A close analysis reveals that there are the beginnings of a paradigm shift in United States policy that a truly viable, contiguous and independent Palestinian state that satisfies the national aspirations of the Palestinian people is critical to US national interests and Mideast foreign policy goals.
This paradigm shift is in such an embryonic stage however, that it could easily be aborted.
The separation barrier, land confiscation, the encirclement of East Jerusalem and continued settlement expansion all seriously threaten the viability of any potential Palestinian state. These actions, coupled with public statements made by senior Israeli officials, heighten fears that the Gaza withdrawal will be followed by a political “deep freeze” and Israeli consolidation over areas of the West Bank it intends to eventually annex.
However, there have been increasing public statements from high-ranking former US government officials and members of Congress that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is critical to US national interests, a language unheard of in the past. Two recent examples illustrate this point. Earlier this year, dozens of leading members of the American foreign policy establishment, including former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Lawrence Eagleburger, and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, sent a letter to this effect to President George W. Bush. The letter stressed, “that resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (along the lines of a two-state solution) is critical to US national security interests and essential to reduce the threat posed by international terrorism.” This letter has now evolved into an Internet campaign to gather up to one million signatures to demonstrate the support of the American public.
The second example was a recent hearing held by the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the road map. Here again, the first sentence of committee Chairman Richard Lugar’s opening statement reiterated that “advancement of the two-state solution is urgently needed by the Israelis and Palestinians and is critical to US success in the global war on terrorism,” adding that terrorists “use the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to enlist fresh recruits to conduct terrorism around the globe.” The hearing itself revealed a Senate with an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the obstacles to restarting the road map. In addition to the expected and legitimate focus on Palestinian responsibilities in areas such as security and reform, equal emphasis was put on concern about Israeli actions. This included continued settlement activity, the route of the barrier, particularly as pertaining to Jerusalem, and indications that the “Gaza-first” withdrawal is intended to be a quid pro quo for holding on to significant parts of the West Bank.
At the White House Rose Garden with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on May 26, President Bush explicitly referred to the 1949 armistice lines as the starting point for negotiations, emphasizing that any changes must be negotiated with the Palestinians. He stressed that the route of Israel’s West Bank barrier be security-oriented and not political, and that Israel refrain from any actions prejudicial to both the road map and final-status negotiations, even including Jerusalem under that rubric for the first time.
The implications of this statement are profound. It means, letters of assurance notwithstanding, that his position is really not different from that of the Clinton parameters, which the Palestinians accepted as the basis for negotiations.
Unfortunately, most Palestinian, Arab and Arab-American supporters of a two-state solution have missed the significance of this shift. Understandably jaded by relentless settlement expansion and land confiscation, reaction has been muted.
The Israeli right wing and their supporters in the US on the other hand, have very quickly caught on to the significance of this shift. At a briefing held on July 28 in Washington, D.C. at the American Enterprise Institute, featuring speakers such as former Israeli UN Ambassador Dore Gold and former Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard Perle, there was much resistance to the linking of US national interests with resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The main points put forth were that the 1949 armistice lines would make Israel “indefensible” and the Jordan Valley was critical to Israel’s security. On the issue of terrorism, there was complete rejection of any link between the US war on terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The opposition from such quarters to a Palestinian state and to a linkage between terrorism and resolving the conflict is predictable. With the paradigm shift in US thinking at such an early stage, they will try to reverse the trend before it matures. What is equally damaging to the prospects of this shift solidifying is the failure of supporters of the two-state solution to seize the moment by sensing these changes and reinforcing them. Insisting on always attacking the United States for unabashed support for Israel without appreciating that change is happening, is as much a sign of being stuck in the past as those opposed to two states and believers in the zero-sum game.
— Raafat Dajani is executive director, American Task Force on Palestine.
