Kerry’s comments came on the heels of Israel, the Palestinians and the United States all making statements and taking actions that seemed to draw a curtain on the latest peacemaking efforts. Ralph Alswang/cc by 2.0

By Mitchell Plitnick
WASHINGTON, Apr 28 2014 (IPS)

In the wake of the collapse of U.S.-led peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the angry rhetoric around this conflict has only escalated.

After days of mutual recriminations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ignited a controversy by telling a gathering of world leaders at the Trilateral Commission in Washington that Israel is now running the risk of becoming “an apartheid state.”“Kerry is four years behind Ehud Barak and seven years behind Ehud Olmert in acknowledging that Israel meets the conditions that define Apartheid." -- Rebeccca Vilkomerson

Kerry was stressing how important a two-state solution is for Israel’s concerns. He was explaining why he believed a one-state outcome of the conflict was not in Israel’s best interests.

He told the gathered leaders that “…a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second class citizens – or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.”

After the web site, The Daily Beast, reported Kerry’s statements, some of Israel’s most right-wing supporters were outraged and called for Kerry’s removal from his post.

“It is no longer enough for the White House to clean up after the messes John Kerry has made,” the neoconservative, self-styled Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) said in a statement. “It is time for John Kerry to step down as Secretary of State, or for President Obama to fire him.”

Other leading supporters of Israeli policies were disturbed by Kerry’s use of “apartheid,” while stopping short of ECI’s call.

David Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish Committee, told the Daily Beast that “the use of the word ‘apartheid’ is not helpful at all. It takes the discussion to an entirely different dimension.”

Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists have claimed for years that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip amounts to an apartheid regime. For many of them, Kerry’s statement is a long-awaited breath of realism, even if it still leaves them wanting more.

“Kerry was stating the obvious,” Professor Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, told IPS. “It would be helpful and entirely healthy if this became a habit for American diplomats.

“They could also say that the unceasing expansion of Israeli settlements is incompatible with a two-state solution, and a clear sign that the Israel government has no intention of allowing a sovereign Palestinian state,” Khalidi continued.

“They could state unambiguously that the Palestinian people have an inalienable right to self-determination, sovereignty and independent statehood in their historic homeland, and that they do not need anyone’s permission in order to seek to exercise these rights. I unfortunately do not expect any such statements in the near future.”

But not all supporters of Palestinian rights see Kerry’s statement in the same way.

Nadia Hijab, senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, doesn’t view the apartheid issue as a threat to Israel’s future, as Kerry frames it, but rather as an oppressive reality that Palestinians currently experience.

“I see Kerry’s remarks as wholly protective of Israel and unconcerned about the Palestinians,” Hijab told IPS.

“He seems unaware that Israel is close to being an apartheid state vis-a-vis its Palestinian citizens [within Israel]. What he wants from a two-state solution is to defend ‘Israel’s capacity to be a Jewish state’ – which would enable it to maintain its apartheid-like practices toward its Palestinian citizens.”

After Kerry’s apartheid comment stirred controversy, the U.S. State Department scrambled to contain the outbreak.

“Secretary Kerry, like [Israeli] Justice Minister [Tzipi] Livni and previous Israeli Prime Ministers [Ehud] Olmert and [Ehud] Barak, was reiterating why there’s no such thing as a one-state solution if you believe, as he does, in the principle of a Jewish state,” State Department Spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Rebeccca Vilkomerson, executive director of the progressive U.S. group, Jewish Voice for Peace, which is deeply critical of both Israeli and U.S. policies, sees some indication of long-delayed progress in Kerry’s comments.

“Kerry is four years behind Ehud Barak and seven years behind Ehud Olmert in acknowledging that Israel meets the conditions that define Apartheid,” Vilkomerson told IPS.

“That such a high-ranking U.S. official would use the term shows that the Obama administration, and the broader foreign policy community, is losing patience with Israel.  This may be an indicator that we are moving into a new phase of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and that the message of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement is having a significant impact.”

The more centrist, “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group, J Street put Kerry’s words in a similar context to Psaki’s.

“Israel today is not an apartheid state, and that’s not what John Kerry is saying,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami told IPS.

“For over a year now, Kerry has argued that, without a two-state solution, Israel is risking its future and its values as it moves toward permanent rule over millions of Palestinians without equal rights.

“Former prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert have used the ‘apartheid’ term as well to describe this possible future.  Instead of putting energy into attacking Secretary Kerry, those who are upset with the secretary’s use of the term should put their energy into opposing and changing the policies that are leading Israel down this road.”

Kerry’s comments came on the heels of Israel, the Palestinians and the United States all making statements and taking actions that seemed to draw a curtain on the latest peacemaking efforts.

After Israel refused to follow through with a planned release of prisoners, and announced new construction of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem instead, the Palestinians applied to some 15 international treaties and organisations, further angering Israel.

When Israel announced renewed sanctions against the Palestinians, the situation flared up again when the Palestinian Authority and Hamas agreed to move forward with past agreements to reunify their government.

U.S. President Barack Obama declared that it was time for a “pause” in Middle East peacemaking shortly thereafter. This was the situation that Kerry was addressing with his words at the Trilateral Commission.

The Palestinian reconciliation agreement was controversial in itself, as the Israeli government immediately declared that any Palestinian leadership that was associated in any way with Hamas was one Israel would not deal with.

But many believe that Palestinian reunification is necessary if there is to be any real progress, now or in the future, in resolving this conflict.

“I think the reconciliation agreement is more of an acknowledgement from Abbas that the U.S. has utterly failed, yet again, in its efforts and he is embarking on creating a positive legacy before exiting the political theatre,” Palestinian-American businessman and activist Sam Bahour told IPS.

“If the reconciliation reaches the point of elections, it can be a game changer… Anyone serious about resolving this conflict must view the Palestinian people as a single unit, from Ramallah to Santiago, passing through the Galilee, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan too. Political agency is of utmost priority today so a sustainable path forward can actually be crafted with some legitimacy.”

Secretary of State John Kerry announces that Ambassador Martin Indyk will serve as the U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations on Jul. 29, 2013. Credit: U.S. State Department

By Mitchell Plitnick
WASHINGTON, Oct 4 2013 (IPS)

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators returned to the negotiating table on Thursday, ready to put claims by the United States that it will engage more forcefully in the negotiating process to the test.

The talks, which paused for the meetings of the United Nations General Assembly, have been struggling amidst Palestinian complaints of Israeli foot-dragging and the lack of U.S. participation."The publics on both sides have hardened their positions in the last 20 years. So the selling of a deal is harder than it was." -- J Street's Jeremy Ben Ami

Yet for all the enthusiasm around the revived peace talks, there remains considerable doubt about the prospects for ultimate success.

Yousef Munayyer, executive director of the Jerusalem Fund, a non-profit organisation working to raise funds to aid the Palestinian people, believes it unlikely that a permanent agreement will be possible.

“Ideally, all parties would like a comprehensive agreement, except Israel wants one on their terms, the Palestinians want on their terms, and the U.S. wants something that can stick,” he told IPS.

“None of these goals are really in line now. Israeli and Palestinian positions are so far apart that the U.S. may want to save face with an interim agreement. It would be in Israel’s interest at very little cost to them but at a high cost to the Palestinians. And this would be a disaster.”

Yet some see hope as dovish lobbying groups are gaining more prominence in Washington. The moderate group J Street appears to have overcome attempts by more hawkish pro-Israel groups, such as the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), to marginalise it.

This week, U.S. President Barack Obama dispatched his vice president, Joe Biden, to speak at J Street’s annual conference and rally its supporters behind the peace-making efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry.

Biden’s appearance, along with those of Obama’s special envoy Martin Indyk, Israel’s lead negotiator Tzipi Livni and Israeli opposition leader Shelly Yachimovitch, as well as House of Representatives Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, offered strong evidence that J Street has established itself as a significant force here.

“It’s become an accepted notion that there is not only one mass movement lobbying org in DC, which is AIPAC,” Ori Nir, spokesperson for Americans for Peace Now (APN) told IPS.

“What J Street can do now, having been around for five years, it can authentically and credibly claim that its positions [supporting robust negotiations for peace] represent the pro-Israel community much more authentically than the traditional leadership. That puts wind in the sails of the Obama administration.”

Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel and a top Middle East policymaker under former President Bill Clinton, believes there is a real chance for success in the current talks.

“We’ve agreed to intensify the talks, and the U.S. will increase its involvement,” Indyk said at the conference. “All the core issues are on the table and our common objective is a final status agreement, not an interim one.

“The parties have agreed to resolve all the issues in nine months,” he continued. “Both sides have negotiated for years. The outline of an agreement is clear. What is needed is leadership and political decisions.”

However, Daniel Levy, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Affairs, and former senior policy adviser to Oslo Accords architect Yossi Beilin, expressed strong scepticism about the current talks.

“I don’t see [Netanyahu] as having walked toward a realistic two-state solution,” Levy said. “From what I understand there is a refusal to present a map, not even of the borders of the settlement blocs. He wants to not remove any settlements and maintain an ongoing military presence…

“I fear that we may repeat some of the old mistakes: an over-emphasis on bilateral negotiations, lack of a frame of reference, and a fetishisation of process [over results].”

J Street’s president, Jeremy Ben Ami, laid out his vision for a two-state solution, emphasising that both sides would have to make sacrifices. On the Israeli side, this includes sharing Jerusalem and evacuating some settlements.

On the Palestinian side, it means accepting a de-militarised state, which many Palestinians see as a denial of their full sovereignty, and acknowledging that virtually no Palestinian refugees would return to Israel, a key Palestinian national aspiration.

“The two-state solution is the only solution for the Israeli people and the Palestinian people and the only way we can secure the future of the region for all their children,” Ben-Ami told his supporters.

Asked by IPS if he was concerned that the proposed solution might not prevail in referendums, which both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority have conditionally set as requirements for any final agreement, Ben-Ami said, “The publics on both sides have hardened their positions in the last 20 years. So the selling of a deal is harder than it was.

“I think the ultimate deal will involve sacrifices and compromises. I don’t know what they will be but they will be hard to sell and all of us will have a tough selling job to do and we have to be ready to do that.”

But Husam Zomlot, the executive deputy commissioner for international affairs of the Palestinian Authority, spoke passionately at the conference about the rights of Palestinian refugees.

“Some of [the refugees] want to stay where they are. Some of them might want to resettle somewhere else in a third country. Some of them might want to come back to the State of Palestine. And some of them might want to return to their original homes. But all of them want one thing: full recognition of the Nakba (catastrophe, referring to the dispersion of Palestinians during Israel’s war of independence from 1947-49) that has befallen our people.”

Zomlot cushioned his point by indicating that his own father would not choose to physically return, suggesting that many Palestinian refugees would feel similarly. Still, this issue seems far from easily resolved.

As far as Palestinians are concerned the right of return is a human right,” Munayyer said. “In my view, human rights are not negotiable.”

A new neighbourhood under construction in the West Bank's Ariel settlement. Credit: Pierre Klochendler/IPS

By Mitchell Plitnick
WASHINGTON, Aug 15 2013 (IPS)

Against the backdrop of two major announcements of Israeli settlement expansion, U.S.-brokered peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians resumed Thursday in Jerusalem.

The talks are the result of an intense effort by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to overcome the impasse that has kept talks frozen for nearly three years.

After preliminary meetings in Washington two weeks ago, the parties commenced what is expected to be a nine-month process of talks. But on Sunday, Israel announced that it was moving forward with plans to build nearly 1,200 new housing units in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Many observers believe the timing was meant to forestall heavy opposition to peace talks from within Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition. Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel, a leading pro-settlement hawk, made the view of his faction very clear.

“We will build thousands of homes in the coming year in Judea and Samaria,” Ariel said on Israeli radio, using the biblical term for the West Bank. “No one dictates where we can build … This is just the first course.”

But the timing was aggravating to the Palestinians, who are taking a major political risk by engaging again in peace talks without an explicit Israeli promise to stop settlement construction. This was the sticking point for the Palestinians when they discontinued talks with the Israeli government three years ago, as Palestinian anger at many years of talks while settlements expanded and multiplied neared a boiling point.

Daniel Levy, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, says that the problem is the massive imbalance of power between them and Israel.

“It is the Palestinian leadership’s participation in talks under these conditions that would appear to make the least sense, as evidenced by them now having to digest Israel’s new settlement announcements,” he wrote in an op-ed for Al Jazeera.

“Only if the Palestinians at least start to address the asymmetry could they gain from being in negotiations. Indeed, the only chance that the talks themselves will produce anything positive is if the Israeli-Palestinian power imbalance begins to shift.”

Palestinian embarrassment was magnified even more on Monday when Israel announced another 890 units would be built in the settlement of Gilo in East Jerusalem.

Gilo is a particularly sensitive settlement, as Palestinians contend its ongoing expansion is strangling the adjacent Palestinian city of Beit Jala. Israel considers it an integral part of Israeli Jerusalem, despite the fact that it lies beyond the 1967 border.

“It is clear that the Israeli government is deliberately attempting to sabotage U.S. and international efforts to resume negotiations,” Palestinian negotiator Mohammad Shtayyeh told the Associated Press. “Israel continues to use peace negotiations as a smoke screen for more settlement construction.”

Yet Shtayyeh and the rest of the Palestinian negotiating team reported to the talks on Tuesday as scheduled.

The settlement announcements, as well as rocket attacks on Israel and Israeli attacks on the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip in recent days have complicated Kerry’s work. But he said that he had convinced Palestinians President Mahmoud Abbas to stick with the talks because Abbas “is committed to continuing to come to the negotiation because he believes that negotiation is what will resolve this issue.”

While at a stop in Colombia, Kerry addressed the settlement issue, which he said the United States had been apprised of in advance. “As the world, I hope, knows, the United States of America views all the settlements as illegitimate. We have communicated that policy to all of our friends in Israel.”

Kerry seems determined to keep talks going, and certainly gives the impression of matching that determination with a belief that he can succeed despite difficult conditions and the recent obstacles.

While he primarily endeavored to prevent the settlement expansion from derailing the talks, he also, according to reports, communicated the same message to Netanyahu that he gave publicly in Colombia.

Kerry’s efforts have raised hopes among the backers of a two-state solution to the conflict.

Jessica Rosenblum, spokeswoman for the “pro-Israel, pro-Peace” U.S. lobbying group J Street, told IPS that, “The serious and sustained engagement of the administration in achieving a two-state resolution early enough in President Obama’s second term when they still have the time and influence to get it done is a potential game changer.

“What strikes me most about Secretary Kerry’s response is his zealous desire to safeguard the negotiations themselves and give them the space they need to take root and ultimately bear fruit,” Rosenblum added.

Israel released 26 long-term Palestinian prisoners ahead of the talks on Tuesday. The move was highly controversial in Israel, but the Palestinians needed a dramatic gesture to legitimise their participation in talks and this was seen as easier than a settlement freeze.

That decision, which engendered passionate protests by Israeli citizens, shows just how concerned Netanyahu is about the power of the settlers.

Even J Street acknowledges how formidable this obstacle can be, though even there, Rosenblum sees some hope. “Netanyahu has got a serious problem with the settler movement that will only grow worse as the negotiations progress,” she said.

“It’s clear that in order to make the concessions necessary to reach a two-state solution, the prime minister will have to form a new coalition that does not include his far-right flank. The good news for him is that he has already lined up MKs [members of the Knesset] willing to join a coalition that is actively pursuing a two-state solution, so the possibility of his government falling need not weigh in his considerations. “

The current wave of settlement expansion reflects a “map of national priorities,” which Israel released on Aug. 4. That map included funding for many settlements, including some outside the major settlement blocs.

So, despite the very real hope that Kerry’s efforts have engendered in some quarters, observers like former advisor to Ariel Sharon, Dov Weisglass, are more cynical.

“Economic benefits to isolated settlements scattered deep within the Palestinian territories undermine the possibility of an agreement and make a mockery of the Israeli government’s peace rhetoric,” Weisglass wrote in an op-ed in a leading Israeli daily.

That view seems to be well in the majority, on all sides.