Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Benjamin Netanyahu

  • Peace Talks Collapsed Because of Jordan

    Remember the direct talks that occurred in September between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas? The question seems silly, but given the short duration (a total of sixteen hours), it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if people have forgotten that both sides actually spoke face to face. After just three meetings, the discussions broke off amid Israel’s refusal to extend the settlement moratorium. Abbas has stayed on the sidelines ever since, a position that he will continue to use as long as the Israeli government refuses to cease settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

    The reason I bring this up is twofold. First, we haven’t had direct talks since that early September date and the United States has been desperately trying coax both sides into talking one on one for the past few months. (Is President Obama getting discouraged?) But more importantly, people in the media (and bloggers like myself) have been citing the wrong reasons as to why the talks collapsed.

    Before this short Newsweek brief came out over the weekend, people similar to myself assumed that the September discussions were terminated because Netanyahu and Abbas were stubborn and unwavering in their demands. In other words, that Israelis wanted one thing, the Palestinians another, and a moderate compromise remained elusive.

    This, apparently, was the wrong assumption to hold. According to Newsweek‘s Dan Ephron, the talks were doomed from the start, due to Netanyahu’s unwillingness to discuss anything before Israel’s “security concept” was accepted by Abbas’ negotiators. This may be a reasonable demand, given Israel’s contentious past with its Arab neighbors and Palestinian militants. But when one gets to the heart of what Israel’s “security concept” means, Netanyahu’s stubbornness simply becomes unjustifiable.

    In details provided by Newsweek, Netanyahu wanted Israeli troops on Palestine’s side of the West Bank barrier, in addition to a large contingent of Israeli soldiers in the Jordan Valley.

    This last demand is particularly difficult to understand. The state of Jordan is, based on Middle Eastern standards, one of the most moderate regimes in the region. Jordanian and Israeli intelligence have worked together repeatedly over the past decade on everything from immigration control to the tracking of militants. Jordan even holds a formal peace treaty with Israel, one of only two Arab states that do so (Egypt being the other). So why, despite all of these positives, was Netanyahu so insistent on retaining Israeli troops in the Jordan Valley?

    Negotiators who were involved in the September talks confirm that the demand was due to Israel’s concern about Jordan turning more radical in the future. Last time I checked, Jordan was relatively stable, and the one political party that Israel has always been leery of, the Muslim Brotherhood, is largely a pragmatic political actor in Jordanian politics.

    Netanyahu is either using Jordan as an excuse to surround a potential state of Palestine with Israeli troops, or King Abdullah’s Hashemite Kingdom is a lot more fragile than we all have been led to believe. Taking Netanyahu’s politics into account — and his desire to keep his right-wing coalition afloat — I’m guessing that the first statement weights more heavily in his mind than the second.

  • Obama’s New Deal To Israel

    In a last-ditch effort by the United States to salvage the direct peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent eight full hours with Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday morning.  The result was nothing short of remarkable from Clinton’s standpoint; the Israeli prime minister agreed that a resumption of negotiations would be a good idea. As Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East peace diplomat says in Foreign Policy, “any advance in the excruciatingly painful world of Arab-Israeli negotiations is significant.”

    The downside is that the United States were forced to give up a lot of concessions just to convince the Israelis to take some positive steps forward. Essentially, the Obama Administration bribed Israel into accepting its position for the short term.

    For a measly three-month extension of the settlement moratorium that originally expired in late September, Washington asked Congress to sell $3 billion worth of American military aircraft to the Israel Defense Forces, on top of the billion dollar aid package Tel Aviv receives on an annual basis. Perhaps more important for Netanyahu, the United States promised to veto any resolution at the UN Security Council that would embarrass Israel or condemn the occupation of Palestinian land.

    The third assurance from Obama and Clinton is that East Jerusalem would be exempted from any additional freeze in Jewish settlements; a concession that the Palestinians have already stated as unacceptable. And the most consequential of all is a written American promise that this will be the last time President Obama asks the Israelis to halt settlement construction through official channels.

    Netanyahu must be smiling, but all for the wrong reasons. Once again, his government was able to sidestep American demands, as well as pressure from the Israeli right. By acquring a tremendous amount of aid from Washington, Netanyahu can portray his recent trip to America as a victorious one. This may provide him with the necessary support to pass the new deal through the Israeli security cabinet; some hardliners have already indicated that they will abstain from the vote, thus virtually assuring that the proposal will be signed.

    But the three month deadline is quite troubling. Even if Netanyahu successfully implements the new agreement, his negotiators will be coerced into hammering out a deal with the Palestinians on borders within an extremely short period of time (an issue that has eluded the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for close to twenty years).

    The logic is simple: if borders are established, Israel can build on whatever territory is inside the Israeli line of control.

    But if that deal cannot be reached within the three month timeframe (and that is unfortunately a possible scenario), then the entire enterprise is basically dead as long as Netanyahu is in the top job. Construction will continue on the West Bank, as is already happening in East Jerusalem, further eluding the possibility of a two-state solution. And Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, will respond by withdrawing from the process all together.

    This may be Obama’s last chance to make some headway, at least during his first term in office. Otherwise, American diplomats might as well wait until a new Israeli government is seated.

  • A Twenty-Four Hour Long Rapprochement

    At a time when President Barack Obama is busy meeting with foreign leaders on the Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia, Vice President Joseph Biden has taken the initiative in meetings with other world leaders of great consequence to the United States. First and foremost is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who just wrapped up an address in New Orleans to the Jewish Federation of North America.

    That address occurred on Monday, which was why Netanyahu traveled to the United States in the first place. But on the preceding Sunday, the prime minister briefly held a face-to-face meeting with Biden on issues that we can only assume were related to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. (more…)