Hamas' Khalid Meshaal on Relations with Israel, US

Hamas political director Khalid Meshaal spoke for three hours last week with Paul McGeough, an Australian journalist who has written a book about the rise of Hamas and Israel's attempts to kill Meshaal. In the interview, Meshaal talked about relations with Israel (“Hamas has declared it’s acceptance of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories; we have joined the political process; we have entered short-term truces with Israel - this is the reality that the world needs to deal with" and relations with countries outside the region ("We’re willing to open a new page with the US and Europe....But they have to be serious about dealing with us on Palestinian rights.”), and the political prospects of the organisation (“If the Palestinian people were gamblers, they would bet on Hamas").

This is McGeough's summary, reprinted from Syria Comment:

DAMASCUS: The tea-cup stops short of his lip, as Khalid Mishal pauses to consider the ironies of trench warfare in the Middle East - a lurch to the political right has anointed as Israel’s next prime minister the man who, 11 years ago, sent Mossad agents on a bizarre mission to assassinate Mishal.

It is late Wednesday evening - March 18 - and Mishal sits deep in a plump armchair, in a second-floor reception room. “Netanyahu…,” he asks, returning to his cup of tea. “Its fate, God’s destiny, but we can’t set policy on the basis of personal grudges.”

The Palestinian resistance leader, whose suicide bombers and assassins have taken their own toll on Israeli life over the years, then declares his would-be-killer to be a man of straw. “We’ve already experienced Netanyahu as prime minister of Israel, so Palestinians are not afraid of him second time round,” Mishal vouches.

“After the battle of Gaza [in December-January] and the steadfastness of our people in the face of the Zionist war machine, do you expect a single Palestinian to be scared of this man? It doesn’t matter if he tries again to kill me, because he’s already killed my people.”

At the time of the 1997 attempt on his life, Mishal was an unlikely target - a mid-level Hamas operative, based in Amman, the capital of Jordan.

These days he is the supreme leader of Hamas, hunkering in a bunker set against a scrabbly hillside in the southern suburbs of the Syrian capital, deep inside a secure enclave which is reserved for high officials of the Damascus regime, foreign diplomats and the staff of foreign NGOs.

It is an unmarked, nondescript apartment block that doubles as jihad headquarters and as Mishal’s family home, where his teenage children are just as likely to wander in, taking a seat for the most intense discussions on Hamas operations.

Festooned with swivelling security cameras, the building also is watched over by an outer ring of leather-jacketed security men who juggle firearms and walkie-talkies as they prowl the pavement.

A Hamas car collects select visitors from city hotels - only by prior arrangement. When discretion is needed, one of a fleet of heavy black Mercedes Benz sedans is wheeled out - black curtains are drawn behind the tinted glass.

When greater discretion is required, the Hamas driver jumps the car on to the pavement, easing to a halt under an outstretched awning that hangs from the perimeter wall of the Hamas HQ. The house guards, moving with practised precision, then seize the loose ends of two bunched canvas flaps suspended from the awning, and draw them quickly out to the edge of the pavement, enveloping vehicles as they arrive, before some of Mishal’s more mysterious callers dare to alight.

The arrival of an outsider is an emergency event for Mishal’s suit-and-tied inner security ring. These men frequently speak into microphones concealed in the cuff of their jacket sleeve. Their thoroughness reveals an understanding that their boss is a constant target for a determined enemy.

Beyond an airport-like, walk-through security scanner and up a set of stairs with a dog-legged turn, a heavy, double-bolted door leads into a hallway, from which a visitor is escorted through a set of big double doors into Mishal’s diwan, or meeting place.

Armchairs line the long walls and the décor is various shades of Hamas green. But upon entering, it is a wall of mostly gaunt faces that locks the attention of a visitor - arranged in a honeycomb pattern; they are 20 Hamas leaders, fighters and bomb-makers, all victims of Israel’s campaign of targeted assassination. It is a sobering achievement in life that Mishal has reached age 53 without his visage being added to this wall of death.

The Hamas leader holds forth expansively, negotiating the tripwires of the diplomatic and political minefields that he inhabits daily, with certainty and a confidence that verges on bombast, as he lectures a fast-changing world on how it should respond to his movement - not than the reverse.

This is the first interview in which Mishal, designated a terrorist by Washington and Europe, makes his first detailed response to the outcome of transformative elections in the US and Israel; the Gaza war; and the imminent return to power in Israel of his would-be assassin - Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mishal starts, on what he genuinely seems to believe is a conciliatory note. However, in the corridors of power in Washington and the other capitals of the Middle East Quartet, they likely will be heard as a challenge.

“We’re willing to open a new page with the US and Europe,” he says through an interpreter, daring President Barack Obama to chart a radical change of course in the Middle East as an acknowledgement of decades of failed US policy in the region. “He’ll continue to repeat the mistakes of those who went before him, unless there is a marked change.”

But as Mishal expanded on his ‘new page’ theme, it soon emerges that what he really means to say is that Hamas requires the US and the European Union to open a new page with the Palestinian Islamist movement.

“I don’t mean that Hamas will take a new [policy] position. I’m talking about a readiness on our part to deal with Washington and Europe. But they have to be serious about dealing with us on Palestinian rights.”

Arguing that Washington and its European allied need to abandon their policy of isolating Hamas until the movement folds to conditions set by the Middle East Quartet, Mishal lectures: “They’ve been trying the wrong way and the wrong approach.”

Then he takes apart what he sees as early signs that nothing has changed in Washington since George W. Bush departed the White House in January.

There is little value, Mishal says, in appointing the experienced Northern Irish peace-broker George Mitchell as a US envoy to the Middle East, if he is not authorised to talk to Hamas. “Would he have succeeded in Belfast if he was ordered to ignore the IRA?”

Mishal is derisory of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s ready acceptance of the Bush Administrations’ insistence that Hamas accede to Quartet demands that the Islamists renounce violence, recognise the state of Israel and abide by all previous undertakings on behalf of the Palestinian people.

He belittles Clinton’s warning that international donations for the reconstruction of Gaza had to be kept out of the “wrong hands.” And he ridiculed the seeming contradiction in her invitation to Iran to attend a regional conference on the future of Afghanistan, at the same time as she shunned Hamas on the grounds that not only was it a terrorist group, but “increasingly it was a client of Iran.”

“So despite a new presidency, it’s the same attitude in Washington,” Mishal says. “We expected real change from Obama - not just talk about change.

“They refused to accept the results of the Palestinian election because Hamas won - that failed. They resorted to imposing a siege on the Gaza Strip - that failed. Then they went to war against the Palestinians - and that failed.

“Despite all this, Hamas has advanced and grown, [so] within the logic of real politick, it is Washington that must reconsider its position if they want to achieve an outcome that is not failure.

“The US and Europe have become accustomed to insisting, that the change they demand of the Arabs will be that which is demanded by Israel, [but] the Israeli vision of peace creates only war and chaos.”

The bulk of the Hamas leader’s critique is aimed at Washington’s conduct of what Mishal calls the Palestinian file. And he denies there can be any reason for concern in Hamas at the Obama Administrations dramatic departure from the other policies of its predecessor in the region - its efforts to engage Tehran and Damascus, which could expose Hamas to uncertainties about its future.

Washington is seeking a thaw in its relations with Syria. At the same time it has asked Russia to intervene with Iran, hoping Moscow middlemen might persuade the Iranian regime to back away from its nuclear program. But Syria and Iran are Hamas’ principal sponsors in the region.

Mishal concedes that these indeed are significant events unfolding around his movement. But he prefers to cast them as Obama’s admission of the errors of the Bush II era, or as he puts it, “Washington having to deal with parties that have proved themselves on the ground.”

There’s more lecturing on this theme before he will address the question - which is about the risk that Hamas might become a sacrificial small-fry in any big-picture horse-trading between Washington and Damascus and or Tehran. Mishal inches up to the issue, warning that the U.S. should not seek to “isolate certain parties at the expense of other parties.”

Finally he bites in terms of the position of Hamas. “We’re not worried,” he says. “Hamas is not a card in anyone’s hand. We play an effective role, even in times of dramatic change. Nothing is going to happen in this region until the Palestinian issue is properly addressed - and many countries in the region, including Iran and Syria, hold a principled commitment to the Palestinian cause.”

As much as Mishal criticises Washington, he also pitches a quick plea that it not accept an argument in some quarters that perhaps the U.S. should seek achievable goals elsewhere, while leaving the Palestine-Israel diplomacy to regional players - like Cairo and an increasingly assertive Istanbul. “Israel doesn’t listen to the regional players. The only party that has the power to pressure Israel and to dictate terms to it is Washington.”

Does Khalid Mishal have any regrets about the extent of the damage Israeli forces inflicted on Gaza in December-January - about 1300 Palestinians dead, thousands injured and thousands of homes and other buildings damaged and destroyed? The assault came after Hamas refused to renegotiate a truce, on the grounds that Israel had consistently violated what Hamas understood to be the terms of the six-month ceasefire.

Reminded that the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had publicly acknowledged that had he known the ferocity of the Israeli retaliation when it invaded Lebanon after the abduction of three Israeli soldiers in 2006, he would not have taken the soldiers, Mishal insists that Gaza and Hamas are different cases.

“The 2006 captures were an option, a choice for Hezbollah; so they are entitled to assess the validity of what they did in terms of the consequences for Lebanon. But for the Palestinians, Gaza wasn’t a question of choice.

“Israel was supposed to end the siege and open the border-crossings in return for a halt to the rockets - the rockets stopped, but the siege remained and the crossings stayed closed. It’s unfair to ask Palestinians if they want to die slowly under siege, or quickly under fire.”

Hamas senses a thaw in its isolation. Mishal’s visitors on the day he is interviewed, include parliamentary delegations from Greece and Italy. A few days previously, they came from the British and European parliaments.

These MPs come in a wave of publicity, challenging their governments to engage Hamas. But the trail-blazers came earlier - analysts from American and European think-tanks who decided the time had come to make discrete efforts to understand the Hamas mindset.

These are small, non-government delegations. But they are signs of different times for Hamas, of feelers being extended from corners of the world that till now have gone along with the US-led campaign to keep Hamas snap-frozen. And they are in marked contrast to the cold shoulder Israel is feeling around the world in the aftermath of its ferocious assault on Gaza, a chill that is billed in Israel as the country’s worst diplomatic crisis in two decades.

As Israel increases its PR spend in a bid to arrest its plummeting stocks internationally in the aftermath of Gaza, Hamas is buoyed by confirmation from Britain that, notwithstanding consternation in Washington, it is moving to ease its isolation of Hezbollah, Hamas’ counterpart in Lebanon, by agreeing to talk to its political wing.

London says the move is justified because Hezbollah joined a government of national unity. Given that national unity talks are on foot in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, an argument is being formulated in Hamas that it should be granted the same dispensation by London.

France too has intimated a willingness to open dialogue with Hamas and a growing army of former government officials and international peace negotiators is urging that Hamas be given a seat at the table. Led by former US president Jimmy Carter, who has visited Mishal in Damascus, it includes the likes of former British Prime Minister Tony Bair and the head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki Bin Faisal.

Despite, or perhaps because of the carnage in Gaza, the mood in the Hamas bunker is upbeat - support for the Islamist movement among Palestinians rose markedly after the January hostility, just as it fell for the US-backed Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and his enfeebled Fatah faction, whose writ is confined to the West Bank.

“More and more, the US and Israel and others in their camp understand that they cannot implement their agenda against us - because of the strength that we have acquired,” Mishal says. “Netanyahu destroyed the peace process the last time he was prime minister and his plan now for Palestinians to be limited to some kind of economic independence will fail too.”

Pressed on what policy changes Hamas might make as a gesture to a new regional order, Mishal offers little, arguing: “Hamas has already changed - we accepted the national accords for a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders and we took part in the 2006 Palestinian elections. Where is the response by Washington and the others? All we got was hostility and negativity.”

In particular, Mishal refuses to entertain rewriting Hamas’ offensive charter, despite the chance that such a move could alter perceptions of the movement at the same time as it might serve to protect the movement’s underbelly from sniping by its critics.

In 2005, the Hamas had appointed a committee to review its controversial 1988 Charter - with its offensive language, its anti Semitism, its incitement to battle and is calls for the elimination f the state of Israel. In a costly fit of pique over being consigned to the sinbin by the US and others after its election win, Hamas shelved the review.

Policy changes by Hamas have rendered much of the document redundant. But the continued inclusion of the call for the destruction of Israel has exposes Hamas to regular atacks.

Revealing that the pique of 2006 is just as potent today, Mishal says: “They didn’t give us a chance after we won the election, irrespective of what we might have done.” Will the charter be rewritten - “not a chance.”

“The message to us from the world was absolute rejection of the election outcome, because the result was not acceptable to the US and to corrupt elements of the Palestinian community [read Fatah].

“Our approach is not by means of changing the charter, a document written in 1988, but by virtue of our policy program today. Judge us by what we do today - not by what was written more than 20 years ago.

“Hamas has declared it’s acceptance of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories; we have joined the political process; we have entered short-term truces with Israel - this is the reality that the world needs to deal with. You say people use the Charter as a weapon against us - well, let them.”

For now, at least, Mishal’s public face is that Hamas is prepared to engage the world - but on his terms.

He becomes irritable when questioned about a letter from Hamas to President Obama, which reportedly was passed to US Senator John Kerry during a recent visit to Israel and Gaza.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says. Pressed, he claims that the letter was on behalf of an individual - not the movement.

“If Hamas wishes to communicate with the US Administration, it will do so in a different way - at the right time; in the appropriate manner. Up to now, the Americans have rejected any communication with us. Hamas knows itself well and those who reject it today will find themselves compelled to deal with it tomorrow,” he says.

“In the meantime, Hamas will communicate with Washington through its actions on the ground - I’m talking about all our activities; about our weight and effectiveness; our social welfare and our resistance.”

If that’s how he feels about talking to Washington, what about direct talks with Israel?

Neither side likes to admit it, but Israel and Hamas have demonstrated that they actually can negotiate and in some circumstances, achieve outcomes that are acceptable to each other.

For all the squabbling over how the Gaza truce was breached and by which party, they did agree to a six-month ceasefire last summer - which Hamas held to, despite its view that Israel did not stick to its side of the deal.

There was no agreed text. This was an indirect understanding, arrived at through talks by negotiators for Hamas and Israel who met separately with Egyptian middlemen.

Israel believed that Hamas had agreed to stop the rain of rockets fired from Gaza into nearby Israeli communities. Hoping to breathe some life back into the strip’s comatose economy, Hamas understood that in exchange, Israel would end its year-long siege of Gaza.

Figures quoted by The New York Times, indicate that the rocket-rate was reduced by as much as 80-90 per cent as Hamas curbed its own fire and that of the lesser militia groups in Gaza.

But in comparison, the number of trucks entering Gaza increased only marginally. By closing its border crossings into Gaza, Israel can stop the movement of goods, fuel and people, often allowing a trickle of movement that imposes a level of hardship that amounts to total economic collapse.

Under the June deal, the daily rate of trucks entering Gaza did increase - but only from about 70 a day to about 90 which, according to the figures quoted in The New York Times - well short of a pre-siege delivery-rate of 500-600 trucks a day.

In light of that experience, would Hamas negotiate directly with Israel, to produce documented deals that might allow third parties to more accurately verify compliance or violations?

“Direct or indirect is not the point,” Mishal says. “What really matters is will Israel be truly ready to recognise Palestinian rights and to end the occupation? When Israel is ready to accept this,” he goes on, “we will decide what to do … but we’ll not give them a platform for useless negotiation, for trying to improve their image internationally [because] they always try to buy time and to create new facts on the ground.”

When the shooting stopped in Gaza earlier this year, there were more indirect talks. But Hamas refuses to buckle to Israel’s terms and as Mishal describes it, rather cumbersomely, “the situation is not war like it was in January … and it’s not a state of calm.”

At this point, the Hamas leader stubbornly refuses to acknowledge a more colourful description of events on the ground by one of his colleagues, who told reporters in February, “the [smuggling] tunnels are still operating and rockets are still being fired.”

Mishal refuses to take the question. Pressed to explain, he says: “I am a leader. From my position as leader, I describe and express myself in a manner which I deem to be best when I speak about the situation.”

“But the tunnels are open and rockets are firing, aren’t they?” he is asked. At this point, Mishal becomes Delphic: “You know my way of talking. There is an Arab proverb -‘every situation has its way of being expressed’!”

Mishal insists that it is the Israelis who must explain why the latest truce negotiations collapsed - including their failure to agree terms for the release of the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. But in what Israel will read as a threat, he warns there is a risk that more Israeli troops will captured by Hamas - to increase the pressure for Israel to agree to Hamas’ demand for the release of as many as 1400 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Asked about reports the accuracy of reports that Hamas is seeking freedom for 1400 prisoners, Mishal explains the calculus of the negotiations - from Hamas’ perspective.

In the most celebrated exchanged in the past, three Israeli soldiers were swapped, in 1985, for 1150 Palestinians - almost 400 Palestinians for each Israeli.

Asked how Hamas now could demand more than three times that many Palestinians in return for Shalit’s freedom, he says: “Israel’s prisoner numbers were relatively low in ‘85 - 1150 would have been most of those they held. The number we are seeking for Shalit is only one-tenth of today’s number of Palestinians in Israeli jails.

“The Israelis just don’t learn. When they refuse to release Palestinians, it forces the Palestinians to resort to other means to gain their release - and inevitable this incudes the capture of more Israeli soldiers.”

In the March 18 interview in Damascus, Mishal recommits Hamas to the electoral process in the Occupied Territories - despite Israel rounding up and jailing more than 30 of Hamas’ West Bank MPs in the aftermath of the 2006 election. And in the days after the interview, taking in 10 senior Hamas figures in the West Bank, including four MPs, who Israel described as ‘terror operatives’ - reportedly in a bid to pressure Hamas to accept Israel’s terms in the haggling over Shalit.

Underlying Mishal’s analysis is Hamas’ determination to avoid what it sees as the pitfalls, for the Palestinian side, of the years that followed the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, the Fatah movement and the PLO renounced violence as a weapon and recognised the state of Israel, but achieved little in endless rounds of so-called peace talks as Israel continued to carve up the Occupied Territories to suit its own needs. Since Arafat’s death at the end of 2004, his successor Mahmoud Abbas has made no headway either.

Finishing up, Mishal lays out the pieces of the geopolitical puzzle and he laughs. Despite Islam’s prohibition on gambling, he concludes: “If the Palestinian people were gamblers, they would bet on Hamas.”

Israel's Challenge: The Durban II Conference on World Racism

The Durban II Conference, also known as the Second World Conference against Racism, is going to commence on April 20. Since the articles of draft documents were being discussed and shaped during the preparatory meetings, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzip Livni, has warned the UN that Israel would not attend to the upcoming conference if the Israeli politics labeled as “Zionism”  were considered as racist again.

The latest draft resolution for the conference is remarkable in its criticism of Israel, even in  comparison to the declaration of the first conference. There is no attempt at a balance between the right of Israeli security and the right of self-determination of the Palestinians. Indeed, in addition to pointing out the one-sided racial discrimination against Palestinians, there are three significant references: the Gaza situation, the Israeli "Wall" running through the West Bank, and the Syrian Golan Heights. The worst-case scenario for Israel, is that these references will bring in the International Court of Justice, as the judicial body of the UN, to rule on the norms of international law under the Occupied Territories.

In 2001, both the Israeli and American delegations withdrew from the first World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, claiming that the language of the draft declaration was “anti-Semitic” and “full of hatred.” The "shocking" vote for the declaration was interpreted as a revival of the UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, adopted in 1975 but annulled in 1991, which stated that Zionism was a form of racism and racial discrimination.

Yet, the US and Israeli lobbies were successful in their "non-participation". The final text of the conference did not include the language accusing Israel of racism. Indeed, it aimed at neutrality in its treatment of the State of Israel and the Arab world. For instance:

• “63: We are concerned about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation. We recognize that inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to the establishment of an independent State and we recognize the right to security for all States in the region, including Israel, and call upon al States to support the peace process and bring it to an early conclusion.”

• “61: We recognize with deep concern the increase in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in various parts of the world, as well as the emergence of racial and violent movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities.”

• “150: Calls upon States, in opposing all forms of racism, to recognize the need to counter anti-Semitism, anti-Arabism and Islamophobia world-wide, and urges all States to take effective measures to prevent the emergence of movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas concerning these communities.”

This time, Israeli diplomats are expecting a tougher process. The draft resolutions of the Durban II conference, possibly bolstered by the Gaza War, are portraying Israel as an occupying state carrying out racist policies.

The latest revised version of the reviewed text issued on 23 January 2009 states:

“(Re-emphasizes the responsibility of the international community to provide international protection, in particular from racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, for (Palestinian) civilian populations under occupation in conformity with international human rights law and international humanitarian law;).”

“(Reiterates that the Palestinian people have the inalienable right to self-determination and that, in order to consolidate the (Israeli) occupation, they have been subjected to unlawful collective punishment, torture, economic blockade, severe restriction of movement and arbitrary closure of their territories. Also notes (with concern) that illegal settlements continue to be built in the occupied (Arab) territories (since 1967);)”

“Expresses deep concern at the plight of Palestinian refugees and other inhabitants of the Arab occupied territories as well as displaced persons who were forced to leave their homes because of war and racial policies of the occupying power and who are prevented from returning to their homes and properties because of a racially-based law of return. It recognizes the right of Palestinian refugees as established by the General Assembly in its resolutions, particularly resolution 194 of 11 December 1948, and calls for the return to their homeland in accordance with and in implementation of this right.”

In this text, only the Palestinian side that must be protected, and only they suffer from unlawfulness. Only they are oppressed because of war --- there is no reference to Hamas, Islamic Jihad or Fatah --- and because of Israel’s policies based on racial discrimination.

Specifically, the declaration asks the International Court of Justice to give its advisory opinion on the Israeli Wall in the West Bank as both a symbol and an instrument of the occupation:

“(Reiterates deep concern about the plight of the Palestinian people (as well as inhabitants of the other occupied territories) under foreign occupation, (including the obstruction of the return of refugees and displaced persons, and the construction of the segregation wall,) and urges respect for international human rights law, international refugee law and international humanitarian law, and calls fir a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region;)”

“Calls for the end of all actions violating international human rights and humanitarian law, the respect for the principle of self-determination and the end of all suffering; calls also for the implementation of international legal obligations including the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Wall and the international protection of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The draft then offers a vital sentence in parentheses: “(Proposal to include reference to Gaza situation – language to be provided).” This inserted sentence could, for example, call for the Israeli officials who ordered Operation Cast Lead and the generals who carried it out as "war criminals" to be judged in the International Criminal Court.

The most important point outside the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is probably the reference to the Syrian issue. The drafting committee is underlines the Israeli occupation and the Israeli ‘racial discrimination policies’ against Syrian citizens in the Golan Heights:

“(Expresses deep concern at the practices of racial discrimination against the Palestinian people as well as (Syrian nationals of the occupied Syrian Golan) (other inhabitants of the Arab occupied territories) which have an impact on all aspects of their daily existence of all such practices;)”

Yet it is here that there may be a possibility for both Israel and a positive outcome. While Tel Aviv has urged the US, Italy and Canada to boycott the conference, American support on the sidelines for an approach to the Syrian issue may be acceptable to the Israelis. Indeed, both the US and Israel may see the Syrian initiative as an opening for dialogue between Israel and Palestinians, as well as loosening the ties between Damascus and Tehran that hve developed since 2001.

Only last week US Secretary of State sent two officials, Jeffrey Fletman and Daniel Shapiro, to Damascus. She also visited Turkey and announced that President Obama would be coming to Ankara in April. This pointed to Turkey's positive mediation role in the Israeli-Syrian dialogue and its place in the solution of the water problem arising from the use of Golan Heights between Syria and Israel.

New US, New Middle East? The Syria Initiative

The major follow-up to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Middle Eastern trip has come not in Israel and Palestine, where there is too much uncertainty for any American move, but in Damascus. On Saturday two US envoys, Jeffrey Feltman of the State Department and Daniel Shapiro of the National Security Council, sat down with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem. They were accompanied by the senior American official in Damascus and two other Syrian advisors for 3 1/2 hours before Feltman and al-Moallem had a private discussion.

The meeting on its own is significant, as the US has no Ambassador in Syria. Expectations are even higher, however, because Damascus could be the lynchpin for an Obama strategy. The core success of Israeli-Syrian talks would be complemented by Syria's distancing from Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, giving the US greater room for manoeuvre on the Israel-Palestine negotiations and an advantage over Tehran in Washington's conception of the new battle for the Middle East.

After the meeting, Feltman was kind in tone toward Syria, “The Syrians have concerns with us as well. I’m sure the Syrians will be looking at choices we will be making in the future just as we will be looking at choices Syria is making,”. However, he was non-committal on specifics beyond the platitude, “We found a lot of common ground today."

The Syrians also gave nothing away. In particular, there is no sign that Damascus, in return for economic aid and an American "balance" on direct discussions with Tel Aviv over issues such as the Golan Heights, offered up the concessions that Washington wants on the bad guys in Gaza, southern Lebanon, and Tehran. So the most that can be said is that yesterday's event, while of symbolic importance, is only the opener in a long process.

There has been surprisingly low-key coverage of the meeting in the US press. CNN has a report, but The New York Times recycles a downbeat Associated Press story, "Amid Low Expectations, American Officials Hold Talks in Syria", and The Washington Post overlooks the event altogether.

Syrian specialist Josh Landis offers excellent coverage on his blog, featuring Rami Khouri's upbeat (overly upbeat, in my opinion) assessment of a fundamental shift in US policy:

What we have going on, I suspect, is that the two leading proponents of Western arrogance in the form of colonialism and neocolonialism - the United States and the United Kingdom - have recognized that their approach has failed, and that they are better off having normal diplomatic talks and negotiations with the three leading centers of resistance to them, namely Iran, Syria and Hizbullah.

Ms Clinton's Wild Ride: A US "Grand Strategy" on Israel-Palestine-Iran?

Related Post: Iran, Missile Defense, and a Clinton Power Play?
Related Post: Ms Clinton’s Wild Ride: Is Dennis Ross in the Saddle on Iran?


"What is the broader strategy for the Obama Administration if it is re-engaging with the Israel-Palestinian process and the region beyond? There are three issues to consider: 1. The pursuit of a "two-state" Israel-Palestine settlement; 2. The contest between Hamas and Fatah for political leadership in Gaza and the West Bank; 3. The US relationship with Iran."

The easy part first: the significant development at the Gaza Donors Conference this week was not the declaration of $5.2 billion in aid for the area. It might have been a feel-good measure and good PR for some of the countries putting up their symbolic numbers, but it means nothing unless 1) Israel relents on its choke-hold on any aid to Gaza; 2) Hamas agrees to let the Palestinian Authority carry the aid and the credit. The first condition is doubtful with the current interregnum in the Israeli Government and the prospect of a Netanyahu Administration; the second is a non-starter.

Nope, if you wanted a meaningful headline, it's this: "US Promises $300 Million to Gaza; $600 Million to Palestinian Authority and West Bank". That's right: at a conference which was supposedly to arrange relief for Gazans suffering from long-term deprivation and the short-term assault by Israeli forces, two-thirds of the American commitment went elsewhere.

Which, of course, is no accident: Washington's clear priority is to prop up the PA and Fatah Party of Mahmoud Abbas as the proper faction to lead the Palestinian cause. But there's more....

Yesterday's New York Times, that US newspaper of record, did not lead with the aid announcement. Instead, it chose another pronouncement by the Secretary of State, this one made "privately" to an Arab foreign minister: "Clinton Pessimistic on Iran Outreach". So, at a conference supposedly devoted to the immediate problems of Gaza, the American delegation --- which immediately fed Clinton's Iran statement to the press --- was not solely concentrated on Israel and Palestine but looking hundreds of miles away to Tehran.

This all begs the question: what is the broader strategy for the Obama Administration if it is re-engaging with the Israel-Palestinian process and the region beyond? There are three issues to consider:

1. The pursuit of a "two-state" Israel-Palestine settlement;
2. The contest between Hamas and Fatah for political leadership in Gaza and the West Bank;
3. The US relationship with Iran.

Let's assume that the first issue is the long-term priority for the Obama Administration. That is the declared purpose of the President's designation of an envoy, George Mitchell, and it was restated in Clinton's speech at the Donors Conference and after her meetings with Israeli leaders yesterday.

That doesn't mean, however, that this is the immediate objective of US officials. Instead, their focus is on getting the right answer on Issue 2 --- that "proper" Palestinian leadership --- before proceeding with the negotiations for the two-state settlement.

And this is where Washington lowered the boom this week. It's not just a question of repeating the preconditions for Hamas to be "acceptable" in the political process: renunciation of violence, recognition of Israel, and adherence to 2005 agreements on border crossings. The US just handed out a $200 million lifeline to the Palestinian Authority so it can pay its employees and promised another $400 for unspecified "projects", but presumably ones where Abbas and Fatah will take credit. And, beyond that, there's the small matter of Washington funding the PA's security forces, as a New York Times puff piece illustrated this week:

One year ago, this 18-acre campus built with $10 million of American taxpayer money was another piece of Jordan Valley desert, and Palestinian guardsmen slept on flea-bitten mattresses and took meals on their laps. Along with a 35-acre, $11 million operations camp a few miles away, also American-financed, it is a real step forward in an otherwise moribund process of Palestinian state-building.

“These guys now feel like they’re on a winning team, that they are building a Palestinian state,” said Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, the American who has been overseeing the training of Palestinian forces, as he watched exercises on Thursday. “And I wouldn’t stay if I didn’t think they were going to do it. I have complete confidence in the Palestinian leadership, and I’m convinced the new administration is serious about this.”

That's the nice spin on the US effort. The not-so-nice possibilities are that these security forces may be more concerned about stopping political dissent in the West Bank than they are about stopping attacks on Israel. And, oh yes, those forces could always be used --- as occurred in 2007 --- in a de facto civil war with Hamas.

This US support of the Palestinian Authority, and its corresponding effort to isolate and undermine Hamas, is far from new. Indeed, it was part of the December war in Gaza. However, when the effort to re-install the PA failed, there was a window of possibility --- through private talks or communications via a third party --- for Washington to "engage" Hamas with a view to bringing it into the peace process.

Clinton and the US money this week signalled that this is no longer on the table. It may be that the possibility never existed. Or it may be that the Obama Administration has calculated that, with visions of Benjamin Netanyahu, promotion of the PA is the only way to get the next Israeli Prime Minister to accept any two-state possibility.

That, however, is only the first part of the story. The second is the apparent decision of Washington to bring the Iran variable back into the Israel-Palestine calculation. Clinton's statement of her pessimism on engagement with Tehran was accompanied by the leak to the New York Times of the US offer to Russia to trade missile defence for Moscow's abandonment of the Iranian nuclear programme.

So, only six weeks after the Obama Inaugural prospect of engagement with an unclenched fist and four after his Vice-President's speech at Munich further pointed to a possible dialogue (as well as meetings behind the scenes), US officials have chosen to highlight their get-tough stance.

One explanation for this shift is the long-awaited entry of Dennis Ross, who has long advocated "Diplomacy Then Pressure", into the State Department. Another is that the Obama Administration is in a muddle, with different folks putting out different positions on the Iran question.

However, the conjunction of the setting of the Donors Conference and Clinton's declaration raises a grander possibility: the US relationship with Tehran is now a bargaining chip in the US manoeuvres on Israel-Palestine. So does Clinton's statement yesterday after talking to the Israelis that Hamas is "a client of Iran".

Put bluntly, the US may anticipate that Netanyahu will be insisting on a withdrawal from engagement with Iran if there is to be an engagement with the Palestinian Authority and the two-state process; indeed, he may have already make that clear to the Americans.

The folly of the Obama Administration sacrificing any thought of an opening with Iran is clear. Even if Israel-Palestine is a "core" issue, it's not the only one in town. Indeed, you could argue that Afghanistan has also become a "core" issue for the future of US foreign policy and Iran, which is as focused on Central Asia as the Middle East, is a key player which could assist the American efforts. By throwing up a wall to Tehran, the US Government protects its position in one vital area only to give it away on another.

Unfortunately, that is an easy sacrifice to make, at least with respect to the US relationship with Israel and American domestic politics. And the long-term costs remain, well, long-term.

So the Obama team will press on, possibly oblivious to other consequences of their shift. Consider, for example, another piece of the puzzle: the US relationship with Syria. In the vision of a two-state Israel-Palestine process in which the Palestinian Authority would be promoted, Damascus can and should be brought in from the cold. No coincidence, then, that Clinton announced that two US envoys, Jeffrey Feltman and Daniel Shapiro, would visit Syria this week --- the highest-level US contacts with Damascus since January 2005.

Of course, that US approach will be seeking a Syrian detachment from Iran and a commitment to let Hamas dangle in the wind. So what happens if the Syrians refuse or simply stall on giving an answer to Washington? Does Washington shake a fist, possibly threatening the consequences of the tribunal on the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri? Or does it accept that other countries may not follow the American script?

I fear we are on the verge of witnessing yet another huge strategic choice --- and error --- to accompany the choice/error that has been in Afghanistan and Pakistan.