Illusions of solving the Arab Israeli conflict

East Meredith, NY, September 22, 2013

 

 In the debate over the Arab-Israeli conflict analysts are divided on whether the “one-state” or “two-state” configuration would end the 46 year Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. The one-state scenario is logical but requires much social reforms, especially from the Arab side. The two-state scenario sounds equitable but demands extensive political pressure on Israeli settlers of Arab land.  

In a NY Times Sunday Review opinion piece, titled Two-State Illusion, Ian S. Lustick, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that the Israeli occupation will transition to a single state stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Professor Lustick asserts that developments in Israel and its occupied territories will follow the pattern of developments in South Africa.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/opinion/sunday/two-state-illusion.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

But Lustick cautions that this transition will not happen without additional confrontation. Here is what is predicted:  Palestinians will collectively rebel again as the occupation brings new expansion of settlements. In response, Israel will retaliate. The world community will condemn Israel. Ultimately, the two sides will discover a formula of coexistence under a single state authority.

 Lustick builds his argument on three familiar assumptions: Israel’s occupation of the West bank has gone too far to be stopped by peace talks. Artificial diplomacy has delayed the resolution of conflict. Thirdly, Israel’s land-grab leadership has never been interested in territorial withdrawal from Arab land occupied in the 1967 war. 

But Lusticks’ fair analysis of flawed Mideast diplomacy fails to show how it would be practical to resolve the conflict by forming a single state for the two rival and culturally contrasting peoples. He bets that Israelis and Arabs will ultimately turn pragmatic through a sobering process of what he calls “blood and magic”.

The professor sounds too optimistic as he envisages that Israelis one day would abandon uncompromising Zionism. More optimism: Palestinian refugees would embrace “democracy” and relinquish political Islam. Mideast Jews would toss their “Eastern” identity by rediscovering their Arab roots. Pious Palestinians and anti-nationalist Orthodox Jews would bond together as people of faith.

Lustick does not identify the nature of the single state he hopes for, hinting that it will be a “confederation”: Israeli Jews committed above all to settling throughout the greater Land of Israel may find arrangements based on a confederation, or a regional formula more attractive than narrow Israeli nationalism.  

 The author does not factor in the region’s impact on the future of Palestine. The temptation is strong for Israel exploiting circumstances of the expanding war in Syria-and the associated threats to Jordan and Lebanon- to drive more Palestinians out of the West Bank into the surrounding states. A single state is not about to be born in a volatile regional environment. 

Lustick expects the ongoing, Washington-sponsored, peace process to fail. Is it not premature to dismiss this latest round of peace talks? These talks could lead to a partial settlement: a midpoint between a two-state and a single state. In this scenario Palestinians could acquire autonomy or independence over a significantly expanded West Bank territory.

 Integrating two distinct societies in one state without a lengthy period of preparation is unrealistic and quite risky. What is vital for the future of Israeli and Palestinian cooperation is the social climate in which they live.

 

With educational systems in both Palestinian and Israeli societies reinforcing inter-communal social distance, religious paradigms perpetuating intolerance, systems of governance mixing religion with politics, how could Palestinians and Israelis live harmoniously in one state?

 But even in an initial phase of two separate and sovereign states these two nations must undergo far reaching socio-political reform before they could explore steps of cooperation or eventual unity.

Before proposing a single state the professor could have considered comprehensive programs of social engineering that would prepare Palestinians and Israelis to coexist under one authority.

Here are some examples of social reform required for one-state, bi-national living. 

Jewish children would have to learn Arabic. Arab children do speak Hebrew already, but their exposure to Israeli culture is minimal.

As traditional religious socialization tends to breed fear of people of other faith, Jewish children should be exposed to fundamentals of Islam and Christianity. Likewise Muslim and Christian children ought to learn about the other two religions.

Religious authorities should not have monopoly over laws of personal status on matters of birth and death, marriage and divorce, inheritance and other issues of family relations.

The two nations must work hard to converge on basic issues of human rights, especially gender empowerment, before any societal integration is discussed. When both communities feel socially and politically ready, Palestinians and Israelis could choose to unite in a single state.

The view that Israel is about ready to integrate a culturally alien community is indefensible. Regrettably the two rival nations want peace but they do not recognize the social impediments for coexistence.

Lustick was sharp on diagnosis but simplistic on solutions. 

 

 

 

  

 

Negotiate with Iran to end the Syrian crises and regional instability

 

East Meredith, New York

September 9, 2013

 

Air strike diplomacy is not prudent.  War could be averted if Washington would negotiate with Tehran to resolve Syria’s crisis.

In the current New York Times Book Review of Kenneth Pollack’s book Bomb Scare:  ‘unthinkable’, Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, advocates negotiating a grand bargain with Iran to settle all mutual concerns. He sensibly says: Only a truly bold approach, it would seem, has a chance of avoiding the march to war. Everything has to be put on the table: Iranian security and America’s, the nuclear program, sanctions, terrorism, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/books/review/unthinkable-by-kenneth-m-pollack.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

In a week or two the US military may strike Syria for regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons.  It is hard to tell if President Obama would go to war ignoring public as well as congressional opposition to the planned intervention.

Obama’s plan is intended to degrade Syria’s military.  But there is not yet a firm, direct link between President Assad and the crime of using chemical weapons on his people. We go to war by “common sense”, the White House explains.

Obama is on a risky adventure. The strike might provoke new hostilities in the region, cost more innocent lives and deepen the fragmentation of Syria. The attack might work against the interests of the US. It would cost billions of dollars at a time when Washington is shrinking spending on vital domestic programs.

New thinking in foreign policy is badly needed. A less punitive US approach to Iran may open new possibilities for negotiations on both the Syrian and nuclear conflicts. There is a shelved International peace conference for Syria the US and Russia already agreed to last spring, Geneva 2. Geneva 2 was frozen for one main reason: disagreement over Assad’s future. Washington wanted Assad out of the picture, whereas Russia wanted him to stay in power.

The purpose of Geneva 2 was to end the fighting immediately, form a transition government representing the regime and the opposition and set a political reform plan in motion.

The US must now shift from negotiating with Russia alone to include Iran.  But this shift is hard when the US considers Iran an obstacle rather than a potential asset, as Leslie Gelb argues. Obama threatens to punish Syria with the intent “to send a strong message to Iran”.

Washington could work with Hassan Rouhani, the newly elected President of Iran who has been issuing signals of moderation. For the new Iranian leader could effectively lean on Assad to negotiate peace on new, realistic terms.

Realistically, the continuity of Assad in a new Syria is unthinkable today. If Assad would now promise not to run in the 2014 elections it would be a symbolic but significant concession.  Assad’s departure from Syria in six to twelve months would allow moderate and indigenous Syrian opposition groups to join regime reformists in forming a political transition government. During the period of political transition, Assad could share leadership with a vice president from the opposition.

Why would Assad consider not running for presidential elections in May 2014?

The threat might work. Deep down, Assad knows that the strike might succeed in degrading his military and possibly lead to his deposition.

Iran is key in Syria. If Rouhani were to pressure Assad to end a fourteen-year rule, following his father’s 30-year old regime, Assad junior may concede to his closest and most generous partner.  Assad would secure a safe exit. He would insure that Syria’s minorities would be protected.

The reformist regime elements would stay. Assad’s continuity would be partially realized through power sharing. In building a new Syria, the opposition will introduce reforms and the regime will defend secularism and protection of minorities.

Hitting two birds with one stone makes sense. Resolving Syria’s crisis would help in negotiations on the Iranian nuclear crisis. The link would be face saving for Assad.

Washington’s current policy of strike now and negotiate better terms later, after balance of power shifts against Assad, runs the risk of future inability to restrain the radical elements of the opposition.

Calibrating power through air strikes is sloppy diplomacy; if intervention does not achieve its intended objectives, a dictator becomes a hero or a martyr.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

US Air strikes on Syria will not serve either US or Arab interests

 

East Meredith, NY

 

The media continue to beat war drums for a new war in the Middle East: Washington is about to launch an air and sea strike on Syria. The White House is convinced that the Syrian government is responsible for the use of chemical weapons on the opposition and that it is time for the US to respond militarily. The intervention is intended as a message to President Assad that he has already crossed the limits of US tolerance for alleged crimes against humanity.

 

President Obama should not move too fast on Syria, regardless of how much pressure he receives from hard line congressional leaders.  This sudden US shift of policy from alleged neutrality (over the last two years and a half) to swift, “surgical”, disciplinary, military action may seem reasonable to many Americans.  But in reality, it is premature to take military action at this juncture.

 

International opinion

Before the rush to war, the US must wait for the United Nations team of inspectors to finish their report on the nature of the chemical weapons used. While it may be relatively easy to determine that unlawful weapons were used, the perpetrators are not easy to identify with certainty, given the complexity of motivations and the abundance of misguided actors on the scene. Washington has a record of ignoring international instruments of law and order when the judgment is inconvenient. The White House should also give the UN Security Council a chance to make a statement on the issue. The argument (http://nyti.ms/1aNKwXe)that it is “illegal but moral” for Washington to attack Syria is flawed: Washington’s record on issues of peace and justice in the Mideast cannot be described as moral.

 

Congress must authorize action

It would be a mistake for the president to start military intervention in Syria before congress has a examined the problem and offer its deliberated recommendations. Congress is aware that sixty percent of Americans are skeptical about the utility of aggressive intervention in Syria’s civil war.  http://news.yahoo.com/obama-pressured-intervene-syria-poll-shows-most-americans-152300389.html

 

 

Military action and peace process

Even if the president chooses to minimize the significance of international and domestic opinion on the subject, he still has to assess the impact of military action on the recently activated peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Regardless of where Arab states stand on the Syrian conflict, the Arab people are largely opposed to any new military intervention on their soil. It is largely foreign fighters and extremist rebels in Syria who wish to involve the US militarily in their conflict. Any type of US intervention in the Arab world is viewed as an American-Israeli partnership against the Muslim world. If the US attacks Syria, a regional war climate will emerge which would poison the atmosphere of dialogue on many Arab-American relations.

 

Dialogue with Iran

Such a war climate will also make dialogue with Iran on the nuclear crisis even more difficult. Syria is Iran’s closest ally. The hope that the new, relatively moderate president of Iran would offer better conditions for the anticipated nuclear talks would fade away, if Syria is viewed as a “victim” of Western aggression.

 

Effect of military “messages”

 

If Washington wishes to deliver a firm message to President Assad - to halt the alleged use of chemical weapons- there must be other ways to reach the Syrian leader than war. The Americans have used war before in Afghanistan and in Iraq to deliver similar “messages” against criminal behavior. The results were disastrous for Americans, Afghanis and Iraqis.

 

If the use of chemical weapons were ignored by Washington in the nineteen eighties in Iraq, why are they considered a US red line in Syria today? The credibility of the messenger is a major factor in communication. There are recent reports, not yet confirmed, that the US looked the other way when Saddam Hussein launched chemical weapons on Iran in the Iran- Iraq war. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_cia_files_prove_america_helped_saddam_as_he_gassed_iran

 

War is often a poor strategy of problem solving. It is hard to control the use of chemical weapons by shelling missiles from the sea or the sky. Destruction and loss of innocent life is unavoidable through a military strike. In fact, the history of “solving” problems through air strikes in the Middle East reveals a cumulative record of counterproductive outcome.

 

There are better ways to deal with Syria. What happened to US planning for Geneva 2, a peace conference for the Syrian conflict? Attacking Syria without a sound, global political plan may do more harm than good.