Many who generally criticize America’s foreign policy (and count among our sins obliviousness to their advice) are joining the widespread call for Washington to play a dominant role. These pleas have been given fresh impetus by the initiative of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, which proposes normalization of relations between the Arab world and Israel if Israel returns to the 1967 frontiers. Thus Vice President Dick Cheney’s journey to the Middle East, intended to elicit Arab support for a possible showdown with Iraq, was reshaped by his Arab hosts into an occasion for a new initiative to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. This deflection of attention from terrorism to the Palestinian issue is in itself a considerable achievement for Saudi diplomacy. At the same time, the near unanimity in Europe and the Arab world urging American intervention stems from the hope that, in the end, we will impose on Israel a settlement essentially identical to the Abdullah plan.
In the past 30 years, American diplomacy has been the catalyst for practically all the progress the peace process made. But given the explosive politics of the region, it is all too easy to overestimate what is possible. In 2000, the impetuous attempt to settle all issues in one negotiation of limited duration at Camp David contributed to the outbreak of the current warfare.
In present conditions, a comparison of both sides’ positions demonstrates that another attempt at a negotiated final solution would not fare better. The only formal plan by an Israeli government was put forward by Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David. In it, he offered more than 90 percent of the disputed territories (the formula was complex) but retained about 70 percent of the settlements. In exchange, the Palestinians were asked to renounce any future claims, including the right to return into Israel proper (though they would be free to return to a Palestinian state). Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has disavowed this proposal. Yasir Arafat preferred the intifada to the implications of finality.
The most forthcoming Arab proposal has come from Crown Prince Abdullah. According to its imprecise outline, Israel would return to the dividing lines of 1967 in exchange for the normalization of relations with the Arab states. Literally, this would imply Israeli abandonment of all settlements and Arab control of the Old City of Jerusalem, including the holy places. The Abdullah plan does not define what is meant by normalization, and is silent about such issues as the right of refugees to return (though it would surely be insisted on in an actual negotiation).
Welcome as this engagement in the peace process is–the first by an Arab state not having a direct national conflict with Israel–its specific terms represent a restatement of a position that has produced the existing deadlock. The pre-1967 “border” in Palestine–unlike the Egyptian, Syrian or Jordanian frontiers with Israel–was never an international frontier but a ceasefire line established at the end of the 1948 war. It was never recognized by any Arab state until after the 1967 war and has been grudgingly accepted recently by states that do not yet recognize the legitimacy of Israel. I have never encountered an Israeli prime minister or chief of staff who considered the ‘67 borders defensible, and especially if coupled with an abandonment of a security position along the Jordan River. This is because the ‘67 borders leave a corridor as narrow as eight miles between Haifa and Tel Aviv and put the border of Israel at the edge of its international airport. Moreover, Israel would have to give up settlements containing approximately 200,000 inhabitants (about 4 percent of its Jewish population).
In return, Israel would achieve diplomatic relations with its neighbors. But in almost all other negotiations, mutual recognition of the parties is taken for granted, not treated as a concession. In fact, nonrecognition implies the legal nonexistence of the other state, which, in the context of the Middle East, is tantamount to an option to destroy it. Once granted, recognition can always be withdrawn; breaking diplomatic relations is a recognized diplomatic tool. Nor does formal normalization involve much else: Israel’s peace agreement with Egypt of 23 years ago has brought little in the way of enhanced economic or cultural relations other than an exchange of ambassadors who are rarely brought into play.
While the terms of the crown prince’s proposal represent no breakthrough, Saudi engagement could be important if it is used to produce a ceasefire and to start negotiations without preconditions from either side. But if its ultimate purpose is to induce the United States to impose its specific provisions, it would undermine the security of Israel and ultimately the stability of the region.
The precariousness of Israel’s position is paradoxical. Israel has never been more powerful, and at the same time never more vulnerable. Israel is militarily stronger than any conceivable Arab adversary; it is clearly able to inflict heavy losses on Palestinian terrorist groups. But it has evolved into a middle-class advanced society and, as such, the strain of guerrilla warfare is psychologically draining. The intifada has generated an ambivalent rigidity in Israeli society. Prior to the Oslo agreement, the Israeli peace movement viewed reconciliation with the Arab world primarily in terms of psychological reassurance; land would be traded for peace even though the Arab quid pro quo would be revocable. But since the intifada, the vast majority of Israelis no longer believe in reconciliation; they want victory and the crushing of their Arab adversaries.
At the same time, there is growing despair over the seeming futility of the enterprise. With the proportion of Israeli casualties to that of the guerrillas going up, and the fact that Israel’s retaliation beyond a certain point will not be tolerated by the United States, a sense of resignation is spreading. The desire to turn on the tormentors is beginning to be offset by signs of a hunger for peace at any price.
Israel finds itself facing the classic dynamic of guerrilla warfare as it has played out for two generations now. The guerrillas not only do not recoil from terrorism but practice an egregious form of it because a violent, emotional (and to bystanders), excessive retaliation serves their purpose: to trigger intervention by the international community, especially the United States. In the process, sanctuaries are established–however dubious their basis in international law–that, to all practical purposes, eliminate the capacity of the defending forces to get to the root of the guerrilla challenge. That process gradually erodes Israel’s margin of survival even while the world’s media and diplomats bewail its excesses. Torn between a recognition of strategic necessities and the pull of emotional imperatives, Israel runs the risk of sliding into paralysis.
Yet the imposition of the indefensible ‘67 frontiers is not the solution. For after the experiences of Oslo, Israelis know (as should the rest of the world) that the real division among Palestinians is not between those who want peace in the Western sense–as a point after which the world lives free of tensions with a consciousness of reconciliation. In reality, the number of Palestinian leaders holding this view is minuscule. The fundamental schism is between those who want to bring about the destruction of Israel by continuing the present struggle, and those who believe that an agreement now would be a better strategy to rally forces for the ultimate showdown later on.
Even if those Palestinians who sign a “final” agreement have no afterthoughts, no one can guarantee that they will not be replaced by radical successors. A peace agreement will not quell but may stimulate the intransigence of Hamas and other radical groups or states. If, as is asserted, Arafat cannot be asked to accept a permanent ceasefire as an entrance price into negotiations because his radical opponents would have a veto, why would not the same condition apply after a peace settlement? Thus the differences between a permanent and an interim settlement are more a matter of adjectives than substance.
NATO, American or other third-party guarantees are of marginal utility in overcoming this problem. Nobody can seriously believe that the European countries would go to war for Israel, especially against challenges that are likely to be ambiguous. The only possible solution would be an American guarantee against invasion from neighboring states. Aside from raising profound domestic questions in the United States, this would bring with it an American veto of Israeli retaliation against less than all-out attack and be almost impossible to apply against the resumption of guerrilla warfare.
Therefore, the beginning of wisdom is to recognize the impossibility of a final settlement under current conditions. Some crises can only be managed, not solved. The constant invocation of unattainable goals will foster a general climate of irresponsibility. Yet a less ambitious mediation may have some prospects, if for no other reason than that the status quo is becoming increasingly intolerable for Palestinians as well. They have fought ferociously on behalf of the classic paradigm of asymmetrical warfare: the guerrilla wins if he does not lose. Still, a point may be approaching where the costs of the war exhaust, or perhaps even destroy, the civil society the guerrillas are seeking to establish. For the other Arab states, their impotence on the Palestine issue threatens in time to radicalize their domestic politics. They have a stake in a truce even if they are not able for domestic reasons to support an overall settlement on meaningful terms.
But before the United States launches itself into a major diplomatic effort, it must be clear about what is at stake. Will the mediation be interpreted in the region as being produced by terrorism, or as an attempt to shape an outcome based on familiar American principles? Will the perceived lesson be that September 11 in the end obliged America to adopt positions it had rejected previously? Or will terrorism be viewed as obstructing rather than inspiring a positive American role? If negotiations start, will the military prowess displayed by the Palestinians in the intifada provide an excuse for Arafat to play the constructive role Anwar Sadat did after the temporary Arab successes of the 1973 war? Or will he view America in retreat and Israel on the verge of an abyss–toward which he will push it step by step with the help of outside mediation? The answers to these questions will determine the prospects for a peaceful evolution of the region, and also to a large extent the prospects for America’s war against terrorism.
The Palestinians will not accept a ceasefire because they believe they have momentum; the Israelis will not yield because they fear for their existence. America can bridge this gap only by making clear to both sides that the only feasible goal is a limited settlement in which each will achieve less than its maximum aim but more than it can accomplish by a continuation of the conflict. It must urge Israel toward a peace program; it must impress upon its Arab interlocutors the limits of achievable concessions.
The strength of the Bush administration has been to cut through slogans to underlying realities. Under present circumstances, this means insisting that a ceasefire must accompany negotiations and that negotiations must aim for less than a final settlement. The goal of such an agreement would be secure borders for Palestinian state with contiguous territory. As part of the necessary withdrawals Israel should be prepared to abandon outlying settlements. Issues other than the border between the two states would be left for later negotiations. There should be an interval of sufficient length for normal life to resume on both sides, encouraged by outside economic assistance. The United States should play a major role in facilitating such an outcome, provided the parties agree to the principles embodied in it. In its absence the United States has no option except to stand aside. If the United States appears to be gradually veering toward imposing the ‘67 borders, it risks continuation of the conflict.
To contribute to genuine progress, America must back a program that combines respect for Arab dignity with Israel’s necessities for survival. There is no middle way.
