finance).

As Sec. Rice tries to reinvigorate the peace process, Palestinian political dynamics are continuing to unfold and the Palestinian economic situation remains dire. At this critical time when the US should be working with Palestinian moderates to influence the new government’s conduct, the Nelson-Ensign letter is promoting an approach that is counterproductive to US national security interests.

Call the Senate switchboard now to tell your member not to sign on to this letter:
(202) 224-3121

This is the question being posed by “Let’s Talk,” a new campaign from Brit Tzedek v’Shalom (the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace) that is building support among American Jews to urge U.S. diplomatic engagement in Arab-Israeli peacemaking and changing the way American Jews talk and think about Israel.  “Let’s Talk” aims to encourage the Bush Administration to urgently promote and facilitate talks between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as Israel and Syria and Israel and Lebanon.  It also aims to reinvigorate dialogue and debate within the American Jewish community about a negotiated two-state resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Please visit http://letstalk.btvshalom.org/?a=44 to sign their petition, check out their website, and learn more.

In today’s IPFocus, David Dreiliinger highlights the nexus between the resurgence of the Saudi Initiative.  He says, “America is critical to the next stage: using the initiative as the basis for negotiations between the parties.  The new Saudi embrace of regional diplomacy does not mean that the United States’ role in Israeli-Arab peacemaking is being eclipsed; in fact, it only strengthens the need for more US involvement.

“That message seems to have gotten through.  Abbas and Olmert are scheduled to meet again next week, and Israeli advisors are in Washington briefing the administration on what those talks will cover.  Secretary of State Rice is due back in the region shortly for more talks.  Hopefully the discussions between Olmert and Abbas will be substantive – real negotiations are crucial for creating an atmosphere favorable to larger regional talks, or at least maintaining the fragile calm in the Palestinian territories and tilting the balance of legitimacy in Abbas’s favor.”

To read the full piece, follow the jump.

Events of the past few months have led analysts in the Middle East and elsewhere – most notably in Washington DC – to suggest that in today’s Middle East, Saudi Arabia has become the new address for regional diplomacy. 

The Saudis have embraced their role with what is for them atypical front-and-center engagement.  Where the Egyptians, Jordanians, and Qataris were unable to end internal Palestinian fighting, Saudi Arabia brokered the unity government deal between Hamas and Fatah in Mecca.  While politics in Iraq and Lebanon stagnate amid ethnic suspicions and violence, Saudi Arabia has established contacts with leaders in those countries and has put its money and prestige on the line to try to reach political compromises and avert civil war in both places.  At the same time, there are reports that Riyadh is taking the lead to slow the momentum of the pro-Iranian Shiite forces throughout the Middle East.

And now perhaps the most important Middle East peace initiative in years, the Saudi Plan, is back on the table. In a summit scheduled to take place in Riyadh at the end of the month, the Arab League is expected to re-launch the initiative, perhaps with some important emendations. 

The initiative, first introduced by Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah in 2002, calls for all of the Arab states to normalize relations with Israel after an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders (including the Golan Heights) and the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.  This move was a dramatic reversal of more than fifty years of rejectionist policy from Saudi Arabia and it was ratified, though simultaneously hardened, by the Arab League in Beirut a few weeks later.

This was a potentially groundbreaking initiative, and a concrete suggestion that the Arab world might be ready to come to terms with Israel. But there were serious weaknesses, and then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismissed the initiative out of hand; the Bush administration remained mute on the matter.

The problem was that the Arab League plan’s demands were maximalist: it called for the return of millions of Palestinian refugees to the Jewish state – a nonstarter for Israel – and it did not provide a workable formula for dealing with the demographic changes around the 1967 lines.  And the Arab League’s timing was poor: its release coincided with a suicide bombing at a Netanya hotel that killed 30 Israelis and prompted Israel’s partial reoccupation of the West Bank in Operation Defensive Shield.  (Indeed, there was then and remains now suspicion that the bombing was designed to bury the plan, and if so, the suicide attack accomplished its objectives.)

But today, there is a chance the initiative could make its return in a format that takes into account Israel’s red lines.  According to Itamar Eichner in Yediot Ahronot, “the expected revision… will focus on the status of the Palestinian refugees in the final status arrangement.  The revised plan will propose that the refugees will be able to return only to the [West Bank and Gaza] or remain in their places of residence and receive monetary compensation.”

And the timing is right.  Israeli and Arab interests are as closely aligned as they have ever been – both sides have an overriding strategic interest in a stable Iraq and there is a new appreciation of the need to cooperate to check the rising power of Shiite Iran and Hezbollah.  In the late fall, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert met with a high-ranking Saudi official – presumably Prince Bandar bin Sultan (the former long-term Saudi Ambassador to the US, the present Saudi National Security Advisor, and the reputed architect of the new Saudi strategy) – in Amman, a meeting that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.  There is an understanding that the persistence of the Arab-Israeli conflict is an obstacle to strategic action.

Of course, in the big picture, there are as many, probably even more, places that Israeli and Saudi interests diverge.  Saudi Arabia has few ideological qualms with Hamas, for instance – Riyadh simply wants to take Iran’s place as the main influence on Hamas. The Saudis are merely looking out for what they perceive to be their regional interests; today, those interests include an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but no one is sure what will happen on the day after.

That’s why the United States’ role in pushing forward on the Saudi Plan is so important.  Without the United States, the Arab League initiative will amount to very little.  There are only modest steps the US can (or should) take to influence the outcome of this month’s Arab League summit – that is best left to the parties themselves.  But America is critical to the next stage: using the initiative as the basis for negotiations between the parties.  The new Saudi embrace of regional diplomacy does not mean that the United States’ role in Israeli-Arab peacemaking is being eclipsed; in fact, it only strengthens the need for more US involvement.

That message seems to have gotten through.  Abbas and Olmert are scheduled to meet again next week, and Israeli advisors are in Washington briefing the administration on what those talks will cover.  Secretary of State Rice is due back in the region shortly for more talks.  Hopefully the discussions between Olmert and Abbas will be substantive – real negotiations are crucial for creating an atmosphere favorable to larger regional talks, or at least maintaining the fragile calm in the Palestinian territories and tilting the balance of legitimacy in Abbas’s favor.

It is easy to dismiss all of these diplomatic efforts and to be skeptical about the chances for progress given the state of the Middle East today – Olmert’s government is weak and embroiled in one domestic scandal after another, Hamas is in the Palestinian Authority government and shows no sign of meeting the three conditions (renunciation of violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of prior agreements with Israel), and the US government appears distracted by Iraq and unable or unwilling to commit to a peace process.

But negotiations could be a lifeline for Olmert’s government.  The Kadima party was, after all, elected on a platform of withdrawal from much of the West Bank, and diplomatic movement would be one antidote to the political stagnation and recriminations at home.  Abbas is still the President of the PA, and he is eager to continue talks with Israel.  And the Bush administration is showing a new appreciation for negotiations and is engaging Iran and Syria to help ensure stability in Iraq.

But it will take concerted efforts to overcome the obstacles and to take advantage of the complex opportunities that widespread frustration and fear seem to be creating.  That’s why confidence building measures could be useful.  Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Gershon Baskin suggested that “The Arab League… could decide to send a high level representative to appear in the Knesset and in the Palestinian Legislative Council in order to present the initiative directly to the people of Israel and Palestine. That would be the kind of triggering event that would completely change the political climate surrounding the initiative since 2002.”

In any event, if it materializes according to current reports, the renewed peace push from the Arab states at the end of the month should not be ignored.  It would then take extremely hard work, both in the US, Israel, and the Arab States, to make the Arab League initiative fit the needs of both Israel and the other states in the region, but if a new document were to offer an opening for negotiations, progress would be possible. The stakes would then be too high to let the opportunity pass.

Just as CALME’s open letter called for, this month we saw the United States, under the determined leadership of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, pledging to truly reengage in active efforts to bring about a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I’m committed to this,” she said after arriving in Jerusalem for the trilateral summit between Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas. “I’m committed to seeing what we can do to improve life for the Palestinian people, seeing what we can do to improve security for the Israeli people, seeing what we can do to realize the two states living side by side in peace and freedom. And this is the work that takes — it takes hard work, it takes patience, it takes perseverance, it takes getting up, you know, after a bad day and trying to make a better day. And that’s what I’m going to do.”

This pledge from Secretary Rice is one of the best outcomes we could have hoped for when we joined with former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen and former U.S. Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn in a press conference immediately before the President’s State of the Union address to announce that CALME had delivered its letter to the President. We called on the President to promise that reinvigorating international efforts to secure Israeli-Palestinian peace will be a central goal of American foreign policy this year. He took the opportunity, saying “With the other members of the Quartet — the U.N., the European Union, and Russia — we are pursuing diplomacy to help bring peace to the Holy Land, and pursuing the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel in peace and security.” You can find reports of our press conference on our online journal at http://mideastcalm.wordpress.com.

We must now ensure that this won’t have been Secretary Rice’s last trip to the region.

A successful effort to better the lives of the Palestinians and bring security to the Israelis will only come about through a sustained commitment by Secretary Rice to remain in close contact with both leaders and to visit the region often enough to truly work toward the “diplomatic and political horizon” she sees as leading toward a two-state solution.

Will you help?

Send an e-mail to Secretary Rice telling her that you support her efforts and encourage her to remain committed to actively resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You can use the following text:

Dear Secretary Rice –

I was heartened by your determination to reengage in the pursuit of a two-state solution to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict by holding a trilateral summit with Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas. Thank you for committing yourself to doing what it takes to move both sides closer to peace.

As you well know, there are challenges on the ground now, and more obstacles surely wait ahead. Yet a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will enhance our efforts to build a secure, stable, and more democratic Middle East, and in so doing, serve U.S. national security interests.

Be assured that the support of thousands of Americans like myself who joined together in the Campaign for American Leadership in the Middle East is behind you. We hope that your most recent trip to the region will be your first of as many are needed to halt the continued violence and enmity between the two peoples.

Please forward this message to your friends and loved ones and ask them to support Secretary Rice’s efforts now.

Sincerely,
Joel Tauber and George Salem
Co-Chairs
The Campaign for American Leadership in the Middle East
http://www.mideastcalm.org

The International Crisis Group, whose Middle East division is led by CALME luminary Robert Malley, released a report last week titled “After Mecca: Engaging Hamas.”  The report details the status of political developments in the Palestinian territories since Hamas took power one year ago, as well as how things may or may not have changed since Fatah and Hamas finalized the Mecca Accord.   In short, the paper argues that it is time for the international community to figure out a way to engage Hamas.  Isolating them, the report argues, has only further stalled any measure of progress toward peace and, in fact, increased the internecine violence.  Looking at the situation now, the report suggests the following:

The main objective, of course, is to revive the peace process and move toward a two-state solution. Critics of the Mecca Agreement and the national unity government, chiefly the U.S. and Israel, call it an impediment to progress – an odd characterisation considering there was no peace process before Hamas won the elections and no peace process before Fatah agreed to join its government. It is also wrong. Mecca is a prerequisite for a peace process not an obstacle to it. Without a Hamas-Fatah power-sharing agreement and as long as the Islamists feel marginalised, unable to govern and in an existential struggle for survival, there can be no sustainable diplomacy. With sizeable public support, Hamas can deny Abbas the legitimacy required to make difficult concessions. It can launch attacks on Israel to torpedo talks. And in or out of office it can easily prevent a referendum designed to ratify any potential agreement.

If the international community is serious about its proclaimed goals, it will help bring stability to the Palestinians and broker a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire, permit the unity government to govern and press for meaningful negotiations between Abbas and Olmert. It will see Mecca as an opportunity to revive the peace process, rather than as yet another excuse to bury it.

To read the full report, please click here.

In yesterday’s Haaretz, long-time columnist Akiva Eldar chastises the U.S. for effectively blocking peace talks between Israel and Syria, and potentially Israel and the Palestinians.  He says, “If Syria is the enemy of Middle East peace, then perpetuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be considered a handsome consolation prize for Damascus. And why would Hamas, which is bending over backwards not to recognize Israel’s right to exist, want to remove the obstacles to such an arrangement? If the U.S. and its Quartet partners, not to mention the Israeli government, truly want to bypass Hamas on the road to the final- status agreement, then why are they granting it veto power over the peace process?”

He explains his logic, and argument for pursuing peace now with both the Syrians and Palestinians in his article, which follows the jump.  He also highlights an important forthcoming date in Mecca that will force Hamas to either accept the existence of Israel, or turn against its Arab brethren.  That will be a meeting to watch.

CLOSED-DOOR POLICY
By Akiva Eldar
Haaretz, Opinion (Israel)
February 26, 2007

The United States has requested that Israel refrain from even sending out feelers to assess Syria’s negotiating proposals, Ze’ev Schiff reported in Haaretz Friday. “Exploratory talks,” Condoleezza Rice explained during her recent visit here, would be considered a prize to Damascus.

Let’s assume for the moment that there is some logic to this approach toward Syria. What about the Palestinian negotiating channel? Is it also remaining blocked in order not to award a prize to Hamas, which is not interested in peace talks with Israel? If the principle behind U.S. Middle East policy is tallying up the winners and losers of every diplomatic move, then we must clarify who will be the happy winner of the prize - negotiations toward a final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians - and who will lose the whole kitty. Who will profit from Israel’s refusal to renew the negotiations on the Palestinian track and from U.S. support for its prolonged stasis.

If Syria is the enemy of Middle East peace, then perpetuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be considered a handsome consolation prize for Damascus. And why would Hamas, which is bending over backwards not to recognize Israel’s right to exist, want to remove the obstacles to such an arrangement? If the U.S. and its Quartet partners, not to mention the Israeli government, truly want to bypass Hamas on the road to the final- status agreement, then why are they granting it veto power over the peace process?

A diplomatic measure that advances a permanent arrangement is not like the odds for winning the lottery - the chance of winning exceeds the risk that the Muslim Brotherhood will strengthen its grip on neighboring states and turn Israel, in the near future, into a binational state. The brass ring of a final agreement has been waiting to be claimed for five years now, since the Saudi initiative became, in March 2002, a binding resolution of the Arab League in Beirut, offering the normalization of relations with Israel by all league members in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders. The language of the Beirut Declaration does not close the door to “exploratory talks,” or even to negotiations on the possibility of exchanging territory, reaching a compromise on the holy sites in Jerusalem and solving the refugee problem outside Israel’s borders.

It is not for nothing that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas represented the Mecca agreement as the preface to an Arab peace initiative and the realization of President George Bush’s vision of two states. The creation of the PA unity government is intended to force Hamas into a slaughterhouse chute whose final destination is Riyadh. Next month the Arab League will convene in that Saudi city in order to extract a commitment from all attendees, including the Palestinian unity government, to all of the principles of the Beirut Declaration. This would force the Hamas representatives in the official Palestinian declaration to choose between religious ideology, which forbids them from recognizing the Jewish state’s right to exist, and the Arab consensus.

Representing the Mecca a greement as a prize to Hamas and refusing to recognize the government based on it reminds one of the Arab proverb about the thief who would rather fight with the guard than eat the grapes. Instead of wasting time on arguing over the demand that the unity government recognize interim agreements that have passed their sell-by date, the only formula for a permanent agreement that earned the support of all 22 Arab League members could have been submitted to that government. This simple logic also hold for the Syrians. Tehran and Hezbollah are not grieving over Jerusalem’s welcome acceptance of Washington’s prohibition against reopening communication lines to Damascus, even covertly.

If the Israeli government were to treat the peace process like the grand prize instead of a threat, it would not stop at exploratory talks. It would use its connections in Washington to persuade the U.S. president to renew negotiations with Syria immediately. As with the Palestinians, there is no other way to assess Syria’s intentions and force it to choose itspartner. If Bashar Assad is bluffing, that will become obvious within a few months, if not weeks, and he will lose the brass ring. Time, as Jordan’s King Abdullah said recently, is not on the side of peoples whose leaders know what they do not want but have no idea what they do want.

In an in-depth interview with the Council on Foreign Relations, CALME luminary Martin Indyk provided some insight into how Secretary Rice’s recent trilateral summit did mark a significant change for this Administration’s involvement in the pursuit of two states. 

He said, “These talks are qualitatively different from anything that she or the Bush administration has done before. And that’s for two reasons. One is that she has committed herself to a discussion between Abu Mazen and Olmert about the framework for a final status agreement, or what she calls a ‘political horizon.’ And what Rice is doing is discussing—not negotiating—what a future Palestinian state would look like. Now, that is different from anything the Bush administration has done in its previous six years in office because they absolutely refused to have any ‘political horizon’ in any of the things that they’ve produced. So, for instance, the ‘Road Map’ talks about a two-state solution as a final objective but gives no details about what that final agreement would look like. This is an attempt by her to give greater granularity to the president’s vision of an independent, democratic Palestinian state living alongside Israel.

“The second thing is that she has committed to a sustained engagement. One of the things she said at the end of her remarks on Sunday was that ‘I will be back shortly.’ And she has said elsewhere that she’s going to be coming back once a month. That’s qualitatively different because the Bush administration has never had a sustained engagement in peacemaking on the Israeli-Palestinian front. They talked a good game but always walked away from any kind of sustained engagement. “

To read the full interview, please click here.

This alert comes from the IPCRI:

June 5 2007 will mark 40 years since the June 1967 war. On June 5 the “march for Israeli-Palestinian peace” will take place in cities and towns throughout the world in solidarity with the people of Israel and Palestine who will march, demonstrate and organize for Israeli-Palestinian peace throughout Israel and Palestine. Several main events will be held in key cities such as Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramallah, Nablus, Gaza, Washington, New York, Chicago, Athens, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, London, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Moscow, Rome, Amman, Cairo, Tokyo, and others.

The call for Israeli-Palestinian peace based on the “two-states for two peoples” formula and for ending the conflict will be the uniting force that will bring out millions of people across the globe.

This is a civil society initiative to be launched and supported by civil society organizations including NGOs, political parties, labor unions, universities, churches and other religious groups and organizations, etc. The private sector is being called to join the initiative and to provide financial support. All of the events and marches should be covered widely in the media.

Efforts will be made to enlist the active support and involvement of public personalities from politics, the arts, music, and the movie and entertainment industries. The June 5 initiative will include marches, demonstrations, peace concerts, seminars, study-days, petitions, and more – all supporting Israeli-Palestinian and ending the conflict.

We need your help and support. We need to create an internet based committee of hundreds of volunteers throughout the world to make this initiative materialize. There is much to do and little time to do it.

We are beginning to organize all over the world. We hope that there will be an organizing committee in each city. Each organizing committee will design and implement the activities that are appropriate for that place. We will try to keep the political messages unified, positive and constructive. There will be a central web page for publicizing the activities and actions in each community.

We are just beginning to enlist the volunteers. The entire operation will be organized by volunteers. We need to know what you are willing to do – we are open to all of your suggestions, ideas and initiatives. As we receive feedback and emails, we will sign them up by city and then provide the names and contact information to the organizing committee in each city. If you manage to sign up more volunteers, it is important to transmit that information to us so that we can update the central database. We will keep the database on the web site. We need to get the names, location, contact information and what the volunteers are willing to do.

It is important to begin to get public figures enlisted in each city – artists, musicians, politicians, etc. so that we can draw more international and local attention to what we are trying to do.

Keep us posted and we will keep you posted.

Best wishes, in peace

Gershon Baskin and Hanna Sinoira

Please heed our call and sign up to be a volunteer for this initiative. Please send us your personal details, where you live and what you can do to move this initiative forward.

Name, location, position, telephone, fax, email and what you can do to help

Gershon@ipcri.org  Hanna@ipcri.org

Telephone: +972-2-676-9460 Fax: +972-2-676-8011

CALME Luminary MJ Rosenberg published this article as this week’s IPF Friday.

Washington DC, February 23, 2007
Issue # 312

One State, Two States.  Do I Hear Three?

A few weeks ago I participated in a panel on the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The panel consisted of a Palestinian-American spokesman and me.  The two of us have been teamed up before although we tend not to disagree on very much.  In other words, no fireworks.

Both of us support the two-state solution and, although there are differences between us on some of the issues that divide the two sides, they are minor compared to our agreement on the central issue.

My “job” was fairly easy.  Almost all the people in the audience were supporters of the two-state idea and, in fact, view it as the only possible solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  My Palestinian friend, on the other hand, was given a rough going over by some of his fellow Palestinians who oppose the two-state solution and favor Israel’s replacement by a state “for all the people who live there.”

At one point a Palestinian student — angered by my colleague’s insistence that the only alternative to two-states was a war that the Palestinians would lose — insisted that those advocating the one-state idea were not advocating violence.  “We don’t support violence against Israelis.  The state we envision can be established without violence.”

My friend laughed that off.  “So you think the Knesset will decide one day to simply declare the State of Israel out of existence? And that will be that?”

He then added that, as the grandchild of people who were forced from their homes in Jerusalem in 1948, he was not prepared to wait forever for the opportunity to return to some part of Palestine, if he so chose.  A West Bank/Gaza state with a capital in the Arab part of Jerusalem was the best he could hope for.  That and peace with Israel.   He cited polls that showed that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza agree with him.

The radical Palestinians didn’t want to hear it.  Of course, most of them have no intention of living in Palestine anyway so their militancy comes on the cheap.  They are analogous to the American Jews who reject the very idea of compromise with the Palestinians but do not have to live with the consequences of their inflexibility.

The bad news is that the one-state idea is picking up steam among Palestinians as they conclude that they, as a people, have almost nothing to show for the PLO’s 1988 acceptance of the two-state formula.  The only sovereign Palestinian territory is Gaza but even there Israelis control the air space and the passages in and out and preserve the option of sending in forces any time they deem it necessary.  Most view Gaza as more of a ghetto than a country although they do celebrate the removal of the settlers.

It is then small wonder that more Palestinians are looking at the one-state idea, as unrealistic as that concept is.

According to Thursday’s Los Angeles Times, Palestinian citizens of Israel are circulating a manifesto which essentially calls for the replacement of Israel with a bi-national state.

According to the Times the manifesto, which is called “The Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel,” is the “first such sweeping demand by Israel’s Arab mainstream. The manifesto was drafted by 40 academics and activists under the sponsorship of the Committee of Arab Mayors in Israel and has been endorsed by an unprecedented range of Arab community leaders.”

The Times reports that “the manifesto urges Israel to adopt a ‘consensual democracy’ like that of Belgium, which reconciles its Flemish- and French-speaking communities through power sharing, proportional representation and local autonomy. The system…would give Arab communities control over decisions about education, culture and religious affairs.”

It sounds rather innocuous until one considers that a “consensual democracy” would end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.

It is not hard to see the appeal of the one-state idea to Palestinians, especially when it is offered as a non-violent solution to the conflict.  Of course, this “solution” could no more be achieved peacefully than Israeli Cabinet Member Avigdor Lieberman’s plan to divest Israel of its Palestinian citizens could.  

Israelis would fight to preserve their state, the fruition of a 2000 year old dream and a thriving modern country as rooted in the Middle East as any of its neighbors.  And Palestinians would fight to prevent Lieberman’s ethnic cleansing plan; they are Palestinians and have been there from time immemorial.

The people on both sides who are turning to these ideas have given up on the very idea of peaceful coexistence with the “other.”  Many never believed in it to start with.

Fortunately, majorities of both peoples know that there is another way.  Israel can retain its Jewish character and its democracy through negotiations with the Palestinians to establish a West Bank/Gaza Palestinian state.  Palestinians would then be able to exercise their full national rights within their own country while Israelis would retain full sovereignty in theirs.  There is no alternative or, to be precise, no alternative that is capable of being implemented without massive blood-letting.

Those in the region and here in Washington who support the status quo – who see no urgency to resolving the conflict and insist that the Palestinian issue is not central to the overall Middle East mess – are contributing to a deadly denouement.

The events of the last few weeks do not change this reality.  Secretary Rice did not achieve a breakthrough during her recent trip but she pledges to deepen her involvement. Although the Hamas-Fatah agreement leaves a lot to be desired, it does not change the fact that Israel has a partner in President Abbas.  Nor does the still-tentative unity government mean that suddenly Hamas and Fatah have become allies, with Israel as their common enemy.

That will probably not happen, although if both the United States and Israel play their cards wrong (as both have repeatedly done in their reluctance to support Abbas), it could.

The United States needs to strengthen Abbas. Right now that means moving ahead with the $85 million package to help train Abbas’s security forces.  It also means encouraging Israel to alleviate some of the onerous and unnecessary checkpoints, dismantling settlements, and working out a prisoner exchange deal.  Abbas needs to ensure that the suicide terror war against Israel does not resume, a prospect that is again looming as the Israelis intercept more and more potential suicide bombers.  By supporting Abbas, including with weaponry, we help him thwart them.  And we also help preserve Saudi influence among the Palestinians (they brokered the Mecca plan) while reducing the influence of Iran.

Supporting Abbas is not a favor we do for him.  Like it or not, his survival is essential to Israel’s security and to the preservation of America’s interests in this most critical corner of the world.

On the other hand, there is the one-state solution.

MJ Rosenberg is the Director of Israel Policy Forum’s Washington Policy Center.