Last Sunday, I caught a discussion on TV between CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and a scholar at the Wilson Center, Aaron David Miller, who served as an advisor to the State Department on Mid-East affairs between 1978 and 2003.  The first thing out of Miller’s mouth – that “no one ever lost money betting against Arab-Israeli peace” – was a good quip.  It’s difficult to dial down the tensions when talking about one of the most frustrating topics in international politics today.

Most people would agree that a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a worthy, and all-too-pressing, goal.  But it seems to me that a dispute will almost certainly emerge if one ventures to be more specific.  The political quagmire that currently exists in the territories of the Holy Land (heightened again by the events of this past week) is unlike any other conflict in the world today, at least in its ability to attract the attention (and inspire the anger and moral certitude) of millions of onlookers.  And yet, despite the benefit of heavy international commentary, there exists no common interpretation of the problem at hand, and no common agreement about the kind of responsibility that should be borne by each of the myriad players involved (be they local, national, regional, international, multilateral, paramilitary, or non-governmental).  When one adds to this a consideration of the historical suffering of both Jews and Palestinians, coupled with the profound fear within each group of collective demise, the political quagmire is only further heightened:  It is an existential crisis of the first order.

The subject of Israel and Palestine has been on my mind quite a lot recently.  The release of the explosive Goldstone report in late-September was followed a month later by a flurry of excitement (and some controversy) surrounding the new lobbying group J Street and the advent of its first conference here in D.C. While these occurrences were enthusiastically mentioned here at Brains for a Shoe, I admit that I found myself less-than-excited about the kind of long-term political breakthroughs that they portend (if any).

It seems clear that amid the ongoing rage surrounding this conflict, there seems to be a growing impulse in certain quarters to want to speak in calmer ways to one another – to put down some of the rhetorical molitovs.  In the age of Obama, this drive to “disagree without being disagreeable” has gained a new kind of currency that holds out promise for greater understanding and a bit of relief.  But of course, it should go without saying that there are limits to the kind of politicking that this new attitude can achieve.  Last month’s Daily Show interview with two peace activists (which got praise on this blog) was enjoyed by so many viewers precisely because it said so little, because it approached political problems through humanitarian appeals and platitudes.  Likewise, the arrival of J Street onto the DC lobbying scene seems to have been heralded more for what it symbolizes, than for the (often murky) substance of what the group actually purports to stand for.  “Pro-Israel, pro-peace” may be a great slogan, but what it means in terms of actual policy – especially to the many new fans of the group – has not been all that clear.  (A great illustration of this confusion can be seen here, although recently the group’s leadership seems to be working to better clarify its positions.)  All this is to say that, especially for those of us who live outside the territory in conflict, perhaps it behooves us to temper the impulse to cling to cathartic sloganeering.  Emotional appeals will bring more people into the fold of the cause (whichever “side” you find yourself on), but it’s a poor substitute for the kind of day-to-day attentiveness to the political slogging that manages conflict and creates bureaucratic compromises.

Recently, I heard The New Republic’s literary editor Leon Wieseltier speak to a small group of students about Israel and Palestine. “Both parties seem to have defined ‘peace’ as being worse than what they already have,” he said.  He went on to describe the current status quo as one in which both groups (or at least the more radical members of both groups) have been able to maintain their most fervent dreams and maximalist positions, so much so that compromise is now seen as committing ideological treason.  Surely he is right, that the need for a post-ideological phase is upon us.  But it occurs to me that if Israelis and Palestinians, collectively, need this, then so, too, do those of us who exist outside the conflict.  It seems so obvious and simple to say, but perhaps it bears saying explicitly, especially given the tone and tenor of the way in which so many people talk about this conflict.  As Wieseltier put it, the Israelis are not innocent, and the Palestinians are not pure.  In the midst of anger and advocacy, I find it helps to remember such things.

In any case, a few interesting links:

The first comes from the New York Review of Books, which recently published a superb article (Which Way for Hamas? November 5, 2009) that tries to capture some of the ideological and political challenges that Hamas is confronting in the midst of becoming a governing entity.

The second is a short video (see below) that shows the hardships posed by checkpoints in the West Bank.  The video is unique in that it tries to demonstrate what such checkpoints would look like in a city like London.  I share this video to emphasize that committing ourselves to a kind of post-ideological phase is no excuse for neglecting the very real human suffering that continues to animate this conflict.

Ctrl.Alt.Shift Film Competition Winner: No Way Through from Ctrl.Alt.Shift on Vimeo.

On Sunday our delegation met with Bishr Khasawneh, the chief of staff of the Foreign Ministry in Jordan. It is clear from what he told us that Jordan, a U.S. ally and one of the so-called Arab moderates, is beginning to worry about recent changes in President Barack Obama’s policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Khasawneh argued that the president had started his first year in office on particularly strong footing. Obama signaled his commitment to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict by naming George Mitchell as his envoy for Middle East peace within 24 hours of taking office. He also made speeches, in Turkey and Cairo, that emphasized two points that Bush administration policy had ignored: 1) the critical importance of implementing a two-state solution and 2) the regional context of the conflict.

The need for a change in American policy is overdue, he said, after “good faith and confidence have eroded over eight years of stagnation” in the peace process. The Arab side has demonstrated its willingness to make peace with Israel and give it the legitimacy it deserves, by continuing to support the Arab Peace Initiative for the last seven of those years. Even after the Gaza war had such a deep, negative psychological impact on the region, all 22 Arab states and 57 Muslim states kept it on the table at the Doha summit in March. The time is ripe for American leadership.

Khasawneh said that the Obama administration had chosen the right issue, settlements, on which to challenge Israel and move the process forward. Jewish settlements, he said, had made the Palestinian portions of the West Bank into “isolated cantons.” Allowing their continued expansion while pressing for negotiations made no sense. Gesturing to the cup of coffee on the table, he argued that one person cannot negotiate with another over dividing a cup of coffee while one person continues to drink from the cup.

The new Obama position seems to be to push for final status talks despite allowing Israel to continue building settlements. Khasawneh argued that the administration appears ready to include enough loopholes in the proposed settlement “freeze” as to make the agreement meaningless. Israel is fighting with the U.S. over which loopholes should be included, as though the freeze is a negotiable concession to the Palestinians. Instead, Khasawneh argued, Israel should agree to implement a settlement freeze as a way of finally giving a positive response to the Arab Peace Initiative.

The key for Obama is to regain the momentum that he helped generate in the beginning of his first year by continuing to demonstrate his leadership on the settlement issue and breaking with the policies of his predecessor. Khasawneh suggested he can do that by promoting the Arab Peace Initiative as one basis for negotiations and by refusing to allow settlement expansion to continue at the same time that he calls for final status negotiations.

During a two-hour meeting with the CNI delegation in Damascus yesterday, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, Khaled Meshaal, told us:

It is not just to ask Palestinians to amend their charters without real change on the ground. Let us get our rights. Then we could discuss many issues, such as changing the Hamas and PLO charters or relations with Israel.

This came in response to a question posed by CNI Executive Director Helena Cobban, who asked him whether, in the context of Hamas winning the kind of peace agreement it seeks, the organization might consider amending its 1988 founding charter.

In the same round of questioning, Cobban had also asked whether Hamas would consider that the agreement it seeks, which is one based on Israel’s return to within its borders of June 4, 1967, would be understood by Hamas as one that ends the Palestinians’ decades-long conflict with Israel.

In other words, what is written in the Hamas charter seems under some circumstances to be negotiable. Meshaal’s answer was significant because it reflects a possible shift in Hamas strategy. The Hamas charter calls for a Palestinian state that replaces Israel and includes all of British Mandate-era Palestine.

Most Israelis equate this position with the destruction by force of Israel and, by extension, Jews. They argue that the Hamas position amounts to a call for a second Jewish Holocaust.

Meshaal’s statement demonstrated a willingness to accept Israel in the context of a comprehensive settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hamas, and the Palestine Liberation Organization before it, had previously emphasized the goal of replacing Israel by refusing to use the word “Israel” and instead using the term “Zionist entity,” implying that the state is illegitimate and temporary. Throughout our meeting, however, Meshaal chose to use the word “Israel” and almost never used the word “Zionism” or “Zionist.”

The last part of the statement quoted above demonstrates an implicit recognition of Israel, one of the three conditions that Israel and the Quartet have imposed on Hamas before agreeing to recognize it.

It is important to note that the PLO also held the same position of non-recognition of Israel for many years and only agreed to amend its charter under significant American and Israeli pressure. Meshaal noted that despite revising its position in 1996, the PLO still has not achieved a Palestinian state and, in fact, lost  popularity among Palestinians because of it.

A recurring theme of Meshaal’s answers was the difference between words and action. He downplayed the significance of the Hamas charter by pointing out that it was written in the “early days” of Hamas. Over time, Hamas has developed its political agenda, by agreeing to join the 2006 Palestinian Legsilative Council elections and accepting a solution to the conflict based on the 1967 borders. Hamas actions, he argued, should be more important than what is written in its charter.

He likewise argued that U.S. President Barack Obama should be judged by his actions and not his words. He expressed support for Obama’s speech in Cairo and said that Hamas was “ready to cooperate with Obama,” but that Obama’s Cairo speech was a “mirage” that had yet to become real. In his assessment, Meshaal felt that pressure from Israel and the “Israeli lobby” in the United States had caused Obama to back down far faster than Hamas had expected.

(Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

On this Halloween weekend, I have been catching up with some reading in between watching the Gators take down the Bulldogs and partaking in some of the weekend festivities.

Here are a few items of interest and a few interesting pieces I have collected over the last week:

• In yesterday’s post, I mentioned the great coverage that the J Street conference received. Before the conference, a former AIPAC and Israeli embassy official Lenny Ben-David questioned “Why do so many Arabs contribute to an organization that purports to be ‘pro-Israel?’” A friend of mine, Rebecca Abou-Chedid, wrote an exceptional response in Foreign Policy to the distasteful accusations that her donation, because she is of Lebanese descent, “clearly indicates that…[her] dollars must be intended to advance some pernicious anti-Israel agenda — and that J Street must be the vehicle for those aims.”

• Ken Silverstein has ‘Six Questions for Desmond Travers on the Goldstone Report.’ Travers was one of four members on the UN fact finding mission that produced the report. A retired Colonel of the Army of the Irish Defence Forces, he discusses the criticism and reaction to the report.

• Concerning another issue of international justice, the Confirmation Hearing of Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, a Darfuri rebel leader, continued this week at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He is being tried for attacking an African Union peacekeeping base in 2007.  His defense lawyer is making  the case that the AU base by that point in time had lost its protected status under international humanitarian law and had become a legitimate military target. Bec Hamilton is also following the case.

• Michael Kevane writes a post taking on the claim by J. Stephen Morrison and Jennifer G. Cooke at CSIS that ”Lack of consensus within the [Obama] administration has confused potential partners who have for some time seen the United States policy as hostage to zealous domestic pressures (emphasis added).”  It’s always amazing to me how much clout some people think that the Save Darfur Coalition and other Darfur organizations and activists have in the creation of U.S. policy.

• Fighting continues in Yemen, as The New York Times highlighted this week.  The paper also ran a great story this morning on the country’s unsustainable addiction to qat. The blog Waq al-Waq notes the better late than never acknowledgement by the U.S. State Department of the Yemeni government’s conflict with Houthi rebels in north Yemen.   A Yemeni humanitarian aid worker in an Emirati paper wrote a moving essay about his experience over the last few months: “I never thought I would be trapped in the place I call home, but all I can do is try in my own way to help those who have lost everything and pray that peace comes sooner rather than later.”

• Lastly, I continue to follow the rumblings surrounding Egyptian presidential elections in 2011.  The big questions, of course, are (first) will Hosni Mubarak run again;  and (second),  if not, will his son Gamal take his place.  This week, the noted Egyptian historian and philosopher Mohammed Hassanein Haikel expressed the common opinion of most Egyptians whom I know –  Gamal is “unfit” to be the next president.  He added, “They tell us we have elections, but is it a coincidence that the president’s son is portrayed as the most worthy to be the leader of Egypt?” Laura Rozen at Politico and others commented about intriguing statements from both Amr Moussa, the current head of the Arab League, and Mohamed El Baradei of the IAEA regarding their interests in running in 2011. Al Ahram Weekly (an English language state-owned newspaper) though ran a “news” story revealing that most ordinary Egyptians aren’t concerned about rumors or even who there next president will be.

Part two of this important, and at times incredibly funny, conversation can be found here.

It’s great also to see how much coverage the J Street conference received this week.  The New York Times today reported:

J Street has only a small fraction of the resources and membership of more established pro-Israel groups, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and it remains unclear how potent it will be in presenting itself as an alternative. Nonetheless, it has had great success in quickly becoming a major reference point in the complicated debate over President Obama’s Middle East policy as well as the more emotional issue of the appropriate role for American Jews in supporting Israel.