The Coming Middle East Crisis

What happens in January? If Abbas ducks the challenge and unilaterally extends his term until 2010, Hamas will oppose his government, creating another challenge to his ability to make decisions and compromises. But if Abbas holds an election, Hamas might well gain the presidency. That would create an insurmountable hurdle to any peaceful settlement. A Fatah-Hamas reconciliation is now being discussed by both parties in Cairo, with the idea of forming a national unity government. But this, too, would jeopardize the hopes for any peace process.

Abbas continues the history of Palestinian politicians of conducting negotiations but not being willing, or perhaps able, to make decisions to bring negotiations to a conclusion. The dialogue is the price they pay for huge international financial contributions. The safest approach for a lengthy political life for a Palestinian leader is to make no decisions, for decisions could mean either political death or, sometimes, literal death. And since Arafat rejected President Clinton's conciliatory efforts, the gap between the sides has grown and conditions on the ground have deteriorated, further dimming the prospects for peace.

Importantly, the military and security threat to Israel has increased since 2000. The country is in a vise. Hezbollah controls Israel's northern border with Lebanon, while Hamas controls the southern one. Israel now faces more than 50,000 rockets, antitank missiles, and advanced antiaircraft missiles that could overfly any demilitarized zone—a vast increase in vulnerability over the last eight years. These mortal enemies of Israel—Hamas and Hezbollah—are each backed by Iran with money, training, and weaponry, not to mention that Iran's nuclear weapons program could trump the strategic superiority of the Israeli defense forces and provide cover for terrorist attacks and groups.

Growing instability. The security concerns have also increased because of developments in the broader Middle East. What if Iraq evolves into a radical Shiite state that is dependent on Iran and hostile to Israel? What if Palestinians and Islamic extremists in the West Bank try to take advantage of the fact that two thirds of the Jordanian population is Palestinian and, through them, seek to overthrow the Hashemite Kingdom? This would pose a supremely dangerous national security threat because Jordan is a stable buffer between Syria, Iraq, and any Palestinian state. That is why some Israeli control of the border between a Palestinian state and Jordan would be essential, not just to block Palestinian irredentism that might threaten the king but also to stop terrorists importing rockets into the West Bank, as they did into Gaza. Then, they could fire rockets and mortars from the hills, dominating Ben-Gurion Airport. Just one mortar shell per week would be enough to end air transportation completely.

The likelihood is that the West Bank security fence built by Israel will become the de facto border with major Israeli population centers inside the fence in exchange for some kind of swap of land in the Negev. But the fence is limited to neutralizing the threat of infiltration by suicide bombers and cannot cope with the higher trajectory "curved fire" weaponry that can fly over any fence. The 2006 Lebanese war illustrated how difficult it is to prevent such rocket attacks without controlling the ground. It also illustrated how unreliable the United Nations or other international forces are to neutralize terrorists or block the infiltration of weapons. If anything, they are assisting Hezbollah in Lebanon.

On what basis, then, is it possible to believe that what failed eight years ago in optimal circumstances could possibly have a different outcome today ? The conventional two-state solution between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea has not proved attractive enough for either side to resolve their differences, so what can?