American-Israeli Moment of Reckoning?

BEIRUT -- The moment of reckoning in US-Israeli relations is approaching much more quickly than could have been anticipated months ago, due to two related developments: the hardline position of the new Israeli government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the obvious but undeclared linkages between progress in US-Iranian relations and progress in Arab-Israeli peace-making. 

The friction between the US and Israeli positions on how to proceed in Arab-Israeli peace-making was on stark display in Tel Aviv and West Jerusalem last Thursday, April 16. The US Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell re-stated the American commitment to a two-state solution, while the Israeli prime, interior, and foreign ministers flew off on new tangents designed clearly to delay and sidetrack any serious negotiations. 

The fascinating new diplomatic landscape that seems to be emerging sees the United States and the Palestinians firmly seeking a two-state solution, while the Israelis occupy rather different terrain. Israel now emphasizes four priorities: ending the mini-rocket attacks against Israel from Gaza, dealing with the issue of Iranian nuclear weapons development, improving the economy of the occupied Palestinian territories, and securing Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state as a first step towards any peace talks. 

This occurs at a time when, according to Israeli press reports by respected writers like Shimon Shiffer in the newspaper Yediot Aharanot, the Obama administration is quickly losing patience with Israel's position and has expressed a determination to conclude an agreement for Israeli-Palestinian peace on the basis of two adjacent states by the end of Obama's first term. Washington reportedly is quietly signaling its displeasure with the Netanyahu stance. 

 
It is too early to tell whether we are witnessing the early stages of the United States slowly taking back control of its wider Middle East policies from Israel and the Washington-based pro-Israeli extremists in Congress, lobbies and think tanks who hijacked it in recent decades. It would be exciting and historic indeed for the US to pursue Middle East policies that foster American national interests, while responding rationally to the legitimate interests of the Israelis, Arabs, Iranians and Turks who actually live in the region. 

Israel's current evasive tactics are not new. Most Israeli governments in the past 40 years have adopted positions that generally seek to postpone the country's coming to grips with three critical realities: ending colonization of -- and withdrawing from -- all the Arab lands occupied in 1967; accepting the creation of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, with Jerusalem as the shared capital of Israel and Palestine; and, agreeing to a negotiated, mutually-acceptable resolution of the 1947-48 Palestinian refugees issue that is based on relevant UN resolutions and refugee law. 

The last four American administrations led by presidents Bush and Clinton failed to push Israel to negotiate seriously on these issues. The cost of such a reckless policy has become too high for the United States to accept indefinitely, it seems. Total American acquiescence to hardline Israeli positions has pushed most of the 400 million or so people in the Middle East to rise up defiantly and angrily against the United States and Israel. The result has been a Middle East widely ravaged by wars, rebellions, terrorism, occupation, resistance and increasing desperation -- manifested in inter-linked conflicts and ideological confrontations in half a dozen distinct arenas. 

 
The United States has taken a courageous initiative in revising its policy of pressure, threats and boycotts towards Iran and Syria, and that policy will have more chances of succeeding if Israeli-Palestinian and wider Arab-Israeli peace talks proceed in parallel. A critical first step in that direction remains securing Israeli acceptance of equal and simultaneous rights for Palestinians and Israelis -- rather than the failed policy of demanding a priori Arab recognition of core Israeli demands on security and statehood, before Arab rights can be discussed or Israeli colonization reversed. 

This is the crucial and pivotal peace-making principle on which the United States and Israel have yet to clarify their positions. The US' rhetoric accepts this, but its policy on the ground has not supported such a position. The Israelis seem opposed to it in rhetoric and practice. The Arabs -- after decades of refusing to do so -- have clearly supported parallel Israeli and Arab national rights, to be achieved through peaceful negotiations. This is the moment for the Arab world, and the Palestinians in particular, to reaffirm more clearly than ever their willingness to live in peace with a majority-Jewish Israeli state that treats all its citizens equally, ends its colonization policies, withdraws from lands occupied in 1967, and coexists with a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. 

George Mitchell's mediating task is clear, and he certainly has the experience and the skills needed to succeed. What remains unclear is where his own American government stands on these issues. We may soon find out.

Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon.