The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process: Where Is the Obama Administration Headed?

by: Zaki Shalom Eight months ago, President Obama stood on the dais at Cairo University and declared with great fanfare that he intends to open a “new page” in relations between the United States and the Islamic world in general and the Arab states in particular.

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Both the tone and contents of the speech left no room for doubt that to the president, these relations ranked high on the list of the administration’s priorities. President Obama made it clear that he rejected the approach of his predecessor, George W. Bush, towards the Islamic world. He, by contrast, was determined to advance new trends in United States foreign policy, conciliatory in nature, towards Islamic states. In this context, President Obama took pains to reiterate that he would act vigorously to bring about a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. He demanded that Israel completely freeze all construction in Judea and Samaria. The president clearly put his own personal prestige on the line over this issue, so that were Israel not to heed him and accept a complete freeze on construction in the West Bank it would risk a severe rift with the American administration. Administration spokespeople repeatedly stressed that the policy of the United States towards Iran and its efforts to stop the Iranian nuclear project was also connected to Israel’s conduct on the issue of construction in the territories. The president and other administration officials went even further. They implied clearly that the understandings reached between Israel and the US under the Bush administration regarding construction in the Jewish settlement blocs were irrelevant as far as the new administration was concerned. Now, eight months after that historic speech, the administration is facing a difficult situation in everything relating to restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. In essence, the peace process is completely paralyzed:

1. Palestinian Authority head Abu Mazen, refuses to enter into negotiations with Netanyahu until Israel accepts a complete freeze of all construction in Judea and Samaria, including Jerusalem. Likewise, he demands that the negotiations resume where they left off, on the eve of the resignation of former prime minister Olmert. 2. Netanyahu rejects these demands, and stipulates entering negotiations “without preconditions.” At the same time, he himself has set new preconditions with some frequency. For example, he announced that in any political settlement Israel will position forces along the eastern border in order to prevent the infiltration of terrorists and weapons into the Palestinian state and to ensure Israel’s demand for a demilitarized Palestinian state. A few days later, he made it clear that the Etzion bloc and Ariel would remain in Israeli hands permanently. These "provocative" declarations have received no significant response from the Obama administration. 3. Israel seemingly assumed responsibility for freezing construction in Judea and Samaria. Nevertheless, it is becoming clear that this freeze includes many sub-clauses allowing construction to continue in fairly extensive ways. Beyond this, it is also becoming clear that the Netanyahu government has neither the desire nor any real ability to enforce a true freeze of construction in the West Bank even beyond the “agreed-on” settlement bloc areas. 4. Efforts on the part of President Obama to persuade moderate Arab nations, headed by Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Morocco, to upgrade their relations with the Israel in the direction of even limited normalization failed. His demands in this context were met with a flat refusal. 5. Circumstances on the ground do not create any real incentive or significant pressure either on Netanyahu’s government or on the PA to act decisively to restart the negotiations process. Both Israel and the PA have serious concerns about creating expectations should the political process be restarted and about entering into an agreement process that could undermine the stability of their regimes. In many ways, therefore, both sides have some vested interest of preserving the status quo, despite its numerous drawbacks.

President Obama gave public expression to the administration’s feelings of frustration in light of the abysmal picture of the Middle East peace process. In a lengthy interview granted to Time Magazine, he stressed that his administration had inflated estimates of the capability of the United States to persuade Israel and the Palestinians to enter into meaningful negotiations. Neither side, said President Obama, is willing to make “bold gestures” in order to move the peace process forward. Had the United States been aware that it was dealing with “as intractable an issue as he has ever encountered,” said the president, it would not have created such high expectations. In uncharacteristic fashion, the president has not blamed either side for this situation. On the contrary, the statement demonstrates understanding of the circumstances, especially the internal ones, limiting both sides' freedom of action: coalition constraints and divisions within the society (almost certainly a reference to Israel) and PA's concerns about the response of Hamas in the event of entering into a meaningful political process. There is no doubt that the collapse of the peace process has severely harmed the prestige and credibility of the administration and President Obama himself. Now all that is left for him to do is to try to contain the damage. The president is seemingly facing the option of upgrading United States involvement in the process through steps approaching the imposition of a settlement on both sides. Hints at thoughts in this direction have been heard in various circles within the administration. It is not inconceivable that the president too is seriously considering such an option. From Israel’s perspective, the realization of an option like this would entail a severe crisis with the administration. Yet under current circumstances it is doubtful that President Obama will choose this option. Its implementation would force him to take steps of actual pressure against Israel, primarily of a financial nature. The furious responses in Congress to a side comment by Special Envoy Mitchell about the possibility of the administration withholding the loan guarantees with Israel showed that the president’s ability to bring Israel to its knees is fairly limited. That path is strewn with risk and it is doubtful that at the end it would lead to the hoped-for results. It seems that the more realistic scenario currently taking shape is putting the peace process into a sort of informal freeze mode for an undetermined period of time. In practice, this would be expressed primarily in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations being renewed at the lower echelons or through proximity talks and discussions dealing with practical rather than core issues. Thus the president will be able to claim that he succeeded in bringing the sides to renewing the negotiations. Given the situation of a turbulent international system lacking stability and the wide range of serious internal problems besetting the United States, even such an outcome could be considered a success. From the perspective of Israel and the Palestinians this means that in the foreseeable future they will not have to make dramatic, far-reaching decisions. Their governmental stability will probably be ensured for quite some time. The declaration by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – that the administration can help both sides in the negotiations but finally the responsibility is theirs – indicates that this is the course of action being formulated as that preferred by the Obama administration under the present circumstances.