Impact of a U.S. Veto of Settlement Resolution at UN

Dubai Initiative Research Fellow Diana Buttu joins a panel of experts to discuss the impact of the US veto of the UN settlement resolution.

The expected U.S. veto of the resolution on settlements currently being discussed in the UN Security Council will likely bring U.S. foreign policy in the region under further scrutiny. The IMEU offers an in-depth on-the-record conversation with the following experts to help make sense of the U.S. role in the region's rapidly shifting landscape.

John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago. Among his five published books is The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (with Stephen M. Walt, 2007), which made the New York Times best seller list.

Diana Buttu is a Research Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government's Dubai Initiative and a former advisor to Palestinian negotiators. Buttu is also a Policy Advisor to Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.

Yousef Munayyer (Guest Moderator) is the Executive Director of the Jerusalem Fund and the Palestine Center in Washington D.C. and is a frequent commentator on matters of U.S. foreign policy in the Arab and Muslim world. His op-eds have appeared in numerous newspapers around the country.

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[Start of Transcript]

[Introduction]
0:00: Thank you for joining the Institute for Middle East Understanding on our teleconference call today. Please visit us on the web at www.imeu.net. The call should begin shortly. Thank you for your patience.

[Ismail Khalidi]
0:25: Hello and welcome to all of you calling in, journalists from all over the country and all over the world. This is the IMEU's press briefing. We are the Institute for Middle East Understanding and we are hosting this call from New York City. The call today is on the topic of unexpected US veto in the UN of a resolution on settlements which has been put forward by our country. The vote is expected to happen some time this week and, as I said, and as many of you probably know, the American administration has made clear that they intend to veto. The implications are obviously heightened and that the proceedings over the last several weeks in the Middle East have greatly shifted the landscape in the region. For that reason, we thought it was important to bring on the guests we have today to discuss the implications of a US veto at this point, regionally and in terms of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. So before I introduce our guests, I just want to go over quick points of order. My name is Ismail Khalidi we will be talking with our guests for about 20 minutes and then we will go to your questions, if you are calling in on the phone you may ask a question by gently pressing "1". You will then go on the air live and you can ask your question to our guests. Similarly, if you are listening online via blogtalkradio, you may ask a question via the chat featured at the bottom of the page. You could also ask a question via Twitter by addressing your questions to @theIMEU.

2:22: Our guests today are Professor John Mearsheimer, who is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago. Among his five books are "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," which he wrote with Stephen Walt in 2007, and which made the New York Times best seller list. We are very happy to have him here with us today. Also with us calling from Urubamba is Diana Buttu, she is a former advisor to Palestinian negotiators and she is currently a Research Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government's Dubai Initiative. She is also a policy advisor to Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network. Our guest moderator today is Yousef Munayyer, he is the Executive Director of the Jerusalem Fund and the Palestine Center in Washington D.C. and a frequent commentator on the topic of the Middle East and US policy in the Middle East. So, I will hand over the discussion to Yousef. I'd like to welcome all of our guests and welcome all of you listening in.



[Yousef Munayyer]
3:36: Thanks, Ismail. It's great to be with you again, and it's great to take part in this conversation with Professor Mearsheimer and Diana as well. I just wanted to begin by saying, I think it's important to address this question today of the US's vote on the resolution on settlements in two contexts. The first context of course is the context of the peace process, or the lack thereof, and the context of what is going on in the region today. And so, I'd like to begin, maybe if we had Diana with us, I wanted to ask her if she could explain a little bit about the sort of the strategy that the Palestinian leadership has taken on since the total collapse of the diplomatic process at the end of last year with the sort of alternative strategy. If you could flush that out for us a little bit and explain to us what that is and how this approach of the UN fits in.

[Diana Buttu]
4:49: Thanks, Yousef. Thanks for the question. The approach that has been taken over the past year and a half was different up until January 23rd, and has changed since January 23rd. January 23rd being the leak of the 1,676 documents to Al Jazeera, known as the "Palestine Papers". Leading up to that point in time, there was an emphasis on, at least by the Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who laid out a strategy of statehood through institution building of trying to develop various institutions. Trying to get recognitions diplomatically for the Palestinian state on the '67 borders. So, this sort of process was proceeding along with a number of different countries in Latin America actually recognizing the state of Palestine. At a certain point the question was then asked, and posed to a number of senior Palestinian officials within the negotiations department, as to why it was that they were seeking diplomatic recognition. And the answer was, that they wanted to strengthen their hand at being able to get back at negotiations. So, it was simply a tool to be able to get back to negotiations rather than a strategy in and of itself. We saw that there were a number of countries, as I mentioned earlier, that had signed on. Now, after January 23rd, with the leak of the "Palestine Papers", that has fundamentally shifted and instead of the process of recognition being one in which they try to get recognitions so as to bolster their hand at negotiations, it became very clear, to at least many within the Palestinian scene, that the negotiations process is not going to work. The "Palestine Papers" revealed that with offer, after offer, after offer, it was given to the Israelis, it was simply, to quote Tzipi Livni and other Israeli officials, "not enough."

6:53: So now the approach that they seem to be taking is to try their hand at a much more diplomatically focused strategy. Not so much to get back to a process of negotiations, because that seems very far and very remote. But to pursue a diplomatic strategy and in and of itself. So this latest plan of trying to get a security counsel resolution condemning Israel settlement activity, I think is going to be the first in a series of diplomatic initiative aimed at trying to approach the topic through diplomatic resolution rather than trying to get back to the bargaining table.

[Yousef Munayyer]
7:36: And so now we have this resolution that's worked its way through the UN security counsel, it's approaching a vote, and all indications are that the United States, one of the five permanent members, of course, of the security counsel, will veto this resolution. And we've heard from principles in the US government that they don't want to see this conflict be resolved in an international arena or an arena like the United Nations, and want the parties to go back to direct negotiations. I'm wondering if we could hear from John Mearsheimer about what US policy has been at least stated policy on the issue of settlements. And what might explain the US's stance on vetoing such a resolution if it is in fact in line with stated policy. I'd also be interested to hear from either of you if you think there is any sort of president to in terms of US diplomatic history where we've talked one thing for so long, but when it came to the point where we're going to act on it in the security counsel with a vote, that we've taken a different position?

[John Mearsheimer]
9:06: Well, I'll say a few words about that, Yousef. It has been the clearly stated policy of the Obama administration since coming to office in January 2009, that the Israeli should stop building settlements and sit down with the Palestinians and negotiate a two-state settlement. But obviously the Israelis are unwilling to do that and they've continued to build settlements and this is what of course has caused this resolution to come forward. Now you would expect the United States, given what it has said, to be willing to veto the resolution because the resolution is completely consistent with America's declaratory policy. But we know that that's not going to happen and the main reason that it's not going to happen is because of the power of the Israeli Lobby in the United States. The Lobby is not going to allow Barrack Obama to go along with this resolution--to either supported or to sit on the sidelines--the Lobby is going to insist that he veto it, and the Lobby is much more powerful than Obama when it comes to Middle East policy, so he will veto it. And this all raises the question of where this is headed. I think the peace process is dead. I think all this talk about two-state solution is largely meaningless; there is not going to be a two-state solution, the Palestinians are not going to get their own state. You're going to have a greater Israel. The Israelis are in the driver's seat here and that they want to incorporate all of the West Bank, and effectively Gaza Strip, into a greater Israel. The Palestinians can't do much about it and the international community, whatever that is, can't do much either because the United States backs Israel no matter what. So, the end result is you're going to get a greater Israel.

[Yousef Munayyer]
11:05: Yes. I wanted to push you on the Israel Lobby issue. Obviously, this is something that you've studied extensively in the past several years. If you could point out if there is a difference between how the Israel Lobby would work, for example on pressuring the government on actions that it could take through the State Department, through the United Nations, or another arenas like Congress. In other words, where can we see the influence of the Israel Lobby on such an issue like this?

[John Mearsheimer]
11:39: Well, you see all sorts of evidence of the Israel Lobby on Capitol Hill, producing all sorts of letters and resolutions supporting Israel. And you see all sorts of evidence of the President, and his principal advisers on Middle East policy, meeting with the Lobby, time after time, to assure the organizations and the individuals in the Lobby that we won't do anything that will irritate the Israelis. Look, Obama has gone toe-to-toe with Netanyahu three times since taking office. And he has caved all three times. The United States is much more powerful than Israel. It should have all sorts of bargaining leverage over Israel because we give them so much material and diplomatic aid. One would think that if the President of the United States goes toe-to-toe with the Prime Minister of Israel, that the President would win every time and it would be a decisive victory but, in fact, what happens is that the Israeli Prime Minister wins every time. Now, why is it the case? It's obvious because the Lobby weighs in on these cases and makes sure that Israel gets what it wants. The end result of this is that you're not going to get a two-state solution, you're going to get a greater Israel. From Israel's point of view, this is going to be a disaster. Because over time, if not already, there are going to be more Palestinians in that greater Israel than there are going to be Jews. And given all the emphasis on democracy in the Middle East, in the United States, and in the West more generally these days, you're eventually going to get a democratic greater Israel. And that democratic greater Israel, rather it comes in 20 years or 30 years, is going to be dominated by the Palestinians, not by the Jews, because there is going to be many more Palestinians than Jews. So, the Israelis, and their friends here in the in the United States, are basically helping the state of Israel commit national suicide.

[Yousef Munayyer]
13:41: Yes, I wanted to go back to something that you had brought up, and maybe you could talk about this a little bit further. When the "Palestine Papers" came out, one of the things is that really stood out was the clear disdain for international law, and how international law and the principles of international law, were completely absent from the discussion in any sort of way that they could regulate what was going on. In fact, we even learn that the Palestinian negotiators were struggling just to get the Israelis to acknowledge that the '67 line, or the 1949 Armistice Line, was the basis of any sort of territorial swap, because of the principles of international law. It's hard to imagine a time when the PLO has been weaker than it is today, despite the fact that the United States has wanted to support those among the Palestinians who engaged in negotiations. It would seem like if there was ever a time that the US needed to deliver some sort of victory for those of the Palestinians that they support, that this would be the time. How are those sort of dynamics working out in your view, and do you think that this is the end of, sort of, US support for those factions among Palestinians?

[Diana Buttu]
15:15: That's a really good question, Yousef. You're absolutely right in terms of the role of international law, or the lack of the role of international law in the negotiations, and then the negotiating process. And it wasn't just a lack of any reference to international law, but it was the lack of any power to balance out the inequality or bargaining power between the two sides. So, as Professor Mearsheimer mentioned, Israel is obviously the more powerful party between the Israelis and the Palestinians and they use this power during the negotiations. So, rather than negotiations being based on international law, with the third party perhaps assisting and pressuring Israel, it ended up being that the third party has become split on the "Palestine papers," and ends up pressuring the Palestinian side and makes more and more concessions. So, the lopsided negotiations become even further lopsided. I remember when I was in the negotiations process, that one of the biggest battles was the question of how do you define the West Bank. The Israelis of course wanted to remove any reference to East Jerusalem, as though East Jerusalem was not occupied, they removed the various no man's land that are in the West Bank, and decided that they were going to negotiate on the basis of this smaller, truncated West Bank rather than on the entirety of the West Bank. And from there would come up without radius proposal such as, we'll take 92% of the West Bank, but it's 92% of an already shrunken West Bank. This is one of the major battles, and rather than the United States coming in and playing the role of actually resolving those dispute, and putting reference lines, such as the use of international law, it ended up being situation in which the United States was very lopsided in favoring Israel. And we see this in terms of the diplomatic initiative as well. You look at the United States and their voting record and the number of times that they've used the veto, 70% of the time they've used the veto, it has been on Israel's behalf. So it's not as though the United States is using the veto to veto something that is in the United States' interest--it's always using the veto, or 70% of the time, to veto resolutions that are condemning Israel's actions. So what's happening now is, one would've expected that the United States, as you said, would rightfully agree to bolster and support those individuals who believe in negotiations and believe in the negotiations process. But what has ended up playing itself out is exactly the opposite that. Rather than them bolstering the people who believe in negotiations, they've systematically undermined those individuals who believed in negotiations. And this veto, if it happens, this is going to be just another one of those ways of undermining a long series of measures that they've taken in the past. The problem is that at time there has been a change in circumstances which is that in the past, well there may have been support for negotiations, and then waning support for negotiations, now it is quite the opposite. It's almost impossible to find somebody who does support the negotiations process. And particularly given the changes that have happened in Tunisia and Egypt and in other parts of the Arab world, or are happening right now in other parts of the Arab world, the Palestinian Authority is now beginning to recognize that they cannot continue this process of negotiations until forever. And that they cannot continue to put into place a repressive regime that is going to continue to repress Palestinians in the favor of wanting to return to negotiations.



19:08: So with this new knowledge in mind, with this new recognition, the United States, rather than proceeding as though nothing has happened, they really have to start looking at the events in the events Middle East as though these are game changers. They cannot proceed as they have proceeded over the course of the past 30 years, and it is just not going to look that way any longer.

[Yousef Munayyer]
19:28: So it seems that...

[John Mearsheimer]
19:30: If I can just jump in for a second?

[Yousef Munayyer]
19:31: Sure. Go ahead.

[John Mearsheimer]
19:32: As Ehud Olmert said in November 2007, if you don't get a two state solution, you're going to find Israel in a South Africa like situation. You have two simple choices here, and it seems perfectly clear to me, and everything that Diana said supports this, that the Israelis are not interested in a two-state solution. You're not going to get a better negotiating partner than Mahmoud Abbas and his lieutenants. The Israelis have shown virtually no interest in trying to cut a deal that ends up with the Palestinians getting a viable state. Yes, they'll give them a handful of handful of bantustans and call that a Palestinian state, but we all know that's not going to work. So, if this is not going to be a real Palestinian state, you're going to end up with a greater Israel and that's where you're headed. My view is that it's about time that the Palestinians recognize that that's where you're going, shut down the PA, and then begin to argue for democracy in that greater Israel, which will play to their benefit over time. Take advantage of what's happening in the Arab world more generally, and take advantage of the fact that democracy is a cherished value in the West, especially in the United States. It will be very easy to argue against the apartheid, and in favor of democracy.

[Diana Buttu]
21:08: That's a great point, Professor Mearsheimer. It's interesting that you raise that because I think these are the very discussions that are now being had here. Even before Mubarak's departure in Egypt, and even before the protest began in Egypt, Mahmood Abbas had laid out a sort of Armageddon strategy, or a scenario, roughly about three or four months ago in which he said that by September 2011, there was going to be a change on the Palestinian scene. He chose that day because it would mark the two years of the Salam Fayyad state building program, and it was also mark one year since President Obama, at the UN, said that the Palestine should become a member of the United Nations. So this Armageddon scenario, if I can be so blunt in using that term, was that he said that by September 2011 there was going to be either a Palestinian state, which is why they have been pushing for these declaration of statehood, or the PA was going to collapse and they were just going to not have the Palestinian authority any longer. Now what's interesting is this was all said before the protest in Egypt. Now, after the protest, well I know that he wasn't favoring this idea but just let the PA dissolve itself, there is certainly much more talk of that and there is certainly much more recognition that this negotiation's process is yielding nothing other than more settlements and there is really a lot of people questioning the validity and the logic behind actually the two-state solution. That's not to save the point that the PA is going to collapse overnight, as much as many of us would like to see it collapsed, but I do think that there is now starting to be a recognition that this wave of democracy that is spreading throughout the Arab world is not going to leave the Mahmoud Abbas and it's certainly not to try to leave the Israelis in here.

[Yousef Munayyer]
23:13: I just want to let those listening know that they can get in line for questions by pressing "1" or send them via chat on blogtalk page or via Twitter by sending it to @theIMEU. Journaliss with questions can go ahead and press "1" on the phone now. I wanted to ask another question as well. It seems that when Palestinians enter negotiations with Israelis, the United States failed to play an even-handed role and basically block any progress that the Palestinians can have when it becomes clear to the Palestinians that that is not going to work, as it seems to become clear to them before taking up this alternative strategy, they find that the United States is blocking them in different arenas as well. Given everything that is going on in the region now, this upheaval, this revolutionary change, and given the fact that even if we look at the sort of the apartheid question in the past with South Africa, and that the United States was the last, or among the last, of countries to really change their position on the issue. What are Palestinians to do at this moment? What is the plan of action when it's clear that none of those other methods are delivering the realization of Palestinian rights?

[John Mearsheimer]
25:00: Well, I'll just say a few words on this. As Aaron David Miller pointed out that he and Dennis Ross, and all of their colleagues in the Clinton administration, basically acted as Israel's lawyer and that has not changed at all since the 1990s. The United States is Israel’s lawyer. The idea that the United States is mediating in this conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, is a laughable argument. It's the Palestinians versus the United States plus Israel and this is what we call the international relations business an unfair fight. The end result, as I said before, is not going to get two state solution. The truth is that the whole question of whether or not the United States vetoes the security counsel resolution doesn't really matter, it just doesn't matter, because the Israelis are going to continue to colonize the West Bank, they're going to continue to keep the Palestinians locked up in a giant prison called Gaza, and they are going to get their greater Israel. And then the question is, are they going to be able to sustain that state, which is an apartheid state, over the long term. My argument in this, by the way, is Ehud Olmert's argument. You want to remember, going back to what he said in November 2007, Olmert said that if you don't get a two-state solution, Israel will end up in a South Africa like situation and then in the next sentence he said, and that will be the end of Israel. And what Olmert was saying is that it will impossible to sustain support for Israel, as an apartheid state, in the West. I believe if you look at the recent events involving the Egypt and Tunisia, and what happened to South Africa, I think he was right. And from a Palestinian point of view over the long term, this is not such a bad outcome. It's just that it will be very bloody in the short term because as we know the Israelis are ruthless lot and the Americans will back them up at every turn, no matter what they do to the Palestinians.

[Yousef Munayyer]
27:13: We have a question on the line from a reporter at the Boston Globe, so please go ahead sir.

[Caller 1]
27:23: Hi, I don't know if you can hear me. Diana and Professor Mearsheimer, I'm interested in both of your thought on what changes now for the Palestinians after the framework shifting event over the last month. I just got back from Cairo this weekend and I was struck by a couple of things. First, it is just sort of the rank discrediting of the government by their own public and that process, I think, was already well underway in Palestine with these as exposures from the “Palestine Papers.” I am curious, do you think, first of all, that there are any prospects for some kind of mass movement in the West Bank, and in Gaza, against the leadership. And second of all, whether that kind of dynamic would make a bit of difference given Israel support from the US, or whether that would be a sort of welcomed as an interesting development, but that would not change in any substantial way the dynamics.

[Diana Buttu]
28:30: That is a very good question. I think that what is happening here is, it is a little bit different from the other at the rest of the Arab world because there are two problems in Palestinians face. One is that there is definitely a problem of the Israelis and the ongoing occupation, aggression, races, ethnic cleansing, you name it, that is going on with Israelis. But there is also the problem of the Palestinian authority and the Hamas government in the Gaza strip. So the way that descent has largely been expressed, so far at least, is not so much of,that they are using the same slogans that have been used in Egypt, “we want to the topple the government.” But instead, people have been coming up marching that they want to see a national unity government formed. So their belief is that rather than getting rid of both Hamas and Fatah or getting rid of the Palestinian authority that instead there needs to be unified, common strategy to actually begin to address Israel, address the occupation. In what has been discussed, there has been a lot of talk about the question of security cooperation, whether the PA should actually be engaging in security cooperation because the only reason they were initially doing it was simply to foster and promote negotiations. There is a lot of talk on those issues, and what at least I found interesting has been the response by the Palestinian Authority. Their immediate response was the first to shutdown protest, then next they allowed protests-there is scheduled to be a very large protest tomorrow-and then they quickly cancel the government, or change the government or ask the government to resign, the government has resigned on this, they were to form a new government very soon, through following Jordan's lead and then at the same time, the President Mahmood Abbas who has been low to call for election and so to Fayyad who was also low to call for elections has called for both presidential and parliamentary elections to be held in September.

30:42: Whether those actually happen, remains to be seen. But at least you can see that the issue of what is going on in Egypt and what has happened in Tunisia has actually begun to unhinge them. I think that it is not going to stop there, however. I think that there is a lot of discontent as was demonstrated with the leaks of the “Palestine Papers.” People are really beginning to question the issue of representation as a whole, and questioning this issue of the strategy of negotiations, negotiations and more negotiations. I think that increasingly, we are going to start seeing more and more calls, at least from the diaspora, to have much more and better representation in the PLO and really a questioning of this strategy of negotiation. So it has been interesting being here because it has taken a very different shape and different flavor then than we have seen in other parts of the Arab world but it is sort of to say that the PA is definitely not to be in it and there are increasing calls for the PA to act in a very different manner. I think for Palestinians, they feel much more empowered particularly after Egypt in seeing Mubarak's resignation. We can sense Israel's instability can no longer come at the expense of Palestinian freedom and cannot come at the expense of Arabs’ right to freedom of expression and democracy, and so on and so forth. So it has become much more empowering.

[Caller 1]
32:17: Well, just a quick follow-up, does it make a difference a representative Egyptian government is going to be far less likely to give Israel the kind of excessive cooperation that is received until now, in other words, you might not have intelligent services coming up and targeting information in Gaza, for example, or supporting a blockade against Gaza, or hoarding Israel in the US with blocking a unity government. Will that be enough to change the dynamics and give incentive to Israel to get the climb down from its position?

[Diana Buttu]
32:59: Well, that is a good question. To be honest, I really don't know because what Israel does is not always the most logical thing, particularly after we have been told that they're proceeding down this path of apartheid but what I think it does do is that the strategy that the Israelis have often employed when it came to the Arab world was divide and parcel, and deal with each group at one at a time. So first, you get an agreement with Egypt, then you get an agreement with Jordan, and then you sort of breakdown the Palestinian authority only have them represent the Palestinians in the West Bank minus Jerusalem, and then Gaza, then Gaza suddenly goes and you are only dealing the West Bank who cares about the refugees. But each one, the strategy has always been to try the peace away and to peel away the different identities and layers of Palestinian support being the diaspora, and the rest of the Arab world, and try to contain that, and manage that I don't think they can do that any longer, and what has been shown at least in Egypt is that, that strategy is no longer going to work. So they might still have an agreement in place with Egypt, I just don't think that it is going to be as repressive and they won't be able to -- the Egyptians would not be able to be the public government that they were being towards the United States and towards Israel for many, many years. It might not be the case but this is what I'm assuming is at least going to happen and at the very least, it creates a dilemma for Israel that it now has to deal with the region as a whole and not just deal with each one of these different segments of society in piecemeal fashion as it has been dealing with Palestine over the course of the past 50 years. Instead, it is going to have to recognize whether it wants to continue to be isolated. I think another strategy that is definitely going to be employed is that of isolation in the future and as we are leading up to this security council resolution and the veto, I really do sense that there is going to be more of a strategy of trying to isolate Israel.

35:00: And perhaps isolate the United States, if one can do that, rather than continually pursuing a path of trying to get the Israelis through a process of negotiation.

[Yousef Munayyer]
35:12: Thank you very much. I think we have now next question in line from Conia from the IPS, can you please go ahead. Are you there Conia?

[Caller 2]
35:26: Of the greater Israel, surely that Israeli government must be aware of the democratic implications to that I think you have single state with a Palestinian majority already. So I'm just wondering, in the event of that actually happening, what can be expected -- can we just expect the continuation of apartheid state and you're saying that this would not be possible.

[Yousef Munayyer]
35:47: Okay. Can we just have you start over again? I think we lost the beginning of your question, if you do not mind repeating it from the beginning, we would appreciate that.

[Caller 2]
35:54: Sure. I just -- so the most time in and we are suggesting that people forward that what Israel has been sort of the target going towards this -- a single state with the Palestinian majority and I am just wondering, since the government is probably well aware of the democratic implications of that, what can we expect to see in that kind of state, how will the Israeli’s react and how will they push forward from that point?

[John Mearsheimer]
36:25: My view is that most of the Israeli leaders today believe that they can live with a greater Israel. They believe that they can manage the problem. They are going to depend very heavily on the Lobby in the United States and the Lobby in Canada and the Lobby in Europe to influence the discourse, and to smear anybody who uses the word apartheid or anyone who was critical of Israel and the Lobby of course will go to great lengths to blame all of the problems on the Palestinians and portray the Israelis as the victims. Furthermore, they up to now anyway have relied on countries like Egypt and Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and for a long time, Turkey to play along with what Israel is doing and to not voice much criticism. I think they believe that this situation can be managed over time. It is important to emphasize, however, that there are a number of people in Israel, and this includes Ehud Olmert, it included Tzipi Livni, who believe that it is essential to get a two-state solution. Now, I do not believe that in the end, they would be willing to give the Palestinians a viable state of their own, but they do understand that a greater Israel would be disaster, and they are therefore interested in at least trying to find a two-state solution. So if you look at the leadership, it is real. They are really kind of two camps, but the problem is that the dominate camp at this point in time, and certainly the dominant camp in the future, is going to be the more horrifying one which includes people like Avigdor Lieberman and Benjamin Netanyahu.



38:22: So they are going to try and manage it. The problem that they are going to face, to use Diana's rhetoric, is that that they are facing a problem of isolationism. People are more and more isolating Israel, and isolating the United States. This is what is going to happen when you have this UN security resolution. It is becoming more and more clear as to what Israel is doing and what the United States is doing and there is more and more criticism, and in a war of ideas-and this is the war of ideas-the Israelis are increasingly at a disadvantage.

[Caller 2]
39:09: Thank you.

[Yousef Munayyer]
39:12: Do you have a followup?

[Caller 2]
39:15: I don't. Thank you.

[Yousef Munayyer]
39:17: Okay. We got another question that came in from online perhaps I can process this. A little bit and put it into a context of what is going on. You know, what happened in Egypt in the past few weeks, and as a result from the administration, a really stranger response that evolved over time from siding with Egyptian government to eventually siding with the revolutionaries, was that the United States was put in a very awkward position of having to either support dictator that they had back for years or support that the values of democracy and human rights which stays off and preach. Is there anything the Palestinians can do to put the United States in a similar position to have to decide between supporting the Israelis, or supporting democracy and human rights?

[John Mearsheimer]
40:32: You are asking those to respond to that?

[Yousef Munayyer]
40:33: Yes. Either one. Anything in particular that the Palestinians can do to force the United States to take a stronger position.

[John Mearsheimer]
40:44: Yes. They should constantly emphasize the Yes. They should constantly emphasize the rhetoric about democracy. I mean, again, the two-state solution is not going to happen. We are hitting towards a greater Israel. The Palestinians should accept that basic fact and what they should emphasize is democracy, democracy, democracy-because democracy is on their side. Over time, if not already, the Palestinians outnumber the Israeli dos in greater Israel and democracy plays to their strong suit. So what they should do is capitalize on all of the enthusiasm in the West for democracy, capitalize on what has just happened in Tunisia and Egypt, and play the democracy card.

[Diana Buttu]
41:33: If I can just add to that I think that is incredibly important and I also think what the Palestinians should be doing is to really start adopting some isolation of strategies as regards Israel. It does not make sense to be happening this perception of negotiations, the two sides meeting, shaking hands, kissing, hugging, and so on, on the one hand, and then to get people to understand that what was actually happening is colonization, ethnic cleansing, trying to destroy Palestinian life and the environment, you name it. I think that instead of just pursuing these policies of negotiations as I was mentioning earlier, their strategy was to take all of these initiatives to get back to negotiations. Instead, in addition to the cries for democracy, there has to be measures that the Palestinians use to actually begin to isolate Israel-whether it is demanding that they not be allowed to be in European football, for example, or whether it is trying to get more UN resolutions against Israel, trying to use more legal mechanisms against Israel. All of these strategies have to be employed in order to demonstrate that what Israel is doing is not acceptable to international standards, not acceptable to human rights, and to really continue to push this envelope because Professor Mearsheimer is right. There already is greater Israel. It is not that there already is and issue a greater Israel. There already is apartheid. We are already living under it. I think the more important thing is to begin to highlight the United States is not going to be the fair and honest broker as they claim to be, but instead the United States has to be put in the same camp as Israel-a camp that illustrates and demonstrates that these policies actually go against human rights and go against international standards, rather than the other way around.

[Yousef Munayyer]
43:42: So if tomorrow, for example, the Palestinians decided that the two-state solution is defunct, and it is not working, and they demanded their equal rights within a state, what, Professor Mearsheimer, could the United States as possible position towards that be?

[John Mearsheimer]
44:06: Well, the United States is not going to abandon its efforts to pursue a two-state solution anytime soon nor is the Netanyahu government. They are not going to really try and achieve a two-state solution but they are going to try to continue the charade. This charade is wonderful for the Israelis because it allows them to continue to colonize while pretending that they are really interested in the two-state solution. But what the Palestinians want to do is they want to make it very clear to the world, and to the United States, and to Israeli leaders that there is not going to be a two-state solution. And it is not because the Palestinians do not want two-states, right . The Palestinians and the Americans both wanted a two-state solution. What is really remarkable about this situation is that Barack Obama understands fullywell that it is in Israel's interest, it is certainly in America's interest and it is certainly is in the Palestinian's interest, to have two-state solution. It is not a perfect solution, but it is the best of a bunch of lousy alternatives. But Obama cannot sell a two-state solution to Israel because of the Lobby. So the end result is that we are going to get a greater Israel because Israel wants a greater Israel. Let me correct myself, as Diana pointed out, we already have a greater Israel. We have a greater Israel because Israel wants it, and there is nothing that Palestinians can do because they are too weak to change that outcome, and the same thing is through the Americans. The Americans are too weak to put pressure on the Israelis. So you have a greater Israel and then, from my point of view, the best thing for the Palestinians to do is to emphasize that democracy is the way we do business these days. It is certainly the way we do business in the West and therefore we Palestinians expect you Americans, and you west Europeans, and you Canadians, to support democracy in this greater Israel.

46:07: After all, Israel makes much of the fact that it is the only democracy in the Middle East. Well, we think it is wonderful that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. But if it is a democracy, by definition, it has to wow those Palestinians to have equal rights. We want a constitution that has an equal rights amendment in it, and so forth, and so on. This is the game plan that the Palestinians should pursue, and they should use Gandhi-like tactics, peaceful demonstrations, they should definitely not use violence because that raises the potential of expulsion, and you don't want that to happen for sure, but I think playing the democratic artists the way to go here.

[Yousef Munayyer]
46:53: We have another question on the line from Elizabeth at the Tennessee Editorial forum. Elizabeth, if you could please go ahead.

[Elizabeth]
47:06: I was in Egypt last year with the International Movement to get to Gaza and, of course, we did not make it and I have seen a lot of nations and organizations, sort of crashing up against that wall, some getting through a little bit then, I am thinking about trying to go again but I was wondering if you thought it was worth the investment for citizen actions to go to Gaza to bring support and to report back with eye witness documentation. I feel that we need to strengthen the voice of the people if this is a democracy in America and information might help us do that, and I was just wondering what you thought about that.

[Diana Buttu]
48:11: If you are asking me, I think that I always believe in these sides of initiative and I think that they are very useful and very helpful. I think that right now, unfortunately, I am not so sure that there will be anybody who is going to be able to make into Gaza. I have been told that the border of the crossings are closed, and that they are going to be remained closed for a little bit of a while, and unfortunately, the good thing of having these types of action is, exactly as you suggested, of being able to report back but right now, with what is going on in Egypt, I am not so sure that there are people who are actually receptive to hearing about what is going on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Again, it's not to say don't try it but I do think that the reporting and the impact of reporting is at this point probably going to be diminished, particularly given that we just do not know what the situation is right now on the Gaza-Egypt border, but those types of actions are definitely the type of actions that I think are very important and important to get citizens around the world involved, particularly Americans, involved in challenging Israeli actions and challenging their own government's actions.

[Yousef Munayyer]
49:36: Professor Mearsheimer, any thoughts on that?

[John Mearsheimer]
49:39: No. I agree with everything that Diana said.

[Yousef Munayyer]
49:44: Since we have got the question of the border I would, I wonder if you have any thoughts about what potential they are really is for change from the Egyptian side of the status code now that there is a revolution. There are certainly a lot of hopes among the people that it would mean the end of the siege that the fundamental pressures on the state to maintain that siege really changed now that this has taken place.

[Diana Buttu]
50:21: I think it is [crosstalk]... I am sorry. Go ahead.

[John Mearsheimer]
50:22: I think it is very hard to...No, go ahead Diana. No, please go.

[Diana Buttu]
50:28: I think that there is definitely going to be change no matter what and one of the things, you know, at the beginning of the revolt and the protest against Mubarak, there was a lot of emphasis to what paid to and a lot of attention paid to the socioeconomic condition, youth and employment and so on. I think it is much deeper than that, and I think that it was not just a question of youth and employment, but a series of measures that Mubarak took over the course of the past seven or eight years that really began to highlight that his role was one of trying to oppress in order to keep the United States happy, and keep Israel happy. So, for example, that there repress protest against the war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with Egyptian government but they still suppress those protests. And then when it came to Israel's attack on the Gaza strip so anything relating to Gaza was oppressed. And I think that this really cause Egyptians to be created in awakening and began to cause them to wake up. It is not just a question of use an employment or poverty. But a question of general lack of freedom of expression and political repression particularly against Palestinians. So I do not think that we are going to see some transition definitely, but I just do not think that there is going to be that same ability of being able to maintain a siege on the Gaza strip that they have done since 2007. I just do not think that any government, they come into place next would be able to continue to do that. It is going to be highly unpopular and I think that if there is one thing that we have learned, it is that that this type of repression is not going to be able to be sustainable for a long period of time. So while I do not know what is going to happen in the short term, I am not sure if anybody really knows what is going to happen in a short term, I have confidence that in a long term, the situation is that going to remain the same as it was under Mubarak. I do not think that there is going to be a continued isolation of Hamas. I do not think there is going to be this continued siege that they have been part of. I think things are going to change.

[John Mearsheimer]
52:50: Just to add quickly to that. I think that what will happen is that Egypt will act more like Turkey has acted over the past two years. I think that what you are going to see from almost any consumable Egyptian leadership is much more criticism of Israeli behavior. Again, as I have looked at this conflict over the past decade, I have come to believe more and more that it is a war of ideas. As you know, the Israelis are deeply concerned about this whole concept of delegitimization, and really what we are talking about here is not the delegitimization of green line Israel, we are talking about the delegitimization of greater Israel. And what has happened to the Israelis, in the Middle East, is that they have now lost the Turks, they have lost the Egyptians, and if you look to what is likely to happen with Jordan and Saudi Arabia, if anything the leaderships in those countries are likely to be more critical than ever of Israeli behavior, so the Israelis have a real sense that everybody is ganging up on them.

54:06: Another key dimension to this is that we live in the age of the Internet. I have long argued that the Internet is a game changer. It just makes it very difficult for Israel to control the message because there are so many ways that Palestinians and Israelis, who are on the right side of this issue, can get the word out. Just think about YouTube, just think about all the websites, just about the fact that it is so easy to access and the newspapers like Haaretz. The game is just changed and the Lobby in this country, and the Lobby in Europe, is not in a position where it can influence the discourse the way that it want to do. Furthermore, as we saw in recent weeks, large numbers of Arabs have been educated in the West and are very good at getting on television, and getting on the radio, and articulate in basic western values and speaking to westerners in ways they really resonate. All of this is just creates an environment where it is very difficult for the Israelis, who have people like Avigdor Lieberman now speaking for them, to sort of dominate in that war of ideas, the way they once did. So I think what is happening in Egypt and around the Middle East more generally is important probably over the long-term for what happens on the border with Gaza but I think more importantly, is what happens in the war of ideas and I think there is fundamental change that is now taking place. It will take many years for it to manifest itself and in its final form, but I think there is fundamental change taking place that does not boat well for Israel, and really makes me wonder what Israel is thinking.

[Yousef Munayyer]
56:00: Well, it is absolutely fascinating times that we are living in now. It is a shame we do not have more time to continue discussing this at this moment but I am sure we will have many more discussions about this in the future. Thank you very much to the both of you for participating in this today and I would also like to thank IMEU for letting me moderate this great discussion. I apologize to any questions we were not able to accommodate because of the lack of time. Hopefully we can hear from you in the next discussion. I will pass it off this mail at this point.

[Ismail Khalidi]
56:39: Thank you Yousef, and thank you Professor Mearsheimer and Diana Buttu calling in from Palestine. We appreciate you are being on this call and we appreciate all the listeners who have called in today. Please visit our website at www.imeu.net and follow us on Twitter for timely updates @theIMEU. So we look forward to hearing from all of you soon and once again, thank you for calling in.

[Diana Buttu]
57:10: Thank you.

[End of Transcript]