We had just returned from a brief vacation and were waiting for our luggage at LaGuardia Airport when my cell phone rang. It was early January 2009. Ann Ungar, my assistant, called to tell me that someone from Hillary Clinton’s office had called. Hillary had been chosen by President-elect Obama to be secretary of state. Could I come to her home in Washington that evening? I quickly calculated how long it would take to get to our apartment, drop off Heather and our children, then return to the airport. “Tell them I’ll catch the six o’clock shuttle and be there at eight.”
Shortly after the election in November, I’d had a brief telephone conversation with Joe Biden. We had served together in the Senate and worked closely on several major anticrime bills. I congratulated him on his election as vice president, and we discussed my work in Northern Ireland and whether I might serve in the new administration. I said I would of course be happy to consider it.
Two months had passed and I had forgotten about the conversation, but Hillary reminded me of it when we met. She and I had worked together on President Clinton’s unsuccessful effort to reform our health care system, and she had been actively helpful to me when I was in Northern Ireland. Now she wanted to know if I would join the administration as special envoy to the Middle East.
She was accompanied by Jim Steinberg and Jack Lew, two able and experienced men who would go on to serve as her principal deputies at the State Department. I told her that I enjoyed public service and would like to accept but that I had personal concerns. I had worked on Northern Ireland for five years, and then, in 2000 and 2001, at her husband’s request, I had chaired the International Commission on Violence in the Middle East.13 Now I had two children, eleven and eight years old, and I had to talk with Heather about the personal and financial implications of returning to public service. Hillary encouraged me to have that conversation; she also made it clear that she was considering others for the position and that whatever decision she made would require the approval of the president-elect.
A week later, at Hillary’s request, I returned to Washington to meet with Barack Obama. I had retired from the Senate before he arrived there, but we had met briefly. While in the Senate I traveled the country to support and raise money for Democratic candidates; on two occasions, at events in Chicago, I was introduced to the young Illinois state senator. Both times the hostess of the reception told me, “This young man is very bright and is going places. I wouldn’t be surprised if someday he got elected to the U.S. Senate.” Now he had done that and more. In just a few days he would be sworn in as the forty-fourth president of the United States.
We met in a low-rise government office building that had been temporarily converted into his transition office. We talked for an hour, some of it trading stories about our service in the Senate. Although our meetings in Chicago had occurred several years earlier, he recalled them; he even remembered the jokes I had told. When he asked if I would serve as his envoy to the Middle East, I told him that I would.
Heather and I had discussed it at length. Despite the burdens it would place on her, she was, as always, fully supportive. She asked whether there was any real chance of success. At that time a bitter and destructive conflict was raging in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Emotions were high and hostile. I had been to the region often and knew most of the leaders there. I knew the chances were very low of getting an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. But, as she had at a critical moment in Northern Ireland, Heather told me, “You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t try.”
So when I told Obama I would serve, I made clear there were limitations: “I can’t commit to serve the full four years of your term. I spent five years working on Northern Ireland and also did an earlier tour of duty in the Middle East. I have two children who are about the same age as yours. The difference is that at my age I’m not going to see my kids become adults, have careers, get married, have families of their own, as you will. This is my time with them.”
“I understand. How long can you commit to?”
“I’ll commit to two years, then we’ll see where things stand.”
“That’s fine.”
We stood, shook hands, and I left. On the flight back to New York I thought of how lucky I’d been to reach this stage in my life. Any American who is asked by the president should be ready and willing to serve our country. But I also realized that this conflict was older, more complicated, and more difficult than Northern Ireland had been. Any realistic assessment would have to conclude that the prospects ranged from slim to none. But Heather had been right. I had to try.
Two days after he was inaugurated, President Obama went to the State Department, where he and Secretary of State Clinton announced the appointment of two special envoys: Richard Holbrooke, an experienced diplomat, for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and me for Middle East peace. In my statement I tried to make clear both the problems in the region and the promise of peace.
I don’t underestimate the difficulty of this assignment. The situation in the Middle East is volatile, complex, and dangerous. But the President and the Secretary of State have made it clear that danger and difficulty cannot cause the United States to turn away. To the contrary, they recognize and have said that peace and stability in the Middle East are in our national interest. They are, of course, also in the interest of the Israelis and Palestinians, of others in the region, and people throughout the world. . . . Just recently, I spoke in Jerusalem and I mentioned the 800 years [of conflict in Northern Ireland]. . . . Afterward, an elderly gentleman came up to me and he said, “Did you say 800 years?” And I said, “Yes, 800 years.” He repeated the number again—I repeated it again. He said, “Ah, such a recent argument. No wonder you settled it.” . . . This effort must be determined, persevering, and patient. It must be backed up by political capital, economic resources, and focused attention at the highest levels of our government. And it must be firmly rooted in a shared vision of a peaceful future by the people who live in the region. At the direction of the President and the Secretary of State, and in pursuit of the President’s policies, I pledge my full effort in the search for peace and stability in the Middle East.14
The president wanted to make it clear that he was serious about dealing with this problem, so within days I was on a plane headed for the region. On the fourteen-hour flight I had time to reflect on the past and present of this long-standing issue.
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians does not exist in a vacuum. It continues—to this day—against a backdrop of resurgent violence elsewhere in the Middle East. In trying to comprehend an area where for a long time rulers and boundaries were imposed from elsewhere and where religious, tribal, and family loyalties often trump national identity, many Americans are both confused and angry. Weary after more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, many want to turn away from what seems to be an intractable and unsolvable mess. Others want to do just the opposite: to unleash more American military power in an effort to quell the seeming chaos.
The conflicts in the Middle East are many and overlapping: Persians and Arabs; Arabs and Jews; Israelis and Palestinians; Sunni and Shiite Muslims; fundamentalists and moderates; Sunni-led governments and Sunni opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood. All of these conflicts are products of history. We cannot change that history, but we may be able to alter its future course. It is in our national interest to help resolve conflicts and reduce instability in the Middle East to the extent possible, especially where we can do so by means other than military force.
In particular we should continue the active pursuit of an agreement to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. While there are many reasons to be pessimistic, successful peace negotiations could end the suffering of those war-weary peoples and could dramatically improve America’s credibility in the region and the world.
Any such peace effort requires understanding how the conflict started. A good place to begin is not in the Middle East itself but in London and Paris, where decisions made a century ago reverberate today.
After Britain and France suffered huge losses in the killing fields of Belgium and France in World War I, battle lines hardened and a long and destructive period of trench warfare began. From the beginning the British and French governments sought help wherever they could find it, and they saw opportunity in the Middle East. For four centuries the region had been part of the Ottoman Empire, based in Turkey. Persuading Arabs to revolt against the Ottomans, who were allied with Germany, became an important military objective for Britain. In addition the prospect of carving up and grabbing a piece of the decaying Ottoman Empire was enticing to each of the major participants in World War I.
In pursuit of these goals, the British high commissioner in Egypt, Henry McMahon, in 1915 engaged in negotiations with the emir Hussein bin Ali, the Arab tribal and religious leader in the area of western Arabia that includes the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Although there is much dispute among historians about the nature and significance of these negotiations, the emir and his Arab allies thought they were getting a British commitment of support for an independent Arab nation, extending from what is now Iraq through Syria and the Arabian peninsula (with some exclusions), in exchange for an Arab revolt against the Turks.
Beginning well before the onset of war, Zionist leaders had sought support from Britain, then still regarded as the dominant world power. The British government’s interest in the Zionists rose as its losses mounted in the war. Prime Minister David Lloyd George later testified that in his discussions with the Zionist leaders he was motivated by a desire to encourage support for Britain from the United States and Russia, both with large Jewish populations.
The culmination of all of this came in 1917, in the form of a letter from the British foreign secretary, Lord Balfour, to Baron Walter Rothschild, a leader of the Jewish community in Britain. The letter expressed support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” subject to “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
Few documents have been subjected to the microscopic analysis accorded the Balfour Declaration in the ninety-seven years since it was published. The obvious questions—What does “a national home” mean? How could this be accomplished without “prejudice [to] the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine?”—were followed by many others, some of which continue to be the subject of interpretation. The Zionists, however, believed they had received a commitment of British support for a Jewish state in Palestine.
The apparent contradiction in the positions taken by the British government in the McMahon-Hussein negotiations and the Balfour Declaration were further complicated by the Sykes-Picot Agreement, reached in 1916 (named after the British and French diplomats who negotiated it). Under the treaty’s terms, Britain, France, and later Russia agreed to divide among themselves control of the lands of the Ottoman Empire after the war. Palestine was to be under international administration. Although the agreement itself was subsequently repudiated, in 1922 Britain and France received mandates from the League of Nations to govern most of the region.
While Sykes and Picot and their colleagues no doubt believed they were serving their respective national interests, neither did their countries any favor. Britain especially suffered through nearly three decades of hostility, violence, and enormous expense, as both Jews and Arabs came to regard their mandate rulers as biased or incompetent or both.
From the beginning of the mandate to its end in 1948, the British struggled unsuccessfully to contain the tensions between Arabs and Jews. As Jewish immigration to Palestine rose, Arab resentment grew, finally erupting into riots and outbreaks of violence in 1933 and, more widespread and intense, from 1936 to 1939. In response the British were militarily aggressive; there were many arrests and some executions. Politically, however, Britain made a significant gesture to the Arabs in 1939 by issuing a White Paper that renounced its commitment to a Jewish national home in Palestine and restricted immigration of Jews to the area to seventy-five thousand over five years. This, of course, angered the Jewish inhabitants, who began establishing their own political and military institutions. A militia called Haganah (Hebrew for “defense”) was created, initially to protect Jewish settlements; later it played a major role in the 1948 war.
World War II was a turning point, not just in Europe but also in the Middle East. The Jewish community, known as the Yishuv, supported the Allies. The Arabs were split: some supported the Allies and a few thousand even fought with the British, but more supported the Axis powers, most notably the grand mufti of Jerusalem, who spent the war years in Germany. The earlier British decision to limit Jewish immigration into Palestine later resulted in the rejection of many Jews who were trying to flee the Holocaust. This generated widespread international criticism of British policy and added to discontent in Britain over the mandate.
• • •
At its peak the British military force in Palestine exceeded 100,000 troops—a huge expense for a country reeling from the cost and other burdens of World War II. Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, both of whom would later be elected prime minister of Israel, became the leaders of two Jewish paramilitary factions that had been organized in response to the earlier Arab uprisings. These groups began a campaign of violence to force the British to withdraw. The most publicized event was the 1946 bombing of the British military headquarters at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, in which ninety-one people died. In Britain the desire to withdraw intensified, and in 1947 the British government announced that it would leave Palestine the next year and asked the United Nations General Assembly to decide what should replace the British administration there.
On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly adopted a resolution proposing that Britain’s mandate be replaced by a plan of partition under which there would be an independent Arab state and an independent Jewish state and the city of Jerusalem would be placed under an international regime administered by the United Nations. The resolution triggered a new round of violence, resulting in thousands killed and many more injured. Ultimately the Jews accepted the plan, but the Arabs did not. By early 1948 the sporadic violence had coalesced into organized military operations. The Haganah became the Israel Defense Force, and the paramilitary groups were forced to disband and join the IDF. They were opposed by what came to be known as the Arab Liberation Army.
The British gradually withdrew their forces, a process completed on May 14. On that same day David Ben-Gurion publicly proclaimed the establishment of the state of Israel. Almost immediately President Harry Truman announced U.S. recognition.
Several Arab countries then entered the fray, but their efforts were not effectively coordinated. In response to a question about why he seemed so confident, Ben-Gurion said it was because Israel had a secret weapon: “the Arabs.” By the following spring Israel had prevailed on all fronts, the fighting had wound down, and a series of armistices had been signed.
Amid the strife, however, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians left or were driven from their homes and communities, some of which were destroyed. Most ended up in refugee camps in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere. There they have remained for sixty-five years. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Arab countries emigrated or were expelled. The Palestinians’ right of return to their homes—the living Palestinians who actually left in the 1940s and their descendants—remains one of the contested issues between Israel and the Palestinians.
In 1964 the Palestine Liberation Organization was established in opposition to Israel’s existence. For the next quarter century, under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, it waged yet another campaign of violence. One of the most publicized acts was the killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich by a PLO faction called Black September. Wars between Israel and neighboring Arab states broke out in 1967 and 1973. Israel prevailed in both, expanding its military superiority and its territory to include the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
In 1977 Egyptian president Anwar Sadat made a surprise, historic visit to Jerusalem, where he met with Israeli prime minister Begin. A year later Sadat and Begin accepted President Jimmy Carter’s invitation to Camp David, where they reached agreement on a framework for peace. A formal treaty between Egypt and Israel was signed on March 26, 1979. Sadat’s actions angered some in Egypt, and he was assassinated two years later. President Bill Clinton later encouraged negotiations between Israel and Jordan, and the leaders of those two countries signed a peace treaty on October 26, 1994.
• • •
The first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, took place in 1987, during which Hamas was established as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. That conflict resulted in the PLO’s renouncing violence and accepting a two-state solution in 1988. In 1993 the PLO recognized Israel and its right to exist in peace and security, and in 1996 it repealed the provisions in its charter that called for armed resistance and the destruction of the state of Israel. In 2000 Arafat and Israel’s prime minister Ehud Barak met with Clinton at Camp David. After they were unable to reach agreement, the second intifada broke out. It continued for four years with the loss of more than three thousand Palestinian and nearly one thousand Israeli lives.
Arafat died in 2004 and was succeeded by Mahmoud Abbas, who continues today as the president of the Palestinian Authority, the executive branch of the Palestinian government. The division among Palestinians between those who favor retaining the right of armed resistance and those who oppose violence and favor peaceful negotiation is now manifested in the competition between the Palestinian Authority, which is led by Fatah, its major political party, and Hamas. The Palestinian Authority is a secular organization and is supported by the United States. Hamas, on the other hand, seeks to establish an Islamic state, and the United States has designated it a terrorist organization. In 2007, after a brief battle in Gaza, Hamas routed the PA’s military force and seized control there. As a result the internal Palestinian split became geographic as well as political: the PA controls the West Bank, with about 2.7 million residents, while Hamas controls Gaza, with a population of about 1.8 million, although the PA still has many loyalists in Gaza and Hamas has many in the West Bank.
After Hamas gained control of Gaza, the so-called quartet—the United States, the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia—issued a statement of principles, which called upon Hamas to commit to nonviolence, recognize the state of Israel, and accept previous peace agreements. To date Hamas has refused to do so.
Those prior agreements include the Oslo Accords of 1993, which were the product of secret negotiations that gave the Palestinians a limited degree of self-governance under the Palestinian Authority. The signing of these accords, which promised a peace agreement to reach a two-state solution, sparked intense debate within Israel. Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister who negotiated and signed the accords, was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli who opposed them.
• • •
Ariel Sharon, who had defeated Barak in 2000, unilaterally withdrew Israeli armed forces and settlers from Gaza in 2005, but tensions have remained high between Israel and Hamas along the border. Open conflict erupted in late 2008, in 2012, and, most recently, in 2014, as Israel tried to eliminate rocket fire from Gaza and destroy tunnels between Gaza and Israel, while Hamas sought the lifting of the blockade on Gaza that Israel and Egypt have imposed since 2007.
Where does this history leave us today? My personal experiences in the region lead me to the following conclusions about the current state of Israeli-Palestinian relations:
• The conflict has gone on for a very long time and has included a great deal of violence. As a result hostility and mistrust between Israelis and Palestinians are at very high levels. Those strong negative attitudes are intensified by a profound sense of victimization in both societies; indeed their disagreements include skepticism and even denial about some parts of the other’s narrative.
• In the past, skepticism and disagreements were overcome by strong and committed leaders. Israel has had a peace treaty with Egypt for thirty-five years and with Jordan for twenty. Yet, mirroring attitudes in both societies, the personal level of mistrust between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Abbas is high; both often refer to the “lack of a partner,” and each appears to have no confidence in the other’s sincerity and seriousness of purpose and thus no confidence in the prospect of a successful outcome. As a result each has been reluctant to take political risks that would subject him to intense domestic criticism.
• Both societies are also divided internally. The PA has committed to recognizing Israel, to nonviolence, to seeking recognition of an independent state through peaceful negotiation, and to compliance with previous agreements. Hamas refuses to commit to these principles.
• In Israel many still favor a two-state solution, but many others, including several members of the cabinet, are outspokenly opposed to a Palestinian state in the West Bank.15
• The PA has little to show for its commitment to a two-state solution through nonviolence and peaceful negotiation over the twenty years since the signing of the Oslo Accords. The continued lack of progress toward a state will undermine the PA’s status and cause more Palestinians and other Arabs to support armed resistance.
• There have been twelve U.S. presidents and twenty secretaries of state since 1948. Each has tried to reconcile the differences between Israelis and Palestinians. In recent decades there has been substantial continuity in their policies, which include a firm commitment to Israel’s security and to the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state.
• The ability of the United States to control events in the world, including those involving Israelis and Palestinians, is limited. But we do have unequalled power to influence events.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is rooted deep in history and involves highly emotional issues: religion, national identity, territorial competition. It has gone on for so long, it has had such destructive effects, and the level of mistrust and hostility is so high that many in the Middle East and elsewhere regard it as unsolvable. It is of course easier to describe the problems in the Middle East than it is to prescribe a solution. But I disagree with those who have concluded that the conflict cannot be resolved. At some time, in some way, this conflict is going to end. It is in our interest, and surely the interests of Israelis and Palestinians, that it end as soon and as fairly as possible.
The renewed pursuit of peace is important to the region and to the United States for many reasons. As 9/11 demonstrated—and as the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria as well as Boko Haram in Nigeria remind us today—there are many evil people and groups in the world. And many of those most hostile to the United States are based in the Middle East. It is also a region where several countries are U.S. allies. Regrettably some of them are also at odds with each other.
Peace between Israel and the Palestinians and the resulting stability in the region would help to deprive the extremists of the chaos in which they thrive. It would also allow the United States to unite its allies to confront and take preventive action against the extremists on their home turf.
Beyond terrorism, the Middle East is centrally located between Europe, Asia, and Africa. Any conflict there could spill over and bring in other world powers in a way that could threaten U.S. political, economic, and military interests. Consider, for instance, that a large portion of the known oil reserves are in the region, and the continuing supply of that oil remains vital to most of the world’s advanced economies, even amid the transition to a lower carbon future. Moreover the United States has long had a strong commitment to Israel’s existence and security as well as, more recently, a firm commitment to the establishment of a viable, independent, and sovereign Palestinian state.
In the highly volatile Middle East, instability in one part of the region feeds instability in another part. Resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could make it possible for Israel and the Sunni-dominated monarchies to work together to combat their common foe: extremist forces across the region. Achieving these goals requires maximum effort by the United States, despite the difficulties and setbacks. The key is easy to state but difficult to achieve: it is the mutual commitment of Israel and the Palestinians to reach agreement, with the active participation of the U.S. government and the support and assistance of the many other governments and institutions that can and want to help. The international community can help best by encouraging both sides to look past their historic grievances toward a negotiation that deals with the realities of the situation today.
In a major policy speech in Jerusalem in January 2009, President George W. Bush said:
The point of departure for permanent status negotiations . . . is clear: There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967. The agreement must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people. These negotiations must ensure that Israel has secure, recognized, and defensible borders. And they must ensure that the state of Palestine is viable, contiguous, sovereign, and independent. It is vital that each side understands that satisfying the other’s fundamental objectives is key to a successful agreement. Security for Israel and viability for the Palestinian state are in the mutual interest of both parties.
• • •
The president’s main point bears repeating: the United States supports the establishment of a Palestinian state, but for that to happen Israel must have reasonable and sustainable security. The establishment of a Palestinian state will help Israel achieve that security. Success is in their mutual interest.
On taking office in 2009, President Obama reaffirmed that policy. When he appointed me as special envoy to the region, he further signaled his administration’s desire to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace. Now, as I made my first trip to the region in that position, it seemed that the culture of peace, so carefully nurtured during the Oslo negotiations in 1993, had largely dissipated, to be replaced by a sense of futility, despair, and, ultimately, the inevitability of conflict. Fighting in Gaza, which had erupted the prior year, had just ended. The Palestinians were deeply divided, and uncertainty around upcoming Israeli elections lay ahead. Few believed that there was any chance for rebooting peace negotiations, let alone achieving a peaceful end to the conflict.
Many had given up on the two-state solution as efforts to achieve it had not succeeded. The doubts were justified, but no critic had advanced a more credible or feasible alternative. The fact that a two-state solution had not yet been achieved was not in itself conclusive proof that it could never be achieved. Peacemaking requires patience and perseverance. In Northern Ireland, for instance, centuries of discord and violence, and many failed negotiations, preceded the Good Friday Agreement. Just a few days before it was reached, a public opinion poll revealed that 83 percent of those in Northern Ireland believed that no agreement was possible.
Of course, the history and current circumstances in the Middle East are different from those in Northern Ireland, so the benefits of comparison are limited. But it was clear to me that past failures to achieve peace do not make failure inevitable. I believe there is no such thing as a conflict that can’t be ended. Conflicts are created and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings.
A solution, however, cannot be imposed externally. The parties themselves have to negotiate directly, with the active and sustained support of the United States. The pain required to negotiate an agreement, while substantial for both sides, will be much less than the pain that will result if negotiations don’t happen or don’t succeed. As I write these words there are worrying signs, especially in Jerusalem. Always a flashpoint, the city, deeply significant to each of the three major religions in the area, now seethes with actual and threatened violence. It could erupt at any time.
If the conflict were to resume, both Israelis and Palestinians will face an uncertain future. That, of course, includes the loss of many lives. But there are other potential dangers that both parties have to recognize. For the Israelis, the first is demography. There are now about 6 million Jews living in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. In the same space there are about 5.5 million Arabs, including Israeli Arabs and Palestinians on the West Bank and in Gaza. The Arab birth rate overall is much higher than the Israeli; within just a few years Arabs will be in the majority. As Ehud Barak, the former prime minister and then defense minister of Israel, has said, Israel then will have to choose between being a Jewish state and being a democratic state; it cannot be both once the two-state solution is lost. That is a painful choice Israel should not have to make.
Their second challenge is in technology. A serious military threat to Israel now comes from rockets. Hamas still has thousands of them; they’re crude, lacking in guidance and destructive power, but they do create widespread fear and anxiety in Israel. No one can doubt that, in the absence of a peace agreement, over time Hamas will rebuild and improve its arsenal. In Lebanon, on Israel’s northern border, Hezbollah already has thousands of rockets aimed in its direction; public estimates in Israel are between thirty thousand and fifty thousand. These rockets are somewhat more effective, although also limited in range. Even as I flew across the Atlantic, Hezbollah was engaged in an effort to upgrade their systems. Most threatening to Israel, however, Iran has developed rockets that can reach Israel from inside Iran itself. The Iranians don’t yet have the precision needed to strike specific targets, but they could cause vast destruction in cities.
The United States is fully committed to Israel’s security. We have honored that commitment in part by providing enormous political, financial, and military support. In his first term President Obama authorized hundreds of millions of dollars of additional aid to Israel to accelerate development and deployment of the Iron Dome antimissile system. Although its early use has been promising, it is unknown whether that or any system will be able to intercept the number and quality of missiles that might be launched in an all-out conflict. Israel’s security might then be seriously threatened.
Israel’s third challenge is its potential isolation. Although strong in the United States, especially in Congress, its support is declining elsewhere in the world. In 2011 the UN Security Council voted on a resolution that demanded that “Israel, as the occupying power, immediately and completely ceases all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem and that it fully respect its legal obligations in this regard.” Fourteen of the fifteen members of the Council, including the United Kingdom, France, and other U.S. allies, voted in favor of the resolution; the United States voted against it and used its veto power to prevent its adoption. Although the resolution was not voted on in the General Assembly, an overwhelming majority there supported it; only the United States and Israel were opposed. In November 2012, despite intense opposition by the United States and Israel, 138 of the 193 countries in the world voted for a UN General Assembly resolution that elevated Palestinian status in the United Nations to nonmember observer state, a status shared only by the Vatican. Only nine countries opposed the resolution, while forty-one abstained.
In October 2014 the prime minister of Sweden announced his government’s intention to recognize a Palestinian state, becoming the first major Western European government to do so. Similar sentiments were expressed in Ireland, Spain, Britain, and France. The British Parliament voted 274 to 12 to recognize a Palestinian state, although the vote was symbolic (it was nonbinding on the government, which continues to oppose recognition). During the debate in the House of Commons, Richard Ottaway, a member of the governing Conservative Party and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said that he had “stood by Israel through thick and thin, through the good years and the bad,” but now realized “in truth, looking back over the past 20 years, that Israel has been slowly drifting away from world public opinion. Under normal circumstances I would oppose the motion tonight; but such is my anger over Israel’s behavior in recent months that I will not oppose the motion. I have to say to the government of Israel that if they are losing people like me, they will be losing a lot of people.”16
“The vote in the French lower house of the Parliament favoring such a step was a largely symbolic vote. But it was the fifth such gesture in two months, and arguably the most important, in what has amounted to a cascade of support for the Palestinian cause and a widening torrent of criticism of Israeli policy across Europe.”17
For me, as a supporter of Israel’s right to exist, safe and secure behind defensible borders, and for the many others who share my view, these are hard words to accept. But they should be a warning to the government of Israel and to all of its supporters in Israel, the United States, and elsewhere: the tide of world public opinion is shifting.
Another danger, little noticed or discussed, is the divide within Israel of its Jewish and Arab citizens. The Arabs already make up over 20 percent of the population, and their growth rate is higher than for Israeli Jews. Growing along with their numbers is their disaffection. There is rising concern among many Israeli leaders about the serious adverse effects on their society of this internal division.
Some in Israel and the United States are concerned that a Palestinian state might fail and be taken over by Hamas. That’s a valid concern. But many others believe, as I do, that the collapse of the Palestinian Authority and a takeover by Hamas is more likely in the absence of an agreement with Israel than as the result of such an agreement. One of the adverse consequences of the 2014 fighting in Gaza is the extent to which it has adversely affected the political standing of President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority among Palestinians and other Arabs, making a negotiated agreement even more difficult than it was before—not least because cease-fire agreements made with Hamas as the result of violence increase public support for the movement and erode confidence in the potential of reaching a political settlement through negotiations alone.
Of course, there is no policy decision that is free of risk. But finding the middle ground is the only way to open up the possibility of movement toward normalization of relations between Israel and other countries in the region, many of whom share Israel’s deep concern about the threat from Iran and the extremist groups now menacing the region.
The Palestinians also face serious hurdles, particularly the indefinite continuation of an occupation under which they do not have the right to govern themselves and therefore lack the dignity and freedom that come with self-governance. In 1947 the United Nations proposed a plan to partition the area and create two states. Israel accepted it; the Arabs rejected it. And the next year brought the first of several wars, all of them won by an increasingly strong Israel.
Every sensible Arab leader today would gladly accept that 1947 plan if it were still available. But it is not—and it never will be available again. The circumstances on the ground have changed too dramatically. Since then serious Israeli negotiators have come to the conclusion, whether they admit it publicly or not, that the two-state solution will ultimately be based on the 1948 armistice lines, also known as the 1967 lines, with land swaps to be agreed by both parties, to accommodate large Israeli population centers.
But as I told both Yasser Arafat during my first tour of service in the region and, later, President Abbas, there is no evidence to suggest that the end game is going to get any better in the future. The interests of the Palestinian people would be best served if their leaders participated in and stayed in direct negotiations to get the best deal they can, even if it’s not 100 percent of what they want. They must bring the occupation to an end. They’ve got to get their own state and build on it. They will achieve neither by staying out of negotiations.
When he was prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad tried to lay the foundation by building the institutions needed for a viable, independent state. But Fayyad resigned in 2013, and his state-building efforts cannot be sustained in the absence of any progress on the political side. They are inextricably linked; there must be concurrent progress on both.
For a quarter century the policy of the United States has been to encourage direct negotiations between Israelis and Arabs as the only feasible way to reach agreement on the issues that divide them.I As a necessary complement to that policy, the United States has consistently opposed any action by either side that could have the effect of predetermining those issues prior to negotiations. That is why the United States opposes Palestinian efforts to achieve recognition as a state at the United Nations, just as it opposes Israeli settlement construction. The United States contends that those issues, and all others that are contested, should be resolved in direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, not by unilateral action on either side.
From the Palestinian (and Arab) perspective, however, the problem is that the United States has been more successful in opposing their efforts at the UN than it has been in restraining Israeli settlement construction. During the nearly seven decades of its existence, Israel has had the strong support of the United States. In international forums the United States has at times cast the only vote on Israel’s behalf. Yet even in such a close relationship there are some differences. Prominent among those is the U.S. government’s long-standing opposition to Israel’s policies and practices regarding settlements. As Secretary of State James A. Baker III commented on May 22, 1991:
Every time I have gone to Israel in connection with the peace process, on each of my four trips, I have been met with the announcement of new settlement activity. This does violate United States policy. It’s the first thing that Arabs—Arab Governments, the first thing that the Palestinians in the territories—whose situation is really quite desperate—the first thing they raise when we talk to them. I don’t think there is any bigger obstacle to peace than the settlement activity that continues not only unabated but at an enhanced pace.18
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The policy described by Secretary Baker, on behalf of the administration of President George H. W. Bush, has been, in essence, the policy of every U.S. administration since Israel captured the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967.
As far back as 1967, in the Johnson administration, an internal communication noted, “There can be little doubt among [government of Israel] leaders as to our continuing opposition to any Israeli settlements in the occupied areas.”19 In July 1969 President Nixon’s representative to the UN said, “The expropriation or confiscation of land, the construction of housing on such land, the demolition or confiscation of buildings, including those having historic or religious significance, and the application of Israeli law to occupied portions of the city are detrimental to our common interests.”20 President Ford’s UN ambassador asserted in March 1976, “The presence of these settlements is seen by my government as an obstacle to the success of the negotiations for a just and final peace between Israel and its neighbors.”21 On March 21, 1980, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, speaking on behalf of the Carter administration, stated, “U.S. policy toward the establishment of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories is unequivocal and has long been a matter of public record. We consider it to be contrary to international law and an impediment to the successful conclusion of the Middle East peace process.”22 On September 1, 1982, President Ronald Reagan announced what came to be known as the Reagan Plan for the Middle East: “The immediate adoption of a settlements freeze by Israel, more than any other action, could create the confidence needed for wider participation in these talks. Further settlement activity is in no way necessary for the security of Israel and only diminishes the confidence of the Arabs that a final outcome can be freely and fairly negotiated.”23 At a press conference on December 16, 1996, President Bill Clinton stated, “It just stands to reason that anything that preempts the outcome [of the negotiations] . . . cannot be helpful in making peace. I don’t think anything should be done that would be seen as preempting the outcome.” Asked if he viewed the settlements as an obstacle to peace, Clinton replied, “Absolutely. Absolutely.”24 In an April 2002 Rose Garden speech, President George W. Bush declared, “Israeli settlement activity in occupied territories must stop, and the occupation must end through withdrawal to secure and recognized boundaries.”25 Two months later, on June 24, Bush unveiled his “Roadmap” for peace. Phase 1 of the Roadmap not only had Israel “freez[ing] all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements)”; it also called on Israel to “immediately dismantle settlement outposts erected since March 2001.”26 The Bush administration secured full international backing for the Roadmap, including through the UN.
While the stated policy of the government of Israel favors a two-state solution, the government’s actions on settlements are at times inconsistent with that policy.27
The fighting in Gaza between Israel and Hamas ended on January 18, 2009, two days before Obama took the oath of office. A few days later I landed in the region for the first of many visits. In the fighting, somewhere between 1,166 (the Israeli figure) and 1,400 (the Palestinian figure) Palestinians were killed. Thirteen Israelis died (ten soldiers and three civilians). Massive destruction occurred in Gaza. Thousands of rockets had been fired into Israel from Gaza. Emotions were raw, hostility high. In Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had announced his resignation, and a close, hotly contested election campaign was drawing to a close. It would be two months before a new Israeli government took office, so even if the prospects had been less gloomy there was no possibility of an early resumption of negotiations.
In that difficult circumstance President Obama sought to create a context within which the tensions could subside sufficiently to permit a resumption of direct negotiations at some point in the future. To encourage the parties to move in that direction, each of them was asked to contribute something: the Palestinians were asked to act more aggressively to prevent any acts of violence against Israel and to reduce incitement in its schools and mosques; the other Arab states were asked to take steps toward normalization with Israel, including, for example, reopening of trade offices, permitting commercial air overflights, or opening lines of communications by mail and telephone; Israel was asked to freeze settlement construction.
We tried hard to persuade each of the parties to make appropriate contributions to this approach, including a real effort to revive the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002. By the time the new government of Israel was ready to talk substantively with us, in May 2009, I had visited fifteen Arab countries and met with virtually every Arab ruler and foreign minister. Without exception they insisted on a full settlement freeze as a necessary first step.
None of our requests was intended to be a precondition to negotiations, although that is how they were widely portrayed. While the policy itself is legitimately subject to debate, and indeed was debated within the Obama administration, what in retrospect seems to me not debatable is that we did not do a good job in announcing, explaining, and advocating for that policy, one of several mistakes we made. As a result, at least in the media in Israel and the United States, attention focused almost entirely on the request for a freeze on settlement construction. Obama was criticized for seeking a freeze, including by many who were silent when President George W. Bush made the identical request a few years earlier, when he included a full settlement freeze in his Roadmap.
Abbas came to Washington and unhelpfully told the Washington Post that he had not been asked to do anything, and besides, there was nothing for the Palestinians to do, it was all up to the Israelis.28 That elicited a strong negative reaction from the Israelis, who soon made it clear that they would not agree to a total freeze on settlements, nor would they agree to include East Jerusalem in our discussions.II The Arab states said that they could not take even the most modest steps until Israel agreed to the freeze. The Palestinians were equally adamant that anything less than a total freeze that included East Jerusalem would be unacceptable to them. So the effort to help create an atmosphere in which meaningful negotiations could take place did not succeed. Attitudes hardened, and like the illusion of an oasis in the desert, the prospect of meaningful negotiations drifted further and further away from us.
In addition to the issue of settlements, other aspects of the president’s effort to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian agreement were criticized; some of the criticism was valid and constructive, but some of it was unfounded. An example of the latter was the allegation that Obama blundered by not resuming negotiations in 2009 on the basis of the Olmert-Abbas discussions of 2008. This line of criticism appeared, for instance, in an article by the Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. On October 16, 2011, he wrote that Olmert had offered Abbas a “miraculous package” and that “in one of President Obama’s biggest mistakes, he decided to start negotiations all over.”29 If true, this indeed would have been a serious mistake by the president. But it is not true; it is contradicted by the facts, most of them a matter of public record.
There appears to be little doubt that Abbas and Olmert did have serious discussions and that both felt they had made significant progress. But, unfortunately, they never reached an agreement. Their talks were held under the principle, agreed in advance by both sides, that nothing is final until everything is final. And nothing was final. “Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian negotiator, said the proposal was never written down and left too many details unsettled.”30
The talks were hampered by Olmert’s legal problems, which ultimately led to his departure from government. Abbas was concerned about Olmert’s ability to obtain approval of an agreement based on their discussions. He later felt his concern was validated when, after Olmert made the substance of their discussions public just before the Israeli elections, Netanyahu repudiated them and no major candidate for prime minister supported them. “Less than a week before Israeli voters pick a new leader, the candidate most involved in the negotiations with the Palestinians [Tzipi Livni] is on the defensive over newly reported details of an interim peace accord offered months ago by outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. . . . [T]he disclosures last week prompted [Netanyahu] the hawkish front-runner to accuse her of agreeing to ‘surrender’ parts of Jerusalem for an independent Palestinian state. . . . Netanyahu seized on Israel’s proferred concessions to portray Livni as ‘weak on security.’ His party has plastered that slogan on buses and billboards in recent days.”31 The Olmert-Abbas negotiations ended abruptly, withot agreement, when violence erupted in Gaza in December 2008.
I met with Olmert at his official residence in early February 2009; he told me about his discussions with Abbas, just before he made them public.32 Shortly thereafter I met with Abbas, and he related his version of those discussions. There were important differences in their recollections, especially on the issue of borders. Although it was not featured in the Israeli election campaign, as were security and Jerusalem, it is, of course, important to both sides. Olmert said he showed Abbas a map that included an offer by Israel on boundaries. Olmert wanted Abbas to agree and sign the map, then and there. Abbas wanted first to consult with his advisors. Olmert thought it unreasonable for Abbas not to promptly accept what Olmert felt was a fair, even generous offer. According to Olmert, Abbas promised to return the next day with experts, but he did not return. The Gaza conflict then broke out, and the discussions ended without a Palestinian reply to the offer.
Abbas agreed that Olmert showed him a map and asked him to sign it, and that Abbas wanted to take it with him to study and to consult with his aides before signing. Abbas thought it unreasonable for Olmert to expect him to reach a binding agreement on the boundaries of a new Palestinian state on the basis of a single viewing of one map, without the opportunity to discuss and consider it with the other members of his leadership team. After Olmert refused his request and took the map back, Abbas left and met with his aides and tried to re-create the map from memory. He and other Palestinian leaders told me they then sent Olmert a typewritten list of questions seeking clarification on the map and other issues. According to Abbas, he never received a response to his questions. The Gaza conflict then broke out, and the discussions ended without an Israeli response.
The criticism of Obama also completely overlooked the crucial fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu, who succeeded Olmert, was clear, in public and in private, with me and with others, that he was strongly opposed to the substance of Olmert’s discussions with Abbas and would not resume negotiations on that basis. As noted above, that position was part of his election campaign, and he has never deviated from it.33 Indeed when Netanyahu and Abbas later met in person, in September 2010, the only substantive issue Netanyahu would discuss was Israel’s security demands, and what he said to Abbas then went far beyond what Olmert had said two years earlier. In particular, Netanyahu regarded as dangerous for Israel that Olmert did not insist on a long-term Israeli military presence along a Palestinian state’s eastern border with Jordan. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Netanyahu, there can be no doubt that on this issue his position has been consistent and unchanging. There never was any chance that he would agree to resume negotiations on that basis, because he feels strongly that those earlier discussions were inadequate on the issue of security and wrong on Jerusalem. To blame Obama for the fact that negotiations did not resume on the basis of the Olmert-Abbas discussions is thus wholly unfounded and unfair.
My discussions with the Israelis on settlements began at a meeting in London, after Netanyahu took office. We spent the summer months in negotiations. They would not agree to a total freeze, but by September we had reached agreement on a moratorium on new housing construction starts; it was to take effect in November and last ten months. It was much less than what we had asked for, but it was a very significant step. When the moratorium was announced, I held a press conference and was forthcoming about its shortfalls. I urged the international community to
look at this issue in a broader context, particularly how it affects the situation on the ground and how it can contribute to a constructive negotiating process that will ultimately lead to an end to the conflict and to a two-state solution. [The moratorium] falls short of a full settlement freeze, but it is more than any Israeli Government has done before, and can help move toward agreement between the parties. . . . For the first time ever, an Israeli Government will stop housing approvals and all new construction of housing units and related infrastructure in West Bank settlements.34
During the ten months of the moratorium the Israelis were permitted to complete work on buildings that were already under construction, and East Jerusalem was not included. Just before the moratorium announcement, in a meeting in New York at which I and other American officials accompanied President Obama, Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian’s chief negotiator, criticized the moratorium on those two points. In the presence of President Abbas, he told President Obama that the moratorium was “worse than useless.”
By the spring of 2010 we had been unable to persuade the parties to resume direct negotiations, despite an intense effort. To try to establish some traction we suggested, and the parties agreed, that we conduct “proximity talks,” in which I would meet separately with each side to discuss all relevant issues. There was no expectation that any issues would be resolved during these talks; rather they were to serve as a transition process that would lead to direct negotiations. Our hope was to get a clear understanding of the parties’ current positions on each of the major issues, which would enable more meaningful discussions as soon as we made the transition to direct negotiations. The Israelis agreed reluctantly because they preferred to go immediately to direct negotiations. The Palestinians, on the other hand, continued to refuse direct negotiations in the absence of a full settlement freeze and were more enthusiastic about the proximity talks. It enabled them to gain a bit in the never-ending public relations battle and in what I came to describe as the document dispute. It was a minor issue, notable only because it illustrates how both sides vigorously contested every aspect of the process, always (understandably) with a view toward the political effect at home.
From the beginning to the end of my tenure as special envoy, the Israelis took the public position that they wanted direct negotiations. Privately they insisted that those negotiations be entirely oral, with nothing in writing and no exchange of documents. They were reluctant, for example, to agree to adopt further terms of reference for the negotiations, terms that would have defined the issues to be resolved (itself a very contentious task).III The Palestinians regarded this as evidence that the government of Israel was not serious about negotiations; they believed the Israelis said they wanted negotiations only to placate the United States. So the proximity talks evolved into a one-sided affair in which the Palestinians provided me with detailed position papers on every disputed issue, while the Israelis, up to and including the prime minister, said little and made clear their disdain for the whole notion of proximity talks. On one occasion, for nearly an hour a midlevel Israeli official read aloud to me a document that his government had submitted in the previous round of negotiations (during the George W. Bush administration) and which I already had in my possession.
Needless to say, this was unproductive. But I understood that the Israelis were making a point. Almost all of the many documents the Palestinians handed me were identical, or very nearly identical, to those they had submitted to the Israelis in earlier rounds of negotiations or had sent to other governments in the international community. And most of the positions the Palestinians took in the documents did not stray from their publicly stated positions. The Israelis already had all of those documents and knew the Palestinian positions; they didn’t want any documents in this round of talks, and certainly not copies of documents they already had in their possession. Just as the Palestinians felt the Israelis were play-acting in demanding direct negotiations, the Israelis felt the Palestinians were play-acting on the subject of documents.
The document dispute reached a climax at a meeting in New York. Erekat insisted on handing the Palestinian position papers directly to Yitzhak Molho, Netanyahu’s trusted personal lawyer and the lead Israeli negotiator. Molho refused to accept the documents, or even to touch them. After holding them out at arm’s length for a few seconds, Erekat laid them on the table around which we sat. Both then turned to me to figure out what to do about the documents. I asked Molho to explain why he refused to accept documents that set forth the demands of the Palestinians on each of the relevant issues. All previous negotiations had involved exchanges of documents; surely the government of Israel could not expect to negotiate and reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians if nothing were ever written down. Molho replied that there were several ministers in the Israeli cabinet who were opposed to negotiations with the Palestinians, in part because they regarded the positions taken by the Palestinians to be so extreme that it was pointless to engage on them. If he came into possession of these documents in these discussions he would, if asked, have to turn them over to any minister who requested them. He knew what was in the documents; they were virtually identical, in some cases precisely identical to those that the government of Israel had received in the earlier negotiations (except that the dates were changed from 2008 to 2010).IV Now, Molho argued, if the opposition ministers saw that the Palestinian positions were unchanged, it would confirm their view of Palestinian unreasonableness, and they would demand an end to these and any other negotiations. It was, as presented, a somewhat complicated argument, but I thought Molho was arguing that by not accepting the documents now he was keeping open the possibility of later direct negotiations in which the two sides could engage seriously.
It is an understatement to say that Erekat was not persuaded. He rejected Molho’s argument as an example of the Israeli tactic of saying in public that they wanted direct negotiations while in private erecting insurmountable barriers to any serious negotiations. Since it was obvious that Molho was not going to accept the documents no matter what I or anyone else said, I told them that I would take all of the documents into my possession and decide how they could be most effectively used at an appropriate time in the future. The problem wasn’t that the Israelis didn’t know the Palestinian positions or the contents of the papers. The problem was that they did know the positions and regarded them as unacceptable, and they didn’t believe the Palestinians were willing to negotiate in a way the Israelis regarded as serious; it was the mirror image of the Palestinian belief that the Israelis were not serious about negotiations.
In several interviews, Abbas claimed he could not understand why the Israelis had not received the documents. To buttress his argument he insisted that the current Israeli government had never presented him with “a map” setting forth proposed boundaries. I shook off the bickering and criticism as part of the highly charged political process in which we were engaged.
In March 2010 Vice President Biden visited Jerusalem. We had been assured by Israeli officials that there would be “no surprises” during his visit. But on the very day of his arrival, the government announced the approval of 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem. A storm of controversy ensued, then abated, but it had an effect.
By the summer it was clear that the proximity talks were not going to yield progress. In July Netanyahu traveled to Washington to meet with the president and the secretary of state. He strongly urged the United States to press Abbas to enter into direct negotiations. Netanyahu told the president that if he and Abbas could speak face-to-face, without the burden of negotiating terms or gestures, he thought he could convince Abbas of his desire to end the conflict and the two could reach enough common ground for meaningful negotiations. The president agreed to try. The moratorium, while far from perfect, had resulted in some reduction in settlement construction activity. More significant, although no formal or public decision had been made by the government of Israel, in the aftermath of the Biden visit there was very little new housing activity in East Jerusalem; in fact for months there had been almost no new actions.
On instruction from the White House and the State Department I met with Abbas and his leadership team and urged a resumption of direct talks. An intense effort followed, in which we received invaluable assistance from President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan. Abbas liked and trusted both. They not only urged Abbas to attend; they themselves promised to join him, and they did. Finally, although with obvious reluctance, Abbas agreed. But he had a significant condition. The moratorium had gone into effect the previous November and was due to expire at the end of September. He would meet with Netanyahu but would continue beyond September only if the moratorium were extended. That, he said, was “absolutely necessary.” I never received from Abbas or Erekat an explanation of how, in less than nine months, the moratorium had gone from “worse than useless” to “absolutely necessary.”
They met four times: once in Washington, twice in Egypt, then the fourth and last time at the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem. Except for a brief period during their first meeting, when Netanyahu and Abbas were alone, Secretary Clinton and I accompanied them in all of the meetings. The first meeting, in Washington, was largely ceremonial; the next two, in Egypt, were general in nature. Abbas wanted to launch immediately into the specifics of their disagreement on borders, a subject he had discussed with Olmert two years earlier. Netanyahu insisted on discussing security issues first. He did so, finally, in the fourth meeting, in Jerusalem. It was my intention to put borders on the agenda for the fifth meeting, so that each side would have had a substantive discussion on an issue of their choice at the outset of what we hoped would become a serious and sustained negotiation. But we never got to a fifth meeting.
Abbas had begun and ended each of the four meetings by saying that he could not continue meeting beyond September if the moratorium was allowed to expire. In a separate discussion we tried hard to persuade the Israelis to agree to an extension, but they refused our request as politically impossible. Netanyahu believed that they had not received sufficient international credit for the first moratorium nor any real political benefit in their dealings with the Palestinians. The Israelis were highly aggravated that Abbas had waited until the ninth month of a ten-month moratorium to agree to direct negotiations.
The fourth and last meeting was, as noted earlier, devoted to the issue of Israel’s security. Netanyahu read from a long typewritten statement, in which he insisted that Israel Defense Forces would have to be stationed within any Palestinian state, along its eastern border, “for many decades.” He repeated that phrase several times, with increasing emphasis. Abbas categorically rejected the proposal. He said that IDF forces could remain within the Palestinian state only during a transition period, which he first said could be “two to four years” but later described as “one to three years.” He added, however, that he would accept on the Palestinian state’s boundary an international force for an indefinite period, and that force could be stationed around the entire boundary, not just along the Jordan River in the east.
In this meeting the second climax of the document dispute occurred. Netanyahu repeated the Israeli position that no documents should be exchanged. This obviously angered Abbas, who immediately reached into his briefcase, pulled out a full set of the Palestinian position papers, and extended them to the prime minister. For a brief, silent moment, Netanyahu hesitated. Abbas, arm extended, looked directly at him, and their eyes locked; Secretary Clinton and I silently watched. Then Netanyahu reached out, took the documents, and laid them on the floor next to his chair. Later, when the meeting concluded, we all stood and shook hands. Abbas went into the next room, where he joined Erekat and the other members of his entourage who were waiting. They all walked out the front door to their waiting cars. Thus ended the direct talks, the moratorium, and the document dispute. I never learned what happened to the documents on the floor.
Over the next few months the process sputtered to a close, and the Arab world fell further into disarray. My two years were up, and as winter came to a close I decided to leave. On April 5, 2011, I submitted my resignation to Secretary Clinton and to Denis McDonough, then the principal deputy national security advisor and now the president’s chief of staff. He asked me to stay briefly to effect a smooth transition, and I agreed. On May 19, I returned to my family and to private life.
Of course my interest in Middle East peace remains high, and I continue to search for reasons for hope.
The Palestinians’ internal divisions are a complicated matter that keeps getting even more complicated. In 2014 the Palestinian Authority and Hamas announced that they had agreed to form a unity government and schedule elections. These discussions had been going on for several years; similar announcements of reconciliation were made in 2011 and 2012 and had subsequently collapsed. The 2014 round was interrupted by Israeli opposition and the fighting in Gaza, and by a change in government in Egypt, where the current regime is hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. As of this writing it appears that the latest agreement on reconciliation also will fail. But the effort may be resumed. That could provide a political opening for Hamas to move away from its prior positions as well as open an avenue for meaningful negotiation.
When Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, the United States joined the United Nations, the European Union, and Russia in a statement calling for Hamas to commit to nonviolence, to recognize the state of Israel, and to accept previous peace agreements. Hamas has so far shown no inclination to accept or even move toward these principles, and there is no assurance it ever will. Yet, as happened in South Africa and Northern Ireland, and with the PLO itself, persistent efforts to wean such groups from armed resistance and into a political process has, on occasion, succeeded. And, Hamas has consistently reaffirmed its willingness to accept any agreement that Abbas were to conclude with Israel, provided that agreement is approved in a referendum of the Palestinian people.
The interim Palestinian government proposed in 2014 was composed of technocrats, all of whom reportedly were committed to President Abbas’s position on nonviolence. It was accepted by the Quartet—the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations—but rejected by Israel. Israel has every right to be wary, but the government of Israel itself has a long history of negotiating with Hamas through intermediaries, including when Israel secured the release of the captured soldier Gilad Shalit and in cease-fire negotiations. The situation is complex, and the odds may be long, but the door to peaceful political negotiation should not be forever closed.
I had many meetings separately with Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas, and, as noted, I was present during the four meetings between the two leaders in September 2010. I also had many discussions with other officials, on both sides, about the two leaders. From those experiences I reached the conclusion that Netanyahu does not believe that Abbas has the personal or political strength necessary to gain approval of an agreement with Israel. Abbas believes that Netanyahu is not sincere or serious about getting an agreement with the Palestinians and does only as much as he deems necessary to placate the United States. Since both men assume that negotiations will not succeed, neither has any incentive to take the political risks that will inevitably be required to make possible a peace agreement.
If this analysis is accurate, the reluctance of the leaders is understandable. But it does not serve the immediate or long-term interests of the people they represent. I believe those interests—on both sides—will be served best by an agreement that accepts Israel’s existence and provides Israelis with reasonable and sustainable security behind defensible borders and at the same time creates a sovereign, independent, viable, demilitarized Palestinian state. That has been the basis for and objective of U.S. policy for many decades. I believe in and support that policy.
Rebuilding trust is a daunting challenge, not only between political leaders but also between two peoples with a long and bitter history of conflict. But the long-term interests of both societies are jeopardized by their continuing inability to reach agreement. It makes no sense for Israel to continue in a virtual state of war with most of its neighbors in a region where population and turmoil are increasing. It makes no sense for the Palestinians to spend the next sixty years as they have spent the past sixty, under occupation without the freedom or dignity that comes with self-governance. Both have much to lose in the absence of an agreement and much to gain if they can live side by side in peace. And it is in the best interests of the United States to help them succeed.
The process in which I engaged as U.S. envoy to the Middle East was largely contentious and disappointing, one quarrel and setback after another. In Northern Ireland there had been a few rays of hope and then a final burst of success. In the Middle East there was neither. From beginning to end it was an unsuccessful effort to bring together two leaders who share a deep, mutual mistrust. At the same time, I believe it is becoming increasingly clear to the leadership on both sides that the current situation is not sustainable and that both societies will be better served if they reach an agreement. To wait until another costly outbreak of violence impels them to act would be a tragic and unnecessary delay.
The Israeli-Palestinian challenge will continue to confound American leaders in the coming years, as it has for many decades. As much as I wish it were otherwise, it appears unlikely to be resolved in the immediate future. Indeed, there are ominous signs that both societies are on the brink of giving up on the pursuit of a two-state solution, or any other form of agreement. Among Palestinians and other Arabs, Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are increasingly seen as out of touch and ineffective; in the absence of any progress toward a state, support is crumbling for their approach of nonviolence and peaceful negotiation. They are therefore likely to concentrate on seeking international support for an independent Palestinian state. That almost certainly will draw a rebuke from the United States and retaliation from Israel, driving the parties even further apart, at least in the short term. The Hamas alternative is armed resistance. But a full-scale outbreak in the West Bank would be highly destructive for the Palestinians and a military and political nightmare for Israel.
In Israel, the recent rain of rockets from Gaza and the growing sense of isolation have generated frustration at the perceived inability of others, especially the Europeans, to comprehend the difficulty of their situation and the righteousness of their cause. The consequence is a political context that is increasingly conducive to the settler movement and its allies, who steadily push the government toward actions that make any agreement with the Palestinians less likely, and ultimately impossible.
Failure to make progress will be a disappointment for President Obama, who, despite the doubts on both sides, tried twice to bring about peace. Yet we must continue the effort because it is in our national interest and because, despite many failures of the past, this conflict, like every conflict, must inevitably end.
But it will take more than U.S. effort. As difficult and distant as it now seems, given current trends, Israelis and Palestinians themselves must cultivate constituencies for peace. Both societies need leaders who are able to convince their people that compromise is not a weakness but a virtue necessary to secure the well-being of future generations; leaders who will act boldly to halt and reverse the descent into a new round of violence that will be terribly harmful to both societies and could spread into a wider regional conflict. Over a very long period of time both societies have endured fear, anxiety, many deaths, and much destruction. While they have many differences, they should have in common an overriding desire to avoid such negative and destructive consequences in the future. Israelis and Palestinians may not be able to live together but they should be able to live separately, side by side, in peace. Over time, hopefully, they may come to see each other not as enemies but as shared custodians of stability and of a potentially vibrant regional economy where both societies and cultures can thrive.
Part of the answer must come from ordinary Israelis and Palestinians. Will they, like the people of Northern Ireland and elsewhere, eventually tire of fear and anxiety, death and destruction? If and when they do, we must encourage them to make their desire for peace clear to their leaders. And we then must provide all the assistance necessary for them to achieve the greatest gift of all: peace to those who for years have known only war.
I. At the Madrid Conference in 1991 the United States devised a formula to overcome Israeli objections to meeting directly with the PLO by accepting a joint Palestinian-Jordanian delegation whose liaison committee was led by Faisal Husseini. Though his lineage and family profile tied him to Jerusalem (he was the grandson of a former grand mufti) and the fight against the Zionist groups in 1948 (his father was a chief commander of the Arab forces), the Israelis could point to the fact that he was born in Baghdad rather than explicitly or implicitly acknowledge any historic Palestinian claim to Jerusalem.
II. Prior to the 1967 war, Jerusalem was a divided city. East Jerusalem was controlled by Jordan. It was a relatively small area of just over six square kilometers, including the Old City. After that war Israel added all of Jordanian-controlled East Jerusalem to West Jerusalem, which it had controlled prior to 1967. Israel subsequently expanded Jerusalem’s boundaries in all directions by including some of its own sovereign territory and sixty-five square kilometers of West Bank territory. East Jerusalem, then, is a political more than a geographic term and refers to the part of Jerusalem earlier controlled by Jordan and then expanded by Israel to the east, north, and south, using West Bank territory. Neither the United States nor any other country has ever recognized these Israeli annexations. So the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians over Jerusalem includes disagreement over its boundaries.
III. Israel’s view appears to be that prior agreements that defined the issues and referenced UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 provide sufficient terms of reference.
IV. But that was the previous government, under Prime Minister Olmert. As noted above, Prime Minister Netanyahu, to the contrary, strongly opposed, in public and in private, before and after his becoming prime minister, the descussions on security and Jerusalem by Olmert and the Palestinian Authority in those earlier negotiations.