Jordanian lawmakers' vote shows why Israel's defensible borders still matter - by Evelyn Gordon

Visceral hatred of Israel is common even in countries with which it has peace treaties. Not only does this hinder peacemaking, but it creates a real risk that treaties won’t survive an autocrat’s fall.

Evelyn Gordon..
JNS.org..
22 January '20..

If you want to understand the true obstacle to Mideast peace, look no further than the Jordanian parliament’s unanimous approval last week of a bill to ban natural-gas imports from Israel, just days after the gas began arriving.

Energy-poor Jordan needs a stable, affordable fuel supply, which the Israeli deal provides. When it was signed in 2016, the Jordanian government said it could save the country $500 million a year—almost 4 percent of Jordan’s 2019 budget and more than half its projected deficit for that year (the actual deficit was apparently higher). In short, the deal would let the kingdom redirect significant amounts of money to some of its other crying needs.

But that doesn’t interest Jordanian lawmakers. What they care about is that this is “the gas of the enemy,” to quote protesters against the deal.

They also don’t care that Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty 25 years ago. As last week’s vote made clear, every single Jordanian lawmaker still views Israel as an enemy with whom trade is anathema, even if Jordan itself would benefit greatly. That stance is wildly popular: Almost all Jordanians have an unfavorable view of Jews and similar views of the Jewish state.

Israel’s egregious efforts to accommodate Jordan’s anti-Israel sensibilities didn’t help, either. The gas comes from a field developed by an Israeli company, Delek, in partnership with an American one, Noble Energy. But to enable the deal to move forward, the partnership acceded to the Jordanian power company’s demand that no Israeli entity be party to the contract. Officially, therefore, the contract isn’t with Israel, but with Noble’s American marketing subsidiary.

The deal will most likely go ahead despite parliament’s objections because though King Abdullah is happy to let his lawmakers spout anti-Israel rhetoric, he rarely lets them interfere with anything that he considers an important Jordanian interest. And for now, despite the country’s growing unrest, Abdullah’s grip still seems firm.

But regardless of what happens to the gas deal, the vote shines a spotlight on two errors that have consistently undermined Western peacemaking efforts.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Sherman - Two states, ‘secure borders’ and the tooth fairy

Martin Sherman..
Opinion Columnist/JPost..
06 April '12..

If a Palestinian state is established, it will be armed to the teeth. Within it there will be bases of the most extreme terrorist forces, who will be equipped with anti-tank and anti-aircraft shoulder-launched rockets, which will endanger not only random passers-by, but also every airplane and helicopter taking off in the skies of Israel and every vehicle traveling along the major traffic routes in the coastal plain. Even if the Palestinians agree that their state have no army or weapons, who can guarantee that a Palestinian army would not be mustered later to encamp at the gates of Jerusalem and the approaches to the [coastal] lowlands.
– Shimon Peres

My column last week was largely a historical account of the monumental failure of the endeavor to implement a two-state approach following the 1993 Oslo Agreements. This column will focus more on some of the conceptual defects and inconsistencies that made past failure – and will make future failure –inevitable.

Two kinds of ‘two-staters’

In principle there are two categories of “two-staters:” (a) Those who insist that in their version of a two-state solution, “secure/defensible” borders for Israel are an indispensable imperative; and (b) Those for whom “secure/defensible” borders appear to be consideration of minor–if any–significance in their vision of the two-state arrangement.

Arguably one of the most eminent spokesmen for the first category is Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz; while the second category includes figures such as Peter Beinart, and groups such as J-Street and the Geneva initiative, endorsing the Obama-prescription that the frontiers of the Palestinian state be based on the indefensible 1967-lines with “agreed” (read “minor/cosmetic”) land swaps.

To assess the ramifications of these two schools of thought (or rather “wishful thinking”), it is necessary to comprehend clearly the geo-political significance of the territory ear-marked by them for the putative Palestinian state east of the 1967 frontier.

This is crucial for a responsible risk-assessment on the part of anyone professing pro- Israel credentials. For one would hope that– whatever their political proclivities – they would be mindful not only of the cost of error, but also of the probability of success, of any proposed policy option–particularly in the light of the failed optimism of the past.

JINSA - Defensible Borders Trump Negotiated Settlements

Shoshana Bryen
Senior Director for Security Policy
JINSA Report #: 1,117
August 22, 2011

http://www.jinsa.org/node/2454

Events in Israel over the past week have a "back to the future" vibe. Terrorism from over the Egyptian border, renewed rocket attacks from Gaza, threats of violence from the Palestinian Authority and Hezbollah, continuing violence in Syria and shock waves in Jordan all are reminders that ultimate responsibility for the security of the citizens of Israel has to be in the hands of the Israeli government, and that defensible borders trump negotiated settlements.

Chaos around Israel - including along the long-quiescent Israel-Egypt border - and death and destruction inside, mean that Israel has returned to the days that nothing can be taken for granted, including Arab partners and American support.

Security in the Sinai, even before the overthrow of the Mubarak government, had been deteriorating in the face of Iranian and al Qaeda-supplied weapons. Bedouin tribes were smuggling weapons to Gaza (and Lebanon) and illegal immigrants to Israel. Their loyalty was never to Cairo, it has always been to money and tribe. That is coupled now with a government in Egypt that has to pander to the lowest common denominator of street sentiment for the legitimacy that otherwise eludes it. Egypt's demand for an Israeli apology for ending a terrorist rampage by people in Egyptian military uniforms is a sign of just how tentative the ruling junta is. The fact that the U.S. government seconded the demand is a sign of just how unmoored the American government is.

Gaza, in an odd lapse of Hamas attention or control, has seen the rise of Islamic groups not commanded by it. Although Israel is within its rights to consider Hamas responsible for the now-deadly rockets fired from territory within its domain, the fact is that Gaza is increasingly less controlled and, if possible, more radical. The ability of Israel to demand accountability decreases and the requirement for retaliation to restore deterrence increases accordingly. The willingness of the United States to continue aid to Gaza under the circumstances - or without appreciating the circumstances - is another sign of the American disconnect with political/military facts on the ground.

Encouraged, perhaps, by President Obama's formulation of an independent Palestine with a border contiguous with Jordan - upsetting Jordan as much as Israel - Abu Mazen has not only been engaging in international diplomacy but also stirring up the West Bank population with visions of a third intifada. The second intifada caused anguish for both sides, but caused economic, social and political dislocation for the Palestinians far beyond any benefit achieved by sympathy from uninvolved Third World countries. The distinct lack of enthusiasm in the populace for violence and protest is the only evident sign of political maturity in the Arab arena. Let's hope it holds.

Israel has lived every day of the Third Jewish Commonwealth under the threat of those who wish and work to destroy it. The technological brilliance (but limited coverage) of Iron Dome, the seemingly endless capacity of the IDF to learn the lessons of the last conflict and the extraordinary determination of the civilian population to create and maintain a liberal democracy under extreme duress (this summer's popular, peaceful, broad-based and thoughtful protest movement under the not-completely-unsympathetic eye of the government puts the Arab Spring to shame) reminds us that Israel is not only part of the democratic West but that it is the first line of attack by those for whom consensual government, liberalism and freedom are not on the agenda.

Under the circumstances, defensible borders - not negotiated settlements with despotic and perhaps temporary Arab governments - loom large as the best guarantee of Israel's security in a convulsive and difficult region.

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Tobin -The Land Swap Myth and Defensible Borders

Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary/Contentions
20 June '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/06/20/land-swap-myth-and-defensible-borders/

At the Weekly Standard, Dore Gold does an excellent job exploring the origins of the concept of “land swaps” as the solution to the question of the borders between Israel and a theoretical Palestinian state.

The first mention came from Israeli academics working on back-channel negotiations with the Palestinians that were disavowed by both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. It was resurrected by the Clinton administration in the Camp David talks but never fully embraced until Ehud Olmert proposed it to Mahmoud Abbas as part of his offer for a Palestinian state that would encompass almost all of the West Bank and part of Jerusalem. The Palestinians turned that down, but somehow the Obama administration has become convinced this idea is still the magic formula to bring about peace. But just because it was discussed before doesn’t mean (as Obama suggested during his speech to AIPAC) it is legally binding on the present Israeli government.

As Gold points out, there are two big problems associated with this idea.

First, it isn’t clear there is enough empty Israeli territory along the border with the West Bank that can be safely exchanged for the parts of Jerusalem and the West Bank with large Jewish populations. And even if there were, the Palestinians don’t seem interested in those lands. They want parts of the country of “equal value,” whatever that might mean.

Just as dangerous is that the American idea of land swaps doesn’t accommodate the concept of defensible borders even Obama said Israel needs. That would necessitate Israel hold onto parts of the Jordan Valley and other strategic points in the West Bank. There isn’t enough vacant Israeli land to swap for those points on the map as well as the settlement blocs. And even if there were, the Palestinians aren’t likely to trade the Jordan Valley.

Some dismiss the concept of defensible borders by pointing out Israel survived very nicely from 1949 to 1967. In fact, that was a time of great instability and constant cross border terror attacks against Israel. But more important, the only way Israel survived during that period was by adopting an offensive military strategy in which it was constantly launching pre-emptive attacks against terror bases in Egyptian-ruled Gaza and the Jordanian-ruled West Bank. The Six-Day War itself is the best example of that strategy. Had Israel sat back and waited for the Arab armies massing on its borders to attack in 1967 (as it would six years later at the start of the Yom Kippur War when it had some strategic depth), it might not have survived. Would the world accept a similar stance on Israel’s part if that meant crossing into the newly sovereign Palestinian state? I don’t think so.

Those who throw around the term “land swaps” as if it is a long accepted, quick and easy answer to the borders question are ignoring both history and the strategic realities of the Middle East. Far from a magic formula, it is yet another diplomatic trap Israel must avoid.

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Amidror: Israel's Requirement for Defensible Borders

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror
2005

(While written almost 6 years ago, the current head of Israel's NSC is extremely clear about the issues at hand then, and still relevant now. Y.)

UN Resolution 242: No Restoration of the 1949 Armistice Line

Israel's struggle for "defensible borders" is unique in international diplomacy. It emanates from both the special legal and strategic circumstances that Israel faced in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, when the Israel Defense Forces captured the West Bank and other territories in a war of self-defense. The previous armistice line of 1949 that separated the Israeli and Jordanian armies was only a military boundary and not a permanent political border, according to the armistice agreement itself. The Jordanian occupation of the West Bank occurred in conjunction with its illegal invasion of the State of Israel in 1948. In fact, Jordanian sovereignty in the West Bank was not recognized by a single Arab state. This provided the background for UN Security Council Resolution 242 of November 1967 which concluded that Israel would need "secure and recognized boundaries" that would necessarily be different from the 1967 lines. The previous status quo was not to be restored. In diplomatic shorthand, President George W. Bush stated on April 14, 2004, that Israel had a right to "defensible borders," in order to convey the same point.

Israel is an embattled democracy that historically has had to defend itself repeatedly against the armies of neighboring Arab states whose declared goal was Israel's eradication. While other nations, like France or Kuwait, have been overrun, occupied, and have survived to reconstitute themselves, Israel cannot depend on obtaining a second chance.

There continues to be a compelling strategic logic underpinning the idea of defensible borders. Israel is in an anomalous situation. It is an embattled democracy that historically has had to defend itself repeatedly against the armies of neighboring Arab states whose declared goal was nothing less than Israel's eradication. The Israel Defense Forces could not afford to miscalculate. While other nations, like France or Kuwait, have been overrun, occupied, and nonetheless have survived to reconstitute themselves, Israel, in contrast, cannot depend on obtaining a second chance. Miscalculation on its part could have had devastating consequences and, thus, its situation is unique

(Read full " Israel's Requirement for Defensible Borders")

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Rubin: Why Borders Matter

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
01 June '11

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-borders-matter.html

A reader asks whether there are any defensible borders in the modern world because it is possible to fire missiles or rockets across a border.

Well, yes, but even in ancient times it has always been possible for an army to cross--or try to cross--a border. That isn't what defensible borders means.

Example, rockets can hit Sderot from the Gaza Strip but not hit Tel Aviv because the latter city is too far for Hamas to hit from its side of the border. Can they get bigger ones? Yes but the bigger they are the easier they are to spot and the longer--even seconds count--a defensive missile has for shooting them down.

The further the border, the longer it takes for a terrorist squad to get to where there are a lot of people to kill. It's best to stop them either before they cross the border or while they are on the way.

Geography matters also. It is far easier to attack or shoot downward from the Golan Heights than from the flat plain below. It is far easier to do so also from the Judean Hills. An army holding that terrain has an advantage, even when it comes to firing rockets

It is far easier to cut a narrow corridor like that leading to Jerusalem in the pre-1967 borders and thus surround, beseige, and capture that city than it would be if the border was further away. The same applies to the fact that pre-1967 Israel's narrowest point is half the width of the Washington Beltway, that's twenty minutes' even in driving in traffic. And enemy armies don't stop at red lights.

Depth of defense is a basic strategic consideration. The deeper your territory the more time and space you have to maneuver and to create multiple lines and defenses, each of which the enemy must face and defeat for advancing.

Israel has a small standing army. Its defense depends on mobilizing reserves, civilians, who must get the word, go to their assigned stations, get their equipment, and go into action. That can be done quickly but it still takes time. And it is much harder to do if attacking forces are within range of their homes, assembly points, and armories.

The reader asking about all of this cites the rather bad example of Muammar Qadhafi in Libya who "cannot defend his borders." Leaving aside the fact that there's a civil war going on (his main enemy is inside his borders), of course it is best to have a technological edge and the ability to move quickly. Israel has both of these advantages.

What it lacks, with the 1967 borders, is strategic depth and advantageous terrain.

Yes, There Are Defensible Borders and They Are Required

Yisrael Medad
My Right Word
31 May '11

http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2011/05/yes-there-are-defensible-borders-and.html

This perspective seems to be going around and so I'll deal with it.

Israel's security, it is claimed, is in a peace agreement. Borders are secondary.

Here's from a letter published on the issue as an example:

There are no defensible borders


The claim that "the 1967 borders are indefensible" sounds so correct and is so deeply ensconced in media discourse that no one tries to examine this mantra and confront it with reality...It is therefore appropriate to ask: If the 1967 borders are indefensible, which borders can be defended? Can any physical border today defend a country if a strong enemy is determined to attack it?


...Can defensible borders protect Israel from an Iranian threat? If there were people who hoped that the borders of the Greater Land of Israel, fences or walls would stop terrorist attacks, the first and second intifadas proved that no obstacle can stand in the way of determined terrorists - certainly not in the way of suicide bombers. The suicide bombers who blew themselves up in buses and cafes did not cross borders. They came from territory under Israeli control.


...What was applicable to conflicts and wars between countries 60 or 100 years ago is no longer applicable today.


It is not defensible borders but rather agreements and cooperation with the Palestinian state that will bring us security. This will also bring us the support of world public opinion and a return to the family of civilized nations.


Michal Paneth-Peleg
Mevasseret Zion

A. If borders are redrawn that invite future hostility, no peace agreement will hold. So the first obligation is to assure, for example, that the hill country overlooking Israel's belly from Hadera to Gedera is not threatened by missiles and that Ben Gurion Airport is not open to shoulder-held rockets.

B. If the future proposed Palestinian state is not demilitarized, based on past experience in broken promises and violated agreements, better borders are needed, not only "peace".

C. The suicide bombers of the post-2000 period, even though we suffered a few cases previously, developed because territory was surrendered and the geographical advantage fell to the Pals. after the creation of A & B areas which made it more difficult for the IDF and the GSS to work.

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Obama: Putting Israel in Mortal Danger

Michael Widlanski
frontpagemag.com
26 May '11

http://frontpagemag.com/2011/05/26/obama-putting-israel-in-mortal-danger/

In major recent policy statements, at the AIPAC Conference, the White House and the State Department, President Barack Obama declared:

[*] “Precisely because of our friendship [with Israel], it’s important that we tell the truth;”

[*] “And it is precisely because of our commitment to Israel’s long-term security that we have worked to advance peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”

President Obama, however, has not told the whole truth in his review of the record of previous U.S. presidents. He has also been less than precise concerning his own efforts for peace and downright sloppy in his review of Israel security needs and demographic considerations.

Actually, if Israel were to return to the old frontier lines (which date from 1949, not 1967) as President Barack Obama urges, Israel’s strategic situation would be dramatically worsened in many ways.

Mortal Danger: Arab armies or terrorists would be able to cut Israel in half along its narrow waist, because there would be only eight or nine miles (15 km.) from the Arab state Obama envisions and the Mediterranean Sea. This is about the same distance as from Wall Street to Columbia University in New York City. An Arab armored column could knife across Israel’s heartland through the narrow and heavily populated coastal plain at Netanyah. Within minutes, certainly no more than hours, a surprise Arab attack could mortally wound Israel. Even a small and well-executed terror incursion could sever Israel in two very rapidly.

Air Space and Air Alert: Israel’s mountain bases in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, which Obama wants Israel to relinquish, allow Israel early warning time from threats (such as missile launches and air attack) from even as far away as Iran and Iraq. In addition, the heavily industrialized coastal plain gets a few extra minutes warning time from closer threats. Today, a jet fighter can cross from the Jordan River to Tel Aviv, Haifa or Netanya in under three minutes. That is not a lot of time, but it is better than having less than a minute.

Palestinian leaders refuse even to discuss Israel maintaining sovereign air rights over any Palestinian territory or Israel holding bases inside such territory. Indeed, the history of Israeli bases in the Gaza Strip, which were constantly attacked, is proof of how difficult it would be to maintain bases without significant Israeli territory linking them to Israel. This, too, is ruled out by PLO leaders, and no amount of “land swaps” can possibly correct the problem.

Maybe the Right Term is “Land for Defensible Borders”

Rick Richman
Commentary/Contentions
11 April '11

(Excellent! While there are some specific points that I must disagree with, there is just too much here to give pause, to pass this by. YH)

Today’s Wall Street Journal publishes a letter from Richard Calkins under the heading “Maybe the Right Middle East Term Is ‘Peace For Land.’ ” Calkins argues that the order of the peace process should be reversed:

“Peace for land” calls for the Palestinians to accept responsibility to demonstrate a commitment to peace with Israel in return for statehood and land. . . . Unless Palestinians demonstrate an irreversible commitment to peace, they don’t have standing to expect statehood and an irreversible grant of land. Even this won’t work unless the international community accepts a legal obligation, via treaty, to enforce the agreement.

But maybe the right term is “Land for Defensible Borders,” since—as an anonymous soldier once said—“there is no such thing as peace.” There is certainly no such thing as an “irreversible commitment” to it. The Oslo accords were sold as such a commitment, but ended instead with a terror war initiated by the Palestinian who coined the phrase “peace of the brave.”

Nor is there such a thing as an “international community” obligated to enforce an agreement. After Israel withdrew completely from Lebanon, the “international community” adopted a “binding” UN resolution prohibiting rearmament in southern Lebanon, put boots on the ground to “enforce” it—and then didn’t.

UN Resolution 242, the founding document of the peace process, did not refer to “land for peace” but to withdrawal from an unspecified amount of territories for “secure” borders. In exchange for withdrawals from Hebron and Gaza, the Clinton and Bush administrations provided Israel with formal commitments of support for “defensible borders.” Those who accept indefensible borders in exchange for “irreversible commitments” of “peace,” to be “guaranteed” by the “international community,” are likely to be trading land for war.

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The Problem with the Obama Letter

Rick Richman
Contentions/Commentary
04 October '10

Paul Mirengoff concurs with Evelyn Gordon’s suggestion that Barack Obama’s proposed letter, promising significant “goodies” for Israel if it extends its settlement moratorium, is unreliable — given Obama’s failure to abide by promises made by the U.S. in his predecessor’s letter. My own view is that the problem with the proposed letter is not simply its credibility but also its substance.

The Obama administration has refused 22 times to state whether it considers itself bound by the Bush letter, which conceded that it “seems clear” that Palestinian refugees must be resettled in a Palestinian state rather than in Israel and that it is “unrealistic” to expect a complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, given the major Israeli population centers there. Those factual statements remain true notwithstanding Obama’s refusal to acknowledge them. But the critical part of the Bush letter was the promise that the U.S. would stand by its “steadfast commitment” to “defensible borders” (a term with a long diplomatic history and military meaning) — a commitment made not only by Bush, but by the Clinton administration in its own letter to Israel’s then-prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

(Read full post)

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The Return of “Defensible Borders”?

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
28 January '10

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told foreign journalists last week that under any peace agreement, Israel would insist on maintaining a presence along the Palestinian-Jordanian border to thwart arms smuggling, he provoked some predictably negative responses. Writing in the Jerusalem Post this week, for instance, Ben-Gurion University Professor David Newman termed this “a return to a way of thinking … thought to have disappeared over a decade ago.” Claiming that “most generals” no longer consider this necessary, he accused Netanyahu of simply trying “to hammer the nails even more strongly into the coffin of peace.”

In fact, Newman is almost entirely wrong but through no fault of his own — because the one thing he’s right about is that Netanyahu’s statement “reinserted the defensible border concept into public discourse,” whence it had virtually disappeared. And since Israeli premiers stopped talking about it more than a decade ago, how was anyone to know that every prime minister, and the defense establishment, continued to insist on defensible borders in practice?

(Read full post)
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The troubling single dimensional approach of PM Netanyahu’s Bar Ilan address

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA Weekly Commentary
14 January '10

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his team frequently cite his 14 June 2009 speech at the Begin-Sadat Center at Bar-Ilan University as his definitive policy statement.

So, in search of a better understanding of what Mr. Netanyahu ‘s goals are, I went back to review at the text he invested so much effort to prepare.

So here’s what he says about Judea and Samaria:

“Judea and Samaria – the places where Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, David and Solomon, and Isaiah and Jeremiah lived – are not alien to us. This is the land of our forefathers.”

And so?

Will this connection have any weight in policy making?

Will policy reflect, for example, our tremendous national connection to the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron?

Consider this critical passage from Prime Minister Netanyahu’s presentation:

“I have come tonight to give expression to that unity, and to the principles of peace and security on which there is broad agreement within Israeli society. These are the principles that guide our policy, a policy that must take into account the international situation that has recently developed. We must recognize this reality and at the same time stand firmly on those principles essential for Israel.”

Get it?

(Read full post)
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Another Year, Another Peace Process

Rick Richman
Contentions/Commentary
31 December 09

Carl in Jerusalem has a perceptive analysis of Secretary Clinton’s statement on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, addressing some of the concerns in my post about the omitted phrase “defensible borders” — a diplomatic term of art that has been dropped without explanation from the lexicon of the Obama administration.

Carl notes another significant omission, this time on the Palestinian side: Clinton referred to the goal of an “independent and viable” Palestinian state but omitted a word that has been insisted upon by the Palestinians:

There’s a key word missing here: contiguous. I have argued many times on this blog that if a ‘Palestinian’ state is contiguous, then by definition the Jewish state would be neither contiguous nor secure. Thus Clinton’s omission of the word contiguous from her formulation, if tracked in the [potential] letter to the “Palestinians,” is significant.

There may be a connection here. If a “contiguous” Palestinian state is not consistent with an Israeli one with “defensible” borders — and vice versa — Clinton may have simply ducked the issue by leaving both words out of her statement.

As the year ends, it is time for a broader look at the peace process, which has to date produced three Israeli withdrawals (from Lebanon, Gaza, and part of the West Bank); three Israeli offers of a Palestinian state (at Camp David, in the Clinton Parameters, and during the Annapolis Process); three Palestinian rejections; and three wars – one from each area of the withdrawal. The enterprise is apparently too big to fail, even though it repeatedly does.

(Read full post)

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What Happened to “Defensible Borders”?

Rick Richman
Contentions/Commentary
29 December 09

The Jerusalem Post reports that George Mitchell will return to the Middle East in early January and quotes an Arab diplomat saying that Mitchell will present “two draft letters of guarantee, one for Israel and one to the Palestinian Authority” as a basis for renewing negotiations. The Post reports that a senior Israeli diplomatic source said “the terms of reference Mitchell is reportedly bringing would probably closely resemble [Hillary Clinton’s] statement” last month, which read as follows:

We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognized borders that reflect subsequent developments and meet Israeli security requirements.

Letters of assurance have previously played an important part in the peace process. In 1997, Secretary of State Christopher wrote to Israel to assure it that the U.S. supported “defensible borders” for Israel as the conclusion of the peace process. In 2004, President Bush reassured Israel of the “steadfast commitment” of the U.S. to defensible borders. In his “Let Me Be Clear” address to AIPAC in 2008, Barack Obama stated that “any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders,” reflecting the longstanding U.S. commitment.

(Read full post)

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Clinton's Global Initiative

27 September 2006 (I think it's a family issue)

Al-Jazeerah Reports

"New York, 22 September 2006: The International Crisis Group today launched a new global advocacy initiative designed to generate new political momentum for a comprehensive settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Major funding support for the initiative, to cost around $400,000 in its first year, was announced at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York."

The basic goal of the initiative is to empower the Arab States and a broad alliance of anti-Israeli leaders to campaign internationally to force a "solution" on Israel.
As the official report puts it:

"An international publicity campaign mobilising respected former presidents, prime ministers, foreign and defence ministers, congressional leaders and heads of international organisations around a statement of support for a comprehensive settlement, and a new process to achieve it, involving a possible international conference to kickstart negotiations, and the leadership role of the Quartet (U.S., EU, Russia, UN) being reinforced by greater participation from the Arab League and regional countries."

Read the whole thing here.