UPDATED Israel-Palestine: US Envoy Mitchell Talks, Netanyahu Tries to Seize Control

Related Post: Netanyahu Staff Launch Attack on Obama White House

UPDATE (13:15 GMT): After his meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas today, George Mitchell restated his mantra that both sides should adhere to the 2003 "road map". Significantly, however, he made explicit the US commitment to an outcome with an independent Palestine: "The only viable resolution to this conflict is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states."

President Obama's envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, visited Israeli leaders on Tuesday and again established why he is an outstanding diplomat. Only problem? Someone is trying to out-flank him, and that someone is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

After discussions with Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and President Shimon Peres. Rather, Mitchell showed his ability to make a suitable statement to the press without revealing any substance of the talks. Mitchell had told Netanyahu, ""We are two allies, two friends, and our commitment to Israel's security is unshakeable....We come here to talk not as adversaries in disagreement but as friends in discussion."

As for the issues, Mitchell said they were "complex and many. But we hope that we're going to work our way through them to achieve the objective that we share with [Israel], and that is peace, security, and prosperity throughout the region." President Peres' office gave the vaguest of explanations in a statement (no doubt agreed with Mitchell) that all parties “have a responsibility to meet their obligations under the road map". There was no specific reference to the touchstone issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which is in that 2003 "road map". (Indeed, there was so little on the surface to "report" that The Washington Post did not even bother to cover the story.)

Beyond Mitchell, however, Israeli officials had offered more than enough to flesh out the current state of US-Israel talks and tensions. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, disguising its sources, revealed that Mitchell had "reiterated...that the Obama administration is adamantly insisting on a freeze of construction in all Israeli settlements in the West Bank", although he "demonstrated a more moderate tack in discussing his government's disagreements". The Jerusalem Post, courtesy of Netanyahu's office, offered the other side of the coin: while a senior official said there was a move towards "definition of the issues" with some "convergence", "Mitchell..was told that Israel would not bring all settlement construction to a complete halt".

These leaks, however, are far from the entire story. Indeed, it appears that the Mitchell discussions are an (important sideshow) to the main event: Netanyahu's manoeuvres to seize control of the Palestine issue.

On Sunday, the Israeli Prime Minister declared that he would make a "major" speech on foreign policy in the following week. Later he talked to Barack Obama by phone, no doubt exchanging pleasantries about the arrival of the President's envoy.

Within hours of that talk, however, the Prime Minister moved aggressively. "Netanyahu's confidants" told Ha'aretz, "[He] believes that U.S. President Barack Obama wants a confrontation with Israel, based on Obama's speech in Cairo last week." Netanyahu's office also is the probable source of press stories that Obama is making unreasonable demands for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement by the end of July:

Netanyahu expects Obama to present his plan for peace in the Middle East next month. He fears that the president will present positions that will not be easy for Israel to accept, such as a demand to withdraw to the lines of June 4, 1967.

And here's the twist in the tale. The immediate challenge to Netanyahu may not come from Washington: with no immediate concessions, Mitchell moves today to talks with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to keep all the pieces in play. Instead, the Prime Minister was openly opposed last night by his own Defense Minister, Ehud Barak.

Speaking to veterans of the Israeli military and intelligence services last night, Barak declared, in the paraphrasing of Ha'aretz:

It would be a mistake for Israel to be the one preventing Obama from trying to bring a peace agreement to the Middle East....If we do not accept the two-state solution, we will find ourselves with an apartheid policy or a state in which we are the minority.

Barak added the caveat that, up to now, the responsibility for the failure to get a solution lay with the Palestinians: "For years, we have tried to reach just such an agreement, but always failed because of the other side." He said that Israel had to maintain flexibility as it sought a settlement that "cannot be reopened again in the future".

The Palestinians, however, are in the distance. For now, the main concern of the US and even of some in the Israeli Cabinet is Benjamin Netanyahu. What will he say on Sunday? Barak replied directly to the question, "I don't know. I have guesses, but nothing more."

Lebanon's Elections: From Global "Showdown" to Local Reality

Related Post: Lebanon and Iran Elections - It’s All About (The) US



UPDATE --- IT'S ABOUT (THE) US: For Michael Slackman of The New York Times, it's not a question of Washington shaping the Lebanese outcome: "Political analysts...attribute it in part to President Obama’s campaign of outreach to the Arab and Muslim world." You can slap the Obama model on top of any election to get the right result: "Lebanon’s election could be a harbinger of Friday’s presidential race in Iran, where a hard-line anti-American president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, may be losing ground to his main moderate challenger, Mir Hussein Moussavi."

Simon Tisdall, normally a shrewd observer of international affairs, trots out the same simplicities in The Guardian of London: "It's possible that watching Iranians will be encouraged in their turn to go out and vote for reformist, west-friendly candidates in Friday's presidential election. Lebanon may be just the beginning of the 'Obama effect'."

Juan Cole has posted a more thoughtful assessment, even as he opens with the reductionist and sensationalist declaration, "President Obama's hopes for progress on the Arab-Israeli peace process would have been sunk if Hezbollah had won the Lebanese elections.")

My immediate reaction to the results of Lebanon's elections, in which a "March 14" coalition of largely Sunni Muslim and Christian groups including Saad Hariri, the son of the slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, maintained a Parliamentary majority (71 of 128 seats) over a "March 8" coalition of largely Shia Muslim and Christian groups including Hezbollah?

Surprise.

Not surprise at the result, even though many observers expected the Hezbollah coalition, which also included the Shia party Amal and the Christian party led by former President Michel Aoun, to take a narrow majority of seats. The balance of the result came in a handful of seat in largely Christian areas, and those groups in March 14 were able to mobilise their supporters more effectively than their counterparts in March 8.

The surprise instead came as I read, in American and British media, the sometimes vapid, often reductionist, possibly counter-productive framing of the outcome: "Pro-Western bloc defeats Hezbollah in crucial poll", "a Western-backed coalition...thwart[ed] a bid by the Islamist Hezbollah party to increase its influence". "a hotly contested election that had been billed as a showdown between Tehran and Washington for influence in the Middle East". Even one of the best "Western" analyses of the result, Robert Fisk's assessment in The Independent, was converted through an editor's headline to "Lebanese voters prevent Hizbollah takeover".

Anyone reading these headlines could be forgiven for concluding that the March 8 group consisted solely of "Islamist" Hezbollah, even though it fielded only 11 candidates (all of whom won) put forth by the coalition. Conversely, the March 14 bloc needed no further identification beyond "US-backed". The New York Times account did not even bother, apart from one phrase buried deep in the article, to explain what "March 14" was. It was enough to depict in the opening paragraphs "a significant and unexpected defeat for Hezbollah and its allies, Iran and Syria" and "Hezbollah itself — a Shiite political, social and military organization that is officially regarded by the United States and Israel as a terrorist group".

The post-election reality is likely to be far more mundane though important, not for US and British interpretations of "Hezbollah v. US (and Israel), but for the Lebanese people. Since the assassination of Rafik Hariri in June 2005 and Syria's withdrawal from the country, Lebanon --- with a fascinating but often frustrating political system trying to hold together Sunnis, Shi'a, and Christians --- has struggled to maintain a working national government. After months of effective suspension, a "National Unity" Cabinet with former General Suleiman as President was finally agreed in 2008. Members of the March 8 bloc held 1/3 of the Cabinet seats and a veto on proposed legislation.

The nominal March 14 majority does not resolve that situation. As Robert Fisk observes, "The electoral system – a crazed mixture of sectarianism, proportional representation and 'list' fixing – means that no one ever really "wins" elections in Lebanon, and yesterday was no different." So today Lebanon returns to the issue of whether that system will be maintained. While not making an explicit commitment, Saad Hariri said all parties must "give a hand to each other and have the will to go back to work". Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nasrallah, conceding defeat, offered conciliation: "We accept the official results in a sporting spirit. I would like to congratulate all those who won, those in the majority and those in the opposition."

The first post-election issue is likely to be whether the March 8 groups will retain their Cabinet veto. Withdrawing it risks a breakdown of "unity" and a return to the pre-2008 suspension of Government; maintaining it limits the scope for legislation and precludes the demand, put forth by Israel and the United States, for the disarming of Hezbollah's militias. And even before that, there is the question of who becomes Prime Minister: according to Al Jazeera, US officials prefer current PM Fouad Siniora to Hariri.

No doubt the veneer of Lebanon's result as a critical step in the Middle East peace process will continue for a few days, as. The Wall Street Journal declared, "The push back of Hezbollah is seen as providing President Barack Obama more diplomatic space to pursue his high-profile Arab-Israeli peace initiative." The reality, however, is that this image of Lebanon --- and beyond that, the Hezbollah v. US-Israel-peace-loving countries narrative --- is more pretext than substance, especially with the post-2005 Syrian pullback. I suspect that the issues that preoccupy most Lebanese are internal rather than external, and the space to deal with those political and economic matters would be welcomed.

So the danger is not that a Lebanon led by Hezbollah, and behind Hezbollah its "masters" in Iran, will emerge to challenge Israel and the US. Instead, the political knife cuts the other way: external rhetoric of the Hezbollah danger, a rhetoric which can always be escalated not to advance the regional peace process but to block it, would simply add to the internal tensions as Lebanon tries to find a stable political leadership in a time of great economic and social change.

So, as the Middle Eastern road show returns to more established venues --- George Mitchell in Israel and possibly Syria this week, a Hamas delegation including Khaled Meshaal going to Cairo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promising a major foreign policy speech --- here's a proposed follow-up for the headline writers on Lebanon.

Leave It Be.

UPDATED After the Obama Speech: Israel Re-Positions on Settlements, Two-State Solution

Related Post: Jerusalem - Obama the Pragmatist Puts A Challenge to Israel
Related Post: After the Obama Speech - Hamas Asks, "Is He Ready to Walk the Way He Talks?"

UPDATE: Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu, to seize the initiative or to fend off US pressure, declared at the start of today's Cabinet meeting that he would deliver "a major speech" next week on Israeli foreign policy: ""We want to achieve peace with the Palestinians and with the countries of the Arab world, while attempting to reach maximum understanding with the U.S. and our friends around the world."

Meanwhile, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports, "Senior U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama's Mideast envoy George Mitchell, say they might propose immediate talks on setting Israel's border along the West Bank." This is a clever counter to Israel's position that it should not halt the construction of settlements, as "those blocs will remain in Israel under a final-status agreement". Washington has thus upped the ante, forcing Tel Aviv to consider a border (and thus a two-state) resolution.

It may be less than 48 hours since President Obama's speech in Cairo, but the US and Israel are already manoeuvring --- and testing each other --- over Palestine.

The Netanyahu Government appears to be giving some ground in the face of Obama's strong line for a two-state solution and a freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Israel Radio reports that "officials in Jerusalem assessed that Israel will eventually have no other option but to accept the establishment of a Palestinian state".

The move is tactical, conceding on the general, long-term aim so Israel can hold the line on immediate objectives: "If Netanyahu agrees to adopt the road map peace plan, he will prevent Obama's administration from pressuring Israel into accepting the establishment of a Palestinian state in different circumstances." Specifically, "[Israeli] senior diplomats involved in preparing US envoy George Mitchell's upcoming visit to Israel reportedly said that Netanyahu will insist on continued settlement construction to accommodate natural growth".

And, beyond Netanyahu, there were other signs of Israelis digging in on the settlements question. Hours after Obama's speech, settlers and activists rebuilt an illegal outpost dismantled the previous day by security forces. On Friday morning, settlers constructed a new outpost, complete with a synagogue a wooden structure called an "Obama Hut". An activist declared:

[Obama is] an Arab Muslim and a gentile, he is fighting against the Jewish people and has declared that he will continue to do so. We already stated our intention to continue to build, no matter who is fighting us - Egypt, Germany or the US."

In response, Washington sent out get-tough signals. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared at a Friday news conference, "I do not recall any agreement between Israel and George Bush's… previous government, according to which Israel will be authorized to extend the construction of settlements in the West Bank." Following up Clinton's statement, American officials told Israeli counterparts that the US would delay moving its Embassy form Tel Aviv to Jerusalem for six months.

Obama's Strategy in the Middle East: Resetting with Rhetoric One More Time

One useful way of considering tomorrow's grand Middle Eastern speech by President Obama is to recall that it was supposed to be delivered three or four months ago. Soon after the election, Obama's advisors briefed the press that the new President, within weeks of the Inauguration, would be addressing the world from Cairo. His high hopes for a new region, with the vision that long-term enemies could live and progress together, would be followed by talks fostered by US representatives.

Israel's invasion of Gaza ruined that plan, so the Obama White House went to Plan B. Obama's special envoy, George Mitchell, and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made high-profile trips to the region; there were specific missions by diplomats, such as Jeffrey Feltman's and Daniel Shapiro's trip to Damascus. Middle Eastern leaders --- Abdullah of Jordan, Netanyahu of Israel, Abbas of the Palestinian Authority --- came to Washington.

The only hitch is that, after all the travel and photo opportunities, there has been no notable advance. Israel, now led by the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu, has not only balked at any prospect of talks that would lead to a Palestinian state or a headline measure such as a freeze on settlement expansion in Jerusalem and the West Bank. And, with Tel Aviv making no movement, Arab governments have pulled away from the symbolic advance of "recognition", for example, by allowing overflights of their countries by Israeli commercial planes.

So Obama takes the podium in Cairo, after talks in Saudi Arabia today, empty-handed. Speaking to the Israeli Parliament on Monday, Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly slapped down the American demand on settlements --- his Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, is in the US offering the "compromise" of "dismantling unauthorized settlement outposts", which does nothing to address the American concern about legally-authorized construction. Obama, rather weakly, told the BBC that he would look to Arab States to offer some measures for a regional peace process, knowing (I suspect) that there is no prospect of that. Saudi Arabia wants some signal from Tel Aviv that the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, launched by Riyadh, is a starting platform. Damascus, with Israel not even creeping towards a resumption of indirect talks, plays a waiting game.

What, oh what, can this President do? Well, he will do what he has done best so far. He will by-pass the specific difficulties with the clarion call to engagement based on mutual respect and interests. It worked in his Inaugural Speech, it worked in the Al-Arabiya television interview in January, and it worked in his address in Ankara (which is now our #1 story in the last eight months and continues to be in the Top 5 on most days). Obama's rhetoric may be derided by some domestic critics for its refusal to situate Islam as subservient to "American values" and for his "apologies" for past actions in US foreign policy, but it has succeeded with many overseas listeners precisely because it recognises those listeners, rather than demanding adherence first to an American position.

That is why, in recent days, Obama and his advisors have shifted from discussion of particular elements in a "peace process" to the general statement, repeated on two occasions by the President in his interview with National Public Radio on Monday, that it is "early in the process". The President will undoubtedly mention (according to McClatchy Newspapers, "forcefully endorse") a Palestinian state, but he will set out no timetable or specific steps towards that state. He will cite "areas of mutual interest" with Arab and Islamic countries but will be more concrete in his suggestions on defeating "violent extremism" than on negotiations toward political and economic agreements.

One could argue, of course, that is still quite an achievement after 4+ months in office, especially as every US President since Dwight Eisenhower in 1953 has pursued an Arab-Israeli settlement and none --- with the notable exception of Jimmy Carter --- has had a lasting success. And it looks like Obama will wow his observers in the American media (with the exception, of course, of ardently pro-Israeli outlets and of Bush Administration supporters who cling to the fiction that "democracy promotion" was the primary aim of that President's eight years in office). The working consensus is "a brave and possibly historic effort" with "an evenhanded approach", and Obama's rhetorical power is likely to sustain that praise.

(Beyond well-meaning support for the President, there are the more troubling hurrahs of self-serving sycophancy. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, after preening that he told Obama a joke during their 20 minutes of phone time, offers without further awareness or reflection: "The president has no illusions that one speech will make lambs lie down with lions. Rather, he sees it as part of his broader diplomatic approach that says: If you go right into peoples’ living rooms, don’t be afraid to hold up a mirror to everything they are doing, but also engage them in a way that says ‘I know and respect who you are.’ You end up — if nothing else — creating a little more space for U.S. diplomacy. And you never know when that can help.")

The issue, however, is whether Obama's audience in the Middle East and beyond will settle for feel-good but abstract advances. US supporters of the President are exalting his forthright stance on Israeli settlements, but the fact remains that Tel Aviv has been equally forthright so far in rebuffing Obama. If that intransigence continues, Washington's Plan B is vague, limited so far to talk of not guaranteeing an American veto in defence of Israel in the United Nations Security Council (and not even mentioning, as the George H.W. Bush Administration did, withholding of US economic and military aid).

And, of course, the settlements are only Tel Aviv's first line of defence against an attack for a two-state Israel-Palestine resolution. If Washington gets its way, there will then be the issue of the Israeli wall cutting across the West Bank, and then the issue of the status of Jerusalem, and then the Palestinian civilian "right of return" to the lands they lost in 1948, and then the Israeli military's "right of return" to the West Bank if it perceives a security threat, and then the small matter of a place called Gaza.

One might respond that Israel-Palestine is only one issue in the complexities of the region. True, but it is a touchstone issue (rather than, for example, Israel's preferred option of Iran). Symbolically, the failure to get a resolution that accords not respect but a meaningful economic and political status for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza will be held up by others, whether for the benevolent reason that they see it as an essential case of justice and rights or for the less-than-benevolent reason that they want to divert attention from issues in their own communities and countries or the very malevolent reason that they want to justify hostile and often violent action against perceived enemies.

But, for those who want a context beyond Israel and Palestine (or, rather, Israel and the West Bank of the Palestinian Authority), Obama has set himself even bigger problems. There are the questions of how Obama can walk the tight-rope between support for political freedom and US alliances, powerfully demonstrated by the location of the President's speech, with far-from-democratic regimes. A less noted but just as significant difficulty with "local" politics emerged in a question from National Public Radio:

You’ve mentioned the — many times, the importance of reaching out to Iran with an open hand; trying to engage that country. Are you also willing to try to engage with Hezbollah or Hamas?

Obama responded with a pretty firm "they can just shove off":

Iran is a huge, significant nation-state that has — you know, has, I think, across the international community been recognized as such. Hezbollah and Hamas are not. And I don’t think that we have to approach those entities in the same way.

The President might as well have said "illegitimate". When the NPR questioner persisted, "Does that change with [Hezbollah's] electoral gains?", Obama refused to grant the political party --- which is likely to be a significant, if not dominant, entity in Lebanon's ruling coalition after this month's elections --- any status:

If — at some point — Lebanon is a member of the United Nations. If at some point they are elected as a head of state, or a head of state is elected in Lebanon, that is a member of that organization, then that would raise these issues. That hasn’t happened yet.

There was a bit more flexibility --- but only a bit --- with Hamas, as Obama said "the discussions...could potentially proceed" if Hamas accepted the conditions of the US-UK-EU-Russia Quartet.

The danger for the President is that, for all his talk of respect and equality, many will see him continuing rather than renouncing the US priority of getting the "right" governments. Vice President Joe Biden's trip to Beirut in the midst of the electoral campaign did not go unnoticed by Lebanese observers. There are suspicions, after a West Bank firefight that killed two leading commanders of Hamas' military wing, that the US is supporting (and possibly prompting) the Palestinian Authority's crackdown on its rival for power. Maybe, in the context of a grand speech, these are just troubling and tangential details. In the absence of an American strategy that offers concrete measures as well as rhetoric, however, the details can take on significance.

I'm not sure that I want to share Robert Fisk's dark vision of tomorrow's events: "I haven't met an Arab in Egypt – or an Arab in Lebanon, for that matter – who really thinks that Obama's 'outreach' lecture in Cairo on Thursday is going to make much difference." On the other hand, I am just as unsettled by talk from the White House that they are "re-setting" the Middle East.

Because, as any gamer knows, you don't hit the Reset button when you are doing well. And while that might bring a change in fortunes, if you keep hitting Reset (the Inaugural Speech, the Al-Arabiya talk, Ankara, now Cairo), an observer may begin to think that no one ever wins.