Is there a renewed opportunity for Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking after the
Israeli elections? That is exactly what US Secretary of State John Kerry will be
seeking to determine on his first swing through the Middle East over the next
couple of weeks.
He’s been calling Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas with a series of questions, and
based on the answers he gets he will have to make a recommendation to US
President Barack Obama on how much presidential time and collateral should be
invested over the next year in trying to get the Israelis and the Palestinians
to do what the US perceives to be in the best interest of both sides – make
peace.
When Obama began his first term, he departed from usual American
policy when he stated that resolving the Israeli- Arab conflict was in America’s
national security interest. That statement could be understood to mean that the
Israelis and Palestinians no longer had the veto on peacemaking because US
interests and lives were at stake. But very quickly US policy returned to what
is had been in the past, best understood from the mantra repeated many times by
former secretary of state Hillary Clinton: the parties have to want it more than
us.
That was a comfortable position for a first-term president with a
complex plate of domestic and international issues to deal with that were more
pressing than the long shot of an Israeli-Palestinian deal.
Now we have a
second-term president who has successfully removed the US from two wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, an eager secretary of state raring to go on the road to have
the US reemerge as the sole superpower, and a possible opening following Israeli
elections. For the US to succeed it does not have to apply pressure on Israel or
the Palestinians – which is the usual mode of thinking. The US needs to assure
both sides that their most basic national interests and aspirations will be
fulfilled from the negotiations.
The US needs to be prepared when it asks
the two sides to return to negotiations, and must have the bridging proposals
necessary to close the gaps and be ready to put them on the table from the
outset.
The US needs to ensure Israel that security arrangements will be
ironclad and that Israeli withdrawals will be linked with performance- based
benchmarks on part of the Palestinians. The Palestinian state must be
non-militarized and long-term security arrangements must guarantee that the West
Bank will not turn into a launching pad for attacks on Israel. Those guarantees
must include continued Palestinian security cooperation with Israel in fighting
against terrorists and spoilers, as well as the incorporation of Israeli forces
in whatever international, US-led force is placed on the Jordan
River.
THE US must provide assurances to the Palestinians that Palestine
will be a free independent state bringing an end to the Israeli occupation, and
that the US will be the first to recognize that state through a UN Security
Council resolution on the state membership of Palestine in the
UN.
Palestinians should agree to an Israeli annexation of about 4 percent
of the West Bank, enabling the settlement blocs to become part of Israel in
exchange for equal territory from inside of Israel proper.
That is about
the maximum amount of uninhabited land that is possible to find inside of Israel
proper today.
The US secretary of state would be wise to revisit the
offers made in the past by various countries to accept Palestinian refugees who
do not wish to return to the Palestinian state, and to put that offer out front.
At the same time, it should be easy to get an agreement from Israel and
Palestine that all Palestinian refugees who wish to return to the Palestinian
state should be allowed to do so as Palestine develops the capacity to absorb
them. Israel should, with the assistance of the US and others, begin to
calculate the financial compensation that should be made to Palestinian refugees
who lost their properties inside of Israel and can still produce proof of
ownership.
The US cannot and should not impose any peace plan on the
parties. But the US can offer proposals and suggestions on how to best resolve
the issues in conflict, and can back those proposals with commitments to
continue to be engaged in the implementation of solutions.
THE PARTIES do
have to want it more than the US, but there are many ways that the US can assist
the parties to want it more than they have over the past four years. The US has
to actively engage with the parties to convince them that a deal can be made,
there are solutions and that the US will help turn them into reality.
The
US will be a lot more effective at getting the sides towards agreements through
quiet diplomacy and back-room negotiations. We don’t need a lot of photo-ops and
ceremonious launchings of talks. Less festivities and more
substance.
Palestinian and Israeli leaders would be wise to put their
trust in the Americans, honestly put down their real positions and genuine
redlines, and allow the US to develop a new path towards successful
negotiations. It is not necessary to repeat the mistakes of George Mitchell, who
laboriously worked to get the parties into the room at the same table.
Negotiations can begin and progress without the parties sitting in the same
room, through a trusted mediator with the power and backing of the US president.
Documents can be exchanged without sitting together and the drafting of an
agreement can be done without extensive summit meetings of leaders.
Much
progress can be reached in this way, which will make the eventual meeting of the
leaders possible and successful.
The coming months are crucial and in the
absence of real Israeli and Palestinian leadership advancing peace, there is no
replacement for an effective and confident US role. Immediately following
Kerry’s visit to the region, the US administration must devise their operational
plan aimed at demonstrating that peace is possible, that there are partners for
peace on both sides and that now is the time.
The writer initiated and
ran the secret backchannel negotiations for the release of Gilad Schalit. He is
the founder and co-chairman of IPCRI, the Israel Palestine Center for Research
and Information.
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