Scott McConnell reports from Washington:
It's belatedly dawning on me that next week's Obama-Netanyahu meeting will be the kick-off for a Super Bowl of Super Bowls of diplomatic maneuvering, as two nominal allies seek to mobilize elements in the other's society in order to support their preferred version of the future. Seldom are things so much in flux-and I was struck, attending this morning's very smart panel at the New America Foundation (Rob Malley, Shibley Telhami, Daniel Levy and Amjad Attalah) how uncertain even the best informed people are about what is going to happen going forward.
There was a lot said, and you can see it on NAF's website, but I was especially struck by two things. One when Attalah said that early in the Bush administration, General Zinni was appointed to deal with I-P, and was sitting in a room with Palestinian Authority negotiators (this before the PA-Hamas split) and the PA guys all had their talking points laid out, for checkpoints to be removed, and the need for their police forces to have more authority, and economic this and that-and then Zinni, with all his guys lined up behind him said, the President sent me here to stay until there is a Palestinian state, and everyone just froze in stunned amazement, and finally the main Palestinian negotiatior said simply, “Tell us what we need to do.” Of course two weeks later, Zinni's mission was undercut by a Vice President Cheney speech, asserting that a Palestinian state wouldn't really be a state, and it more or less collapsed. But perhaps this incident, new to me anyway, is part of the back story of Zinni's on-and-then-off appointment to be ambassador to Iraq under Obama.
Then there was Levy's take on how to deal with Netanyahu. He claims that most Israelis value the strategic relationship with America over anything else -even, or perhaps especially, over the occupied territories– and that Netanyahu knows from prior experience that crossing a popular administration is a way to destroy his own coalition in Israel (as happened the last time he was prime minister.) Second that he thinks Netanyahu might very reluctantly eventually accept a two-state-solution–though he will first try to change the subject to checkpoints, settlement freezes, economic infrastructure, yada yada yada. Speed is of the essence–Netanyahu must not be allowed to sequence the process, make some little bit of progress contingent on some other little bit of progress–so that everything takes years to negotiate and eventually Obama has a less solid political majority behind him. (I'm reminded suddenly of the Yiddish joke about the farmer and the landlord and the talking horse-perhaps Phil can tell it.)
A couple of thoughts: I'm not sure Obama has the political strength to tell Netanyahu what the United States needs (a two-state solution) and give him the chill if Israel isn't forthcoming. I'm not really sure that Levy is so sure either. Secondly, there are various paradoxes at work: the main pressure on Netanyahu and Israel that Obama can exert is the Israeli public's attachment to a deep strategic relationship with America. But to be honest, many supporters of a two-state solution don't “feel” such a strong sense of ideological/moral kinship with Israel. They want two states because it is practical for America, and the fairest thing under the circumstances for both peoples, and are happy for the existence of an Israel that doesn't behave thuggishly. And that represents a desire for a normal state-to-state relationship, not one with “our closest ally in the Mid East.” For me, I can see America having a close relationship with a democratic Iran sometime in the future-something both Arabs and Israelis fear.
Finally, there is considerably diminished support for a two-state solution among Palestinians, support which peaked sometime in the nineties. At any conference of Westernized Palestinians, the talk is one democratic state for two peoples, increasingly so. Which is not say that two states wouldn't work, and wouldn't be a vast improvement.
