by A.J. Caschetta
In pursuit of the ultimate peace deal, the "peace processors" ignore or excuse Palestinian diplomats who insist that Israel has no right to exist
Ever since the partition of UN Mandate Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel, the US State Department has promoted a grievance-based approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Its staffers' view Palestinian deprivation (of statehood, dreams, etc.) as the chief obstacle to peace. U.S. diplomatic efforts, therefore, have focused on appeasing those grievances. One year into the Trump administration, there are signs that this is changing.
After
World War II, Loy Henderson, director of the Office of Near Eastern,
African and South Asian Affairs, cultivated the culture that would
define the State Department's entire Middle East outlook. Henderson
filled his Office with specialists known as "Arabists" because of their
love of the Arabic language and Arab culture. They suffered from what
Robert D. Kaplan, in his seminal work
on the topic, calls "localitis" and "clientitis," and their sympathies
with Muslims were often accompanied by a rejection of the West and
especially of Israel. In his Memoirs, Harry S. Truman wrote
that State's "specialists on the Near East were almost without
exception unfriendly to the idea of a Jewish state," adding, "some of
them were also inclined to be anti-Semitic."
After
the Six-Day War, when most Arab countries severed relations with the
U.S. and closed American embassies, many Arabists found themselves
without foreign posts. Their domination of the State Department
subsided, and they were replaced by a new group – the "peace processors"
– who were not immersed in Arab culture but rather in diplomatic
culture. By the 1980s, they dominated the State Department, and they
still do.
Though
their motives may differ, the peace processors share the Arabists'
trust that the Palestinians will negotiate rationally. In pursuit of the
ultimate peace deal, they ignore or excuse Palestinian diplomats who
insist that Israel has no right to exist, as though Palestinian
irredentism was a negotiating ploy rather than a deeply-felt principle.
The
cohesion of the U.S.-led coalition against Saddam Hussein in Desert
Shield/Storm, heralded as a major diplomatic achievement, spurred a
renewed faith that the diplomatic process itself can solve even the most
intransigent of problems, of which the Israel-Palestinian conflict
loomed large. The peace processors have always been driven by the theory
that the right combination of Israeli concessions (land, water, money)
will end Palestinian hostilities. They continue to downplay Palestinian rejectionism while emphasizing Palestinian cooperation.
Even the 2003 bombing
of a State Department convoy in Gaza...elicited little more than a
perfunctory telephone call from Secretary of State Colin Powell to the
Palestinian Authority (PA), urging it to crack down on militants.
The peace processors thrived during the Obama years, especially during the tenure of Secretary of State John Kerry. In a 2016 Oxford Union speech
Kerry waxed poetic about peace-making, or as he called it, "the art of
diplomacy – [which] is to define the interests of all the parties and
see where the sweet spot is that those interests can come together and
hopefully be able to thread a very thin needle." The problem, to
continue Kerry's mixed metaphor, is that under Kerry's leadership, the
State Department expended most of its energies massaging the Palestinian
sweet spot and trying to thread its very thin needle. Israeli
interests, on the other hand, were largely ignored, and Israel was often
blamed for Palestinian hostilities.
Donald
Trump campaigned promising a different approach to Israel. He chose Rex
Tillerson as Secretary of State, a diplomat with no foreign policy
record and few known political opinions. Tillerson began his tenure at
the default State Department position – treating the PA and its leader,
Mahmoud Abbas, as legitimate and trustworthy peace partners, and
ignoring or downplaying evidence to the contrary...
There's no doubt that Donald Trump's election initiated a major disruption at the State Department.
|
Then,
in November, Tillerson announced the closure of the PLO mission in
Washington, D.C., in compliance with a U.S. law prohibiting any
Palestinian attempts to bring a case against Israel at the International
Criminal Court. But when the PLO responded by threatening to cut off all contact with the U.S., the State Department rather obsequiously caved, announcing that the mission could remain open for a 90-day probationary period...
Subsequent
events suggest a change in U.S. Israel policy, especially the announced
plan to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and the cutting of U.S. funding to UNRWA. Trump has also threatened to cut all aid to Palestinians. At Davos in January, he said that Palestinian disrespect for Vice President Mike Pence
would cost them as well. Under normal circumstances, one might infer
that these are coherent policy redirections. But it is not unreasonable
to believe that they are impulsive reactions to perceived insults. They
may also be bargaining chips in the president's famed deal-making art.
....
But
these moves from the top down are not necessarily permanent. No one
really believes Abbas will terminate all contact with the U.S. In fact,
the PLO's man in Washington, Husam Zomlot, signalled in an interview just days ago that he's ready to talk: "It's not like I am not speaking to them. My phone is open."
Like
Trump, Abbas is positioning for a better deal. When he comes back to
his senses and apologizes, perhaps even personally thanks Donald Trump
for reengaging, the State Department's peace processors will awaken from
their drowse with a new Oslo, a new Road Map to Peace, and Israel will
be squeezed again. As Daniel Pipes writes,
"the American door is permanently open to Palestinians and when they
wise up, some fabulous gift awaits them in the White House." Maybe next
time there will be pressure for Israel to repeat Ariel Sharon's mistake
and force all Israelis out of the West Bank, and after that out of East
Jerusalem, and after that, who knows? Pressuring Israel to give up more
land and money and make their nation less secure is the only strategy
the peace processors know.
There's no doubt that Donald Trump's election initiated a major disruption
at the State Department. Many long-serving senior officials resigned
immediately before or after inauguration day. The hum of diplomats
complaining that their expertise is being ignored has continued. When
Elizabeth Shackelford (lauded by Foreign Policy
a "rising star at the State Department") resigned very publicly in
early December, she complained that State had "ceded to the Pentagon our
authority to drive US foreign policy." The question is, will disruption
lead to genuine change?
If
outgoing senior diplomats are replaced with careerists and entrenched
junior peace processors, the Trump shake-up will be just sound and fury.
On the other hand, bringing in qualified experts from outside the State
Department rank-and-file might lead to meaningful and important
changes. If the rumor is true that David Schenker of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy will be the new Deputy Assistant for Near East Affairs, it's a good start.
Genuine
change at the State Department will require more than one year of the
unpredictable Trump administration. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David
Friedman recently began urging the State Department to stop using the term "occupation". When the State Department complies, we'll know something big has happened. Until then, celebrations are premature. A.J. Caschetta is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and a senior lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Source: http://www.meforum.org/7225/a-new-era-at-the-state-department
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