A Road Map to Nowhere

Obama could have reinforced a declaration that Israeli settlements in occupied territory are illegal by embracing the 2002 Arab League peace initiative -- perhaps even proposing to make it the basis for a new U.N. Security Council resolution to jump start a revived Middle East peace process. Among other benefits, embracing the Arab initiative would have provided solid grounding for a U.S. position on Palestinian refugees. By stipulating that there should be a "just and agreed" resolution to the refugee issue, the Arab initiative acknowledges that the issue will not be resolved in a way that undermines Israel's Jewish-majority character. (We have confirmed this reading of the Arab initiative through discussions with Arab diplomats who were deeply involved in its preparation.)

Instead, while acknowledging the Arab peace initiative as a positive step, Obama argued in Cairo that the initiative was not the end, but rather just the "beginning" of Arab states' responsibilities to promote Middle East peace. In particular, he called on Arab states to "front load" their promise of normalized ties to Israel, before Israel has to take any concrete steps toward ending the occupation of Palestinians (or of the Golan Heights). This is a delusion, driven by a willful misreading of the Arab Peace Initiative. It is also a sad replay of George W. Bush's indifferent reaction to what in our view is the most significant diplomatic move in Arab-Israeli diplomacy since the 1991 Madrid peace conference, which relaunched the peace process after 12 years of stasis following the 1979 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt.

There will be many who claim that all this will only make Israel feel less secure and therefore less likely to take "risks for peace." But the proposition that Israel becomes relatively forthcoming in peace negotiations only when it feels assured of unquestioning U.S. support -- a pillar of the Clinton administration's ultimately failed approach that is unfortunately being resurrected under Obama -- is not supported by the historical record. After all, no Israeli prime minister could have felt more assured of unquestioning U.S. support than Ariel Sharon, whom George W. Bush notoriously hailed as a "man of peace" -- a description that, in retrospect, seems puzzling at best.

On the other hand, during the Nixon and Ford administrations, when U.S. policy clearly defined Israeli settlements as illegal, Henry Kissinger was able to broker the disengagement agreements between Israel and neighboring Arab states that laid the groundwork for future peacemaking. Building on that foundation, Jimmy Carter -- who was arguably more forthright than any U.S. president in calling Israeli settlements illegal -- produced the historic Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel, the most important Arab-Israeli peace treaty to date.

In response to pressure from the Netanyahu government, Mitchell is reportedly already considering a "new" definition of "natural growth" in existing settlements -- a definition that would allow Israel to complete construction that has already been started. One can only imagine how many construction permits will be pulled out of drawers in Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank in anticipation of such an arrangement; the practical effect of such "limits" will be as meaningless as the Bush administration's "understandings" with Sharon and Olmert. For those genuinely interested in a negotiated two-state solution, Obama is hardly proving to be "change we can believe in."

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