The Absence of Drama from Obama's Plan

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

Media outlets are circulating some presumed provisions of a plan being drafted by the administration of American President Obama to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, or to end the Palestinian cause. The plan has not yet been announced, but its draft, it seems, has reached the media, and speculation about it is accelerating. I have reviewed the draft, particularly the one published by Dr. Hassan Khreisheh, a member of the Palestinian National Council, and found not a single surprising provision in it that had not already been put forward in other plans or ideas toward solving the Palestinian cause. And if the final version differs from what has been published — should it be published — that difference will be marginal, not touching the essence.

Before delving into the details of the provisions circulating in the media, let me note that the United States never tires of putting forward initiatives, and there has not been a single American administration since 1967 that has exempted itself from this task, yet not one of its initiatives has reached a happy ending, and the series continues still.

What Is on America’s Mind?

It shows little intelligence for someone to witness all these initiatives across long years without asking about the reasons for their failure. Perhaps the matter does not concern only the rejection of the initiatives by the concerned parties, or one of them, or reservations about some of their provisions — perhaps the matter concerns the United States itself, which may not be serious about finding a solution and ending the conflict. Across its various initiatives, from Rogers to Obama, it is clear the United States goes around in circles, and all it does is reformulate the ideas contained in these initiatives, rearranging the provisions with marginal retouching in each initiative that does not affect the substance.

In every initiative, America does not want a complete withdrawal from the territory occupied in ‘67, and searches for a resettlement of Palestinians, wants the Arabs to act as agents of the occupation by defending Israeli security, and puts forward arrangements designed to keep Israel effectively present in the occupied territory, never allowing a genuine Palestinian state to be established. In every one of its initiatives, America ignores the fixed national rights of the Palestinian people and focuses on the daily life of people in the West Bank and Gaza, including the establishment of a feeble Palestinian entity they call a state.

America sees danger in the Palestinian people remaining a people, and works, with Israel, to turn it into individuals searching for their daily bread. When a people turns into mere individuals, the process of dissolving into various societies becomes possible, the demand to return to seized Palestine evaporates, and resettlement becomes a foregone conclusion. The two states have achieved success on this front, having strangled Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza with their daily bread, having helped a great deal in spreading division and strife among Palestinians, and are encouraging many states, such as Norway and Sweden, to absorb the greatest possible number of Palestinian youth. They are betting on time, and as long as success continues, time is guaranteed to complete it. For this reason, the process of putting forward initiatives serves as a distraction for Arabs and Palestinians, who find in it a means of deceiving people into believing good things are coming.

Obama’s Initiative

After that famous Cairo speech, Arabs and Muslims believed Obama was the savior and redeemer, and many hands reddened from applauding warmly for the days of peace to come. There is no doubt Obama’s language was sharper compared to the language of previous American presidents regarding settlement building. Obama began by rejecting settlement building, then conceded to a settlement freeze, could not hold even to that, and demanded only a temporary freeze, and then collapsed before the Zionist government’s decision to build hundreds of housing units. Obama’s initiative does not deviate from this same Obama, and I summarize it as follows:

First: Obama does not recognize the refugees’ right of return, leaning toward resettlement, except for refugees in Lebanon, whom he sees the possibility of resettling in Area “A” of the West Bank, specifically in the area stretching from north of Nablus to Jenin in the north, to the outskirts of the Tulkarm district in the west, and in the Sinjil area and the Nabaani farms north of Ramallah. He wants to absorb refugees within Arab countries, along with the necessity of compensating them and helping them secure a livelihood.

Second: Jerusalem remains the capital of Israel, even though he will not say so directly, but Palestinians will have only the right to visit and administer the holy sites. From this we gather that Obama supports easing Palestinian movement to their holy sites, and the idea of the bridge extending from the town of Abu Dis to the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Mosque may be put forward again. It is also possible Obama will defend the necessity of establishing Arab neighborhood councils in Jerusalem to help the Jewish Jerusalem municipality with daily affairs.

Third: Obama will not mention the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, and will not give a decisive definition of the “Palestinian state” he speaks of. To begin with, the Palestinian people ought to enjoy the right to self-determination, and should then decide, of its own free will, whether it wants to establish a state, or union with Jordan or Tunisia — but Obama and all the Western states jump straight to the idea of the state, because they want to establish an entity according to their own mood and vision of how things ought to be, an entity that functions as a security agent for Israel.

Fourth: Obama brings nothing new regarding the settlements, aligning with the Labor and Kadima parties’ proposal to preserve the large settlement blocs, such as the Etzion bloc, the Latrun bloc, Qalqilya, and Jerusalem — blocs that would sever the Hebron area from the rest of the West Bank, isolate the Qalqilya and Jericho areas, and make connectivity between the northern West Bank and the Bethlehem area extremely difficult. But Obama wants to discuss the small settlements scattered across the West Bank, and may press for the removal of some of them.

Fifth: the question of Israel’s security receives special focus from the American administrations, because Israel offers heavy security interpretations for every political step it takes, or every idea put to it by various circles. For this reason, security precautions will take on a clear dimension in any initiative the American president puts forward, including the following:

Expanding the scope of security cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority so that the Authority pursues incitement against Israel in every form — such as pursuing anyone who says the land of Palestine stretches from the sea to the river, or cites a Qur’anic verse about jihad, or describes Jews as “sons of pigs,” or has many children, or sends a loaf of bread to someone the Authority dismissed from his job in retaliation for his support of the resistance.

Insisting that the Authority further crack down on the Palestinian people, further torment and mistreat those who reject Israel or stand against the agreements with it. Obama will allocate more money to train Palestinian forces to carry out the tasks required of them.

Deploying international forces in the Jordan Valley area to monitor the border, and to apply Israeli standards on traffic movement between the two banks of the Jordan River. The arrangement of these forces will not differ radically from the arrangement in the Rafah crossing agreement, in that Israel will not be present directly at the crossing point, but its presence will be electronic, and it will retain the final word on the crossing of individuals and goods. This also applies to air crossing points, should any exist.

Israel retains military observation points at critical junctions in the West Bank, so that it remains capable of rapid intervention should the Palestinian Authority fail to carry out its duties as required.

There is no sanctity to the Palestinian Authority’s airspace, and Israel remains master of the skies, roaming them however it pleases, and this applies to the sea as well, should the Authority return to the Gaza Strip.

Lethal or destructive weapons, according to Israeli army standards, are forbidden to Palestinians. Palestinians are permitted to carry defective weapons like those they currently carry, which pose no threat to Israeli soldiers, and to acquire some light armored vehicles to confront demonstrations. And if Palestinians need anything beyond that, the weapons remain stored in locations overseen by the Israeli army, handed over to Palestinians only with permission from the army command. As for resistance, it must disappear from both the Palestinian verbal and field vocabulary. It will be forbidden to speak of resistance, even as mere bravado or misdirection, or to speak of alternatives to the path of negotiation.

The Gaza Strip is a security anomaly, by Israeli and American standards, and work must be done to restore it to what it was before Hamas took control of it. The entire American project is inapplicable, or cannot continue, should it be applied, as long as the Gaza Strip remains outside the negotiating process.

Sixth: Obama will not mention the national rights of Palestinians — he will instead mention “human rights” that must be met. Obama believes in individuals’ right to movement, education, and receiving treatment, but his belief will not go beyond the Israeli security parameters. He will not speak of human rights that touch what Israel considers its important interests, such as Palestinians’ rights to water and to protecting the environment from Israeli pollution.

Seventh: manipulation of the Palestinian detainees’ issue does not disappear — they have suffered, again and again, from promises that were never fulfilled. The negotiating parties have manipulated this file a great deal, repeatedly deceiving detainees into believing they were about to be released, but the ending was usually frustration and disappointment for the detainees and their families, who waited so long. Detainees have previously been released under agreements concluded between the Authority and Israel, but Israel has stalled a great deal, and the Authority has not insisted on releasing everyone, at least those covered by the agreements. Now Obama gives a three-year deadline after reaching an agreement for the release of Palestinian detainees, without specifying exactly who these detainees are. Are Hamas and Jihad detainees included in this project or not?

Having been a detainee myself, several times, I understand fully the scale of pain inflicted on a detainee when his feelings are manipulated between release and remaining in detention. The Palestinian detainee has suffered more from this manipulation than anyone, at the hands of his own countrymen and at the hands of external powers.

Eighth: Obama believes the Arabs have not yet offered enough to convince Israel they wish to recognize it and establish permanent peace with it. For this reason, he will repeat his demands that the Arabs normalize relations with Israel — not merely normalization at the regime level, but normalization at the popular level as well. America and Israel are uncomfortable with the normalization currently existing between most Arab regimes and Israel, and want the regimes to show courage and boldness, imposing normalization by force on the public, through drafting normalization laws and imposing penalties on anyone who opposes normalization.

America and Israel see the Arab regimes generally, the Palestinian Authority among them, as timid in crafting a new Arab culture that accepts Israel, glorifies it, and cooperates with it, and believe this timidity must end. For this reason, they have insisted, for instance, that the Palestinian Authority drop the mask in pursuing anyone suspected of harboring intentions to resist Israel, torturing him, and flogging him — sometimes to death. I have heard, several times, Palestinians say things to the effect that Israel is better than Hamas, or that Netanyahu is better than Hassan Nasrallah. The two states want to bring the Arab peoples to this level, and the payoff is “fodder.”

Will Obama Succeed?

Obama will fail, as others have failed. He will achieve some success because of cooperation from Arabs and Palestinians with him, but it will be a limited, temporary success. The reason is that Obama, like previous American administrations, bypasses the historical dimension and works to subjugate a great nation, brimming with energy, aspirations, and hopes, to a savage invading faction. The Arab and Muslim nation suffers from terrified leaderships that surround themselves with security services and armed forces out of fear of their own peoples. These are leaderships unfit to establish peace, and incapable of making it. Whoever excels at begging and depending on others excels at nothing but groveling, and will not be able to sustain it; and whoever cannot make war cannot make peace either.

My evidence for what I say is that the balance of power in the region has changed, and these regimes have found themselves in the very same trench as Israel, against Hamas and Hezbollah. The balance of power has shifted, and Obama still puts forward ideas that do not fit the changes in the region — and if these ideas failed in a time when the forces of resistance were weak, how could they possibly succeed in a time when the resistance is gaining momentum?

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “غياب الدراما عن خطة أوباما” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.