Will US President Barack Obama succeed in making a fresh effort for Middle East peace? He has dispatched his envoy, Senator George Mitchell, twice to the region to explore the possibilities. The cynics say that the United States will never commit the sustained leadership or have the necessary political will to convince the parties to make the accommodations necessary. Those who hope for Mitchell's success acknowledge their past disappointments with Washington but are encouraged by the strikingly new tone in the White House about the Middle East.
The Israeli and Palestinian leaders both want to persuade Mitchell that they alone are the victim and they alone have the right to expect favoured treatment by the Americans. In response, many Americans shrug and ask such questions as "Aren't the Arabs tired of the Palestinian Cause? Isn't it an insoluble problem? Why not focus on issues with far clearer impacts on the US such as how we exit with honour from Iraq and how to succeed in blocking the Iranian nuclear programme?" There are strong minded American advocates of Israeli positions who urge that Washington "drop this nonsense of an even handed American position on Israeli-Arab issues&"
The fact is that Americans have no choice but to work for a solution. After all these years the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has become the lens through which the Arab World and the broader Muslim World evaluate America's global role. The savagery of Israel's attack on Gaza in January elicited bitter condemnation of American policy throughout the Arab World where Israeli conduct in Gaza is seen as part of Israel's long planned campaign to break the will of the Palestinians and eventually drive them out of the West Bank.
In Israel, Mitchell may have said little but the Israelis would have been listening closely. As one Israeli columnist commented about Washington's change of leadership: "Jews are born to worry."
Judging from Israeli official comments and the wide ranging opinions written by its notably frank columnists, Mitchell found the Israeli mood both triumphant and uneasy.
A growing number of Israelis in the wake of the Gaza war are uneasy, particularly those who fear that it may have irretrievably damaged their goal of a two state solution. They now speak about there being only three roads ahead:
" Ethnic cleansing, the expulsion of all Palestinians from Israel proper (and Israeli colonists assert that "Israel proper" includes the entire West Bank).
" Democracy in a one state solution. This would be unacceptable to almost all Jewish Israelis because it would mark the end of a Jewish state or
" The status quo where Israelis continue to rule over both pre-1967 Israel and the West Bank without granting political rights to the Palestinians. This would be the status quo which no less an authority than Nelson Mandela has described as the Israeli version of apartheid.
Should the Israelis be concerned about their support from the United States? Not today. Nonetheless the US mood does seem to be shifting in the wake of Gaza. Our public was surprised by the 100 to 1 ratio of Palestinian to Israeli deaths with at least 40 per cent of the Palestinian dead being women and children. Time and Newsweek featured articles under titles which just a few years ago would have been too sensitive to use such as "Why Israel Cannot Win".
After the Obama team kept strict silence about Gaza before the inauguration, Americans were struck by the powerful symbolism when the President came to the State Department the following day not just to repeat the words of his predecessors that he would pursue Middle East peace but showed his intent to move aggressively.
A solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs no new basic principles. The number of Israeli colonists has swollen to nearly 300,000 on the West Bank. No Israeli leader has moved to block their expansion with the exception of Yitzak Rabin, and then only for several months in the 90s. Israeli colonists assert "We follow God's will. This is our land."
I do not usually like to play the "what if" game with history but the Obama Administration should review the stance adopted towards the Palestinian problem between 1975-88. Throughout those years Washington rigorously honoured its commitment to Israel not to deal with the Palestine Liberation Organisation until it adopted three positions:
" Accept Israel's right to exist;
" Foreswear violence and
" Accept UN resolutions 242 and 338.
This is almost the same formula, most recently reiterated by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that Hamas is expected to adopt today.
Words are important; solemn binding commitments are important. Moreover, had American diplomacy included sustained contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organisation after the Six-Day War we might have contained both the radicalisation of Palestinian politics and the colonists' imposition of their vision on Israeli politics. Today these two forces have raised high the wall facing any mediator seeking a solution.
For Mitchell to have any success will require the persistent focus and support by Obama, a factor insufficiently evident in most previous administrations. But the Middle Eastern situation is never static.
Weapons in the hands of Israel and of Israel's enemies will all improve. The choices to avoid further upheavals in the Middle East which could damage American interests and ruin the lives of everyone in that area may be fewer. My hope is that the more activist approach by American policymakers will stimulate positive rethinking of positions by the main players in the region.
Richard W. Murphy is former US Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East and South Asia from 1983-89. He recently gave a lecture on the same topic at the Dubai School of Government.
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