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A Stimulus Package for Reviving the Peace Process
Professor and Chair of Political Science at Emmanuel College and Associate of the Weatherhead Center at Harvard University
Posted February 17, 2009 - 5:33pm
The recently enacted stimulus package for reviving the worst U.S. economic recession in decades should serve as a model for reviving the Palestinian - Israeli peace process. The peace process has been in its own recession since the failure of the Taba talks in January 2001. The steady expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank has deepened that recession. By all accounts, Israeli settlements block the implementation of a two-state solution to the Palestinian - Israeli dispute. The stimulus package should consist of a multi-billion dollar international fund with a first priority of reversing the growth of Israeli settlements and financing the resettlement of Israelis from the West Bank essentially within the 1967 borders. The next application of the fund will be to house Palestinians in the vacant Israeli settlements. The ultimate goal of the stimulus package will be the creation of an economically viable Palestinian state. This proposal will go a long way to ending the occupation, changing the oppressive conditions the Palestinians are enduring and moving towards peace with an Israeli State and a Palestinian State.
Consistent with the Obama Administration's declared objective of engaging in multilateral diplomacy to address troublesome international political issues, the United States should be the lead investor in the fund. Washington should then invite substantial contributions from other parties that have an interest in the peace process, including the Arab League, the European Union, and Russia.
The stimulus package should not encourage another Israeli "unilateral" move, as in Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza. The package should stimulate a negotiating process that will create new "facts on the ground" that are conducive to the resolution of the "final status" issues. Negotiations over the application of the fund will not be easy. For example, with the assistance of the fund managers the Palestinian Authority under Abu Mazen's leadership and representatives of the next Israeli government will need to work out the details of removing Israeli road blocks to enable Palestinian goods and people to move throughout the West Bank. The parties will also need to negotiate maintaining Israel's security including the movement of IDF forces in and through the West Bank while enabling the Palestinians to extend local security into the former settlements where Palestinians should be settling.
The Obama Administration has already signaled to Israelis, Palestinians and the international community that it is willing to dedicate U.S. prestige as well as resources to reviving Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations. The American "dream team" for this effort includes former Senator George Mitchell, who brings to the negotiating table his reputation as the proponent of the Good Friday Peace Agreement that resolved the intractable ethnic/religious conflict in Northern Ireland. It also includes Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, whose husband, former President Bill Clinton proposed the "Clinton parameters" which could serve as the forerunner of a potential resolution of the intractable Palestinian-Israeli dispute. Establishing the international stimulus package as soon as possible would be a good way to put the dream team and a tangible demonstration of the U.S. commitment to ending the "recession" in the peace process.
No one doubts that there will be potentially violent opposition to the resettlement of Israelis from the West Bank. Extremist factions from Hamas and Islamic Jihad on the one side and religious nationalist settlers on the other will seek to sabotage the stimulus by violent attacks. However, as in the treatment of the "toxic assets" that have contributed to the economic recession, the promoters of the economic stimulus should not let violent extremists poison the political stimulus to reviving peace negotiations.
One can also expect vociferous opposition to the stimulus package from Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party. In the campaign for the recent Israeli elections they loudly declared that they want to maintain the settlements and even allow their "natural expansion"- albeit without promoting the construction of new settlements. As a pre-condition to the negotiation of peace with the Palestinians, Netanyahu proposes the rapid development of the Palestinian economy. Glossed over in this proposal are the realities of the myriads of Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank and the numerous road blocks that serve to secure them, all of which impede the flow of people and goods that cripple Palestinian economic development.
The United States can overcome such opposition by applying pressure to the next Israeli government, whether it be controlled by Likud or shared with Kadima. As a condition to the stimulus package Washington can insist that Israel should stop settlement construction and start the process of removing settlers from the West Bank. Appointing George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East was an indication to the Israelis of America's seriousness in insisting on this turnaround. Mitchell was the author of the 2001 Mitchell Report for then President Clinton that, among other things, stipulated that Israel should stop building settlements in the Occupied Territories.
The speed with which President Obama has acted on the Palestinian-Israeli dispute makes it clear that he recognizes its resolution is in the national interest of the United States in order to restore American influence in the region, firm up U.S. alliances in the Arab world and stabilize the Middle East. An international stimulus package to revive peace negotiations would work towards achieving this goal. Resettling the West Bank settlers would halt the dynamic towards a one state outcome that will frustrate the national dreams of both Palestinians and Israelis. It will deny the extremists on both sides their claims to all of the land, claims that condemn the rest of the population to a never ending cycle of violence. It is good for the United States, Israel, the Palestinians, and our friends throughout the region.
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Comments
We have been bailing out the settlements for decades
I disagree. We have gone more than four decades covering the crushing COSTS associated with running the worlds only violenty enforced colonial settler movement, a movement which is absolutely corrupt and and morally reprehensible on every level. It is, in fact utterly disingenuous on the part of the US to condemn the settlements on one hand, and then pay for them on the other.
What the US needs to do is to finally allow the people of Israel to shoulder the total cost of the apartheid and ethnic cleansing campaign that only a radical minority of Israelis support. We should offer no US military support, no US foreign, and we should stop intervening in the myriad UN resolutions which condemn the settlements and demand action to stop them . When it becomes clear to all Israeli citizens what the true economic and social impact of their actions (or inaction) will be, I believe they would withdraw the IDF from all occupied territories, and the settlers would follow very quickly.
The US could then help Israel in whatever it needed to help guard its internationlly recognized pre 67 borders, and we could also FLOOD the new palestinian state with aid to help its citizens focus on building and peace.
Part of the problem with bailouts is that they help preserve utterly dysfunctional groups along with the good ones. The settlers and their radical supporters have been in the process of sinking Israel for 40 plus years, and it's time the US STOPPED bailing them out.
Reverse the Benjamin Button Process. Recognize Palestine NOW
Cut the Gordian Knot
Version of 2/24/09
Morton Nadler
Arresting and then reversing the proliferation of nuclear weapons places a special responsibility on the established nuclear powers. They share no more urgent common interest than preventing the emergence of more nuclear-armed states. The persistence of unresolved regional conflicts makes nuclear weapons a power-ful lure in many parts of the world-to intimidate neighbors and to serve as a de-terrent to the great powers who might otherwise intervene in a regional conflict. Established nuclear powers should strive to make a nuclear capability less entic-ing by devoting their diplomacy to defusing these unresolved conflicts.
Henry A. Kissinger, "Our Nuclear Nightmare," Newsweek, Feb. 16, 2009
The regional conflict that most directly threatens U.S. security and interests is surely the one that pits Israel against the Palestinians.
This proposal is directed to a radical rethinking of the "roadmap" to resolving that conflict. It contains a description of the steps the United States could take to break the stalemate in the process for peace between the State of Israel and the occupied Palestine land. The stalemate is due to the constant provocations by radical Palestinian elements and Israel's rejection of any ef-forts of the US and other powers to establish conditions that would enable real negotiations be-tween these two radically unequal parties. On the one hand we have the occupying power, on the other the PNA, the Palestinian National Authority, to whom the US and Israel deny the status of state..
Past negotiations have failed for a variety of reasons. The majority have been aborted because of violent acts by small terrorist groups intent on sabotaging the process, giving Israel's governing group cover for breaking off a process that they didn't really want to succeed. The closest the parties came to resolution was the Camp David meeting near the very end of the Clinton years. Failure of these negotiations has been generally, but not universally ascribed to Arafat intransi-gence; Norman Finkelstein is the maverick, saying "Arafat refused to sign on the dotted line for the Bantustan that he was offered."
A major sticking point for both sides has been the continual expansion of the Israeli settlements in the occupied territory in the face of multiple Security Council resolutions calling for their dismantlement and repeated requests by American presidents that Israel respect these resolutions. The closest any US presidents came to enforcing these requests were Eisenhower and Reagan, who actually suspended US military and financial aid to Israel to enforce their demands. In each case Israel complied-just long enough for deliveries to be resumed.
Without US support Israel could not sustain the occupation and the settlements, it seems that American presidents have to declare "loyalty" to Israel.
"He who pays the piper can call the tune"
The United States is in a unique position to break the impasse and restart the peace process on a solid foundation. This power must nevertheless be exercised with full respect for the rights of the parties involved. For example, nothing should be done that interferes with the internal politics of the state of Israel.
US policy should be directed to establishing freedom and full civil rights of the Palestinian people.
The peace "roadmap" was predicated on the creation of a Palestinian state at the end of negotia-tions that would define the final status for the two states to live in peace with each other. These included the boundaries, status of Jerusalem, population issues, etc. Lately the world press has been full of articles that "the two-state solution is dead."
The recent election results in Israel show clearly that no "one-state" resolution is possible that could respect the freedom and civil rights of the non-Israeli Palestinians. The Israeli Arabs have enough problems of their own. The US could only support a one-state solution that is in direct violation of the will of the Israeli electorate.
Shall we let the two-state plan RIP while realizing that the one-state plan is stillborn? The horrors of the occupation demand our intervention. The US is uniquely situated to advance real peace.
End the cycle of mutual destruction
What are the problems that have to be resolved for an independent Palestine to be established and remain viable?
According to the American Israeli historian and journalist, Gershom Gorenberg, "Any diplomatic process has to be accompanied not only by an end of violence but by an end of continuing set-tlement building. I think both demands are essential. You will not get Israeli trust in a diplomat-ic process unless violence stops, but you will not get Palestinian trust in a diplomatic process un-less settlement building stops. Therefore, any U.S. involvement has to take that as a starting line."
At a minimum, American involvement should be directed to
1. Establishing the Palestinian authority in Ramallah as the legitimate Palestinian authority on the international stage
2. Stopping terrorist actions against Israel
3. Removing the settlements
4. Ending the occupation
5. Resolving water distribution and rights
6. Defining mutually defensible borders
7. Defining the status of Jerusalem
What a Gordian knot!
Cut the knot by the power of the purse
The US can cut this knot-by taking a step that nearly 100 nations have already taken: recognize de jure the State of Palestine...with strings. We can enforce the strings with financial aid-proffered only on condition of their acceptance. With financial aid Palestine could set up a police force capable of enforcing points 1 and 2. Points 3 and 4 can be taken care of by cutting off mili-tary and financial aid to Israel unless the army of occupation is withdrawn to a line that has been clearly defined by resolutions of the Security Council. The settlers can be offered the option of Palestinian citizenship-without Israel's subsidies or of leaving within a given time. Without the army and the subsidies I would guess that they would have to fold up their tents (villas) and quietly steal away. The remaining points, 5, 6 and 7 can then be settled by negotiations between two equal and sovereign states moderated by interested foreign powers, including the US, who could then establish, if necessary and desired, an international enforcement force.
The plight of the Palestinian refugees is an international humanitarian issue that must be ad-dressed without being allowed to derail this peace process.
What about Hamas? Hamas has won the regional election in Gaza and has constituted the re-gional government. It is not our role to arbitrate between the national government, under Fatah, and Hamas, any more than it would be the role of a nation recognizing the US to arbitrate be-tween the national administration, constituted by the Democrats, and any of the 50 states that may have a Republican administration. Our recognition of the government in Ramallah renders the issue moot.
The total aid that the US would be called on to furnish with such a program may in the end be less than is currently given to Israel alone.
This plan is in the interests of both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. But the opposition of the political leaders of both sides requires the US to take these steps on its own. The first step would be the recognition of the State of Palestine with the aim of carrying out the program outlined here. We don't need permission or approval by the government of Israel. Money talks!
Tell President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton you support this program.
Let your congressman and state senators know that it is not "disloyalty to Israel," it is not anti-Semitism to support a program of tough love that will end the cycle of mutual destruction. And spread this message to your friends.