[AUTHORS NOTE: As many of you know, I write a blog for Times of Israel, which is usually published immediately, with little editor input. For some reason, the following post, which I submitted to TOI a week ago, has been held up by them, with no feedback even after repeated attempts to get an answer. Censorship? Editorial Discretion? Is this piece too whacky to be published? Seditous? Embarrassing to them or to me? You be the judge. Rob Blum]
Israel has rarely faced more incentive than it does today for reaching an accommodation with the Palestinians. Unexpectedly, this incentive comes not from the stick, but from the carrot. It has nothing to do with the politically counter-productive scolding, threats and pressure exerted by Obama and Western Europeans against the Israelis’ building houses in Jerusalem and in established settlement blocks in the West Bank. Instead, Israel’s incentive to put the Palestinian annoyance behind them derives from the loss of American traditional place in the region, a logical product of Obama’s bizarre behavior. He has turned his back on and openly scolded traditional allies, serially abandoned “red lines”, thereby negating the deterrent value of his words, and most importantly, publicly proclaimed his virtual embrace of the leading traditional enemy of American interests in the Middle East, the messianic theocracy of Iran.
These actions by Obama have consequences. In a neighborhood where lack of resolve can be deadly, and “pride”, for better or for worse, is a very important driver of decisionmaking, these developments have led to the utter destruction of US influence over our traditional Middle Eastern allies – Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, Jordan, Egypt, and Israel. The general consensus is that Iran is now on the march to hegemonize the region, no longer fearful of American intervention, at least for the next two years – which gives Iran more incentive to put the pedal to the metal before Obama leaves office, increasing the immediate threat. At the same time, ISIS and other Islamic radicals create their own problems, and our allies are, more or less, on their own, not trusting in the next proclamation that can come out of Washington.
As a result of these developments, the old balance of power in the Middle East is gone, as it revolved around confidence in America's determination to act. But there is an upside to this destruction of the old balance of power – that is, the creation of a new balance of power, an indigenously-driven one in which Israel can play a more public part in open collaboration with Sunni Arab nations to offset Iranian and other adversaries. Many of these Arabs are open to such collaboration because they are frightened to death of what the Arab Spring and Barack Obama have wrought.
At the risk of sounding like a dreamy utopian, this emerging pursuit for a new balance of power can lead to a more general acceptance of Israel among the nations of the Middle East, with the broadening of diplomatic and commercial relations that can come out of the shadows where they currently reside, if at all. The ground has been laid for this by the Saudis and the Arab League. Israeli-Arab normalization has been suggested publicly by Arab officials and telegraphed privately by them during the past year. Careful reading of the Arab press would show that, in baby steps, the political and religious groundwork is being laid for this possibility in Saudi Arabia and Egypt particularly.
While certain not to occur all at once, this previously inconceivable normalization opportunity is literally history-bending stuff in the manner that Ben Gurion and Peres (and, to be fair, Bill Clinton and others) have dreamt of and worked towards.
HOWEVER, as stated repeatedly by Arab leaders, the condition for this possibility of normalization is the accomplishment of some sort of face-saving solution to the Palestinian problem. King Salman of Saudi Arabia, the leaders of the Gulf States, King Hussein, President al-Sisi and most of the other leaders of the predominantly Sunni Arab League nations – it is unlikely that any of them could care less about the Palestinians, who are viewed as ungrateful troublemakers, usually on the wrong side of any Arab conflict, the cousin who cannot straighten out his life and threatens to take everyone else in the family down with him. It is also in these Arabs’ interests (especially Jordan’s) for Israel to be permitted to keep a potentially failed Palestinian state in check, through control of the Jordan valley and otherwise. On the other hand, these leaders also know that the “Arab Street”, their own populaces, cannot be asked to accept a changing Arab-Israeli relationship without some apparent resolution to the Palestinian problem, and Arab Muslim religious leaders cannot be asked to create religious interpretations to allow a broader Israeli-Arab detente, without at least a fig leaf of Palestinian “justice”.
As if this normalization “carrot” is not enough to drive an Israeli-Palestinian accord, there is another reason why Netanyahu should prioritize “getting on with it” with the Palestinians. To attempt to compensate for the Obama administration’s empowerment of Iran, the US is providing or promising advanced weapons systems to our Arab allies. This activity promises to progressively erode Israel’s military superiority over its neighbors, even as these Arabs learn to cooperate militarily with each other. Better for Israel to develop somewhat of a cooperative relationship with those neighbors before their military capabilities and increasingly collaborative offensive capabilities advance too far.
Netanyahu knows that these factors are the source of genuine Palestinian leverage in their dealings with him – much more so, in realpolitik terms, than the anti-Semitic pressure on Israel of the international BDS movement, EU threats to place a yellow Jewish star on products manufactured (by Palestinian workers) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, or the various empty International Criminal Court threats that Abbas waives around against Israel.
Perhaps as a result, there has been evidence lately of Israel and the Palestinians trying to undertake low key confidence-building measures, including remittance of tax collections to the Palestinians, liberalized travel permits into Israel for Palestinian doctors, and water sharing arrangements for a new Palestinian West Bank town built with money from Qatar. This happens even as the normal chorus of angry people on both sides throw stink bombs at each other and attempt to disrupt compromise.
So is this the beginning of some sort of a move towards locally-generated rapprochement, perhaps brokered by various neighboring Arab leaders? Or is any “solution” going to have to await a new, popular and bold leader of the Palestinians, not the hesitant, 80 year old currently leading West Bank Palestinians?
Abbas may yet surprise us all, however, and actually negotiate “The Deal” with Netanyahu. I focus above on the carrots and sticks facing Netanyahu, but there is also pressure on Abbas to act – the threat of Hamas unilaterally declaring a Palestinian state in Gaza is increasing by the day, which could have profoundly negative consequences on Abbas’ unpopular West Bank administration and lead to a Hamas takeover of the West Bank (everyone’s nightmare). Netanyahu has been very comfortable doing nothing, with the excuse that is provided by a rejectionist Hamas in Gaza and by Abba’s own recalcitrance. If Abbas or his lieutenants wish for his movement to lead a combined Palestinian state, they had better act before Hamas does, and the greatest odds of success for him will be in coordination with Israel.
If West Bank Palestinians are able to work out a deal with Israel for Palestinian independence and subsequently seek to assert their control over Gaza, then Hamas, surrounded on one side by a hostile Egypt/Arab League, and on the other by Israel, will be finished. Game, set and match – and historical legacy -- to Abbas.
True, any compromise between the Palestinians and Israel is the longest of longshots, with seemingly too many impossible issues to brook. However, due to a very strange set of circumstances facilitated by the worst foreign policy president in American history, there is a chance that customary maximalist demands will be backed down and that creative compromises can be made to facilitate a Palestinians-Israeli accord, allowing Israel and the Arabs to begin a multi-generational dance towards true normalization.
For that unintentional, Rube Goldberg-esque feat, I’d give Obama the Nobel Prize…
