Monday, 08 October 2007
The maneuvering continues over the participation in and content of the mid-November meeting proposed by the United States, while the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories deteriorates. A serious move for peace would help to restore US credibility in the region, but this would require US pressure to bring about substantial shifts in Israeli policy. However, such pressure has been forthcoming primarily when the US believed its vital interests were at stake.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said bluntly during his recent meetings with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the credibility of the peace process could only be restored by, among other things, an immediate halt to Israeli settlement, an end to the closures that had ruined the Palestinian economy, and a timeframe to implement final status issues. [1] Abbas thus emphasized not only the need to address final status issues, but also to push for implementation.
By contrast, Rice has been emphasizing the bilateral nature of the Israeli-Palestinian track, an approach that leaves the Israelis and the Palestinians to their own devices notwithstanding the immense power imbalance between them – an imbalance that has left previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements unimplemented. [2] No agreement will be implemented without external intervention to right the balance of power. The question is: who will do so? Neither Arab nor European countries have been willing or able to challenge Israel’s occupation of Palestinian and Syrian land, while US administrations have only reined Israel when they saw a threat to what they defined as vital interests, particularly in two areas: the US status as world leader and its intelligence and military secrets.
Guarding the Status as World Leader
Another example comes from the October 1973 war when Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who had strongly supported Israel during that war, issued a secret ultimatum to Israel to abide by the cease-fire resolution adopted by the United Nations Security Council because Israel’s violation of the cease-fire had provoked grave US-Soviet tensions including a nuclear alert. Later that decade, in 1978, Israel invaded South Lebanon to attack Palestine Liberation Organization forces there. Israeli forces withdrew later that year under considerable pressure from President Jimmy Carter, who was determined to see through the Camp David peace agreements between Egypt and Israel that were being negotiated that year. By contrast, the Reagan Administration took no action during the far greater Israeli invasion of Lebanon on 6 June1982. The last Israeli soldiers had withdrawn from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on 25 April 1982, and US strategic considerations had changed.
The 1991 US-led war to drive Iraq out of Kuwait provides another example of US toughness with Israel when necessary for global leadership. In the wake of the war, George H. W. Bush threatened to veto Israel’s request for $10 billion in loan guarantees. [4] This was partly because Israel had used US funds to establish some of its illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. More significantly, the US was seeking to convene the Madrid peace conference to keep its wartime European and Arab allies (including Syria) on board, but was facing stiff resistance from Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. The pro-Israel lobby opposed the veto, whereupon Bush took a leaf from Eisenhower’s book and addressed the American people, saying he was “one lonely guy” battling “a thousand lobbyists.” The pro-Israel lobby backed off, and Bush declared victory. Yet, in 1992, once Madrid had convened and peace talks were underway, Bush agreed to the loan guarantees even though Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin did not plan to stop construction in Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and “security” settlements in the West Bank.
Maintaining Control of Intelligence and Military Secrets
As in cases where its hegemony has been challenged, the US has taken firm action to deal with violations of its intelligence and military secrets. For example, successive US administrations, including the present administration, have withstood heavy Israeli pressure to release Jonathan Pollard, who spied for Israel and was sentenced to life in prison in 1986. President Bill Clinton wavered when Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu insisted on Pollard’s release to sign the Wye River Memorandum in 1998, but Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet threatened to resign and Pollard remained in prison. [5]
Israel’s sale of sensitive military technology to China is another case in point. [6] In 2000, the US forced Israel to suspend the sale of radar equipment to China. The US was said to have threatened to cut military aid to Israel. The breach of contract with China cost Israel millions of dollars. In 2004, the Pentagon reportedly denied Israel access to technology for the development of the Joint Strike Fighter because of concerns about leaks to third parties.
In 2005, after Israel violated restrictions on sharing US technology in the case of Harpy Killer drones sold to China, the US suspended cooperation on several arms development projects, froze delivery of night-vision equipment, and insisted not only on cancellation of the agreement but also on stringent conditions before it would resume cooperation on arms technology. Former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Rice herself were said to have approved the sanctions. The US maintained its sanctions for months while Israel made public apologies, removed senior defense officials, provided information on 60 arms deals with China, and negotiated a classified US-Israel memorandum of understanding on technology transfers. Even though this was signed in August 2005, the Pentagon refused to resume full cooperation until Israel implemented the agreement.
To sum up, the US takes decisive action in the Middle East primarily when it believes its strategic interests are at stake. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there is no shortage of agreements: over a dozen have been reached since 1993. It is implementation – including the actual withdrawal of Israel’s soldiers and settlers from the occupied territories – that has been lacking. In the absence of intervention to shift the balance of power and secure implementation, there will be no let-up of suffering and instability. Until and unless a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East is seen by the US to be as strategic an interest as keeping military secrets safe, peace will remain an elusive goal.
Nadia Hijab is senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies and co-director of its Washington office. Additional research by program assistant Paul Costic.
Footnotes:
[1] Abbas-Rice press conference 20 September 2007 see http://www.state.gov/secretary/ See also “In Mideast, Web of Careful Phrases Can’t Match Pointed Words,” The New York Times, 21 September 2007
[2] See Policy Note No. 20 for a review of past agreements http://palestine-studies.org/final/en/bn/
[3] For more information on the examples in this section, see Naseer Aruri, Dishonest Broker (South End Press, 2003); Donald Neff, Fallen Pillars: U.S. Policy towards Palestine and Israel since 1945 (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1995); and Camille Mansour, Beyond Alliance: Israel in U.S. Foreign Policy (2nd edition, Institute for Palestine Studies 1998).
[4] “Report from Washington: The Shootout over the Loan Guarantees,” Leon T. Hadar, JPS Vol 21 No. 2 (Winter 1992). The article includes a compelling analysis of how foreign policy experts such as Dennis Ross, Aaron Miller, Daniel C. Kurtzer, and Richard Haass wanted to provide Israel with the protection of American hegemony in the Middle East but knew that, “without a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the U.S. role could be challenged in the long run by the rise of radical forces, especially Muslim fundamentalists.”
[5] See Seymour Hersh, “The Traitor,” The New Yorker, 18 January 1999.
[6] All information about the US-Israel rift over China is drawn from The Guardian (“US acts over Israeli arms sales to China,” 13 June 2005); Agence France-Presse (“Israel and U.S. in Disagreement over Warplane Project,” 22 May 2005); Defense News (“China Seeks to Double Trade with Israel,” 4 August 2005); and The Forward (“Israel Miffed Over Lingering China Flap,” 7 October 2005). Israel is said to be China’s second largest arms supplier after Russia.
Source: Institute for Palestine Studies
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