Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Jerusalem today. There, she met with incoming prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and publicly stated the continued U.S. commitment to a two state solution for Israel and Palestine. Given Mr. Netanyahu's open opposition to Palestinian statehood, that agenda item probably didn't eat up alot of time during their meeting.
It seems, at least by outward appearances, the Obama Administration is on the nearly the same course as the Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan and Carter administrations before them. Perhaps it's time for a time out.
The question remains; has the opportunity for a two state solution now passed? Discouraging signs abound; Hamas is firmly entrenched in Gaza, the split between Palestinian support for Hamas and Fatah in the West Bank, the continued Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank (and sure to continue during Netanyahu's Likud party reign) and, most significantly, the hard shift to the right Israel has taken with the strong electoral showing of Likud and Avigdor Lieberman's ultra right wing Yisrael Beiteinu party.
Nathan Brown's essay in Foreign Affairs suggests it's time to start from scratch; attempting steps along the way to a two state, ultimate solution.
The
first step must be to establish a cease-fire that builds on the common
interests of both Israel and Hamas to avoid fighting in the short term.
The last such cease-fire, negotiated in June 2008, was badly designed
-- as the recent war in Gaza made clear. The agreement was unwritten,
and the two sides had different interpretations of what it contained. A
new cease-fire should be clear and perhaps even written. Mediators must
be willing to make an agreement more attractive to both sides to
maintain (Hamas can be enticed by some opening of the border with
Egypt; Israel will demand serious efforts to halt the supply of arms to
Hamas).
The second order of business is confronting each side with the need to make hard choices. Faced with options, both Israelis and Palestinians have a habit of selecting "all of the above." Israel has raced to build settlements while talking of a two-state solution; Hamas has pursued diplomacy and governing while also continuing its bloody version of "resistance." Over the short term, it often makes sense for politicians to preserve options. But over the long run, the result has been fatal to any diplomatic process.
The question remains whether the intractable leaders of both Israel and Palestine would make those kinds of concessions in the name of peace. The other day's post on Sari Nusseibeh's model for Middle East peace; taking it out of the hands of those leaders and allowing the people of Israel and Palestine to vote on a peace deal, seems both elegant and simple.
I'm hoping Mrs. Clinton has more up her sleeve than the hope she can somehow convince Mr. Netanyahu and the leaders of Hamas to climb aboard the two state express. If that's the extent of her strategy, she will most likely be spending some significant time in Israel, sadly, spinning her wheels.
Today in Israel, Secretary Clinton said:
"We happen to believe that moving toward the two-state solution, step by step, is in Israel's best interests. But obviously it's up to the people and the government of Israel to decide how to define your interests."
There's really not that many options on how to acheive peace, whatever that is, in Israel. As Stephen Walt recently outlined, a two state solution is, by far, the most favorable of the possible options.
Peace in the area would be highly beneficial to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. It's certainly true, as Secretary Clinton says, that Israel will define their own intersts, but I sure hope the Obama Administration is making it very clear what is in the United States' best interests.
Comments