The Kerry speech introduced parameters for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They did not differ much from the Clinton Parameters, and were more ambiguous and concise. Still, it was a much-needed move in light of the regional changes that took place since 2000, and of issues which gained traction since (such as Israel’s request that Palestinians recognize it as a ‘Jewish state’). The updated parameters provide Israelis – public and politicians alike – more clarity regarding the two-state solution and the steps needed in order to get there. They also generate new momentum by enabling the discussion on an end-game agreement to be based on a recent document, which is part of a set of international moves to advance conflict resolution, and not on a plan devised sixteen years ago.

The Trump effect

A key difference between the Kerry parameters and those of Clinton is the reference made by Kerry to the Arab Peace Initiative (which was not yet published in 2000) and to regional ramifications of Israeli-Palestinian peace. Kerry highlighted the unique opportunity that Israel is currently facing – an opportunity to establish normal ties with Arab countries, and to even launch a joint security framework. Kerry stressed that the fulfillment of this opportunity is clearly linked to progress towards Israeli-Palestinian peace, contrasting recent claims by Netanyahu that normalization between Israel and Arab countries can precede Israeli-Palestinian peace. In his speech, Kerry tried to convince Israelis that peace will bring them concrete regional benefits. He focused on relations with the Arab world and on chances for enhanced security, but he could also have mentioned the EU’s offer for a Special Privileged Partnership with Israel and the future Palestinian state, as another incentive for peace.

Kerry refrained from addressing a major change that took place since the Clinton parameters were issued – the split between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip following the Hamas takeover of Gaza. The Palestinian divide is a major obstacle on the road for a two-state solution, and is one that the international community tends to avoid due to the sensitivity of dealing with Hamas. It is worth remembering that because of this obstacle, the negotiations between Olmert and Abbas in 2007-8 were aimed to reach a “shelf-agreement” only; one that will be implementable only after the restoration of Palestinian unity. While the Quartet report of July 2016 focused on this thorny issue, Kerry decided to skip it altogether.

Paradoxically, it was Trump’s victory and his positions on the Israeli-Palestinian issue that may have increased Obama’s motivation to make a final move. The UN Security Council resolution and the Kerry speech leave a legacy for Trump to deal with, but they also provide clear guidelines for future American administrations and for other countries that want to contribute to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. These steps demonstrated the continuity in American policy since 1967 regarding the occupied territories and Jerusalem.

Despite efforts along the years to mask and downplay differences between Israel and the U.S. on these issues, the American position – of Republican and Democratic administrations alike – has remained remarkably the same. A different policy by the Trump administration, if such will actually be taken, will be the exception. One can only wonder why hasn’t the Obama administration introduced its clear-cut positions earlier, during a time that still allowed the international community to act on them.

Looking in the mirror

The Kerry speech put a mirror in front of the Israeli government and society. Kerry clearly and rationally explained why the continuation of the status quo will not enable Israel to maintain its Jewish and democratic character in the long run. The ongoing occupation and the expansion of settlements makes the two-state solution gradually less feasible, and may lead to an irreversible situation. Those in the Israeli Right, who are ideologically committed to the settlements, do not have a reasonable answer to this dilemma, except for their wishful thinking that the Palestinians will somehow disappear or move to Jordan. The renowned Palestinian scholar Edward Said defined the role of intellectuals as “speaking truth to power.” In our case, it was the opposite. The power Kerry spoke explained the unsolvable contradiction between the occupation and Israel’s Jewish and democratic nature.

Netanyahu and his government responded to the American move with unprecedented bashing of an acting American administration. Netanyahu is looking forward to Trump’s inauguration, expecting a much more sympathetic approach by the next president. However, while American positions may change, the international consensus regarding the Palestinian issue is not likely to erode. This was demonstrated at the UN Security Council, and will be demonstrated again at the upcoming international conference in Paris. The Israeli government’s enthusiasm of Trump’s victory, should be replaced with genuine concern for Israel’s global standing, and for a change of policy that will help Israel regain the international legitimacy it is currently losing.

While American and international actions are important, they alone will not change facts on the ground and resolve the conflict. Eventually, Israelis and Palestinians themselves will have to take the lead. For this to happen, a courageous and pro-peace leadership is needed, as well as a strong civil society that challenges policies that jeopardize the two-state solution and lead Israel to increased isolation.

(originally published in +972 Magazine)

הפוסט Kerry’s parameters force Israel to take a hard look in the mirror הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

הפוסט Abbas Is on His Way to the UN Again הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

But is it?

Certainly, the move to apply to a raft of international organizations looks confrontational, to say the least. At first glance, it’s a major move outside the Oslo parameters and is liable to sabotage the progress Kerry has made over the past year. What’s the Palestinian endgame? A vote for upgraded status at the U.N. Security Council? Many have speculated that the Palestinians will take Israel to the International Criminal Court, charging the country for war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza.

But we’re not there yet.

Read the full article in Foreign Policy

הפוסט Suicide by Statehood הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

If talks break down, observers including the New York Times’ Tom Friedman suggest that Israel will come under massive international pressure for its continued building of settlements. But what Friedman and others don’t understand is that the Palestinians will lead the way. They have a plan ready and waiting.

Palestinian politics are rarely covered in the United States. Nor, for that matter, are they given a great deal of thought in the Middle Eastern press. But Palestinian insiders are now indicating that there is mounting pressure on Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership to produce something, anything, to alter the status quo. Even now, while negotiations are in full swing, Abbas increasingly appears to be ‘the little Dutch boy’—
as one Israeli reporter put it—struggling to rein in the demands coming from within his own party, Fatah. In light of these increasing demands and pressures, Abbas, who has led the Palestinian Authority well past his legal mandate (his term ended in 2009), is almost certainly set to renew the international campaign for recognition of Palestinian statehood. It’s a campaign known in Ramallah as the “Palestine 194” campaign.

This initiative had been in the works, with fits and starts, since 2005. That year, Abbas reportedly traveled to Brazil for a summit of South American and Arab states, and met privately with Brazil’s leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. There, da Silva supposedly told Abbas that when he neared the end of his second term (which expired on January 1, 2011), he would help build a Latin American consensus for a unilateral Palestinian statehood declaration at the UN.

Between 2009 and 2011, Abbas and Lula made good on their plan, recruiting scores of Latin American and other non-aligned states to recognize the State of Palestine. The campaign also included European states such as France, Spain, Portugal and Norway. In 2010, at an Arab League meeting in Sirte, Abbas made one of his first references to the “Palestine 194” campaign. The name said it all: there are currently 193 member-states in the United Nations, and the Palestinians were unambiguous about their desire to become the 194th.

The international community was similarly unambiguous about its support for the campaign. By the end of 2010, almost one hundred countries had already recognized an independent Palestine. The effort to garner widespread international support was, to say the least, a new and evolved one. The Israelis tried to dissuade some friendly states from supporting the campaign, but the Palestinians clearly had the upper hand.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2011, “…I submitted, in my capacity as the President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, to His Excellency Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, an application for the admission of Palestine on the basis of the 4 June 1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif [Jerusalem] as its capital, as a full member of the United Nations.”

With that, Abbas made history. And while it can be argued that Arafat had already declared a Palestinian state in 1988, the Palestine 194 campaign felt distinctly different. The Palestinians had conceived, formulized, and implemented a concerted international policy, and it was, at least to this point, a diplomatic victory.

The only hitch, however, was that the U.S. was poised to veto their efforts at the Security Council.

Undeterred, Abbas brought the campaign home to overwhelming positive reception. As Al Jazeera reported, “A welcome party was planned at the Muqata, the presidential headquarters [in Ramallah], and a stage was set up next to the grave of the former president, Yasser Arafat.” The Palestinian government and schools closed early. Palestinians across the West Bank received text messages advertising “the official mass reception.” Palestine TV devoted its broadcast to Abbas, broadcasting photographs of the leader throughout the years as well as footage of him meeting ordinary Palestinians and international figures. For the Palestinians’ second president who has always been viewed as a rather bland and uncharismatic afterthought to Yasser Arafat, the reception was gratifying.

Abbas did not savor his victory for long, however. As expected, Palestine 194 was not well received in Washington. Led by efforts in the U.S. Congress, Washington withheld $200 million in financial assistance as a warning to the Palestinians not to return to the UN.

However, the Palestinians were not prepared to accept defeat. With more than one hundred countries in support of the “State of Palestine,” the Palestinians had leverage. Abbas and his advisers immediately made a play for membership at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

But this, too, came with consequences. According to a little-known American law passed during the Clinton administration in the 1990s, the U.S. is prohibited from giving funds to any part of the U.N. system that grants the PLO the same standing as member states. So, as the Palestinians pushed for full membership, they were effectively pushing for a $70 million per year (America’s 22 percent) slashing of the UNESCO budget, which operated on a $325 million per annum budget.

The vote took place in October 2011, with 107 of 173 countries voting in favor, 14 opposing, and 52 abstaining. Immediately thereafter, U.S. funds were slashed. The UNESCO victory was a pyrrhic one, at best. Meanwhile, the request for statehood had not led to a vote at the Security Council. Indeed, the bid had stalled when it became clear the US would not hesitate to use its veto.

Despite these setbacks, by early 2012, the PLO signaled that it was poised for another run at the UN. To be sure, not all Palestinians leaders were on board. Some were unconvinced of the benefits it would yield the Palestinians. Indeed, some believed that it was a campaign guided by pride rather than strategic interests. Among the most outspoken opponents was then-prime minister, Salam Fayyad.

Washington undoubtedly played a role in curbing Palestinian enthusiasm. In a June interview with the Saudi Okaz newspaper, Saeb Erekat said the U.S. threatened to suspend aid and close down the PLO mission in Washington if the Palestinians returned to the UN. In an apparent move to placate President Barack Obama, Al-Hayat reported that Abbas would postpone the UN bid until after U.S. elections in early November.

Over the course of the next few months, the Palestinians settled on November 29 as their target. Only this time, they planned to go directly to the General Assembly, where they had the numbers advantage, and Washington could not veto. The strategy proved successful. 138 countries voted in favor of the initiative. Only 9 voted against—eight, not including Israel.

In short, the Palestinians demonstrated that their campaign could not be deterred. Not even the United States could prevent their bid for recognition. And the leadership made it clear that it would not cease seeking recognition so long as Palestinian independence was not achieved.

This, in part, explains the urgency of the Obama Administration’s new peace process, launched in the spring of 2013. Led by Secretary of State John Kerry and managed by veteran diplomat Martin Indyk, Washington has labored to restart the peace process. And while the administration has placed significant pressure on Israel to make concessions on borders, Jerusalem and settlements, one of the major demands on the Palestinians has been to halt the international bid for recognition.

Skeptical of the entire process after decades of fruitless negotiations, the Palestinians have nevertheless abided by this demand. But they have also made it clear that they continue to study steps to join UN treaties and bodies. Even amidst the peace talks, the Palestinians have used the 194 campaign as leverage. In early November, for example, the Palestinian Monetary Authority announced that it had obtained full membership in the International Association of Deposit Insurers. Senior Palestinian official Nabil Shaath also warned that the Palestinians could use the “weapon” of taking claims against Israel in the International Criminal Court. Shaath added, “There are organizations that await our application, and ask us when are we applying.”

Abbas himself has threatened, “If we don’t obtain our rights through negotiations, we have the right to go to international institutions.” Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi also warned that the Palestinian leadership was ready to join sixteen agencies beginning in April 2014. “Everything is in place and will be set in motion,” Ashrawi claimed. By late December, Saeb Erekat told Maan News Agency that there were no less than sixty-three member agencies of the UN that the PLO sought to join.

And while the exact strategy has not been released, on January 25, Maan News Agency reported that a PLO committee had reached an internal agreement on how to “take the Palestinian plight to the UN and its various bodies.” This included “signing international conventions and joining UN agencies and different bodies.” Among the most important of these bodies was said to be the International Criminal Court (ICC), “because that will enable the PA to sue the Israeli occupation over war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Israeli officials quietly admit that the ICC is only one agency on a short list of international bodies that they view as red lines. They include the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and INTERPOL. The concern for Israel is not that, not only would the Palestinians gain acceptance as a state through these agencies (and do so outside of the bilateral peace process), but that the Palestinians would also try to isolate Israel from these agencies, which are crucial to Israeli commerce, security and/or diplomacy.

Other Palestinian memberships would simply be insulting. For example, Palestinians seek to join FIFA and then disqualify Israel from the international soccer association. Indeed, Israel is growing increasingly concerned that the Palestine 194 campaign is about to become part of the larger strategy of Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS). The campaign has scored some small successes in academia, with a handful of European businesses joining, too. But should the majority of UN member states embrace the strategy of shunning Israel from multiple international organizations, BDS could evolve into a real threat to Israel’s legitimacy.

The Palestinians, for their part, know that if they take new steps in this direction, it will open up a whole new front in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This explains, in part, why Palestinian officials have kept a lid on their strategy. However, Palestinian officials in the past have been quick to point out that they do not view the Palestine 194 campaign as antithetical to bilateral negotiations with Israel. Indeed, they see it as a means to enhance their negotiating position. But now that talks are ongoing, Palestinian officials will not discuss how this dual-track strategy works, particularly in light of U.S. opposition to the 194 track. Instead, Palestinian officials articulate their full-throated support of the Kerry initiative. At least most of the time.

For Washington, there is more at stake here than a Nobel Prize for Obama, Kerry and Indyk. Washington maintains its laws prohibiting the funding of UN agencies when the PLO gains membership. That law did not change following the UNESCO debacle. This, of course, means that the US could be forced to choose between the State of Palestine and sixty-three different UN agencies.

Some may not seem like a loss—such as the International Olive Council. However, others, such as the World Health Organization or the International Court of Justice, could be bruising.

Worryingly, despite the clear signs that such a campaign may be renewed with the collapse of the U.S-led peace talks Washington has given little thought to what happens next. State Department officials working on the peace track acknowledge that Palestinian plans may be in the making, but few will cede that a peace-process breakdown is even possible, let alone imminent. Other officials at Foggy Bottom note the potential threat of the 194 campaign to U.S. interests, in light of the fact that it could prompt Washington to break off from multiple international organizations. They insist that there is regular communication with the Palestinians and the relevant agencies on this issue, but it is unclear whether the U.S. government is in any way prepared for the moment the campaign gets underway. For example, Congress rebuffed the president when he sought waivers during the UNESCO battle, and it has since turned away the executive on multiple occasions when other waivers have been requested.

What this means for Washington is not yet clear. But it is clear that the Palestinians have a ready-made policy to pursue should the current talks break down. Unlike in 2000, when the collapse in diplomacy prompted a violent intifada, this failure will yield a diplomatic intifada, whereby the Palestinians pressure Israel using their leverage with the international community. It’s nonviolent, but its war by other means. And it’s likely that Washington will be caught in the crossfire.

(originally published in the National Interest)

הפוסט Palestine’s Plan for when Peace Talks Fail הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.

So what happens if negotiations actually renew and then break down again? What’s next for the Palestinian agenda?

Kerry has said that progress needs to be made by the fall, presumably to circumvent future Palestinian actions at the UN; it’s clear that one of the conditions for resuming talks was a halt in the Palestinian internationalization campaign while talks are ongoing. The common Israeli prediction is that the Palestinians could build off their 2011-2012 UN campaign and do something as drastic as going to the International Criminal Court to air their grievances. This battle of global public opinion is one of the few areas of Palestinian diplomatic strength, and a severe concern for the Israelis. Yet if that’s the next move in the eyes of the Israelis, the feeling isn’t mutual in Ramallah. Indeed, as one senior Fatah official pointed out to me, the ICC is the last organization on a list of organizations triaged in importance to the Palestinian internationalization campaign. What is more likely, then, is a renewed Palestinian diplomatic campaign at the international level, a campaign that starts with the Palestinians seeking to sign some of the less-threatening international treaties such as the UNICEF Rights of the Child. These treaties and conventions are referred to by Palestinian leaders as the “first clusters”; relatively minor organizations and treaties that escalate as the campaign continues. Becoming signatories to some of these treaties has two main benefits for the Palestinians: first, they show the Palestinian people a palpable engagement on the international level, and second, they do very little to antagonize the United States and Israel.

But where did these “clusters” and contingency plans come from? The shift in the Palestinian leadership was gradual but recent. Faced with a moribund peace process and a status quo that increasingly harmed their interests, the Palestinian leadership scrambled to find alternative tactical tracks to pursue. In 2009, this reached a head when Abbas was faced with roughly three main options: attempt to reconcile the Fatah/Hamas split, essentially condone an intifada, or go international and approach the UN. With less-than-overwhelming enthusiasm for reconciliation, and similar disdain for an intifada, Abbas was left with really only one realistic option: internationalization.

The justification, then, for this choice lay in the history of the Palestinian political movement. In interviews this past year in Ramallah, Palestinian officials were quick to align the recent international campaign with the historical movements of the Palestinians at the UN. This process, in their eyes, started in 1974, with the PLO’s release of the ten-point plan, a document that sought to reconcile the armed resistance, but also left room for political maneuverability. As the Lebanese war raged on, the local PLO leadership began to evolve, forming the institutions of a semi-state. This evolution continued in 1982, when PLO members began openly calling for the acceptance of Resolution 242, the UN resolution calling for Israeli withdrawal from “lands occupied in the recent conflict.” Abbas’s own memoirs detail this evolution—as an advocate of accepting 242 in 1974, Abbas noted that by 1982 members of the PLO thought a shift towards the international community could ”break the siege [of Beirut] and preserve the PLO.”

By 1988, this evolution had reached a climax when the Palestinians issued their declaration of independence, a statement that was joined with supporting documents accepting Resolution 242 and the two-state process. Soon after, Arafat was invited to address the UN, the Palestinians’ status was upgraded to observer entity, and a few days later Arafat renounced terrorism in a teleconference. The evolution of Palestinian thought that had culminated in an international campaign was halted subsequently thereafter, as the United States and PLO began to form a tenuous, if not productive, relationship that would lead to Madrid and eventually the Oslo process. Not until this process broke down in the years following Annapolis would the Palestinians look back on their internationalization campaign. As one PA official told me, “it’s as if the stopwatch we started in 1974 and paused in 1988 was resumed in 2009.”

The beauty of the UN campaign was its flexibility. Unlike most options on the table for the Palestinians, the internationalization campaign had tremendous upside. Not only did it play to one of the last, great strengths of the Palestinian leadership, the UN, but it was able to reconcile internal Palestinian political camps, something very few policy agendas can claim in the West Bank and Gaza. For those that advocate the use of force, or at least a more stern approach to dealing with Israel, it had the advantages of appearing to antagonize Israel and the United States. For those that pledge themselves to bilateral negotiations, it had the upside of appearing to leverage the Palestinian hand, the clearest evidence of that being Kerry’s recent attempts to bring both sides to the table.

For Abbas, a man who wants to appear committed to the bilateral process, the UN campaign followed in the footsteps of his predecessor. In May of 1999, Arafat both publicly and privately mused about what to do after the five-year interim Oslo period ended. With his trademark style of pursuing multiple tracks to varying levels of effort at once, Arafat deployed two deputies, Nabil Shaath and Saeb Erekat, to lobby European countries at the UN to recognize a possible Palestinian declaration of statehood. It was a lobbying campaign that Dennis Ross countered with a campaign of his own, as described in his memoirs; Arafat was “coy” about the possible move. However, President Clinton was able to take advantage of his working relationship with Arafat and bring him back from the brink with the promise of renewed negotiations. It was a moment that undoubtedly had an impact on Abbas when he launched his UN campaign in 2011. Palestinian officials describe Abbas as a leader hoping for Obama to intervene with proposed negotiations, to bring both parties back to the table. With Obama either unwilling or unable to do so, Abbas had walked himself into a corner where the only option was to go to the UN.

If Israeli officials describe the UN campaign as unilateral because it breaks with the spirit of Oslo, and the Palestinians describe the campaign as multilateral because it engages the international community, then the truth is somewhere in between. For the Palestinian leadership, there is an emerging group of officials and policymakers calling for an integrated strategy, a usage of tactics such as ”smart resistance,” of lobbying international countries and signing on to the “clusters” of the global community. This group is not opposed to new negotiations with Israel—indeed they support it—but they have been laying the foundation for a backup plan to failed negotiations for years. If Kerry’s proposed talks do indeed break down, or if they are unable to even start, the backup plan for the Israelis is a perpetuation of the status quo. The backup plan for the Palestinians, however, is taking the conflict back to the international arena.

(originally published in the National Interest)

הפוסט Palestine’s Plan B הופיע לראשונה ב-Mitvim.