The Fall and Rise of the One-State Solution

Posted on March 17, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 29/09/2008

Deeply embedded in Palestinian nationalism is the notion that Israeli Jewish identity is analogous to that of communities born of European colonialism, which are not seen as having legitimate claim to self-determination. No reconsidering of this characterization took place during the period of the peace process of the 1990s. Hence, the short period of acceptance of the “two-state solution,” was a departure by Palestinian nationalism from its more natural stance, and the current trend of return to the “one-state” option is a return to a position more in keeping with the deep view of the conflict held throughout by this trend.

INTRODUCTION

One of the by-products of the eclipse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process of the 1990s has been the re-emergence into public debate of older strategies for the solution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Perhaps most noticeable among these is the rebirth of the so-called “one-state solution.” According to this idea, the long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians can be solved only by the replacement of the State of Israel as a Jewish state and its combining with the West Bank and Gaza Strip to form a single entity. This entity, according to most versions of the idea, would be ostensibly constituted as a non-sectarian state with no ethno-national character,[1] although given its advocates’ support for the return of Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their dependents, the implication is that it will have a Palestinian Arab demographic majority. A variant idea proposes the creation of a bi-national state containing guaranteed rights and representation for Jews and Arabs.[2] Another version, supported by Islamist trends among the Palestinians, supports the creation of a single state ruled by Islamic Shari’a law in the area.[3]

The one-state idea is not new. Rather, variants of it have formed the preferred outcome of the conflict for the Palestinian national movement throughout the greater period of its history. The “democratic state” idea became the official stance of the PLO after the eighth Palestinian National Council (PNC) in 1971.[4] It replaced earlier formulations that had hardly related to the issue of statehood at all but that had instead concentrated on the claim of the injustice of the creation of Israel and the proclaimed Palestinian or Arab right to reverse its creation. The Palestinian National Covenant, for example, makes no mention of statehood and appears to favor the expulsion of all but a small minority of Israeli Jews. It states that Jews “of Palestinian origin will be considered Palestinians if they will undertake to live loyally and peacefully in Palestine.”[5] The covenant does not define precisely what Jews of Palestinian origin are, but this is usually understood to refer to Jews whose families were resident in the area prior to 1917.[6] From the early 1970s, however, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) proclaimed itself in support of the idea of a “non-sectarian” state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.[7]

From the mid-1970s, the idea of the “non-sectarian state” appeared to be in a long process of decline in the mainstream Fatah organization and among some other groupings within the PLO. It was replaced with the idea of two states. This idea first appeared in the form of the Palestinian desire to create a state in any area of “liberated” territory. After the Algiers PNC of 1988, it was promoted in terms of a peaceful two-state outcome. This position made possible the rapid emergence of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the 1990s.

Since the abrupt demise of the Oslo process in 2000, however, the idea of the “non sectarian state” has been undergoing a process of revival. Due to the contemporary familiarity of the term “two-state solution” in discussion of the conflict, it has been renamed the “one-state solution,” but in all particulars it resembles the earlier stance of the movement. Recent pronunciations by senior Fatah leaders have suggested that a version of it might become the official policy of the movement if it despairs of the possibility of reaching a two-state settlement in line with its aspirations. Of course, with Palestinian politics today divided between Fatah and Hamas, it is important to note that 40 percent of the Palestinians resident west of the Jordan River already live under the rule of a movement committed to the “one-state solution.” Hamas, as its founding charter makes clear, favors a single state to be governed by Shari’a law.[8] This article provides a brief history of the one-state solution and discusses the implications and meaning of the revival of the idea. To conclude, the assumptions behind the idea and the implications of its re-emergence for hopes of a peaceful conclusion to the conflict are considered.

THE “ONE-STATE SOLUTION”: A BRIEF HISTORY

The termination of the Jewish state of Israel and its replacement by a Palestinian Arab state was the openly declared intention of Palestinian nationalism in its earliest incarnations. Following the 1948 war, the former leadership of the Arabs of Palestine expressed itself exclusively in terms of “return,” with no serious discussion of the nature of the state to be built following the reversal of the Israeli victory. The first major organizational expressions of an explicitly Palestinian nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s were also unequivocal in this regard. Thus, the Palestinian National Covenant, authored in 1964 and amended at the fourth PNC in July 1968, declares its ambition as the “liberation” of Palestine in order to “destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence.”[9] This liberation is to take place via the means of “armed struggle,” and, it is implied, will result in the departure from the country of all Jews not resident in it before the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The document explicitly rejects “all solutions which are substitutes for the total liberation of Palestine.”[10] It also clearly bears the influence of the pan-Arab nationalism prominent at the time. The Arab nation is called upon to “mobilize all its military, human, moral, and spiritual capabilities to participate actively with the Palestinian people in the liberation of Palestine.”[11] Jewish claims of historical or religious attachments to the land are described as “incompatible with the facts of history”[12] and indeed the very claims to peoplehood of the Jews are derided and dismissed.[13]

The 1964 Covenant and the revised Palestinian National Charter of 1968 represent the first serious attempts to codify the aims of Palestinian nationalism. The aim unambiguously outlined in these documents is the nullification of Israel’s sovereignty, which is seen as based on a false premise–namely, the claim of the Jews to peoplehood. Since Israeli-Jewish nationhood is seen as fraudulent, it follows that the generally accepted rights of bona fide nations–including to self-determination and sovereignty–need not apply to Israel. Rather, the solution is for the destruction of Zionism and the constitution of former Mandate Palestine as an Arab state, eventually to be included, it makes clear, within a future “Arab Unity.” [14] Thus the founding documents of modern, organized Palestinian nationalism offer a definitive statement of the “one-state solution.”

This point of view was further ratified in the 1968-1970 period. It was during this period that the idea recognizable today as the “one-state solution” first rose to prominence and then dominance within the embryonic Palestinian national movement. The notion of the Palestinian national movement promoting the creation of a Palestinian state seems in retrospect self-evident. It was not so at the time. Rather, the PLO’s advocacy of its “non-sectarian, democratic state” represented an important break with the domination of the Pan-Arab nationalist ideas which dominated Palestinian political discussion in the preceding two decades. Pan-Arab ideas saw the destruction of Israel as the responsibility of the entirety of the Arab nation, and opposed the notion of a separate Palestinian people. For this reason, the early controversies over the issue were fought not between advocates of the “two-state” and “one-state” solutions. There was no constituency among Palestinian nationalists for a solution to the conflict involving the continued existence of the State of Israel at that time. Rather, the advocates of the “non-sectarian, democratic” Palestinian state–most prominent among them the Fatah movement of Yasir Arafat, but also including the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine or PDFLP (later the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, DFLP)–debated the issue with streams that saw the ‘liberation’ of Palestine and the destruction of Israel as the task of the entirety of the Arabs, such as the pro-Iraqi Arab Liberation Front. Nasserite tendencies also backed this view (although the Egyptian government was pro-Fatah at the time.) The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) also opposed the “democratic state” idea, which it considered a distraction from the broader task of fomenting a general overthrow of the existing Arab regimes–to be followed by a conventional victory over Israel. The idea was also opposed by the “Old Guard” leadership of the Palestinians in the Arab Higher Committee and among the older PLO leadership.[15]

At the sixth and seventh PNCs in 1969 and 1970, debate arose between Fatah and its opponents over the issue of the “democratic state.” The discussions took place against the dramatic backdrop of the armed clashes between Palestinian organizations and the Jordanian authorities and army. At the eighth PNC in Cairo in 1971, the PFLP attempted to argue for the “unity of the Jordanian-Palestinian theater.” This was a way for the organization to reassert its Arab nationalist character against the more Palestine-centric Fatah. The eighth PNC took place immediately after the events of “Black September.” The PNC endorsed the slogan of a “democratic state”. Nevertheless the statement endorsing this strategy also expressed its support for the “unity of the people on the two banks of the Jordan,” and noted that the call for the “democratic state” was made “in the framework of the Arab nation’s aspiration to national liberation and total unity.”[16] Thus the statement did not represent a complete abandonment of the broader Arab nationalist elements of the PLO’s outlook.

From 1971, the proposal known today as the “one-state solution” was entrenched as the official position of the Fatah-led PLO. Of course, the triumph of this view did not mean the cutting of links between the PLO and the broader Arab world. The organization remained dependent on support from various Arab states, and the strategy itself did not cut off the Palestinians from broader Arab aspirations. Yet the adoption of the “democratic state” strategy placed the Palestinian national movement within the broader process of the post-1967 Arab world of the growth of local loyalties and the decline of political Pan-Arabism.

The strategy did not, however, bring the PLO into line with the broader reality of Israeli invulnerability to overthrow at the hands of the Palestinians, which seemed to make the “democratic state” solution less than practical. The method chosen to bring about the state was “armed struggle”; but so long as Israel remained superior in military capability, it was difficult to see how this could lead to victory. In practical terms, the goal was pursued by means of terrorist and guerrilla operations throughout the 1970s. Yet despite the undoubted success of such operations in bringing the Palestinian issue to international prominence, it was difficult to see how this could be turned into an overall victory over Israel.

The beginnings of the current, familiar debate in secular Palestinian nationalism between the “two-state” and “one-state” solutions may be dated to the period following the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The idea first surfaced prior to the war, but was very firmly rejected by Yasir Arafat.

Scholars have noted the slow and gradual evolution of PLO policy toward the acceptance of partition. The twelfth PNC of 1974 has been singled out as representing an important watershed in this process. Observation of the program adopted at this PNC illustrates the ambiguities of the process. The twelfth PNC included the adoption of a ten-point program outlining a “phased” policy for Palestinian nationalism.[17] This policy continued the movement’s rejection of Resolution 242 and its blunt opposition to any recognition of Israel. However, the program accepted the possibility of establishing an “independent and fighting authority” on any part of the country “liberated from Israel.”[18] Such a gain was seen as a way-station on the road to the final victory of the destruction of Israel. Still, in the opinion of some observers, it represented the first seeds of a growing political realism in the PLO. They considered that since this program contained within it a policy goal (even if an “intermediate” one) that envisaged the establishing of a Palestinian national authority alongside Israel, this therefore marked the beginnings of a de facto Palestinian acceptance of partition.[19]

What may be stated with confidence is that the PLO leadership henceforth adopted a position of studied ambiguity on this issue–with certain statements indicating that the acceptance of independence in an area “liberated” from Israel might eventually make possible a more long-term arrangement, and other statements indicating that such an authority would be intended as a way-station on the road to the eventual “liberation” of the entire land and the demise of Israel. In opposition to the position of ambiguity adopted by the leadership–which placed the PLO at an imprecise point somewhere between the “one-state” and “two-state” solutions–the leadership was opposed by a PFLP-led opposition within the PLO that vowed continued loyalty to the destruction of the Zionist state of Israel and the creation of the “non-sectarian, democratic” state in place of it.

The policy of ambiguity favored by the Fatah and PLO leadership began to pay dividends in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It made possible the granting of observer status to the PLO at the UN, and PLO leader Arafat’s subsequent address to the UN General Assembly. It also made possible the EU’s 1980 Venice Declaration, which offered de facto recognition of the PLO as the leader of the Palestinians. The policy of constructive ambiguity permitted contacts between leftist Israelis and PLO officials. Yet the PLO’s stated policy remained not a two-state outcome to the conflict, but rather the acceptance of the creation of a “Palestinian national authority” (or later a “Palestinian national state”) on any part of land “liberated” from Israel.

The peace process of the 1990s became a possibility with the PLO’s adoption of the November 15, 1988 Algiers Declaration. The declaration took place at the height of the intifada and was part of the PLO’s attempt to secure the leadership of the uprising and to capitalize on the renewed international focus on Palestinian aspirations. The declaration was based on Resolution 181, the 1947 partition resolution, and consisted in effect of a unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinians. The UN General Assembly subsequently recognized the right of the Palestinians to declare a state according to resolution 181 (which at the time had been rejected by the Palestinian leadership), and 89 UN member states recognized the state of “Palestine” in subsequent weeks.

The Algiers Declaration opened the possibility of dialogue between the United States and the PLO for the first time. However, the United States made it clear that only if the PLO explicitly recognized Israel and renounced terrorism would dialogue become possible. Arafat then made a statement in Geneva publicly recognizing Resolutions 181, 242, and 338, and renouncing terrorism. This statement appeared to settle officially the argument between the “two-state” and “one-state” formulas in the PLO–decisively in favor of the former.

The apparent adoption by the PLO of the two-state solution made possible the rapid emergence of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the early 1990s. This acceptance (partial and grudging, as many in Israel argued it was) of partition meant that within five years the PLO was in negotiations with Israel, and within six it had achieved the creation and leadership of a sizable Palestinian Authority (PA) encompassing all of the Gaza Strip and a considerable part of the West Bank. This authority stood on the threshold of sovereignty alongside Israel by the end of the 1990s.

Thus, the abandonment of the “one-state solution” and the apparent acceptance of partition brought rapid diplomatic gains for the PLO and may have saved it from eclipse in the period following the collapse of the USSR and Yasir Arafat’s ill-judged embrace of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Disputes remained as to the extent of the partition, and the Oslo peace process of the 1990s of course ended in failure.

Two points are notable regarding the PLO’s embrace of the two-state solution. The first, as we have seen, is its relatively recent vintage. An overt acceptance of Resolution 242 took place only in 1988. The second point is that acceptance of Resolution 242 did not lead to a major rethink in terms of the Palestinian national movement’s understanding of the nature of the conflict–which remained Manichean, seeing it as between an entirely illegitimate colonialism (Zionism) and an anti-colonialist Arab resistance movement.

Emblematic of the absence of a real revolution in thinking in the PLO was the failure throughout the greater part of the 1990s to abrogate the clauses in the PLO’s founding documents–the Palestine National Covenant and Charter–which called for Israel’s destruction. Despite entreaties from both Israel and the United States, this was not undertaken in any form until 1996.

Following U.S. and Israeli pressure, the Palestine National Council met in the first week of May 1996 and declared that “The Palestinian National Charter is hereby amended by canceling the articles that are contrary to the letters exchanged between the P.L.O and the Government of Israel 9-10 September 1993.” In addition the PNC’s legal committee was assigned “the task of redrafting the Palestinian National Charter in order to present it to the first session of the Palestinian central council.” The statement did not mention which articles had been amended. On May 5, 1996, then Head of the Legal Committee Faysal Husayni announced that within three months, a new, revised covenant would be submitted. No new covenant was ever submitted, and Husayni himself later clarified that “There has been a decision to change the covenant. The change has not yet been carried out.” To deflect pressure, PLO Chairman Arafat sent a letter to then President Clinton reaffirming the commitment to amend the charter and to remove the offending articles.

During Clinton’s visit to Gaza in December 1998, the PNC was assembled and voted to approve Arafat’s letter to Clinton. This was hailed by the world media at the time as constituting the final amendment of those elements of the Palestine National Covenant that called for Israel’s destruction and the expulsion of the Jews. It was not. This is made clear by reference to the following fact: The Covenant itself, in article 33, outlined the only means by which it may legally be amended, namely “This Charter shall not be amended save by [vote of] a majority of two-thirds of the total membership of the National Congress of the Palestine Liberation Organization [taken] at a special session convened for that purpose.” No such vote ever took place. Rather, vague commitments to the eventual holding of such a vote were put on paper and voted on.[20]

Today, the PLO is a fragmented, nearly irrelevant body. The Palestinian Authority too has fragmented into two, with the Gaza Strip now under control of Hamas. The PA remains officially committed to the Oslo process and a two-state outcome to the conflict. Within Fatah, however, one may identify many open supporters of the one state idea, including very prominent individuals such as Faruk Kaddumi. Senior PA officials have made the argument that unless Israel is willing to accede to the PA’s demands on borders for the Palestinian state and Jerusalem, the two-state solution cannot be made a reality.[21] At a certain point, therefore, the Palestinians may decide to abandon the search for a two-state solution and adopt the one-state idea.

THE RETURN OF THE ONE STATE IDEA

In the period since the collapse of the peace process in late 2000, the “one-state solution” has begun to re-emerge to prominence in Palestinian nationalist thinking.

The one state idea did not disappear during the peace process years of the 1990s. During that period, organizations committed to various versions of it (Hamas, the PFLP, and others) were instrumental in attempts to undermine moves toward a two-state “solution.” It also remained the solution of choice among large sections of Fatah.[22] In its earlier incarnation, however, the one-state solution had found little echo in the West. To some degree this changed in the post-2000 period, with the one state idea becoming the preferred outcome of a section of intellectuals in Western Europe and to a lesser extent in North America.[23] The more recent advocacy of the one-state idea appears to differ from earlier examples in a number of other important ways.

In the past, the idea was presented as representing a just outcome, regardless of the difficulty in achieving it, because of what its advocates regarded as the inherently unjust and illegitimate nature of Israeli nationhood. The more recent advocacy on behalf of the “one-state solution,” however, has characterized it as a reluctant response to reality rather than an ideal position. According to this view, which is repeated frequently in literature promoting this option, the Palestinian national movement is being forced to abandon a sincere and long-held commitment to a two-state outcome to the conflict because of Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza (or the West Bank alone after 2005). The idea promoted is that Israel’s desire to retain settlements in the West Bank, or the cost–financial and political–of removing them renders any realistic possibility of Israeli withdrawal unfeasible.[24]

The advocates of the one-state solution then maintain that since Israel has chosen to sabotage the possibility of partition, there is no longer any possibility for the realization of this, and since Israeli settlement activity has de facto created a single entity west of the Jordan River, the appropriate–or perhaps sole possible–response of the Palestinian national movement is to accept this fait accompli and to begin a campaign for integration of the entire population of this area into a single state framework. This case has been made in myriad publications in a variety of languages over the previous half decade.[25] It is hard to find mention of the fact that this position was in fact the PLO’s official stance until 1988. Rather, the impression given is that after a long period of commitment to partition, the Palestinians and the international community must now abandon this position, because Israel’s actions have made it an impossibility.

ASSUMPTIONS BEHIND THE ONE-STATE SOLUTION

The one-state solution, as has been shown, is a return to the policy advocated by the PLO from the late 1960s, once it moved beyond openly politicidal ambitions regarding the Israeli Jews. As with the original idea of the “non-sectarian, democratic” state, there is a certain, rather obvious discrepancy between the slogan and the very probable reality that its realization would usher in. That is, while the slogan may appear to be advocating the creation of a state such as the United States or post-apartheid South Africa, this advocacy is being made on behalf of an Arab nationalist movement, steeped in a specifically Arab and Muslim cultural context,[26] in an area in which the creation of democratic, non-ethnic, and non-religious state has not been the norm.

In order to answer in advance the claim that the foundation of such a single state framework would surely usher in disaster for the remaining Israeli Jewish minority, advocates of the “one-state solution” have been concerned to restate the older Palestinian and broader Arab claims as to why Israel should not be included in the normal category of nations and states deserving of existence. In this regard, arguments have been raised regarding the supposedly unique (and uniquely harmful) nature of the state of Israel and of Israeli nationhood. Thus, Virginia Tilley, an advocate of the “one-state solution,” writes that the existence of Israel has been “flawed from the start, resting on the discredited idea, on which political Zionism stakes all its moral authority, that any ethnic group can legitimately claim permanent formal dominion over a territorial state.”[27]

This argument requires the listener to accept that there is a single state in the world that is based on the idea of the nation state as the realization of the national rights of a particular ethnic national group, and that state is Israel, and such a unique anomaly can therefore not claim the normal, unambiguous right to survival that is usually afforded states.[28] The claim, however, that Israel is an anomaly in this regard is unsustainable. Both Egypt and Syria describe themselves as “Arab republics”. The Egyptian Constitution stipulates in Article 2, Chapter 1 that “Islam is the State religion, Arabic is the official language and the principles of Islamic Shari’a is the principal source of legislation.”[29] Both Egypt and Syria require that their president be a Muslim. The Syrian Constitution of 1973 also cites Islamic jurisprudence as the main source of legislation.[30] Saudi Arabia and Pakistan base their entire legitimacy and identity on their Muslim nature. The Palestinian Authority also in its constitution describes the Palestinian people in ethnic and religious terms as “part of the Arab and Islamic nations,” declares Islam as the official religion of the Palestinian state, and cites Islamic Shari’a law as a “major source for legislation.”[31] The world is filled with states that derive their legitimacy and identity from the idea of themselves as the expression of the tradition and national rights of the group that makes up the majority of the population. This type of argument, therefore, cannot coherently explain why “one-state” advocates believe that the disappearance of Israel and the nullification of the right of Israelis to self-determination are acceptable and even preferable outcomes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

THE “ONE-STATE” IDEA AND THE NOTION OF THE ARTIFICIALITY OF ISRAELI AND JEWISH NATIONHOOD

If the conflict between Israeli Jews and their Palestinian/Arab enemies is seen as a clash between two authentic, historically and culturally rooted national groups, then it is intuitive that a solution to it must rest on the partial realization of the claims of each side, and subsequent coexistence between them. There are two reasons for this: The first reason is because it is a general axiom that the destruction of the sovereignty of a legitimate national entity would be an event of tragic proportions that ought to be prevented. The second, more pragmatic reason is because historic evidence suggests that when a multiplicity of historically hostile national entities are forced to live together in a single state framework, the almost inevitable result will be strife.

Advocates of the “one-state solution” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, however, assume that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is or ought to be exempt from these considerations. They assume that Israeli Jews either will not, or ought not, resist attempts to strip them of statehood. Why is this assumption made when it seems to contradict both available historical evidence and international norms?

Long embedded in Arab and Palestinian nationalism has been the notion that Zionist and Israeli Jewish identity is analogous not to that of other “legitimate” nations–such as Palestinian Arabs, British, French, and so on–but rather to illegitimate communities born of European colonialism, who have not in the post-1945 period generally been seen as laying legitimate claim to the self-determination to be afforded to genuine “nations.” Examples of this kind of community would be the British settlers of “Rhodesia” in southern Africa, and the French settlers (known as “pieds noirs”) in Algeria. In both these cases, the settlers, once faced down by the reality of local, indigenous resistance, made a rational accounting of their own interests and either acquiesced to rule by the indigenous people or departed whence they came. Palestinian nationalism has long viewed Israeli Jews as analogous to these communities. No reconsidering of this characterization took place during the period of the peace process of the 1990s. Due to the geographical proximity, the example of the Algerian “pieds noirs” has been that most commonly cited.[32] The “pieds noirs” have been of particular interest to Palestinian nationalists because of their large number and more or less complete departure from Algeria back to France following the granting of independence to Algeria.

The view of Israeli Jews as analogous to the “pieds noirs” and others like them–i.e., the view of Zionism as merely a movement of European colonialism–has never undergone revision among Palestinian nationalists. It is a view shared by the most moderate and the most radical circles within this trend.[33] Certain adherents to this view decided on pragmatic grounds in the 1990s that the one-state solution should be abandoned because of prevailing political realities. The essential rightness and justice of the one-state idea, however, was never questioned. The short period of acceptance of the “two-state solution,” therefore, can to a certain extent be seen as a departure by Palestinian nationalism from its more natural stance, and the current trend of return to the “one-state” option is a return to a position more in keeping with the deep view of the conflict held by this trend.

The problem with this outlook is that Israeli Jews have refused to play the role allotted them. One of the notable characteristics of both Palestinian nationalism and broader Arab analysis of Israel has been the tendency to engage in gloomy predictions for Zionism and Israel. Ever since the 1960s, prophecies suggesting that the divide between Sephardim and Ashkenazim, or the “artificiality” of Israeli culture, or the religious-secular divide, or fear induced in “settlers” by Palestinian “resistance” would soon lead to the collapse of Zionism have abounded. Israel, in the meantime, has absorbed immigrants and developed–not without problems, to be sure, but generally successfully.

This, however, has not led to a fundamental rethink of the nature of the adversary. The intellectual tools surely exist for such a rethink, and engaging in it need not necessarily imply sympathy or agreement with Zionism or the Jewish national project. Were Palestinian nationalism, for example, to factor into its understanding of Zionism not only those aspects involving settlement and colonization but also such elements as the presence of Jewish sovereignty in the area in antiquity, the unbroken link via Jewish tradition felt by Jews with that ancient sovereignty, the many–sometimes successful–attempts in pre-modernity of Jews to re-establish communities in the area in question, the terrible suffering of Jews in the Diaspora and the notion in Jewish tradition of the “return to Zion” and the centrality of Jerusalem, this might make possible a better understanding of the durability and nature of Jewish and Israeli nationhood. This, in turn, might make the deepening of a more pragmatic outlook more feasible. As yet, however, there are no signs of this happening.

Rather, the conceptualization among secular Palestinian nationalists of Zionism as a colonization movement par excellence and nothing else continues to hold sway. The return to the idea of the “one-state solution” reflects the continued strength of this characterization. The growth alongside Palestinian nationalism of a newer, Islamist competitor whose very different outlook leads it also to a similar strategy of negation of the opposing side is perhaps the most important development in Palestinian politics over the last two decades. In the current situation, legitimacy in Palestinian politics continues to be judged according to fealty to an idea of the complete defeat of the enemy, and the most potent growing political force is a religious movement committed to this ideal. Against this backdrop, secular Palestinian nationalism appears to be retreating back down the road it traveled in the 1990s, to the point at which its journey began in the late 1960s. The growing resonance of the old-new idea of the “one-state solution” is the most notable evidence of this process.

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The Long War Strategy for Israel

Posted on March 17, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 18/06/2007

The decision by the University and College Union (UCU) to consider a boycott of Israel is the latest manifestation of a broader process which has been steadily gathering speed in the last half-decade: the converging of opinion on the Middle East conflict among members of two camps, who might ordinarily be considered to have little in common. The two camps are the European radical left and supporters – both in Europe and here in the region, of Islamist states and organisations. The alliance is built around a joint commitment to Israel’s disappearance from the map.

Supporters of these streams sometimes gather together. The “anti-war” conference in Cairo in April of this year, attended by representatives of Hamas, Hizbullah and European extreme-left and Islamist groups, was organised jointly by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Socialist Revolutionary party. Leaders of the British ‘Respect Alliance’ – that joint venture of far-leftists and Muslim Brothers – were also in attendance.

But the important cross-pollination is taking place in the realm of ideas and strategies, rather than joint political organisation.

Israel’s regional enemies are currently in a state of euphoria. The failures of the second Lebanon war, combined with the possibly imminent eclipse of US strategy in Iraq, and the emergence of Iran as an active sponsor and inspiration for radical Islamist organisations, have combined to produce in the region an atmosphere familiar to students of its history. This mood might aptly be termed “pre-conflict euphoria”. Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent contention that the “countdown to Israel’s destruction has begun” perfectly captures it.

A previous manifestation of this phenomenon in the region took place in the period between Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August, 1990, and his expulsion from there in Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. The atmosphere in Arab capitals prior to the war of June 1967, and the lionization of the Palestinian guerrillas in 1968-70 are similar instances. On all these occasions, broad swathes of the intelligentsia and the people of a number of regional states came to believe that after many failures, they had finally found the blueprint for defeating Israel, and undoing the shame inherent in its creation.

Today, among those states, organisations and people in the region who reject Israel’s continued existence, there is a perception that the correct strategy for producing the eventual demise of the Jewish state has been found. The new strategy has been likened to the antique far-left doctrine of “prolonged popular war”.

According to this view, conventional battlefield confrontation is only one of a variety of means to be employed to achieve the desired end. Ongoing, demoralising guerrilla attacks, which sap will and morale, the constant maintenance of conflict – with the intention of preventing successful societal development, and a parallel political strategy of delegitimisation and isolation – are all key ingredients. The perceived combination of sophistication and indefatigability represented by Hizbullah in Lebanon is a key model and source of inspiration in this.

Victory here is not predicated on a Syrian armored column entering Tel Aviv. The intention is to gradually whittle away at the various components of Israel’s strength. The goal is to make of Israel a “failed state”, in which the pursuit of normal life becomes impossible.

This is where the various international delegitimisation initiatives come in. Initiatives such as the UCU boycott are the result of the efforts of a fairly small number of people. The anti-Israel boycott campaign offers a chance for activists of fringe political organisations to “punch above their weight” and for a moment take centre stage. The people behind the latest move in Britain, for example, are members of a small far-left party – the Socialist Workers party.

But such figures have been able to emerge from eccentric obscurity precisely because of the current febrile mood regarding Israel and the Middle East conflict among significant parts of educated British opinion.

Thrilled by the militant challenge offered by the popular war strategy and its supporters, the boycotters wish to cast themselves in the mold of the anti-Vietnam war and anti-apartheid campaigners of the past. They will do their bit by cutting the ties of support linking the enemy entity to its western backers through commerce, trade, and cultural and educational links. Israel, in the analogy, is to play the unflattering role of Thieu’s doomed South Vietnamese republic, or the apartheid regime.

Ultimately, the followers of the strategy of prolonged popular war and their international cheerleaders are advocates of failed ideologies, backed by states whose achievements in the field of societal and economic development are modest in the extreme. Previous outbreaks of pre-conflict euphoria in 1967, 1970 and 1990-91, ended in defeat and humiliation. In all three of the previous cases cited, however, it is worth noting that the mood eventually faded as a result of a decisive military humiliation suffered by its main protagonists. This time, hopefully, another way will be found in time to deflate the ugly, political alliance now gathering strength.

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Long-Term Fallout with UK from Dubai Hit Unlikely

Posted on March 17, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 20/02/2010

The evidence suggesting that British passports were used by members of the team responsible for killing Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh is causing concern at the possibility of a new diplomatic row between Israel and the UK. Such a row would come at a time of already strained relations between the two countries, because of the failure of the British government to take firm action to end the possibility of the arrest of Israeli officials in Britain on suspicion of ‘war crimes.’

Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged to carry out a full investigation into the affair.

A British Foreign Office Spokesman quoted earlier in the London Daily Telegraph earlier this week said that the authorities “believe the passports used were fraudulent and have begun our own investigation.” If the killers of Mabhouh were indeed Israelis, the unauthorized use of foreign passports will come as no surprise. It has been a much noted aspect in the known operations of Israel’s external intelligence services in recent years.

The two men apprehended following the failed attempt to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Amman in 1997, for example, were found to be carrying forged Canadian passports.

A diplomatic row also erupted between Israel and New Zealand in 2004, after two Israeli citizens were convicted of passport fraud in Auckland. The case resulted in the suspension of top-level contacts between the two countries for a short period of time.

Israel is understood to have offered guarantees to the authorities of both countries that their documents would not be used in future operations.

Some reports in the British media have raised additional questions over the future of British-Israeli intelligence sharing in light of the latest incident.

The British and Israeli intelligence services are thought to cooperate closely in a variety of areas of common interest – including on the Iranian nuclear program, and in the fight against Sunni ‘Global Jihad’ organizations.

The warnings of major diplomatic fallout are probably overblown.

While the British government (and the governments of France and Ireland, whose passports were also reportedly used in the operation) will be understandably angry, past experience shows that disputes in this area tend to be treated as belonging to the special, sealed-off category of ‘national security.’ Where states have good reasons to maintain healthy ties with one another, such incidents are rarely allowed to muddy the waters for long.

Normal relations between Israel and New Zealand were quietly restored in 2005, for example. In the British context, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ordered the closing of the Mossad station in London following the kidnapping of nuclear spy Mordechai Vanunu on British soil in 1987.

But while Thatcher’s anger over this case was known to be deep, she limited her retribution, not allowing a major rift with Israel. She also remained among the most pro-Israeli of British prime ministers.

Co-operation between the British and Israeli intelligence services at the present time is of mutual benefit. Britain is among the western countries most concerned at the possibility of the emergence of a nuclear Iran. The UK has extensive interests and involvement in the Middle East. It has proved a target of particular interest to al-Qaida.

Bilateral cooperation in relevant areas is not a matter of altruism, passing mood or sentiment. It makes sense because no single state has a monopoly on intelligence. Close liaison with allies can make up for shortfalls in knowledge. One intelligence expert described such relationships between services as “pay as you go propositions”- that is, mutual suspicion exists, the basis of the relationship is one of interests, but as long as there is a prospect of mutual gain, the communications continue. The transnational nature of the current terrorist threat, meanwhile, makes the need for cooperation between targeted countries yet more relevant. None of this is changed because of the sudden spotlight cast by the events in Dubai.

Such cooperation, by the way, is not limited to democracies. The Israeli security services also communicate on relevant subjects with a variety of states across the Middle East, including some with whom Jerusalem has no diplomatic relations. The UAE, where the killing of Mabhouh took place, is itself one such country. Mutual opposition to Iranian subversion provides the durable glue in that relationship.

In short, despite the headlines, lasting fallout from the allegations of use by the Israeli intelligence services of forged foreign passports will probably be minimal. The major direction of relations between countries is forged on shared interests and affinities, and is unlikely to be swayed by such events. In the more specific world of intelligence-sharing and liaison, meanwhile, there are ample, urgent reasons for cooperation between relevant bodies to continue – so it is likely to do so.

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Netanyahu at a midway Point

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 04/10/2010

From 1996-2000, Benjamin Netanyahu served as prime minister of Israel. He was re-elected to the post in 2009. His second period of incumbency is taking place during a time of severe foreign policy challenges for the Jewish state. Building an effective response to these challenges is at the center of the agenda that Netanyahu has set himself.

The key challenge put forth by Netanyahu is the threat of the Iranian nuclear program. However, the perceived gravity of the Iranian nuclear threat is related to other aspects of the Israeli prime minister’s conception of the region, and the threats facing Israel therein. Unlike many of his predecessors, Netanyahu came to the prime ministership with a worldview and strategy clearly articulated and written. As such, it is possible to some degree to measure the success or failure of his prime ministership to date in its own terms against a fairly clear yardstick.

This article will attempt to outline the core foreign policy perceptions and goals of the Netanyahu government in a number of central areas. Key events from the time Netanyahu took office in March 2009 will be discussed. Throughout, the policy success or failure of the actions of the government will be assessed in terms of Netanyahu’s own professed goals and objectives. The domestic political constraints incumbent on the prime minister, and his success or failure in navigating these and ensuring the survival of his government, will also be considered.

THE MAKE-UP OF THE NETANYAHU GOVERNMENT

The second Netanyahu prime ministership emerged from an unprecedented political situation in Israel. Prior to the elections of 2009, following every election since the foundation of the state, the president had tasked the leader of the party with the largest Knesset (Israeli legislature) representation with forming a governing coalition. In the elections of 2009, however, Kadima under Tzipi Livni won the largest number of seats (28), while Netanyahu’s Likud won only 27.[1]

However, the overall right-wing bloc won more seats than that of the left, which presumably guided President Shimon Peres’s decision to give the task of attempting to form a government to Netanyahu. The president sounded out party leaders in the days following the election, and based on the apparent likelihood that a Netanyahu-led coalition would prove more stable, he approached the Likud leader.

Netanyahu and Livni failed to reach agreement regarding a possible national unity coalition bringing Likud and Kadima together. The issue that prevented this was Livni’s insistence on the rotation of the prime ministership, which Netanyahu was not prepared to consider. Rotation would have involved Netanyahu and Livni agreeing that one of them would hold the prime ministership for the first two years of the government, after which the other would take over. Such an arrangement has a precedent in Israel in the national unity government of 1984 to 1988, when the premiership was shared between Shimon Peres of Labor and Yitzhak Shamir of Likud.

Netanyahu then set about creating a coalition that would bring in parties to the right of the Likud and religious parties, as well as the left of center Labor Party. Labor, once the main party of Israel’s center-left, went from being the second largest party to fourth place in the 2009 elections, making it a viable secondary coalition partner.

The government eventually formed by Netanyahu and the Likud included Labor, the right-wing Russian immigrant party Yisrael Beiteinu, and the Sephardic Haredi party Shas. Also in the coalition were the Haredi United Torah Judaism list and the small, nationalist religious Habayit Heyehudi list. This coalition gives Netanyahu a comfortable Knesset majority of 75 seats in the 120-member Knesset.[2]

As shall be seen, from the point of view of Netanyahu’s preferred policy direction, the coalition that emerged was favorable. Had he succeeded in bringing Kadima, along with Labor, into the coalition the Likud would have represented the rightist edge in the government and thus would have been vulnerable to the possibility of being “ganged up on” by the two large parties to its left. In the coalition that emerged, the center-right Likud was in the comfortable position of occupying the center ground–between Labor to its left and Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas to its right. The presence of the right-wing elements (Yisrael Beiteinu, the small Ha’Bayit Ha’Yehudi party, and Shas) in the coalition would also provide a certain “balance” for Netanyahu from the demands of the U.S. administration, a situation that would not have pertained in a Likud-Labor-Kadima coalition. The element of balance derives from the fact that Netanyahu could credibly claim that reckless or hasty moves with regard to the Palestinians could lead to the collapse of his coalition, hence the need for him to tread carefully.

Netanyahu’s position was made yet more secure by two additional factors. First, the figure supposedly occupying the space to his “left” in the coalition–Labor leader Ehud Barak–in fact shares most of the prime minister’s core assumptions regarding the order of priorities in Israeli policy. In particular, Barak and Netanyahu were of one mind in placing the Iranian nuclear threat front and center of their concerns. Alongside this threat of central importance–in Netanyahu’s conception–is the rise of Islamist extremism in the region and the consequent threat of terrorism. The meeting point between these two processes, in the Hamas and Hizballah organizations–which maintain active fronts against Israel–is also a central focus.[3]

Barak’s skepticism regarding Palestinian intentions, following his experience as prime minister at the 2000 negotiations, also no doubt facilitated his easy transformation to functioning as defense minister in a government whose core positions on the diplomatic process sharply differed from those of the Labor Party. Barak’s position in his own party is weak, and he has probably abandoned any chance of returning to the prime ministership given the declining strength of Labor.

Barak has emerged as the key policymaking partner in the Netanyahu government. In effect, the prime minister and defense minister form an exclusive policymaking echelon for key decisions, above all other members of the cabinet and the so-called “inner cabinet” of seven ministers.

The second factor that proved to be to the advantage of the government formed by Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009 was the relative weakness of the opposition. As opposition leader, Tzipi Livni failed to maintain a high level of visibility or to develop a clear and consistent critique of government policy. In the main, this reflected less a particular failure in the leader of the opposition and more the fact that the Netanyahu government was launched on a more or less centrist path and sought with some success to avoid major, eye-catching moves that would have enabled the opposition to depict it as a government of the radical right.

CORE STRATEGIC POSITIONS OF BENJAMIN NETANYAHU

The agenda of Benjamin Netanyahu is dominated by–but not solely concerned with–issues relating to the field of foreign affairs and defense. As noted above, the single most important item on Netanyahu’s agenda is the threat, as he sees it, posed to Israel by the combination of the nuclear ambitions and the extremist ideology of the Iranian regime. Netanyahu was among the first Israeli politicians to prioritize the Iranian issue. He spent the period prior to his return to the Likud leadership speaking and writing extensively on this matter.[4] It has been suggested that he sees his central policy task in the prime ministership as preventing the emergence of a nuclear Iran. He has described the matter as an existential issue. Netanyahu sees the Iranian nuclear issue as part of a larger problem of Iranian regional ambitions, which also takes in the matter of Iranian support for Hamas and Hizballah.

Far lower on the agenda for Netanyahu is the diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinians. Netanyahu emerged onto the political stage in Israel as an arch-skeptic regarding the 1990s Oslo process. His view then was that the peace process between Israel and the PLO was based on an entirely spurious conception, which held that the Palestinian Arab national movement was ready for peace and historic compromise with Israel and Zionism. There is no evidence to suggest that Netanyahu has altered this core perception. On the contrary, he feels that the violent events of 2000-2004 that followed the collapse of the Oslo process wholly justified his early skepticism. This point of view is shared by many Israelis, and is one of the reasons for the return of Likud’s political fortunes.

Nevertheless, the experience of his first prime ministership also indicates that while Netanyahu has a clear conception of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to which the Palestinian national movement has not reconciled itself with Israel’s existence, this does not necessarily translate into a policy on the ground of confrontation with the Palestinian Authority (PA). While expressing his opposition to Oslo at that time, Netanyahu did not seek a radical reversal of the peace process or to challenge its basic parameters when in office.[5]

Prior to his re-election in 2009, Netanyahu stressed the need to support Palestinian efforts to build up their economy and civil society on the West Bank. He also stressed the need for the Palestinians to accept Israel as a “Jewish state,” as an indicator of whether a true move toward historic compromise had been made.[6]

Regarding the issue of Syria, Israel’s northern front, and the Hizballah threat, Netanyahu’s approach has been more straightforward. Despite media speculation at various junctures, there has been no serious attempt by the Netanyahu government to commence a negotiating process with the Asad regime in Syria. Controversy remains regarding the extent of concessions that may have been offered to Hafiz al-Asad during Netanyahu’s first prime ministership.[7]

Elements close to the defense establishment and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are understood to favor the “Syrian track.”[8] This is perhaps the most significant difference in the Netanyahu-Barak partnership. In the Barak camp, it is evidently considered that there is a real possibility that the Syrian regime might be tempted away from its alliance with Iran in return for the ceding by Israel of the Golan Heights. But since 2009, there appears to be little ambiguity regarding the fact that Netanyahu and his closest advisers do not share this emphasis and no evidence has emerged of efforts to revive the Turkish-mediated talks that broke down during the period of Ehud Olmert’s prime ministership.[9] Syria is regarded as firmly embedded in the pro-Iranian camp and likely to use any concessions to its advantage while failing to alter this orientation.

On Hizballah, the remaining business of the exchange of Hizballah prisoners for the corpses of the two Israeli soldiers killed in the kidnapping attempt that began the 2006 Lebanon War was carried out by the Ehud Olmert government. This leaves, from the Netanyahu government’s point of view, no immediate specific issue on the Hizballah file requiring attention.

The northern border has been quiet since August 2006. Hizballah is rearming and Israel is observing this process closely and seeking to raise world and U.S. awareness of it. However, for as long as the border is kept quiet from Hizballah’s side, it is likely that Israel will perceive an interest in maintaining the status quo, while seeking to maintain international attention on Hizballah arms.

An additional matter considered by Netanyahu to be of strategic importance is the need to preserve Israel’s international alliances. First and foremost, in this regard, Netanyahu is aware of the importance of preserving Israel’s strategic alliance with the United States. Yet Netanyahu is also acutely aware of the need to address the campaign seeking to “delegitimize” Israel in the West.[10] This campaign–of particular strength in some Western European countries–seeks to promote a boycott and sanctions against Israel.

The Netanyahu prime ministership is, therefore, one dominated by a view of the region that sees Israel as facing a concerted and related series of threats. Iran is seen as committed to the destruction of Israel and the pursuit of nuclear weapons. It is seen as a rising power in the region, basing its growing influence on its appeal to radical and anti-Western sentiment. It is viewed as having linked up with extremist Islamist forces among the Palestinians and in Lebanon in order to wage proxy war against Israel.[11]Yet Netanyahu’s view is also fundamentally confident and optimistic–not regarding the prospect for a peace settlement, but regarding the belief that Israel possesses the necessary strength to prevail in the contest opening up.

The Palestinian Authority is viewed as still committed to a version of Palestinian nationalism that would preclude the successful conclusion of a final status accord. The positions of Fatah on final status issues such as the demand for the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees and their descendants as well as the future status of Jerusalem are central here. At best, therefore, the status quo can be maintained in the West Bank, while the PA leadership develops the economy and society.

The policy that might be expected to emerge from the conception outlined above is one of assertiveness against the prospect of a nuclear Iran. In other areas, one might expect caution. This is in essence based on a perception that no real diplomatic advancements are likely in the current regional climate and that Israel’s task in terms of national strategy is to maintain its deterrent edge in a region of increasing dangers and increasingly assertive enemies, while at the same time investing effort in combating efforts to weaken its alliances with its allies through “delegitimization.” Of course, this strategy has been made problematic by the emergence in Washington–almost simultaneously to the election of the Netanyahu government–of a U.S. administration that sees the region in a very different way.

The administration of President Barack Obama has made the repairing and enhancement of U.S. relations with the Muslim world a priority, and the president places the solving of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict high on the list of priorities in achieving this.[12] The core difference in outlook on the region between Washington and Jerusalem has been the most salient dynamic during the period of Netanyahu’s second prime ministership, and has informed every element of its attempt to implement its strategy.

Following is an examination of the Netanyahu government’s attempt to implement its strategy in crucial areas. The focus will be on the Iranian nuclear program, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Israel’s northern border, and the issue of delegitimization.

Iran

Netanyahu views the challenge posed by the Iranian nuclear program as the key foreign policy issue facing Israel. In the years as leader of the opposition prior to his return to the prime ministership, Netanyahu used every opportunity to cast the Iranian threat in the most dramatic terms possible. The statement, ‘”It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs,” encapsulated his approach.[13] Crucial to Netanyahu’s message at this time–and crucial to his policy as prime minister with regard to Iran–is the notion that Iran and its nuclear ambitions represent a danger not to Israel alone, but to the region as a whole, and even to the Western world.

Netanyahu also stressed that Iranian regional ambitions had a paramount influence on other regional processes, in particular, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As he put it, “What happens in Iran affects what happens in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not the other way round.”[14] Such statements presaged Netanyahu’s diplomatic policy as prime minister, which was to stress Israeli support for additional, harsher and “crippling” sanctions against the Iranian economy–both imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and by individual countries.[15]

Netanyahu said in an interview with a U.S. magazine shortly after assuming the prime ministership that “Western civilization” will have failed if Iran acquires nuclear weapons. He added that he saw this as the second great task facing President Obama, along with salvaging the U.S. economy.[16]

Support for additional sanctions was accompanied by hints that Israel had not ruled out the use of force. Un-named officials quoted by the Atlantic, for example, stressed that in Israel’s view Iran’s defenses were “penetrable” and that Israel would not necessarily need U.S. approval for an attack. [17]

Netanyahu throughout sought to accommodate himself to the U.S. position, while at the same time seeking to toughen it. Thus, when “engagement” was the U.S. intention, Netanyahu said that he supported it, if it produced results (while adding that he doubted it would). Similarly on sanctions, Netanyahu stressed that given the weakness of the Iranian economy, the country was “susceptible” to sanctions, providing that they were “ratcheted up by a variety of means.”[18] It has also been suggested that the Israeli security services have engaged in a clandestine campaign of sabotage against the Iranian nuclear program.

The very nature of the policy, however, meant that other than public diplomacy, possible sabotage, the implicit threat of possible Israeli military action, behind the scenes lobbying and presumably an ongoing attempt to monitor the development of the Iranian nuclear project, Israel’s role was basically that of a bystander.

Regarding the issue of potential military action, Netanyahu, on assuming the prime ministership, refused to rule it out. However, according to media reports, President George W. Bush had declined to give Israel permission to carry out such an attack during his term of office,[19] and it appears likely that a similar state of affairs has persisted into the Obama administration. It is clear that while both the United States and Israel were convinced that Iran was seeking a nuclear weapon, there were major differences between the two countries, both on the projected time frame for this and on the sense of urgency attached to the issue,.

A series of blunt statements by senior U.S. officials in the period following Netanyahu’s assuming the prime ministership revealed the differences between the United States and Israel in perceptions of the relative urgency of the Iranian nuclear file. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would undermine stability in the Middle East and endanger the lives of Americans in the Persian Gulf. [20]

The policy of the administration, meanwhile, was initially set toward engagement with rather than pressure on Iran. The very different emphasis of Netanyahu and Obama was evident following their first meeting after taking up their respective posts. In May 2009, Obama spoke of negotiations with Iran while saying that he would reassess at the end of the year if the process appeared to be going nowhere. Netanyahu publicly thanked him for keeping “all options on the table.”[21] This is understood as a euphemism for maintaining the possibility of military force against Iran.

The Iranian regime’s suppression of dissent following the contested 2009 presidential election results and the revelations of an additional nuclear facility near Qom[22] helped to disillusion the administration with the idea of engagement, along with the increasingly obvious fact that Iran was playing for time and was not interested in a real negotiation. Still, the pace toward further sanctions was far slower than Israel would have liked to see.

When a fourth UNSC sanctions resolution was finally agreed upon in June 2010, it fell still far short of the “crippling” restrictions the government of Israel had recommended. Nevertheless, the passing of the resolution and the subsequent approval on July 1, 2010, into law of additional, tougher sanctions by the U.S. Congress may have played an important role in improving the atmosphere of relations between Jerusalem and Washington.[23]

The sanctions approved by Congress went further than any previous measures in punishing foreign suppliers of refined petroleum to Iran and blocking access to the U.S. financial system for banks doing business with Teheran. Yet despite the undoubted increased severity of the new measures, in terms of the substantive goal of preventing a nuclear Iran, their likely effectiveness appears low. Iran has itself dismissed the sanctions and vowed to continue its enrichment of uranium.

Netanyahu is clearly also of the view that the sanctions are likely to be ineffectual, and on the basis of the supposedly improved relations between himself and Obama following their meeting in July 2010, he has begun to express himself in clearer terms in this regard. In a statement to Fox News, the prime minister stated clearly that in his view only the threat of U.S. military action might curb the Iranian nuclear drive. He stated that the new sanctions would probably not be sufficient. Netanyahu went on to say that he thought that a nuclear Iran could not be deterred or contained.[24] In other words, Iran must be prevented from getting nuclear weapons rather than–as the Obama administration seemed to be concluding–expecting it could successfully be prevented from using them once they were in its possession.

Unless military action is approaching, therefore, it appears that in its own terms, Netanyahu’s tireless public diplomacy against a nuclear Iran has achieved very little. Iran appears to be moving at speed toward a nuclear capability, its uranium enrichment and missile programs proceeding apace.

Thus, Netanyahu, in the key self-defined objective of preventing a nuclear Iran–which he has referred to as a “hinge of history”–appears to have achieved little of substance as of this writing. Indeed, many analysts concur that unless military action is taken, a nuclear Iran appears to be inevitable.

Should such predictions prove accurate, it is possible that Netanyahu will leave office prior to the emergence of a nuclear Iran, or may even be in office when Iran is judged to have achieved a nuclear weapons capability. It is of course difficult to imagine how, in the absence of a sense of urgency in other countries over the question of Iranian nuclear ambitions, a coalition could have been built to take determined action to prevent it. Yet if preventing a nuclear Iran is the yardstick by which Netanyahu himself invited his prime ministership to be judged, then failure is at the moment looking likely–unless unpredictable occurrences such as military action intervene to transform the situation.

In this latter regard, it is worth noting an internal contradiction in Netanyahu’s statements on the Iranian nuclear effort. On the one hand, he stresses his view of the regime as deeply ideological and committed to a religious ideology, and therefore not subject to the normal rules governing nuclear deterrence between states. Yet on the other hand–according to his public statements at least–Iran could only be curbed by the threat of U.S. military action. If, however, a nuclear Iran would be undeterrable because its leaders are given to non-cost benefit type thought, it is not clear why a not yet nuclear Iran might be inclined to a cost benefit analysis if threatened with U.S. military action.

The current author’s estimation on this matter, which is merely speculative, is that Netanyahu does not really believe that the Iranian regime can be deterred by the threat of military action. He has, however, adopted an approach of “educating” the U.S. administration step by step. That is, if one follows the logic of Netanyahu’s position, it is hard not to reach the conclusion that the Israeli prime minister regards a nuclear Iran as an existential threat to Israel, and thinks that the only way to stop this is by military action. He may well be doing his best to persuade the United States and other allies of this position.

What this will mean in policy terms cannot be accurately predicted, of course. Yet the inner logic of Netanyahu’s position, the centrality of the Iranian issue to his thinking, and his current failure to do a great deal about the Iranian nuclear drive should all be taken into account. They point in the direction either of the failure of Netanyahu’s prime ministership in the terms it set for itself or military action to stop or set back the Iranian nuclear program.

It is also worth bearing in mind that according to informed sources, Netanyahu intends to stand again for the leadership of the Likud and for the prime ministership.[25] As such, the time frame in which he is thinking is not one in which he has only a year or two remaining. It is also generally considered that Netanyahu would be almost certain to win any contest for the Likud leadership at the present time. Thus, his plan may well be to hold elections again next year or the following year, on the basis of a sound economy, an ongoing negotiating process with the Palestinians, and above all a continued determination to neutralize the Iranian threat.[26]

Israeli-Palestinian Track

As noted above, Netanyahu’s career has been largely informed by the sense that the Palestinian national movement (and of course Hamas) continues to hold to a refusal to accept the permanent existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state, and that as such, a permanent agreement between Israelis and Palestinians is not a feasible ambition. There is no reason to assume that this view has been altered.

Netanyahu came to a power at a time when the Palestinian national movement had effectively split into two, with a Hamas-controlled statelet in Gaza rejecting the very basis of the 1990s peace process. Netanyahu had stressed the idea of an “economic peace” with the West Bank Palestinian Authority and concentrating on grassroots initiatives and the development of institutions. It may be assumed that he had hoped the quiet management of an ongoing, intractable conflict would characterize relations between Israel and the Palestinians, enabling him to focus on the more pressing issues of Iran and its regional ambitions and influence.

This hope, of course, has not been realized. Rather, the U.S. administration chose to make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front a central part of its regional strategy. Netanyahu was forced to adjust accordingly. The crucial importance of maintaining the strategic relationship with the United States necessitated efforts to stay on the “same page” with the administration on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, in spite of the view among those close to the Israeli prime minister that the U.S. view of what was achievable in this regard was and remains deluded.

Achieving this, however, requires something of a diplomatic and political tight rope walk for the prime minister. He has needed to convince the U.S. administration that he is not the factor obstructing its efforts to make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track (and hopefully demonstrate to their satisfaction that Palestinian positions made a permanent status agreement unachievable), while at the same time avoiding the departure of right-wing coalition partners. At the beginning of his premiership, in a significant speech at Bar-Ilan University in June 2009, the prime minister expressed in clear terms his support in principle for the creation of a Palestinian state.[27] The government subsequently accepted a ten-month moratorium on settlement building at the end of 2009.

Over time and with a number of stumbles along the way, Netanyahu appears to have managed to position Israel in such a way as to avoid the impression that it was acting as a deliberate obstruction to Obama’s Israeli-Palestinian policy. This did not, however, prevent tensions from resurfacing–most famously in March 2010 during a visit to Israel of Vice President Joe Biden, when the administration objected to the announcement of an Israeli construction plan in a Jerusalem neighborhood across the Green Line.

The Israeli positioning certainly did not end all tensions and suspicion with the U.S. administration. The differences between Netanyahu and Obama are substantive and deep. Yet at the time of writing, Netanyahu and President Obama have managed to prevent their genuine differences on regional strategy from turning into a major rupture in relations.

It is considered that concern in the U.S. Democratic Party over the deterioration in relations in the build-up to the Congressional midterm elections in November 2010 may have contributed significantly to Netanyahu’s successful “reset” trip to the United States in July 2010. This of course raises the possibility of a further “reset” in relations after the elections–back in the direction of confrontation. There are persistent rumors that in the absence of progress and a move toward direct talks, the United States may introduce its own plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace next year. Should these rumors prove correct, such a move would serve once more to raise tensions in the relationship between Washington and Jerusalem.

Regarding the matter of the Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks, the process has failed to make substantive progress for predictable reasons. The Palestinian side wanted to move directly to the discussion of final status issues–specifically, the future borders of a Palestinian state and security arrangements, on terms to its liking. The Israeli government, by contrast, stressed the need to focus initially on practical, on-the-ground issues on which progress could be made.

During his July 2010 visit to the United States, Netanyahu stressed the Israeli demand for direct talks to begin, as he has done consistently since mid-2009. The Palestinian Authority refused to countenance this, unless Israel renewed the settlement moratorium and extended it to include east Jerusalem (as well as continuing its demand for Israel to express its terms on borders in a final settlement). For Netanyahu, who in any case has few expectations of the talks, the prospect of the Palestinians beginning to overplay their hand as U.S.-Israeli relations are patched up is a promising one. The agreement by the Palestinian Authority to the commencement of direct talks in late August 2010 does not substantially alter the picture. There is little reason to assume that Netanyau expects the talks to yield substantial results. Yet his demonstrated willingness to participate in them serves his broader strategy.

Thus, in terms of his very low expectations regarding the Israeli-Palestinian track, Netanyahu may be able to look back with some satisfaction. He has succeeded to prevent serious differences on the Palestinian issue from resulting in a profound rupture in relations with the United States. In spite of the effective deadlock in the diplomatic process, the West Bank is relatively tranquil and its economic and security situation improving. The Hamas Gaza enclave remains isolated, despite international pressure having forced the Israeli government to ease the terms of the blockade. Hamas continues largely to hold to the unilateral ceasefire it adopted following Operation Cast Lead, meaning that the Gaza border has been quiet.

The North: Syria and Hizballah

Indirect, Turkish-mediated negotiations between Israel and Syria broke down after Operation Cast Lead, during the prime ministership of Ehud Olmert. There have been no known attempts to revive the talks under Netanyahu. In Lebanon, meanwhile, Hizballah is continuing the process of rebuilding its power and armaments close to Israel’s border. Again, Israel has sought to raise world attention to the fact of Hizballah rearming in various ways–including releasing intelligence maps detailing Hizballah’s deployment in a south Lebanese town–but has avoided decisive action.[28]

Israeli analysts generally consider that renewed conflict with Hizballah is at some stage inevitable. The desire of Hizballah to avenge the killing of senior movement operative Imad Mughniyah is cited as a possible spark for a future conflict. The possibility that Israel may take preemptive action to prevent Hizballah deployment of certain types of weaponry has also been raised. There are credible reports that Israel was dissuaded by the United States from attacking a Syrian arms convoy carrying long-range missiles to Hizballah earlier this year.[29] It is also expected that in the event of an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, Hizballah would launch rockets and missiles at Israeli population centers.

Yet despite the stark prospect of possible future conflict in the north, the current situation is one of uneasy quiet. This situation has pertained since the conclusion of the 2006 war. Another round of warfare between the sides is probably inevitable. This does not mean that it is necessarily imminent. It appears that neither side has an overriding interest in opening conflict at the present time. Netanyahu is also under no pressure to deviate from his desired policy with regard to Syria and the northern front. It is thus likely that his preferred approach based on deterrence and containment will continue, absent Syrian or Hizballah action to make it no longer tenable.

CONCLUSION: THREADS OF CONTINUITY IN THE TWO NETANYAHU PRIME MINISTERSHIPS?

The image of Benjamin Netanyahu internationally and to some degree in Israel is of a conviction politician, with a very firm and ideological view of the world. In Israel, however, the prime minister is also popularly viewed as given to indecisiveness, preferring to avoid making major decisions until circumstances effectively force him to do so. The result is a combination of conceptual boldness and clarity with extreme practical caution and avoidance of major initiatives.

In his first prime ministership, Netanyahu rose to power against a background of suicide bombings and terrorism, during the period of the Oslo process. While vociferously opposed to Oslo, Netanyahu did not in practice set about seeking to dismantle or reverse the framework of the agreement. Rather, he slowed its implementation, introducing the principle of “reciprocity”–meaning that the Palestinians would be held to a higher standard in terms of their own adherence to the agreements, in return for further Israeli implementation of them.

In practice, what this meant was that no major change was effected. Territorial concessions continued, at a slower rate, and the Prime Minister’s Office engaged in an energetic information campaign to highlight the failure of the Palestinian Authority to adhere to its responsibilities under the accords. Netanyahu’s frank opposition to the basic assumptions of the peace process continued. Yet the process continued under his government, and it was Ariel Sharon–rather than Netanyahu–who from 2002 onward, put a policy in place that consistently abandoned the assumptions behind Oslo and took measures to reverse them on the ground.

So far, at least, it appears that Netanyahu is taking a similar approach to the major policy issue of his second prime ministership–namely, the Iranian nuclear program. It remains to be seen if the prime minister’s apparent relative passivity in this regard is only a smokescreen, or if Netanyahu will leave office having made very clear why a nuclear Iran would be in his view a bad thing, without having taken decisive action (possibly beyond ordering the Israeli security services to disrupt the program) to prevent it.

Yitzhak Shamir, a very different political figure, once responded to a question as to how he hoped to be remembered by saying that he hoped Israelis would remember that he “kept things quiet.”[30] At the half way point of his second prime ministership, there is a growing sense that Benjamin Netanyahu may share the ambition for a similar legacy. The difference is that with Shamir, the desire to preserve the status quo went hand in hand with his larger strategic ambition of preventing territorial rearrangements west of the Jordan River. With Netanyahu, on the other hand, there is a sense of contradiction between his bold assertion of dangers that must be stopped (when in opposition) and his cautious, tentative treatment of issues once in office. Of course, Netanyahu’s prime ministership is not yet over, and events may yet occur to reverse this perception. Yet at its halfway point, the second Netanyahu premiership has been characterized by pragmatism, caution, and a general desire to preserve the status quo. This is largely in keeping with his performance in the period from 1996 to 1999. Whatever the inherent merits and demerits of such an approach, it may be asserted with some confidence that it is unlikely to bring about the single most important goal that Netanyahu set himself–namely, the prevention of the emergence of a nuclear Iran.

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Three Years Later, The Core Issues in Lebanon Remain Unsolved

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 14/07/2009

Three years have passed since the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon pointed out this week that the cease-fire which ended the war on August 14, 2006, remains fragile. The core issues which triggered the fighting remain unresolved. Since the guns fell silent, both sides have been busy seeking to learn the lessons of their successes and failures, on the assumption that another round is at some stage inevitable.

For Israel, the war served as a wake-up call that a new chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict had begun.

In the two decades prior to 2006, the main focus of the IDF ground forces had been on counter-insurgency in the West Bank and Gaza. The result was that the IDF’s war-fighting capabilities grew rusty.

The reports of the committee headed by Judge Eliyahu Winograd were harshly critical of the performance of both the political and military leaderships during the war. Winograd noted a failure to understand and internalize the requirements of war, as opposed to those of low-intensity operations. His reports were critical of the setting of unrealistic goals by the political leadership, the pursuit of goals in an unsuitable way (for example through excessive reliance on air power and illogical and half-hearted use of ground forces), and the lack of readiness of some IDF units.

The result, he concluded, was that the war represented a “great and grave missed opportunity” for Israel. The decay in some parts of Israel’s defense structures that the 2006 war revealed derived from a misapplication of resources. This, in turn, was the result of a conceptual failure.

The faulty pre-war conception held that Israel was unlikely to be called upon to engage in conventional warfare in the foreseeable future. There was an accompanying belief that future wars would involve mainly air power and small groups of highly trained specialists on the ground. The 2006 war, however, ended the notion that the Arab-Israeli conflict was engaged in a long process of gradually winding down. It lifted the veil on a new mutation of the conflict, in which Islamist forces, armed, trained and aided by Iran, are engaged in a long war strategy of seeking to inflict a “death by a thousand cuts” on Israel.

But despite the failures of the Israeli military and political systems in the 2006 war, the results were hardly a ringing success for Hizbullah and its Iranian masters. The movement sustained very heavy casualties (over 500 men killed), and the loss of a large amount of sophisticated and costly Iranian equipment – most importantly, the Zelzal and Fajr missile systems destroyed by the IAF at an early stage of the war. The south of Lebanon was decimated, and efforts by Iran and Hizbullah to rebuild the damaged areas have proved sluggish and inefficient. The terms of Security Council Resolution 1701 significantly complicated the movement’s deployment south of the Litani River.

Hizbullah went on to significantly overplay its political hand as a result of the war. The movement imagined it could translate its self-proclaimed “divine victory” into increased political power, and engaged in a series of adventures which saw it turning its guns on fellow Lebanese, and attempting to bring down the government in Beirut. The results of last month’s elections showed the discontent of many Lebanese at Hizbullah’s desire to turn the country into a front line in an Islamist war to the death with Israel.

Since the Second Lebanon War, both sides have been preparing for the next round. The performance of the IDF in Operation Cast Lead showed that Israel has internalized some of the lessons outlined by Winograd.

The Gaza operation saw a better integration of political and military objectives, and a far more logical and effective use of ground forces. Hamas’s leaders believed that they would be able to maintain a level of attrition that would force Israel back. They were wrong.

Hizbullah, meanwhile, is rearming. The movement is now thought to possess 40,000 missiles north of the Litani. It has tripled the number of C-802 ground-to-sea missiles in its possession, is attempting (reportedly with some difficulty) to recruit and train new fighters, and has created an anti-aircraft unit.

The northern border, three years after the war, is pastoral and quiet. The quiet is deceptive.

Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah admitted that had he known the Israeli response to the kidnappings that began the war, he would never have carried them out. The result of this miscalculation, we are told, has been stronger Iranian supervision of their Lebanese proxy.

Hizbullah’s creator and most enthusiastic backer – The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps – is emerging as the victor in the power struggle under way in Iran. Hizbullah is a key asset for Iran in its ongoing bid for regional hegemony. The larger struggle of which the 2006 war was an episode is still under way.

The reactivation of the northern front at some time in some future turn of events thus remains likely. The most meaningful form of remembrance of the dead of 2006 is in ensuring that when that time comes, the systems tasked with defending Israel are properly prepared and properly led.

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The Domino Effect

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 27/12/2009

Lebanese Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri’s December 19 visit to Damascus is the latest marker in the return of the coercive Syrian presence in Lebanon. It is also an indication of Syria’s successful defiance of the west.

Hariri’s ritual gesture of supplication to Bashar al-Assad in Damascus was the inevitable adjustment of the leader of a small state to a changing regional balance of power. Hariri and his supporters have little reason to take pride in the gesture. But the real responsibility for it lies not in Beirut, but further afield.

The pro-western and pro-Saudi March 14 movement, led by Hariri, achieved a modest victory in elections in June. This victory was effectively nullified in the lengthy coalition “negotiations” that followed. The new government as finally announced in November represented the unusual spectacle of a wholesale capitulation of the electoral victors before the vanquished.

The Hizbullah-led opposition kept their effective veto power in the Cabinet. The government’s founding statement included an acknowledgment of the legitimacy of Hizbullah’s continued armed presence.

This substantive conceding by Hariri of his election victory has now been accompanied by a symbolic gesture.

It should be remembered that the process which led to the ending of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 2005 was set in motion by the murder of Sa’ad Hariri’s father, Rafiq, in February, 2005. The murder of the elder Hariri is widely thought to have been committed by Syria or elements allied with it. The murder called forth a mass movement opposing Syrian occupation.

In the context of a more general US and pro-US assertiveness in the region at the time, the Syrians felt compelled to withdraw their forces from Lebanon.

From the moment of its humiliating retreat from Lebanon, Syria sought to rebuild its influence “by other means.” These other means included its overt backing of Hizbullah, the key deciding factor in internal Lebanese affairs. Syria also adopted a classic “strategy of tension” to undermine stability in Lebanon. A string of March 14 politicians and pro-independence political figures were mysteriously murdered.

As one Syrian analyst happily put it this week: with Sa’ad Hariri’s trip across the mountains to Damascus, the circle that began with the retreat of the Syrian army from Beirut is completed.

The Assad regime, in a typically feline gesture, even chose to accompany Hariri’s visit with a further attempt at ritual humiliation. A few days prior to the visit, a Syrian court issued summons against 24 former and current senior Lebanese officials, demanding that they stand trial in Syria. They are accused of defaming a notorious Lebanese client of the Assad regime, Jamal Sayyed.

Understanding what has happened requires a broadening of focus.

The Hizbullah-led opposition conditioned their agreeing to join the coalition on the Hariri visit. But this condition was originally agreed to, according to reports, by Saudi King Abdullah, during his visit to Damascus in October. This visit was a gesture of rapprochement by the Saudis to the Syrians. The main backer of Hariri and March 14 appears at that point to have signaled Saudi willingness to concede its clients to the pro-Syrian interest in Lebanon.

Unlike the Syrian and Iranian clients in Lebanon, Hariri and Co. have no “hard power” or resistance option. The only game they can play is diplomacy. So once their main diplomatic patrons had offered them up, the game was effectively over.

But why did the Saudis choose to make this gesture? On one level, the Saudis hope to pull Syria way from Iran by welcoming Damascus back into the Arab “fold.” But Syria has made abundantly clear that it has no intention of ending or even toning down its staunch, 30-year alliance with Teheran.

On another level, the Saudis and Syrians share an additional, common interest in ensuring a weak, vulnerable Iraq between them.

But even this begs another question. Why should the Saudis choose to begin to engage with Iran’s main Arab allies – the Syrians – against the US-aligned Iraqis? Riyadh’s own patron, after all, is the United States.

Here one arrives at the crux of the matter. Although the Obama administration has hesitated before rushing headlong into renewing relations with Damascus, it has undertaken a series of gestures that have demonstrated that any real policy of isolation is over. This goes hand in hand with the broader regional stance of the administration of attempting “engagement” with the Iranian regime.

Far from signaling to Middle Eastern powers that a new world of cooperation is about to commence, what this US stance conveys to friends and foes in the region is that Washington no longer has the stomach for holding fast against the bid by Iran and its allies for regional hegemony.

The clients, and the clients of the clients, therefore move to make their accommodation with the changed reality. Unlike the Obama administration, they understand that the dominion of force is not going to end any time soon in the Middle East. The only question is – whose force will it be?

So if the small dominoes like Hariri are falling, it is because the larger ones are pushing them. Reversing this process, meanwhile, would require a general re-think of the current assumptions guiding western policy in the Middle East.

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What Does Assad Want?

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 08/03/2010

In Damascus last week, the full array of leaders of the so-called ‘resistance bloc’ came together in a series of meetings. Presidents Ahmedinejad of Iran and Assad of Syria were there, alongside a beaming Khaled Meshal of Hamas and Hizballah General-Secretary Hassan Nasrallah. There were some lesser lights too to make up the numbers – including the PFLP-GC’s Ahmed Jibril, a fossil from the old alphabet soup of secular Palestinian groups.

The mood – replicated a few days later in Teheran – was one of jubilant defiance.

The reasons underlying Syria’s membership of the ‘resistance bloc’ remain fiercely debated in western policy discussion. It has long been the view of a powerful element in Washington – strongly echoed by many in the Israeli defense establishment – that Syria constitutes the ‘weakest link’ in the Iranian-led bloc.

Adherents to this view see the Syrian regime as concerned solely with power and its retention. Given, they say, that Syria’s ties to the Iran-led bloc are pragmatic rather than ideological, the policy trick to be performed is finding the right incentive to make Damascus re-calculate the costs and benefits of its position.

Once the appropriate incentive tips the balance, it is assumed, the regime in Damascus will coolly absent itself from the company of frothing ideologues on display in Damascus and Teheran last week, and will take up its position on the rival table – or at least at a point equidistant between them.

The specific incentive required to perform this trick varies depending on who you ask. In Israel, it is generally assumed that the recovery of the Golan Heights is the great prize. In this view, Syrian backing for Hizballah and for Palestinian terror groups is intended to keep up the pressure on Israel, in order to force it to concede the Golan.

In Washington, one may hear a number of other incentives discussed – the removal of the Syria Accountability Act, US aid and investment, and so on.

The logic of all these positions depends on the basic characterization of the Assad regime as ultimately motivated purely by Machiavellian power interests. This characterization remains received wisdom in Israeli and US policy circles to a far greater extent than the evidence for it warrants.

Western wooing of Syria has undeniably produced remarkably little in terms of changing the regime’s behavior. In recent weeks, the Obama Administration increased the volume of its formerly cautious overtures to Damascus. Under Secretary of State William Burns visited Damascus. Burns attempted to raise the issue of Syrian support for insurgents in Iraq, and for Hizballah and Palestinian terror groups. Assad, according to reports, denied all knowledge of such support.

The recently announced US decision to return an ambassador to Damascus was followed by the resistance jamboree in Damascus – in which Assad openly mocked US hopes for a Syrian ‘distancing’ from Iran.

It has now been announced that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton is considering a visit to Damascus. In the meantime, Syria is gaily crashing through the red lines on its military support for Hizballah. Sophisticated anti-aircraft equipment, such as the Russian-made Igla system is rumored to be following the advanced surface to surface missiles and anti-tank systems supplied to the Shia Islamist group.

Which brings us back to the core question of Syrian motivation. Clearly, the Syrians have a habit of swallowing incentives and giving nothing in return. But if the alignment with Iran is purely pragmatic, then why does it prove so difficult to offer Syria the right carrot to lure it away from Teheran?

There are two possible answers. The first and most obvious one is that Syria calculates, probably correctly, that since there will be no real price imposed on it for not changing its behavior, it can afford to maintain its current level of relations with Iran, while happily accepting any gestures from the west or Israel designed to induce it to change them.

But this explanation fails to account for the brazenness and fervor of Syria’s current stance of defiance.

The statements of individuals close to the Syrian regime in recent months suggest that there is more to the current Syrian stance than simply playing all sides off against the middle. Rather, the Syrians believe that a profound re-structuring of the balance of power is under way in the Middle East – to the benefit of the Iran-led bloc.

This re-structuring is being made possible because of the supposed long-term weakening of the US in the region. This enables the aggressive, Islamist regime in Teheran to fill the vacuum. It also renders feasible policy options – such as direct confrontation with Israel – which in the 1990s seemed to have vanished forever.

The characterization of the young Syrian president and his regime as ultimately cool-headed and pragmatist is incorrect. The Damascus regime always held to a fiercely anti-Israeli and anti-American view of the region. In the 1990s, realities appeared to require a practical sidelining of this view. But the 1990s were over a while ago.

Regimes like that of the Assads (and even semi-farcical figures like old Jibril and his PFLP-GC) are not anomalies in the alliance based on Iranian ambition and regional Islamist fervor. Rather, they are natural partners, sharing a base-level understanding of the region, common enemies, and a common, brutal approach to asserting their interests. It is for this core reason that attempts to prise Bashar Assad away from his natural habitat will continue to prove fruitless.

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Rewarding Bad Behavior

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 12/01/2011

US President Barack Obama’s recent decision to appoint a new ambassador to Damascus is further proof positive of the effectiveness of the strategy pursued by Syria over the last half decade. It also showcases the sense that the current US administration appears to be navigating without a compass in its Middle East diplomacy.

The appointment of experienced and highly regarded regional hand Robert Ford to the embassy in Damascus is not quite the final burial of the policy to “isolate” Syria. The 2003 Syria Accountability Act and its sanctions remain in effect. But with Syria now in possession of a newly minted American ambassador, in supposedly pivotal negotiations with Saudi Arabia over the Special Tribunal in Lebanon, with its alliance with Iran intact, having repaired relations with Iraq, and in continued, apparently cost-free defiance of the International Atomic Energy Agency over inspections of its nuclear sites, the office of President Bashar Assad could be forgiven for feeling slightly smug.

Syrian policy appears to have worked. And since there are few more worthy pursuits than learning from success, it is worth observing closely its actions on the way to bringing about its resurgence.

Syria’s regional standing was at its nadir in 2005: Assad was forced to abandon his country’s valued and profitable occupation of Lebanon; the US was in control in Iraq; Israel appeared to have turned back the assault of Damascus-based Islamist terror groups. The future seemed bleak for the Assad family regime.

How did we get from there to here? The formula has been a simple and familiar one, involving the potential and actual use of political violence and the subsequent offer of restraint.

Thus, Syria set out to successfully prevent the achievement of stability in Lebanon. A string of murders of anti-Syrian political figures, journalists and officials began almost before the dust had cleared from the departure of the last APC across the border in 2005.

The semi coup undertaken by Syrian-allied Hizbullah and its allies in May 2008 set the price of further isolation of Damascus at a rate higher than either the US or “pro- Western” Arab states were willing to pay. The process of Saudi-Syrian rapprochement began shortly afterward.

It has now reached the somewhat surreal stage where Damascus, which was almost certainly involved in the killing of Rafik Hariri, is being treated as a key player in helping to prevent the possibility of violence by Syrian and Iranian sponsored organizations in the event of their members being indicted for the murder.

With regard to Israel, the defense establishment and part of the political establishment maintain an attitude of patience and forgiveness toward the Syrian regime. This, to be sure, has its limits. Damascus’s attempt to develop a nuclear capacity was swiftly and effectively dealt with in 2007. On two known occasions in recent years, Israel has brushed aside Syria’s domestic defenses to engage in targeted killings against senior military or paramilitary figures on Syrian soil.

Yet the belief that Syria seeks a way out of the supposedly stifling bear hug of the Iranians remains prevalent in defense circles and in large parts of the political establishment.

This perennial article of faith means that in the event of Syria’s feeling lonely, it need only raise an eyebrow in Israel’s direction for the eager suitor to come running.

This took place, for example, in October 2007, at a time when Syria had good reason for feeling isolated.

The commencement of Turkish-mediated negotiations with Israel helped in cracking the wall of Syrian isolation.

Once other powers began to get on board the dialogue train, of course, the negotiations could be allowed to quietly fade away. The latest indications are that the defense establishment persists in its faith. The result is that Syria, as long as it stays within certain limits of behavior, is able to domicile and support organizations engaged in armed action against Israel, at no cost.

ON IRAQ, a number of regional analysts have suggested that part of the reason for the Obama administration’s persistent and largely one-sided policy of engagement with Damascus derives from the porous border between Syria and Iraq. The maintaining of this open border by the regime as an artery providing fresh fighters for the Sunni insurgency constituted a useful tool of pressure. The US now wants quiet as it prepares to withdraw from Iraq. Once again, the simple but effective methods of the protection racket appear to pay off.

More broadly, Syria originally favored Iyad Allawi’s candidacy for prime minister, but fell into line with big brother Iran’s backing of Nouri al- Maliki. Relations with Maliki have now been repaired, despite Syria’s suspected involvement in a series of bombings in Baghdad early last year.

Finally, with regard to its nuclear program, Syria has banned all IAEA access to the site of the destroyed al-Kibar reactor, since 2008. This decision followed an initial IAEA report concluding that the facility had similarities to a nuclear reactor, and noting the discovery of uranium particles at the site.

In November last year, an IAEA report noted that “with the passage of time, some of the information concerning the site is further deteriorating or has been lost entirely. It is critical, therefore, that Syria actively cooperate with the agency.” Critical to the agency, maybe.

Less critical, apparently, to the Syrians.

WHAT LESSONS may be learned from this relatively comprehensive list of interactions? What might an aspiring Middle Eastern regime or movement glean from the Syrian experience of the last half-decade – all the way from the hurried departure from Lebanon to the return of the US ambassador.

There are two obvious lessons.

The first is that if you are in a confrontation with the West, hang tough, because the West and its allies will eventually tire, particularly if you are willing to raise the stakes to a level on which the other side will not be willing to play. The currency Syria has traded in, with subtlety and determination, is political violence.

Terror and the sponsorship of murder – in Iraq, in Lebanon and against Israel – appear to have come at no real cost and eventually to have paid dividends.

The second lesson is to maintain your close alliance with the big regional spoiler, but at the same time express your willingness to dialogue with and maintain relations with everyone else. This, it appears, will have the result that you will come to be seen as an indispensable country. This status, however, will only last for as long as you maintain your alliance with the spoiler – in this case, Iran. So on no circumstances must this firm connection be put in jeopardy.

In other words, the Syrian success story teaches all aspiring family police states and anti-Western regional movements that the sponsoring of violence against the West and maintaining alliances with its enemies are the key to emerging from isolation, punching above your weight and even, in the fullness of time, establishing friendly and respectful relations with the West. QED. Lesson learned.

As to why exactly the US, Israel and their regional allies should find it beneficial to promote and reward this model as the exemplar of political behavior in the region, the answer lies beyond the limited analytical tools of this column. The writer wishes great success to anyone seeking to figure it out. It continues to elude him.

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Hizbullah’s Throne of Bayonets

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 27/12/2010

It is obvious that given the true balance of power in Lebanon, the special tribunal investigating the murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri is largely a virtual exercise. As Michael Young pointed out in a column in the Beirut Daily Star this week, tribunal prosecutor Daniel Bellemare is currently on his end of year vacation and left without submitting draft indictments. This means that indictments cannot be issued before mid-January at the earliest.

Once they are issued, they will not be made public, but rather will be subject to the perusal of a pre-trial judge, Daniel Fransen. This process is likely to take up to a further two months, meaning that the very earliest a trial could begin would be late March or April.

At that point, if Hizbullah members are indicted, the movement will declare its nonrecognition of the court, and in real world terms, that is likely to be that.

But if this is the case, and it is, why is the Iran/Syria/Hizbullah camp so clearly jittery and worried by the events surrounding the tribunal? Why the wishful thinking in the newspapers evident this week, when the pro-Hizbullah Al-Diyar published a statement by Saad Hariri apparently abandoning the tribunal, which turned out to be entirely fictional?

More importantly, why the stark and repeated threats from Hizbullah and Iranian officials regarding the consequences if the Tribunal is not abandoned?

Hizbullah this week reiterated its promise to “cut off the hand” of anyone trying to arrest members of the movement. Many analysts saw the recent visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Lebanon as an act of preemptive intimidation. He was reminding Hizbullah’s opponents just how strong it is, and just how determined its backers.

Even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei descended this week from his lofty heights to issue a fatwa regarding the tribunal. “This tribunal is receiving orders from elsewhere,” he said in a meeting with the emir of Qatar, before pronouncing “any ruling it hands down” as “null and void.”

Hizbullah immediately hailed his words, interpreting them in the most unambiguous terms as supporting its war to the end on the tribunal. A Hizbullah MP, Walid Sucarieh, said that the statement was meant to “tell those who seek strife through the indictment: stay right there. We won’t stand idle while the fire is burning our homes.”

SO WHAT is the reason for the very obvious concern of the pro-Iranian axis regarding the tribunal, even though there is no way that its indictments or rulings can be enforced?

Firstly, it is important to differentiate in this regard between the stances of Syria on the one hand, and Iran and Hizbullah on the other.

The Iran-Syria alliance serves the purposes of both parties and is in no danger of fraying. This does not mean, however, that the interests of the parties are at all times identical.

Syria is currently engaged in a convoluted diplomatic process with Saudi Arabia to try to find a solution on the issue of the tribunal. The Syrians hope to make diplomatic gains by playing all sides against the middle, in their usual fashion.

The indications are that Syria itself has nothing to fear from the indictments, despite the near certainty that its officials were involved in the murder of Hariri, even if Hizbullah men were contracted to carry out the deed. Syria stands to pay no price. It looks likely to continue to be aligned with Iran, and courted by the West and the Arab states whatever the outcome of the tribunal issue.

But the serious project under way in Lebanon is not that of the Syrians.

Hizbullah is a long-term project undertaken by the Islamic Republic of Iran, with the intention of generating legitimacy and popularity for Teheran by engaging in a never-ending war with Israel.

For this purpose, Iran established Hizbullah, and has over time built it into a political-military juggernaut of a potency rarely seen in the Arabic-speaking world.

Hizbullah today is the de facto dominant force in Lebanon.

But to serve its purpose for its creator, it is not enough for Hizbullah merely to be powerful. A Hizbullah which dominates Lebanon through pure coercion cannot play the role intended for it by its patron. It must also appear legitimate.

That is to say, to perform its task for its Iranian masters, Hizbullah must appear to be simultaneously Shi’ite and pro-Iranian, but also authentically Arab. It must be seen as the sole force able to make Arab dreams of victory over Israel once more look feasible. The Hariri tribunal in no way offers a threat to the real power of Hizbullah.

The movement can defeat any combination of its domestic opponents, if it comes to a fight.

But if such a fight takes place, even though Hizbullah would win it, the ambiguity regarding its true nature would be gone. It would be revealed as a powerful, alien force, made possible by the money and guns of non- Arab Iran, and holding power purely by coercion. It is for this reason that Hizbullah has been so desperate to change the subject back to Israel in recent weeks.

In this way, it hopes to portray the part of its identity which the Arab world finds attractive – the “resistance” – as opposed to the part that threatens to be revealed by the tribunal indictments – the alien, Shi’ite, Iran-created force.

The latest events in Lebanon thus help to lay bare the contradictions of the Iranian project in the region. This means nothing in power terms. Hizbullah still dominates.

Its local opponents remain disarmed and helpless.

But it apparently matters enough to Iran and its local proxy to cause them to mobilize the heavyweights to stop the tribunal in its tracks.

So it remains likely that the special tribunal on Lebanon will be the proverbial mountain that gives birth to a mouse. But careful observation of the current events surrounding it show the inherent limitations of Shi’ite, non-Arab Iran’s ambition to emerge as the dominant force in the region. As former Russian president Boris Yeltsin once put it in a rare moment of clarity, “You can make a throne of bayonets, but you can’t sit on it for long.”

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Illusion and Reality Clash in Lebanon

Posted on March 16, 2011 by jonathanspyer

Global Politician- 08/03/2010

Initially, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon probing the murder of Rafik Hariri focused on Syria. Lately, indications suggest that the main focus is now on Hizbullah. Tension is currently rising in Lebanon, amid reports that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is to issue indictments in the coming months. The tribunal is tasked with investigating the 2005 murder of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Earlier this year, its president, Antonio Cassese, said he expected that indictments would be issued at some stage between September and December.

The Hariri tribunal has followed a long and winding path since its formation shortly after the murder, which took place on February 14, 2005. In its initial period, it was expected that its main angle of investigation would focus on the Syrians. Hariri was known as a defender of Lebanese sovereignty and therefore a natural adversary of the Syrian regime.

The latest indications, however, suggest that the main focus of the investigation is now on Hizbullah. This has led some Lebanon watchers to raise the specter of possible renewed civil strife in the country. Others have suggested that the prospect of indictments represents a serious dent in Hizbullah and Iran’s power in the country. Neither of these claims, however, holds water.

The first claim rests on the idea that if Hizbullah is indicted for the murder of Rafik Hariri, this will place Saad Hariri – current prime minister and son of the murdered man – on a collision course with it.

But for a civil war, you need two sides. In 2008, it was the effective capitulation of Hariri and his March 14 movement which averted conflict. This time around, Hariri has even fewer options and this makes renewed confrontation less likely.

In a press conference last week, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that he had been personally informed by Hariri that the tribunal would accuse some “undisciplined members” of Hizbullah (i.e. not the movement as a whole) of the murder of his father.

Nasrallah also noted that he had received a personal assurance from Hariri that he would publicly confirm that individual Hizbullah members, rather than the movement itself, were implicated in the murder.

Informed sources suggest that Hizbullah has already selected the individuals it will throw to the wolves if indictments are indeed issued (which is itself not certain).

The men in question are low-level operators reputed to be involved in crime as well as movement activity.

Nasrallah’s rare press conference may have indicated that Hizbullah is uncomfortable at the prospect of the indictments. But his name-checking of Hariri also confirmed that he thinks he has little to worry about from the murdered man’s son.

The available evidence suggests that he is right. Mustafa Allouche, a former MP from Hariri’s March 14 bloc, said last Friday that if the tribunal issued indictments “not backed by proper evidence,” then the position of the Hariri movement toward it would change.

Allouche added that Hariri would consider matters in cooperation with Nasrallah to ensure “calm.” Hariri is reported to have held a private meeting with Nasrallah in recent days to lay the basis for this cooperation and reassure the Hizbullah leader.

The idea that a group of Hizbullah members decided independently to assassinate Rafik Hariri belongs in the realm of comedy. Hizbullah is a fiercely centralized, disciplined body in which no dissent is brooked. Its militants do not go about pursuing their own political and military policies.

It is made doubly so by the known sophistication of the Hariri murder. The notion that a group of Hizbullah men acting independently could have assembled, planted and detonated the massive explosive device that killed him, without their own movement’s knowledge or the knowledge of the Syrian de facto rulers of the country at the time, is without any foundation in reality.

SO WHY IS Saad Hariri apparently bowing before the Iran-Syria-Hizbullah axis that murdered his father? Hariri is a client of the Saudis, and the Saudis, for reasons of their own, are currently engaged in a process of rapprochement with the Syrians. Saudi King Abdullah is due to visit Lebanon this week. The Lebanese prime minister possesses no military power on the ground. A civil war between his supporters and Hizbullah would be exceedingly short, and would rapidly conclude with Hariri’s destruction.

As a result, he is carrying out his own slightly macabre courtship dance with the people that killed his father. Syria is quietly rebuilding its power in Lebanon, with no effective pro-Western counter-force to oppose it. Hariri therefore must bow to reality and avoid clashing with Hizbullah and/or Syria over the tribunal.

The Saudi approach in turn is supposed to shore up the troubled Arab diplomatic system by drawing Syria back into it.

Some commentators have claimed to see a silver lining in this. They depict the current situation as representing a weakening of Iran and its Hizbullah client in the face of a new alignment of Syria and Hariri, backed by Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

Such a depiction has little foundation. Syria’s return to political influence in Lebanon is a product of its alliance with Iran. Its continuation depends on the continued existence of this alliance. So the idea that Syria’s new friendship with Hariri portends a significant shift in the balance of power is an illusion. It is a friendship on Syrian terms, made possible by the implicit threat of Iranian-backed muscle. The Syrians will be happy to reap the fruits of their alliance with Iran in the form of renewed political sway in Lebanon. This has no implications for the real Iranian power in the country, or for Syria’s alignment with it.

The real power in Lebanon today, whose resources, investment and ambitions dwarf those of the Syrians, is the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran exercises its power through its Hizbullah client. Hizbullah, in turn, is able to have the last word in any argument in the country because of its military power on the ground. Hizbullah and its patrons prefer to allow the Lebanese political system and government to exist, and will continue to do so for as long as they do not interfere in their plans.

Iran’s plans are region-wide, and it is interested in Lebanon mainly insofar as its control of the southern part of that country allows it to maintain the most active front currently in existence in the Israel- Islamist conflict. Syria is riding back into Lebanon in the form of a minor carriage attached to the Iranian- Hizbullah train.

Against this political-military juggernaut, the conscientious researchers of the SLT can do little. Saudi diplomacy and its Lebanese clients lack the tools to oppose Iran and its allies directly. They are therefore seeking to convince themselves and the world that their strategy of drawing Syria away from Iran is working. It is not.

The US, meanwhile, is engaged in matters elsewhere, and the administration still appears to be in a learning process regarding the ambitions of the Iran led regional axis.

It is against this background that the latest developments in Lebanon should be understood. Neither the SLT, nor Saad Hariri, nor Turkey, nor Saudi Arabia are going to break the power of Iran and its allies in Lebanon. This will be achieved, if it is to be achieved, as a result of the frustration of Iranian plans on a broader, regional level.

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