Click here to listen to the interview.

• Representatives of the Arab League announced in Washington their support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which would be based on 1967 borders but include a “comparable and mutual agreed minor swap of the land.”
• This is a small but significant refinement of the Arab Peace Initiative (API), shifting the position from an inflexible demand on Israel to return to 1967 lines, to an endorsement of the principle of negotiated land swaps.
• The development is a success for John Kerry in binding regional Arab support into his intensive efforts to the get the peace process moving.
• The initial response from Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is tasked with leading negotiations with the Palestinians, was to welcome the news as positive.
• However, it will not in itself break the deadlock, which will require closing gaps between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

What has been announced by the Arab League in Washington?

Qatari Prime Minister Sheik Hamad Bin Jassem Al Thani, following a meeting between Arab League representatives and US Secretary of State John Kerry, announced that: “The Arab League delegation affirmed that agreement should be based on the two-state solution on the basis of the 4th of June 1967 line, with the [possibility] of comparable and mutual agreed minor swap of the land.”

Al-Thani also made clear that the delegation, “endorses President Mahmoud Abbas’ effort for the peace,” as well as giving “support for efforts for the economic help and aid,” apparently in reference to Kerry’s recently announced plans for economic development in the West Bank.

Other representatives at the meeting included Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr, Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and Saudi Ambassador to Washington Adel al-Jubeir.

What is the significance in terms of the Arab Peace Initiative?

This is a small but significant refinement of the original text of the Arab Peace Initiative, and partially addresses one of several Israeli concerns with the document. The API was launched as a Saudi initiative in 2002. The Arab League issued a statement in which its 22 members offered to normalise relations with Israel in return for Israeli withdrawal to pre-June 1967 borders, the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a “just solution” to the Palestinian refugee problem.

For Israel, the demand for a return to pre-June 1967 lines was unacceptable. Israel seeks to negotiate a new border that will incorporate the major settlement blocks into Israel, and has in the past offered an exchange of territory to compensate the Palestinians. The Palestinians have accepted land swaps in principle, and this announcement now brings the wider Arab League into line with this position. However, the scale of land swap that Israeli negotiators envisaged during the Annapolis talks in 2008 was around 6-7%, whereas the Palestinians proposed a 1.9% swap.

Nonetheless, this softens the tone of the Arab League position. Whereas the original API looked to Israel like a ‘take it or leave it’ deal, this statement appears to position the Arab League more firmly in support of a bilateral agreement to be negotiated by Abbas.

Other elements of the Arab Peace Initiate text remain problematic. Israel’s future as a Jewish state depends on the Palestinian refugee problem being solved in a new Palestinian state, not in Israel. The API remains vague on this point, as it is on the question of Jerusalem.

Will this get the peace process moving?

This development is a concrete initial success for John Kerry in binding regional Arab support into his peace-making efforts. However, it will not break the deadlock in itself, which will require closing gaps between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The initial response from Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is tasked with leading negotiations with the Palestinians, was positive, saying, “It’s true that there is still a long way to go, and we can’t accept all the clauses as holy writ, but sometimes you need to look up over the difficulties and just say good news is welcome.”

Netanyahu has repeatedly stressed his desire to enter negotiations with the Palestinians without preconditions, and is likely to reiterate that point in response to this development. He has said in the past that the API is a positive development compared to the blanket Arab rejection of Israel that went before, but like other Israeli leaders has made clear that peace must be negotiated. Though he has resisted in public any reference to 1967 lines as terms of reference for a negotiated border, he told the UN in 2011 that he was willing to move forward on President Obama’s proposals, which included reference to 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps. However, Netanyahu is likely to remain firm in his position that Israel’s security requirements, and its future status as a Jewish state be addressed in any future agreement.

The immediate barrier in returning to negotiations remains the preconditions of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, which Netanyahu has been unwilling to meet. Abbas has raised various demands, including a complete settlement freeze, Israeli acceptance of 1967 lines as the basis for future borders, and the release of prisoners. The Arab League representatives made no mention of these preconditions in their Washington statement, and it is unclear whether Abbas will use this development as cover to re-enter negotiations, or will continue to stick to his preconditions.

What is the significance in terms of regional politics?

It is remarkable to see the Qataris fronting this development, which is another expression of their highly unusual and highly active regional foreign policy. In the 1990s the Qataris were one of the warmest Arab countries towards Israel, allowing an Israeli trade office to open in Doha following the Oslo accords. In recent years the Qataris have had close relations with Hamas, providing economic and political support. Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has a home in Doha, and the Qatari Prime Minister accompanied the Emir of Qatar as the first Arab leaders to visit the Hamas run Gaza Strip last year.

The statement in Washington put Qatari support behind Abbas in negotiating with Israel. But whilst there was no mention of Hamas, the Gaza Strip, or the on-off Palestinian reconciliation talks, Qatar remains committed to Palestinian reconciliation and bringing Hamas into the process. Without Hamas acceptance of the Quartet conditions however, any Palestinian reconciliation deal is unlikely to be acceptable to Israel and the US.

Also remarkable was the presence in the background of the Egyptian foreign minister. This is a positive indication of a pragmatic tendency in foreign affairs of the Cairo government, which is under US pressure to maintain its treaty with Israel and get behind the peace process.

It remains to be seen whether the Arab states behind this move will back their words with actions. Arab states have been much criticised recently for failing to deliver on financial pledges to support the Palestinian Authority. Arab states also disappointed the US in 2009 by rejecting requests to offer concrete steps towards normalisation of relations with Israel in return for Israeli concessions to the Palestinians in the peace process.

Analysis by Toby Greene

As the Obama administration renews its bid to revive the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations through the deployment of Secretary of State John Kerry to the region, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas finds himself caught between two opposing forces. On the one hand he faces international pressure to renew talks, which have been suspended since September 2010, and on the other, domestic suspicion towards the prospect of resuming negotiations with Israel. A recent poll conducted in the Palestinian territories showed a sharp decline in support for negotiations with Israel in the West Bank: from 59% in May 2011 to just 43% in late 2012.

The Palestinians have stated that in order for negotiations to restart, Israel must freeze building in the settlements, accept that a final deal will be based on the 1967 lines, and release Palestinian prisoners detained before the signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993. At the same time, Palestinian negotiators have insisted that these demands are not preconditions but merely the implementation of previously signed agreements and essential displays of good faith on the part of Israel.

Renewed negotiations with Israel in the absence of a clear conceptual framework, and even a timetable, are increasingly regarded by the Palestinian public as a waste of time. A short video produced in March by the PLO’s Negotiations Affairs Department ends with that sense of impatience, calling previous negotiation rounds “camouflage for colonisation and segregation.”

While much attention has been given to the Israeli side in analysing the stagnation in peace talks, the Palestinian leadership of Mahmoud Abbas faces formidable resistance in public opinion, from within his own Fatah party and from the ranks of the Hamas opposition in Gaza. Deep seated Palestinian suspicion towards the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, coupled with high sensitivity to domestic opposition, has forced Abbas to repeatedly escalate demands before embarking on a new round of talks, for which he has shown little interest, and whose failure could be detrimental to his precarious leadership.

Opposition to negotiations within Fatah

On April 15, Marwan Barghouti, a senior Fatah leader and the only prospective heir to Mahmoud Abbas from within his party, spoke to Sky News Arabia from the Israeli prison where he is serving five life sentences for involvement in terrorist activities during the Second Intifada in 2001-2002.

Barghouti advised the Palestinian leadership not to resume talks with Israel and instead seek full state membership in the UN and pursue Israel legally in international fora. “I would advise the Palestinian leadership not to repeat this experience, because the results will be no different,” Barghouti said. “The Israeli government is opposed to peace and is a government of occupation, settlement and extremism.”

Negotiations could not resume, Barghouti added, before Israel explicitly committed to withdrawing to the 1967 lines, allowing Palestinian refugees to return to their homes within Israel, and releasing “all prisoners and detainees.” Meanwhile, the Palestinians must boycott Israel “politically, economically and security-wise.”

Viewing international sanctions towards Israel as an essential precursor to peace negotiations was shared by Fatah official Tayyeb Abdul Rahim, secretary general of the Palestinian presidency. Speaking to families of Palestinian prisoners on March 16, Abdul Rahim said that negotiations could not resume before “the prisoners are released; especially pre-Oslo prisoners, the sick, children and women.”

This sentiment is widely felt in editorials and in popular demonstration across the West Bank. While US President Barack Obama was speaking to his Palestinian counterpart in Ramallah, protesters outside – by no means Hamas affiliates – were chanting: “No way to peaceful [resistance], only bullets and missiles.”

The resignation this month of politically independent and pro-Western Prime Minster Salam Fayyad threatens a further blow to the path of progress through bilateral cooperation and dialogue with Israel, having strengthened Fatah officials who view the peace negotiations with deep suspicion.

Opposition to negotiations from Hamas

Hamas, which has been engaged in on-off reconciliation talks with Abbas since the Islamic movement’s takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, adamantly opposes negotiations between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel. A renewed round of negotiations with Israel will likely terminate reconciliation efforts, which last year produced an agreement in principle for a Palestinian unity government led by Abbas, tasked with preparing for presidential and parliamentary elections. While Abbas’ policy making is not directly influenced by Hamas reasoning, the Islamic movement does control over one third of the Palestinian body politic and expresses the sentiment of Palestinian conservatives across the political spectrum.

Following John Kerry’s visit to Israel on April 12, Hamas deputy political chief Moussa Abu-Marzouq wrote on his Facebook page that “despite the optimism expressed by [Kerry], his visit was not a success.” At a rally for Palestinian prisoners at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University on April 16, Abu-Marzouq explained that Kerry’s mission “has failed before it even began.” He told the crowd that all that Kerry wants is to sell Palestinians more “illusions” about tackling core issues that were not resolved in nearly two decades of negotiations.

Hamas has also framed Palestinian negotiations with Israel and Palestinian reconciliation efforts as mutually exclusive. On April 18, a Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu-Zuhri, accused the United States of forcing Fatah to freeze reconciliation talks with Hamas for three months. An agreement to that effect, Abu-Zuhri charged, was recently signed in Paris between Kerry and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. Abu-Zuhri’s allegations were adamantly denied by Erekat.

Abbas’ alternatives

In the absence of negotiations, Mahmoud Abbas has maintained two alternative modes of operation.

He has repeatedly denounced the Palestinian use of terrorism against Israelis in the Second Intifada (2000-2003) as both ineffective and immoral, but continues to advocate “popular resistance” (Muqawama Shaabiyah), more similar to the first Palestinian Intifada (1987-1993). This mode of “resistance” includes mass demonstrations; marches toward Israeli road blocks in the West Bank; the erection of Palestinian outposts to mirror Israeli settlements; boycotting Israeli products; and even stone throwing and limited clashes with the IDF.

The second track pursued by the PA is diplomatic and legal. It began with the failed bid for statehood at the UN Security Council in September 2011 and continued with the achievement of “non-member observer state” status at the UN General Assembly in November 2012. This new international standing allows ‘Palestine’ to seek membership of international organisations, invite the International Criminal Court to extend jurisdiction over it, and to positions itself in international forums as “a state under occupation“.

Although an official law suit has not yet been filed by the PA against Israel – with the Palestinians apparently suspending such measures temporarily at the request of John Kerry – more limited measures have already been taken. On April 10, PLO official Hanan Ashrawi appealed in a letter to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to “hold Israel to account and penalise it” for the recent deaths of two Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, which Ashrawi claimed were a result of “intentional neglect”. In a similar vein, Palestinian Minister for Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqe announced that the PA was preparing to sue Israel in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the death of prisoner Arafat Jaradat in February.

Encouraged by the overwhelming international support for Palestinian statehood at the UN General Assembly, the PA leadership continues to prefer the threat of international legal action as a means of pressuring Israel, rather than a return to negotiations.

Conclusion

Considering the significant domestic pressure on Abbas to forgo a new round of negotiations with Israel – both from within the Fatah party and from the Hamas opposition in Gaza – the Palestinian President currently appears unwilling to stake his limited public clout on talks, the outcome of which he cannot predict. While Abbas will certainly need assurances from Israel and the US to re-enter talks, he must also face a united international community that both stresses the necessity of re-engaging in bilateral talks with Israel and firmly discourages unilateral and punitive alternatives on the part of the PA.

Elhanan Miller is the Arab Affairs correspondent for the Times of Israel.

Fathom issue 3 will be available from early May.

You can read Fathom – for a deeper understanding of Israel and the region, online at www.fathomjournal.org or download the app for your iPhone or iPad here. Fathom is also on Twitter: @fathomjournal

Fathom issue 3 will be available from early May.

You can read Fathom – for a deeper understanding of Israel and the region, online at www.fathomjournal.org or download the app for your iPhone or iPad here. Fathom is also on Twitter: @fathomjournal

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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is not known for his sense of irony, but he might reflect on the curiosity that, just as his country’s diplomatic ascent seemed to have stalled, he has secured two of the greatest political prizes within weeks of one another.

The first was a ceasefire agreement with the Kurdish insurgents of the PKK, on terms that were drastically slanted in Ankara’s favour. That deal could underpin a grand bargain, as part of which Erdoğan hopes to amend the Turkish constitution and run for a newly empowered presidency next year.

The second victory was to extract from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – ‘a man who does not spend his days looking for people to apologize to,’ as Jeffrey Goldberg memorably put it – an apology, for Israel’s raid on the Mavi Marmara in 2010, breaking a three-year impasse over the issue.

The rapprochement, though it may be too soon to call it that, was enabled by three things: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s departure from the cabinet, the presence of President Barack Obama (who placed the call to Erdoğan from the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport), and, above all, the escalating tumult in Syria.

Turkey is hungry for intelligence on Syria – on its Kurds, its chemical weapons, and its jihadists. Israel is eager for allies, at a time when bullets are flying across the Golan and Hezbollah has its eye on Assad’s high-end Russian hardware.

Israel was especially concerned that any major NATO operation in Syria – securing chemical weapon stockpiles, for instance – might be jeopardised or hindered if Turkey were to object to Israeli involvement. For the past three years Ankara has thrown a fit anytime the Alliance tried to include Israel in exercises or even seminars.

The apology was bad news for Assad, bad news for Iran, and probably bad news for Hamas, which has been drawing increasingly closer to Erdoğan’s party.

But we should remember that the downturn in Turkey-Israel ties preceded the Mavi Marmara raid. Turkey’s reaction to Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9, and Erdoğan’s famous public clash with Shimon Peres on a panel at Davos shortly after the conflict, were symptoms of a deeper condition, interwoven with a broader pivot by Erdoğan away from Europe and towards the Middle East.

The breakdown in relations between Turkey and Israel flew in the face of decades of collaboration rooted in overlapping strategic interests. It was David Ben-Gurion’s ‘periphery doctrine’ that saw Israel establish close ties with the Middle East’s non-Arab rimland – countries like Ethiopia, Iran, and Turkey – as a counterweight to Soviet-backed pan-Arabism. In 1958, Iran, Turkey, and Israel even formed an intelligence-sharing group, the ‘Trident’, that was unprecedented between such disparate countries.

These ties survived Turkey’s transition from secular-nationalist Kemalism, to compulsive Praetorianism – an addiction to coups – from the 1960s to the 1980s, and finally to Islamism in its fits and starts from the 1990s onwards.

In fact, cooperation deepened under Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan who, in 1996, signed a landmark military cooperation agreement with Israel, one that went as far as to allow either country to deploy its forces on the other’s territory. (Erbakan has been less than friendly to Israel since: in 2010, he railed at the ruling AKP and its co-option by an ‘international Jewish conspiracy’.)

In the 1990s, particularly after the peace process got back on track in Madrid in 1991, the relationship was driven by Turkish hunger for Israeli military technology, Ankara’s growing angst about NATO’s reliability in the post-Soviet world, and Israeli assistance to Turkey in countering Greek, Armenian and Kurdish lobbying in Washington.

But the Turkish state itself has changed fundamentally. The biggest constitutional shift over the past decade has been the way in which Erdoğan has brought the military to its knees. Over half of Turkey’s admirals and many of its generals are in jail. Erdoğan himself has admitted that, ‘at this rate, we will have no officers left to appoint to command positions.’

A quarter-century ago, the Turkish armed forces vetoed their president’s desire for direct Turkish participation in the First Gulf War. It is impossible to imagine such a dynamic today. If Erdoğan ordered his (pruned) army into northern Syria, it would go. And that political latitude has changed, though not yet destroyed, the terms of Turkey’s relationship with Israel.

Their ties will be repaired, but can they be restored? This seems unlikely. It is now a cliché to observe that Turkey’s famous foreign policy doctrine of ‘zero problems’ has, in fact, given way to problems in nearly every diplomatic arena: with Iran, Gaza, Syria, and Iraq.

Yet Erdoğan remains, thanks in no small part to his confrontational attitude towards Israel, in many ways amongst the most popular regional leaders since Egypt’s Colonel Nasser, and he is untethering himself from domestic ballast with every passing year. Twenty years ago, insecurity pushed Turkey closer to Israel. The challenge for Israel today, gripped by its own growing sense of vulnerability, is to limit Turkey’s drift away. Netanyahu has taken the first, crucial steps in that direction.

Shashank Joshi is a Research Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, where he specialises in the Middle East and South Asia.

Professor Alan Johnson, BICOM Senior Research Fellow and Editor of Fathom, is interviewed on ABC TV (Australia) about President Obama’s visit to the Middle East.

Professor Alan Johnson, BICOM Senior Research Fellow and Editor of Fathom, gives a lecture at the Australian Institute of International Affairs on re-starting the Middle East Peace Process.

But rather than simply ratcheting up pressure on Israel, Obama’s visit has been presented as a love in with the Israeli government.

This reflects lessons from Obama’s first term, when clashing publicly with Netanyahu did not produce the results he wanted. In assessing the reasoning for Obama’s new approach, there may be some lessons for British policy makers also.

Many of us who want to see a two-state solution will have, at one time or other, entertained some version of a fantasy, in which the President swoops in on Air Force One, bashes everyone over the head with his Nobel Peace Prize and orders the secret service to block the exits to Jerusalem until he gets an agreement. But such hopes are misplaced, and Obama and his administration know it.

Read this article in full at Left Foot Forward.

• To read a transcript of the opening remarks click here.
• To hear audio of the event click here.
• To see video highlights click here.

Michael Herzog is Senior Visiting Fellow at BICOM as well as being an international fellow of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is a former head of the strategic planning division in the IDF, a former chief of staff to four former ministers of defence, and in 2009-10 served as special envoy on the peace process.

David Makovsky is the Ziegler distinguished fellow and director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process at The Washington Institute. He is a widely published journalist and writer and is coauthor, with Dennis Ross, of the 2009 Washington Post bestseller Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East (Viking/Penguin).