The Foreign Service Journal, October 2007

its grip on The Territories. Regardless of any U.S. insistence that Israel would not spend its aid on expanding settle- ments, Washington has essentially financed the Israeli settlement project in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Had the American funds not been avail- able, Israel would have had to cut its expenses in other areas in order to finance the massive settlement build- ing task, causing it great difficulty and quite possibly weakening Israeli popu- lar support for the project. Further demonstrating this point, an Ameri- can-Israeli memorandum of under- standing signed in 2007 reportedly al- lows Israel to use our assistance as it sees fit, unrelated, for example, to progress in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. Equally critical, the U.S. has shield- ed Israel from international pressures at the United Nations and elsewhere, essentially forcing its many allies to look the other way when confronted with Israeli abuses. Since the 1960s, the U.S. has become the country’s most important source of weapons, and what arms it does not supply come from Europe. Should Washington ever decide to curtail that supply, its allies will most likely follow its cue. And without that stock of weaponry, many units of the Israeli defense forces, including the celebrated Israeli Air Force, would quickly come to a halt. It is hard to envision Israel defying the U.S. for any extended period, par- ticularly if Washington backs its words with concrete actions (as Pres. George H.W. Bush did in 1991 by temporarily cutting off aid to protest settlement expansion). But so long as America does not go beyond rhetoric, and con- tinues to provide financial and military aid to Israel, it is essentially supporting Israeli control of The Territories. We must stress that the point is not that the U.S. cannot compel Israel to take a certain position should it decide to do so. On the contrary, when a U.S. president decides to impress upon Israel to take specific action, it com- plies. For example, Pres. Nixon per- suaded Israel to accept Resolution 242 — albeit under an Israeli interpreta- tion that requires it to withdraw from some, but not all, of The Territories — and averted the destruction of the Third Egyptian Army in the 1973 war. Later, Nixon and Ford encouraged Israel to withdraw from parts of the Sinai and Syria, and Pres. Carter pre- vailed upon Israel to withdraw com- pletely from the Sinai region and remove all the settlements there, as well as to accept the idea that the Palestinians are a national group with legitimate political rights. Pres. Reagan convinced Israel to let the PLO forces retreat from Beirut, and his successor prompted Israel to attend the Madrid Confer- ence. Pres. Clinton compelled Prime Minister Netanyahu, who rejected the Oslo Process, to sign the Hebron Protocol and Wye Memorandum, and persuaded Prime Minister Barak to enhance his offer at Camp David and at the Egyptian resort of Taba. In fact, any other outcome in those cases would have been utterly strange. A country that receives vir- tually all of its military equipment and approximately $3 billion a year from another country, which also shields it from international criti- cisms and sanctions, is not really free to make independent decisions. A Fateful Choice In a major speech he gave in November 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared: “History, fate and success have combined to compel American leadership in the Middle East and around the globe. ... We wel- come the opportunity to use our power and influence to make the world a better place for all of God’s children.” With the possible reconvening of a regional peace conference in late 2007 at the initiative of the current presi- dent, it is important to bear in mind the fact that, ultimately, Washington can lead internationally only to the extent that others are willing to follow — unless it resorts to coercion. After all, a broker who consistently sides with one party in a dispute will in all probability fail to convince the oppos- ing party to go along. Thus, despite the repeated at- tempts of the U.S., beginning in Sept- ember 2000, to convince the Pales- tinians to halt their second revolt against Israeli control, it has never really ended. Instead, in 2006 the Palestinians put in power Hamas, the very party that has all along rejected U.S. brokering. Now that Hamas has taken full control over the Gaza Strip, the already complex situation is nearly intractable. In the end, one cannot help but wonder whether the situation would have evolved differently had Pres. Clinton suggested his plan in July 2000, instead of December of that year. As written, his proposal called on Israel to withdraw from 94 to 96 per- cent of The Territories, and to ex- change parcels of land with the Pales- tinians for the proposed land to be annexed to Israel. Unfortunately, both Pres. Clinton and Prime Minister Barak were already on their way out of the political arena, and their succes- sors rejected that approach. Of course, we will never know the exact answer to this question. But in any case, as long as the U.S. continues to refrain from exerting real pressure on Israel to return to the 1967 line and evacuate the settlements, Azoury’s century-old prediction will continue to be correct. That is to say, Israelis and Palestinians are fated to fight until one group is the victor. The converse is also possible, how- ever: the Israeli-Palestinian violent debacle could be brought to a halt. Ultimately, the choice is in the hands of the United States. O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 59