Failing Palestinian-Israeli Negotitations May Promote Peace in the Middle East by Jason Hicks and Michael Broening (Huffington Post - 3/26/10)

Following closed door meetings between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, serious "disagreement" remained between the US and Israel regarding Israeli settlement construction in occupied East Jerusalem, including Israel's approval that same day of the construction of 20 apartments in the Shepherd's Hotel compound in East Jerusalem. Prior to these meetings, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated the US position before the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington that continued settlement activity "undermines mutual trust and endangers the 'proximity' talks that are the first step toward the full negotiations that both sides say they want and need."

The script to these 'proximity' talks was thrown overboard when the Netanyahu-led government declared the future construction of 1,600 housing units in occupied East Jerusalem during Vice President Biden's recent visit to the region. Following Israel's declaration, the Arab League and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas retracted their support for the talks. Ultimately, however, Abbas will likely have no choice but to bend to US pressure and return to the negotiation table given the fact that ominous 'proximity' talks have been blown out of proportion as "jump starting the peace process."

When negotiations do resume, a sober stocktaking of the prospects leaves little room for optimism. In diplomacy, 'proximity' talks are used to pave the way for direct negotiations; however, in Palestine-Israel, direct negotiations between the hostile parties have already been tried, tested, and largely failed for over 15 years. Additionally, the format and framework of any future talks remain unclear, and the Israeli government has successfully averted the Palestinian demand that talks be continued from where they were halted when Israeli Prime Minister Olmert left office in March 2009.

This difference reflects paramount differences in policy between both negotiating parties, which will be nearly impossible to bridge. While the Palestinian side is certainly not free of programmatic shortcomings, it is the unbending position of the Netanyahu-led government that seems to make success virtually impossible at this point in time. While the Israeli Prime Minister has publicly embraced the new round of negotiations, he has time and again repeated that "substantial negotiations" should be based on preconditions, including the indivisibility of Jerusalem as the "eternal capital of the Jewish people," a refusal to negotiate any return of refugees to Israel, not using pre-1967 borders as the basis for negotiations (thus insuring retention of large settlement blocs in the occupied West Bank), continued Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan valley, and Palestinian recognition of Israel as "the state of the Jewish people" (thus denying legitimacy to 20 percent of Palestinian Israelis). These preconditions, however, will be nearly impossible for any Palestinian negotiator to accept.

For any future negotiation to be meaningful, a new US approach is critical. In an attempt to bring Abbas to the (indirect) negotiation table, the US State Department has issued a "non paper" to Abbas, promising active US engagement as a true peace broker who will actively contribute to the process and -- if necessary -- openly label the spoiling side should negotiations fail. This stance was reiterated by the Vice President, who declared that the US will "continue to hold both sides accountable for any statements or any actions that will inflame tension or prejudice the outcome of these talks."

These uncommon declarations from a US administration open the door to overcoming the unconstructive bilateralism that has dominated peace efforts for years, and also may be why the Palestinian side had insisted on a ceiling of four months for open talks. This time frame would terminate an initial round of proxy negotiations just before the end of Prime Minister Netanyahu's 'partial' settlement moratorium and would increase pressure on Israel to expand the "settlement freeze," however limited its virtues.

Such an approach -- if duly implemented after an initial round of disappointing negotiations -- could essentially transform the US mission from that of a mere postman, delivering messages, to that of an effective and evenhanded arbitrator, a role that since 1967 has only been actively sought by former President Jimmy Carter, who successfully brokered the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. This new approach cannot contain only rhetoric and must be accompanied by a willingness of the US to use economic diplomacy and reductions in diplomatic support to reshape intractable positions on the core issues. The Jewish pro-peace group J Street recently referred to a new US-led approach by stating that "ending the conflict will require more than talk and process. It will take strong and sustained American -- and international -- leadership."

Thus, the best possible results of potential US-brokered 'proximity' talks may be their eventual replacement by meaningful negotiations under intensive US guidance and international pressure that rescues the State of Israel from an uncompromising government. In this sense, the most productive outcome of any coming rounds of 'proximity' talks might well prove to be their failure.

Targeted Citizen by Rachel Leah Jones for Adalah

Targeted Citizen - English from Adalah on Vimeo.

The Petraeus briefing: Biden’s embarrassment is not the whole story (by Mark Perry - Foreign Policy - 3/13/10)

On Jan. 16, two days after a killer earthquake hit Haiti, a team of senior military officers from the U.S. Central Command (responsible for overseeing American security interests in the Middle East), arrived at the Pentagon to brief Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The team had been dispatched by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus to underline his growing worries at the lack of progress in resolving the issue. The 33-slide, 45-minute PowerPoint briefing stunned Mullen. The briefers reported that there was a growing perception among Arab leaders that the U.S. was incapable of standing up to Israel, that CENTCOM's mostly Arab constituency was losing faith in American promises, that Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region, and that Mitchell himself was (as a senior Pentagon officer later bluntly described it) "too old, too slow ... and too late."

The January Mullen briefing was unprecedented. No previous CENTCOM commander had ever expressed himself on what is essentially a political issue; which is why the briefers were careful to tell Mullen that their conclusions followed from a December 2009 tour of the region where, on Petraeus's instructions, they spoke to senior Arab leaders. "Everywhere they went, the message was pretty humbling," a Pentagon officer familiar with the briefing says. "America was not only viewed as weak, but its military posture in the region was eroding." But Petraeus wasn't finished: two days after the Mullen briefing, Petraeus sent a paper to the White House requesting that the West Bank and Gaza (which, with Israel, is a part of the European Command -- or EUCOM), be made a part of his area of operations. Petraeus's reason was straightforward: with U.S. troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military had to be perceived by Arab leaders as engaged in the region's most troublesome conflict.

[UPDATE: A senior military officer denied Sunday that Petraeus sent a paper to the White House.

"CENTCOM did have a team brief the CJCS on concerns revolving around the Palestinian issue, and CENTCOM did propose a UCP change, but to CJCS, not to the WH," the officer said via email. "GEN Petraeus was not certain what might have been conveyed to the WH (if anything) from that brief to CJCS."

(UCP means "unified combatant command," like CENTCOM; CJCS refers to Mullen; and WH is the White House.)]

The Mullen briefing and Petraeus's request hit the White House like a bombshell. While Petraeus's request that CENTCOM be expanded to include the Palestinians was denied ("it was dead on arrival," a Pentagon officer confirms), the Obama administration decided it would redouble its efforts -- pressing Israel once again on the settlements issue, sending Mitchell on a visit to a number of Arab capitals and dispatching Mullen for a carefully arranged meeting with the chief of the Israeli General Staff, Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi. While the American press speculated that Mullen's trip focused on Iran, the JCS Chairman actually carried a blunt, and tough, message on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: that Israel had to see its conflict with the Palestinians "in a larger, regional, context" -- as having a direct impact on America's status in the region. Certainly, it was thought, Israel would get the message.

Israel didn't. When Vice President Joe Biden was embarrassed by an Israeli announcement that the Netanyahu government was building 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem, the administration reacted. But no one was more outraged than Biden who, according to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, engaged in a private, and angry, exchange with the Israeli Prime Minister. Not surprisingly, what Biden told Netanyahu reflected the importance the administration attached to Petraeus's Mullen briefing: "This is starting to get dangerous for us," Biden reportedly told Netanyahu. "What you're doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and it endangers regional peace." Yedioth Ahronoth went on to report: "The vice president told his Israeli hosts that since many people in the Muslim world perceived a connection between Israel's actions and US policy, any decision about construction that undermines Palestinian rights in East Jerusalem could have an impact on the personal safety of American troops fighting against Islamic terrorism." The message couldn't be plainer: Israel's intransigence could cost American lives.

There are important and powerful lobbies in America: the NRA, the American Medical Association, the lawyers -- and the Israeli lobby. But no lobby is as important, or as powerful, as the U.S. military. While commentators and pundits might reflect that Joe Biden's trip to Israel has forever shifted America's relationship with its erstwhile ally in the region, the real break came in January, when David Petraeus sent a briefing team to the Pentagon with a stark warning: America's relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America's soldiers. Maybe Israel gets the message now.

West Bank wall still triggers weekly protests in village and IDF versus democracy and freedom

IDF versus democracy and freedom
by Haaretz Editorial

The Israel Defense Forces decision to declare the Palestinian villages Bil'in and Na'alin closed military zones on Fridays for the next six months is a serious anti-democratic move. The order issued by the GOC Central Command implementing this restriction is an act against the freedom to demonstrate.

The fact that the army issued such a sweeping order, and that it is supposed to be in effect for such a long period, requires an immediate petition to the High Court of Justice asking it to block this dangerous and damaging move, which lacks any justification. The freedom to demonstrate is a basic right and an extension of freedom of expression.

In recent years, the two villages have come to symbolize the struggle against the separation fence that separates the villagers from their lands. The struggle is legitimate. It contributed substantially to the High Court order to alter the route of the fence near Bil'in, a decision that the IDF has yet to implement - which is also a blatant anti-democratic failing.

The residents of the villages and their supporters - Jews, Arabs and foreign activists - must be given the right to protest and fight for their rights.

During the years of demonstrations in the two villages, 23 demonstrators have been killed, half of them minors; no Israeli soldiers have been killed.

The demonstrations themselves have mostly been non-violent, and it was the IDF and Border Police that often exercised excessive and unnecessary force. In spite of the inconvenience, the IDF must permit this protest. The alternative could be terrorism.

The IDF decision is grave from another perspective as well: There has never been such a radical move against rightist demonstrations or settlers in the territories. While settlers run amok, burning fields and uprooting trees, damaging property and spreading terror as part of their criminal "price tag" policy, the IDF and the police stand idly by. When the left wants to protest and demonstrate, the IDF declares the area to be a closed military zone.

In this the IDF harms not only one of the basic values of democratic rule, the freedom to demonstrate, but also discriminates in its policy, granting excessive liberty to lawless settlers while being heavy-handed with leftist protesters.

The IDF order is therefore a revolting and ridiculous act, and the defense minister, who commands the IDF, must take immediate action to void it.