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Unedited Transcript
For a printable version of this transcript, click here.
Middle East Policy Council
Thirty-second in the Capitol Hill Conference Series on U.S. Middle East Policy
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| Is a Two-State Solution Still Viable? |
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Speakers:
Stephen P. Cohen
National Scholar, Israel Policy Forum; President, Institute for Middle East Peace and Development
Michael C. Hudson
Professor of Arab Studies and International Relations, Georgetown University
Nathan Guttman
Washington Correspondent, Haaretz
Khalil E. Jahshan
Executive Vice President, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Moderator/Discussant:
Chas. W. Freeman, Jr.
President, Middle East Policy Council
G50 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C.
April 11, 2003
Transcript by:
Federal News Service
Washington, D.C.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: I think we should bring this meeting to order and begin, although I expect we'll have a fair number of people straggling in. I'm Chas Freeman. I'm president of the Middle East Policy Council and it's my pleasure to welcome you all here today.
Most of you I'm sure know our organization or you wouldn't be here, but I'll say a few words about us. We do three things: We raise politically awkward but timely questions for open discussion, as we are doing today.
We publish Middle East Policy. The first item in it is always unedited transcripts of these sessions. This is the most often cited journal in the field, we're proud to say. And it is commercially distributed.
And finally, we train high school teachers throughout the United States in how to teach about Arab civilization and Islam. We've now trained some 14,000 teachers. We confuse a million kids or more with a fact or two every year that they would not have otherwise encountered.
We also have a Web site and for those of you who have not looked at that I think you would find it interesting, both as a linkage to interesting and useful articles on the broader Middle East, including the topic we're talking about today, and because some of the resource material it contains, including conflict statistics on the ongoing mayhem between the Israelis and Palestinians. I think we are the only site with an ongoing tally and account of all of the tragedies that have occurred since September 29, 2000. So I invite you to look at that. It is MEPC.org.
Just about a year ago Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia signaled his intention, his willingness to lead the Arabs in acceptance of Israel in return for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinian state. In the run-up to the U.S. invasion and conquest of Iraq, possible liberation, possible occupation, one doesn't know at this point, President Bush privately communicated with all of the leaders in the Arab Gulf his intention to make good on his commitment to move vigorously after the war to produce a two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians. More recently the president has announced his intention to publish the roadmap that was worked out over the past two years with U.S. allies and diplomatic partners.
So we may be on the verge, conceivably, of the first serious American effort at peacemaking since the meetings in the last days of the Clinton administration.
And it's important that we take some sort of major initiative not simply because of the responsibility we have as supporters of Israel, as funders and armers of Israel, to ensure that everything possible is done to bring peace to the Holy Land but also because we now need to separate the issue of the U.S. occupation of Iraq from the issue of the Israeli occupation of Arab lands slightly to Iraq's West. We need to do this to reduce, mitigate the inevitable Arab and Muslim backlash to what we have just done in Iraq and to ease pressures on Arab friends who acquiesced and facilitated our invasion of Iraq over strong domestic political opposition.
We also need I think to empower a new emerging Palestinian leadership with the hope that it needs to inspire exploration of alternatives to violent resistance and asymmetric warfare or terrorism.
In the end what we are trying to do I think or what we are committed to doing and should do is to test the willingness of Israelis and Palestinians once again to coexist with each other.
I put it that way because five or ten years ago it was clear that the trend on both sides was toward greater acceptance of coexistence in a two-state framework; that is, what Madrid and Oslo appeared to be producing, but the last two and a half years have seen a hardening of attitudes and an apparent reduction of willingness on both sides to consider a peaceful coexistence with the other on terms that the other would find acceptable.
Are Israelis now prepared to accept a viable, a real Palestinian state on part of the territory of the old Palestine mandate?
Are Palestinians prepared to accept the Israeli state as it has evolved over these past 55 years?
I guess the question we're here to talk about today is whether the two-state solution is an idea whose time has come or whether it is an idea whose time has passed. And if the latter, what alternatives may there be short of protracted efforts by each side to annihilate the other and to carry out ethnic cleansing against the other within the Holy Land. But most important, what should the U.S. now anticipate and what should we do as we turn our attention from Iraq, one hopes, to this longstanding and extraordinarily difficult issue.
We have with us today four splendidly qualified people to address these issues. Their biographies appear on the back of the program and I will not recite them in detail. Miraculously, and this may be a first in our series of Capitol Hill conferences, no one has requested a deviation from the order of speaking in the program so we will go in the order on the program, which will bring us first to Steve Cohen, who I think is well known to anyone who has an interest in the issues we are here to discuss. He is a leader and practitioner in so-called "track two" or unofficial diplomacy on these issues. He founded the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development at the Graduate Center of the University of New York and he has been involved in a wide range of activities over the years intended to produce reconciliation on an acceptable basis to both sides.
He will be followed by Michael Hudson, again someone very well known in the field. He is the Seif Ghobash Professor of Arab Studies at the Foreign Service School in Georgetown, just had a very successful conference on a broad range of Middle East issues and is in close touch with events in the region.
Following Michael we will hear from Nathan Guttman, who is the correspondent for Haaretz in Washington and covers U.S.-Israeli relations, U.S. foreign relations generally and American Jewry, among other topics. For those of you who read Haaretz, he's always stimulating and interesting writer and we're happy to have you here, Nathan.
And finally bringing up the rear of the discussion Khalil E. Jahshan, an old friend of the Middle East Policy Council, who is executive vice president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and director of its government affairs operations here in Washington, again someone who really needs no introduction for those interested in this topic.
With these few words, I would like to now invite Dr. Cohen, Steve Cohen to come up here and take my place and I would just state finally that as all of the panelists I think are aware we asked them to speak for about ten minutes. If they get over that, I begin to look menacingly at them. And when they reach 12 minutes they are in serious physical jeopardy of being thrown off the podium, so we know everyone will keep it brief and to the point and we'll have lots of time for discussion, comments, questions and the like from the floor. Steve?
STEPHEN P. COHEN: Chas Freeman is as usual one step ahead of the curve and I believe that the way that you, Chas, have constructed this morning is an indication of the fact that you know where the problem lies in whether or not the answer to your question will be that this is the ideal time to create a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian problem or is going to be the time when we come to believe that that idea, which has existed at least since 1937, is finally coming to its end.
Because if we're going to be serious -- and I hope we are going to be serious -- about instituting a two-state solution, an Israeli-Jewish state next to a Palestinian-Arab state and a Palestinian state that is more or less within the borders of 1967, if we are going to do that we're going to have to be serious about aspects of this conflict that we have been too easy to ignore over the years.
And the fact that this panel begins with someone to talk about the American Jews and ends with somebody to talk about the American Arabs is I think a step in the direction of realism, because the issue of whether or not there is going to be a serious attempt to create a two-state solution is dependent first of all on Israelis and Palestinians, second of all on the Arab world, third on the relationship between the United States and the region as a whole and the United States and Europe but no less on the domestic situation within the United States and the extent of maturity of two of the communities most interested in what happens here, the American-Jewish community and the Arab-American community and whether those two communities will be able to take a mature and responsible role towards the United States leading this process.
Now, we have an opportunity this time because most Americans, whatever they thought of the war in Iraq, understand that the test of American victory is not the military outcome but whether or not there is a possibility of the United States translating this military success into regional political stability and peace and that the United States now has to show that it has more than one arrow in its quiver, that it is not just military might that the United States brings to the table of regional change but rather diplomatic skill and clout is at least as an important an arrow in our quiver.
It is important also that in all the loose talk about Syria we should understand that the most important way that we could influence Syrian behavior at this time is not through maximizing threat but by rather showing the Syrians that the United States is really determined to bring about an Israeli-Palestinian solution, which would then engender in the Syrians the question of not its comparison of itself to Iraq as a military target but its comparison to the Israelis and Palestinians as an object of American attempt to bring about peace.
And it's very important that in this period of time everybody come to think about the relationship between this military victory and benefits to Israel not in terms of removing from Israel the necessity of making peace with the Palestinians but rather in understanding that in what has happened now the United States has taken a major step in removing from Israel any threat of an Eastern front, however seriously you took that threat before, and that therefore the whole relationship between the West Bank, Jordan and Israel now has a very different possibility and that possibility is a possibility for peace rather than a possibility for confrontation.
Now, the issue of American Jewry in the few minutes I have is perhaps the most misunderstood issue in this conflict. It is a misunderstood issue because it is the kind of issue that is discussed sotto voce, not as part of serious political analysis but as part of mudslinging, as part of talking behind the back, as part of implicit hatred and resentment, and that it's time that we do what Chas Freeman has done today, which is to move this issue into the light of day as an issue that is worthy of and requires serious intellectual and political analysis.
Now, there is much that is done that prevents that. One of the kinds of things that does that is how quickly people slip off the table of legitimate political discussion into all kinds of anti-Semitism and how quickly anybody who discusses this issue is quickly subject to the favorite political game of American Jews, which is anti-anti-Semitism, which is a way of preventing this discussion.
American Jewry is a community, which has a wide range of political views and political understandings of what is the best policy for the United States and the Middle East and what is the best policy for Israel to survive as a prosperous, safe country in the future of the Middle East.
The problem is that there is a big distance between that variety of views and the way that the community is represented in the political struggle and in the understanding of the political struggle in the media and political discussion.
Many years ago when the political situation of Israel was not so closely tied to U.S. policy, the United States government encouraged the Jewish community to come together to have one voice so that there would not be so many different organizations making representations to the United States official agencies, and that at that time seemed like a sensible thing to do. But however, the result of that process was that right now even thought that variety of views is very great and that I would say that the majority, even the vast majority of American Jews are strongly in favor of a two-state solution, that view is not expressed and not widely understood because that forced centralized organization continues to operate alone and is treated by political analysis, by government as if it were the singular voice of American Jewry.
It is essential that that monopoly on what constitutes American Jewish opinion be broken both by the light of day of political analysis, of media analysis, of the actions of United States government, of the actions of world government, that it be understood that this is a community that has a depth of discussion and debate, of difference of opinion, of smaller and larger organizations, of different perspectives, who even if they are united by the notion that there must be a safe and permanent Israel, are very divided about whether or not the present way that the United States and Israel relate on that issue is the best way for either country and that indeed there is a great groundswell of American Jewish opinion, which is hoping that the answer to Chas Freeman's question will be given now by the United States in the most clear way, which is that we will not tolerate the possibility that there will not be a two-state solution, that we are determined that there will be a two-state solution and that it will happen now and it will happen now under American strong leadership and that that strong American leadership is necessary to bringing about a situation in which the Israeli views that there must be a change, and that is not my subject today, will also be mobilized.
The United States does not need to force a solution. What it needs to do is to force the parties into a situation in which they feel they have to make their fundamental decision that there is no more time to delay. I believe that if we start to act that way we will find American Jewry beginning to tact that way as well, as an advocate of a two-state solution.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Steve, thank you for that characteristically eloquent, honest and very courageous statement, which I hope will be heard in the councils of government and refute the view that you yourself so persuasively refuted, that there is some monopoly view on the part of American Jews and that it is inextricably connected with the views of Mr. Sharon.
We turn now to the next speaker, who I believe is Michael. And, Michael, would you come to the podium, please?
MICHAEL C. HUDSON: Thank you. I want to thank the Council and Ambassador Freeman for the invitation to come back again and talk. I should say that he was kind enough to speak at the Georgetown Center for Arab Studies conference a week or two ago and did a characteristically fine job.
The assignment that I was given was a pretty loose one and my remarks I'm afraid are going to be pretty loose as well, but let me kind of offer some talking points on the question, is a two-state solution still viable.
My short answer to that is yes it is and I don't see much else in the way of a solution coming down the pike. I don't think the old bi-national model, even though it is talked about, has a lot of viability under the present historical circumstances. And I don't think or certainly I don't hope that the present state of seemingly incessant low-level violence will, in fact, be permanent. I hope that's not a solution either.
But I do think that we are at an historic turning point. This is one of those watershed events I think both for the United States and also in the region. And I was asked to speak mostly about the region so I'll not say too much about the choices I see facing the U.S. Suffice it to say that I think we're at a kind of a tipping point both in the way the region is going to confront or be receptive to a new diplomatic process and also on the American level it's a tipping point as to whether the assertive, preemptive, preventive, unilateral style that has dominated U.S. policy and U.S. Middle East policy in this administration, whether this forward policy will, in fact, continue to go forward or whether in fact there might be, as everybody reassesses the interesting historical possibilities of this juncture a reconsideration of the virtues of diplomacy, negotiation and multilateralism as opposed to the use of threat, force, intimidation and an imbalance of power basically to try and solve your problems.
Let me talk about the regional climate just for a moment and then say a couple of words about the roadmap. And I want to sort of structure these comments in terms of pluses and minuses, costs and benefits, optimism and pessimism. And I think as you look around the region at the moment I don't know whether we're in something as dramatic and as momentous as the post World War I era, the era in which new borders were drawn, the era of Sykes-Picot and so forth, but I think it is a pretty important turning point in the region.
The war in Iraq, of course, it's not over yet, but we have to ask what's it going to mean for the region. I think from Israel's point of view the news, of course, is mostly good. And the big question then that we have to ask is if the news is essentially good, if the regional climate suddenly becomes, as Dr. Cohen was indicating, a lot less threatening on that Eastern front, whether that would translate into a more flexible, bolder kind of Israeli diplomacy, a less reactive, a less, if you will, sort of frightened, hostile approach to its difficult circumstances.
But from Israel's point of view certainly we've seen now the termination of whatever strategic threat came from Iraq and, of course, there was one. We have surely seen the end of the problem of weapons of mass destruction pointed at Israel from Iraq and that's good news. Some Israeli analysts believe that this American victory, which might be construed loosely as a victory in the war on terrorism as well, will lead to the weakening of Islamist movements, of extremist movements, that they will be materially weakened and they will also be psychologically weakened, they will be frightened into not challenging the very touchy American administration, given America's recent determination to use a lot of force.
Israeli analysts also will point to the weakening of Syria. Syria is in an extremely difficult regional security position now obviously and they will be noting, as I'm sure people in Damascus are noting, the threats and warnings that have now repeatedly been coming out of the U.S. administration.
Iran too will be on notice that with a powerful American force now installed to some degree and maybe for some length of time in just across the Gulf and just next door in Iraq that it should be very careful about its nuclear weapons, its nuclear programs, its weapons programs and its political and diplomatic behavior in the region.
The idea of Syria or Iran supplying resistance fighters or material to destabilize an American dominated Iraq is something that, of course, the U.S. is now in a good position to counter.
That's on the positive side. On the negative side, from the Israeli point of view, it is possible that the tipping point goes the other way and that the overall reaction to the war in the region will indeed, as I think President Mubarak observed, may create a hundred new bin Ladens, that is to say that the climate will become so inflamed in the Arab region and in the Muslim world that the possibility of non-state networked terrorism will increase and the incentive for suicide bombings and terrorism on the part of Palestinians against Israelis even inside the green line will also increase, so there's a problem.
The Israelis I think also wonder what Washington is going to do next and Israelis that prefer that Washington continue to support Sharon's very tough policies towards the Palestinians will be asking will that continue. And I must say the recent evidence leads one to think that maybe it will, that the personnel that seem to have the most influential voices in the Bush administration are people who are I think quite sympathetic to a hard-line preemptive use of force kind of policy without getting much in the way of diplomatic concessions that characterizes the Sharon regime.
On the other hand, there are Israelis who fear and other Israelis who, I think as Dr. Cohen alluded, might actually be hoping that there will be a sudden shift in U.S. policy and that the Bush two administration will do what the Bush one administration did in 1991 and that is, of course, to seize upon a moment in which American leverage and capital seems to be at a high point to put pressure on Israel to make concessions that it otherwise would be unwilling to make. The question might be summed up with another question: Is Colin Powell a James Baker or can he be?
Now, from the Arab governments point of view I think the news is mostly bad. They come out of this looking really bad. There's a disconnect between what they said and what they allowed the U.S. to do. There is a sense in Arab public opinion of the hypocrisy, impotence of Arab government behavior and diplomacy. And there is a manifest gloom over a new U.S. role.
But maybe -- maybe that really doesn't make any difference. Arab governments just don't seem to count for very much and so maybe it doesn't really matter what Arab governments think or do.
In this connection, however, I would remind you that Arab diplomacy did make a good try and with the Saudi initiative of last summer and the Beirut summit there was a plan put on the table and that has to be certainly assigned to the plus side of the ledger.
As for Arab opinion, those of us that are trying to track it right now I think would tend to feel that the anger and hostility toward the American action in Iraq is hardening resistance and making it much more difficult for a U.S. administration to do the right thing in the Israel-Palestine conflict, should it choose to do so. There is manifestly a great deal of distrust of the American government's role. So it will take a good bit of diplomatic and public diplomacy skill to convince Arab opinion that the U.S. is really serious about activating the roadmap.
And that leads me really finally to the roadmap itself. And I think it's possible to say as we look at what appears to be at least the unofficial text of the roadmap, which talks about three phases, as many of you know, the good thing is that the U.S. has endorsed the idea of a Palestinian state and the roadmap actually puts the establishment of a Palestinian state with provisional borders in the first phase of a diplomatic process and that's probably an improvement over Oslo and it also talks in the first phase about the necessity of Israel rolling back recently acquired settlements and freezing the development of existing ones. That's on the plus side.
On the minus side, according to this timetable, which is already, of course, out of phase with the actual calendar, it appears to me, from what I can judge from this roadmap, that it doesn't say a lot about how you get to the final status issues, the famous issues of Jerusalem settlements, borders, refugees and so on, and that leads me to think that this is a roadmap that may be leading in a very circuitous way to the goal that it seeks to reach.
On the whole then I guess I would have to say that I am a short-run pessimist on the situation. I don't think that this administration is likely to do what I think Dr. Cohen and many other people would like it to do, which would be to get back to a vigorous, evenhanded and multilateral approach using the other members of the quartet. And I feel a sense of menace behind me.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: You're right.
MICHAEL C. HUDSON: And I think I'll retreat like the Iraqi divisions in Mosul here.
But I have to say finally that in the long run I am not all that pessimistic. It seems to me that there is a prominent solution. Reasonable people see that there is an opportunity for a dramatic American role at this particular historic juncture. It is possible that Arab governments, for all kinds of reasons, will weigh in, in the right direction, that the Palestinian Authority will continue to make steps, small steps perhaps but still steps toward reforming itself. And as for Israeli politics, one can only hope that there is, in fact, still a silent majority in Israel that sees that a military solution really is not good for anyone, Israelis included.
Thank you.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Thank you, Michael. That was quite a comprehensive and very useful review I think of the region. Your use of good news/bad news, however, reminded me of yesterday's release from the Chickenhawk Information Agency, which has emerged as a rival for the other CIA, in which it was said that the Iraqi high command had called together all of the doubles of Saddam Hussein and told them there was some good news and bad news. And they said the good news is that Saddam Hussein has survived; he's still alive. The bad news is he's lost a leg. (Laughter.)
Anyway, Nathan, your turn.
NATHAN GUTTMAN: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me over here today. In a few days I guess it might even take a few weeks, this so-called roadmap that we're talking about for so many months will probably be presented to both sides formally, even though both sides and everyone else in the region already knows exactly what this roadmap will say.
Anyone who follows the way things unfold in the Middle East should already know that the presentation of the roadmap will by no means mean the end of the road for the question of does Israel and do the Palestinians accept this roadmap.
Answers in the Middle East are usually "yes, but", "no, but." We don't expect to get a straightforward answer as "we accept the plan" or "we reject the plan" from either side of this conflict. So instead of accept or reject we're going to have a "yes, but", "no, but" and that's actually one of the things that feeds this conflict for so many years and this is what has put the end to so many peace plans in the past.
Eventually the time will come when both sides will have to commit themselves to either supporting or rejecting this U.S. led initiative.
As it comes to Israel, the question will be does the Sharon government and does the Israeli public agree to a two-state solution that is the base of the U.S. vision as presented by President Bush on the June 24th address in the Rose Garden.
Now, surprisingly enough, I do believe that the answer, the Israeli answer, whether it's the Israeli public's answer or even the Israel government answer will be a yes. The Israel people and the Israel government are ready for compromise. Even after two and a half years of Intifada and of terror and of bloodshed there are some fundamental facts that did not change since Yitzhak Rabin shook the hand of Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn and since Ehud Barak went to Camp David in an attempt to put an end to this conflict.
So I do believe that the answer the Israelis will give eventually will be yes to a two-state solution but as always in the Middle East this won't be a straightforward yes. It will be a "yes, but" answer.
So let's begin with the yes and then move over to the buts, which are a bit more difficult.
The first fact that we should take into consideration is that Israel has abandoned the notion that was for some a dream of greater Israel. The process of realizing the fact that the Israeli border on the East will not be the Jordan River and that there is a Palestinian entity that has to be taken into consideration has grown in the Israeli public for the past two decades, but it was the Oslo Accord, signed in 1993, which turned this mental realization into a political fact. In accepting the Oslo Accord the Israel public accepted, in fact, the idea that Israel is going into a process, maybe a long process, of departing from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and moving towards a two-state reality.
It is true that from the beginning there was a lot of criticism against the Oslo Accord, criticism that led eventually led to the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by Jewish extremists but even as the criticism grew and became louder the issue was not an attempt to revive this idea of greater Israel but it was rather a question of would Israel be safe with the accord that was brought back from Washington.
This realization was not only on behalf of the Israel peace camp, the Labor Party, or the political left wing. When Benjamin Netanyahu cam into power in 1996 he also accepted the Oslo outline and even Ariel Sharon, when he was elected to be prime minister in 2001, has embraced, maybe without great enthusiasm, the idea of an independent Palestinian state at the end of the process. Some may say he never thought that we'll get to the end of the process but Sharon's declarations do prove the fact that he does accept this idea eventually.
Another fact that we should take into consideration in trying to understand the Israeli standpoint is the attitude of Israelis towards the settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Contrary to what many may think, the Israeli public does not believe that settlements are essential for the well-being of Israel or for its security. A monthly poll done by two researchers from Tel Aviv University, Tamar Harmon (ph) and Friyam Yar (ph), found as late as last month that seven out of ten Israelis are willing to evacuate all settlements in the Gaza Strip, all of the secluded settlements in the West Bank and leave under Israeli control only a few settlement clusters near the Green Line in return for true peace. This means that even without any peace plan on the table Israelis understand that the settlements are something that will have to go sooner or later.
With a crumbling government at home, polls showed that 60 percent of the Israelis supported what he had offered the Palestinians, including over 90 percent of the territories, a land swap with Israel, dismantling of the settlements and even the most difficult issues for Israelis, which was raised for the first time at the Camp David talks, the division of Jerusalem.
This is an overwhelming rate of willingness to reach out for compromise. We should keep in mind that before Ehud Barak raised the question of dividing Jerusalem it was a taboo in Israeli culture. No one was willing to talk about dividing Jerusalem. When he came back with this idea, even though the talks did not succeed, he had 60 percent of the population supporting him.
Some will say, well, this was two and a half years ago but since Israel has drifted to the right, so let's look again at the Harmanya (ph) peace poll of March 2003, two and a half years after the Intifada began; 69 percent of the Israelis wanted the immediate resumption of talks with the Palestinians and 58 percent are willing to accept an independent Palestinian state and the 1967 borders with only minor border corrections.
The bottom line is that the Israeli public does support a compromise and does support a two-state solution.
But, of course, there is a major piece of evidence to prove the opposite, namely the results of the 2001 and of the 2003 elections in Israel. Being in a democracy there's little room for speculation about what the Israel public thinks. What Israelis think is what they say at the ballots and the Israel public has a chance to speak up, lately every second year, and vote his own government. The results of the 2001 elections and of the 2003 elections show that there is indeed a drift to the right and that the so-called peace camp has declined in its power.
But it takes a deeper look into the Israeli elections to understand exactly what the Israelis were thinking when they sent Ariel Sharon to the prime minister's office in Jerusalem. Was it really a vote against the peace process? Did the Israelis say no to the notion of a two-state solution?
I would like to offer another explanation. The Israelis did indeed vote no but they did not say no to the peace process. They vote no to terrorism. They voted no to the use of violence as a political instrument. And they voted no to going back to being terrorized at home. They also voted no to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who was perceived after Camp David as arrogant, adventurous and irresponsible. Ariel Sharon got 63 percent of the vote not because his agenda was against a two-state solution but because he offered Israelis a sense of stability and a promise of security.
The same is true for the 2003 elections. The people voted out of fear, out of despair and because we saw no other alternative. They were offered no other alternative either by outside parties or by the political parties at home.
The Middle East peace process was not abandoned by the Israeli public; it was only set aside. The public in Israel is still a great supporter of the peace and of compromise but these issues aren't relevant right now. There is only one issue that controls the Israeli public agenda for the last two years; this is the fear. When people that are afraid to go on a bus, to send their kids to school or to sit in a coffee shop, the question of two states or of territorial compromise seems very distant to them at this time. It is the fear that can explain the outcome of the elections in Israel and the continuing decline in the power of the Israeli peace camp.
But the situation, in my opinion at least, can be reversed. Since the fundamental approach of the Israelis did not change, the way to turn the wheel back is by dealing first of all with the cause of the fear, which is the terror.
Going back to the "yes, but" it's time to deal a bit with the "buts". Yes, Israel will resume talks and will agree to a two two-state solution but something has to be done to ensure Israelis can return to their daily lives without thinking twice before entering a shopping mall.
There is another but, the need to rebuilt trust. In a sense we can say yes the Israelis are willing to go back to the point reached in Camp David but this time the process has to go much slower. Two and a half years later and after thousands of casualties on both sides, there is little trust left in either side. The majority of Israelis won't accept again the notion of going from zero to 60 in one summit. Camp David did away with that possibility. The Israelis would like to see an incremental process with measurable benchmarks. In simple terms the formula is the more security we'll get the more we'll be willing to give. I'm sure that by building the peace mechanism in that way and showing real action to curb terror there will be a possibility to re-ignite the basic Israeli willingness for peace and compromise.
Just one more note: What about the Israeli government? Some would say Ariel Sharon is leading now a right-wing government, which will not agree to any compromise in any situation. That is true; the government that Ariel Sharon formed after the January 2003 election is based on the right. He has the Likud Party, which is a right-wing party, and his partners to the coalition are even more to the right from the Likud and more opposed to a two-state solution. Ariel Sharon himself is considered to be a hardliner. He is known as a supporter of the settlements and the territories. He is known as someone who is opposed to any two-state solution.
But having said that, we have to also understand that Ariel Sharon has another side and that's the pragmatic side of Ariel Sharon, and that's a side that we see more and more of lately. Ariel Sharon knows that his greatest asset right now politically in Israel is his good relationship with the U.S. administration. Sharon has become best friends with the Bush administration, with the president himself, even with Congress and he will do nothing to compromise this relationship. Sharon owes much of his success in Israel to this fact. We should remember that the Israeli public already showed us in 1992, when they ousted them Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir because they felt that he was leading Israel to a crisis. The Israeli public has proven that it won't tolerate a leader that will take Israel into a crisis situation with its greatest ally, the United States.
So how do you go about resuming the peace process on the basis of a two-state solution? As far as Israel is concerned, the way is to base yourselves on the yes and deal with the buts. The basics are there but it will take a lot of work.
Thank you.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Thank you, Nathan. That was very thought provoking and I hope, if I understood the "yes, but" formula it is basically that Israel will be prepared to do the right thing after it has exhausted all the alternatives, which may take a while.
And I think now we turn to the question of whether Palestinians and Arabs -- not you, Khalil -- whether Palestinians and Arabs are similarly inclined to do the right thing after exhausting an alternative or two. I take Nathan's point that the United States has considered leverage, which it has not used but which exists, with the government of Israel seriously. Do we have such leverage with the Palestinians still is an interesting question. Khalil?
KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: Thank you. Thank you, Chas, for holding this timely event and congratulations on this is what, the 32nd, right?
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Yes, I think so.
KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: I remember when they were in the single digits way back and I think the Council deserves commendation for keeping up with this effort.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Send money.
KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: Send money to the Council. (Laughter.)
Is a two-state solution to the Palestine problem still viable? Theoretically yes; practically no. If by a two-state solution we mean or refer to the concept that aims at recognizing Israel as a democratic and sovereign state within secure and defined borders, namely, those of June 4, 1967, living at peace alongside an independent, sovereign and democratic state of Palestine in the West Bank and Gaza, that is on 22 percent of historic Palestine, then the two-state solution I believe personally remains the only rational, realistic and viable option. So in that sense I said yes.
Let me explain my schizophrenic answer to this question. I'd like to make three points. First, the reason I say that the two-state solution remains, in spite of the difficulties we face today, the only rational, realistic and viable option is the fact that all the other options are neither attractive nor morally or politically feasible. A Jewish state over all of greater Israel will not work. Neither would a Muslim state over all of historic Palestine.
The reason is very simple: The price of either option is too high from a political and moral perspective. Both will likely lead to a prolonged and existential military confrontation that will end with some form of ethnic cleansing or another.
I am not sure that the international community, particularly at this juncture in history, would allow either option to materialize even if the parties on the ground deem that morally or politically feasible.
There is, of course, a third option, that of one secular democratic state in all of Palestine that would also in my judgment generate insurmountable opposition since it challenges Israel's predominantly Jewish character. Therefore it's safe to expect that Israel will continue to oppose it vehemently.
The second one I'd like to make is that the failure of the Oslo process to produce a permanent status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, since with that failure the prospects for a two-state solution, these prospects have been receding at an accelerating pace over the past 12, 13 years, I would like to highlight five main reasons or points for that receding importance of this prospect.
One is Israel's expansionist settlement policy. The settlement policy of the state of Israel and its insatiable appetite for more Palestinian land has left no room, practically speaking, for the concept of exchanging land for peace, needless to say for creating two states within the borders of mandated Palestine. With 45 to 50 percent of the West Bank land today under the control of Jewish settlers in terms of actual settlements, bypass roads and security fences, very little, ladies and gentlemen,, is left for a viable state for the Palestinians even if the will to create such a state is there.
Successive Israeli governments, both Labor and Likud alike, have been quite effective at preempting the realization of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state by creating demographic facts on the ground to prevent that state from emerging.
So today as we speak we are dealing on the ground with 141 settlements in the West Bank, 11 in East Jerusalem, 16 in Gaza, 33 in the Golan Heights, for a total population of at least 435,000 settlers in all of these settlements.
Add to the fact that these settlements, again they are not isolated. Sometimes the impression you get is that they are small, easy to move and so on. Some of them are and I agree with that, but the fact of the matter that today settlers control 42 to at least 50, 53 percent of their area of the West Bank, more than 2,400 square kilometers, so what is left? I mean, when we talk about giving 80 percent or 90 percent or even 99 percent of the West Bank back to the Palestinians what percentage of that, are we talking about the whole West Bank and Gaza, the 22 percent of Palestine or are we talking about a certain percentage of that; particularly when you take into consideration the fact that over the past ten years since Oslo a 52.5 percent growth in housing units has been accelerated or implemented by the Israelis since '93 and 72 percent growth since Oslo in terms of the settler population.
The second point is the damage of the past 30 months. There is total underestimation in Washington, as a person who deals with decision-makers on a regular basis on this issue. They seem to adhere to the naïve notion that once President Bush gets the urge or is hit by the Holy Spirit -- I don't know what motivates the man -- but somehow whenever he tells the parties to jump they all are going to basically say how high instead of asking why and they are going to kiss and make up in spite of the vicious bloodletting of the past two and a half years. There is absolutely no serious estimation of the damage done by the past two and a half years of most violent phase in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and no serious respect for the damage we have done, this administration has done in terms of the policy of neglect since it has come into office.
So to expect Palestinians who have lost 2,370 deaths over the past 30 months, more than 40,000 serious injuries, to expect Israelis who have lost 760 deaths and more than 4,500 injuries, and again sometimes you know with our size, sheer size in this country in our arrogance we tend to kind of not be impressed by numbers, let me put these numbers in American terms so that you can understand the shock and the trauma these people are going through. When you say 2,370 Palestinians killed you are talking about the equivalent in this country of 204,681 Americans being shot on the streets of America over a period of 30 months. Look what happened to us trauma-wise with 3,000 getting killed with the vicious terrorist attack on us on September 11th and think of what would have happened if we had 200,000 people killed. The injured in Palestine are the equivalent of 3.5 million -- 3.5 million shot and maimed by soldiers.
For Israel I mean, these numbers are not insignificant either. When you talk about 763 Israelis killed as of today, that's the equivalent of 43,491 people killed in American terms. And again that's more than ten times what we lost on September 11th. The injuries on the Israel side, the equivalent is 256,000.
So to expect these parties simply just because President Bush is ready simply to just jump on the bandwagon and say, "Yes, sir, let's move forward" is very naïve, in my judgment. Our policy of benign neglect since September 2000 is apt to come back to haunt us even if we proceed with the roadmap with good intentions.
The political situation in Israel, I agree 100 percent with what Nathan described earlier in terms of the difficulty involved with the nature of the coalition government being very hard-line, avowedly pro-settler. I just can't see it. If we proceed with the roadmap I can't see this current government fulfilling before the end of this year a settlement freeze readily as requested by the roadmap, of course, assuming that the Palestinians would deliver the 100 different things that they need to deliver before we get to Israel delivering its first demand from the roadmap.
Clearly this government in Israel has no vision for peace. It has however a vision that uses settlers to preempt a Palestinian state so it's not surprising to me when Sharon talks about a state and his buddy Bush talks about a state they're talking about two different states. And I've been having the hardest time talking to people like in the National Security Council, does the president really understand Sharon's vision of the state. I mean, you know, when he talks about at best 40, 45 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinians, does the president share that with him? And you don't get a straight answer at all.
The political situation in Palestine is also dismal and it will impact the prospects for a two-state solution. You are not going to be able to implement a two-state solution with Yasser Arafat a prisoner. The V sign stopped referring to victory when Arafat raises his fingers like this; it refers to the two rooms he is stuck in, in the basement of his office. (Laughter.) So to expect him to somehow lead the Palestinians back to the negotiating table right now, and, of course, all of a sudden now we're all into reform in Palestine. The Palestinians have been asking for reform for ten years and at least three secretaries of state have told me, "Jahshan, slow down; this is not the time for reform. Okay, wait. When you guys have a state over there then we'll start talking about reform."
Now all of a sudden everybody in this administration is for reform and my poor old friend Abu Mazen, I mean, come on, he is the ultimate victim of the frustration of rising expectations I think and frankly I wish President Bush did not endorse him the other day. I mean, the last thing he needed is that hug of death. He is facing a difficult position as is, trying to put a government together and I think leaving him alone for the time being would probably be best. But to expect this man, you know, out of nowhere to come in now and somehow rescue Israel and the Palestinians out of their folly and bring him back miraculously to the negotiating table I think is very, very unrealistic.
And what we heard about Israeli public opinion, the same thing applies to Palestinian public opinion. It's a matter of image. We can talk about that a little bit if you want during the question and answer session.
But the political situation in Washington, last, probably would be the most serious hindrance to the success of a two-state solution and the roadmap. I think the mentality that has dawned on us here in terms of post-9/11 thinking, the war against terrorism, the Iraq war, Afghanistan and where things are stuck there, I cannot see this administration as paying more than lip service to the Palestine problem.
I have witnessed and participate and dealt with decision-makers at every phase of the past three peace processes. There were always serious deliberations and preparations. Right now there is nothing, zero. So I can't see how this administration is going to shift gears next week, the week after or whenever and all of a sudden we have a peace process with no preparation at all. And they seem to forget what happened at Camp David. Why did Camp David fail? The number one reason -- there were many reasons but number one was the lack of preparation on the part -- what do you mean two? Do you want to argue?
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Sure.
KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: So I see why this urge now to move forward, the pressure, because Chas mentioned earlier diffusing the anger of the Arab street, helping Blair, helping the EU, coming up with a positive project somehow to kind of bridge the gap that has developed with Europe over Iraq and placating Arab allies who participated in the coalition of the willing but too embarrassed to tell their people about it so they were not listed on the list, so all these things militate for that type of action at this time.
We all are quiet aware of what it takes to achieve a two-state solution. Former Secretary of State Jim Baker wrote an op-ed piece a couple of days ago and unfortunately he had to cross the border to publish it in Toronto, in the Toronto Star. I don't know why but I guess this is a sign of the days we live in today.
I'd like to quote him. He said, "This is a tragic version of the old chicken and egg problem; land for peace under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 therefore is the only basis upon which the dispute can be settled. Any decision to reopen the roadmap to substantive amendment, for instance, is an open invitation, if not for interminable delay. And there should be no conditions whatever to Israel's obligation to stop all settlement activity. The United States must press Israel as a friend but firmly to negotiate a secure peace based on the principle of trading land for peace in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 242." End of quote.
Where does this leave us? We're left basically with three options: The status quo, which is totally untenable; Israel's situation economically, emotionally, psychologically, whatever. I think Israeli society, and I agree totally with what Nathan said, they want a way out of the current predicament. Palestinian society is in the same predicament. There is Intifada fatigue that characterizes the psychological and security situation both in Israel and Palestine. Both peoples want out of this predicament. But the status quo is not going to work.
Number two, the option of one state as a result of Israel annexing the West Bank and Gaza and extending citizenship and full equality to all its citizens. If you believe that this will happen I have a piece of real estate on the surface of Mars I'd like to get rid of today.
And the third one is one state as a result of Israel annexing the West Bank and Gaza again but expelling or transferring large numbers of Palestinians to neighboring Arab countries and it has as much viability as any other option. I doubt it. I don't think it will happen that easily. But there are people in the Israel cabinet who advocate it so you have to give it some serious concern.
Now we're left with the roadmap. We are told it's the only game in town. Well, it claims as its ultimate objective a sovereign, independent, democratic and viable Palestine by 2005 in the context of a two-state vision.
Personally, I think that the roadmap under certain conditions might lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. However, I doubt that it would succeed in fulfilling the vision of two states, quote, as the document itself says, "living side by side in peace and security." At best I think it will create a state and a half, reflecting the vision of President Bush that falls between Barak minus and Sharon plus based on the 50 to 60 percent of the West Bank.
Thank you very much.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Thank you, Khalil.
We now turn to questions and comments and I'm sure the various members of the panel will find occasion to comment on each other's views, which are quite different, ranging from cautious optimism to I should say rather open pessimism. And those of you who have participated before in our sessions know that we ask that you go to the microphone and identify yourself and keep your questions brief and if possible direct them to specific members of the panel.
QUESTION: Jerome Segal, University of Maryland.
I guess mostly I wanted to make a comment about a somewhat more constructive way of thinking about the roadmap. I think if you look at the roadmap in terms of its stated objectives, what's sort of at the end of the road, the two-state solution and so on, in many ways it's really a decision to rewind the clock and in some ways restart Oslo with a series of phases, confidence building. Even the provisional state from the Palestinian point of view is just kind of a symbolic restatement of the Palestinian Authority that already exists. And then stage three is similar to Oslo state two, which is we'll do final status negotiations and deal with all the big issues. And the roadmap doesn't offer anything more than that.
This sort of verbal consensus around the goal of two states, as Khalil said, when you get down to the substance that we're talking about here the gap is so wide that there's no possibility of negotiation there.
True Sharon, Nathan, has a pragmatic side. True the Eastern front issue may make some kind of difference, but there's no doubt that there's not going to be any negotiation between Sharon and the Palestinians that's going to succeed.
What we really need, it seems to me, on the Israeli side, and I think it's a key variable, is a new government in Israel and the last election showed us why we can't get there. And as you said, it's not because of the substantive positions; it's because of the damage that's been done in the last couple of years.
And the contribution I believe that the roadmap can make at best, and it will be important, is that basically it can serve to re-legitimize the Palestinians as a partner in the pace process. Implicitly, if we get to the point of the Sharon government negotiating with the Palestinians, then basically Sharon himself has reversed essentially the decision that Barak gave, which is that there's nobody on the other side to make peace with.
If we can get to that point and then we get the deadlock, which we will get, then we have an opportunity for the Israelis to make a real decision then about whether they're going to give us a new government, but I wouldn't count on the United States making much of a contribution to that and certainly not, I must say, after 15 years of running a Jewish peace organization, though Stephen Cohen is absolutely right about the need for centrality of American Jews. We've put a lot of faith in this fantasy that something much is going to come from our community.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: I take it that was a comment not a question, but a provocative comment and I suppose various members of the panel, starting with Michael, might want to respond.
MICHAEL C. HUDSON: I just want to say something briefly, but I agree with Dr. Segal's characterization of what appears to be the roadmap, that it looks in many ways like Oslo with all of its failings, putting off important things until it's really too late.
But I would say one thing to just temper this very pessimistic expression that the modality of the quartet, were it to be fully and actively implemented, might lead to a happier ending, but that, of course, depends on an American government acting multilaterally when it in Iraq at least appears not to be in a mood to do so. But were it to accept the framework, which it has agreed to, of a quartet and if it allowed the other three members to play an active role and if everybody knew, there was an international consensus, maybe you'd have a happier ending.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Steve, do you want to offer a comment, since the prospect of the American Jewish community acting positively has been impugned?
STEPHEN P. COHEN: Well, I just want to say that I'm more concerned right now with what is happening here to the roadmap because this is becoming another ganging up on the roadmap as if there isn't enough criticism of the roadmap in parts of the American community that don't want it to be implemented. And we would hope that in the parts of the American community that want it to be implemented there would be something more of how to make it work rather than how to further destroy it.
Let me just point out one thing that is in the roadmap that is supposed to happen at the very beginning, not in the third year but at the very beginning of phase one and that would be already something that would be a very significant event in Israeli society and American Jewish society.
It says at the outset of phase one Israel leadership issues unequivocal statement affirming its commitment to the two-state vision of an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside Israel. That's the first thing, the first thing in the roadmap.
Now, I want to say to you if that first thing in the roadmap would, in fact, be accomplished by this administration in the year 2003 that would already change the context of the next Israeli election. It would already change the context of the American Jewish political debate. And it would already change some of the ridiculous discussion that goes on in the American Congress.
And that's at the very beginning. Never mind the third year, never mind the second year; that's at the very beginning, phase one.
Now, what I want to say to you is this: We can all come up with an enormous list of reasons for being pessimistic. That does not require a meeting of Chas Freeman. A meeting of Chas Freeman should be a meeting in which people are trying to find a way to get somewhere, to get out of this problem, not to get deeper into our own despair, which is deep enough right now. That's all I want to say.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Thank you, Stephen.
Nathan, you had a comment you wanted to offer?
NATHAN GUTTMAN: Dr. Segal was saying that the U.S. doesn't have much to contribute at this stage, but I do think the roadmap can contribute something to the political discussion in Israel. Right now the choice the Israel voter has when he is going to elections is either voting for the right wing or voting for nothing else on the other side because there is no peace plan to discuss.
Now, once this peace plan is put forward several things can happen in Israeli politics. First of all, Sharon will probably try to say some sort of a yes to maintain his good relationship with the U.S. When it comes to implementing the plan he will probably lose his coalition partners, but he always has the Labor Party sitting in the opposition, which will give him the security net. Amram Mitzna of the Labor Party will be happy to jump into a national unity government based on this roadmap and so we can pass maybe the first stages of the roadmap with slight political changes in Israel.
Now, when it gets to the final stage of having an independent Palestinian state the Israelis will probably have to go to elections again but then they will have a plan on the table. They will be either voting for the peace plan or against the peace plan, not for Sharon or against Sharon.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Khalil, do you want to offer a reply?
KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: Yeah. There are a lot of positive things about this plan, especially when you compare it with other plans. I mean, the most attractive part, as far as I'm concerned, from a Palestinian-American perspective is the fact that unlike other plans from the very beginning, from the preamble it states clearly its objective in terms of an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state but it just drags the process.
I think this is going to be announced, okay. I think the parties are going to proceed forward with it. The Palestinian side at least I know that for sure are committed to proceed forward. They have been informed by the United States and the Europeans that it's on the way and they are ready to move forward with it.
But my question is this roadmap, just like other procedural plans in the past, we keep having this reductionist approach. I mean, right now even when you look at the original there are like six versions that I have here of the roadmap. So you look at the original ones and you look at the recent one that this one is most likely to be announced in a few days or whatever it is that it will be announced, it's no longer a roadmap; it's a ramp to the roadmap.
And my question is not with the ramp nor with the roadmap. We all need ways to get out of the current predicament. I've tried to describe the depth of the pain that both communities and both parties suffer from and they need to be nudged out of that hug of death that they put themselves in over the past 30 months, but what's the final objective? I mean, I said in my remarks that this will probably lead to a state but what kind of state. I'm not sure it will lead to basically two states. And as I concluded, it will probably at best lead to a state and a half and the Palestinians have not gone as far as they have, 50 some years of pain and agony, to basically settle for half a state. It has to be if we have learned anything from the past ten years of negotiations, it has to be a credible, viable, independent, sovereign Palestinian state.
We don't need to dance around it. I mean, we start fine in the document. We end fine with the statehood but then we start in the middle creating problems. I mean, what is an "independent state with attributes of sovereignty"? I mean, it's either a goddamn sovereign state or it's not. I mean, what is an attribute of sovereignty?
So I'm not interested in sitting here and cutting this plan to pieces and bits. We could do that. Is there something positive about it? Yes, there are all kinds of things. I wish that the circumstances in the region would be such as we can just adopt it and move forward with it but it's not. I meant to highlight the difficulties that stand in the way and unless we tackle those difficulties that good plan is going to be jeopardized.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Well, I think that is, of course, the point, that there will be presumably an announcement of some sort of ramp onto a roadmap or a roadmap and the question that Steve correctly poses is how do we use that, what do we do, how do we move beyond it and I take, Khalil, your key point to be a very important one and that is that ultimately the issue is not roadmaps or two states; the issue is reconciliation and a Palestinian state that falls drastically short of what is reasonable in terms of Palestinian aspirations will simply lead to a new phase of conflict rather than reconciliation. So if the objective is reconciliation then we need to think creatively about how to achieve that.
Young lady, you've been standing there for quite a while. I like to encourage people rather than wearing out your legs to give me kind of a nod. I'll write down beautiful lady on the right, ugly man on the left and I'll call on you. There's a good-looking young man over there on the right and I'll put his name down. Please. Who are you?
QUESTION: You're very sweet to say young. I'm 66 and that made me born in '36, which was the very beginning of the two-state solution.
I'm Lila Dane (sp). My label says I'm with the Institute for Victims of Trauma but I am also a member of the Washington National Cathedral Peace Commission, if you know the role of Bishop Chain and I am outgoing president of the American Psychological Association division, which is called the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence.
And as such, I took great interest in Dr. Cohen's challenge that the American Jewish community and the Arab-American community work towards getting their people to be positive about the roadmap or let's say peace. This is a great possibility. I have access to any number of professors throughout the United States who could put together some kind of questionnaire for students and we could get the ball rolling.
There is a lot to do to protect against what I understood Dr. Cohen to talk about when he said very polite words. I don't want to be provocative about reality so I will not say it in words that I understood, but I'm referring to what he called the anti-Semitism aspect.
And I feel that it is very much in the intellectual community that this boil must be popped so that we can move on to allow the political process to make an effort. And if we don't get to it through the intellectual community the political process will be stymied.
I'd like to hear what you have to say about that.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Steve, do you want to offer comment?
STEPHEN P. COHEN: Some of us have been trying to get Arab-Americans and Jewish-Americans together to work together. It's not such an easy process. But I have to say that there is much more goodwill between some elements of the two communities than there has ever been before and there's a recognition on the part of elements in both communities that we can greatly strengthen each other by developing the kinds of discourse that would strengthen the push of a strong part of the American citizenry to make the United States a leader in peace and be willing to take responsibility for pushing this process beyond the shaky uncertainties that exist in the different communities and exists also in Israel and among the Palestinians, all of which are shaky feelings for good reasons but those shaky feelings should not stop the United States. They should be an encouragement to the United States to understand that the best thing it can do for both of those peoples is to push that ambivalence in the direction of solution and not push that ambivalence in the direction of continuing to do nothing to change the situation.
And therefore I believe that the Christian churches in the United States are a very important part of that process. We have seen a coalition that has involved some Jews and some Christians who have wanted to make this into an endless conflict. Well, now we have to see a majority of Christian churches operate with Jews and Arab-Americans who want to solve this problem to take the lead in changing American public opinion and in changing the direction of what is perceived in the United States as what Americans want from their government in this regard. We can't leave it to those who want to perpetuate the conflict and who want the United States to focus on everything in the Middle East except this problem. We must not let that happen.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Khalil.
KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: No, I agree. I think Steve and I have participated over the years in many of these efforts and we continue to do that at this time. Unfortunately I think probably Steve would agree with me on at least a personal note here, that that dialogue or the quality of the interaction between our two communities has not reached the level that he and I would like to see. It's been kind of on again, off again, here and there and changing venues and changing faces and what have you. It hasn't been stabilized enough.
And because I think we've allowed it for too long to be determined, to become a function instead of this acting basically as independently minded Americans who are concerned about our own country's policy in the region and how that impacts the future of people we care about in the region. We allowed events in the region to kind of determine the level and the quality of our interaction as to communities. I mean, I remember for years and years, for example, approaching and discussing things like this with prominent Jewish leaders in mainstream organizations whose answer is always, "You're a nice guy, I would love to talk to you but the time is not right, the circumstances in the region do not allow us to do that." And we've had the same thing on our side, too.
But we hope that sooner rather than later we kind of transcend this timidity and approach the issue with much more seriousness and much more let's say moral commitment to the larger picture and transcend the things that hold us back internally within our own communities to move forward.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: I think Steve, in all fairness, in your opening remarks you were much more direct and honest in addressing a problem that afflicts both communities, which is the effort by some in the community to impose political correctness and inhibit discussion and that is a major problem. As you said, too much of the discussion of this issue among Americans is sotto voce behind the backs of those with whom we disagree and ultimately dishonest and unproductive. And I heard you call for a different type of dialogue. I hear Khalil calling for that also and I heartily endorse that.
Sir?
QUESTION: My name is George Hishmi (ph) and I write for several newspapers in the Middle East.
I found the ideas of Professor Cohen very interesting, very encouraging but I have a blunt question, if you don't mind. There has been a lot made in the press lately about the so-called cabal of neo-cons who are mostly pro-Israelis. I'd like to hear your point of view about this. How serious is this, how important for the image of the United States, the Bush administration to do something in the Middle East?
And on that point, if I may just add a little bit, I heard Dennis Ross recently say that one of the failures of the Oslo process was the failure of the two sides talking to the peoples on either side. Maybe you can deal with that as well.
Thank you.
STEPHEN P. COHEN: I think it's one of the useful things that journalists do is that they get us to the controversial questions. And certainly one of the most controversial questions now has been the role of people like Richard Perle and so on and I will wade into that controversy for a moment with all of its complications.
There are two aspects to that controversy that I think are very important to our discussion today. One is that Richard Perle and a group of others who came into this administration advanced a set of ideas about the United States relationship to the Arab world, which was a highly aggressive one and which created an intellectual basis for a new kind of American approach to many of the countries in the region.
Some show reticence about attacking those views if they disagree with them. I happen to disagree with those views very strongly and I haven't hidden my disagreement with them either in discussions in open conversation or within the Jewish community.
But there is as kind of criticism of them that makes it impossible to defeat their influence within the American Jewish community, and that is when they are attacked as if they're not acting according to their jaundiced views of what's good for the United States as if they're acting only for the interests of Israel. When you do that you're crossing the boundaries and you're crossing the boundaries in a way in which you're going to increase the reluctance of Jews to join in the criticism of their views.
These people, in my view, are misguided but they're misguided as Americans trying to think of what they think as to what America should do. They are not acting as Israeli agents and I think it's a very big mistake and insofar as that kind of discussions is going on in America and not only in America but elsewhere and in the Arab world it just makes it harder to have the debate that's necessary about these, I believe, very dangerous views of how the United States should relate to the Middle East.
These are views that I believe that every one of us on this panel would be happy to disagree with and join in attacking. But don't make it into something, which has to do with issues of disloyalty to the United States. They are issues that have to do with directing the United States in a very wrong way based on deep misinformation and disinformation about the Arab world. They have to do with the fact that the distribution of knowledge about the Arab world in the United States is a distribution where there is extremely little knowledge in general and where that knowledge has become highly polarized and where the respect for the scholarship of those who know something about the Middle East has been trashed to the point where everybody's views are seen entirely as political and nobody is seen as having any real knowledge or expertise, which has reduced this debate to a terribly low level.
We are not in the situation with regard to some of these countries that we were when we started a war in Vietnam. There are many Americans who have spent time and parts of their life studying and visiting these countries who know something about them. We have relationships with people in many of these countries. We don't need to act on the basis of stereotypes developed by people who never visit these places, who never talk to anybody from these places.
We should be able to have an honest intellectual discussion. We have distinguished ex members of the American diplomatic corps who are cut out of any of these discussions because they don't have the PC view on this or that issue.
That's our problem and that's our collective problem: How do we have a serious discussion about the Arab world in this country. How do we have a serious discussion about the fact that the failure to solve the Arab-Israeli problem is an important issue to how the United States is perceived in the world and how the Arab world will perceive the United States?
We have to have such a discussion and those of us who have this discussion and those of us who know that it's a crying shame that we don't have a discussion have to be especially careful that we keep issues of loyalty and anti-Semitism out of the discussion so that we don't muddy the waters, so we don't prevent this debate from going forward in the proper channels.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Sound moral and practical advice, I believe.
Khalil?
KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: I'd like to weigh in on this point. It's very important for me personally and also in terms of I guess my association since I work for a civil rights organization. I have sensitivities to this issue. And I think some people in our community and in the Arab world but particularly in the Arabic language media they fail to understand the complexity of this whole business of anti-Semitism. It's always described as a weapon used by people who support Israel to kind of stifle debate. And it is. And, you know, Stephen mentioned that in his earlier remarks, this anti-anti-Semitism kind of tendency on the part of some in the Jewish community to kind of use it as a double-edged sword and the moment you say something critical of Israel or Israeli policy or something they chop your head off with that.
But that's not what we are talking about. There has to be a deeper and more intelligent discussion I think of this issue and if this crisis, the current war in Iraq taught us anything it taught us that probably we need to have some more serious dialogue inter-communally and in general as a country as a matter of fact with regard to this issue.
This tendency to kind of stereotype people, I mean I've had for years many problems with people like Richard Perle and Douglas Feith and others but again to oversimplify things it's easy for a foreign reporter to come in, for example, and lump Perle and Feith and Wolfowitz and Rudman and any other Jewish name they can muster, okay, and put them on a list and say "Jews have taken over and this is what they do."
First of all, it's stereotypical to lump all these people together in one list. Being familiar with all of these people and having dealt with them over the years, they are not of the same quote/unquote "ilk." It is stereotypical to lump people in such a simplistic way like that.
Number two, how would we feel, okay, as Arab-Americans if somebody questions our loyalty or somebody questions our commitment to issues? For example, if there is an attack today in Haaretz or somewhere attacking John Abizaid for being the deputy commander of CENTCOM in charge of killing fellow Arabs in the Gulf, how would we feel if his Arab identity or Arab-American identity is brought as an issue to exclude him from this position or to raise doubts about where he stands on issues? Or if there is an attack on the two Arab-American cabinet members in this crazy administration, excuse the term, there are people in our community that are saying what in the Sam Hill are they doing there, but, hey, you know, these are the issues that need to be debated and discussed and open instead of just stereotypically go after people.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Thank you.
Sir?
QUESTION: Mustafa Malit (ph) is my name. I'm a journalist here.
I kind of I'm a pessimist. I agree with Khalil's last option. I think that is the way Israel is going, the third option, the one state and some form of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. And I am saying this for years of discussion. More recently I had the opportunity to discuss this with a gentleman from Israel. I said I am from India and he thought that I'm a Hindu or something and he said that.
Anyway, my question is what recourse the Palestinians would have? It may work, too. After all, to be blunt about it, Israel was created through one process of ethnic cleansing. The second time if it happens then I mean the United States will accept for two reasons. One is their insensitivity to Palestinians. Mr. Guttman said one thing I noticed what he said, that Israel is being driven by fear and the reason of fear is terrorism. I am from India. It is because of our terrorists we are independent. Ghandi could not create. And as long as there is the sense that people who are fighting the Palestinians to liberate their country are terrorists, in that sense as long as there is the understanding of Palestinians will not come, those came and attacked on 9/11, they were terrorists.
So the question is that and in the United States since Gallup has started taking polls even the worst day of violence against Palestinians support for Israel has not dropped below 45 percent and support for Palestinians has not risen above 16 percent. I'm taking notes.
So it is this sense of sensitivity, which will I think tolerate the third option. What do you think is the outlook if that happens?
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: So I take it the question is first is the option of Israeli annexation of a broader former Palestine mandate in ethnic cleansing in fact the most likely option and were it to happen what would the American reaction be. And these are analytical questions. You're not asking --
QUESTION: No, I'm asking the Palestinian option.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: I understand but you are expressing your own pessimism that the Israelis might do this and the U.S. would, in fact, do nothing in response.
And, Nathan, why don't we let you start? And, Michael, you've been silent so I think you need to get in on this.
NATHAN GUTTMAN: Well, it is true that the current Israeli government does have elements in it that support the idea that has caused in Israel the transfer, that is that notion of having Jordan as the Palestinian state or any other Arab state as being home for the Palestinians and, in fact, expelling Palestinians from the territories and taking them over.
This is disturbing as maybe we must remember that this is a small fraction from the Israeli society. The fact that they are represented in the current government is a result of our kind of political events and of the fact that there is a very large strengthening of the right wing in Israel and a decline of the peace camp but it is still marginal and will probably stay marginal.
The idea of transfer or of what you call ethnic cleansing lives in the margins of Israeli society for years; it never gains any more support than it does nowadays except the certain political result that led these people into the government. It is not part of the Israeli mainstream and as I see it, it will never be so it's hard to see how an idea, which is maybe supported by 5 percent of the Israelis or less of Jewish Israelis, will have the ability to change the reality. Israelis understand, even if they don't agree on a Palestinian state of 90 percent of land or 50 percent of the land and that is a big discussion but they do agree to the idea of a two-state solution and everyone is aware in Israel of the fact that this idea of just throwing the Palestinians to the other side of the Jordan River isn't a realistic idea.
And, of course, even though Israel does enjoy a lot of support from the United States, there is no doubt in my mind at least that the United States will do anything to oppose such an idea. But again this is even far from being discussed. This isn't an idea that's on the table.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Michael.
MICHAEL C. HUDSON: I think the idea of transfer is the most extreme expression of a larger, more general philosophical or analytical position, which places the priority on the use of force as a way of basically solving problems. So while I don't expect to see a policy transfer actually coming out of the Israeli government it's certainly much more possible to imagine a continuation basically of what we've been now seeing for some time and maybe on a more advanced scale. And that means, of course, continuous misery and violence and bloodshed to the particular disproportionate disadvantage of the weak, the weaker party.
Question: What is the American government feel about this? And the thing that puzzles and disturbs me is that within the sort of, if you can imagine the philosophical framework of the neo conservatives, especially when it comes to the Middle East, I think there is a strong feeling that force works. I've heard a prominent sort of Middle East specialist, who's very much associated with that movement, say it very boldly. He said, speaking of the tenet, I think another Mitchell Commission, Senator Mitchell had said, you know, this is a problem that can't be solved militarily. And this person said, "Oh yes it can and that's the way to go about it."
The question then is to what extent is the American administration and those talks, shall we say, that seem to have so much influence in it, really buy into this. And since we're sitting here in the buildings of the U.S. Congress would it not be a positive and constructive thing to do to try and build or develop an argument to counteract this particular notion that force works, that what you really need to do after you've finished with Iraq is to take on Syria, Iran and maybe even, as I think Mr. Woolsey said the other day, maybe even Saudi Arabia and Egypt and so forth, to just show these people what they have to do.
If that view prevails I think we're in for a very difficult time. So it seems to me a useful task would be to try to develop arguments, not just arguments on the basis of morality or principle but arguments on the basis of American interests, you know, why is this not a very good idea. And I would invite people to try to develop such an argument.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: I think you raise a very important issue that is broader than the Middle East, which has to do with whether or not the United States now embraces Caligula's view of foreign affairs, that it doesn't matter if they hate us as long as they fear us. And whether our foreign policy is, in fact, progressively more and more militaristic and likely to become more militarized as time goes on, that is a debate that badly needs to take place in this country and which may be provoked by unfolding events in the Middle East or elsewhere.
Captain?
QUESTION: Thank you, sir. I'm pleased that you allowed me to ask a question, even though I was late in arriving. I'd like to, since you made the mistake of letting me get to the microphone, do a four-parter, a compliment, an anecdote, two directed questions and then two challenges. But I shall be hopefully refreshingly brief.
The compliment is first of all although I spent 30-plus years looking at the Middle East I've always tried to avoid this issue because it seemed to me it was a loser of an issue. And since coming in and listening to Khalil and then the responses I'm starting to get optimistic. And I think Stephen Cohen really put the proper challenge that if we're wasting Ambassador Freeman's time here we ought to come up with some solutions.
So first the anecdote: One of the most enjoyable tours that I had in the U.S. Navy, all of which tours I ended up doing either being in the Middle East or pontificating about the Middle East from the other side of the pond, was at the Naval War College. And as I was going across, right before Saddam invaded in '90 I was heading down to Norfolk for some kind of a boondoggle and I was riding with Dr. Bob Wood, who was the dean of the Center for Naval Warfare Studies and Bob is a very sly, not quite as sly as Ambassador Freeman, but a wise man and he was saying, "Conway, as you're heading south remember that there are certain things about the Palestinians and how the Arab world feels about it." And he relayed that when he was sitting under Kissinger he had been working on his dissertation and his dissertation of how to solve the Middle East peace process. Bob is no spring chicken so this was quite a ways back and so this is a well-worn subject. And Kissinger was just ripping it apart and he said, "Bob, the problem here that with you Americans," and found it very interesting that Kissinger said "You Americans," so he said, "is that your thinking here that what we have is a problem that needs a solution; what we have here is a dilemma." So I think that there was some wisdom here or Wood was just trying to perhaps pass the time.
Now, in terms of directed questions, it seems to me that Ambassador Freeman has cleverly divided his four panelists into the information folks on the right and the policy folks on the left and so I'd like to direct two information questions to the right flank.
I hope I'm wrong on this but this is a rumor that I've heard running around that during that operation Defensive Shield or whatever it was called where the real estate was reduced down to the two rooms for Arafat so that he could use the V sign, that the goal of what the IDF went after in Ramallah was first of all that they went after the land records and seized those. I hope that's not correct. But the thing that was more disturbing was that the second thing they went after was the educational records of the Palestinian Authority, down to the elementary school level. So I was wondering as a journalist if you had any kind of sort of knowledge of that and obviously it would be a disturbing thing.
Now, to be evenhanded in this, because I understand that's Ambassador Freeman's thing, I want to give a hard question to Khalil and this is one that he'll be less able to answer. But as I was going over the list of the Palestinian Authority ministries I was interested to see which billets got filled first and which were left hanging. And I had a lot of discussions when I was on the UN Truce Supervision Organization in Lebanon about weaknesses in the PLO at the time. But it looks as if everyone wants to be the foreign minister, the finance minister, the head of security, and the things that looked like they were gaps, and I hope I'm wrong on this too, was the education ministry, the roads and housing. And it seems to me if the Palestinians are going to be credible, even with 45 percent of the West Bank, at some point those are the real issues, it's not foreign ministry.
So now the challenge for the left hand side, for the policy folks, because I again want to be evenhanded here, is that based on what they say in response to that, what can the American Jewish community and what should the U.S. government do to try and deal with these pinpricks. And again I hope all my information is wrong in the first place.
Thank you, sir.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Thank you for a really nasty series of interventions. Let's start with Nathan.
NATHAN GUTTMAN: Well, in comparing the goals of the Defensive Shield I never heard about the idea of going into Ramallah just to get the land records or the education records of the Palestinian Authority. I know that Israel was interested in putting their hands on archives of the Palestinian Authority mainly to try to get information about weapons transactions and try to stop them and support to terrorist groups. I really have no other information about it.
But concerning the education material, I know this is an issue that disturbs Israelis. I don't think you have to take over Ramallah to know what the textbooks of grade one kids are. I think Israelis know that and that's an issue of debate, which goes back to the question of did this peace process, since Oslo really worked in changing the attitudes of the two people, and that starts from the textbooks on the Israeli side and on the Palestinian sides, what do we teach the kids and what will the next generation learn. So I know this issue, which leads into the question of incitement, was one of the questions that Israel has dealt with but I really don't think that the purpose of Defensive Shield was to get hold of this information.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Khalil?
KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: First of all, on this particular issue I don't think the Israelis discriminated during that period in terms of what ministries they targeted in terms of confiscation of information or in terms of destruction of property and information. It was just widespread. I mean, the damage they have done to the ministry of education, to the ministry of agriculture, to the records, across the board, so they did not discriminate between one and the other.
Did they really need that land record? As a matter of fact, I mean, a lot of these records in terms of maps and land and so on the Israelis had control of that before and they did not even turn over even per agreements with the Palestinians over this, so the Palestinians have been having a hard time all along over the past ten years trying to get some of the stuff.
In terms of the education, I agree, I mean, what is it that they want. After all, they ran that educational system before the PA and they knew exactly what was being taught and what was not being taught, but they definitely confiscated and it was a destructive behavior. I mean, this is an issue we're facing right now in Iraq.
In terms of the makeup of the Palestinian Authority, I mean, this is the issue that Abu Mazen is struggling with. Talking to him the other day, you know, he's trying to basically make this cabinet now like a new tradition, if you will, in Palestinian politics by moving to technocrats, to experts, to people who are qualified, particularly on these issues of cleaning up the corruption and bringing in real experienced people who can manage these departments.
But again, I mean, we shouldn't expect from the Palestinians to be something more or less than what they are. They are part of the Third World. They're part of the Middle East. There is always tendency, even in this country, I mean, people are attracted to basically secretary of state and secretary of defense. How many people compete for the secretary of education or energy? After all, even though he was Arab-American we put somebody as secretary of energy who was for years advocating closing down the energy department.
So that's typical everywhere and I wouldn't give it much, but you're right in terms of emphasis I think the Palestinian leadership needs to focus on the issues that matter right now in terms of building Palestinian society and letting the Palestinian people stand on their own feet economically, socially, educationally and so on.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Steve, then Michael.
STEPHEN P. COHEN: I just want to say one thing. The appointment of the minister of education of the Palestinians would be the position that would make the biggest impact on American Jews. If the minister of education was someone who really paid attention to all of these questions about what the next generation was going to be learning about Israelis and Palestinians and about the history of this conflict and the history of these people, would pay real attention to that issue and make a big change in it, that I think would really get to the heart of the fears and the propaganda of American Jewry.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Michael?
MICHAEL C. HUDSON: I understand that Abu Mazen is having some difficulty in actually filling his cabinet positions and that they've delayed yet again the announcement of a final cabinet, and I think that speaks, of course, to the terrible problems, which the Palestinian leadership has in sort of putting things together. And I think it imposes a particular obligation and an opportunity perhaps for the United States to play a more constructive role, but the problem I think is that at the moment, particularly as we're still experiencing the fallout from the U.S. operation in Iraq, that we are not in a particularly strong position in terms of opinion to be able to help things along; hence, the comments that Abu Mazen does not need to be embraced at this moment by George Bush.
But it seems to me that it is absolutely essential if the roadmap is to start operating, in fact, it's written into the terms that a coherent Palestinian political structure be rebuilt, but to do that it seems to me the United States and the quartet have to make a very credible commitment that there is light at the end of this particular tunnel. Without that, Abu Mazen and the liberals in the Palestinian community will not have very much traction to develop the kind of coherence that will be necessary in order to engage and control all the elements in Palestinian society, some of which are, of course, engaging in violence.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Ambassador?
QUESTION: Phil Harrup (ph). I'm a retired Foreign Service Officer.
I would like just to make a comment and it will be a brief one and then see what the panel has to say to it. I was startled when Professor Hudson asked the question, will Colin Powell be another James Baker or not, because it just struck me as such an odd way to express the question. I don't think anyone has the slightest doubt about the abilities, professional abilities as a diplomat, about the personal charisma, about the talents and qualities and credibility of Colin Powell.
The reason that James Baker succeeded in paving the way to Madrid and having great influence on what later occurred in Oslo was that he was working hand and glove with President George Bush, Sr. It was the President of the United States who was making those policies and they were being carried out by Baker, so that there is no possibility that Powell will become a Baker unless George W. Bush becomes his father.
And so I would also go further than that and say that what we're all really talking about here is what degree of determination and confidence and push and courage is going to be shown by George W. Bush. That's what's going to bring about the changes in the Israeli government. That's what's going to bring about whether or not Ariel Sharon will trim his sails and mend his ways. That's going to have a huge influence on what happens within the Palestinian community. It will have a huge influence on the way the rest of the Arab world responds. It will have an influence, I would say, even more just as much on what Dr. Cohen and Mr. Jahshan were talking about, the relations within the American communities. This is going to be the decisive factor and we're going to know it very soon.
And I think those who express pessimism here are expressing pessimism in the likelihood of President Bush really picking up this baton and pressing it on and those who express optimism, have a hope that he will do that. I think that is the real issue and I think it's one that we'll learn about very soon.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Michael.
MICHAEL C. HUDSON: Well, that was precisely the point I was trying to make. I think it's no secret now that much of the State Department, which is I believe very loyal to Mr. Powell, has been extremely disillusioned in the policy battles over Palestine-Israel and I suppose at least earlier on over Iraq. So that's fine. Maybe I should have said is Bush II, why can't Bush II be more like Bush I or why can't Bush II be even more like Clinton.
But having said that, one, I think even admirers of the professionalism and good intentions and analytical skills of the secretary of state have to begin to ask questions as to whether if you've got some serious policy concerns that deviate from your boss how long do you go on doing what you probably think is not the right thing to do. Why can't you be more effective in changing your boss' mind? And if you can't change your boss' mind, why do you keep in your job?
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Nathan.
NATHAN GUTTMAN: I agree that it all starts from the boss and if the president will really embrace this roadmap and be committed to it, of course, things will start moving. But one of the lessons I think from the Middle East is that you can't just put a good plan, as good as it will be, on the table and expect the sides to go forward and just implement it.
In the past two years we had the Mitchell Plan, we had Zinni go out there, we had Tenet go out there. We had the Saudi plan, which was embraced for a second. All these good plans were out there and on the table but no one did anything to push the sides to get into the implementation phase, and that is very difficult because you need someone there all the time to deal with the difficulties day by day and to work out the problems. And the roadmap, even if the president will be as committed as he will be, he will still need Secretary Powell or someone from that level to push both sides on a daily basis.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: I take it there is agreement it's not enough to have good ideas; you have to work hard to implement those ideas.
Mrs. Steinberg?
QUESTION: I'm Michelle Steinberg. I'm from Executive Intelligence Review and I write about the Middle East and about policy debates, especially the neo-cons.
Now, I'd like to just pose how can we deal with a situation, which is already ongoing. According to the e-mails that I've received and so forth, there is a concerted effort by I think what Dr. Cohen meant by the monopoly already to smash Colin Powell and to get some motions and resolutions through Congress against the roadmap as it currently stands. And this is going on as we speak and I think the question posed for all of us here is the same one that the solution to getting the roadmap through and the solution to getting an exit strategy in Iraq are the same.
When I first heard Ambassador Freeman speak last September it was at an event sponsored by John Duke Anthony's organization and I think the issues raised there went a long way to getting us first close to preventing that Iraq war from happening but we lost it at the last moment. Now I think we have to have an ongoing debate why isn't the Congress or can we get the Congress to hold hearings on the roadmap. Why do these massive major political decisions that determine the future for the next century perhaps go without a debate, like preemptive war doctrines?
So I just wanted to put that on the table and perhaps I would direct a question to Nathan to ask what are the 15 objections that the foreign minister of Israel is now raising and --
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: I think it was 16.
QUESTION: -- 16, whatever.
MICHAEL C. HUDSON: It's down to 14.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Oh, okay. (Laughter.)
NATHAN GUTTMAN: I don't have the full list in front of me. Rumor says it started at 100 reservations from the roadmap and went down to something like 14 or 15 with probably six or seven core issues.
The process of dealing with the roadmap as a plan in Israel and pulling it out of several different ministries and authorities, having them contribute, each one, his ideas about the roadmap and then trying to combine that together to an Israeli response, that's what led initially to that huge number of a hundred reservations from the roadmap.
The main issues are dealing with making sure that this is a result-based procedure and not a time-based procedure, meaning that you move forward to the next stage based on results on the ground, meaning dealing with terrorism or reforming the Palestinian Authority and not just moving automatically to the next stage just because the time has passed. That is the core of the Israel reservation and, of course, you have to add onto that other questions about how do you define the temporary new Palestinian state, how do you define the final Palestinian state and so on. But the core issue is really the results-based process.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Steve.
STEPHEN P. COHEN: I think that the last two comments, which is about the president's determination and second of all the extent to which the roadmap will be undermined by domestic American processes are very closely related. The president when he was in Ireland made a statement that I think is a very important and because it was so personal. He said to the European press, "You don't believe I'll do what I say. Saddam Hussein now believes I'll do what I'll say; you're going to see."
This has become a very personal thing, this roadmap, for the president and I think that the American Jewish community in its official institutions has believed all along that the roadmap was a wink and a nod, that the president was only saying that he supported the roadmap as a temporary expediency to get through the war on Iraq and to satisfy certain European concerns about the war in Iraq and that as soon as that was done the cloud would be lifted and the roadmap would disappear.
Now, what has been happening in the last short period of time as the war has been proceeding is a recognition that the determination about the roadmap has not been diminishing, and that's had a certain effect in the American Jewish organizational community. When Condee Rice went to AIPAC and spoke about the roadmap, that had a very decided impact. It was the beginning of the breaking of the notion that the roadmap was a sandbox of the people of the State Department, where they were allowed to play while the big boys of the administration were doing war. And once Condee Rice said that to AIPAC there began to be some reconsideration.
Now, the moment is not far from now where the president is going to be instructing his people as to how to talk to the representatives of the prime minister. And those of you who were upset at the reference to Abu Mazen, which you may have felt was politically too early for him, should understand the importance of that communication for this other side of the debate, how Israelis take what is happening and how the American Jewish community takes what is happening.
If the United States considers Abu Mazen a meeting of the condition of the Palestinians beginning to change leadership and beginning to engage in reform, and that this is not something that is still to be done in the future but something that is already happening, that is a very important signal of significance to the Israelis and to the American Jewish Community that there is not an intention here to wait until Arafat is Saddamized but rather to consider this political change, which is happening in quasi-peaceful conditions among the Palestinians, to be a sufficient answer to what the president or at least the beginning of a sufficient answer to what the president said in his June 24th speech, which the Israelis have been praising and praising and praising.
Now, these are subtle issues. I believe that we have to really begin from the assumption that the roadmap is going to be delivered more or less as it is and that the problem is going to be what is going to happen once it's delivered and how is it going to be implemented and what are going to be the steps that are going to be taken in order to make it something that is perceived as real within Israeli society and within Palestinian society and not just another dead letter.
And I believe that we have to move, those of us who want this to happen have to move out of our own preoccupation with our skepticism about this or that personality in the story into the question of real ideas about how to translate the ambiguous aspects of the roadmap into concrete ideas that can be implemented once the basic decision has been made to deliver it as is.
And I think that that's where we have to start moving. We have to start creating the atmosphere within America and also within the region and internationally where more and more groups, Arabs and Israelis, American Jews and Arab-Americans, American Christians are getting behind the process of treating this as the highest priority of American foreign policy in the next two years, to really make this work.
We can't just leave it now to the leadership. There is going to have to be support for this. We're not going to have the juggernaut that was behind the war in Iraq. We're going to have to build a constituency in America, which cares about this, which watches this, which gets the media to pay attention to this thing, because there's nothing dramatic. We're not going to have any shock and awe in the peace process.
And the question of how we keep steady and consistent interest of the press on this issue, of the public on this issue is our responsibility.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Thank you for that I think very important statement.
Khalil, you wanted to make a comment. Perhaps you'll comment on Steve's invention in English of the equivalent of the verb "Saddam" I suppose, to "Saddamize" somebody, for which I commend you.
KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: I will not do that. (Laughter.)
I agree with Steve in terms of the roadmap would be delivered as is. As a matter of fact the roadmap has already been delivered as is. There will be a formal version whenever, in a few days, a few weeks, but it will be as is. I think the attempt by the Sharon government to try to subvert the process, because I'm really not convinced. We have to read between the lines. When Sharon says he is for the June 24th speech, yet he proposes 100 changes to the roadmap, to me that means he is for the speech because the speech had nothing in detail; it was just general principles. You can translate it any way you want to. But when that speech was put in the form of a plan the Sharon government doesn't agree with that plan. I don't think the Sharon government, as far as I'm concerned -- I haven't seen a clear political acceptance from the Sharon government of the roadmap in any shape, way or form. f you notice, all their statements are carefully crafted to focus only on the speech but not on the plan.
So they came up with the hundred changes and then they came up with the clusters of 15 clusters. Now they even have narrowed them down to probably even fewer clusters. But they have failed to impose changes on the plan. And I think Condee Rice played an important role and was courageous, to give her credit for what she deserves, to be raise the issue at AIPAC and say this is the plan and this is the way it's going to stay, knowing that the purpose of the conference was how to change and how to amend the plan.
But AIPAC has not given up. Frankly, back to the question, what are people doing in this house, people are trying right now to legislate what the Israeli government has failed to impose or to lobby the administration to change. So right now there are attempts to legislate these clusters of Israeli changes into American policy vis-à-vis the roadmap. It's being done through letters to the president. It's being done through actual legislation, non-binding thus far but there are some steps to introduce some.
Basically it all centers around the issue of conditionality; in other words, how to condition Palestinian statehood by stating specifically by law what is it that the Palestinians have to deliver to Israel before we recognize that Palestinian state.
So in other words Congress is not paying a damn about the roadmap or what the roadmap would do; it's trying to dictate a parallel process through legislation in terms of what they would like to see with regards to it. So you have people like from the extreme right to the extreme left, from the two Toms, from Tom Delay to Tom Daschle basically talking the same language. They got their talking points from the AIPAC conference and they are mimicking the same demands in terms of what needs to be done. Unfortunately, they are not listening to the voices of wisdom, not on the Arab side and not on the Jewish side with regards to this issue.
And this is not new and it is not a new problem by any stretch of the imagination. Ask yourself the following point: You asked for hearings. When was the last time you saw a serious hearing in the Senate or in the House side about Middle East peacemaking? They stopped doing that in the mid '90s. Probably the last one was '95 maybe.
Why? Because the sentiment in this place is either the Arab-Israeli conflict has been resolved or on its way to being resolved de facto somehow. This is a constituency service issue.
So it doesn't matter to them whether it is Steve Cohen or somebody else. As long as they have a Jewish card they could care less. Most of them they just use it for fundraising purposes. And it is unfair for a serious issue that has been declared by successive administrations to be the number one strategic objective of the United States and one of the most strategic regions in the world to be rendered into a constituency service issue. That's where the crisis is; it's not necessary with this community or that community or this position or that position.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: I take it Steve Cohen's answer to you would be that it's not enough to deplore the lack of a constituency for a different approach but one must try to create such a constituency.
Madam?
QUESTION: Yeah, my name is Mary Mullin (ph). I'm with the Bosnia Support Committee that I think sometimes the Middle East is like Bosnia; one side has tanks and the other one has rocks.
But actually what I was going to ask has sort of been discussed. I attend many hearings in Congress. In fact, that I think is my life or it has been for many years.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: I'm so sorry for you.
QUESTION: Yes, well, I didn't have very much of a choice but I did get more educated.
And what I did see was when the Palestinian problem was raised in Congress it was not discussed. It was sort of really shouted down and it made me very ashamed to be an American when nobody ever seemed to take the Palestinian side, not that I thought that the Israelis didn't have a side but nobody ever took the Palestinian side. And when an administrative assistant secretary of foreign affairs would come up and maybe say something positive concerning the Palestinian side they were shouted down.
And I also wanted to ask about when the aid to Israel, military to aid to Israel is ever brought up, that's also shouted down. And from what I know, and maybe you could correct me on this, the aid that's given to the Palestinians is not given to the Palestinian Authority because we don't respect that government; it's given to non-governmental organizations.
This is what I read in a small, really wasn't a very comprehensive book. I don't know if this is true or not, but you really can't, and the young people that were demonstrating, they were demonstrating about the military aid to Israel, especially with Ariel Sharon in the position he's in as prime minister and how he uses that military aid. He's certainly different than Mitzna was and the United States, as far as I could see, didn't give any validity to Mitzna and what how Mitzna might be able to help Israel.
And the last thing I wanted to ask was the Arab states and how they had proposed to recognize Israel, trade with Israel as they had denied them before, would that be plausible again. Would the Arab states make another proposal as they have previously?
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: We thank you very much. We are limited in time. We have two gentlemen who still want to make a comment or ask a question. I think I'd ask Khalil briefly just factually to address the question of aid and perhaps Michael to render an opinion on whether the Abdullah peace plan is still on the shelf ready to be taken off if there is a deal between Israelis and Palestinians.
KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: Well, you're right in terms of aid to the Palestinians we've never given aid to the Palestinian Authority itself. U.S. aid to the Palestinians is basically delivered through NGOs and to specific purposes. I mean, you hear a lot sometimes in Congress even. They are dealing with this legislation and they do not know, because you hear sometimes members of Congress saying we shouldn't give Arafat any money, as if they are giving Arafat any money. They don't give any to the PA itself. Most of the aid that the PA gets directly comes from the international community outside the taxes that are raised locally, comes from European and Arab sources but no American aid goes directly to the PA.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Michael.
MICHAEL C. HUDSON: I think the answer on the question of whether Arab states would trade with Israel in the event of an overall kind of settlement is clearly yes. And I think the Abdullah plan is I wouldn't say exactly alive and well but it's certainly alive and it's, as you say, sitting on the shelf.
What the Arab governments that are particularly friendly to or dependent upon us are really very, very much concerned about now is that we will simply not give high priority to restarting the peace process and that leaves them out on a limb, but I don't see that they're ready to renege on previously stated commitments in principle but their position has now become extremely difficult because the whole climate of opinion in the region is quite turbulent and very negative from their point of view as a result of sort of the earthquake that has taken place in Iraq.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: I might just add a point, which I have not done during this session, that given the personal communications from the president to leaders in the Gulf in particular committing the United States to act with dispatch in resuming a vigorous effort to find peace between Israelis and Arabs, if that effort is not forthcoming, given the political risks that the leaders in the Gulf took during the Iraq war in reliance on it, I believe there will be a sense of betrayal and a political earthquake that sweeps the region.
Sir?
QUESTION: Harold Bernson (ph), the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations.
A very quick question: Periodically we've had proposals, principally from the Europeans, suggesting that a peacekeeping force be deployed on the West Bank and perhaps in Gaza as well. That proposal, whenever it's been brought forth, has been essentially negated by the Israeli government as being not useful. And I wonder if any of your panelists would be interested in commenting on whether they feel that such a force, perhaps out of NATO, would be useful and is there any possibility, if so, that the Israeli government might change its position.
KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: And in addition to European sources at least only actually one member of Congress has been kind of dwelling on this issue. John Warner of Virginia has actually been raising this issue with the president repeatedly and here in the Senate. He's talking about a NATO force.
Because many people actually believe, you know, what I referred to earlier as this hug of death that the Palestinians and the Israelis feel themselves stuck in at this time and most people realize that it would be very difficult for them to disengage on their own.
But again it's not a matter of just a protection force or just a military force to separate the two parties. That alone could be part of a larger kind of plan to kind of move forward a serious peace plan to bring the parties back to the negotiating table.
So I could see a role for that in that context but alone, I mean, so what, you separate them so that they can stop killing each other but sooner or later they'll circumvent that and probably kill the person in the middle.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: And yet the proposal does potentially go to the heart of the problem, namely that as long as there is Israeli occupation of Arab land there will be Arab resistance to that occupation and that resistance is likely to take the form of terrorism in part. And therefore having someone substitute for the Israeli occupation is a potential answer to the question of how to reduce terrorism. The Israeli government, however, has shown no interest in having anyone else occupy lands that clearly some people in Israel continue to covet.
Michael?
MICHAEL C. HUDSON: I won't add anything; you've made my point.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Sir, you have the last question or comment.
QUESTION: Thank you. My name is Dan Rothan (ph) from the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation.
I have a short prospective question rather than retrospective question. It seems to me the common denominator is that in each constituency there is a great desire for peace from the people and yet a leadership that is somewhat more radical and some political complications for that.
And my question is if you think that the right tool would be some kind of a tool to bypass that leadership, namely I want to bring up the (Nusseibih/Ayalon) initiative to put a framework of permanent status agreement on paper, one page, get millions of signatures from constituencies and bring it back to the leaders. And I want to get the opinions of the gentlemen here if you think that initiative has any significant prospect.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: I'll ask each of you to comment and Khalil has registered his comment. Nathan?
NATHAN GUTTMAN: It does have a chance. The Nusseibih/Ayalon plan has a chance. Any other plan that goes directly to the public does have a chance in the long run in changing public opinion but I don't think there is a possibility to bypass the government. Eventually the government will be the one who will decide and that's who will negotiate. There is significance for these plans in a way in signaling to the people sitting upstairs that things are going on, on the ground and that's in that context I think we should see that.
KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: That was the short version.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: I was just hoping. Go ahead.
KHALIL E. JAHSHAN: Look, I mean, I share your concern and anxiety and frustration with the process but we are dealing with politics here. Politics has to go through a process and people like Sari (?) and others who play the role of mavericks and they take the lead and take risks and they have taken very big risks and continue to do so, and I really appreciate that, they're not just into thinking in the right direction but the fact of the matter, I mean if it were up to Steve or Nathan and myself and Michael, we would settle the whole damn thing before we leave for lunch today, but the fact of the matter there are constituencies out there, there are concerns out there and there is no shortcut, there is no simple shortcut. That's the frustration.
I mean, I was born in '48 and I have studied this conflict and I've worked in this conflict and there is nothing more I love than to see an end to this conflict, but the fact of the matter is we have constituencies out there that we have to bring together to the table.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Michael.
MICHAEL C. HUDSON: Well, the only thing I would add is that I think however bleak the situation must be it's important to encourage track two diplomacy or organized efforts in civil society to try and influence governments and leaderships, however resistant, to good sense and moderation those leaderships may be.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: Steve.
STEPHEN P. COHEN: What is important about Amy Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh is individual respected people in the two societies starting to take responsibility for bringing about change. It is not a replacement for what governments do. It is an encouragement to what governments do. Let's not take the numbers that they are able to achieve too seriously. The fact is that the important thing will be when people with their views are able to achieve a position of support in the political systems, of which they are a part.
We have a chance now. Many of us know that Abu Mazen is not a maverick. Abu Mazen is a person who has operated within the Palestinian system for a very long time, understands its complications and is trying to weave his way through an impossible situation but he is a man who wants this to happen.
Our responsibility now primarily is to make sure that this experiment that he is engaged in will succeed and that our role in this has a lot to do with the symbolic significance of the roadmap. We all know that many other things are going to have to be dealt with in order to make the peace happen that are not yet in the roadmap, that are not yet in anybody's roadmap.
But if the United States moves from the category of undecided to the category of those who are trying to push the peace process forward, that's a very important part of what we need.
What I'm saying to you is that it's not going to be sustainable unless the American people have a movement that is stronger for peace in the Middle East than the voice and power of the small constituencies who have dominated and who have kept peace out of the center of American foreign policy. Unless we build that constituency, unless we overcome the intimidation against building such a constituency, American government involvement is going to be sporadic, it's going to be partisan, it's going to be unfortunately temporary and it's going to be partial.
We need to have a recognition on the part of the American people that the crisis in America's relationship to the Middle East can only be solved if the American people become an aware citizenry, insisting that the United States take the lead in solving these problems peacefully and use at least the energy and power and influence that it's willing to use in other ways in the region for this purpose. It will only happen if the American people demand it.
It's not enough for us-- it's really over -- to spend our time just criticizing others for not doing things. Every American in their own way has to get other people to recognize and themselves to recognize that they have to speak up and demand it from Congress, from the administration, from each political party.
It's not going to happen in a sustained way that really breaks this problem unless there is that American public demand for it to happen.
And that's also a requirement from the countries in the region. The Saudis started but they stopped at the door of their initiative because they never really tried to sell it to the American people. They never came here to talk about it. They never made it something that people could believe in. It remains simply out there.
This is a battle for the American people. Let's remember that. Let's remember what we saw now what happens when the American people get mobilized to do something in the Middle East. We saw it with a vengeance.
We have to get mobilized to do the peace.
CHAS. W. FREEMAN: With that powerful statement, we end our session today. I apologize to those of you who wished to make comments or ask additional questions, encourage you to come to our next Capitol Hill conference. And I would like to thank the panelists for vindicating our judgment that even at this very difficult moment in which so much hangs in the balance over the occupation of the transition from war to occupation in Iraq it is worthwhile to return our sights to the issue of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. I think we've heard a lot of very wise commentary and I'd ask you all to join me in thanking the panelists for their participation. (Applause.) Thank you very much.
[END.]
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