Peace
Train to Nowhere: Profs on Israeli-Palestinian 'Negotiations'
by Andrew Harrod
Jihad Watch
November 24, 2014
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"What can you tell" an audience "that they haven't
already heard" at yet "another conference on the Arab-Israeli
conflict?" asked Middle East Policy Council (MEPC) Board Chairman Omar Kader at a recent
Washington, DC, panel.
About fifty attendees, who enjoyed coffee, juice, and pastries at the
Phoenix Park Hotel, encountered typical anti-Israeli animus and sterile
discussion of a "peace process" stillborn amidst abiding
Palestinian hatred for Israel.
Former ambassador and Princeton University professor of Middle Eastern
policy studies Daniel
C. Kurtzer advocated an uninspiring "process that keeps the
process going" for largely hopeless Israeli-Palestinian negotiations
so that "situations on the ground" do not "fester."
From his personally compiled twenty negotiating lessons, he offered dry
tips, such as that confidence building measures "don't work in the
abstract." He praised Secretary of State John Kerry's "brilliant
diplomacy" and the 1991 Madrid Conference leading to the dead-end
Oslo Accords, which he labeled a "critical breakthrough in the
Middle East," further illustrating his disconnect from an all-too
violent reality.
Among the conflict's "root causes," Kurtzer cited Israeli
settlement-building in territories won in the 1967 war, which he
described as "one of the most persistent negative issues in this
conflict." He complained that "there has never been a serious
U.S. effort to hold Israel accountable," but omitted any parallel
accountability for Palestinians. He charged that, "we work against
ourselves" by allowing American tax-exempt organizations to fund
settlements.
Engaging in moral equivalency, Kurtzer claimed that the "pain . .
. would actually be quite severe" from America "exacting
consequences" on both "quite derelict" parties "for
bad behavior," such as settlement building and Palestinian
terrorism. He argued, for example, that America could emulate the
European Union's exclusion of the 1967 territories from free trade agreements,
but offered no sanctions for Palestinian "bad behavior."
America should "position parameters . . . at the head of a
funnel" that will "narrow over time" surrounding issues
like the "territories occupied in 1967." In the interim,
Kurtzer continued, America could recognize a Palestinian state, at least
on paper. He failed to explain, however, how diplomatic recognition of
the terrorist-dominated, chaotic Palestinian territories would aid peace.
Although Kurtzer paid lip service to the Israeli argument that
settlement building "is not comparable to killing people," or
Palestinian terrorism, he cavalierly described a resumption of iron and
cement deliveries to the Gaza Strip as "good news." In reality,
such supplies regularly build military, not civilian, infrastructure. In
demanding that a "reconciliation process between two peoples is
necessary," Kurtzer failed to acknowledge that Jewish self-defense
is not the same as the Arabs' longstanding, often violent opposition to
Israel's existence.
Matthew
Duss, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, extended
Kurtzer's negative portrayal of Israel. For example, he concurred with
Kurtzer's view of settlements, citing anonymous statements by American
officials calling it a key issue. Yet, he noted, many Israelis
"believe . . . the status quo is sustainable" before asking:
Is the U.S. prepared to take steps to make reality less convenient for
the Israelis. . . . Why would anyone make hard choices if there is no
cost?
Duss welcomed the recent accord between the Palestinian Authority (PA)
and the terrorist group Hamas because, he asserted, negotiations with
Israel make "Palestinian unity . . . absolutely necessary." The
totalitarian Hamas, meanwhile, has a "claim to political
legitimacy" on the basis of elections won in 2006—their genocidal
anti-Semitic charter's "offensiveness" notwithstanding. Like
Kurtzer, Duss proposed that America assist the Palestinians in obtaining
"nonviolent relief" in "international fora."
This anti-Israel rhetoric continued with Yousef
Munayyer, executive director of the Jerusalem Fund, whose statement
that peace would come "only when the Israeli state is
alienated" by "international isolation"—a "service in
pursuit of peace"—received applause. He charged that American
"domestic politics" had aided what was "essentially"
an American "client state" and had resulted in an Israeli
"apartheid status quo . . . the fruit of American policy
success." Munayyer claimed that America enabled Israel's
"growing culture of impunity" under international law, as
manifested in settlements, which he defined—in contrast to Kurtzer—as
"very much a system of violence" and "wanton killing"
in Gaza.
Although he also criticized settlements and Israeli military actions
in Gaza, Brookings Institution analyst Natan B. Sachs
conceded that the peace process is "extremely maligned" by
Israelis because they have a "very strong perception" of the
Palestinian rejection of Israel. Sachs also acknowledged the
"revolving door" between Hamas violence and PA acquiescence.
Many boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) supporters, he argued, seek
not two states, but a "state and a half," which would result in
a demography-altering Palestinian refugee "right of return" for
Israel. Returning to the panel's overall tenor, Sachs identified
"two troubling trends" in Israel: a "very strong rightward
trend on security" and a perception that the "world is . . .
against us." At least on the latter, he was correct.
The panelists' obsession with "settlements," many of which
are now irrevocably Jewish cities in territories that are legally and
historically claimed by Israel, ignores that Arab hostility has never
resulted from territorial delineation. The panelists were concurrently
unconcerned with Hamas and the PA's constant threats to Israel and
outraged by Israeli defense efforts in Gaza. Such anti-Israeli bias and
unrelenting, unvanquished hostility foredoom peace for the foreseeable
future.
Andrew E. Harrod is a freelance researcher and writer who holds a
PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a JD from George
Washington University Law School. He is a fellow with the Lawfare Project;
follow him on twitter at @AEHarrod. He wrote this essay for Campus Watch, a project
of the Middle East Forum.
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