Middle East Strategy at Harvard

Israel America Academic Exchange (IAAE) is a new organization that sponsors educational missions to Israel for American scholars in the fields of political science, international relations, international law, international economic development, modern history, and Middle East studies. By special arrangement, participants in the inaugural mission (June 22-29) have been invited to guest-post their impressions and assessments. Bruce Jentleson is professor of public policy and political science at Duke University. He is also a member of MESH.

From Bruce Jentleson

Central to our discussions was the debate over force and diplomacy as Israeli strategies, so I’ll focus on that for this post.

Is it the case that the lessons of the last 10-15 years are that force has worked, both as compellence and deterrence, and diplomacy has not? This was the dominant argument we heard from Israeli speakers. While the speaker selection was short of representative, I know from other interactions and reading that this perspective has become more prevalent. It also is a view our American group debated among ourselves.

Four main parts to the argument:

1. The Gaza war was intended to impose substantial costs on Hamas and to deter further attacks on Israel. It achieved both; e.g., attacks from Gaza are down since the war.
2. The same regarding Hezbollah and the 2006 Lebanon war: Look at the northern front and how quiet Hezbollah has been, and how weakened the recent elections showed it to be in Lebanese politics.
3. Oslo didn’t work; Camp David 2000 was another instance of the Palestinians never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity; unilateral withdrawals, both Barak in Lebanon and Sharon in Gaza, gave land but didn’t bring pace; plus the recent stories swirling about Olmert ostensibly offering even concessions on Jerusalem. Arafat was an essentialist; his successors may have more will but lack capacity; Hamas is ideological.
4. The status quo is not great for Israel, but it’s tolerable. Risk aversion, both security and politics, says keep relying on military power. Be sufficiently willing to negotiate to check off that box for the United States and the international community but not much more. Don’t antagonize the political coalition on which your power (read Netanyahu’s) depends.

An alternative analysis:

• Gaza: The evidence is more mixed and uncertain than claimed. On the one hand we were told of how few rockets had been launched, on the other of how there’d been a recent uptick. At minimum, six months is hardly enough of an empirical base on which to attribute durable deterrence success. The criteria for durability is not some out-there notion of the long-term, but it also can’t be so short term as to need to be “serviced” again with anything close to a comparable operation in the next year or two. Moreover, gains made need to be part of a net assessment that also takes into account costs incurred and gains made by the other side. One can see a strategic logic for Hamas by which the price it paid had value as (a) diversionary war, detracting attention from problems of its governance and re-igniting the enemy on which to increase its appeal (so lowering a negative source and increasing a positive one), and (b) playing into Israeli politics in ways that strengthen the Right, which in turn makes for strained relations w/the United States. The net assessment may still come out positive, but less dichotomously.
• 2006 Lebanon War: We do have three years of data, and it is a fact that the northern border has been quieter than in many years. That goes in the plus column, as does the demonstrated capacity to impose costs. But in the negative column: the Israeli military’s failure to prevail in this nonconventional warfare as a deterrence-weakening message; the failure to bring captured soldiers home alive; the political disarray that helped doom the Olmert government; and the further loss of international legitimacy as an instrumental and not just normative matter. Moreover, the causal link to Hezbollah’s June 2009 election performance is questionable. Hezbollah came out of the war strengthened. But it then overplayed its hand by unleashing its militias into Lebanese politics in 2007-08. Then as intervening variables in the run-up to the election, Saudi money for the coalition and, I’d at least postulate, the Obama effect made it more politically legitimate to at least not be anti-American.
• Lessons of Oslo, other diplomacy: George Kennan made the distinction between flaws of execution and flaws in the concept. The former means that the policy could have worked but was done poorly; the latter that it was inherently flawed. Oslo, et al., did have elements of the latter, but also plenty of the former, and on all sides (United States, Israel, Palestinians, others). It didn’t work—but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have worked. What would have happened if Rabin was not assassinated, given his domestic credibility and that he was having at least a degree of success in dealing with Arafat? And if the 1996 election, which Netanyahu won by less than 1 percent amidst the spoilers who got going on both sides, had come out differently? If the Clinton administration had been less accommodating and firmer against both sides playing both sides of the street? In the end, Arafat was the major problem, a Gromyko-like Mr. Nyet. He was never going to be a Mandela, but the essentialist analysis is too straight-line and dismissive of decision points and interactive dynamics along the way. As to Hamas, while it’s shown plenty of essentialism, it’s not clear that even this is fixed; see, e.g., the analysis of Khaled Meshal’s recent speech by Brig. Gen. (ret) Shlomo Brom.
• Deteriorating status quo: The domestic opportunity costs to Israel from the status quo were more graphic to me than ever before. See the economic analysis by Professor Dan Ben-David, Tel Aviv University and head of the Taub Center for Social Policy Research. Walk around and see and feel the rising societal power of the ultra-Orthodox, abetted by continuation of the Palestinian conflict both directly through the political utility of the enemy and indirectly as a distraction from the nation focusing on the threats to its balance of secularism and Jewish identity.
• Shifting regional strategic dynamics? While much is too soon to tell, there are signs that the strategic dynamics in the region may be shifting. Anti-fundamentalism is pushing back on many fronts in the Arab and Muslim worlds. The U.S.-Syria relationship has some traction. Perhaps Iran will come out of the current crisis more flexible. The Saudis and Arab League may be ready to make their peace initiative more than a piece of paper. Don’t know for sure, but the alignment of forces may potentially be more favorable than in a long time.
• Palestinians as a credible peace partner and viable state: This may not be the world’s hardest case for state-building, but it’s up there. Among the many challenges their leadership faces is better synching their maximalist positions on terms of a peace and their more limited capacities as yet to function as a viable state. This is tricky politically as well as in substantive policy terms. It likely will require various roles for various third parties. Plenty of work to be done here: the PA-Hamas talks being run by Egypt, security forces, the economy, lawlessness, spoilers. Not to be underestimated.

I’m still not ready to bet the next mortgage payment (non-subprime) on peace and security in the Middle East. But nothing we saw or heard has been sufficient to counter the Churchillian sense of a peace process still being the worst strategy except for all the others.

Israel America Academic Exchange (IAAE) is a new organization that sponsors educational missions to Israel for American scholars in the fields of political science, international relations, international law, international economic development, modern history, and Middle East studies. By special arrangement, participants in the inaugural mission (June 22-29) have been invited to guest-post their impressions and assessments. Michael Barnett is Harold Stassen Professor of International Affairs in the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Policy at the University of Minnesota.

From Michael Barnett

Prior to the trip, I was of the opinion (1) that it is increasingly unlikely that there will be a negotiated two-state solution, and (2) that in the remote chance that the parties do negotiate a settlement, it will lead not to peace but rather to a new phase of the conflict. I believed that the trends were moving in the wrong direction, but I hoped that the trip would alleviate my fears. Although we did not meet a representative sample of Palestinians or Israelis, I came away from my encounters more fearful and anxious than ever before.

The prospects for a negotiated solution appear dim, at best. I see little ground for optimism from the Israeli side. Although Israelis insist that they will always try to negotiate, even the most hopeful of them express little hope. The Israelis seem convinced that they have offered the Palestinians nearly everything they have demanded, but that the Palestinians still prefer to fight it out. Perhaps they do. (Or perhaps Israel has still not offered the best deal possible. In every negotiation, Israel has always claimed that it could do no more, yet it always had more to give: Israeli offers have inched closer to the Palestinian ideal point from Oslo to Camp David to Taba to the purported plan of then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.) Israelis also seem convinced that these failed negotiations represented nothing short of a “test” of the Palestinians’ sincerity regarding the possibility of a peaceful settlement. And Israel’s unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza have not brought peace, but rather allowed their enemies to get closer to Israel’s population centers.

Moreover, and in contrast to my previous trips, I was struck by the near absence of any kind of Israeli sympathy for the Palestinians. Whereas a decade ago I heard Israelis speaking about the rights of Palestinians, the need for justice, and a genuine sympathy for their plight and suffering, this time any sort of compassion was overwhelmed by sheer frustration. Why should the Israelis continue to feel badly for the Palestinians when the Palestinians do not seem prepared to do anything to help themselves?

Because Israelis do not believe that a negotiated two-state solution is likely (though a majority continue to support the idea), they identified a mish-mash of “Plan Bs.” In nearly all cases, though, these contingency plans appears to be a jumble of inconsistencies and logical contradictions: withdrawing alongside occupying, disengaging while engaging, believing that developing the Palestinian economy is the ticket to success despite evidence to the contrary, putting their faith in a wall when Gaza tells them that good fences don’t do much good. The only thing that the Israelis seem to agree upon is that they would like to be rid of the Palestinians.

What about the Palestinians? The Palestinian representatives are certainly more polished than ever. But it was not clear what the Palestinians would accept (or, rather, what the Palestinian leadership would try to sell to their public) short of their maximum demands. I left convinced that while Israel may not have offered the Palestinians the best deal imaginable, the Palestinians might not accept even that. There are lots of explanations for why the Palestinians seem incapable of saying “yes, but,” including principled beliefs, domestic politics, and a lack of Arab support. Perhaps the Palestinian “no” is overdetermined. However, I was impressed by the Palestinian failure to imagine the conditions under which they might accept less than they demand.

Assuming that the Israelis and the Palestinians will not be able to negotiate a two-state solution, and assuming that, as one Israeli negotiator aptly said, the longer we negotiate the more “complex” the situation becomes, what should be done? Until this trip, I supported the idea of an imposed solution, putting a deal on the table (Taba-plus) and telling the parties that they will be rewarded if they accept it and punished if they do not. Some Israelis suggested that the leaders would never be able to reach an agreement on their own and that the Americans would have to apply considerable pressure on both parties. I agree that American pressure will be necessary, but I do not think that American pressure, no matter how intense, can move both parties to peace. Assuming that an imposed solution ever was a viable option, I am not sure it is anymore.

Instead, I think the Israelis should follow the British colonial strategy: withdraw and hand off the problem to the United Nations. The Israeli situation appears eerily like the one confronted by the British mandatory authorities after the Second World War. In 1947, following decades of trying and failing to find a compromise between Jews and Arabs, the British announced their imminent withdrawal and informed the UN that Palestine was now its problem. Israel might do the same. It could tell the UN that it will be “consolidating” its settlements and retreating behind the separation wall (declaring it an armistice line and not a legal border). The Israelis also could announce that they are prepared to internationalize Jerusalem once the security situation has stabilized. In short, rather than another unilateral withdrawal, the Israelis might consider working closely and coordinating with the UN.

At this point, it would be up to the UN Security Council to decide how it wanted to proceed. Ideally, the United States would lead the Security Council to authorize a Chapter VII operation, working closely with the Palestinian Authority (thus giving the moderates considerable legitimacy), replacing the Israelis forces as they withdrew from the territories, and deploying to Gaza if and when the situation became less violent. The international authority would have to be ready, willing, and able to use force if and when necessary, and it also should come bearing a significant aid package. This “strategy” has its various problems, but at least it gives the parties something to look forward to besides mutual suicide.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

From Robert O. Freedman

One of the joys of traveling in the Middle East is the possibility that one can be on the spot to observe the reactions of the residents of the region to important events as they actually happen, instead of being dependent on newspaper or television reporting of the reactions. Thus, I was fortunate to be in Israel as U.S. President Barak Obama gave his speech on U.S. relations with the Muslim world, and in Egypt when Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu gave his speech on achieving an Arab-Israeli peace settlement. While each speech was aimed at multiple constituencies, there might be just enough overlap between them to jump-start the stalled Arab-Israeli peace process.

President Obama’s speech on U.S. relations with the Muslim world had a major impact, both in Israel and in the Arab world. It is clear that the main goal of Obama’s speech was to turn a new page in U.S.-Muslim and particularly U.S.-Arab relations, and if the reactions of the individuals whom I interviewed in Egypt (in Cairo and Alexandria) are any indication, his words were greeted with great enthusiasm, as he went out of his way to demonstrate respect for Islam.

However, despite the assertions of some right-wing Israeli and American commentators, Obama did not pander to his Muslim audience. He emphasized the need to combat Islamic violence, to stop stereotyping both the United States and Israel, and to accept the Holocaust as a fact. While he also emphasized the need to allow greater roles for women in Muslim society and for democracy—in this he did not go as far as some of my interviewees had hoped—overall his speech was very well received.

As far as Israel was concerned, Obama reiterated the U.S. commitment to Israeli security, but he also made very clear that Israel’s responsibility in moving the peace process forward included accepting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and stopping the construction of settlements. That Obama’s words were clearly understood in Israel became apparent not only in Netanyahu’s concession on a two-state solution, but also in the words of a security guard whom I interviewed at the West Bank settlement outpost of Kedar Bet (near Maaleh Adumim). When I asked him if Kedar Bet would grow across the valley to meet the already established settlement of Kedar (this is a frequent pattern for settlement growth), he replied: “It all depends on the President of the United States.”

As the security guard’s words indicated, a second audience of Obama’s words was the Israeli body politic. However, in measuring the impact of Obama’s speech on Israel, one must take into consideration the shift to the right of the Israeli public over the past few years, which was reflected in major gains for right-wing parties, and especially Likud, in the election of last February 10 which brought Netanyahu to power as the head of a right-of-center coalition. Essentially, many Israelis, having experienced unilateral withdrawals from Southern Lebanon (2000) and Gaza (2005), which instead of bringing peace brought barrages of Hezbollah and Hamas rockets, were quite sympathetic to Netanyahu’s election position which opposed withdrawals from the West Bank. Such withdrawals, he argued, would result in Hamas rocket attacks against Tel Aviv and Ben-Gurion airport. Thus Obama’s call for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had a negative resonance for many in the center and right of the Israeli political spectrum, and a June 19 poll in the right -of-center Jerusalem Post found that 50 percent of Israelis now considered Obama to be more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israeli. (Only 6 percent considered him to be more pro-Israeli, while 36 percent said his policies were neutral and 8 percent did not comment.)

Nonetheless, despite support from a significant part of the Israeli public for his hard-line policies, Netanyahu could not simply ignore Obama’s speech. Israel is dependent on the United States for $3 billion in annual military aid, for protection in the United Nations against the numerous anti-Israeli resolutions introduced by Israel’s enemies, and, above all, for U.S. support for an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear installations, if the Israeli government deems it necessary—-a possibility now somewhat more likely following the Iranian regime’s brutal crackdown on demonstrators after the disputed June 12 Iranian presidential elections.

Consequently, Netanyahu adopted what might be termed a “minimax” strategy: doing the minimum necessary to satisfy the United States—agreeing to a two-state solution, albeit with reservations—while retaining the maximum support in his coalition government. Thus, Netanyahu’s speech was a careful balancing act between the United States and the center-right portions of his coalition government, and the Israeli prime minister’s speech, consequently, precipitated multiple reactions. It was welcomed both by coalition member Labor—the leftist element of Netanyahu’s government—and also by the main opposition party, Kadimah, which may now, at least in part (the faction led by Shaul Mofaz), be prepared to join the coalition. Rightist elements of Netanyahu’s own Likud Party were more reserved in their support, although he sought to win them over with his positions that any Palestinian state would have to be demilitarized, that Jerusalem would remain united under Israeli rule, that no Palestinian refugees could be resettled in Israel, and that Israeli settlers, whom he described as “an integral part of our people, a principled, pioneering and Zionist public” had to be allowed to live “normal lives.”

These positions, together with Netanyahu’s call for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as “the state of the Jewish people,” succeeded in neutralizing, at least in the short run, much of the opposition in his coalition government. Indeed, Netanyahu’s approval ratings shot up after his speech. On the far right of the Israeli political spectrum, however, there were strong protests against Netanyahu’s speech, both by a coalition member, the Jewish Home Party, and by the opposition National Union Party, as well as by some settler leaders such as Rabbi Dov Lior.

Obama, for his part, appeared willing to accept the “half a loaf” which Netanyahu offered—acquiescence in the establishment of a Palestinian State—and, at least initially, appeared to disregard the other elements in Netanyahu’s speech, including his rather vague call for “normal life” for the settlers. Indeed, Obama called Netanyahu’s speech “an important step forward.” By contrast, The response in the Arab world to Netanyahu’s speech was almost universally negative, except for a few commentators writing in Al-Ahram and the Egyptian Gazette, who saw the possibility of building on Netanyahu’s commitment to a two state solution.

The Palestinian leadership on the West Bank, in what I think was a major tactical error, totally rejected the speech which it claimed offered no hope for moving the peace process forward. The lines of the Arab critique of Netanyahu’s speech were as follows: 1) a Palestinian state’s sovereignty would be limited by demilitarization; 2) no Arab could accept Jewish sovereignty over East Jerusalem, including the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque; and 3) Israel was evading its responsibility for the 1948 Palestinian exodus by claiming no Palestinian refugees could be resettled in Israel. Most of all, the Arabs seemed angered by Netanyahu’s demand that Israel be recognized as a Jewish state. noting that such a recognition (they claimed) would make them Zionists and would also jeopardize the position of the Israeli Arabs in Israel.

Given the contrasting views on Netanyahu’s speech, is there any hope for moving the peace process forward? The answer is a qualified “yes,” but it is highly dependent on the actions of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who, unfortunately, is not a strong leader. If the July talks in Cairo to set up a national unity government between Hamas and Fatah fail—as many such unity talks have failed in the past—and if Abbas comes to the belated realization that the United States won’t simply “deliver” Israel, as Abbas may have naively thought after his visit to Washington in late May and the Obama speech in Cairo, then Abbas may agree to resume negotiations, building on the two-state solution which Obama pressured Netanyahu to accept. Given the fact that Palestinian elections, both for the Legislative Council and for the Palestinian Executive, are due in January 2010, Abbas may wish to demonstrate some progress in his talks with Netanyahu before the elections.

Netanyahu, for his part, has already made some gestures to Abbas by removing a number of roadblocks and check points on the West Bank to make travel in the region easier, and by agreeing to halt, on a trial basis, Israeli raids into a number of West Bank cities, thus enhancing both the role and the prestige of Palestinian police units. Whether Abbas will be willing to resume talks remains to be seen, and it may well be that Obama, who so far has primarily prodded the Israelis, may find it necessary to pressure Abbas into resuming peace talks.

From Michael Rubin

The Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, and Washington Post have dubbed it a “Twitter Revolution,” speculating about whether new technology will enable Iranian protesters to overcome government forces. The role of technology in the current unrest is well-covered elsewhere. What is lacking in much of the coverage, however, is a sense of context.

Technology has been essential both to empire formation and preservation, and to state degradation in the Middle East. The late historian Marshall G.S. Hodgson described the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires as “gunpowder empires.” Their sultans and shahs consolidated control over expansive territories by controlling weaponry which potential aspirants to power along the periphery did not have. Once the central government lost monopoly over guns and cannons, however, the empires fractured—devolving into fiefdoms or dissolving completely.

In Iran, technology played a particularly important role in state preservation Looking at 18th and early 19th century atlases, borders are all over the place. Discrepancies of dozens if not hundreds of miles mark frontiers on maps published by different gazetteers. Whereas today imperialism is presented in almost cartoonish terms as a free-for-all, in reality there were huge debates during the 19th century whether or not to expand imperial control over various territories. Imperial rule was an expensive prospect, and so many imperial powers preferred to advance informal control.

Britain did this in Iran by supporting various regional officials—for example, briefly recognizing the autonomy of Makran (Baluchistan) in the mid-19th century and flirting with Sheikh Khazal in Khuzistan at the beginning of the 20th century. While rulers could claim as much territory as they liked, the real litmus test was whether they were able to extract taxes. Sometimes governors or sub-district governors along a country’s periphery, many of whom paid for their offices, calculated they could keep all the revenue for themselves and not remit anything to the center. Often, foreign powers encouraged such defiance (e.g. in Georgia, Kuwait, Herat, and Khorramshahr).

This would create a quandary for the Shah. If he ignored the governor’s defiance, he would effectively lose that province. Mobilizing the military and launching a punitive expedition, however, was extremely expensive. As Iran flirted with bankruptcy throughout the 19th century, the Shah had very few resources at his disposal, and the periphery knew it.

Nasir al-Din Shah (r. 1848-1896), however, embraced the telegraph. He could threaten and cajole opponents, and keep on top of the latest intelligence. What were the Russians doing in Azerbaijan? What were Kurdish tribes doing across the Ottoman frontier? Could he afford to dispatch the army and still maintain his security? In many ways, it was the telegraph which allowed the Shah to play foreign powers and domestic competitors off each other and preserve Iranian independence, even in the regime’s weakened state.

What was a blessing for the government and for the consolidation of the state, however, turned into a liability. Over time, the Shah’s government lost control over the communications network. While the popular belief in the 1860s and 1870s was that the telegraph ended at the Shah’s throne, myriad Iranian groups discovered that they could communicate directly with each other and against the central government. This became quite clear in the early 1890s when, desperate to raise revenue, the Nasir al-Din Shah granted the unpopular Tobacco Regie which gave the British a monopoly over all phases of one of Iran’s most important industries, from agriculture to sale. Liberals, nationalists, and clerics joined forces to force the Shah to retract. Clerics in Najaf used the telegraph to issue a fatwa, obeyed even by members of the Shah’s household, prohibiting the use of tobacco until the Shah recanted. The telegraph network enabled the formation of the mass movement.

This point was driven home in the first decade of the 20th century during Iran’s constitutional revolution. Britain backed constitutional forces, and the Russian government supported the autocrat shah. The conflict was bloody and, just as in Iran today, it made headlines. When reactionary forces laid siege to Tabriz, then Iran’s second largest city, British papers reported news of the deprivation and starvation received by telegraph. What once would have occurred without notice in Europe, sparked outrage.

As the Shah cracked down, a broad array of constitutionalists, nationalists, liberals, clerics, and Bakhtiari tribesmen coordinated their actions by wire. The Shah’s forces sought to cut the wires, but the network was too vast, and not entirely under the government’s control. Importantly, the telegraph extended across the frontier into what now is Iraq. Senior clerics cabled instructions from Najaf and Karbala.

Technology created a template upon which the opposition could act. Oppression was a constant during the Qajar period and, indeed, before. It was technology, however, that enabled the mass movement; it simply could not occur before the technology template was laid.

Into the 20th century, the Iranian government sought again to dominate technology. Early in Reza Shah’s reign (1925-1941), the Iranian government controlled radio. Under his son and successor, the state controlled television. However, it could not control audio tapes smuggled across the border from Iraq, and so in the 15 years before the Islamic Revolution, the audio cassette—easily copied and distributed—was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s only means of communication. While Khomeini’s image is iconic now, it should be remembered that until his return to Iran, many Iranians knew his voice but had not seen his image.

The Islamic Republic knows it is unpopular, and knows its vulnerability to technology. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stepped in to cancel a 2004 contract granted to Turkcell to create an independent cell phone network in Iran. Only this past year did the Iranian government bless the introduction of multimedia messaging services in the Islamic Republic. It could be a decision the Islamic Republic will not live long enough to regret.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

From Alan Dowty

Some sixty years ago my mentor Hans J. Morgenthau posited as a cardinal rule of diplomacy that states should “give up the shadow of worthless rights for the substance of real advantage.” It is not clear whether Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has ever read Morgenthau, but he seems attuned to this basic adage of statecraft.

In his much heralded June 14 foreign policy address, Netanyahu was clearly reacting to U.S. pressure focused on two matters: acceptance of a two-state model for Israel-Palestinian negotiations, and a freeze on further building of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Acceptance of a two-state model is, under present circumstances, primarily a verbal act with no immediate operational implications. By conceding this point, Netanyahu was giving up a shadow in order to retain substance; Morgenthau would have approved.

This is not to say that Netanyahu’s concession was meaningless. Words do have consequences, and the fact that Netanyahu put the words “Palestinian” and “state” into the same sentence puts the seal on consensus within Israel on the preference for two states compared to other options. Predictably there have been vocal protests from within the Likud and elsewhere on the right, but nothing that Netanyahu cannot weather—especially given the perception that he has, in fact, given away little or nothing in substance.

The fact is that the speech included no immediate operational changes of importance. Before serious negotiations over two states get anywhere, Palestinians would have to satisfy a number of conditions with which Netanyahu’s version of two states is encumbered. First they must make their own verbal leap: explicit acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state, something much harder for them than Netanyahu’s terminological retrenchment was for him. They must somehow present a united front without Hamas, but including Gaza. They must come to terms with the reality that the refugee issue will be solved “outside the borders of the State of Israel.” And they must accept a draconian version of demilitarization surpassing any such measures on today’s world map. Not a single one of these eventualities is imminent, meaning that pressure on Netanyahu to negotiate the substance of a two-state solution is also, presumably, not imminent.

In this regard, the Netanyahu government is simply exploiting the biggest natural advantage that it has at the moment, which is that there is no Palestinian negotiating partner both able and willing to negotiate and to implement a final peace settlement in all the Palestinian territories. So long as this is the case, any Israeli government will be able, with minimal diplomatic skill, to deflect outside pressures to make major concessions in advance of negotiations. And for that matter, even a fervently dovish Israeli government would find itself unable to convert its support for two states into reality.

Netanyahu’s surrender of shadow also has to be seen in the context of Israel opinion, which has moved to overwhelming support of two states in principle, if only in reaction to the new prominence of much more ominous one-state proposals. Majorities of up to 78 percent, in one poll, express willingness to accept a Palestinian state alongside Israel under the right conditions. Any Israeli government that rejected a realistic chance to negotiate a two-state solution would find itself replaced, as Netanyahu implicitly recognized even before his recent speech. In that case, as he has repeatedly stated, “the terminology will take care of itself.”

What remains to be seen is how far the Obama administration will take satisfaction in having the first of its demands met, on a verbal level, while nothing changes regarding the second demand, on settlements. The issue of “natural growth” in West Bank settlements remains contentious; Netanyahu’s pledge of no new settlements merely continues official policy set under Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon, and changes nothing on the ground. As before, “outposts” are occasionally dismantled and then quickly rebuilt. Significantly, according to reports in the Israeli press, settlers in the territories have reacted to Netanyahu’s speech, by and large, with great equanimity.

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MESH adds this: Click on the thumbnail on the right (or here) for a word cloud of Netanyahu’s speech, illustrating the frequency of the one hundred most-used words.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

From MESH Admin

The Internet and Democracy project at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society (which graciously provides hosting services for MESH) has produced a map of the Arabic blogosphere. Click on the thumbnail to enlarge, and download the full report here. The key finding:

Most bloggers write mainly personal, diary-style observations. But when writing about politics, bloggers tend to focus on issues within their own country, and are more often than not critical of domestic political leaders. Foreign political leaders are discussed less often, but also more in negative than positive terms. Domestic news is more popular than international news among general politics and public life topics. The one political issue that clearly concerns bloggers across the Arab world is Palestine, and in particular the situation in Gaza (Israel’s December 2008/January 2009 military action occurred during the study). Other popular topics include religion (more in personal than political terms) and human rights (more common than criticism of western culture and values). Terrorism and the US are not major topics. When discussing terrorism, Arab bloggers are overwhelmingly critical of terrorists. When the US is discussed, it is nearly always critically.

From MESH Admin

These two maps depict official Iranian presidential election results by province with varying degrees of detail. The map on the left has been produced by Critical Threats, a project of the American Enterprise Institute. The map on the right has been prepared by the Guardian Datablog. Click on the thumbnail of each to view full-scale original.

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