Not just to restore regional stability. Not just to safeguard Israel’s future or to do justice to the Palestinians. But in the national interest of the US, which, after the Bush years, faces a long struggle to re-establish credibility and moral standing in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
President Obama has found convincing words to say there will be a new approach to the problems of the broader Middle East: in his victory speech in Chicago, at his inauguration, in his interview with Al Arabiya TV, in his new year’s greetings to Iran, and above all in his speech last month to the Turkish parliament. “The United States strongly supports the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security”, he said in Ankara. “That is a goal that the parties agreed to that is a goal that I will actively pursue”.
Mr Netanyahu, of course, has agreed to nothing of the sort. At the head of Israel’s most right-wing and uncompromisingly irredentist coalition, he refuses to support a two states solution. On the contrary, he has long advocated a sort of supra-municipal model, in which Palestinians would self-govern isolated cantons in a sea of Jewish settlements in a still-occupied West Bank.
That would guarantee further conflict and further erosion of Israel’s reputation, battered by the assault on Gaza over the new year and the last Lebanon war in 2006.
A real test of wills starts on Monday in Washington, one that will decide whether such close allies as Israel and the US can realign their interests, or whether the Israeli tail will continue to wag the American dog.
Under the last administration, Israel could do pretty much as it pleased. Mr Bush did assent to the idea of a Palestinian state. But in exchange for Ariel Sharon’s pull-out from Gaza - land over which Israel has never expressed any ideological claim - Washington signed over to Israel the big blocs of illegal settlements ringing Arab east Jerusalem.
The now-stricken Mr Sharon’s chief aide, Dov Weisglass, who negotiated the signed terms of this deal with the Bush White House, crowed that a Palestinian state “has been removed indefinitely from our agenda”. Mr Obama’s job now is to tell Israel it can have peace or it can have occupied land, but not both.
Mr Netanyahu, and a palpably rattled Israeli leadership, want to change the subject. There can be no movement on the Palestinian conflict, they say, until the threat of Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been resolved. On the contrary, says the US administration: we intend to resolve this conflict, and turn negotiations into a wider Arab-Israeli settlement through the Arab League peace plan, and thereby build unity in the region to confront Iran - with a deal or with isolation. Joe Biden, vice-president, George Mitchell, special envoy to the Middle East, and Rahm Emanuel, Mr Obama’s unimpeachably pro-Israeli chief of staff, have all told the Israeli government and its allies in Washington that the West Bank settlements have to stop. That, of course, will not be enough.
From the Clinton parameters of December 2000 to the Arab peace offer first launched in 2002, every serious peace plan is premised on Israel returning to its pre-1967 frontiers and a Palestinian state on the remaining 22 per cent of colonial Palestine. A state, in other words, on almost all the West Bank and Gaza, with east Jerusalem as its capital, and compensation rather than the right of return for the bulk of 4.5m refugees. No more road maps. There is one deal to be done: Mr Obama should publish it before the chance to close it ebbs away.
Then there is the question of Hamas. Hamas flourishes because of the occupation, and wins elections because Fatah is mired in corruption and failure. That would all be true if Iran did not exist. The Islamists have to be dealt with. First they must mend their fences and reach a governance agreement with Fatah. Then they must cease all attacks on civilians, as part of a mutual ceasefire with Israel. Finally, they should commit to recognizing an Israel, and its right to exist in peace, behind the borders that will be defined at the conclusion of negotiations to end the conflict - by agreeing now that they will abide by the results of a referendum on such an outcome.
None of this will go swimmingly. When Mr Netanyahu was last in power in 1996-99, he responded to any pressure from the Clinton White House by going round it to Congress. We are about to see an uncommon test of Mr Obama’s resolve and even-handedness.
The Financial Times
Tags: Arabs, Israel, Lebanon, Muslims, Obama, Palestinians
