An Open Letter to President Obama

Dear President Obama:

Congratulations on your election and inauguration as the 44th President of the United States and thank you for being willing to take on what must, at times, seem like the world’s worst job and for being willing to help lead us through these difficult times.

I have recently returned from a political tour of Israel and its neighbors during which I was able to meet with political leaders in the region including Hezbollah and Hamas.

I applaud your rapid engagement in a region whose stability is crucial to US national interests. The appointment of Senator George Mitchell as your special envoy sends an important message that you are serious. Among the people that I talked to, he was on everyone’s short list of envoys that could make a difference.

I know that you would have preferred to wait to engage the Israeli/Arab issues and dealt first with the economic problems, Iraq and Afghanistan, but reality is something that happens while you are making plans. The Israeli attack on Gaza, which has created a dramatic escalation of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, has forced immediate action.

It will be impossible to deliver humanitarian and reconstruction aid to Gaza without cooperation with Hamas. I encourage you not to accept the conventional wisdom about Hamas without sending someone you trust, like George Mitchell, to talk to them.

There are three things that can be done immediately to move the process forward. A Palestinian unity government needs to be established. We can help by making it clear that we will work with whatever government the Palestinians decide on, including one in which Hamas participates.

We also need to make it clear that building in the Jewish settlements in occupied territory needs to stop. We need to say to the Israelis “what part of stop building don’t you understand”.

Everybody in the region knows that the parameters of a settlement are contained in the Arab Peace Initiative. These parameters need to be enshrined in a policy statement. This is perhaps best done through a UN Security Council resolution endorsing the parameters. Without a vision of an end point the “Peace Process” will continue to be process with no peace.

The two state solution is clearly on life support and some, like myself, argue that it is already dead. We only keep going because the alternative is too ugly to contemplate. Reaching a solution will require enormous political will on all sides. I hope that you will spend some of your political capital to bring about a peaceful solution.

Sincerely,
Don Liebich

Avoiding a Middle East Regional Conflict

As Israel continues its assault on Gaza a number of diplomatic initiatives, led by the French, are in process to bring about a cease fire. As in Lebanon in 2006, Israel appears determined to press its assault until international pressure becomes so great that they will need to declare victory and withdraw. The US is supporting this effort by instructing its UN representatives to block all UN efforts to demand a ceasefire.
It is not clear to anyone, including the Israelis, what victory means in this case. The goals of the invasion have been variously described by Israeli leaders as a new ceasefire with Hamas that reflects Israel’s terms, to regime change in Gaza, to eradication of the Islamist movement.
The effort to destroy Hamas has been supported, not only by the western powers, but also by so called moderate, conservative regimes in the region such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. These are undemocratic countries in which the major opposition groups are Islamist and, like Hamas, affiliated with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The last thing these conservative governments want to see is a successful, prosperous, democratic Islamic state in Gaza that their opposition can use as a model.
Although Israel is trying to delay any ceasefire in order to give its military time to accomplish its “goals”, January 20th is the drop dead date. One of the contributing factors to the timing of this war was the imminent end of a Bush administration that gave Israel carte blanche. Israel is worried by the unknown of an Obama administration’s policies and doesn’t want to anger him right from the beginning.
One question is can Israel succeed in destroying Hamas in the short time remaining. Another is can Hezbollah, Hamas’ ally, afford to remain on the sidelines if it appears Hamas will be destroyed. Several rockets were fired today into Israel from Lebanon. Hezbollah has denied responsibility and it is likely they were the work of Palestinian groups in Lebanon. It is also possible that Hezbollah is sending a message. If Hezbollah becomes engaged, will Iran, its sponsor, be content to stay on the sidelines?
Iranian parliamentary leader Ali Larijani met for many hours this week with Hamas leader, Khaled Meshal. Hopefully they were trying to find a way out of this conflict that has the potential to create $200 per barrel oil and make the current economic crisis look like a walk in the park.

Changing Landscape

One of the trends that became apparent during my recent visit to the Middle East was the changing political landscape. During discussions with Hezbollah and Hamas, two groups isolated by the western powers as terrorist organizations, the words that I heard most frequently were respect, dialogue and the need to solve the Israeli/Palestinian situation in order to have peace and stability in the region.

What I saw in Hamas and Hezbollah spokesmen were reasonable people who, although they remain committed to resistance to the occupation, were open and desirous of dialogue on the basis of mutual respect to solve the regions problems. They certainly did not come across to me as the fanatical terrorists that are portrayed in the west. One of the Hezbollah spokesmen that I talked to was married to an American woman who insisted that her first child be born in NYC. His daughter, therefore, is an American citizen.

Hesham Youssef, the Chief of Staff of the Arab League, talked about their efforts to bring Hamas and Hezbollah to the mainstream.


At the time that Arab politics is moving towards moderation, Israeli politics is moving sharply to the right. It appears that Likud, the hard right Israeli party, will win the February elections and Bibi Netanyahu will be asked to form a government. He is being pulled further to the right by members of his own party such as Moshe Feiglin (His manifesto is here) and other right wing parties such as Yisreal Beiteinu whose leader Avigdor Lieberman advocates expelling Israeli Arabs to the West Bank. Even Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, who portrays herself as a moderate, has advocated transferring Israeli Arabs to the Palestinian territories. (Her comments are here)

I met with Ephraim Sneh, former general and Labor party member of the Knesset, who has formed his own party, Strong Israel, which he describes as center-left. His comments left members of our group in shock.



This is not a recipe for peace and stability.

Israel ignores the US

This week Israel and Hezbollah completed a prisoner exchange agreement mediated by Germany under which 5 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and 200 bodies of deceased fighters, Lebanese and Palestinian, were exchanged for the bodies of the 2 IDF soldiers who were kidnapped by Hezbollah in 2006.

Israel has also been negotiating with Hamas using Egypt as the intermediary. Thus far the outcome has been a cease fire in Gaza which has for the most part held and it appears that a prisoner exchange will occur on this front as well to be followed by a gradual opening of the Gaza border crossings and easing of the blockade that has starved the Gaza economy.

All this plus ongoing peace negotiations with Syria, mediated by US ally Turkey, has taken place despite fierce opposition from the US. Martin Indyk, former ambassador to Israel and currently Director of the Saban Center for Near East Policy, a pro Israel think tank, said in a lecture in Ketchum, Idaho that the US said to Israel “don’t you dare talk to Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria”.

The fact that Israel ignores the US is not particularly surprising. Israeli war hero and Chief of Staff of the IDF Moshe Dayan once said “the US gives us money, guns and advice”. We choose to take their money and guns and ignore their advice. Ambassador Indyk said that negotiating with these three adversaries makes sense for Israel. The purpose is to co-opt these Iranian allies so that Israel will be free to attack Iran without fear of retaliation from their close neighbors.

This may work for Israel, but how does it work for their erstwhile Palestinian negotiating partner Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). Following last year’s Annapolis conference, US/Israel policy was to isolate Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria and strengthen Abu Mazen and Fatah with money, arms and political backing. In return Fatah would negotiate with Israel toward a peace framework. After months of fruitless negotiations, Fatah has accomplished almost nothing to benefit the Palestinian people. Israel has refused to release prisoners, stop settlement building or remove checkpoints and has continued attacks on the West Bank.

Hezbollah and Hamas, whose approach is confrontation, resistance and occasional violence, have been successful. Hezbollah was even clever enough to demand the release of Palestinians in the prisoner exchange. They now can say to the Palestinian people “See. We told you that negotiating with Israel is futile. The only thing that they respond to is force”. With Palestinian elections probably upcoming, Fatah is in a weaker position with respect to Hamas than they were last week and US policy is in shambles.

Déjà vu all over again

In January 2006 when Hamas surprised everybody, including themselves, by winning the Palestinian Authority US supported parliamentary elections, an Israeli Palestinian friend of mine said “As a Christian I don’t agree with their Islamist agenda, but clearly most Palestinians want to give them a chance after years of corrupt Fatah rule. I hope that the US will give them some space to work out their policies, since they didn’t expect to win and haven’t really thought out what they want to do.” If the US gave them any space, it lasted about a microsecond. Immediately the US and its western allies blockaded and isolated the Palestinian territories in an effort to force the overthrow of the democratically elected government. That plan didn’t work, but it did, however, succeed in creating internecine conflict among Palestinians. Reading the stories in the Middle Eastern press it was clear to most observers, including myself, that the US was attempting to arm and train Fatah loyalist militias to forcibly oust Hamas from the government. This plan didn’t work either. The goal of the effort was also clear to Hamas who, in June 2007, preemptively threw the US armed Fatah security forces out of Gaza. Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, backed by the US, declared a “state of emergency”. (Something which is illegal under the PA Basic Law without approval of the Parliament.) This “state of emergency” continues today. Everything that observers suspected about US policy and involvement has been confirmed in a recent David Rose Vanity Fair article “The Gaza Bombshell”. (For the whole sordid story, click here.) In the words of the noted philosopher and theologian, Yogi Berra, this looks like “déjà vu all over again”. As one looks back over years of US Middle East policy, one sees numerous examples of overthrow of democratic governments (Mohammed Mossedegh in Iran), covert arms shipments to unsavory characters (Iran-Contra), using unelected strong men to support US policy (Saddam Hussein in Iran-Iraq war) and interference in domestic political affairs (Lebanon). None of these policies worked out very well. One would think that we could learn from history and try something else. As the Vanity Fair article concludes “It is impossible to say for sure whether the outcome in Gaza would be any better- for the Palestinian people, for the Israelis and for America’s allies in Fatah- if the Bush administration had pursued a different policy. One thing, however, seems certain: it could not be any worse.”