Last Decade Series: Israel/OPT

What frustration. Certainly I was pretty geared up for the 2009 parliamentary elections in Israel, hoping Kadima would hang on to power, allowing Livni and Abbas to ride off together into the sunset and create the Palestinian state. In retrospect, this was pretty optimistic, and I don't just mean that Kadima lost power to Likud. It probably wouldn't have worked out all that well even if Kadima had taken power, as Palestine still seems to not be in a place where it can run a respectable state, especially in Gaza.

So, first thing's first: the Middle East will be a nasty and inhospitable place for US interests until Palestine gets its own state, period. And yes, I understand that such a goal is highly complex and wrought with problems, many of which are directly the faults of the Palestinian people. But ultimately, it is in the interest of the US and Israel alike to have a Palestinian state with a healthy economy. If I had my druthers (and I rarely do), we could hand Gaza to the Egyptians and merge Palestine and Jordan back into Trans-Jordan and make it the problem of some already-relatively-stable governments to keep a lid on Palestine, but that's not going to happen.

But an independent Palestinian state (and one that, in particular, is content with its borders, which is going to be pretty tough to come by) will mean relative security for its people, and a situation in which aggression on border issues or whatnot with Israel would make life sufficiently worse as to not be worth it. Palestine, as a stable and economically viable state, would have nothing-to-gain-and-everything-to-lose by fighting with Israel, and would therefore have a strong interest in keeping a tighter lid on its more fanatical rocket manufacturers.

And this last decade looked like we were making pretty good progress! The election of Abbas, who should have been seen as a godsend to the West, gave the distinct impression that the Palestinian people were tired of intifadas and ready to sit down, talk, draw some lines on the map, and move on with their lives. The moderate Labor party in Israel showed similar promise. Both sides looked ready to take the risks necessary (and probably suffer through the ensuing pain necessary) to get to that key treaty that we've all been waiting for. But what the heck happened?

The big clincher was probably the Olmert scandal. His loss of moral authority castrated him from being able to drive the necessary treaties through parliament; serious delays popped up. By the time Livni was in a position to do the negotiating, Obama had been elected and the Palestinians wanted to wait around for him (perhaps hoping to gain a strategic advantage from losing an American president that they perceived to be pro-Israel). The elections came, Netanyahu won, settlement-building ramped up, and everybody got very angry at each other again.

Not, of course, that the war in Gaza helped things any--had Israel successfully "dismantled" Hamas, life might be a bit different. But in failing to do so, they were left with only a battered reputation.

At this point, Netanyahu is barely humoring the idea of an independent Palestinian state: he wants it to be fully demilitarized, and wants Israeli settlements to grow into the West Bank "naturally," with the population (and has not made it clear as to what would happen to those settlements if a Palestinian state gets built). Further, he's insisting that all of Jerusalem would stay in Israel. It's a tough stance to negotiate with, even for Abbas. Perhaps the strategy is to try to squeeze more to the Israeli side in a compromise, but at some point, one's demands are so high that the other side is incentivized to walk away from the negotiating table at all.

And so I think that Israel and Palestine are now significantly farther from where they were in, say, 2007, as far as being close enough in official policy to negotiate a compromise and create a Palestinian state. The moderates made key mistakes that blew their opportunities to make serious headway in the 2000s, and they will probably have to wait through another relatively painful cycle before they can make another reach for some sort of steady-state solution.

A Wrench in Middle East Peace?

Earlier, I had been lauding as near-inevitable a realignment in the Middle East that might lead to a lasting peace, particularly with Israel.

Sadly, one of the unspoken keys to this peace process was Prime Minister Olmert, whose moderate stances on Middle East relations have probably been a big part of the willingness of Syria to negotiate peace (and Syria's involvement, I have argued, is critical to reining in Hamas and Hezbollah).

But Mr. Olmert is going to resign, amid charges of corruption that have had the police question him four times already. Whatever happens to him afterwards, he will be leaving without a strong mandate for his current policies to be continued.

And it looks like Netanyahu, a serious tough-guy and (some have said) ultra-nationalist has got poll numbers behind him to take over in snap elections in the fall... which may or may not happen. The ruling Kadima party is weak, and Likud stands to gain a great deal.

Netanyahu is even more prickly than the typical Israeli politician, and has hard-line stances on most countries that consider Israel an enemy, including Iran. He supports keeping settlements in the West Bank, and opposes the Annapolis talks--this would completely dreail any motion towards a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu was Prime Minister already in the 1990's, and is not considered a friendly guy. Quoth Bill Clinton, after a meeting: "Who the fuck does he think he is, who's the fucking superpower here?"

On the good side, Netanyahu's understanding of geopolitics is realist and realistic. He sees Iran as a serious revisionist threat, and Hezbollah and Hamas as proxy terror groups, largely acting at Iran's whim. But does that mean he's thinking about actually using the military to deal with Iran? Israel under a moderate Olmert has certainly been making it look like it's a question on the table--and Netanyahu would support an airstrike more than anyone. This has some pretty scary consequences.

So what happens, if the US has a friendly and weak Obama presidency, and Israel has a tough-nosed Netanyahu? Besides disagreements, the US would have a hard time keeping Israel in line. If rows erupt, or if Netanyahu loses respect or patience for the American president, Israel may begin to act unilaterally against Iran--and let the US deal with the consequences in Iraq or Afghanistan.

But there is another, bizarre posibility. Netanyahu might actually become a looming stick in negotiations with Iran and Syria. While Syria declared that it would wait for US elections to continue peace negotiations, it may now change its mind and hurry up, hoping to slip in the Peace door before it closes on them. US negotiations with Iran may now include a note of saying "look, you want us on your side when Netanyahu takes office." Similar feelings will be felt by Abbas of Palestine, but his ability to control his nation is so limited that it may not matter.

So we should keep our eyes on the Middle East, and see whether Israel's pseudo-enemies are dealing with Olmert's resignation with a hastened need to act, or a resigned move back towards the hard-line geopolitics that Netanyahu wants to play. Bush, if he's smart, is going to seize this opportunity in negotiations with Iran and say "hurry up, kids, we're out of time." Assad, if he's smart, will do the same to Israel (Olmert is largely at a point where he is now incapable of initiative). But now we have to see how smart everyone is willing to be.