Jul 2nd 2013

Israel’s Neglected Peace Dividend

by Shlomo Ben Ami

Shlomo Ben Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister, is Vice President of the Toledo International Centre for Peace. He is the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.
TEL AVIV – Twenty years after the Oslo Accords, the prospects for a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal are dimmer than ever. Indeed, roughly a half-million Israeli settlers in the occupied territories (including East Jerusalem) make the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state an almost impossible mission. So, is the renewed vigor of US President Barack Obama’s administration in the quest for peace too little, too late?

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu claims that his government has no preconditions for resuming negotiations with the Palestinians. Meanwhile, his housing minister, Uri Ariel (himself a settler and a member of the annexationist Jewish Home party), unleashes a new wave of settlement expansion that threatens to link the 1967 border with the Jordan Valley, thus bisecting Palestinian territory. Netanyahu’s own insistence on “ironclad” security arrangements is a euphemism for an Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley – and no return to the “Auschwitz borders” of 1967.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is too weak and too burdened by his rivalry with the hard-line Islamist Hamas – which rules in Gaza – to allow himself the political luxury of departing from the core demands of Palestinian nationalism. Nor does Netanyahu, an ideologue who is visibly uncomfortable with his forced support of the two-state idea, truly have a governing coalition for peace. 

Thus, US Secretary of State John Kerry will require great deal of creativity to reconcile Netanyahu’s position and the Palestinian precondition, recently reiterated by Abbas’s close associate Nabil Shaath, that Israel must agree to negotiate on the basis of the 1967 borders. Mahmoud Al-Habbash, the Palestinian minister of religious affairs, even went so far as to demand “assurances that the talks won’t fail,” because if they do, a new intifada would surely erupt.

Moreover, Kerry’s peace drive is taking place in a regional environment that is not amenable to a negotiated resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Arab Spring has turned bloody and unpredictably turbulent, further diminishing the odds for peace in Palestine.

Nor does the election of Hassan Rowhani, a relative moderate, to Iran’s presidency improve Kerry’s chances. Rowhani’s victory is certainly good news for Iranians, and it may lead to a more civilized dialogue between the Islamic Republic and the international community. But Rowhani’s presidency can hardly be expected to change Iran’s strategic objectives. Iran will continue its nuclear program, fight for the survival of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, seek to maintain its vital alliance with key regional proxies such as Hezbollah, and defend Palestine and al-Quds (Jerusalem). 

If Assad defeats his opponents with the help of Hezbollah and Iran, his survival is bound to be perceived as a victory for the regional “axis of resistance” to Israel. And a permanent Iranian presence in Syria would make a war between Israel and Iran practically unavoidable. Palestine would then be relegated to an obscure corner of the international agenda.

Complicating matters further, America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have limited its regional clout. The US now faces an unpredictable Middle East that is writing its own history as well – or as badly – as it can. 

Syria’s internal conflict has now become a Sunni-Shia sectarian war that is spreading across the region. The Sunni clerics who have just declared a jihad against “the Iranian regime, Hezbollah, and its sectarian allies” are the voice of millions across the Muslim world.

Furthermore, waves of Syrian refugees are threatening the sustainability of the Jordanian monarchy, already roiled by profound internal cleavages. Hezbollah has drawn Lebanon into the Syrian conflict, setting up a showdown between Shia and Sunni at home. 

A similar scenario is already unfolding in Iraq. Turkey, a responsible regional power, has so far resisted being drawn into the Syrian quagmire, but its effects can be seen in the rising tensions between the country’s Sunni majority and the Shia Alevi sect.

Inertia is not an adequate response in an era of revolutionary change. Unfortunately, Israel is missing a coherent regional strategy. Netanyahu, always on the defensive, does not view Middle East turmoil as a trigger for a proactive strategy that would use a solution to the Palestinian problem as leverage for broader positive change in the region. 

America, burdened by the cost of its Middle East troubles, eager to refocus on Asia, and no longer in need of Arab oil, can allow itself to leave the region to its destiny. Israel is part of the region and has a strong interest in helping to shape its future.

Israel has traditionally strived to forge alliances with the region’s minorities – Kurds, Persians, Maronites, and others. Now is the time for a major shift to an alliance with the region’s overwhelming Sunni majority. 

Israel should follow Obama, whose recent decision to arm the Syrian rebels, though belated and still ill-defined, is a choice for the Sunni alliance. Israel should play an active role in the fall of Assad as a way to undermine the region’s “Shia crescent” and isolate its leader, Iran. Assad’s defeat would break the “axis of resistance,” choke off Hezbollah’s arms supplies, and drive a permanent wedge between Turkey and Iran.

A solution to the Palestinian problem would serve such a strategy. It would strengthen Israel’s relations with Egypt, help to stabilize Jordan (a vital and friendly buffer state), and remove a major source of tension with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Islamist government. Most important, it would undermine Iran’s efforts to make inroads into the Arab world under the pretext of defending Palestine and Holy Jerusalem.

Browse articles by author

More Current Affairs

California Briefly Runs on 97% Renewable Energy, Showing a Future in which Oil and Gas Dictators like Putin are defunded
by Juan Cole
Apr 24th 2022
EXTRACT: "Although the milestone lasted only for a brief time, it points to a future in which California runs on 100% wind, solar, hydro and batteries, a future that will certainly arrive even faster than the state plans. As it is, California is ahead of its green energy goals." ...... "A world of 100% green energy and electric cars is not only a healthier and more comfortable world, it is a world where oil and gas dictators like Vladimir Putin are defunded."
Ukraine conflict: Kazakhstan’s difficult balancing act between need for Russian support and popular opposition to the war
by Bhavna Dave
Apr 17th 2022
EXTRACT: "Kazakhstan’s authorities have also showed uncharacteristic leniency in allowing public rallies in support of Ukraine. Thousands of protesters holding banners reading “Russians, leave Ukraine”, “Long Live Ukraine” and “Bring Putin to trial” marched across the capital, Almaty, wrapping monuments to Lenin and other Soviet-era figures with yellow and blue balloons symbolising the Ukrainian flag."
Putin’s Russia: people increasingly identify with the Soviet Union – here’s what that means
by Stephen Whitefield and Paul Chaisty
Apr 15th 2022
EXTRACT: "People’s identification with the Soviet Union appears to have a clear and growing basis in Russian public opinion. Surveys we have conducted throughout the Putin period show that Soviet identification among the general population – something that had been steadily declining after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – began to increase in 2014, when the Russian government annexed Crimea and supported rebellions in the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. By 2021, almost 50% of those surveyed identified with the Soviet Union rather than the Russian Federation."
The Treason of the Conservatives 
by Jan-Werner Mueller
Apr 13th 2022
EXTRACT: "Worse yet, the Hungarian government has effectively been helping Putin by prohibiting the shipment of weapons to Ukraine across its borders. Hungarian public TV spreads Russian disinformation day and night. The day before the election, an assembly of ordinary people expressing solidarity with Ukraine was framed on state television as a “pro-war rally.” "
Ukraine: the battle for Donbas will be protracted and bloody – military expert
by Frank Ledwidge
Apr 13th 2022
EXTRACT: "It may well be that the Russian army’s fate has already been sealed in what is likely to be a long war. The single qualification to this may be that Russia could default to escalation using “weapons of mass destruction” of one form or another – whether tactical nuclear warheads or chemical weapons."
Ukraine produced a lot of grain – can farmers elsewhere replace the crops lost to war?
by Hana Trollman
Apr 13th 2022
EXTRACTS" "Ukraine and Russia produce a substantial amount of grain and other food for export. Ukraine alone produces a whopping 6% of all food calories traded in the international market. At least it used to, before it was invaded by the world’s largest nuclear power." ...... "When it comes to cereals like wheat, corn, rice and barley, the big players talk about millions of metric tonnes, or MMTs. A single MMT of wheat contains about 3.4 trillion food calories,." ....."Ukraine produced about 80 MMT of grain (a category that includes wheat, corn and barley) in 2021, and is expected to harvest less than half of that this year. A shortfall of 40 MMT is enough missing calories that a country like the UK could only make it up by having everyone stop eating for three years. That’s the thing about tonnes of grain: a million here and a million there and pretty soon you’ve got a real issue on your plate."
A gang rape in Ukraine
by Alexander J. Motyl
Apr 11th 2022
EXTRACT: "I don’t even know the little girl’s name. All I do know is what a friend of a friend wrote on Viber: that her relative, a senior nurse in one of Kyiv’s hospitals, “saw in the morgue a child with 20 varieties of sperm on her small body.” Since this information was conveyed in a private conversation, there is no reason to doubt its veracity."
Putin's Failed State 
by Anders Åslund
Apr 8th 2022
EXTRACT: "Russian society has so far failed to stop Putin, just as German society failed to stop Hitler. And so, like a poisoned chalice, that task has fallen to the West, as it did in 1939. The West must now treat Putin and his regime the same way that Winston Churchill treated Hitler: Don’t talk to him, just defeat him. Dead-enders such as Putin are too fanatical and desperate to be reliable negotiating partners."
Ukraine will not be like Korea – dogged resistance will turn it into Putin’s ‘bleeding ulcer’
by Frank Ledwidge
Apr 3rd 2022
EXTRACT: "From 1807 to 1814 on the Iberian peninsula, Napoleon had to fight Spanish, Portuguese and British armies while beset by ubiquitous, ferocious insurgents. He described this war as his “bleeding ulcer”, draining him of men and equipment. It is the west’s aim to make Ukraine for Putin what Spain was for Napoleon. In the absence of a negotiated settlement, Ukraine and Nato will continue to grind away at Russia’s army, digging away at that bleeding ulcer and prolonging Russia’s agony on the military front, as the west continues its parallel assault on its economy. If Putin’s plan is to proceed with the Korea model, he will fail. There is a strong possibility that Putin has only a limited idea of how badly his army is faring. So be it – he’ll find out soon enough that there is now no path for him to military victory."
Germany's Energy Fiasco 
by Hans-Werner Sinn
Apr 1st 2022
EXTRACTS: "Policymakers expected that the country would be able to secure its energy supply entirely from renewable sources, so they resolved to phase out coal and nuclear energy simultaneously. The last three of Germany’s 17 nuclear power plants are set to be shut down this year." ---- ".... the share of wind and solar power in Germany’s total final energy consumption, which includes heating, industrial processing, and traffic, was a meager 6.7%. And while wind and solar generated 29% of the country’s electricity output, electricity itself accounted for only about a fifth of its final energy consumption." ----- "If Germany suddenly halted Russian gas imports, gas-based residential heating systems – on which half the German population, approximately 40 million people, rely – and industrial processes that rely heavily on gas imports would break down....."
Putin's War Will Destroy Russia
by Nina L. Khrushcheva
Apr 1st 2022
EXTRACT: "For Putin, the past that matters most is the one the dissident author and Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn exalted: the time when the Slavic peoples were united within the Orthodox Christian kingdom of Kievan Rus’. Kyiv formed its heart, making Ukraine central to Putin’s pan-Slavic vision. ---- But, for Putin, the Ukraine war is about preserving Russia, not just expanding it. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently made clear, Russia’s leaders believe that their country is locked in a “life-and-death battle to exist on the world’s geopolitical map.” That worldview reflects Putin’s longstanding obsession with works of other Russian emigrant philosophers, such as Ivan Ilyin and Nikolai Berdyaev, who described a struggle for the Eurasian (Russian) soul against the Atlanticists (the West) who would destroy it. ---- Yet Putin and his neo-Eurasianists seem to believe that the key to victory is to create the kind of regime those anti-Bolshevik philosophers most detested: one run by the security forces. A police state would fulfill the vision of another of Putin’s heroes: the KGB chief turned Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov."
Famines: what 20th century food crises tell us about how to cope with the Ukraine fallout
by Eoin McLaughlin, Chris Colvin and Matthias Blum
Apr 1st 2022
EXTRACTS: "Ukraine, known as the breadbasket of Europe, is struggling to export last year’s harvest, and may be unable to produce much this year either. In addition, the war has caused a global fertiliser shortage, which will push up food prices around the world too. Coming at a time when the global pandemic had already increased food insecurity and depleted resources around the world, many countries may not be resilient to a major food crisis brought on by the war. Back-to-back global catastrophic events like this have not happened for close to 100 years." ----- "Another useful analogue is the case of Germany during the first world war. When war broke out in 1914, the German authorities had anticipated a short conflict – not too dissimilar to Russian assumptions a few weeks ago. Just like in Ukraine now, the first world war severely disrupted German farming."
The War in Ukraine Is a Battle of Principles 
by Shamil Ibragimov
Mar 31st 2022
EXTRACT: "The horrors of World War II – the death camps, slave labor, and inhumane experiments on people – produced a global commitment never to permit such crimes to be repeated. This began a transformation of international politics whereby appreciation of the value of every person’s life and dignity ensured that even most authoritarian governments at least paid lip service to human rights.  ----- But the Soviet Union and many of its successor states, particularly Russia, never internalized this change. More than three decades after the USSR collapsed, most post-Soviet countries are still governed according to the old “imperial” paradigm. So, it should come as no surprise that we are now witnessing a clash between fundamentally different sets of values and ultimate goals for statehood."
Ukraine war: people are fighting and dying for Vladimir Putin’s flawed version of history
by Félix Krawatzek and George Soroka
Mar 26th 2022
EXTRACT: "Referencing past legacies as a justification for present-day political decisions is often effective – such appeals trigger emotional reflexes and contribute to thinking about politics in terms of rivalry and defence. The irony within the tragedy of the current situation is that Putin will assuredly go down in history as the figure that did more to unite the Ukrainian people (albeit against Russia) than any other in recent memory."
Why Ukrainians Think They Will Win
by Alexander J. Motyl
Mar 24th 2022
EXTRACT: " Despite the death and destruction that Russia rains down daily on them, the vast majority of Ukrainians are bullish about the future: 77% believe the country is moving in the right direction, 93% think they can beat back Russia, and 47% expect to win in the next few weeks.  Ukrainian policymakers are no less bullish, driving a hard bargain in negotiations with the Russians. Several factors account for this remarkable optimism."
Ukraine: why China is not yet bailing out Russia
by Aglaya Snetkov and Marc Lanteigne
Mar 21st 2022
EXTRACT: "As Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, China’s role has been thrown into sharp relief. Prior to the war, some commentators suggested that China would openly side with Russia or seek to act as a mediator – so far Beijing appears to have resisted doing either. As Qin Gang, China’s ambassador to the US, wrote recently in the Washington Post, Beijing has nothing to gain from this war, arguing “wielding the baton of sanctions at Chinese companies while seeking China’s support and cooperation simply won’t work”. Ambassador Qin also stressed that Beijing had no prior knowledge of the conflict,...."
Russia Is Too Small to Win
by Paul De Grauwe
Mar 17th 2022
EXTRACT: "The second source of Russian power is of course the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. Nuclear weapons would not deliver victory in a conventional war, but they could destroy a country in the blink of an eye. This brings us to a terrifying question: What will Putin do when he realizes that he cannot win his war in Ukraine by conventional means?"
Xi Jinping's Choice 
by Chris Patten
Mar 17th 2022
EXTRACT: "An influential Shanghai-based academic commentator on international affairs, Hu Wei, recently advanced a cautionary argument that has been circulated widely in Chinese-language publications. In his commentary, which is unlikely to have been published without the approval of some of Xi’s senior courtiers, Hu wondered how Chinese communists would react if the war escalated beyond Ukraine, or if Russia was clearly defeated." ------- "For Hu, the answer for China’s leaders is simple. They should wash their hands of the relationship with Putin, ....."
Vladimir Putin and the Risk of World War III 
by George Soros
Mar 12th 2022
EXTRACT: "Meanwhile, Xi seems to have realized that Putin has gone rogue. On March 8, one day after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had insisted that the friendship between China and Russia remained “rock solid,” Xi called French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to say that he supported their peacemaking efforts."
Only China Can Stop Russia 
by Stephen S. Roach
Mar 7th 2022
EXTRACTS: "........Russia has been isolated by draconian Western sanctions that could devastate its economy for decades,...." ---- "Russia’s prospects are bleak, at best; without China, it has none at all. China holds the trump card in the ultimate survival of Putin’s Russia."