The Foreign Service Journal, December 2006

Sept. 22, the ICG launched an initiative to generate new political momentum for a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In addition, a bipartisan group of former senior diplomats convened at the Israel Policy Forum in early October to urge the Bush administration to engage in the region. Three Critical Errors From a Palestinian perspective, there are three things wrong with the current administration’s policy toward the conflict: False even-handedness. U.S. policymakers deal with Israel and the Palestinians as though they were equal adversaries, ignoring the fact that Israel is the strongest military power in the region and one of the strongest in the world; it is a U.N. member-state; and it has controlled Palestinian economic, social and political development in the Occupied Territories for nearly 40 years. The Palestinians are stateless, and have lived in exile, under Israeli rule or under Israeli occupation, since Israel was created in 1948. Palestinian security forces and militias are no match for the Israeli army, as the toll of dead and wounded clearly shows. Lack of reciprocity. Washington demands from the Palestinians results that are not demanded from the Israelis: an end to violence, recognition of past agree- ments and political recognition. To back up its demands, the U.S. has led the international community in imposing an economic siege on the Palestinian Authority. To be fair, Washington should push for reciprocal recognition and a mutual ceasefire. No accountability. Israel has continued to build set- tlements and construct a so-called security wall on Palestinian land. It has doubled the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank from 200,000 to 400,000 since 1993, when Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organi- zation signed the first of a dozen painstakingly negotiated agreements. The Israeli economic and military pressures on the Palestinian Authority predate both the current crisis and the election of Hamas. They began in the mid-1990s and escalated after the collapse of the Camp David talks and the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000. By the end of 2002, major Israeli military offensives had led to the destruction of PA security forces and severely damaged much civilian infrastructure. Yet the past two American administrations have taken no action, even though the United States is Israel’s largest donor and political sup- porter. Arguably, if the U.S. had used some of its considerable leverage with Israel to support Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after he was elected in January 2005 — a full year before the election of Hamas — his party, Fatah, might have remained in power. However, Abbas was unable to point to any concrete benefits from any of the past peace agreements — e.g., release of some of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, an end to settlement- building in the West Bank, or greater freedom of move- ment. In addition, reports of American financial support for Abbas have enabled his opponents to paint him as a U.S. lackey, further undermining his already weak posi- tion. If Rice and Bush want to achieve their personal and policy commitments in the Middle East, they will have to move beyond negotiating piecemeal agreements that are not implemented. They should instead move to promote a comprehensive agreement to end the conflict once and for all. Experience has shown that an incremental approach renders progress a hostage to any escalation of violence on either side. Israeli-Palestinian accords since 1993 have been billed as a series of small confidence-building steps, but have instead perpetuated a vicious cycle: Israeli settlement- building, land confiscation and the separation barrier provoke Palestinian protests, both non-violent and vio- lent. Those, in turn, lead to Israeli military incursions, targeted killings and closures. The result: increasing Palestinian loss of life and freedom, poverty and despair, and a constant state of war for Israel. Missing the Signals Against this background, the international community has ignored the signals from Hamas — both before and after it was democratically elected to head the Palestinian government — that it is willing to accept a Palestinian state side by side with Israel, and is capable of maintain- ing a unilateral ceasefire with Israel for months. Rein- forcing that point, in mid-October Khaled Meshal, the Damascus-based head of Hamas (frequently described as a hardliner), declared on television that what Hamas wants is a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, which constitutes an implicit recognition of Israel. Mes- hal pointed out that Hamas has repeatedly stated its sup- port for this aim. F O C U S D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 35