Stiff Upper Lip

Annapolis turned out worse than we would like, but a lot better than we feared.

Annapolis will prove useless in settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and damaging to the State of Israel, but the
The mood of alarmism in which Annapolis was anticipated, and in which it has been received, among some of us is overdone and damaging
mood of alarmism in which it was anticipated, and in which it has been received, among some of us is overdone, and damaging in itself.  While Annapolis will have immediate negative consequences which should be combated to the best of our ability, it would be a big mistake to focus our efforts exclusively, or even primarily, on fighting the direct consequences of Annapolis.  The most important fact about Annapolis is that the Israeli public views it more or less as do readers of this site:  pointless at best, and likely harmful.  The second important fact about it is that sooner or later it will disappear down the memory hole of history, like the Wye Plantation accords and the Oslo accords themselves.

The great thing to fear from Annapolis was that Ehud Olmert would lock Israel into some kind of diplomatic commitment regarding substance—Jerusalem, borders, settlements, etc.—which might bind future Israeli governments.  This did not happen.  Olmert made clear he loves the idea of a Palestinian state.  He yearns for a Palestinian state.  He sets a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital above his highest joy.  But he did not commit the State of Israel to doing anything about it, except to talk.  He did commit Israel to negotiate an agreement about everything within a year.  Those negotiations will lead to nothing, just as the negotiations of the past six months have led to nothing.  Thankfully, when the negotiations become nothing and the Olmert government, in the fullness of time, becomes nothing, it will leave the next Israeli government with a diplomatic clean slate.

Olmert's big concession at Annapolis was to hand over to the United States the responsibility for judging how both Israel and the Palestinians are doing in fulfilling their commitments under stage one of the "road map."  Under stage one, the Palestinian authority is supposed to suppress "terror."  Since "terror," in the form of Hamas and its patron Iran, is much more likely to suppress the Palestinian Authority, we can safely bet that the first stage of the road map will never be completed.  That is the uniform opinion of Israel's military establishment, up to and including Ehud Barak.  But the United States, concerned to show "progress," will probably make Israel press ahead with its own commitments, which hitherto Israel has refused to implement unilaterally:  Expelling Jews from "outposts" in Judea and Samaria and reducing its security presence in those areas.  The Jews in Judaea and Samaria, and perhaps in Israel itself, are about to take damage.  The damage will be pointless, because there is no way it can lead to an agreement, far less its implementation, but that's the way it is with Olmert in charge.  Lives will be wrecked—perhaps mine, perhaps my neighbor's—but the Jewish People will be able to repair the damage and go on.
The people now see the big picture our way. They just don't know what to do about it.

How can I write such a hard and heartless thing?  I don't mean to be heartless, but we can use some stiff upper lip around here.  Since the Lebanon War last year, the tide in Israel has turned.  The people now see the big picture our way.  They just don't know what to do about it.  Everything we do and say ought to be directed at leading public opinion in Israel.  What we need to do is not just fight Olmert's commitments under Annapolis but get the public to see them our way:

1. Olmert's commitments will cause needless damage to Israel's interests, to the cohesion of its badly riven society, and to individual Israelis, and it will all be pointless.
2. Anyone who stays in the Olmert government and lets this happen, especially Shas and Avigdor Lieberman, is helping Olmert inflict pointless damage on his own people and should be punished at the polls.
3. The two-state solution is dead.  Hopelessly unattainable.  Israelis ought to become impatient to get on with some alternative solution to Palestinian society's unappeasable hatred of us, such as compensated Palestinian emigration to other lands.
   Olmert's commitments will cause needless damage to Israel's interests, and it will all be pointless. Anyone who stays in the Olmert government and lets this happen, especially Shas and Avigdor Lieberman, is helping Olmert inflict pointless damage on his own people and should be punished at the polls.
   

In all this a lot depends on our ability, not to scream "gevald" and wring our hands, or to allow Olmert to create the impression that this is an issue solely between him and "the settlers," but to stay focused on the objective:  Israeli public opinion.  Yesterday my colleague, Prof. Moshe Koppel, reported to me with displeasure that he heard an interview with residents of Judaea and Samaria, in which the latter promised "to defeat"  Olmert's plans.  Why displeasure?  Because this allows the press to portray the issue as one that does not concern the residents of Raanana, Kfar Saba and West Jerusalem, when actually they stand to suffer the fate of Sderot if Olmert succeeds in realizing any part of his plans.  What should the interviewees have said?  "We warn residents of Raanana that if Olmert succeeds in his plans for us kassams will rain down on their houses, just as Ariel Sharon's plans led to kassams on Sderot."   Most Israelis who hear that will now agree.

After Annapolis

 Annapolis will prove that Oslo is dead.  The question for Israel is, "what next?"

In Israel, the Hebrew press is already into post-mortems about the amazing disappearing summit in Annapolis.  This was supposed to be the summit where Israel and the Palestinians agreed to divide Jerusalem and set up a Palestinian state.  Public opinion and (since the Lebanon war) its spokesman, Israel's right-wing opposition, put the heat on Shas and Avigdor Lieberman, and they put the heat on Olmert.  Olmert had to retreat and agree to turn the summit into fluff:  A solemn announcement of the two sides' determination to achieve, within a year, an agreement which neither is prepared to agree to now.  Meanwhile, it became clear that the Palestinians never had any intention of agreeing to anything but their most maximal demands.  Now, as the invitations are printed, it seems like there won't even be a joint statement, just a photo opportunity and eminently forgettable speeches.

At Annapolis, Olmert will go two steps further than Ariel Sharon did.  He will announce Israel's willingness to divide Jerusalem, and to negotiate a settlement before terror ends.  However, both statements will share the fate of Sharon's commitment to establish a Palestinian state:  They will fall stillborn from Olmert's lips, because the conditions that could make a Palestinian state, the division of Jerusalem, or the signing of a settlement at all possible will never be met.  As commitments they will be damaging enough, but one cannot foresee Israel actually implementing them.

It's time to leave off feverish speculation about Annapolis and consider, coolly and calmly, where we will be after Annapolis.  First we have to understand what happened.  Then we have to see what choices Israel faces.

Ehud Olmert is the most radical left-wing Prime Minister Israel has ever had, with the exception of Shimon Peres' brief stint in office in 1996.  He is willing to divide Jerusalem and multiply tenfold the human and political disaster created by the disengagement from Gaza and Northern Samaria.  In the absence of anything better, he is willing to take a powerless puppet like Abu Mazen and crown him "partner."  He is not going to succeed in doing any of this.  The reasons why are important.

What Olmert is trying to do at Annapolis, and what he will fail at, is to revive a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians as a live option.  Other than a few cronies in his government and the Israeli press, almost no Palestinians or Jews believe in this scenario.  Among the Palestinians, the only viable political force is Hamas and its allies, which want to destroy Israel and its Jews root and branch, not achieve a settlement with them.  Fatah and the Abu Mazen/Salam Fayyad cabal are moribund, and their incapacity to carry out any kind of agreement is common knowledge.  Among Israel's Jews, the Second Lebanon War and the subsequent takeover of Gaza by Hamas finally brought about the inevitable:  Deep awareness of how badly Israel has been hurt by Oslo, disengagement, and the flight from Lebanon, and deep skepticism about the possibility of a negotiated peace.  Don't get me wrong:  Most Jewish Israelis want peace, and would be willing to give up a lot in exchange for it.  It's just that they no longer believe in it, and have consigned the whole idea to the realm of political Messianism.  It's clear to everyone that any concessions in Judaea, Samaria and Jerusalem are going to wind up being a gift to Hamas and Iran.

These claims about the attitudes of Israel's Jews are based on in depth polls we conducted at the Israel Policy Center on the morrow of the Lebanon War and again toward the end of October 2007.  The Center's website is suspended pending elective surgery, so readers are invited to see a translation of the 2007 poll here, on Dr Aaron Lerner's website "IMRA."  The poll shows clearly that the Jewish public believes that Abu Mazen is a hollow shell, that Hamas will move into any vacuum the IDF leaves, and that those who oppose further disengagements outnumber those who want one by better than 3 to 1.

The Annapolis Conference will commit Israel, on the declaratory level, to a policy that cannot be carried out.  The situation will exhibit some odd characteristics.  Building in Judaea and Samaria will be frozen, because that is regarded as necessary for peace negotiations, but no meaningful negotiations will be going on.  Israel and the Palestinians in Judaea and Samaria will be locked in a conflict little less bitter than the hot war expected to break out in Gaza after Annapolis, and yet Israel will be incapable of doing anything about it because it will remain committed to a policy that it hasn't a prayer of implementing.  Israel will be deadlocked by its commitment to implementing a political daydream.   

Such commitments don't last.  Israel is going to need a whole new policy, a whole new direction, a whole new way of thinking about and resolving its conflict with malignant Palestinian hostility, one that does not involve making a settlement, evacuating territory, or setting up a Palestinian state, because that is clearly impossible.  The public is not going to allow its politicians just to sit on the problem forever without doing anything about it.  There's going to have to be a new approach, and whoever comes up with one that sounds reasonable is going to sweep the next elections.

From this perspective the most interesting element of our poll is a question we asked the public in 2006 and again in November 2007:  "Do you approve of Israel offering Palestinians in Judaea and Samaria reasonable compensation in return for emigrating to other lands?"  In 2006 a plurality of Israel's Jewish population, 48%, answered "yes" to this question.  In 2007 the majority has risen to 54%.

Heresy

For Israel's peace camp, the people responsible for the forthcoming failure of the Annapolis conference are those who warn of it

The fog surrounding the upcoming Annapolis Conference is starting to clear a little.  Ehud Olmert will go to Annapolis and take care to mention Palestinian rights to a state, including rights in Jerusalem.  He will not say what Israel plans to do about those alleged rights.  His coalition partners, Avigdor Lieberman of Yis
For the Israeli Left, the "people to blame" are not those who cause the conference to fail, but those who warn that it will.
rael Beitenu and Eli Yishai of Shas, will proclaim themselves satisfied.  If Abu Mazen makes trouble, Olmert will ask him before the international press, "are you prepared to say right now that you acknowledge that Israel is a Jewish state?"  If Abu Mazen says "no," as he must, the conference will collapse and the onus will be on Abu Mazen—for 24 hours, at any rate.  The "Jewish state" question is Olmert's ace in the hole.  It means that he won't have to shoulder all the blame when the conference becomes a bust.

What Olmert will say about a Palestinian state and Jerusalem is bad enough, and we will hear about it henceforth in every international conference and from every foreign ambassador.  But nothing will really happen in Annapolis, nor result from it.  Both the wild hopes raised in some quarters by the conference and the dire predictions of the consequences of failure will prove empty.  The Palestinians will not "lose hope," because no rational human being ever vested much hope in Annapolis.  They will not take a new turn to violence, because every element in Palestinian society capable of harming Israel and Israelis is already doing everything within its power right now to encompass the downfall of the Jewish state. 

What will happen is that there will be a lot of disappointed people on the Left of the Israeli political spectrum. They will start looking around for someone to blame, and in doing so reveal an interesting psychological phenomenon:

For the Israeli Left, the "people to blame" are not those who cause the conference to fail, but those who warn that it will.

The reason for failure is the complete unwillingness of Palestinian society to come to terms with a Jewish state.  From this position flows Hamas' commitment to neverending Jihad against Israel until all its Jews are dead, fled or converted to Islam.  From this stems the fact that Abu Mazen—who would gleefully join Hamas' Jihad if he weren't totally dependent for his life on Israeli protection—refuses to acknowledge that such a thing as a Jewish state can actually exist.  As a result, any steps Israel takes toward ending its military rule of the Palestinians will lead to Judaea and Samaria becoming a base of operations meant to destroy Israel.

Mind, these are not necessarily the reasons I would give for not cutting a deal with Abu Mazen.  I believe that Judaea, Samaria and Gaza, to which the IDF will soon return, belong to the Jewish people, and that if any accommodation with the Palestinians is possible it has to start with their acknowledgment of that fact.  But these are the reasons why any rational Israeli leftist ought to concede that we will not see a Palestinian-Israeli agreement, or a Palestinian state, in our time.  Some of these points were made last week in an article by MK Gidon Saar, head of the Likud Knesset faction, in a Hebrew daily.

The reaction of the Israeli Left was explosive.  An editorial in Ha'aretz equated Saar to Haled Masha'al, the head of Hamas who hangs out in Damascus.  Saar was the equivalent of a world-class terrorist, not because he is trying with blood and fire to sabotage the Annapolis conference, but simply because he refuses to believe in it.

A similar point of view is expressed by Uzi Benziman, writing in the same journal this week.  Benz
I have often wanted to ask an Israeli Leftist, "Under what circumstances would you believe an Israeli-Palestinian peace not possible within a reasonable period of time?" I've never had the opportunity. I suspect that anybody with a reasonable answer to that question thereby disqualifies himself from membership in the Israeli Left.
iman notes the repeated assessments of Israel's military establishment that Annapolis will go nowehere.  "The problem," writes Benziman, "is that this opinion, even if entirely accurate, reflects not just intelligence assessments regarding the Palestinian position but the spiritual and ideological state of its holders in the Israeli establishment."  What Benziman is demanding is not a changed assessment of the facts, for which there is no warrant, but for Israeli generals to undergo a spiritual conversion and be born again as unconditional believers in peace.
 
What this means is that when it comes the Israeli Left's views on Israeli-Palestinian relations, we are not dealing with a foreign policy perspective but with an act of faith.  In the real world, opinions on things have to be falsifiable in order to be considered seriously.  If someone asks you, "what would have to happen in order for you to change your mind?" you have to have an answer.  Otherwise your opinion isn't based on reason.  It's just a belief, which nobody but you is required to take seriously.  I have often wanted to ask an Israeli Leftist, "Under what circumstances would you believe an Israeli-Palestinian peace not possible within a reasonable period of time?"  I've never had the opportunity.  I suspect that anybody with a reasonable answer to that question thereby disqualifies himself from membership in the Israeli Left. 

The Israeli Left likes to describe itself as the "rational camp."  There doesn’t seem to be anything rational about it, however, just a blind faith that cannot be challenged by any facts, no matter how persuasive.  In this "spiritual and ideological state," the people to blame are not those who are responsible for making dreams impossible but those who dryly point out the facts.  These people are heretics, and we know the punishment for them.