An Israeli View: Three corridors

When it comes to Arab-Israel matters, the Obama administration seems to be shooting too high. Much like the initial insistence on a "complete and absolute" settlement freeze, so the targeting of a permanent status agreement in one fell swoop turns the best into the enemy of the good.

Prolonging the stalemate and undermining the broad pro-freeze coalition in the US have been part of the high price paid by the administration for its recently aborted pursuit of an unqualified settlement freeze. Having designated the freeze as the trigger for a remarkably ambitious regional agenda, the president has spent too much of his first year in office on this matter alone, while the challenges ahead are far more demanding. Worse yet the administration, forced to compromise in the face of Israeli resistance, has already lost not only momentum but hard-to-restore credibility.

The prolonged negotiations--reportedly resulting in a mixture of a declared freeze that is limited in time and scope and undeclared undertakings regarding its applicability to Jerusalem and the terms for its extension--have left the two sides slightly bruised but with a better appreciation of each other's potency, vulnerabilities and constraints. Whether the agreed freeze ends settlement expansion into Palestinian territory remains to be seen. It seems likely though to serve as an important test case for Israeli compliance and American monitoring and enforcement in the Obama-Netanyahu era.

It appears that Washington has yet to apply the lessons of the freeze exercise to the broader agenda. If President Obama targets a permanent status agreement (PSA) in two years, he will again set an unattainable objective, waste valuable time in its futile pursuit and sentence his policy to either failure or the costly belated embrace of a lesser objective.

Of the many obstacles to a PSA, one looms largest in ruling out an agreement on this side of the horizon: Hamas veto power. Hamas is cognizant of the potency of such an agreement, when presented by President Mahmoud Abbas for a referendum or serving as his election platform, in undoing its electoral victory. Hence Hamas will act to prevent it--certainly as long as Hamas is excluded from the decision-making process.

Hamas' veto power may take the violent form of renewed rocket attacks on the Israeli civilian population, thus provoking Israel to reoccupy Gaza and making it impossible for Abbas to continue, let alone conclude, the negotiations. It may rely on legislative means that will again become relevant once Hamas' parliamentary majority is restored with the Israeli release of detained members of the Palestinian parliament as part of a Gilad Shalit/prisoner-exchange deal. And it may be imposed through intra-Palestinian violence.

While Palestinian reconciliation may resolve this issue, there are no signs that either side is prepared for the needed compromise or that third parties--first and foremost Syria--are willing and able to help. Moreover, even if reconciliation is achieved, the resulting joint negotiating platform is likely to fall far short of accommodating a PSA either. In any event, excluding Hamas from the process and hoping for the best is hardly a prescription for success.

A more gradual approach that takes account of this and other features of the regional setting may offer greater prospects for progress toward the administration's target of January 2011 as a reality-changing benchmark in the context of a regional realignment. While a PSA should always remain the exclusive ultimate objective and the Arab Peace Initiative should be reinforced as the overall umbrella for the process, it appears that the road leading to a Palestinian-Israeli agreement may have to transit three corridors.

First, US-led Israeli-Palestinian negotiations should focus on the long forgotten Israeli commitment to implement a third further redeployment (FRD) from West Bank territory. Whether under a new title (to finesse the Oslo context) or not, this could involve the transfer of an additional 40 percent of the West Bank without removing a single settlement. It would affect the lives of many settlers who would not take it lightly. Yet mobilizing potent opposition would be a far greater challenge when the issue is convenience rather than a massive relocation. Such a move should strengthen the PA; would be difficult for Hamas to oppose; would improve life on the West Bank and offer construction opportunities on a large scale; and would facilitate the Fayyad Plan and send a potent signal of Israel's ultimate intentions. It offers the Obama administration a meaningful and deliverable achievement come January 2011.

Second, US leadership should prep the Syrian track, making it the focal point once the third FRD is agreed upon and implemented. Netanyahu seems ripe to pick up on Syria where he left off at the end of his previous term when his envoy, Ronald Lauder, presented Syria with a written offer for full withdrawal from the Golan in return for security arrangements and normalization of relations.

While Netanyahu will delay playing this card until the pressure to choose between Syria and a PSA with the Palestinians is effective, in accepting a two-state solution and a settlement freeze Netanyahu demonstrated that his "no" to Washington is often little more than an interim position.

Third, the impact on Hamas, Hizballah and Iran of a Syria deal would make intra-Palestinian reconciliation more likely and a return to Palestinian-Israeli negotiations a more reasonable proposition to Israelis and Palestinians alike. Moreover, in the context of a freeze, a third FRD and a deal with Syria, the Arab world could be expected to be more forthcoming on normalization with Israel--thus helping market the process to Israelis--and ready to chaperone Palestinian negotiators, thus enhancing prospects for success.

- Published 14/9/2009 © bitterlemons.org

This column is re-printed with the permission of bitterlemons.org