By Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM–It is not starting well. One commentator described the talks between Israel and the Palestinians as “beginning on the left foot.” Another called them a “farce.” Several estimated their chances of success as “close to zero,” and attributed their plight to American bumbling.
Neither the Israeli Prime Minister nor the Palestinian President have their heart in the process. They have been forced into it by the White House, when conditions are as far from ripe as can be imagined. Rather than setting out on a course meant to achieve agreement, each is beginning an effort to score points against the other, setting their adversary up as responsible for expected failure.
Prime Minister Netanyahu made a show of meeting with White House emissary George Mitchell on Wednesday, indicating that he was expressing Israel’s posture of being willing to pursue peace at any time without preconditions.
The Palestinians accepted the White House initiative and said they would participate. But when Prime Minister Netanyahu was meeting with George Mitchell, Mahmoud Abbas was traveling between Arab capitals getting input from his sources of support. He could not begin his part of the negotiations until the supreme Palestinian council met and approved the process, and that would not occur before Saturday. Abbas said that he would devote four months to indirect negotiations, while testing the Israelis, and doubting that the present Israeli government could deal in good faith.
It is hard to imagine a diplomatic process that is more public than this one, and it is impossible to justify negotiations that must deal with sensitive issues in the full glare of the media. Success will demand concessions of well established postures from both sides. That will not happen when the domestic adversaries of each participant salivate at every hint of compromising sacred turf.
Contrast what the Obama administration has done with Israel’s earlier agreements with Egypt and Jordan. The first was preceded by secret meetings between Israelis and Egyptians, with the weight of Israeli interests carried by Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan. He was a military hero with a political background from outside the party of Prime Minister Begin, and had immense political capital to put behind what he agreed behind the scenes. President Jimmy Carter contributed something, perhaps essential to the deal. However, it came at the end, when the ground had been well prepared by the parties themselves.
Bill Clinton’s role in the Israeli-Jordanian agreement was even more symbolic. He did little more than appear at the signing alongside the agreed-upon border of the two countries.
Mahmoud Abbas is being forced to negotiate when he barely controls the West Bank, is widely viewed among Palestinians as the head of a cadre of corrupt old men, and faces the intense opposition of Palestinians who control Gaza. Palestinian polls occasionally show a support for peace, but also show a support of violence. Palestinian education and media are a long way from accommodating themselves to a Jewish state alongside of Palestine.
Benyamin Netanyahu heads a government titled along with him to the right. The Israeli population consistently polls in a way to support concessions, but also shows intense distrust of Palestinian intentions.
Unlike the Carter and Clinton administrations, Obama has taken a course that appears to ignore much of diplomatic history. Rather than nudging participants to negotiate behind the scenes, he has forced them to talk in public. He also began poorly with the Israeli government and population, with the error of demanding a freezing of construction in neighborhoods of Jerusalem where Jews have been living for decades.
Also in the air are the President’s comments that the Middle East must be free of nuclear weapons. These have spurred panic among some commentators, who wonder if the President will offer Israel disarmament as an one more incentive in an effort to engage with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
While some expect the American Jewish community to have a role in the peace process, it can do little more than express its division, and anxiety at being put in the middle of a dispute. Some prominent American Jews have expressed criticism of their president, while others have said that the Israeli government must take advantage of the opportunity he is offering. Polls indicate that American Jews continue to support Obama, but the numbers have declined by about 20 percent: from above 70 percent to below 60 percent. It is not clear how much of the decline reflects what the President has said about Israel, and how much comes from domestic issues that have eroded his support generally.
At times like this I recall my late father-in-law. Erich’s father had been arrayed against mine in World War I, one in a German uniform and one in an American uniform. Erich remained a German patriot whenever he could overlook what happened to his mother and brother. He viewed the Weimar Republic as the high point of Western civilization, but also was proud of his Uncle Albert. Albert was a sniper, who once passed on the opportunity to kill a French soldier when he heard his enemy praying “Sh’ma Israel . . .”
A politician who erred as Obama did on Jerusalem may also be naive with respect to Jewish concerns about being sacrificed once again to a leader’s concern for other issues.
Among the open questions is, How many American Jews are so thoroughly assimilated as to be ignorant of history, or to feel themselves immune to what happened in other times and places? And, How much weight can American Jews, overwhelmingly liberal Democrats, have on the Israeli government?
Without having clear answers to either question, it seems best to view this process as producing little more than concern among American Jews and Israelis, and sadness that each much decide in its own best interests.
Miracles can happen, but they are not common.
Peace between Israel and Palestine is not likely to come out of the Obama White House. More likely is another wave of violence traceable to its clumsiness.
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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University