Saturday 03 January 2009
Website of the Telegraph Media Group
Even Obama can't solve the Middle East problem - and he'd be foolish to try
Hopes are pinned on President-Elect Obama to fix the Middle East crisis, but without strong leaders on either side, he doesn't stand a chance, argues our Diplomatic Editor
By David Blair
Last Updated: 11:28PM GMT 02 Jan 2009
The smoke billowing over Gaza serves, among much else, as a bitter warning for Barack Obama. As Israel's onslaught on Hamas strongholds enters its second week, with key leaders of the radical Islamist movement now singled out as targets, the Holy Land is locked in a new spiral of conflict.
Sewage from shattered mains runs in the streets of Gaza City, while tanks and infantry mass at the borders, preparing for a possible invasion. And the world's leaders are turning to the one man who they believe could break the cycle of retaliation and push Israel and the Palestinians into achieving a comprehensive peace agreement – President-Elect Obama.
With their love of acronyms, European diplomats pepper their documents with references to the "MEPP" – the Middle East Peace Process. They, and others, want the new president to place it first on his to-do list, to make this quest the number-one priority of his foreign policy.
But look at the situation from Obama's point of view. The agony of Gaza, and of Israeli towns under attack from Palestinian rockets, drives home an uncomfortable truth: a viable peace agreement is almost certainly impossible, at least in the medium term.
Safe in the knowledge that they will bear no responsibility for failure, European leaders can afford to urge Obama to pursue the "MEPP". But why should the world's most powerful man waste effort on an enterprise that cannot succeed? Why should he risk almost certain failure?
Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the British Ambassador to Washington, provided a more realistic forecast of Obama's likely approach in a detailed assessment of the next president, leaked to The Daily Telegraph last year. "The MEPP is unlikely to be a top priority for Obama," wrote Sir Nigel. "But he would pursue it reasonably vigorously."
As he ponders the issues, Obama will doubtless reflect on the searing experience of the last Democrat in the White House. Bill Clinton made the quest for a Middle East settlement a central theme of his presidency. Yet after eight years of diplomatic effort, he was driven to a rare confession of powerlessness.
A few days before Clinton handed over the presidency in January 2001, Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, rang the White House to thank him for his efforts. "We will never forget you, Mr President," said Arafat. "You are a great leader."
"I am not a great man," replied Clinton. "I am a failure – and you have made me one."
Six months earlier, Clinton had brought Israel and Arafat closer to a settlement than ever before. Ehud Barak, now defence minister but then Israel's prime minister, joined Arafat at a summit in Camp David that could have broken the mould of history. In the log cabins of the presidential retreat, the two leaders finally confronted the intractable problems at the heart of their conflict.
These "core issues", as diplomats term them, can be summed up in four words: borders, settlers, refugees, Jerusalem. Put simply, any peace agreement has to decide the borders of a future Palestinian state; the future of Jewish settlers living in the West Bank; the fate of the Palestinian refugees who were driven from Israel at its birth in 1948; and the division of Jerusalem into two national capitals.
On the eighth day of the summit – and with no progress made – Barak met Clinton shortly before midnight. This highly charged conversation came close to changing the course of history.
For the first time, the Israeli prime minister laid out everything he was willing to concede. There would be a Palestinian state covering 91 per cent of the West Bank, with the largest Jewish settlements being absorbed into Israel and the rest dismantled. Most remarkably of all, Barak became the first Israeli leader to concede the division of Jerusalem, which his country officially describes as its "eternal, undivided capital". He broke this taboo by offering to give the Palestinians full sovereignty over seven areas of the city.
After their conversation, Clinton summoned Arafat to lay out what he considered a genuine breakthrough. He did everything he could to sway the Palestinian leader. One aide described how the President was "cajoling, persuading" and "using the full range of the piano board".
Yet the meeting ended with Arafat unconvinced. His rejection of Barak's offer was conveyed on the following day. Clinton's response was blunt. "You are leading your people and the region to a catastrophe," he told Arafat. Two months later, the Second Palestinian Intifada broke out, and the two sides have been locked in conflict ever since.
This sequence is central to Israel's narrative of recent events. The official Israeli argument can be summarised thus: "We offered the Palestinians peace at Camp David, but they chose war."
There is a good deal of truth in this, but it is far from the whole picture. Arafat had warned against holding the Camp David summit, predicting that an agreement would not be reached and that failure would spark more violence. His "no" may not have been final – while Barak's own sincerity is open to question. He may have been gambling on a Palestinian rejection, knowing that he could never have implemented what he had offered.
But Obama will have noted that eight years of American diplomacy succeeded only in bringing the Palestinian and Israeli horses to water; even the superpower could not make them drink. And if that was the situation back in 2000, the chances of a settlement are even slighter today. At Camp David, the Palestinians had a leader, in the shape of Yasser Arafat, who could implement any agreement he signed. For all his many faults – including the fact that he was a lying fantasist who saw terrorism as a tool of policy – Arafat was a worthwhile interlocutor.
Today, by contrast, the Palestinian national movement is split between its official leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, and the extremists of Hamas. Israel deals with Abbas – and peace talks addressing all of the "core issues" have been taking place for more than a year. Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and a candidate for the premiership in the election due on February 10, has served as Israel's chief negotiator, meeting her Palestinian counterparts two or three times a week.
But even if Israel signed a comprehensive peace agreement with Abbas, no one believes it could be implemented. Abbas, despised by many Palestinians as a Western stooge, simply does not have the stature to enact any deal. Hamas would doubtless condemn a settlement and render it stillborn. The civil war between this divided leadership means there is no worthwhile negotiating partner on the Palestinian side of the table.
Israeli officials stress this point – while overlooking the fact that much the same could be said of their own political scene. More to the point, any viable peace agreement would compel Israel to evacuate most of the 280,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank, and some of the 180,000 in East Jerusalem. A large core of religious settlers would not go quietly. When Israel left Gaza in 2005, withdrawing a mere 8,000 settlers, it took 45,000 police and cost $2.5 billion. Removing most of the West Bank settlements would be a mammoth undertaking, requiring immense cost and effort.
In this case, the blame for the obstacle to peace rests firmly with Israel. For decades, the government has fecklessly increased the number of West Bank settlers, making its own task in the event of a peace settlement steadily harder. When Barak made his offer, there were 190,000. Today, there are 90,000 more. The illegal settlement of land that Israel may be required to give up is wholly counter-productive. But undoing this folly would require political leadership of a truly Churchillian kind.
Instead, Israel's new prime minister after February's election will probably be either Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Right-wing Likud party, or Tzipi Livni, from the centrist Kadima party. Netanyahu, who does not believe in a Palestinian state, would make a peace agreement even harder to achieve. Livni, who does believe in the need for one, lacks the stature to enact a deal, even if she could manage to find a credible Palestinian negotiating partner.
Obama may be the world's most powerful man, but even America cannot choose the leaders on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Until politicians emerge on both sides who can truly lead their people, the carnage will continue.
) but you don't actually think Obama will have an affect on these extremist whack jobs do you?