Appeasement

Ira Sharkansky

While I do not claim expertise in the history or politics of Great Britain, my impression is that the Munich Agreement of 1938, involving Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Hitler (" . . . peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.") is an icon of shame in that country. It represented great power pressure on the weak government of Czechoslovakia, and traded away part of another country's territory for the empty hope of peace. You find reference to the event under "appeasement" in the Oxford English Dictionary. "Freely used in political contexts in the 20th century, and since 1938 often used disparagingly with allusion to the attempts at conciliation by concession made by Mr. Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, before the outbreak of war with Germany in 1939; by extension, any such policy of pacification by concession to an enemy."

The Economist is part of my Friday morning routine. I view it as the best news magazine in the English language. I usually excuse its tilt against Israel as not overly extreme, insofar as it is generally balanced with a reasonable assessment of Israel's options.

An article put on its website on December 29th, dealing with Israel, the Palestinians, and Barack Obama fell outside my parameters of tolerance. The Economist on this occasion is closer to the spirit of Neville Chamberlain than to that of Winston Churchill. http://www.economist.com/node/17800151

Fair enough is its warning that the failure of Obama's peace efforts has produced a fragile condition of no war and no peace. It is also fair to note that supplies of armaments to Hizbollah and Hamas add to the dangers, and raise the prospect of a regional war involving Syria and Iran, along with significant civilian casualties in Israel and elsewhere.

The item is fair to note that any peace achieved between Israel and the Palestinians will be incomplete.

"Iran, Hizbullah and sometimes Hamas say that they will never accept a Jewish state in the Middle East."

It is the next sentence that urges appeasement.

"it is the unending Israeli occupation that gives these rejectionists their oxygen. Give the Palestinians a state on the West Bank and it will become very much harder for the rejectionists to justify going to war."

The theme continues

"if Mr Obama fails, because the Palestinians have shown time and again that they will not fall silent while their rights are denied. The longer Israel keeps them stateless under military occupation, the lonelier it becomes—and the more it undermines its own identity as a liberal democracy."

The Economist accepts an outline of an agreement that is widely shared, including by many in the center of Israel's political spectrum.

"The outlines of such an agreement have been clear since Bill Clinton set out his “parameters” after the failure of the Camp David summit a decade ago. The border between Israel and a new Palestine would follow the pre-1967 line, with adjustments to accommodate some of the bigger border-hugging Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and land-swaps to compensate the Palestinians for those adjustments."


It also recognizes what has frustrated agreement.

". . . there is also much difficult detail to be filled in: how to make Jerusalem into a shared capital, settle the fate of the refugees and ensure that the West Bank will not become, as Gaza did, an advance base for war against Israel after Israeli forces withdraw."

Where is Palestinian responsibility in the copybook of The Economist?

The sensitivities of Palestinians and Israelis on the issues of Jerusalem (especially the Temple Mount) and refugees may be the hard kernels that prevent agreement. For The Economists and others to put the onus on Israel and what is said to be a settlement-obsessed government is to reinforce the Palestinian narrative that gives them a monopoly of suffering and justice. Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert racked up Palestinian refusals in response to far reaching efforts to reach agreement along the lines spelled out by President Clinton.

Demanding more from Israel without demanding flexibility from Palestinian may not be equivalent to Chamberlain's deal with Hitler, but it is appeasement.

With all of this, it is too early to give up entirely on The Economist. Another article from the same date gives high marks and a positive projection to Israel's economy. 'Beyond the start-up nation': http://www.economist.com/node/17796932

Yet another provides a decent review of American blunders, frustrations, and limitations in the Middle East. 'Great sacrifices, small rewards' Has America’s obsession with this region been worth it? http://www.economist.com/node/17797714. This item does bash Israel and ignores the need to press Palestinians, but it is impressive in touching the wide range of elements affecting the region, and those who worry about it.
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Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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http://www.economist.com/node/17800151

The United States, Israel and the Arabs
Please, not again
Without boldness from Barack Obama there is a real risk of war in the Middle East

Dec 29th 2010 |

NO WAR, no peace, is the usual state of affairs between Israel and its neighbours in the Middle East. But every time an attempt at Arab-Israeli peacemaking fails, as Barack Obama’s did shortly before Christmas, the peace becomes a little more fragile and the danger of war increases. Sadly, there is reason to believe that unless remedial action is taken, 2011 might see the most destructive such war for many years.

One much-discussed way in which war might arise stems from the apparent desire of Iran to acquire nuclear weapons at any cost, and Israel’s apparent desire to stop Iran at any cost. But fear of Iran’s nuclear programme is only one of the fuses that could detonate an explosion at any moment. Another is the frantic arms race that has been under way since the inconclusive war in 2006 between Israel and Hizbullah, Iran’s ally in Lebanon. Both sides have been intensively preparing for what each says will be a “decisive” second round.

Such a war would bear little resemblance to the previous clashes between Israel and its neighbours. For all their many horrors, the Lebanon war of 2006 and the Gaza war of 2009 were limited affairs. On the Israeli side, in particular, civilian casualties were light. Since 2006, however, Iran and Syria have provided Hizbullah with an arsenal of perhaps 50,000 missiles and rockets, many with ranges and payloads well beyond what Hizbullah had last time. This marks an extraordinary change in the balance of power. For the first time a radical non-state actor has the power to kill thousands of civilians in Israel’s cities more or less at the press of a button.

In that event, says Israel, it will strike back with double force. A war of this sort could easily draw in Syria, and perhaps Iran. For the moment, deterrence keeps the peace. But a peace maintained by deterrence alone is a frail thing. The shipment to Hizbullah of a balance-tipping new weapon, a skirmish on the Lebanese or increasingly volatile Gaza border—any number of miscalculations could ignite a conflagration.

From peace process to war process

All of this should give new urgency to Arab-Israeli peacemaking. To start with, at least, peace will be incomplete: Iran, Hizbullah and sometimes Hamas say that they will never accept a Jewish state in the Middle East. But it is the unending Israeli occupation that gives these rejectionists their oxygen. Give the Palestinians a state on the West Bank and it will become very much harder for the rejectionists to justify going to war.

Easy enough to say. The question is whether peacemaking can succeed. After striving for almost two years to shepherd Israeli and Palestinian leaders into direct talks, only for this effort to collapse over the issue of settlements, Mr Obama is in danger of concluding like many presidents before him that Arab-Israeli diplomacy is a Sisyphean distraction. But giving up would be a tragic mistake, as bad for America and Israel as for the Palestinians. The instant the peace process ends, the war process begins, and wars in this energy-rich corner of the world usually suck in America, one way or another. Israel will suffer too if Mr Obama fails, because the Palestinians have shown time and again that they will not fall silent while their rights are denied. The longer Israel keeps them stateless under military occupation, the lonelier it becomes—and the more it undermines its own identity as a liberal democracy.

Don’t mediate. Legislate

Instead of giving up, Mr Obama needs to change his angle of attack. America has clung too long to the dogma that direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians are the way forward. James Baker, a former secretary of state, once said that America could not want peace more than the local parties did. This is no longer true. The recent history proves that the extremists on each side are too strong for timid local leaders to make the necessary compromises alone. It is time for the world to agree on a settlement and impose it on the feuding parties.

The outlines of such an agreement have been clear since Bill Clinton set out his “parameters” after the failure of the Camp David summit a decade ago. The border between Israel and a new Palestine would follow the pre-1967 line, with adjustments to accommodate some of the bigger border-hugging Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and land-swaps to compensate the Palestinians for those adjustments. But there is also much difficult detail to be filled in: how to make Jerusalem into a shared capital, settle the fate of the refugees and ensure that the West Bank will not become, as Gaza did, an advance base for war against Israel after Israeli forces withdraw.

Mr Clinton unveiled his blueprint at the end of a negotiation that had failed. Mr Obama should set out his own map and make this a new starting point. He should gather international support for it, either through the United Nations or by means of an international conference of the kind the first President Bush held in Madrid in 1991. But instead of leaving the parties to talk on their own after the conference ends, as Mr Bush did after Madrid, America must ride herd, providing reassurance and exerting pressure on both sides as required.

The pressure part of this equation is crucial. In his first round of peacemaking, Mr Obama picked a fight with Israel over settlements and then backed down, thereby making America look weak in a region where too many people already believe that its power is waning (see article). This is a misperception the president needs to correct. For all its economic worries at home and military woes in Iraq and Afghanistan, America is far from weak in the Levant, where both Israel and the nascent Palestine in the West Bank continue to depend on it in countless vital ways.

The Palestinians have flirted lately with the idea of bypassing America and taking their cause directly to the UN. Going to the UN is well and good. But the fact remains that without the sort of tough love that America alone can bestow, Israel will probably never be able to overcome its settler movement and make the deal that could win it acceptance in the Arab world. Mr Obama has shown in battles as different as health reform and the New START nuclear treaty with Russia that he has the quality of persistence. He should persist in Palestine, too.