Yaalon’s Unwelcome Peace Process Truths. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, January 14, 2014.
Ya’alon and Kerry: A plague on both their houses. By David Horovitz. The Times of Israel, January 15, 2014.
Ya’alon’s frustration got out of control. By Ron Ben-Yishai. Ynet News, January 15, 2014.
MK Tzipi Hotovely: Ya’alon Shouldn’t Have Apologized to Kerry. By Tova Dvorin. Arutz Sheva 7, January 15, 2014.
Kerry’s Peace Process Double Standards. By Khaled Abu Toameh. Gatestone Institute, January 16, 2014.
Offensive, inappropriate and dangerously, undiplomatically inconsistent. By Arnold Roth. This Ongoing War, January 16, 2004.
Lessons to be learned from the Kerry-Ya’alon incident. By Herb Keinon. Jerusalem Post, January 16, 2014.
Yaalon’s Not Alone. By Seth Mandel. Commentary, January 16, 2014.
Martin Indyk vs. Moshe Ya’alon. By Rick Richman. Commentary, January 17, 2014.
Tobin:
Give
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu some credit. In his first term as
Israel’s leader in the 1990s, he might well have issued a statement like the
one attributed to Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon yesterday in which the former
general trashed U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and damned the security plan
that he presented to Israel this month as “not worth the paper it’s written
on.” Since returning to the prime minister’s office in 2009 Netanyahu has done
his best to keep the relationship with Washington from overheating. If there
have been a series of scrapes with the Obama administration, that is largely
the fault of the president’s desire to pick policy fights with him and the
prime minister has done his best not to overreact. No matter how wrong Israel’s
leaders may think their American counterparts are, little good comes from
public spats. As Netanyahu knows, the only ones who benefit from exposing the
daylight between the two countries’ positions are the Palestinians and other
foes.
But
apparently Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon hasn’t gotten the memo about not
telling off the Americans. In an apparently unguarded moment, the former
general spouted off about Kerry, the peace process, and the Palestinians
yesterday, and the subsequent report in Yediot Ahronot published in English on their Ynetnews.com site brought down a
firestorm on the Israeli government. Though Yaalon walked back his comments in
a statement to the media, he did not deny the accuracy of the original Yediot story. This indiscretion won’t
help Netanyahu in his dealings with either Obama or Kerry. It is especially
foolish coming from a cabinet minister whose department has worked closely with
the administration on security measures throughout the last five years to
Israel’s benefit in spite of the political differences between the governments.
But leaving aside the diplomatic harm he has done his country, honest observers
must admit that what Yaalon said was true. The question facing both Israel and
the United States is not so much what to do about Yaalon or other members of
Netanyahu’s Cabinet who can’t keep their mouths shut, but at what point it will
behoove the two governments to acknowledge the futility of Kerry’s endeavor.
Having
already conceded that Yaalon was stupid to say such things within earshot of a
reporter, the defense minister gets no sympathy here for the abuse he is taking
today in Israel’s press as well as from parliamentary allies and foes. The
Israeli government has to be frustrated with Kerry’s persistence in pushing for
concessions from them, especially when they see no sign of moderation on the
part of their Palestinian peace partners who will not accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn nor renounce the right of
return for the descendants of the 1948 refugees. But as damaging as pressure on
Israel to accept the 1967 borders and the division of Jerusalem may be, so long
as Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas is prevented by the reality of his
people’s political culture and the threat from Hamas and other opposition
groups from ever signing a deal that would end the conflict, Netanyahu knows
that the best policy is to avoid an overt conflict with the U.S.
That
said, Yaalon’s reminder of the absurdity of Kerry’s quest does help clarify the
situation for those naïve enough to believe the talks have some chance of
success.
Yaalon’s
assertion that the negotiations are not between Israel and the Palestinians but
between the Jewish state and the U.S. is self-evident. The PA has repeatedly
demonstrated that it won’t budge from uncompromising positions against
realistic territorial swaps or security guarantees, much less the existential
questions of refugees and two states for two peoples. All that has happened in
the past year is that Israel has been prevailed upon to bribe the PA by
releasing terrorist murderers for the privilege of sitting at a table again
with Abbas.
Nor can
there be any real argument with Yaalon’s assessment of Kerry’s behavior when he
described the secretary’s crusade as “inexplicably obsessive and messianic.”
Few in either Israel or the United States, even those who are most in favor of
his efforts, thought he had much of a chance to start with and there’s been no
evidence that the odds have improved. His crack that “all that can save us is
for John Kerry to win a Nobel Prize and leave us in peace” makes no sense since
the only way the secretary will get such an honor is if Abbas signs on the
dotted line. But it probably also reflects what Abbas is thinking since his
goal is to prevent an agreement without actually having to turn one down
publicly.
Yaalon
is also right to dismiss the security guarantees Kerry has offered Israel in
exchange for a withdrawal from the West Bank. The example of the Gaza
withdrawal—which Yaalon opposed when he was chief of staff of the Israel
Defense Forces, a stand that led to his term being cut short by former prime minister
Ariel Sharon—as well as the situation along the border with Lebanon illustrates
what happens when Israel tries to entrust its security either to Palestinian
good will or third parties.
But
perhaps the most incisive of Yaalon’s controversial comments was his assertion
that Abbas’s future was dependent on Israel’s remaining in the West Bank, not
on its departure from the territories:
Abu
Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) is alive and well thanks to us. The moment we leave Judea
and Samaria (the West Bank) he is finished.
Without
an Israeli security umbrella, Hamas or more radical Fatah factions would have
deposed Abbas a long time ago. His administration over most of the West Bank is
simply impossible without Israeli help. Pretending that this isn’t the case is
one of the key fictions that form the foundation of Kerry’s conceit about
giving Abbas sovereignty over the area and why such a deal or a unilateral
Israeli retreat, as some are now suggesting, would repeat the Gaza fiasco.
Most
Israelis would applaud any effort to separate the two peoples and desperately
want an agreement that would end the conflict for all time rather than merely
to pause it in order for the Palestinians to resume it later when they are in a
more advantageous position. Though the minister shouldn’t have criticized Kerry
publicly, until the secretary and those who are supporting his pressure on
Israel and not on the Palestinians can answer Yaalon’s politically incorrect
comments, the peace process is doomed.
Horovitz:
Dumb, not entirely wrong
None of
which is to say, however, that Ya’alon’s dire assessment of the US secretary’s
peacemaking skills is a million miles off target. Ya’alon’s been thoroughly
dumb. But he’s not entirely wrong.
In late
July, fresh in office, Kerry voiced his confidence that, where all others had
failed before, he could chivy Israel and the Palestinian Authority to a
permanent peace accord — and by April at that. Such hubris. Ten visits later,
he seems to have given up on that delusional goal, and is now reduced to trying
to persuade Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas to carry on talking past the end of his own nine-month
deadline in April on the basis of a “framework” agreement.
But
even this modest target is proving difficult to reach, unsurprisingly so, since
the two sides disagree on just about everything — notably including those
security proposals, the fate of Jerusalem, the route of an Israel-Palestine
border, and the destiny of millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees. To
date, despite all of Kerry’s diplomacy, the modest framework paper isn’t
finished — even though, reportedly, it will be a nonbinding, American document
that the sides won’t be required to sign.
The
Palestinian Authority was never remotely likely to agree to the dramatic policy
changes, the reversal of decades of intransigence, required for a peace deal.
It has not even begun the process of explaining to its people why it would
compromise with the Israelis, whose very presence in the area PA media
continues to brand as illegitimate.
And the
Netanyahu government was only ever going to be less forthcoming than the Olmert
coalition that preceded it, and whose peace terms were rejected by Abbas. Yes,
most Israelis back an accommodation with the Palestinians, in good part to
guarantee that the country maintains both its Jewish and its democratic
character, and they would agree to major territorial compromise, but only if it
brings them a realistic prospect of peace. Not, as is the case now, when the
utter instability in the Middle East means that a West Bank withdrawal is
highly likely to see murderous religious extremists fill the vacuum, ousting
relative moderates such as Abbas along the way, and placing all of Israel under
rocket and terror threat.
The defense minister’s absent vision
But if
Kerry has been arrogant and willfully blind, Ya’alon for his part shows
precious little political vision.
The
defense minister has shifted dramatically across the political spectrum over
time, earlier dovishness mugged by the reality of years tackling Palestinian
terrorism and wider Arab hostility. Abbas demonstrated as recently as Saturday
what a problematic successor he has proved to the duplicitous Yasser Arafat —
too weak-willed to challenge Arafat’s pernicious delegitimization of Israel,
retreating to ever more inflexible positions on all the core peace issues. But
Ya’alon’s conclusion, that Israel is surrounded by enemies and must simply hang
tough and continue to defend itself as effectively as possible, offers no
prospect of eventual change.
Lots of
people all around embattled Israel loathe the Jewish state and want to see it
wiped out. But that leaves Israel with two imperatives, not just one: Defend
the country, and do whatever can
safely be done to gradually create a better climate on the other side of the
divide, to encourage Palestinians and other Arabs who seek a peaceful future,
who are prepared to take conciliatory positions, who are truly prepared to live
in peace alongside Israel.
No,
Secretary Kerry, the path to peace cannot be bulldozed or imposed in nine
months. But no, Minister Ya’alon, flooding the moat and pulling up the
drawbridge isn’t a long-term answer either.
Realistic goals
Peace
needs to be built bottom up as well as top down. Rather than shooting for an
impossible target, with a huge risk of violence if all fails, the US should
have focused, and still should focus, on using its dwindling leverage to assist
those who preach and foster reconciliation, while outlawing and cutting funding
to those who foster hatred — educational institutions, media organizations,
international agencies and those who finance them.
Israel,
for its part, should encourage every opportunity for constructive interaction
with Palestinians and other Arabs who seek a better future, and be sure to put
its own house in order too, when it comes to incitement by its leaders, media
and educators. It should also stop building homes in West Bank areas it does
not anticipate retaining in any future accord — for the benefit of its own
citizens, and the credibility of its position with the Palestinians and the
international community.
Eventually,
in a gradually improving climate, it will be up to honest and skilled
diplomats, doubtless led by the US, to draw the Israeli and Palestinian
leaderships — pushed by their peoples, rather than against the peoples’ will —
toward binding agreements that will benefit both sides. We’re not there yet.
Far from it. Indeed, compounding all too familiar Palestinian rejectionism,
it’s now an open secret that we labor under the additional burdens of
contemptuous Israeli shortsightedness and unrealistic American evaluation and
expectation.
