Shifting US position on Israel an opportunity for Arabs - analysts

Author: Mohammad Ghazal
Source: The Jordan Times
Date: 2009-04-23

Arabs should build on the US stance on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict declared by President Barack Obama at his meeting with His Majesty King Abdullah Tuesday, analysts said Wednesday.

Obama's strong support for the two-state solution, which envisages the creation of an independent Palestinian state, and his commitment to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which he described Tuesday as a "very constructive start", are positive indictators that Arabs should build on to demonstrate their pro-peace stance in light of the Israeli rejection of the two-state solution and the peace overture, the analysts noted.

"The US policy is in the process of being formulated and Arabs should highlight their peace-loving stance to the international community and the US administration in particular… For the first time there are clear differences between the US and Israel," writer and political analyst Nasouh Majali told The Jordan Times Wednesday.

Israel's position which rejects the two-state solution and peace efforts is being exposed to the rest of the world, said Majali, adding that Arabs, led by King Abdullah, want to create an international position that is supportive of peace, thus placing Israel under pressure to comply to the will of the world community.

"Israel cannot play a political game for a long time against the will of America and the Arabs. Israel will find itself in a position against the whole world if it goes on with its hardline policies," Majali stressed.

On Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman branded the Arab Peace Initiative as “dangerous" because it requires the Jewish state to allow Palestinian refugees to return to its borders, Agence France-Presse reported.

Lieberman has refused to endorse the 2007 US-backed deal agreed to during a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, to relaunch negotiations with the Palestinians.
His hardline position, coupled with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to publicly endorse the creation of a Palestinian state, has raised fears that Israel's new Cabinet is on a collision course with Obama's administration, which has vowed to push the faltering Middle East peace talks, according to the agency.

Political science professor at Yarmouk University Mohammad Momani said it is of great significance that the Arabs support Obama and commit to the peace plan.
"It is important not to give Israel any excuse to try to undermine the American determination and it is important that the Arabs continue to support the peace proposal and commit to peace, as otherwise Israel will say there is no partner on the Arab side," Momani said in a telephone interview.

It is also important to engage and involve pro-Israel institutions in the US in the process, said Momani, referring to the King's recent meeting with Jewish religious leaders in Washington.
Fares Breizat, political analyst and pollster, said the Arabs should "stick to their guns" and renew their commitment to the peace initiative to show the world and the US in particular that Israel is not serious about peace.

"Israel has managed to process the peace process. Israeli politicians have become masters in processing the process and society has learned to live with it and accommodate the status quo. On another front, the Arabs should lobby Brussels, London, Paris, Moscow and the UN General Assembly to expose Israel's shallow commitment to peace in the region," said Breizat in an e-mail sent to The Jordan Times.

More work must be done on American public opinion to create some sort of balance between the Israeli and the Arab narratives, said the pollster, adding that Arabs must get involved and remain persistent in lobbying Washington and the political community inside the Beltway.
Urging the Arabs to make use of what he said was a "less-biased" American stance towards Israel, MP Mamdouh Abbadi said: “The Arabs should make use of this fact. It is a big gain that they should build on."

"The ball is in the court of the Arabs at this stage and they should make use of that as indictors from the US are positive on this issue," said Abbadi.

But former Lower House speaker Abdul Latif Arabiyat criticised Obama's approach and expressed pessimism about a speedy solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
"The Arabs gave grand concessions and offered all that they could offer through the peace overture and Obama is asking for more, deeming the initiative only a start," Arabiyat said.
"As long as Israel is under the protection of the US, the Israelis will never change and they will not give anything and that should be taken into consideration," the Islamist added.
Israel's inflexibility and its rejection of peace are being exposed to the entire world, Arabiyat said, and only full support by the Arabs, the West and the US in particular for the peace initiative will further expose Israel's stubborn position, forcing it to change.

"Statements by Obama are meant to waste time and delay a solution to the conflict…I do not expect anything to happen in the near future unless the US stops protecting Israel and being its absolute supporter," Arabiyat told The Jordan Times.

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Israel Blackmails Obama… at the Iranian Level

Author: Elias Harfoush
Source: Al-Hayat
Date: 2009-04-19

The US's clear stance on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of the two-state solution is not the only point of divergence between Barack Obama's administration and Benjamin Netanyahu's government. Broader than such a disagreement, and in fact strengthening it, is the other point of divergence, that regarding the manner of resolving the nuclear crisis with Iran. It is this divergence that is now being used by neo-extremists in Israel, the likes of Foreign Minister Lieberman, to blackmail Obama on the issue of a solution with the Palestinians. In such people's opinion, what they consider to be "concessions" made by Israel in the past - the latest being the withdrawal from Gaza - have resulted in encouraging Palestinian extremism at the expense of moderate factions, rather than the opposite. In their view, this confirms that Iran is the main force behind such extremism, and that confronting it should have priority, ahead of exerting pressure on Israel.

Obama's predicament here is as follows: how will he manage to bring together a policy of flexibility with Tehran, one that attempts to lure it with diplomacy and politics into retracting its nuclear program and becoming open to more transparency, and a stringent policy with Israel, to make it accept the "goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security", as the US President stated in his recent speech to the Turkish parliament? If the price required to obtain concessions from Israel in the Palestinian issue is to coordinate with it or to follow its policy in the Iranian issue, then can the Obama Administration bear the cost of such a policy in the region, especially if it is to clear the path for a potential Israeli strike against Iran, with the US providing cover or turning a blind eye, and thus to eliminate any hope of holding Palestinian-Israeli negotiations?

There are certainly broad movements on the US scene that now encourage the new administration to take a stringent stance on Netanyahu and his government. Among such movements are Jewish groups, politically at the left of the AIPAC lobbying group, that consider Israel's long-term interest to lie in resolving the conflict based on a permanent settlement that would be accepted by both parties. There are also voices within Israel itself that call for such stringency. One such example is the editor-in-chief of the Haaretz newspaper David Landau who, upon meeting last September with former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, told her that the US should "rape" Israel in order to impose the solution upon it. If such had been the stance of this segment of Israelis under Olmert and Livni, we can only imagine the stance they would take after the statements given by Lieberman before US envoy George Mitchell about Israel refusing to offer "further concessions".

Moreover, Obama benefits from a general Arab concern and European desire to make use of his new image in order to resolve the conflict in the Middle East. Yet one must not make the mistake of being overly optimistic. Indeed, opportunities about which it was said that they needed to be made use of in the past are too numerous to be counted, and the means of putting pressure on Israel held by US administrations have always been there - but have always needed someone to exercise them. From cutting aid (three billion dollars a year) or threatening to do so, to refraining from using veto power at the Security Council against decisions that do not agree with Israeli interests, reducing the level of strategic cooperation between the two countries - especially at the military level, or placing restrictions on the low-interest loans obtained by Israel from US banks - most of which goes to the expansion of settlements. It is a long list of steps that the Obama Administration could resort to if it genuinely sought to change the direction of the Israeli government's policy to make it accept the settlement it seeks, one which would be consistent with the text of the Arab Peace Initiative, the Road Map and the decisions reached at the Annapolis Conference.

But does the climate prevailing in the region allow Obama to exercise such pressures, even if that were his intention? Doubtless Iran and its allies taking the initiative of facilitating such a task would add a powerful means of pressure to those already held by US President. It is true that Israel has enough influence inside the United States to paralyze any initiative by the President, as it has proved in the past. However, the wide base of support enjoyed by Obama, including among Jewish Americans, should give him enough room to move, provided that other crises in the region do not hinder such movement.

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