Obama Should Not Abandon Israel in His Effort to Court Muslims

Mort Zuckerman

That is why the Israelis look upon the past 15 years and see the futility of trying to hand over territory in the hope that a stable legitimate government will emerge from the hate and chaos. It hasn't and it won't. The result was a corrupt, militarized Palestinian Authority with competing security services, incapable of providing security on its own turf, incapable of credible negotiation with Israel, and incapable of providing necessary services to ordinary Palestinians. Indeed, without the presence of Israeli Defense Force in the West Bank to combat Hamas's terrorism there, the current administration would not survive.

Israel supports an alternative based on the achievement of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton. They have succeeded at effective institution building in Jenin, Bethlehem, and Hebron, turning them into the most peaceful areas in the West Bank with a minimal Israeli presence. They accomplished it by training local police who now function effectively as police forces rather than armed militias; by supplying local authorities with funding, advice, and training; and by building a commercial middle class who want to keep the region peaceful. These bottom-up nuts-and-bolts projects are the building blocks necessary for effective Palestinian nation-building. It will take more time and patience, but it is the only approach that has worked.

Fatah is deeply divided between veterans and the young guard and on key issues such as the immediate establishment of the Palestinian state. But others, including leading businessmen, argue that first there should be a long period of Blair-Dayton institution-building to ensure that the state is not established on a foundation of corruption. In this way, instead of a cycle of violence, everybody would enjoy a cycle of hope.

To this day, the Hamas and Fatah charters still call for Israel's liquidation, and Fatah explicitly refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist. Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO president, stated in Arabic on Dubai's Al Arabia TV in 2006, "It is not required of Hamas or of Fatah or of the Popular Front to recognize Israel." And more recently he stated, "I say this clearly, I do not accept the Jewish State, call it what you will."

Why is this history relevant? Because it explains that the current deadlock is not because of Israeli intransigence, not because of occupation, not because of settlements, not because of settlers. It is because the Palestinians have convinced many Israelis that Arab Muslims will never accept the Jewish State, even if it means they will not have their own state. The history suggests that Arab rejectionism is primarily cultural, based on an implacable opposition to a Jewish national presence in what the Arabs think of as Arab land. Observe what the Palestinians teach their own people: that no Jewish kingdom ever existed in the land they call Palestine; that there was never a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This helps explain the Palestinian refusal to make peace, because so long as they think the Jews were never there before, they will see Jews as the foreign colonial implant, with no claim to the land.

The Obama administration's tilt to the Arabs may be because it seeks the support of the Arab world to isolate Iran. If so, it is a misreading. The Arab countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, share a supreme interest in blocking Iran and should not be compensated in Palestinian terms. In fact, to create the conditions for a peace between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel and Syria, it is Iran's nuclear ambitions and Iran itself that first must be blocked. These issues are not contingent one upon the other. Even the head of the Arab League, Amre Moussa, no fan of Israel, has publicly recognized that these are distinct efforts.

Besides, the Arab countries do not have time to wait for success on the Palestinian track, given the urgency of the emergent Iranian nuclear threat. They don't want an extension of Iranian proxies in the form of Hamas and Hezbollah, either. The Egyptians see Hamas as the descendents of the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks the ouster of the Mubarak government. And a Palestinian state under Hamas could threaten the Jordanian monarchy. In fact, linkage would hand success to Iran on a silver platter, for it would make it possible for Iran to blame on Israel its own unwillingness to negotiate. At the same time, Israel must not get itself in a position where everybody might blame it for a failure to settle the Iranian challenge.