Israel/Palestine

Arabs should stop complaining about Israel's aggravating prime minister and prove they're the more reliable partner for peace.

By Hussein Ibish

The response from Palestinian and Arab leaders to Benjamin Netanyahu's defiant foreign policy speech last Sunday has so far consisted mainly of throwing up their hands in despair. While understandable given the prime minister's intransigence on Israel's prior commitment to a complete settlement freeze and other key issues, this approach is not likely to accomplish very much.

By reproducing rhetoric from the 1990s that led to massive Palestinian frustration, Netanyahu may be hoping to provoke a reaction that is more visceral than strategic. If the Palestinians and Arabs adopt a less than constructive attitude at this stage, there is every danger that President Barack Obama and his administration will conclude that the Israelis and the Palestinians are simply two recalcitrant and irresponsible parties that are impervious to reason, and walk away to focus on other matters. But Obama's new approach, combined with Netanyahu's unconstructive attitude, presents a rare opportunity for Palestinian leaders to seize the initiative in the peace process.

Rather than simply dismissing Netanyahu's words, it is vital that they instead move quickly to draw a stark contrast based on a constructive stance of their own, and position themselves in as close alignment as possible with the American president. The Palestinians should be emphasizing their moves to fulfil their road map commitment on security, as recently demonstrated by the Palestinian Authority's bold and politically costly security operations against Hamas militants in the West Bank.

A new initiative to bolster security measures by combating incitement by militant groups, as Obama urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to undertake at their White House meeting in May, would strongly reaffirm Palestinian seriousness to fully play their part in promoting peace and would be an effective means of keeping the focus on Israel's continued avoidance of its own responsibilities.

It is also important that the Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, express a sincere desire to engage productively in the peace process in response to significant Israeli moves such as a complete settlement freeze. They should frame such a move as operationalizing the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.

Future public diplomacy efforts by the Palestinians and Arab States should also focus their attention on the mainstream American Jewish Community. A large number of American Jews support Obama's efforts to push Israel toward a settlement freeze, a fact Netanyahu is keenly aware of. He seems to be calculating that his rather tepid, theoretical acceptance of the concept of Palestinian statehood and his rhetorical invocations of Israeli nationalism might weaken support for the president's efforts. The extent to which Netanyahu is effective in gaining currency with this crucial constituency may be an important factor in determining whether the Obama can remain firm with the Israeli government without intolerable domestic political cost.

Obama has placed a great deal of political capital at stake on the issue of settlements. In order to successfully shift the Israeli government from its present position, he is going to need help.

If a settlement freeze can be achieved, along with reciprocal gestures from the Palestinian Authority and Arab states, such as maintaining security and continuing diplomatic overtures, the parties can move quickly into permanent status negotiations, tackling such bedrock questions as borders, refugees, Jerusalem, and security. Many on the Israeli right, possibly including Netanyahu, would prefer to avoid these issues because they may not yet be prepared to take the necessary steps to advance peace.

By supporting Obama's position through constructive measures, Palestinians and Arabs can greatly strengthen the prospects that permanent status talks become unavoidable, and that with strong American leadership the parties could soon find themselves in serious peace negotiations for the first time since January 2001.

Hussein Ibish is a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine. He blogs at http://www.ibishblog.com.

MAHMUD HAMS/Staff

By Joshua W. Walker

The internal politics behind the country's strange recent behavior.

As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Ankara on Saturday, foreign-policy wonks are asking, "What's going on with Turkey?" Uncharacteristically, Turkey has been generating its share of headlines lately -- and not in a good way.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's dramatic walkout at the World Economic Forum in Davos after an emotionally charged panel on the Gaza crisis, his call for Israel to be removed from the United Nations, and his posturing against an IMF agreement to help Turkey weather the economic crisis have left experts scratching their heads. With Turks heading to the polls for local elections in late March, Erdogan's "bring it on" attitude toward the West may be smart domestic politics, but it could have catastrophic repercussions for both Turkey and its long-time ally, the United States.

After leading the country through six years of unprecedented economic growth and undertaking far-reaching political reforms that have moved Turkey closer to realizing its dream of joining the European Union, Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) seem to be going astray. Turkey's European reform program is bogged down, the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire remains the third rail of Turkish politics, there has been little letup in the military's battles with the terrorists of the Kurdistan Workers Party, and strategic relations with Israel have virtually collapsed. The nexus of these problems is producing a nasty strain of Turkish nationalism, of which anti-Semitism -- a phenomenon largely alien to Turkey -- seems to be a central component.

Since Israel's December-January invasion of Gaza, a wave of anti-Semitism seems to have engulfed Turkey's political discourse. Even while emphasizing the difference between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment, the Turks have engaged in a crude form of what can only be called Jew baiting. For example, Erdogan averred that Americans did not see what was really happening in Gaza because "Jews control the media." Reports of threats made to Jewish-owned businesses in Istanbul and Izmir as well as the appearance of billboards plastered with anti-Semitic messages have alarmed Turkey's 27,000-strong Jews, whose ancestors escaped the Inquisition for the safety of the Ottoman Empire. Sylvio Ovadya, the leader of the Jewish community -- which generally keeps a low profile -- recently asked President Abdullah Gül to make anti-Semitism a crime.

The cognitive dissonance over this outbreak of anti-Jewish sentiment is particularly jarring because Erdogan is no anti-Semite. After all, he spoke eloquently and forcefully in defense of Turkey's Jewish community after al-Qa'ida attacked two of Istanbul's synagogues in November 2003, is on record calling anti-Semitism a crime against humanity, and participated in the OSCE's 2004 Conference on Anti-Semitism that committed his government to combat anti-Semitism in all its forms.

But while anti-Semitism is cause for grave concern, the central problem in Turkey is a political system that one party -- arguably one personality, Erdogan -- thoroughly dominates. As polls point toward a resounding AKP victory in upcoming local elections, the party's domestic critics are increasingly concerned about the chilling effects of power left virtually unchecked. Turkey, they believe, has reached a critical juncture in its political development and they do not like the trajectory AKP has chosen.

The consolidation of AKP's political power has eliminated many of the traditional fault-lines in Turkey's perennial Kulturkampf. Few Turkey watchers would have ever believed that the military establishment and an Islamist-rooted political party could make common cause. Yet, the AKP is now riding a wave of popular sentiment that accommodates a previously irreconcilable mix of religious and secular nationalism. Oddly, Turkey has become more European, more democratic, more Islamic, and increasingly more nationalist simultaneously. In this complex political environment, the AKP has resorted to the lowest common denominators of economic and political populism to ensure its appeal among a large swath of the Turkish electorate that is angry at the EU, the United States, and Israel.

The prevailing mood in Turkey has come at the worst possible time for U.S.-Turkish relations. Proponents of a non-binding Congressional resolution recognizing the massacres of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 as genocide have already begun soliciting support among their colleagues. There is, of course, a moral imperative to address one of the darkest episodes of the last century, yet should the resolution pass, we can expect a sharp Turkish backlash. Ankara would likely close or strictly limit use of Incirlik airbase, which is a main logistics hub for the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. With Turks already largely alienated from Europe, the combination of Erdogan's current posturing and the possibility that Congress will pass an Armenian genocide resolution could cause long-term damage to U.S.-Turkish relations, leaving Ankara without an anchor in the West and Washington without a strategic partner in southeastern Europe and the Middle East.

The U.S.-Turkish alliance has undergone periods of great strain during the previous six decades. Shared interest in containing the Soviet threat was always sufficient to carry the bilateral relations during periods of tension. Yet, in the almost 20 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkey's importance has not diminished. In fact, Ankara remains as critical an ally as ever as the Turks sit literally at the center of Washington's most pressing foreign-policy priorities in the Middle East, Central Asia, the Caucuses, Balkans, and Europe. As a result, the United States cannot afford to discount Turkey's regional role or internal instability.

Secretary Clinton will find the Turkey of today very different from the country she visited in 1999. It is not just "Islamist" political power, or the palpable buzz of Istanbul, which is on the verge of becoming a truly global city, or the sense that Turkey, with its newly minted seat on the U.N. Security Council, is a "player." It is all of these things. For years, Turks struggled with a debilitating sense of insecurity about their place in the world because they were, in the words of Turkey's founder Ataturk, trying to raise Turkey to "the level of civilization" -- i.e. Western civilization. Yet, the Turks have thus far been unable to crack the Western code, which above all else the European Union has come to represent. Europe, for its part, does not seem to want a country of 74 million Turkish Muslims. A whopping 81 percent of Austrians, for example, oppose Turkey's EU membership bid. Faced with the prospects of knocking on the gates of Vienna indefinitely, Turkey may simply look elsewhere.

Now, six years after the AKP came to power, Turkey's identity and survival are not entirely bound up in the West. Without abandoning its EU ambitions, Ankara has engaged its neighbors to the south and east, including Syria and Iran, and garnered the Turks newfound regional prestige after a long period of alienation from the Middle East.

Turkey today is a rising power in its region, a shift the United States should both acknowledge and leverage to its advantage. After all, Washington was initially critical of Ankara's growing ties with Damascus until it was revealed that the Turks were sponsoring indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria. As Secretary Clinton gets down to business with her Turkish counterparts, it will become obvious that U.S. and Turkish interests actually converge across a range of thorny regional problems. Take northern Iraq, where the continued improvement of Kurdish-Turkish relations is critical to PKK terrorist camps. Or Iran, where Turkey has a direct interest in seeing that its neighbor and regional rival does not acquire nuclear weapons. Ankara's growing economic and diplomatic ties with Tehran should be seen as a leading edge for Washington as it seeks ways to influence Iranian behavior for the better.

Yes, the trend in Turkey's domestic politics may be troubling. But despite the problems associated with AKP's accumulation of unrivalled political power, Turkey is still clearly a vital partner for the United States. An Armenian genocide resolution or efforts to punish Turkey based on a simplistic view of Erdo?an and his party as being "Islamist" or instinctively anti-Semitic or anti-Western will likely backfire. Secretary Clinton will have to find a way to make this key alliance work.

Joshua W. Walker was a guest fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations during the summer of 2008 and is a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University.

FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images

How terrorist attacks created the unlikely rise of Avigdor Lieberman.

By Claude Berrebi

This week's Israeli election has yet again failed to produce a clear winner. Still, the results do spotlight two notable trends. First, the Hamas attacks that prompted Israel's war in Gaza, and the war's aftermath, have moved the Israeli political center further toward the right. Second, in the Holy Land, as in most parts of the world, where you stand depends in large part on where you live -- in this case, whether your city or town was recently hit by a suicide bombing or a missile fired by Hamas or Hezbollah.

Voters in areas that recently experienced attacks sharply shifted their allegiance toward right-wing parties. For example, in the town of Sderot, which was heavily damaged by missiles fired by Hamas militants in Gaza, polls show support for Likud rose from 10 percent in 2006 to 33 percent in 2009, and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu and other right-wing parties also gained sharply. Support for the dovish Labor Party collapsed from 12 percent in 2006 to just 5 percent this year. A similar swell in the right-wing vote was seen in Jerusalem, which has historically suffered more terrorist attacks than anywhere else in Israel.

However, in secular Tel Aviv, which wasn't rocketed during the Gaza or Lebanon wars, Kadima increased its support and won a plurality of the votes, while Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu scored relatively small gains.

These results are consistent with historical patterns. Research has shown that a terrorist attack conducted shortly before an election increases the vote in that area for right-wing Israeli parties by 1.35 percentage points. That may seem small, but in Israel's fractured system, a few terrorist attacks in the months leading up to an election are often enough to propel the conservative parties to victory.

The trend holds true in this election as well. The unsuccessful war in Lebanon in 2006, followed by the barrage of missiles fired from Gaza into southern Israeli towns, persuaded the Israeli public that the current government was unable to protect them.

In national tracking polls, Likud was leading strongly before the Gaza war, and Kadima managed to win back some support with its aggressive handling of the Gaza war. The biggest winner by far, however, was Lieberman. Hawkish voters who thought that the government ended the Gaza war prematurely warmed to his tougher approach.

It can be said, then, that Hamas played a critical role in thrusting Lieberman, known for his hard line toward Israeli Arabs, into the role of kingmaker for the new Israeli government. Yisrael Beiteinu's 15 seats mean that both Likud and Kadima will be tempted to court Lieberman's support.

His ascent will reduce the chances that Israel's new prime minister will be willing to make concessions to the Palestinians, but in the short term, it could actually force Hamas into a deal. Negotiations are ongoing over the release of abducted Israeli army soldier Gilad Shalit and the status of the smuggling tunnels that run under Gaza into Egypt. Hamas might well conclude that it can to get a better deal from the outgoing Ehud Olmert government than from the incoming one, no matter who heads it.

Livni and Netanyahu would both be likely to talk with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and President Bashir al-Assad of Syria about peace prospects, but Lieberman's presence in any governing coalition would make it doubtful that they would make any concessions on the status of Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, or stopping settlements.

This election is likely a setback for U.S. President Barack Obama's peacemaking agenda and certainly spotlights the shortcomings of the Israeli electoral system, which desperately needs reform. Yet it does broadly reflect the prevailing sentiment among the Israeli public -- that giving up land for peace has been unsuccessful and has weakened Israel. Above all, it shows that once the dust settles, Middle East peacemakers will have to reckon with the increasingly hawkish and ever more fractious Israeli electorate.

Claude Berrebi is an economist at the Rand Corporation.

If George Mitchell’s peace mission is to have any meaning, the United States will need to begin acting like it has serious interests of its own in a negotiated settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

By Hillary Mann Leverett

One of the most frequently heard and utterly misplaced observations about America's mediating role in Arab-Israeli diplomacy is that "The United States can't want peace more than the parties." In reality, the United States can want peace more than the parties -- and it almost certainly does.

A two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has never drawn the support of more than a narrow majority of either Israelis or Palestinians -- and, much of the time, not even that. Such a solution meets only the minimum needs of each side. Palestinians are supposed to trade their grievances over the refugee issue for an end to the occupation of most of the territory seized by Israel in 1967 -- but not other territories Palestinians consider their historic patrimony. Israelis are supposed to relinquish territory and foreswear any claim to those parts of biblical Israel beyond the country's 1967 borders in return for formal Arab recognition of Israeli statehood. For these reasons, a two-state outcome will never win truly broad and deep political support among Israelis or Palestinians. Given this reality, it is essential that President Obama and his Middle East peace envoy, George Mitchell, do not repeat the fundamental mistake of both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations -- letting domestic political dynamics among (primarily) Israelis and (occasionally) Palestinians define the parameters for U.S. diplomacy.

Indeed, if President Obama wants to move this issue, he has to take ownership of it. This means, first of all, getting everyone to the table who needs to be there -- including Hamas, an organic movement with deep roots and broad reach that speaks for many Palestinians. It also means keeping them at the table, even when, especially in the short-term, Palestinians continue to try to attack Israelis. Inclusion in negotiations cannot work if it is treated as a "reward" that the United States and Israel bestow for "good" behavior -- such an approach incorrectly assumes that the parties want peace at least as much as the United States and, thus, leaves the United States unable to pursue its interests in a vital region through active diplomacy. As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama appeared to grasp this fundamental point, but now seems unwilling to follow through where Hamas is concerned, preferring to stand by the Bush administration's thoroughly dysfunctional "conditions" for dealing with Hamas.

Obama will also need to manage Israel's threat perceptions so that Israeli actions do not eviscerate possibilities for diplomatic progress. Israel frequently overstates the strategic significance of threats to its security -- as with home-made rockets landing in Sderot. At the same time, Israel commonly understates or ignores the destructive impact of its own actions, whether in the form of ongoing settlement activity or grossly disproportionate exercises of military force.

In his first comments on the Middle East following his inauguration, Obama said: "Let me be clear: America is committed to Israel's security. And we will always support Israel's right to defend itself against legitimate threats" (emphasis added). We can only hope that the inclusion of the adjective "legitimate" means that the president will be willing to take a significant, even critical, step beyond President Bush and President Clinton's reflexive and uncritical endorsement of anything Israel did in its self-defined pursuit of "security." If President Obama is not willing to do this, then the man who helped bring peace to Northern Ireland will soon be relegated to the long list of failed U.S. envoys who preceded him in the Middle East.

Hillary Mann Leverett, who served as director for Iran and Persian Gulf affairs at the National Security Council, is chairman of STRATEGA, a political risk consultancy.

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