The Foreign Service Journal, October 2007

Jordanian-Egyptian Plan, the Mitchell Report, the Tenet and Zinni Plans, the Saudi-Arab League Peace Plan, the U.S. Roadmap, and the 2003 Geneva Initiative. But it has rejected the fence Israel has been building around the West Bank, and the Israeli disengage- ment and convergence initiatives, all of which essentially seek to set the Israeli- Palestinian border unilaterally. The U.S. Balance Sheet In general, Washington has adopted Israel’s position on all the conflict-reso- lution plans since 1967. When the two allies do disagree on some details, Washington does not force Israel to change its position — particularly not on the substantive matters driving the conflict: territorial control, settlements and the division of Jerusalem. The U.S. essentially accepts Israel’s view of Resolution 242, which Israel argues calls for withdrawal from some of The Territories it occupied in 1967, but not from all of them. When Israel continued its refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians even after the PLO’s unilateral recognition of the Jewish state in 1988, the U.S. did not encour- age further discussion, and its dialogue with the PLO diminished. Instead, the George H.W. Bush administration supported Israeli Prime Minister Shamir’s 1989 plan, effectively a decla- ration of intent to annex The Territories. And at the 1993 Madrid talks, the U.S. presented a draft of a declaration of principles that, in effect, called for Palestinian personal autono- my for the transition period, not the territorial autonomy that the Palestin- ians had demanded from the begin- ning. When Israel refused to discuss the issues of statehood, borders, Jerusa- lem, settlements and refugees before the final-status talks of the Oslo process, the U.S. followed suit again, ignoring the spread of Israeli settle- ments and the expansion of Greater Jerusalem’s boundaries. Whereas for Pres. Carter the settlements were ille- gal, and for Pres. Reagan and George H.W. Bush they were obstacles to peace, for Pres. Clinton they were merely complicating factors. Begin- ning in 1967, the U.S. stance was that The Territories were occupied. In the 1990s the U.S. “adjusted” its stance to viewing The Territories as disputed land, control of which would have to be negotiated. President George W. Bush essen- tially ignored the Jordanian-Egyptian plan (2001), the Saudi-Arab League Peace Plan (2002) and the Geneva Plan (2003), all of which Israel reject- ed. The U.S. also adopted the Israeli interpretation of the Mitchell Report, according to which the violence must first stop completely before any move forward can be made. The U.S.- authored Tenet and Zinni Plans and the Middle East Quartet’s Roadmap took a similar approach, as Israel insisted. Meanwhile, Israel has stead- ily expanded the settlements, a policy the Mitchell Report characterized as extremely destructive to stopping the violence and resolving the conflict. Yet the U.S. essentially stood by and did nothing. Let me be clear: I do not believe the U.S. is a rubber stamp for Israel, but rather that it consistently adopts Israel’s positions. Some American presidents have taken a more neutral stance than others, and some dis- agreed with Israel. However, the ulti- mate outcome has thus far been an acceptance of the Israeli position. In effect, the U.S. has adopted Israel’s vision of a final status in which it retains control of many settlements and does not return to the June 5, 1967, line. “In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing pop- ulation centers,” Pres. Bush wrote to Prime Minister Sharon on April 14, 2004, “it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final-status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” The bor- der must “reflect these realities.” Taking into consideration the three balance sheets, it is apparent that ever since the Six-Day War, Israel has re- jected all attempts at conflict resolu- tion that would require it to return to the 1967 line. The Palestinians initial- ly rejected Israel’s right to exist but shifted their position to accept it, and have agreed to end the conflict if the 1967 lines are restored. The U.S. has supported the Israeli position in each of the attempts to resolve the conflict, in effect perpetuating continued dis- sension between the Israelis and Palestinians. Perpetuating the Conflict What drives the U.S. position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? The answer is complicated, involving forces such as the political power of the pro- Israel Christian fundamentalist and Jewish lobbies; the prevailing view among many U.S. policymakers that Israel is a strategic asset to the U.S.; and the perception of a common ideol- ogy according to which both countries are melting-pot democracies. But a more crucial question is: How has the U.S. perpetuated the conflict? Since the 1960s, Israel has become dependent on the U.S. economically, diplomatically and militarily. Accord- ing to the U.S. Agency for Internation- al Development, from 1962 to 2005 Israel received about $150 billion in economic and military assistance (in constant 2005 dollars) from the U.S. Eariler this year, Washington increased the assistance to Israel by $700 million per year, promising to provide a total of $30 billion during the next 10 years. These figures put Israel at the top of the list of countries receiving aid from the United States. Without this sup- port, its economy would have suffered greatly. Furthermore, all this aid has been effectively fungible, allowing Israel to funnel more money into strengthening 58 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7