Barack and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Foreign Policy Week

In a way, President Obama is lucky that last week's special election in Massachusetts went so poorly for his party and domestic agenda; it did succeed in distracting the American public from the disastrous foreign policy week he had. It's not clear which revelation is worse: Obama's admission that his administration had overestimated its ability to achieve peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, or the fact that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber of Christmas day, was revealing scads of details about his plot and al Qaeda's operations until he was read his Miranda rights, at which point he shut up and demanded a lawyer.

The former revelation came in an interview with the president by Joe Klein in Time on the one-year anniversary of Obama's inauguration. After noting that the peace process hadn't moved along as he had hoped, Obama unleashed this stunner: "Both sides — the Israelis and the Palestinians — have found that the political environment, the nature of their coalitions or the divisions within their societies, were such that it was very hard for them to start engaging in a meaningful conversation. And I think that we overestimated our ability to persuade them to do so when their politics ran contrary to that." Obama went on to say that "it is absolutely true that what we did this year didn't produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted, and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high."

Seriously? Does Obama think that every other president has failed to make headway in the Israel-Palestinian conflict for lack of trying? The Israelis and Palestinians have not "found" that their domestic political systems make it difficult for them to make peace; they've known in for quite some time now. In fact, to some degree, they've set their systems up to make peacemaking more difficult (it's an excellent negotiating strategy: I'd love to make a deal, but my domestic situation won't let me, so it's all on you!). But what's even worse is that this seems to have come as a surprise to Obama. Over at his Foreign Policy.com blog, Stephen Walt notes that:

It's not as if the dysfunctional condition of Israeli and Palestinian internal politics was a dark mystery when Obama took office, or when Netanyahu formed the most hard-line government in Israeli history. Which advisors told Obama and Mitchell to proceed as they did, raising expectations sky-high in the Cairo speech, publicly insisting on a settlement freeze, and then engaging in a humiliating retreat? Did they ever ask themselves what they would do if Netanyahu dug in his heels, as anyone with a triple-digit IQ should have expected?

Walt, however, seems to assume that the assumptions did not come from Obama himself and it's not clear why. Even if it was his advisors who made such a bone-headed assumption, it was Obama who picked the advisors. To me, this reveals an incredible amount, in relatively equal parts, of hubris and naivety on the part of the president. It's as if he assumed that his enormous popularity would be enough to break the impasses of one of the world's most intractable conflicts. I can't really think of another explanation for thinking that it would be relatively easy for the US to lean on both sides and produce a breakthrough.

Perhaps worse than Obama's problems in the Middle East was the disastrous handling of the underwear bomber. It's bad enough that the decision was made to read Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights, but it's not even entirely clear who made that decision. In testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee last week Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and Michael Leiter, chief of the National Counterterrorism Center,all admitted that they were not consulted about how to deal with Abdulmutallab. And please note that this isn't necessarily a question of whether terrorists like Abdulmutallab should be dealt with by the civilian or military judicial systems; law enforcement officials are allowed to not read a suspect his Miranda rights if they believe there is an imminent threat to public safety that could be prevented by un-Miranda-ized questioning. And that was undoubtedly the case as al Qaeda has, in the past, used nearly synchronized attacks as a method to increase the impact of its actions (e.g. the joint bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, not to mention the multiple planes used in the 9/11 attacks).

However, by Mirandizing Abdulmutallb, the investigators put an end to any chance of determining of another attack was forthcoming. As the Associated Press notes, "Abdulmutallab spoke freely and provided valuable intelligence.... [He] repeatedly made incriminating statements...talking in detail about what he'd done and the planning that went into the attack. Other counterterrorism officials speaking on condition of anonymity said it was during this questioning that he admitted he had been trained and instructed in the plot by al-Qaida operatives in Yemen." However, "when [federal agents] read him his legal rights nearly 10 hours after the incident, he went silent."

This was a mistake of colossal proportions, and not just because of the potential intelligence that was lost. The fact that not one of the senior policy officials -- the DNI, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the chief of the National Counterterrorism Center, and as Byron York notes, the Director of the FBI -- shows a serious lack of judgment by both the agents in the field and by the Obama administration that seems to have empowered the Department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder over the main counterterror organizations. After the hearing in the Senate, all seven Republicans on the Homeland Security Committee sent a letter to President Obama asking whether the administration now has "a protocol or policy in place for handling al Qaeda terrorists captured in the United States."

Together, these two incidents deserve a lot more attention that they were given in the aftermath of the Massachusetts special election. Together, they reveal serious misunderstandings of the nature of foreign policy and international relations. And whether those misunderstandings rest with, as Stephen Walt thinks, Obama's advisors or with the president himself, they are very troubling.

Abbas and Israel

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced last week that he does not plan to run for re-election in the upcoming Palestinian elections in January. According to the Associated Press, "Abbas says the stalemate in peace negotiations with Israel prompted his decision not to run again. He charged the U.S. with backtracking on its Mideast policy and refusing to press Israel to freeze construction in its West Bank settlements." Today, at a ceremony honoring former PLO Chairman and the first head of the Palestinian Authority Yasir Arafat, Abbas called on Hamas to honor the Egyptian-broked reconciliation deal designed to ease tensions between the Islamic organization based in Gaza and the West Bank-center, and more moderate, PA.

Abbas's resignation has raised serious concerns over the future of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process (if one can be said to still exist) as well as the future of any moderate Palestinian political faction willing to talk and negotiate with Israel. If the PA does, indeed, collapse, Hamas will certainly benefit the most from being able to point the fruitlessness and foolishness of trusting in talks with Israel and the US to bring about an independent Palestinian homeland.

The problem, as Abbas apparently sees it, is Israel's unwillingness to negotiate in good faith towards a Palestinian state along the lines set out by the US and its international partners (the EU, the UN, and Russia), coupled with the American refusal to pressure Israel to make any real progress (exemplified by President Obama's caving in on the settlement freeze issue). Between the ridiculous Israeli electoral system that inevitably produces weak governments beholden to small extreme parties and the return to power of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has certainly seemed to lose interest in the peace process, and has repeatedly rebuffed requests to make any kind of commitment to an eventual independent Palestinian state (Netanyahu claims he favors "negotiations without preconditions" which forbids him from discussing any eventual end-game) or offer any kind of serious freeze on the building and expansion of West Bank settlements. The latter is perhaps the most important issue to the PA and Abbas, as the Palestinians rightly fear that continued and unchecked settlement expansion threatens to create a fait accompli on the ground that will determine the boundaries of any Palestinian-governed lands, sovereign or not, outside of the negotiated process. Palestinians are also worried that Netanhayu is, in essence, trying to bribe the West Bankers, hoping that allowing economic development in the occupied territory will quiet cries for independence.

Certainly, economic conditions have improved recently in the West Bank, and concurrently (although not necessarily causally) the West Bank has for the last years been relatively quiet. It's certainly possible that this is indeed Netanyahu's strategy; it's also possible that this is simply the result of Israel's domestic political system that is more likely to produce paralysis than results. It's also entirely possible that Abbas's threat of retirement is a political ploy, intended to coax more concessions from an Israel scared of an Abbas-less Palestinian political apparatus.

Either way, however, it's a bad strategy for Israel to play such a dangerous game of chicken. Israel has no choice, ultimately, but to move towards an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank (most likely in Gaza too, but that's a different story). Simple demographics about the growth rate of the Palestinians in the West Bank make it inevitable that Israel will become, very soon, an apartheid-type regime, with a minority population of Israelis governing and oppressing a majority population of Palestinians (I know the analogy isn't perfect as the West Bank is an occupied territory and not part of Israel proper, but the problem is basically the same). Furthermore, the longer the Palestinians feel the peace process isn't moving forward, the weaker the moderate PA-based wing will become, and the stronger and better Hamas looks as a representative of the Palestinians. Armed struggle will begin to look a more attractive option; it's certainly not out of the question that the West Bank could initiate a third intifada, although the security wall along the Green Wall and the removal of many of the deepest settlements will certainly blunt the impact of any such uprising.

Israel also suffers on the international stage for its refusal to make any meaningful progress. While Israel often claims, with much merit, that the international community is massively biased against it, the unjust occupation and continued settlement of the West Bank does nothing to help Israel in the international court of opinion. And Israel does, despite its claims to the contrary, need the international community. Just last week, Israel captured a ship it claimed was carrying from Iran to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon a supply of weapons large enough for a month's worth of military operations. In a speech discussing the seizure, Netanyahu argued that "[the smuggling] is a war crime that the U.N. Security Council should have a special meeting over. A major component of this shipment were rockets whose only goal was to hit civilians and kill as many civilians as possible — women, children, old people." That may be true -- in fact, it most likely is true -- but given Israel's repeated refusal to comply with international demands to freeze settlement expansion and enter into serious negotiations about the future of a Palestinian state, not to mention Israel's refusal to investigate allegations of war crimes in January's invasion of Gaza (all states, especially democratic ones, have an obligation to fight their battles in a moral and legal manner; Israel should, as it has in the past, willingly investigate the behavior of its troops and commanders, not because the UN demands it, but because liberal democracies hold themselves to higher standards), the international community isn't likely to spend much time looking into Israel's claims.

Israel's national interest demands that it divest itself from the occupation of the Palestinians. It no longer needs the West Bank as a defensive buffer against Jordan; nor, given the security fence being built and its overwhelming military dominance, does it have much to fear about a terrorist or military threat from the West Bank itself. But by seriously committing itself to negotiations, including an meaningful ex ante freeze on settlement building and expansion, Israel can gain several things: It can begin to avert the impending racist crisis; it can begin to capitalize on the fears of its Arab neighbors over Iran; it can begin to transform international public opinion; and it can protect its relationship with the United States.

Even if Abbas's threat is just a negotiating ploy, Israel cannot allow the PA to collapse. And preventing that collapse may require that Israel stop dithering, and start taking seriously the inevitable.

The Peace Process In Trouble

The recent Israeli parliamentary elections are bad news for those who retain even the faintest glimmer of hope for a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. The moderate Kadima party "won" the election by claiming the most seats -- 28 -- in the 120 seat Knesset, leaving it in need of 31 votes to form a government. The Likud party of Binyamin Netanyahu claimed 27 seats, but the breakdown of the remaining seats with its strong right-wing tilt means that Likud may have a better chance of putting together a coalition. The once mighty Labor Party that ruled the country from its inception in 1948 until the rise of Likud in the 1970s claimed a pathetic 13. Today comes news that Kadima and Likud are considering forming a unity government including Labor that would create a coalition of 68 seats. Israel has had a unity government once before with Shimon Peres of Labor and Yitzhak Shamir of Likud rotating the prime ministry.

While this may be better for Israeli politics than a narrow coalition that empowers narrower, more extreme parties like the quasi-racist, anti-religious party of Yisrael Beiteinu or the strict religious parties like Shas or United Torah, it doesn't bode well for progress towards the two-state solution. Rumors also abound of a Likud-Labor-Yisrael Beiteinu coalition. While it's too early to predict what result will emerge, any government that includes Likud, and Netanyahu in particular, will not be friendly to the peace process that the Obama administration is hoping to advance.

The problem is that the longer the status quo drags on, the harder the two-state solution becomes to realize. Israeli settlement in the West Bank continues more or less unabated; illegal settlements deep in the West Bank are becoming increasingly permanent. While most of the settlers live immediately around Jerusalem and close to the Green Line -- and those settlements will likely be annexed to Israel in exchange for an equal amount of territory currently in Israel -- it is the settlements deep in the West Bank that are the problems. Israel has been entirely unwilling to curtail these settlements, and the US has, to date, been entirely unwilling to use its massive leverage with Israel to force it to do so.

And Israel must do so. The alternatives to the two-state solution are entirely unacceptable. As Stephen Walt points out at his new-ish blog:

First, Israel could drive most or all of the 2.5 million Palestinians out of the West Bank by force, thereby preserving "greater Israel" as a Jewish state through an overt act of ethnic cleansing. The Palestinians would surely resist, and it would be a crime against humanity, conducted in full view of a horrified world. No American government could support such a step, and no true friend of Israel could endorse that solution.

Second, Israel could retain control of the West Bank but allow the Palestinians limited autonomy in a set of disconnected enclaves, while it controlled access in and out, their water supplies, and the airspace above them. This appears to have been Ariel Sharon's strategy before he was incapacitated, and Bibi Netanyahu's proposal for "economic peace" without a Palestinian state seems to envision a similar outcome. In short, the Palestinians would not get a viable state of their own and would not enjoy full political rights. This is the solution that many people -- including Prime Minister Olmert -- compare to the apartheid regime in South Africa. It is hard to imagine the United States supporting this outcome over the long term, and Olmert has said as much. Denying the Palestinians' their own national aspirations is also not going to end the conflict.

Which brings me to the third option. The Israeli government could maintain its physical control over "greater Israel" and grant the Palestinians full democratic rights within this territory. This option has been proposed by a handful of Israeli Jews and a growing number of Palestinians. But there are formidable objections to this outcome: It would mean abandoning the Zionist dream of an independent Jewish state, and binational states of this sort do not have an encouraging track record, especially when the two parties have waged a bitter conflict across several generations.

The first and third options are inconceivable. Which means that if the two-state solution collapses or becomes impossible the only viable alternative is the second. And the second means a never-ending moral nightmare for Israel, a never-ending oppression for the Palestinians, and a never-ending war between the two.

Israel's insane electoral system and massively divided political culture makes it unlikely that Israel will ever be capable of dismantling the settlements on its own. The Europeans are trusted by Israel or the Palestinians, nor do they have sufficient leverage over Israel to make a difference. Only the US can push Israel towards the right, nay the only, acceptable outcome. President Obama should do whatever is necessary, including curtailing US economic and military aid to Israel, to ensure that the deep settlement stops and all illegal settlements are dismantled. Failure to do so not only jeopardizes the peace process, it risks Israel's very survival.

Israel's Impending Victory in Gaza

A few days ago I wondered what Israel was hoping to accomplish with its assault on Gaza. Today's it's still not clear, not even to Israel's government which is still debating whether to make a total push into Gaza's cities, a move which would signal an attempt to destroy Hamas as a governing body. Meanwhile, as people warn that Israel's attack on Hamas will only result in strengthening the group, rocket attacks from Lebanon into northern Israel seem to confirm that warning as many see the rockets as a message from a Hezbollah that emerged from its own war with Israel stronger than it was before.

But not so fast.

Hezbollah is adamantly denying that it has anything to do with the rockets being launched from Lebanon. That's not the move of an empowered nationalistic militia; that's the move of a group that, despite its propaganda claims to the contrary, suffered a massive beating in its war with Israel. Hezbollah likely lost more than 500 soldiers in ground fighting with Israel while Israel lost 30 soldiers (Israel lost about 10o total soldiers). Furthermore, Hezbollah's rocket attacks, in which Hezbollah launched around 4,000 rockets into Israel, killed 43 Israelis civilians and wounded more than 4,000. While it's true that the impact of the rocket attacks cannot be measured purely in casualties, it's also true that 5-1 loss ratios and the use of a large part of its arsenal to kill 40 civilians cannot really be seen as a military victory in any sense. Furthermore, the political fallout borne by Hezbollah for antagonizing Israel and endangering Lebanon seems to have been very heavy. And now we're seeing the results of the Israeli operation, as Hezbollah despites its blustery claims of Palestinian solidarity is not only NOT opening a second front, it is taking great pains to ensure that Israel does not turn its might against Lebanon again.

If the invasion of Lebanon was enough to reestablish a modicum of deterrence against Hezbollah, can the Gaza campaign do the same vis-a-vis Hamas? A wide campaign against Hamas's strategic assets, government facilities, and underground tunnels may very well cripple Hamas's ability to not only attack Israel but to provide the services for Gaza that have advanced Hamas's political agenda and brought it to power as a viable alternative to Fatah. Hamas's victory in Gaza was not only a result of its aggressive stance against Israel but also a rejection of the corruption and ineffectiveness of Fatah. But if Hamas loses the capability to threaten Israel, cannot effectively defend itself or the people of Gaza, and sees its ability to govern destroyed, the Palestinian people very well may turn back to Fatah.

It is for this reason that it is imperative, as I wrote in my last post, for Israel to make clear the benefits that can be had for adhereing to the path that Fatah has chosen. As I wrote, "Israel should immediately announce a halt to all funding for settlement building in the West Bank, dismantle all illegal settlements, and lift all but the most necessary checkpoints and roadblocks that have made life in the West Bank so difficult." Doing so in the midst of the war against Hamas will announce in no uncertain terms Israel's commitment to a peaceful, two-state solution so long as there is a willing and able partner among the Palestinians.

In an article in today's Wall Street Journal, Edward Luttwak writes "Hamas will claim a win no matter what happens, but then so did Hezbollah in 2006. And yet, for the most part, Hezbollah remains immobile and the Israeli northern border with Lebanon remains quiet. If Israel can achieve the same with Hamas in Gaza, it would be a significant victory." But we must not be fooled by rhetoric and propaganda. Israel's invasion of Lebanon was definitely a success, and whether Gaza is as well will not be judged by Hamas's empty claims of victory.

What's the End Game in Gaza?

As the Israeli assault on Gaza continued into its fourth day, it's not at all clear what end state Israel is seeking. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert released a statement that the aerial campaign was "the first of several stages" suggesting that a ground operation may be forthcoming, while international pressure mounts for a temporary cease-fire to allow for humanitarian aid and assistance. So far, an estimated 350 Palestinians have been killed -- more than 60 of them civilians -- and more than 600 wounded, while the rocket barrages from Hamas killed three Israelis on Monday. Israel's stated war aims have been quite narrow -- to destroy the ability of Hamas to launch rockets into Israel -- and there are no overt signs that Israel intends to seek the destruction of the Hamas regime. Internal intelligence assessments in Israel claim to have destroyed so far one-third of Hamas's rocket arsenal.

So what outcome does Israel seek? What is Israel hoping to achieve through this assault? First, Israel is very likely seeking to restore its reputation after the debacle of the 2006 Lebanon War. While that war was on balance better for Israel than many people perceived it to be, it is perception that matters for Israel's deterrence posture. Seccond, while the rockets launched into Israel by Hamas may not be particularly effective in killing Israelis, they are extremely effective at highlighting Israel's defenselessness. No government anywhere in the world could long survive under constant rocket attack, even if few casualties resulted, as a government that is seen as unable to protect its people cannot be effective. Given the alternative of a Netanyahu-led Likud government (which most Israeli polls show to be the likely outcome of the February elections), the centrist-Kadima government had to respond to demonstrate its ability to protect the people of Israel and hold on to power. The Israeli response very well may strengthen the Labor Party and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak (currently Israel's minister of defense).

But these goals are strategic, higher-order goals that while perhaps important are not directly tied to current assault. What outcome does Israel want vis-a-vis Hamas and Gaza? Destroying the rockets is one, but that is an ephemeral goal. Destroyed rockets can be resupplied. Toppling Hamas is another possibility, but that could be exceedingly dangerous. Fatah has been largely routed in Gaza, and if Hamas is brought down it's not at all clear what would replace it. Anarchy in Gaza may be even worse for Israel than Hamas.

What is more likely is that Israel is seeking two goals, one short-term and one long-term. In the short-term Israel is likely hoping to force Hamas to accept cease-fire terms that are more favorable than the one that recently ended. While Israel certainly didn't entirely uphold its end of the agreement by failing to allow sufficient supplies into Gaza, Hamas didn't carry its weight either by refusing to crack down on militants launching rockets, particularly in recent days. In the long-run, Israel may be hoping to expose Hamas as ineffective in its responses to Israel and incapable of protecting and providing for the welfare of the Palestinians.

The problem is, perhaps, that Hamas's popularity may have been waning before the assault. As Daoud Kuttab writes in today's Washington Post, Hamas has been on a steady decline since coming to power on Gaza:

Things began to sour when Hamas violently seized control of Gaza, but even then, Hamas enjoyed considerable domestic support -- and much goodwill externally. Then the movement turned down every legitimate offer from its nationalist PLO rivals and Egyptian mediators to pursue reconciliation, and support for it began to slip.

Things got worse in November when a carefully planned national unity effort from the Egyptians failed because, at the very last minute, Hamas's leaders refused to show up in Cairo. Failure to accept this roundtable invitation greatly upset the Egyptians, and they and other Arab leaders scolded Hamas publicly. Omar Suleiman, the head of the Egyptian intelligence service who was organizing the meeting, termed Hamas's reasons for rebuffing the invitation "unwarranted excuses." Hamas sought for its leader a seating position equivalent to the Palestinian president's, and it wanted Hamas security prisoners held in the West Bank to be released. Palestinian nationalists insist that Hamas's rejection of unity talks was solely to avoid the PLO's demand for new presidential and parliamentary elections.

A poll carried out afterward by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center showed that most Palestinians blamed Hamas for the failure of the talks. The survey, which was sponsored by the German Fredrich Ebert Foundation, found that 35.3 percent of respondents believed Hamas bore more responsibility for the stalemate. Fatah was blamed by 17.9 percent, and 12.3 percent said both Fatah and Hamas were responsible.

The lack of international support since the 2006 elections, followed by this rebuff to Gaza's only Arab neighbor, Egypt, compounded the deterioration of Hamas's internal support. By November, the survey showed, only 16.6 percent of Palestinians supported Hamas, compared with nearly 40 percent favoring Fatah. The decline in support for Hamas has been steady: A year earlier, the same pollster showed that Hamas's support was at 19.7 percent; in August 2007, it was at 21.6 percent; in March 2007, it was at 25.2 percent; and in September 2006, backing for the Islamists stood at 29.7 percent.

Now, Kuttab writes, Hamas will reap the PR benefits of the Israeli assault, once again assuming the mantle of The Ones Who Stand Up To Israel and:

has renewed its standing in the Arab world, secured international favor further afield and succeeded in scuttling indirect Israeli-Syrian talks and direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. While it is not apparent how this violent confrontation will end, it is abundantly clear that the Islamic Hamas movement has been brought back from near political defeat while moderate Arab leaders have been forced to back away from their support for any reconciliation with Israel."

Israel must act to counter this development, largely by pointing to conditions in the West Bank. But pointing is not enough. Israel should move to improve conditions in the West Bank, and not just ones that amount to cosmetic changes. Rather, Israel needs to make clear the benefits of following Fatah's path as well as the consequences of following that of Hamas.

Israel should immediately announce a halt to all funding for settlement building in the West Bank, dismantle all illegal settlements, and lift all but the most necessary checkpoints and roadblocks that have made life in the West Bank so difficult. Only by making clear the implications of the choices before the Palestinians can Israel hope to obtain any long-term benefits from the attack on Gaza.

A Smart Move in Israel

Lately, things haven't been going so well on the peace front in Israel. Talks with Syria over the Golan Heights have been called off as Israel is roiled by domestic political turmoil, with the looming indictment of Prime Minister Olmert and the impending party elections on Wednesday. Meanwhile, nothing seems to be happening in the negotiations between Israel and Fatah, with both sides expressing pessimism that a deal is possible before the end of the year.

However, yesterday a ray of light may have burst through the clouds. Haim Ramon, the vice prime minister and one of Olmert's closest advisers, presented a plan to buyout Israeli settlers living in the occupied territory of the West Bank. Stating that dreams of "Greater Israel" are dead, Ramon's plan would pay approximately $300,000 to each family to leave the West Bank and relocate inside of Israel proper. According to Ramon, survey data indicates that 11,000 of the 61,000 Israelis -- or 18% -- who live beyond the security fence would accept the buyout.

Even if this plan goes nowhere, it is still a fairly important breakthrough. First, it is always good to hear high ranking Israeli officials acknowledge that there is no way Israel can keep all of the West Bank. Doing so would continue to waste Israeli resources and lives, perpetuate the misery of the Palestinians, continue to alienate world opinion, and eventually turn Israel into an apartheid state, as the Palestinian population will soon surpass the number of Jews in Israel. Second, I believe that many more people would accept the money than the poll data indicates. Many people predicted that the forced withdrawal from Gaza would go badly, but the resistance that occurred was more or less token with settlers making a visible protest but little actual violence. When I was in Israel last year, I spoke with many settlers, and many of them were of the very hard-core variety. All of them acknowledged that the writing was on the wall, literally. The security fence being built by Israel meant, they knew, that the lands on the other side of the fence would eventually be abandoned by Israel. Certainly the prospects of that much money will encourage many others to accept the inevitable.

I'm not in any way saying that this plan will succeed, or even pass. But even if it gets 20% of the settlers out, it's a step in the right direction. Israel needs to recognize that its occupation of the West Bank is no longer sustainable and is too costly for all concerned parties.

Bold Moves Towards Peace?

Slowly, but hopefully surely, momentum in the Israel-Palestine crisis seems to be tipping towards peace. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has apparently made a peace deal the raison d'etre of her tenure, stating that she's hopeful a deal can be struck by the end of Bush's administration -- a timetable to which both Israeli and Palestinian officials have committed themselves -- and asking Israel to make "bold moves" towards peace. Just today, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has committed his security forces to the stabilization of Nablus, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed his strongest support yet for the impending peace conference.

So, what's the way forward from here? What are the "bold moves" that the actors can take to advance the peace process? Some suggestions:

For the Israelis:

1. Cease all settlement activity immediately and indefinitely.
2. Lift all internal roadblocks or impediments to movement.
3. Re-open access points to Gaza and the West Bank.
4. Release to the West Bank-based government all tax revenues being held.
5. Pledge that , barring Palestinian escalation, incursions and collective punishments will not be used in response to rocket attacks from Gaza.

For the Palestinians:

1. Pledge, in secret if need be, that the "right to return" is negotiable and can be symbolically fulfilled by economic restitution.
2. Reaffirm willingness to negotiate the final borders of a Palestinian state to include pre-1967 Israeli territory in exchange for land along the Green Line.
3. Pledge to crack down on all militias and to formally consolidate power in the hands of the government.

For the US:

1. Create a peacekeeping force from NATO countries to patrol the Gaza-Israel border. The force must possess sufficient capability and political will to track and intercept infiltrators, rocket launches, and other threats.
2. Pledge to provide the funding to symbolically fulfill the Palestinian right to return.
3. Arrange prepared funding packages for both sides upon acceptance and performance of agreements. Attach negative incentives for failure to reach deals.

These steps would certainly constitute "bold moves." Many have been tabled until "final status" talks, but doing so all but ensures that that time will never come. It is incumbent on all parties to make bold moves, even ones that can be interpreted as concession, in order to advance the peace process. The time has come for Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinians, for the Palestinians to end their campaign of terror against Israel. The time has come for Israel to re-affirm its democratic traditions and for the Palestinians to realize their national aspirations. The time has come.

Creeping Towards Palestine

Two pieces of good news yesterday in the Israel-Palestinian situation. First was the revelation that Hamas is seeking talks with Fatah and is considering ceding control of Gaza back to the centralized control of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his arm of the Palestinian Authority. Sanctions and isolation imposed on Hamas for its lack of recognition of Israel have damaged Hamas in Gaza and increased the misery of Gaza's residents. As I have written about many times, the bifurcated sovereignty of the Palestinian Authority -- in which the militias and not the government possess the majority of the power -- is one of the major obstacles to a just and lasting settlement of Palestinian claims. If Hamas is prepared to enter into talks with Fatah, Abbas must insist on the disarming of the militias of both parties and the subordination of Hamas (and Fatah) to the Palestinian Authority, no matter who is running it.

The other piece of good news was an indication from Fatah that while the Palestinians would insist on getting their state on the same amount of land that was occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, it need not be the exact same land. Ahmed Qureia, the lead Fatah negotiator and a former prime minister of the PA, stated that "it would be enough to declare the 1967 lines as the starting point, say the border is open to modifications, based on the principle that the Palestinians end up with as much land as they lost in 1967. The exact border would be worked out in negotiations following the Annapolis conference."

This is a vitally important breakthrough. It was inconceivable that the Palestinians were going to get Israel to go back to its pre-1967 borders, for security and demographic reasons. However, the vast majority of Israeli settlers live in and around Jerusalem or in a narrow band immediately inside the Green Line. In exchange for keeping those lands, which would leave almost almost 75% of the settlers in place, Israel would cede an equal amount of land on the northern border of the West Bank along with a corridor of land connecting Gaza and the West Bank. Additionally, Israel would withdraw, forcibly if necessary, the settlers remaining in Palestinian lands. This has long been recognized as the only feasible end-state, but getting both parties to accept it has been a long process.

The security fence being built by Israel has played a vital role in getting both sides (for an excellent discussion of this, see How to Build a Fence by David Makovsky in the March/April 2004 issue of Foreign Affairs). Settlers living deep inside the West Bank whom I met on my trip to Israel opposed the fence because they knew that every Israeli on the Palestinian side would eventually be forced to leave their homes. For the Palestinians, the fence created a fait accompli, that forced them to accept the political reality that Israel was not going to return certain lands.

There is still a long way to go before a Palestinian state can be realized. Israel, for its part, needs to do more to bolster Fatah against Hamas and to stop and even pull back expansion of the deep settlements. The Palestinians must do a better job of establish control over the violent militias. Both sides must be willing to discuss the Palestinian right of return and the final status of Jerusalem, both of which are explosive issues. But again, in each case there is a fairly obvious politically-attainable solution. But knowing the end isn't enough; it's getting there that is so difficult. But these two developments are both steps in the right direction.

A New Intifada?

The West-Bank based and western-backed leaders of Fatah have announced the beginning of a new intifada. However this time the target is not Israel, but rather Hamas. When members of Fatah assembled for open-air prayers in Gaza, an act banned by Hamas, security forces of Hamas attacked the praying men, beating them with clubs, hurling stun grenades, and firing into the air. According to the Fatah-affiliated Palestinian Information Minister Reyad al-Maliki, "What we saw in Gaza today was the beginning of a third Intifada, against the Hamas occupation."

Since the defeat of Fatah by Hamas back in June and Fatah's exile to the West Bank, things have been relatively quiet between the rival Palestinian groups, an quiet that I have previously argued is not beneficial to the Palestinian people. Perhaps this signals the beginning of a confrontation between Fatah and Hamas, one that if allowed to play itself out might result in a unified Palestinian leadership that is better able to improve the lives of its people.

How NOT To Deal With Hamas

The British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has released a report criticizing the UK's policy towards Hamas and the Palestinians, stating that the refusal to deal with or talk to Hamas has been counter-productive. The all-party committee concludes that:

that the decision not to speak to Hamas in 2007 following the Mecca agreement has been counterproductive. We further conclude that a national unity Government could and should have been established much earlier than the spring of 2007. We recommend that, in its response to this Report, the Government set out when it began to actively support the establishment of a national unity Government in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

This is exactly the wrong solution. There is no possibility for a successful unity government between Hamas and Fatah, and given the civil war, it's hard to imagine why the committee feels it would have been better to create a unity government earlier (to be fair, the committee also wants the UK to end the political and economic isolation of Hamas, so it may be that it's thinking is that if economic conditions hadn't been so dire, things would have worked out differently).

As I have written on numerous occasions, the problem in the Palestinian territories is that neither side, nor the government in a general sense, possesses a monopoly of violence, which enables each side to undermine the other. There are only two ways to deal with this situation (assuming one wants to eventually reunite the West Bank with Gaza in an independent Palestinian homeland): support Fatah against Hamas, or support Hamas against Fatah. So long as the two groups maintain military/police power outside of the aegis of the government, there will no lasting peace and no political stability. Creating a unity government merely papers over this situation, but only until a divisive problem arises that splits the two parties. I don't have any intrinsic problems with Hamas ruling (although I would prefer it be Fatah); what is critical is that whichever group controls the government do so completely and totally.

Civil War In Gaza

It seems as if Hamas has all but destroyed Fatah in the Gaza Strip. Yesterday, Hamas gunmen ransacked the house of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a member of Fatah and chased the remnants of Arafat's former movement into the West Bank. In response, Abbas has dissolved the Palestinian government and replaced the prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, and replaced him with Fatah-based former Minister of Finance Salam Fayyad. Meanwhile, the US, the EU, and Israel are moving to release frozen tax revenues to Abbas in an effort to bolster Fatah against Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert praised the move by Abbas to reform the Palestinian government, while Hamas lacks the power in the West Bank to challenge Abbas there.

The plan of the US and its allies assumes that "that strengthening Abbas, and reviving the peace process through him in the West Bank, would serve to marginalize Hamas and increase Fatah's chances of winning any future elections." The New York Times editorializes today that the Hamas victory in Gaza is a defeat for Palestinians, Israel, and the US, and that Abbas should be offered concessions such as "a total freeze on settlement building and expansion, a prompt easing of the onerous, humiliating and economically strangulating blockades on Palestinian movements within the West Bank, and the swift release to Mr. Abbas’s office of all tax revenues rightfully belonging to the Palestinians but still in Israeli hands," while "Hamas’s future diplomatic treatment should depend strictly on its own behavior. If it is ever willing to stop engaging in terrorism and live up to the standards expected of law-abiding governments, there will be something for Israeli and American officials to discuss with it."

The logic of these suggestions and strategies is that since Fatah accepts Israel's right to exist and the previous negotiations while Hamas does not, Fatah represents the horse to bet on, and Abbas should be supported, while Hamas should be ignored until it comes around. All good ideas...in the short run. However, in the long run, the bolstering of Fatah against Hamas will at best undermine future chances of a negotiated settlement, and at worst lead to an even bloodier civil war.

The problem is the monopoly of violence in the Palestinian territories, or lack thereof. I've written about this several times, but the fact remains: So long as significant military force rests with the various militias (Fatah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, etc.) rather than with the government, whomever that may be at any given time, there will be no peace process. While one side negotiates, other sides are free to use their military capabilities to improve their own position, enhance their credentials as hard-liners by continuing to fight, and undermine the political positioning of their rivals. All sides are guilty of this. Just as Hamas used suicide bombings and Qassam rocket attacks to undermine on-going negotiations between Fatah and Israel, so did Fatah use its own militia to weaken Hamas' power in Gaza.

If there is ever to be a solution to the Israel-Palestinian problem, if the Palestinians are to ever be given the stable and credible government that they deserve, then force must be controlled by the government. The current strategy of supporting Fatah may assuage those worried about the radical ideology and violence of Hamas, but it won't solve the problem.

One of the speakers on my trip to Israel, Meir Litvak of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, agrees with my position. In his view, both Israel and the Palestinians need a stable, unified Palestinian government, even if that government is led by Hamas. He argues, as I have in the past, that when given the choice, Hamas prefers to govern than to fight. If forced with the need for real governance, Hamas will likely become more pragmatic, and do what it needs to do, i.e. negotiate with Israel. And while Hamas would be unlikely to drop its radical ideology, or cease all attacks against Israel, the situation very well might be better than it is now, as Hamas would be forced to behave itself in order to receive international funding, tax revenue, and diplomatic recognition.

But, you argue, Hamas had the opportunity to moderate itself when it won the elections in early 2006 and took over the Palestinian Authorty, and failed to do so. Why would it be any different in the future? Hamas never had a chance to really govern, as Fatah and PIJ did what they could to undermine Hamas' rule. In order for any party to really govern, the Palestinian Authority must have a monopoly of force; it must be able to rein in the militias, fighters, and terrorists of all of the various groups. For this reason, the strategy of supporting Abbas is a very short-sighted one. It does nothing to resolve the real problem in the territories and sets the stage for endless war between the Palestinian political actors.

Progress Towards Peace?

One day after the Israeli foreign minister met with the president of Egypt to set the stage for a more formal discussion of the peace plan proposed by Saudi Arabia and endorsed by the Arab League, the Lebanese prime minister, Fuad Siniora, has an op-ed in the New York Times illustrating why peace in the Middle East can be so elusive.

The Arab League peace initiative is a promising framework for negotiations. It calls upon Israel to withdraw from the territories occupied in the 1967 war (Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights, as well as East Jerusalem), to accept a "just settlement to the Palestinian refugee problem," and to accept the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital. In return, the Arab states pledge to sign peace agreements and open normal relations with Israel.

Not all of this is likely to occur. Specifically, it's almost unthinkable that Israel will return all of the occupied territory, as there are several huge settlements very close to the Green Line that Israel will hold on to for security and demographic reasons. Also, handing over the Old City of Jerusalem is a non-starter, although East Jerusalem itself is certainly possible. Perhaps the most important breakthrough from the Arab side is on the question of the Palestinian refugees. The plan does not insist on the right of return for the refugees, which would scuttle any chance for a negotiated end, but rather a "just settlement," which is likely diplomatic speak for "huge cash payoff." All in all, the plan is pretty close to what most observers assume will be the ultimate end game, give or take a few details to be worked out (how much of the West Bank will Israel return? Will Israel cede Israeli territory to compensate for the retained land? How can Israel guarantee its access to the holy places in the Old City?)

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's editorial calls on Israel to give the plan a chance, arguing that "military action does not give the people of Israel security," that "Arab states are not seeking to wipe Israel off the map," and that Israel's refusal to pursue a negotiated end to the Palestinian crisis creates a festering issue that undermines regional stability and the security of Israel as well as the Arab states.

Much of this is true. And yet, this is something unsatisfying about Siniora's piece. Siniora's hook for the op-ed is the report of the Winograd Commission, the highly-critical self-examination of the war in Lebanon released by Israel last week. Sinoria seizes on the criticisms of the report to point out to Israel how the country needs to change its approach to solving the Palestinian problem.

But where is the Winograd Commission for Lebanon? For Hezbollah? For Hamas? Thomas Friedman recently ran a column detailing what such a report might look like. Yes, there are certainly things Israel can and should do differently to help advance the peace process, such as stopping the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and even pulling back some of the more egregious ones. But there is much that needs to be done by the Arab states as well.

Siniora does not mention the role of Hezbollah in undermining regional security, and more specifically, the inability and unwillingness of Lebanon, and now the UN, to rein in the militia whose ill-conceived kidnapping of an Israeli soldier triggered last year's war that was so damaging to Lebanon. And while the Arab states may no longer want to wipe Israel off the map (although perhaps only because they know that they can't), the governing power of the Palestinian territories, Hamas, most certainly does. There is no mention of the on-going near-civil-war between Hamas and Fatah that results from Arab states playing both sides and refusing to allow one side to win out. These problems are just as damaging to the peace process, perhaps even more, because they make it impossible for the Arabs to present a unified and coherent position.

Siniora's glaring omissions and complete lack of self-awareness is disheartening. The Arabs need to recognize that blame cannot fall only on Israel. The peace plan suggested by the Arab League is an excellent start, and will hopefully form the basis of a settlement. And while it's true that Israel has some work to do and some changes to make, so do the Arabs.

The Fatah-Hamas Deal

Fatah and Hamas have agreed to form a government that shares power between their rival factions in an attempt to end the fighting between the two groups that has recently engulfed Gaza. The new government will divide cabinet seats between Hamas and Fatah (currently, Hamas has all the seats by virtue of its electoral victory last year), and Hamas will keep the prime ministry, currently held by Ismail Haniyeh. Specifically, Hamas agreed to cede control of two important ministries, interior and foreign, the cabinet positions of which will be filled by independent politicians.

This agreement is nothing more than a bandage, temporarily stanching the bloodshed but doing nothing to resolve the long-term, fundamental problems in the Palestinian territories. First, as the Washington Post notes:

It remained unclear whether the new government will meet conditions laid down by Israel and international donors to fully restore funding to the Palestinian Authority that they cut off after Hamas's victory in January 2006 parliamentary elections.

The agreement does not explicitly recognize Israel's right to exist, a key international demand. Hamas officials said their movement would not do so.

So, the deal does little to end the political and finanical isolation imposed on the Palestinians as a result of Hamas' refusal to accept the negotiated framework that has been advancing. To wit, follwing the signing of the deal, the spokesman for Hamas, Ghazi Hamad said “I wonder why the issue of recognizing Israel is the key to everything? We are interested to end the siege but not at any cost.”

More importantly, the deal does nothing to resolve the most important problem which is the inability of any Palestinian government to maintain a monopoly of violence. Both Hamas and Fatah will hold on to their militias. Since the two parties still fundamentally differ on how to deal with Israel as well as on domestic issues, sooner or later the political comity of the meeting in Mecca will dissolve and each side will have the option to fall back on violence to try to get its way. Until this problem is solved and armed force is concentrated in the hands of the government, rather than the political parties, neither this deal nor any other will bring stability to the Palestinian territories or peace to the Palestinian people.

A Little Civil War Now and Then Is A Good Thing

The cease-fire between Fatah and Hamas has collapsed in a paroxysm of violence. Over the last 24 hours, at least 21 Palestinians have been killed in gun battles, and 2 Palestinian universities have been set ablaze (one associated with each rival party). Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of Fatah, and Khaled Mashal, the exiled leader of Hamas' political wing, are scheduled to meet in Mecca at the invitation of Saudi King Abdullah in an effort to stop the fighting.

But stopping the fighting might not be the best idea. I've written many times before about the problems that occur when the ruling political power does not enjoy a monopoly of violence within its borders. Hezbollah drags Lebanon into a unwanted war with Israel that wreaks massive devastation on the civilian population; Sunni and Shiite militias in Iraq run around undermining the power and legitimacy of the central government. In Palestine, neither faction can advance its platform as the other has sufficient force to interfere.

Several years ago, Edward Luttwak wrote an article in Foreign Affairs entitled "Give War a Chance," in which he argued:

An unpleasant truth often overlooked is that although war is a great evil, it does have a great virtue: it can resolve political conflicts and lead to peace. This can happen when all belligerents become exhausted or when one wins decisively. Either way the key is that the fighting must continue until a resolution is reached. War brings peace only after passing a culminating phase of violence. Hopes of military success must fade for accommodation to become more attractive than further combat.

The problem in Palestine is that each side has enough force, power, and support to believe that it should not have to submit to the will of the other. Cease-fires, truces, and negotiations only pause the conflict, allowing each side to regroup and rearm for the next outbreak of violence. It very well may be best for Hamas and Fatah to fight it out to the bitter end, enabling one side or the other to establish political control over the Palestinian territories. Permitting a civil war to rage may be of cold comfort to the Palestinian people who will suffer, but perhaps the short-term pain will produce a long-term political solution that has eluded them to date.

Israel In NATO?

David Schraub over at The Debate Link calls my attention to an interesting article in the Jerusalem Post claiming that the Israeli National Security Council is discussing how to get Israel accepted as a permanent member of NATO. According to the article:

In an effort to establish more effective deterrence in the face of Iran's race to obtain nuclear weapons, government ministries are, for the first time, working on drafting a position paper that will include guidelines and a strategy for turning Israel into a full-fledged member of NATO....

The paper is being drafted by an interministerial committee made up of representatives from the Defense Ministry and the Foreign Ministry and headed by the National Security Council. The committee plans to complete the paper by the end of February and present it to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for approval.

The possibility has a few early supporters mentioned in the article, including former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, ex-senator and presidential candidate John Edwards, and General Lord Charles Guthre, former chief of the UK Defense Staff.

David's post on this question asks some interesting questions and notes some possible problems:

For one, as the article notes, most NATO countries do not want to be locked into a strategic alliance with a country embroiled in so many tense (to say the least) situations with its neighbors. For two, it would obviously strain relations between the NATO bloc and the Islamic world. Unfortunate, and possibly worth biting, but still a real concern. The third issue, however, which I think might be overlooked, is how Israel's contribution to NATO might be severely circumscribed by geopolitical realities. The article questions whether Israel will want to contribute troops to foreign peacekeeping operations. That, by which I mean Israeli willingness, I don't see as a major problem. The issue is that many of the locations for peacekeeping won't be willing to accept Israeli contributions. Putting Israeli troops in a peacekeeping force in Darfur, for example, would be a colossal PR disaster and would immediately be seized upon by the government (who, if you recall, already blames the Jews) and would make the job that much tougher. There are plenty of areas in which an Israeli contribution, though materially useful, would be diplomatically suicidal, and that I feel would create a serious strain on the alliance.

Excellent points all. The third, which David identifies as perhaps the most problematic, I don't find as troubling. After all, US soldiers rarely get involved in peacekeeping for largely the same reasons that Israeli forces wouldn't: they would make too tempting of a target and cause too much political strain. The Europeans do most of the heavy lifting when NATO gets involved with peacekeeping, and I don't see why, if Israel was to join, that would need to change. If/when Israel's entry into NATO might inflame the Arab/Islamic states, but Turkey's membership should do a little to assuage that. Also, would it really be have that much worse of an effect than US-Israeli ties already do?

The original article mentions that the odds of Israel joining NATO before a resolution of the Palestinian issue are low, but to me that seems to have things backward. Israeli accession to NATO would go a long way to easing a lot of the security concerns felt by Israel, especially those posed by Iran and the proliferation problems there. If Israel no longer has to worry about dealing with Iran, if Israel is protected by the American nuclear umbrella and NATO's collective defense, Israel would no longer need to worry about its northern borders. The more secure Israel feels, the more it may be willing to make progress on a Palestinian homeland. Membership in NATO would also send a clear message to those who refuse to recognize Israel (i.e. Hamas) that striving for Israel's destruction is a fool's errand.

Of course, all of this speculation is merely that for now. It's hard to imagine any serious movement towards admitting Israel into NATO. But I do see it as a move worth making.

The Lessons of MLK for IR

As I enjoy one last day of winter break before the Spring semester begins tomorrow, I thought it appropriate to think a bit on this day in honor of Martin Luther King about the lessons from MLK that can be applied to international relations. Focusing on the outstanding "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," written in response to a critique of non-violent confrontation instead of continued negotiation published by eight clergy, we find the essence of MLK's strategy of non-violence:

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action. We have gone through an these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants --- for example, to remove the stores humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained.

As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self-purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves : "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct-action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic with withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.

...

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

...

One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?" The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

...

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may won ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the Brat to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful. Paul Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression 'of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?....

When reading King's forceful defense of the need for non-violent confrontation, I cannot but help think of the Palestinians. It is not difficult to imagine that an approach that relied less on rockets, kidnappings, and suicide bombs would have already resulted in an independent Palestinian state. For all its brutality and unjustness in the treatment of the Palestinians, Israel is a liberal democracy that realizes the contradictions and problems that result from the occupation. Oppressing the Palestinians rips at the moral soul of the country and its people every day. But, when people feel threatened, when their children are kidnapped or murdered, when missiles slam in to their homes, when sitting in a coffee shop becomes an adventure in risk taking, injustice can be explained away as necessary self-defense.

If Palestinians were lying down in front of Israeli bulldozers, chaining themselves to their olive trees, conducting sit-ins in Jewish settlements in the territories, would Israel react differently than did the US during the civil rights era? It seems unlikely. Instead, however, Palestinians turned to violence almost from the beginning of Israel's history, even before the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 war.

It will be interesting to see what difference the security fence being built in the West Bank will have. By most accounts, suicide bombings in Israel have nearly stopped and 2006 saw the fewest Israeli deaths in six years. The withdrawal from Gaza, which was already fenced off from Israel, and the construction of the fence have made it exceedingly difficult for Palestinians to infiltrate themselves into Israel. As Israeli casualties drop and Israelis begin to feel more secure in their everyday lives, they very well be more willing to consider the plight of the Palestinians. As Palestinians find that violence is a less effective strategy, perhaps they might turn to a MLK-like program of non-violent confrontation to force the issue.

As King noted, "freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." Hopefully, the Palestinians can learn, or be taught, that violence is not an effective demand.

Manama Dialogue: Keynote Address

The Manama Dialogue opened last night in Bahrain, with a keynote address from HRH Prince Muqrin Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Chief of General Intelligence, Saudi Arabia. The full text of his remarks can be found here.

The Prince made several points worthy of comment. First:

The fact that Israel is having nuclear weapons is the most dangerous threat against the Gulf security for both the near and the middle future. Consequently, some countries in the region took part in the competition for having nuclear weapons, as this is currently witnessed. It may be unanimously agreed that the spread of mass destruction weapons in the region will make the security issues more complicated in the whole region. It will rather give the right for the countries in the region to adopt policies and to make alliances with the countries of nuclear technology. It will also stimulate moderate countries in the region which adopts policies for eliminating mass destruction weapons, to make nuclear programs (whether concealed or declared) aiming at creating military balance in the region in order to defend their interests, gains and beliefs.

We believe that most of the problems in the region, their consequences of political attitudes and the increase of the terrorists’ acts, are closely related to the Middle East’s first issue, the Palestinian issue which will have a constant impact in the whole region since it has serious effects upon the international security and stability. This is in case this issue remains unsolved.

In view of the aforesaid, the international powers, that are concerned in this issue, are asked to perform there role impartially so as to find suitable solutions that would create peaceful coexistence among the countries in the region including Israel. Such coexistence should be based upon justice and equality in accordance with the Arabian Peace Initiative adopted in Beirut Summit in 2002. This will guarantee a fair solution for the Arab – Israeli conflict.

Two things are wrapped up here: First, the issue of the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East/Persian Gulf; and second, the Israel-Palestine conflict. Of course, if these are the two most pressing issues of Persian Gulf security, and if NW proliferation is "the most dangerous threat against the Gulf security for both the near and the middle future" then why is Israel not attending this summit? It is absurd to not invite the country that is believed to be the primary security concern, particularly when the likely solutions to those concerns are going to be negotations, not confrontation. This points out the gap between the rhetoric coming out of these countries with the political realities.

Israel has long been an attractive and useful whipping point for the authoritarian regimes of the Middle East and Persian Gulf. This is not to deny that there are serious political concerns or that Israel is never at fault or to blame. But Israel is most definitely not, on either dimension identified by Prince Muqrin (I apologize if I am violating some protocol with such a reference...I've never had to refer to royalty before), the primary threat to the region.

Israel developed nuclear weapons sometime in the late 1960s and there has been little to no proliferation pressure on its neighbors since. In fact, it was Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons that finally convinced Egyptian President Anwar Sadat that a military victory by Arab armies was impossible, which directly led to the Camp David Peace Accords.

Prince Muqrin insinuates that the current proliferation crisis in Iran is a response by Iran to Israel's nuclear capability. But this makes no sense. Israel has never, except in the context of the current crisis, threatened Iran. In fact, quite the contrary, with Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly threatening to destroy Israel. Rather, Iran's desire for nuclear weapons is much more a response to US hegemony. The international community has, in the wake of two US-Iraq wars, learned that no state can become a regional power unless it can challenge the US, and no state can stand up to the US without a nuclear weapon.

Furthermore, while many countries repeatedly point to the Palestinian problem as the key to resolving larger regional issues, I'm very skeptical of such a claim. I am on the record stating that Israel needs to do more enable a negotiated settlement. However, while it may be true that the "Arab street" (which includes Iran, a non-Arab country...maybe it should the "Muslim Street?") cares deeply about the Palestinians, there is little evidence that the regimes are willing to pay anything more than lip service to the cause. Historically, Arab solidarity has been little more than a strategically-driven pipe dream, and there has been little effort to advance the process or ease the misery of the Palestinians. Concern for the Palestinian cause is a useful way for the region's leaders to deflect public attention and anger from their own shortcomings, and provides a important outlet for the frustrations of their peoples. But there has been very little political pressure or incentive coming from these regimes for any kind of serious settlement. For example, where is the pressure on Hamas to recognize Israel?
Such a step could be vitally important in transforming the political dynamic.

Again, if Israel is so vitally important and threatening to the region, then at the very least, Israel should be invited to such an event as this. Its absence indicates the supremacy of politics over policy.

The second noteworthy comment by Prince Muqrin is:

Other factors of threat against security in our region are the issue of non-employment, and the foreign labours. Non-employment in the Gulf countries is in constant increase. It is a factor of instability that affects the security of the region’s countries. As the number of the untrained foreign labours who enter legally to our countries is getting more and more, in addition to such labours who enter illegally, then there will be serious economic, political, security and social effects. Illegal labours make labour camps in the gulf countries with the purpose of getting illegal profits. So, if this problem is not solved by the cooperation of the countries of origin of those labours, this will aggravate the security and social problems and the damages are to be incurred by the countries of the region, especially, the Gulf countries.

Now here the Prince is, I believe, right on. Globalization is the key to the economic development and success of these countries. Most of the countries have little economic productivity outside of oil, with Jordan being a notable exception. A state's economy needs to be broad-based, resting on many different sectors. For too long, the oil-based regimes of the Middle East and Persian Gulf have counted on oil revenues to buoy their economies and countries as a whole, but that will no longer suffice. These countries must be, and are, as evidenced by the large numbers of Middle East and Gulf countries in the WTO, willing to open their economies to international trade in order to develop their own domestic production.

However, such openness will not be easy. Free trade always produces short-term dislocations, as capital moves to its most efficient uses. Furthermore, increased openness to trade also producues increased openness to outside cultural influences, which could exacerbate some of problems that currently exist between Islam and the Western countries. Finally, economic reform demands and produces political reform. How far will these non-democratic regimes be willing to go and how much power will they be willing to give up to improve economic and living conditions for their people?

This may, in fact, be the most important question for Gulf security. Economic and political opportunity are some of the strongest predictors of peace and stability in international politics. As more countries move to improve the domestic conditions within and the political structures that control, the more likely it will be that security concerns can be resolved through negotiation and cooperation, rather than competition.

Mixed Messages in Palestine

In the wake of the announcement that Hamas and Fatah will form a unity government to lead the Palestinians comes a fair amount of confusion about whether the new government, and more specifically Hamas, will recognize Israel's right to exist and commit itself to pursuing a negotiated land-for-peace settlement rather than violence. Yesterday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas from Fatah declared that the new unity government would recognize Israel. Abbas said that "I would like to reaffirm that any future Palestinian government will commit to all the agreements that the PLO and the Palestinian National Authority have committed to," agreements understood to include the mutual recognition documents signed in 1993 by Yasir Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin. Furthermore:

These letters contain mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO, renunciation of violence, and commitment to negotiations as the path toward reaching a permanent solution that will lead to the establishment of the independent state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel. Any future government will commit to imposing security and order, to ending the phenomena of multiple militias, indiscipline and chaos and to the rule of law.

However, today Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas announced that he would neither recognize Israel nor head any government that did so. Haniyeh is seen as one of the more moderate leaders of Hamas, and his unwillingness to commit to Abbas' government harkens to problems as the Palestinians try to create the unity government. Fatah has been trying to figure out a way in which Hamas can participate and tacitly recognize Israel without being forced to publicly announce the change, for example by accepting the mutual recognition documents as part of the government but not in its party platforms. It is unlikely that Israel, and more importantly for the purposes of ending the isolation of the Palestinian government and re-opening the money taps, the US, would accept such vague language.

However, this would be a mistake. If Hamas is boxed in to a corner where its only choice to recognize Israel and thereby alienate its popular support, it may not be willing to do so. What is more important is that Hamas commit itself to pursuing peaceful negotiations and cracking down on renegade militias. As I noted in a previous post, Israel and the US need to develop clear guidelines for what kind of behavior will and will not be tolerated from a Palestinian government. If Hamas can demonstrate the ability and willingness to control its gunmen and a consolidation of power in the hands of the government and away from the militias (including itself), it should be accepted as the legitimate governor of Palestine and as a real negotiating partner, regardless of whether it can say the words of recognition.

Progress in Palestine?

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has announced a deal with Hamas whereby the rival parties will cooperate in a unity government, and negotiations are underway to dissolve the existing Hamas-led government and replace it with a coalition cabinet. it is expected that Hamas will keep the prime ministry, with Fatah keeping the presidency with Abbas, and other cabinet positions being divided between the two. The deal is designed to end the international isolation of the Palestinian government imposed since the electoral victory by Hamas back in January that has cost the Palestinians hundreds of millions of dollars and made it impossible for the government to pay the salaries of its employees. According to the Washington Post:

Details of the agreement mark the first time Hamas has tacitly endorsed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if not explicitly the Jewish state's right to exist. Hamas and Fatah announced a tentative agreement several months ago, but it was never officially signed because of the tumult of an Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip following the June 25 capture of Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit by gunmen from Hamas's military wing.

This is certainly good news, but it is not yet reason to celebrate or re-open the money faucets. The appropriate metric of Palestinian willingness to participate in the negotiated peace process is not whether Hamas is able to share power, but whether the Palestinian government as a whole is willing and (more or less) able to crack down on extra-governmental militias. As Lebanon learned the hard way, a government cannot function if it does not enjoy a monopoly of violence within its own borders. For far too long, both Fatah and Hamas have been unwilling to subordinate their own militias and fighters to the central government. Each has been unwilling to disarm the fighters of rival groups. Thus, even when one party is negotating in good faith, it cannot control what the other groups are doing, giving small militia groups an effective veto over the negotiations.

If the Palestinian government is to be regarded as legitimate and resume receiving international aid, it must move towards unifying the various armed groups operating in the West Bank and Gaza. This is not to say that it must be capable to preventing any and all armed attacks against Israel. However, the government cannot continue to extend one hand in peace while pretending not to know the other hand is throwing a bomb. Israel and the US should immediately work with the new unity government to develop clear metrics and guidelines to determine how successful the Palestinians are at gaining control of their fractured society and political operators.

What Does Amnesty International Know?

Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing war crimes during the recent conflict in Lebanon, claiming that the bombing of Lebanon constituted indiscriminate attacks against a civilian population and national infrastructure. There has been a very interesting discussion of this question over at Opinio Juris, along with links to a long-running discourse/argument between Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch, Abraham Foxman, the director of the Anti-Defamation League, Alan Dershowitz, and the editorial staff of the New York Sun.

Most of the debate focuses on questions like whether Israel was justified in bombing the Beirut airport or whether Hezbollah's policies of basing near civilian populations justifies the severity of the Israeli attacks. These are all interesting and important questions, but I would like to focus on a different aspect.

How are Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch making the determinations that the Israeli attacks are war crimes, rather than tragic collateral damage? What methodology do these groups use to assess the legal and moral culpability of Israel, Lebanon, and Hezbollah? How are the deaths of Lebanese civilians weighed against Lebanon's unwillingness to deal with Hezbollah or Israel's need and right to defend itself? Any fair and serious analysis of war must involve clear and open methods and calculations.

Unfortunately, neither Amnesty nor HRW employs an overt methodology, leaving their conclusions and motives in question. Reading over Amnesty's report "Deliberate Destruction or 'Collateral Damage'? Israeli Attacks on Civilian Infrastructure" is, of course, saddening. However, Amnesty provides no mechanism other than a litany of assertions and list of destruction to bolster its claim of war crimes. Yes, Israel attacked civilians homes, water facilities, electricity and fuel supplies, and other areas of Lebanese infrastructure. But Lebanon had become home to a large, well-armed and trained military organization that existed outside of the bounds of the sovereign government; one that chose to cross and international border and kidnap soldiers of another state. Amnesty's report is basically a long list chronicling the damage Israel did to Lebanon, but provides no guide for how to judge or assess that damage.

War is, to be trite, hell. People die. Innocent civilians die. Vital national infrastructure is destroyed. If anyone at Amnesty International, or anywhere else, can tell me how to fight a clean, cost-free war in which only enemy soldiers are killed, I'm all ears. Unfortunately, it's impossible. Even more unfortunately, war is sometimes necessary. Israel did not want this war, nor did it start it. Hezbollah, a member of the Lebanese parliament and the de facto government in southern Lebanon did. I'm not saying Israel did or did not go too far in its response. That's a topic for a different post. But you can't make a case for war crimes by simply listing the damage. What Amnesty International is doing here is disingenuous and discrediting to the organization. In fact, this confirms in my mind what I wrote in an earlier post: Groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are really pacifists trying to disguise their true motives by cloaking them in moral arguments. If everyone in the whole world could play by the rules desired by Amnesty, fine. But to demand that democratic states do so in the face of brutal adversaries is just idiocy.

So, until Amnesty International develops some kind of analytic mechanism to assess conflict, its reports hold no weight or merit. Furthermore, wild and unsupported accusations like this (and let's not forget the bogus reports of the Jenin "massacre" which Human Rights Watch continues to insist occurred) undermine both the good works these groups do, as well as the case for the laws of war. War is a necessity that is not going away. It's one thing to make serious arguments and analysis about its moral and legal nature; it's another thing entirely to, essentially, argue that states cannot commit hostilities. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch would be better served to devoting their attentions to what they know best: freeing prisoners of conscience and shaming gross violators of human rights.

UPDATE: David Bernstein over at The Volokh Conspiracy has more on this issue. Money quote:

Apparently, HRW thinks it's okay to accuse a country of war crimes based solely on hearsay evidence of male "villagers", acquired while the war was ongoing, who are hanging out in a POG stronghold during an Israeli bombardment, after being warned to leave. Even if these villagers were not POG affiliates (but maybe they are) or even sympathizers, how do you think Hezbollah would have reacted if they had been quoted in an HRW report during the war as stating that Israel was only carefully targeting POG strongholds? I certainly wouldn't issue life insurance to them under such circumstances.