Endgame for Palestine. Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Endgame for Palestine.
Foreign Policy Research Institute. http://www.fpri.org/enotes/200707.sicherman.endgamepalestine.html

By Harvey Sicherman

July 2007

Harvey Sicherman, Ph.D., is president of FPRI and a former aide to
three U.S. secretaries of state.

On July 16, 2007, President Bush delivered a speech marking five years
since his declaration of American support for a democratic Palestinian
state. The original draft, scheduled a month earlier, had to
accommodate an untoward event: the violent seizure of Gaza by Hamas,
the Islamist Palestinian party. Hamas is armed and financed by Syria
and Iran; its declared objective is the destruction of Israel. This
event, like Hamas' electoral victory in January 2006, seemingly
repudiated Bush's policy.

The President, however, has now tripled his bet that the Palestinian
cause can be rescued from the Islamists, once again through a
partnership with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, to be
reinforced by former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's mission for
the Quartet (United States, Russia, European Union, United Nations)
and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's mission for a regional
conference. This devilishly complex diplomacy will require more skill-
and luck-than Washington has enjoyed thus far. Not the least of the
complexities is the timetable (roughly the coming fall), which
coincides with a likely crisis over Iraq. But, as will be seen, the
strategy also depends on a solution to the pressing military problem
exposed by last summer's Lebanon War.

Bush's Palestine, and Arafat's
Since June 2002, as an essential element of an overall settlement of
the Arab-Israeli conflict, American policy has sought to foster the
creation of a democratic Palestinian state that is opposed to
terrorism. On July 16, President Bush reiterated this objective with a
fresh embrace of President Abbas (popularly known as Abu Mazen) as the
man to do the job. This was his third endorsement of Abu Mazen.

In 2003, and again in 2005, Abu Mazen was depicted as the key to
reigniting a peace process that depended on two partners, one
Palestinian and one Israeli, who were willing and able to reach a
deal. Their risks in doing so were to be reduced by American and
international assistance. This formula had worked well between Egypt
and Israel, and Israel and Jordan, delivering sturdy peace treaties
that have survived assassinations and regional conflicts.

Although the 1993 Oslo Accords between the PLO's Yasser Arafat and
Israel's Yitzhak Rabin appeared to replicate the pattern, the United
States attributed the failed Camp David Summit of 2000 and the
subsequent intifada largely to Arafat's malevolence. Outgoing
President Bill Clinton warned his successor against trusting the
Palestinian's intentions, a warning reinforced by Arafat's behavior in
January 2002 over an Iranian arms shipment intercepted by Israel.
Bush's support for a Palestinian state in June 2002, originating
partly in the aftermath of 9/11, was therefore hedged with a demand
for a democracy with leaders "not compromised by terrorism." After the
swift overthrow of Saddam in spring 2003, Arafat had been forced to
accept Abu Mazen, a longtime aide turned critic, as Prime Minister.
Despite public approval by Bush, Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
Jordan's King Abdullah, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, however,
Abu Mazen resigned four months later, mainly over Arafat's continued
control of the security services.

The United States embraced Abu Mazen a second time following his
election as President of the Palestinian Authority early in 2005,
Arafat having died two months earlier. This time the Palestinian
brought to the table a demand for renewed final status negotiations; a
partial cease-fire including Hamas, bought at the price of allowing
Hamas to participate in Palestinian local and legislative elections
without having to endorse the Oslo agreement; and a promise to the
Palestinians of reform under the slogan of "one authority, one law and
one gun."

These words were belied by events. The cease-fire had a big exemption
for the Syrian-sponsored Islamic Jihad, which promptly began firing
rockets on southern Israeli border towns. The promises of reform fell
victim to Fatah party corruption and rivalries. Moreover, Prime
Minister Sharon, then in the painful process of executing his
unilateral disengagement from Gaza, regarded Abu Mazen as a "plucked
chicken," meaning a man incapable of imposing order. The Bush
Administration, anxious to obtain Israeli withdrawal and riding a wave
of early successes in electioneering around the region, contented
itself with post-disengagement economic arrangements and an insistence
on Palestinian elections even with Hamas participation. With his party
in disarray and Hamas taking the credit for the Gaza withdrawal, Abu
Mazen went very reluctantly to the polls.

Sharon's incapacitation and Hamas' January 2006 victory dealt a double
blow to U.S. policy. Apparently, Arafat's Palestine was to be
displaced not by Bush's democratic vision, represented by Abu Mazen,
but rather by Hamas, an Islamist party (its ideology not far from that
of bin Laden's) and increasingly influenced by Syria and Iran. The
Palestinians had elected a living contradiction, giving the presidency
to a man who recognized Israel, renounced violence, and supported
Oslo, and the government to a party that repudiated Oslo and sought
Israel's destruction through terrorism.

Smothering the Baby, Part I
Following Hamas' victory, Washington sought to rally a coalition
opposed to the new government. The United States, Israel, Egypt,
Jordan, and Fatah sought to smother the baby with minimal violence.
They failed. Abbas drifted along, apparently believing that Hamas
respected his presidency and would stop short of civil war. Egypt
tried to mediate but did not seal the Gaza-Egypt border against arms
and money smuggling. The American-sponsored international embargo and
Israel's withholding of tax revenues crippled what was left of the war-
ravaged PA economy, but international humanitarian assistance kept the
population supplied with necessities.

Still, this war of attrition might have worked if Hamas itself had not
upped the ante by kidnapping an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid
on June 25, 2006. Then on July 12, Hezbollah captured two more on the
Israeli-Lebanese border; its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, indicated he
was the new address for all prisoner release negotiations. Suddenly
Arafat's most precious legacy-a PA not dominated by other states - was
forfeit to the Hamas military wing in Damascus headed by Khaled Meshal
and behind Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.

When the Israelis responded to these events with a large-scale
military action in Lebanon, the United States and others, notably
Saudi Arabia, expected the Israeli Defense Forces to lick Hezbollah
quickly without wrecking Lebanon, and through an embarrassing defeat
of their expensively coddled surrogate, to paste Syria and Iran. But
the Olmert government picked a military strategy that relied primarily
on air power. A month later, it had not achieved its goals. In Gaza,
Hamas tried to duplicate southern Lebanon's mix of well-trained
terrorists operating amidst a civilian population, using rockets to
disrupt Israeli cities.[1]

Disappointed by Israel and anxious to reverse the tide, the Bush
Administration turned anew to Abbas, this time to assist him in a
confrontation with Hamas-to strangle rather than smother. Encouraged
by the alarm this caused in Egypt, Jordan, and especially Saudi
Arabia, Washington sought Riyadh's cooperation in the coming showdown.
But Saudi King Abdullah had a different objective: it was not the
triumph of Fatah he sought, for he had little confidence in Abbas, but
rather the detachment of Hamas from Iran through a rapprochement
between Hamas and Fatah.

At Saudi invitation, Haniyeh, Meshal, and Abu Mazen met at Mecca. The
King arranged a compromise on February 8, 2007, that included shared
power, and he underwrote the deal with a billion-dollar pledge. Hamas
Prime Minister Haniyeh had only to "respect" previous PA agreements.
The dealmakers were photographed praying together at Islam's holiest
mosque and then sent back to the PA to make it work. This was coupled
with a revival of a Saudi-sponsored Arab League peace plan dating from
March 2002. Olmert had some pleasant words for this, but the parts
dealing with borders, Jerusalem, and refugees were obviously
unacceptable to Israel. Haniyeh abstained on the vote to revive the
plan when the League met on March 28-29 in Riyadh.

King Abdullah seemed bolder than his predecessors but, in fact, he was
following a well-scripted Saudi pattern. In principle, Riyadh had no
objections to an Islamic state, and had never liked Henry Kissinger's
step-by-step approach pairing Israel and an Arab state in negotiations
under American auspices. The Saudis were now asking the United States
and the Quartet to recognize Hamas' legitimacy as the price of prying
it away from Iran and to abandon the direct negotiations among the
parties for a solution that might be imposed from above, providing, of
course, that Israel could be brought to terms. That was Washington's
assignment.

There was embarrassment and anger all around. Abu Mazen, who had
promised no deals unless the Israeli soldier was released along the
lines of an Egyptian scheme for prisoner exchange, had failed again.
Egypt and Jordan, too, were not enthusiastic about Saudi leadership of
a peace initiative. They hastened to become the principal
interlocutors between Israel and the Arab League plan. When the Saudis
declined to participate in what might have been a new international
conference with Israel, the Olmert government also lost its
enthusiasm.

The Mecca Agreement produced a brief pause in the Fatah-Hamas
fighting, which had already cost hundreds of lives. Soon the shooting
resumed. Hamas' executive force, formed in direct contravention to an
Abbas decree, took the offensive while the Fatah leaders quarreled and
dithered. The U.S. military mission, headed by General Keith Dayton,
had concocted a plan to unify and train Abu Mazen's forces,
anticipating a showdown. But Hamas struck first. After driving most
Fatah leaders from Gaza by threatening their families, Hamas
systematically assaulted Fatah positions beginning on June 7. The
operation was well planned, very specific and merciless, including the
execution of civilians and public assaults on symbols of PA authority.
Five days later, it was over.

Smother II
Yasser Arafat's house was among those looted and wrecked in the
aftermath of the Hamas victory. For in a way, what happened in Gaza
meant the end of the Arafat state-in-becoming. There was now an
alternative to the nationalists: the Islamists.

Hamas can be expected to start well. As demonstrated in Kabul and
Mogadishu, Islamists know how to suppress clan and gang warfare. In
this case, Arafat's system of bribery and balancing, so subversive of
order, will be ended; a few bloody executions have already made the
point. So, to the shame of Fatah and its Western supporters, personal
security will probably improve dramatically compared to the West Bank.
Hamas has already gone through a propagandistic "liberation" of the
BBC journalist Alan Johnston. Nonetheless, as with the Taliban in
Kabul and the Islamic Courts in Mogadishu, the imposition of order
will soon be accompanied by the Islamist version of society. And that
version also decrees "jihad" against the infidels, which now includes
Fatah.

In the month since Gaza's fall, the same cast of characters that
failed to smother Hamas before has determined to try it yet again.
Bush's speech was therefore an attempt to chart a new and more
effective course for the next round. The President and his advisors
clearly believe that Gaza has clarified the choice. It is no longer a
choice between Hamas and Arafat's legacy, the one standing for purity
and order, the other for corruption and chaos, but rather one between
a violent Islamism and a peaceful democratic society. At the heart of
the presidential rhetoric therefore is the Palestinian choice.

Paeans to the democratic impulse in humanity aside, the Administration
seeks to "improve" the offer by persuading the Palestinians that the
American way is better than the Hamas way. For the third time, then,
Bush has embraced Abu Mazen as his standard bearer.

Is this a triumph of hope over experience? Sometimes weak leaders find
the courage when their demise is the alternative. Abu Mazen began to
do things he had not done before. He appointed the guardian of
financial probity, Salam Fayyad, as Prime Minister of a revised, more
technocratic cabinet, signaling a new seriousness about effective
government. And for the first time, the Israelis had a Palestinian
ally in the deliberate suppression of Hamas' operations in the West
Bank.

The Israelis also behaved differently. Olmert's government joined the
United States and European Union in transferring tax receipts to the
Palestinian Authority. Two hundred-fifty prisoners were released, all
Fatah. And the IDF reduced its operations, also allowing a kind of
amnesty for some of the most wanted al-Aqsa Brigades gunmen as part of
a joint plan with the PA to disarm a militia that Hezbollah has been
trying to infiltrate. Egypt, too, joined with its own campaign to seal
Gaza more effectively. An embarrassed Saudi government renounced its
mediation between Hamas and Fatah and King Abdullah paid a highly
public visit to Jordan, indicating that bad blood between the Saudis
and Hashemites notwithstanding, the Hashemites were preferable to
Hamas.

Tripling the Bet
The obvious and early steps having been taken, Bush proposes to triple
the bet that the new urgency provoked by Gaza can be translated into a
rescue of the Palestinian cause. The method connects three
interlocking circles, each on a kind of timetable charged by a new
special envoy and an international conference.

Increasing the Heat: The first is to add to the pressure produced by
Gaza. Olmert and Abbas have already figured out that they must help
each other. Fayyad will be the point man for the detail of producing
an effective Palestinian government while Abbas will reserve himself
for truly presidential business, namely, negotiations over final
status. Olmert's response indicates that Israel can travel some
distance on both these dimensions, easing the restrictions on the
Palestinians as they perform, and engaging Abbas on "principles" for
final agreement. To judge this progress, Bush proposed another
variation of Washington's latest diplomatic fad, "benchmark
diplomacy." None of these benchmarks, including demands on Israel with
respect to settlements and checkpoints, is new, but left unsaid is the
sequence of stages, whether they must be taken in tandem, and which
are most important.
Stiffening the Noodle: The second circle is the mission led by Tony
Blair, an energetic personality whose enthusiasm for the two-state
solution has not yet been soured by encounters with reality. His
objective, backed by the Quartet, may be described as "stiffening the
noodle": superintending the invention of a serious Palestinian
government capable of assuming sovereignty. Nothing in the Palestinian
record since Oslo suggests that anything looms on the "political
horizon" save a disastrously failed state. No one needs another one of
those. The measure of Blair's success will therefore be whether the
Palestinian Authority, shorn of Gaza, can establish Abu Mazen's
original promise of "one authority, one law, one gun." These are
elementary criteria for statehood.
Enlarging the Circle: Third and finally, Bush proposes to enlarge the
circle of peacemakers through an international conference chaired by
Secretary Rice. The idea conjures up the Madrid Conference of 1991
that assembled Israel and its immediate neighbors following the
successful U.S.-led war to free Kuwait. As it turned out, the Madrid
framework allowed the parties to make peace with the American
initiative rather than with each other; both the Oslo Accords and the
Israeli-Jordanian Peace Treaty were achieved outside its framework,
while the Israeli-Syrian negotiations failed. This time around, Bush
is invoking the Arab League Plan originated by the Saudis in the hope
that the circle will be much broader and that the desire to deprive
Iran of influence will spur the parties toward agreement. Two parties,
however, are not likely to appear as they did in 1991: Syria, now self-
excluded, arguing instead for an indirect negotiation with Israel,
preconditioned on a mediator and Israeli agreement to withdraw to the
1967 lines; and Russia, excluded by the United States from the co-
chairmanship, possibly to keep the lately mischievous Putin within the
Quartet. And, of course, only the Palestinians who recognize Israel,
renounce violence, and commit to Oslo's principles will be invited.
The prospects of such an international conference increase pressure on
everyone, including Washington, to accelerate Israeli-Palestinian
cooperation and the Palestinian Authority's rehabilitation. Should
such a conference be organized, one can expect the President himself
to inaugurate it, as did his father sixteen years ago.

The Endgame's Missing Dimensions
Bush's triple bet-in effect his endgame for alleviating if not ending
the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict - is a long shot. The United
States does not ride high now in the Middle East; Iran and its allies
are pressing hard; and the President does not command much support in
the region, or for that matter, in Washington. Moreover, the two
horses dragging the chariot of peace, Olmert and Abbas, are very lame.
American gambles in the midst of adversity, however, are not new; in
many ways, the local governments prefer it that way. Nor are tactics
and timing the real obstructions to success: those determined to reach
agreement manage to overcome clumsy diplomacy; and the timing is
always bad for someone.

There are two more significant obstacles. One is that the parties are
unlikely to agree on the most critical issues. Bush levitated above
this thorny ground by advancing principles for a final agreement that
invoke all the semi-theology of the conflict: an undefined "security"
for Israel; a "viable and contiguous" Palestinian state; territorial
settlement "with mutually agreed borders reflecting previous lines and
current realities, and mutually agreed adjustments." These do not
exactly translate in the Arab League and Palestinian position of
Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines; Jerusalem to the Palestinians,
and the refugees' "right of return." Nor do they endorse Israel's
version of a viable and contiguous Palestine. On this subject, Bush
sought safety by attributing to both Olmert and Sharon the view that
Israel's future should not include "continuing occupation of the West
Bank." Beyond these details, Bush emphasized that Palestinians and
Israelis bore responsibility for resolving the issues themselves. This
was a strong reaffirmation of the two-party plus international help
formula for peacemaking

Behind such sonorous pronouncements lay some disagreeable facts. After
six years of intifada and the Gaza results, Olmert cannot offer what
Ehud Barak might have offered in 2000. And Abu Mazen will no doubt
cling to the Arab League consensus to justify any agreement. The
United States is therefore betting heavily that urgency and emergency
will turn Israelis and Palestinians in the direction of the incipient
late Clinton era compromises circa December 2000-January 2001. Should
this not happen, the best that can be done will be to draw out a
discussion of "principles" while improving the situation on the ground

The second obstacle, however, is one that Bush does not address at
all. Hamas is excluded as the Smother II campaign proceeds. Arguments
to "engage" Hamas, to use another faddish cliche, are crippled by what
Hamas has to offer and the consequences of doing so. Hamas' proposed
long-term cease-fire with Israel, like its earlier cease-fires, is
likely to be many things but not a total cease-fire. And under cover
of this arrangement, Hamas will expect to ease its isolation while
consolidating its position. Indeed, many observers expect that, rather
than see this happen, Abu Mazen may pocket what he can get from the
United States and Israel preparatory to renegotiating another unity
government, this time on terms more favorable to Fatah.

More significantly, the U.S. policy has no answer to the most
important recent military developments, the real missing dimension in
his speech. This is the view, shared by Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and
Syria, that they have found a way to deter if not negate Israel's
military advantages, thereby enabling them to damage Israel with
relative impunity. By deploying well-trained troops that use
Palestinian civilians as shields and Israeli civilians as the targets,
largely through missile fire, Hamas hopes to duplicate Hezbollah's
feat during the second Lebanon War. Then Israel hesitated fatally
between annihilating Hezbollah positions in the south with firepower
because of the probable high civilian casualties or using Israeli
infantry, also with probably high casualties. The ultimate Israeli
sanction, the reoccupation of Gaza, and resumption of responsibilities
there, is its own self-deterrent. Yet, without a military solution to
this challenge, Hamas will be able to bring about a violent
interruption of any negotiation that looks like success. Bush's triple
bet and to some extent his longer plans in the region therefore depend
on a fourth bet, namely, that Israel will find an answer to this
strategic dilemma that reinforces rather than disrupts the diplomacy.

Notes
See Sicherman, "Lebanon: The Two-in-One Crisis," Aug. 8, 2006, at
www.fpri.org/enotes/20060808.middleeast.sicherman.lebanon2in1.html
You may forward this email as you like provided that you send it in
its entirety, attribute it to the Foreign Policy Research Institute,
and include our web address (www.fpri.org).

.

Loading