Today I want to call your attention to two recent speeches, each by an experienced U.S. diplomat. Both of these men had lengthy, varied, and distinguished careers, both served as ambassadors to important U.S. allies, and both are solidly rooted in a realist view of foreign policy. For all these reasons, their remarks are well worth pondering.

The first is by retired Ambassador Charles ("Chas") Freeman, who served the U.S. government in a variety of capacities over more than thirty years. And he would be serving our country today as chairman of the National Intelligence Council had he not been the target of a vicious and baseless smear campaign by prominent figures in the Israel lobby. (Obama's failure to defend the appointment was an early warning sign of his spinelessness on this general issue).

In any case, Freeman recently gave a fascinating lecture at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, entitled "America's Faltering Search for Peace in the Middle East: Openings for Others?" Apart from being beautifully written, it is also one of the clearest and most common-sensical analyses of our predicaments there that I have read recently. Here's just one small excerpt (you really owe it to yourself to read the whole thing):

In foreign affairs, interests are the measure of all things. My assumption is that Americans and Norwegians, indeed Europeans in general, share common interests that require peace in the Holy Land. To my mind, these interests include -- but are, of course, not limited to -- gaining security and acceptance for a democratic state of Israel; eliminating the gross injustices and daily humiliations that foster Arab terrorism against Israel and its foreign allies and supporters, as well as friendly Arab regimes; and reversing the global spread of religious strife and prejudice, including, very likely, a revival of anti-Semitism in the West if current trends are not arrested. None of these aspirations can be fulfilled without an end to the Israeli occupation and freedom for Palestinians.

Needless to say, the fact that someone with his experience, insight, and independence of mind was blackballed from further public service tells you a lot about why U.S. foreign policy keeps spinning off the rails.

The second talk that I recommend is by Robert Blackwill, who served as U.S. Ambassador to India and on the National Security Council during the Bush administration. (Interestingly, both Blackwill and Freeman were aides to Henry Kissinger at earlier stages in their careers). Blackwill recently delivered the second annual Ernest May Lecture to the Aspen Strategy Group, on the topic of "Afghanistan and the Lessons of History." Not surprisingly, his talk draws on many of the insights that May and Richard Neustadt developed about the perils of misplaced historical analogies and sloppy historical reasoning, but he offers plenty of intriguing nuggets of his own. And the "lessons" he draws about our Afghan experience ought to be on the desk of every ambitious "nation-builder" in Washington. Here they are:

• Ensure that the U.S. commitment in blood and treasure is clearly commensurate with U.S. vital national interests and does not push aside more important strategic challenges.
• Keep U.S. policy objectives feasible. No dreams allowed.
• Take into account that local realities dominate global constructs.
• Stay out of long ground wars in general, and especially stay out of long ground wars in Asia.
• Reject the notion that America has the capability to socially engineer far-off societies fundamentally different from our own.
• Be cautious about making counterinsurgency the U.S. Army's core competence. Interacting with exotic foreign cultures on the ground, not to say dramatically changing them, is not exactly America's comparative advantage.
• Accept that diplomacy is almost always a better instrument of U.S. national purpose than the use of military force.
• Remember that often purported worst case consequences of U.S. external behavior don't ever happen, not least because we remain the most powerful and resilient country on earth.

There's a lot of wisdom in those two speeches, and I recommend them highly. Among other things, they remind us that while you don't have to be a realist to say smart things about foreign policy, it sure helps.

Two posts from today’s blogosphere offer spot-on responses to yesterday’s tragic killings in Hebron:

From Mitchell Plitnick’s “The Third Way:”

I very much appreciate President Obama condemning yesterday’s murders of four settlers in the South Hebron Hills.

But that condemnation would be an awful lot more meaningful, to myself and to many others I’m sure, if we saw similar outrage in Washington when Israel killed over 700 Palestinian non-combatants in Operation Cast Lead. Or when a border policeman killed Bassem Abu Rahmeh by firing a gas cannister directly and intentionally at him. Or for any of the 100 Palestinians killed since the end of Operation Cast Lead (many of whom were killed as combatants, to be sure, but 32 of whom were not taking part in hostilities nor were counted as “targeted assassinations”).

From Paul Woodward’s “War in Context:”

Whether or not Hamas had a role in yesterday’s attack it is too soon to tell. And even if some or all of the gunmen turn out to belong to the movement does not necessarily reveal a great deal about the level of command and control or political motives for the attack.

Whatever the motives, the outcome itself has opened political opportunities to each constituency that now portrays itself as a victim.

Given that the attack took place in an area controlled by the IDF, President Abbas could have taken the opportunity to point out that the attack underlines the fact that there can ultimately be no security solution to the political conflict. Instead, Palestinian security services have been quick to launch what is being described as one of the largest arrest waves of all time in the West Bank.

At the funerals of the four Israelis killed, settler leaders took the opportunity to push for settlement expansion, call for vengeance (a call which has already been acted upon), deny the existence of the Palestinian people and made a thinly-veiled appeal for ethnic cleansing…

When President Obama tries to press Benjamin Netanyahu to extend the so-called settlement freeze, the Israeli prime minister will no doubt tell him solemnly that in light of recent events, his hands are well and truly tied.

They shoot and we build has become the settlers’ slogan — one that is almost certainly to Netanyahu’s liking.

In The U.N. Headquarters Headquarters in the High Commissioner’s House in Jerusalem, he described an early version of the Middle East peace process industry:

The mediators, the peacemakers, the compromise-shapers,
the comforters
live in the white house
and get their nourishment from far away,
through winding pipes, through dark veins, like a fetus.

And their secretaries are lipsticked and laughing,
and their sturdy chauffeurs wait below, like horses in a stable,
and the trees that shade them have their roots in no-man’s land
and the illusions are children who went out to find cyclamen
in the field
and did not come back.

After devoting more lines to sadly mocking this nest of illusionists, Amichai concludes:

And hopes come to me like bold seafarers,
like the discoverers of continents coming to an island,
and stay for a day or two
and rest…
And then they set sail.

There has been an unrelenting barrage of gloomy pronouncements about the Israeli-Palestinian talks. All manner of pundits from the right, left and center have explained why the talks will amount to nothing and might even do more harm than good, why only fools and impractical dreamers would permit our bold seafarers, our hopes, to arrive and remain.

One of the most thorough and convincing critiques comes from Donald Horowitz, a scholar who doesn’t seem to have any ax to grind (HT: Tom Mitchell). On the left, Juan Cole explains “how little Netanyahu is interested in real peace with the Palestinians” and offers compelling reasons to be scornful. On the right, Barry Rubin is equally convincing when he explains how “Palestinian Authority incitement to kill Israelis and destroy Israel” is a “powerful subverter of chances for peace.” (Note that he is talking about the PA, not Hamas).

Just wander around the blogosphere for five minutes and you will find many more.

If you were expecting persuasive rebuttals, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I don’t disagree with any of these arguments for gloom. Daniel Levy probably doesn’t disagree either, although he bravely shoulders the burden of showing why the talks might defy expectations and amount to something:

(T)he main reason for hope rests with the potential that President Obama, having taken ownership of this issue, will pursue decisive leadership down the line. As a candidate, Barack Obama flirted with a definition of pro-Israel that was more sophisticated and more relevant to contemporary realities than the standard fare served up by pandering politicians (at a campaign stop with Jewish leadership in Cleveland, Ohio, he suggested that pro-Israel need not only be defined as pro-Likud. In insisting that a two-state solution and comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace is in the U.S. interest, President Obama is advancing a narrative that was adopted rather late in the day by his predecessor and that is very much the consensus of the U.S. military…

…The seemingly plodding progress made by the Obama administration thus far can be more generously interpreted as the U.S. methodically walking the parties to a place where decisive U.S. intervention and presentation of U.S. proposals becomes more possible, more justifiable, and more likely to succeed. According to that view, this week represents another and particularly important step in that direction. American officials have openly acknowledged that bridging proposals might be forthcoming and are showing a greater commitment to being present in the room at negotiations than has been the case in past efforts.

That helps. At least it helps a little bit. But even if the PA and Israel astonishingly come to terms under American auspices, given the deep political divisions within both peoples, and given the profound gaps in their narratives, it is unlikely that either party would be able to implement an agreement that would hold up in the near future.

If there is little hope for the short-term, though, that doesn’t mean the long-term prospects are entirely bleak. Lately, the popular analogy of this mess to the one in Northern Ireland has been demolished by many different commentators, including Horowitz and Levy. They point out the many differences between the players and the circumstances of the two conflicts. But they miss the most important point about the Republican-Unionist struggles, a more general and much much less complicated point: eventually, people in both communities just couldn’t take any more violence and turmoil. Eventually, the extremists on both sides decided that violence was counterproductive and gave up their maximalist demands.

Tom Mitchell is one of the few people around with a detailed knowledge of the nuances of both conflicts. In a message he sent to me that will eventually become part of a post, he wrote: “Peace in Northern Ireland came about only after the Republican Movement realized that a military victory was impossible and that there was a political cost to pay for the continued conflict.”

In a subsequent note, he gave one explanation of why the Republicans made that decision, a point that will make the left very uncomfortable: “British, and to a lesser extent Irish, intelligence did a very good job of infiltrating the IRA and INLA during the 1980s and early 1990s and thus were able to neutralize many IRA operations and imprison experienced terrorists.”

For a host of reasons, somehow both sides eventually grew tired enough to put aside centuries of resentment and bitter memories and sectarian passions.

There are any number of reasons why that kind of transformation probably won’t happen in Israel and the territories. But no one should assert with smug certainty that it will NEVER happen. Nor should anyone try to predict how long it will take. People and nations do change, change utterly. Grand ideologies are discarded and others replace them (e.g., China got fed up with Maoism and embraced free enterprise). Assumptions are overturned. Bitter conflicts somehow end (think France and Germany). That is not a very sophisticated political analysis, but that doesn’t make it less true. Right now, I confess it is the only reason for my bold seafarers to hang around.

So I will conclude with Yehuda Amichai, who, unsurprisingly, got it right decades ago. In “Sort of an Apocalypse,” he wrote:

And they’ll beat their swords into plowshares and plowshares into swords,
And so on and so on, and back and forth.
Perhaps from being beaten thinner and thinner
the iron of hatred will vanish forever.

After failure upon failure of previous direct talks, it has taken 20 months to get each side to sit down again, and the Obama administration is keeping quiet on their strategy for success. If these talks merely amount to posturing and fail, reviving them yet again could take years. Infusing the negotiations with hope requires unprecedented commitment by Netanyahu and Abbas to go beyond talk of compromises, to actually make compromises

There are strong feelings of skepticism from Israelis and solid notions of anger and resentment from Palestinians in the region. Tal Harris and Samer Makhlouf, the executive directors of OneVoice Israel (OVI) and OneVoice Palestine (OVP) both believe that it is important to instill hope in their communities and give these negotiations a chance despite a history of failed negotiations.

“There is no better alternative to ending the conflict than through a negotiated agreement. We will push for a meaningful process that yields one,” said Harris.

OVI will work hard to promote the positive aspects of these negotiations, presenting how necessary compromise is. For example, on the topic of Jerusalem where Palestinians hope to have East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, OVI will show how 35% of Jerusalem is already Palestinian. Most areas in East Jerusalem are places that Israelis don’t go anyway so compromising on this factor is worth the alternative of not compromising and letting situations on the ground worsen.

OVP Executive Director Samer Makhlouf agrees on the importance of supporting this round of negotiations, if for nothing else than to take another shot at reaching a final agreement that solves all final status issues in accordance with the international resolutions and laws.

“We don’t support these negotiations unconditionally and we are 99% sure they will fail, but let’s not be so pessimistic. We aim to turn the negative energy into positive energy,” said Makhlouf. He says that many Palestinians feel they were “blackmailed” into these negotiations and that it’s not just the extremists who are opposing them but even the moderates who support two states. The streets are filled with demonstrations but nevertheless OVP feels it’s their role to promote confidence in these negotiations because what the people want is a serious process that ends the occupation and establishes a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

“Convincing the public to give these negotiations the benefit of the doubt is one of the most difficult issues we’ve faced, and we feel as though we’re swimming against the current,” said Makhlouf. “Our role though is to inspire people and give them hope and we will try and do our best.”

One topic that both Harris and Makhlouf agree will hinder the progress of these negotiations is the potential lift on the freeze of settlements. Makhlouf explains that it won’t make sense for him to tell Palestinians to support direct negotiations if settlements continue to be built, similar to what Abbas is saying about the talks.

“You can’t say two states and then build on the second state,” explains Harris.

During this time, both offices turn to the power of OneVoice’s Imagine 2018 campaign to encourage people to think about what they want the future to look like. Highlighting to the general public, as well as the politicians, the different possible realities if a peace agreement were to be reached or not emphasizes that there is no better formula to ending the conflict than to negotiate the interests of both sides

 “To the people who are sarcastic, we have to show them what they don’t get because of the occupation and instead show them that they deserve more than that,” said OVI Executive Director Tal Harris.

Abunimah responds to their dossier,

The StandWithUs dossier is a mishmash of biographical information about me, much of it taken from my own writing, but wildly distorted and wrapped in hostility. Its main purpose it to advise anti-Palestinian activists how to “expose” me. Parts of it are quite complimentary though: “When Ali Abunimah comes to your campus, be prepared for a sophisticated, smooth advocate of radical Palestinian positions.” It warns that my “calmness, highbrow style and constant references to international law and human rights cannot conceal [my] intense hostility about the very founding of Israel… .”

Abunimah notes the absurdity of their counter strategy, confronting him with questions about his own work! I have seen Abunimah speak countless times when I lived in Chicago, and I can testify that reciting the same questions he gets every time will not phase this “smooth sophisticate.”

The document points to the bankruptcy of the “anti-delegitimization” stategy. It requires bullying, ignorant attempts to suggest something sinister about people who stubbornly refuse to be caricatured. And with the existence of the internet, the absurdity leaks out, Abunimah can easily make them look ridiculous on his blog by, proudly for me, reposting the video  from Muzzlewatch of StandWithUs members shouting slurs at Jewish Voice for Peace and our allies. Such a contrast between StandWithUs’s bigotry and Abunimah’s forceful, thoughtful advocacy is all that is required for “delegimiatzation,” nothing sneaky is required.

Speaking Wednesday morning (September 1) to the staff of the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in Oslo, Freeman argued that, in their pursuit of a sustainable and final peace settlement, European and Arab states should be prepared to convene their own values-driven peace process outside the currently shackled UN system, if necessary.

At the core of this process should, he said, be an ultimatum that if the two parties can't reach a peace settlement within a year, the world's states would impose one: This would be either a call for recognition of a Palestinian state within all the Palestinian areas that lie beyond Israel's 1967 borders-- or, recognition of Israel's sovereignty over all of Mandate Palestine and a requirement that it grant equal rights to all who are governed by Israel.

On October 1, my company Just World Books will be publishing Freeman's first collection of writings on the Middle East, titled America's Misadventures in the Middle East. The book contains much new material, including a detailed account of how he saw the strategy and diplomacy unfolding during the US-Saudi-led campaign to liberate Kuwait from its Iraqi occupiers back in 1991, when he was the U.S. ambassador in Saudi Arabia. It also contains several chapters that analyze the mis-steps Pres. G.W. Bush made-- both when he ignored the challenge of pushing for a fair and sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and when he pushed the U.S. into the unjustified invasion and occupation of Iraq.

In his speech in Oslo, Freeman notes that many previous rounds of the US-led "peace process" between Israelis and Palestinians have proved to be only,

diplomatic distractions [that] have served to obscure Israeli actions and evasions that were more often prejudicial to peace than helpful in achieving it. Behind all the blather, the rumble of bulldozers has never stopped... When the curtain goes up on the diplomatic show in Washington tomorrow, will the players put on a different skit? There are many reasons to doubt that they will.

One is that the Obama administration has engaged the same aging impresarios who staged all the previously failed “peace processes” to produce and direct this one with no agreed script.

In his address in Oslo Freeman called forthrightly for Hamas's inclusion in some manner in the peace diplomacy, describing it (correctly) as "the party that won the democratically expressed mandate of the Palestinian people to represent them," and noting that "there can be no peace without its buy-in."

He concluded by asking Norway and its fellow Europeans to do four things to maximize the chances that this latest peace "process" might become an actual peace:

1. Get behind the Arab peace initiative...

2. Help create a Palestinian partner for peace. "Saudi Arabia has several times sought to create a Palestinian peace partner for Israel by bringing Fatah, Hamas, and other factions together. On each occasion, Israel, with U.S. support, has acted to preclude this. Active organization of non-American Western support for diplomacy aimed at restoring a unity government to the Palestinian Authority could make a big difference."

3. Reaffirm and reinforce international law. "If ethnic cleansing, settlement activity, and the like are not just 'unhelpful' but illegal, the international community should find a way to say so, even if the UN Security Council cannot. Otherwise, the most valuable legacy of Atlantic civilization – its vision of the rule of law – will be lost. When one side to a dispute is routinely exempted from principles, all exempt themselves, and the law of the jungle prevails. The international community needs collectively to affirm that Israel, both as occupier and as regional military hegemon, is legally accountable internationally for its actions. If the UN General Assembly cannot 'unite for peace' to do what an incapacitated Security Council cannot, member states should not shrink from working in conference outside the UN framework."

4. Set a deadline linked to an ultimatum. "Accept that the United States will frustrate any attempt by the UN Security Council to address the continuing impasse between Israel and the Palestinians. Organize a global conference outside the UN system to coordinate a decision to inform the parties to the dispute that if they cannot reach agreement in a year, one of two solutions will be imposed. Schedule a follow-up conference for a year later. The second conference would consider whether to recommend universal recognition of a Palestinian state in the area beyond Israel’s 1967 borders or recognition of Israel’s achievement of de jure as well as de facto sovereignty throughout Palestine (requiring Israel to grant all governed by it citizenship and equal rights at pain of international sanctions, boycott, and disinvestment). Either formula would force the parties to make a serious effort to strike a deal or to face the consequences of their recalcitrance. Either formula could be implemented directly by the states members of the international community."

Watch this space for news on that! Meantime, you can follow Just World Books's news on Twitter, here.

Solidarity action with imprisoned Palestinian prisoners, Jerusalem 31.8.10

Based on the past months of popular struggle in the West Bank which have included countless demonstrations, arrests, house raids, injuries and trips to the military courts, I find myself asking whether Israelis would like things to be better. The question is simple enough: do people here want to create a change so that the political situation will become less tense and perhaps everyone will have a brighter future of coexistence and cohabitation? On the eve of another round of ‘mirage’ peace talks, it is hard to find elements in Israeli society that feel the pressing need to change the reality of relations vis a vie Palestinian neighbors. The left is small and effectively meaningless compared with the majority of centrist Israelis who have become accustomed to the status quo concerning the occupation and Israel’s position in the world.

The sad reality is that the occupation and its horrific maintenance exists far in the back of Israeli minds. The issues barely enter daily conversation in Israel. Real debate only gets going in Israel after events like last night or the flotilla. This is usually a defensive conversation surrounding on the fear complex which this country lives on. While Israelis have little or no debate, the rest of the world is moving forward with creative ways to attack Israeli militarism against the Palestinians. The growing popularity of BDS around the world is an example of the sea change currently underway. In fact, BDS is almost unheard of in mainstream Israeli society. The reason for this is simple, awareness brings responsibility. With change also comes responsibility and this requires the embrace of reality. The sad fact is that many in Israel prefer the status quo of continued occupation, occasional attacks on Israeli civilians and the repression of an entire people to the prospect of embracing reality. The following book by Israeli socialist Akiva Orr explores the historical foundations of the trends I am touching on here.

The current round of peace talks will have difficulty getting anywhere because Israelis do not want change. Part of the success of the Separation wall for Israeli society is that it has enabled the status quo to become entrenched. If Israel makes its own borders and builds a wall, the majority of people have little reason to embrace the reality of the occupation or the effects of the wall itself. In a way, it is the most profound manifestation of the Liberal Zionist call for a ethnically pure ‘Jewish and Democratic’ state. Israeli professor Gadi Taub in recent New York Times op-ed perfectly falls in line with this Liberal Zionist rationale as he argues to save Zionism. His simple refusal to understand the core ‘settler colonial’ component of political Zionism is yet another profound example of the unwillingness of Israelis to embrace reality and thus unwilling to make change. It is clear that Israelis do not want change because no one here is willing to take responsibility for our mistakes. Instead we prefer to hid behid our persecution complex and educate our children that the entire world hates us.