BICOM

Key Points

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reported that he had ‘a good day in Washington’ last week. He declared he was ready to ‘confound the critics’ on the peace process with the Palestinians.
• In a series of interviews and public engagements Netanyahu struck a confident tone, urging Palestinian President Mahmnoud Abbas to join direct negotiations without delay, and stated that a final status agreement could be reached. This approach seems to have won President Obama’s approval.
• There are reports that talks could start as early as the beginning of August. However, reaching direct talks will create new challenges for the Prime Minister. He is likely to proceed cautiously, mindful of the scepticism of some of his coalition partners. If direct talks were to stall, it could prompt the US to propose its own solution, or prompt the Palestinians to pursue a unilateral strategy – eventualities Netanyahu will want to avoid. 
• Netanyahu will be concerned to keep a common front with the US not only on the Palestinian issue, but with regard to his primary concern, which remains the threat of Iran.

Introduction

Israeli officials returned from Washington at the end of last week in bullish mood. Over the course of a three-day visit, the Prime Minister ‘reset’ the troubled US-Israel relationship, and carried out a media blitz in which he stressed the need to start direct negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on final status issues. President Obama lent his weight to calls for direct talks by telephoning President Abbas last Friday, urging him to enter talks.

According to some reports, special envoy George Mitchell, returning to the region this week, has been instructed to focus on getting the sides to sit together as soon as possible, rather than trying to reach agreement on key issues ahead of direct talks.

Resetting the mood

The most reported achievement of the visit to the United States was the apparent ‘resetting’ of the mood between Israel and the US administration. There had been concern in recent months that the relationship, strategically significant to both parties, was under strain. In the wake of the furore surrounding Vice-President Joe Biden’s visit in May, Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren described US-Israel relations as being at a 35-year low. This visit apparently put those differences aside, with important agreement on additional US commitments to Israeli security. This was particularly significant as Netanyahu continued to stress that his number one concern for the region was the growing threat from Iran. However, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama openly acknowledged that they had not always seen eye-to-eye on some important aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In a round of public appearances following the meeting with the President, Netanyahu laid out his vision of Israeli-Palestinian relations. He reiterated his commitment to a two-state solution, made first in his Bar-Ilan University speech in June 2009. He referred to the value of Israeli and Palestinian economic growth as a facilitator for political change, but not as a substitute for it. And he stressed that Israel would seek to protect both its security and its legitimacy in any future final status agreement with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu also struck a self-confident tone in his own ability to lead such a process. He declared himself ready to take political risks, although warned that he would be cautious on security matters. He noted that he was in a select club of Israeli prime ministers who returned to power after defeat, along with David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Rabin, and that he intended not to squander his second premiership. Answering question at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, he remarked ‘I intend to confound the critics and the sceptics.’

Netanyahu’s response to his detractors is to put his full weight behind the resumption of direct bilateral negotiations with the Palestinians. This was the dominant motif of his statements in the United States, and it appears that the US administration is now fully engaged with this task.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been cautious about entering direct talks with Netanyahu until now. Following a successful visit to Washington last month, the Palestinian President, may now be more willing to enter direct talks, feeling greater confidence that US backing will mean this round of talks will produce results. Despite Abbas’s caution, his political legitimacy is ultimately dependent on delivering a deal. In the absence of political progress, he has faced domestic and regional criticism for his apparent inability to capitalise on a period of poor US-Israel relations.

Getting to talks

During his trip Netanyahu reiterated his position that all the final status issues – mentioning explicitly borders, security, Jerusalem, refugees and water – are issues requiring agreement in the context of an ‘end of claims, end of conflict’ deal. He has consistently resisted Palestinian demands for progress on borders and security arrangements before getting into direct talks. It is over this point that the proximity talks have stalled. 

One way out of the deadlock, Netanyahu believes, is a decisive act of leadership from the Palestinians, in the mould of Anwar Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem. He would like, he says, to hear the Bir Zeit speech that would mirror his own Bar-Ilan speech. He has repeatedly called on Mahmoud Abbas to come to Jerusalem to meet him, and has offered to travel to Ramallah as an alternative.  The early entry of Abbas into direct talks is looking more likely than it did. The Palestinians were buoyed by Abbas’s own successful meetings in Washington last month. Former US ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk reported after a recent visit to Ramallah that Abbas was willing to come to Jerusalem and address the Knesset.

Netanyahu’s prefers to place the onus on the Palestinians to articulate a political agenda that makes them a credible and capable partner for talks. This approach seems to have won the approval of President Obama, who called Abbas at the end of last week, urging him to come to the table without delay.

Ahead of direct talks, the Palestinians are likely to receive some gestures along the way. There has been speculation that Israel may be preparing a package of confidence-building measures, including further empowerment of Palestinian security forces, ahead of, or at the same time as, the resumption of direct talks. A meeting between Defence Minister Barak and Prime Minister Fayyad last week, the first meeting at this level for a year, as well as recent visits by Israeli Internal Security Chief Avi Dichter to Ramallah, may indicate progress in this area.

Netanyahu, with the 10-month settlement freeze heading closer to expiry, may accept a tacit US endorsement for building in the large settlement blocs, whilst maintaining the freeze on new construction in the more remote settlements. Whilst there was no explicit public statement on this issue, Obama said in an interview for Israeli TV that if direct talks were to resume, they would create trust that would allow ‘both sides not to be so jumpy or paranoid’ about the actions of the other side.

Danger ahead?

Whilst Netanyahu appears to have found agreement with Obama on the need for a quick transition into direct talks, those talks themselves have the potential for further risk. The Prime Minister will need to bear in mind three possible scenarios he will want to avoid:

• High cost of entering talks puts pressure on the coalition: Netanyahu publicly promised in his meeting with Obama to take ‘concrete steps’ within weeks to persuade the Palestinians to enter talks. Given his stable position in the polls, and the lack of any obvious alternative government, Netanyahu may feel able to make some concessions. However, a change in policy over settlements, such as accepting a US endorsement of a distinction between settlements expected to be annexed to Israel and those expected to be evacuated in a final deal, would be hard to swallow for some of his coalition partners.
• Talks start, but stall: If Abbas agreed to direct talks, they could start in a matter of weeks. Although the talks would be the first time these leaders had negotiated the issues, they will come after nearly two decades of such talks and both sides will come to the table with a clear agenda. Neither Netanyahu nor Abbas will want to appear as the obstacle to getting to a final deal, particularly with strong US support for the talks. But Netanyahu is likely to want to want to move forward cautiously, to preserve the integrity of his coalition. Speaking to Fox News over the weekend, he would not commit to a timeframe, noting only that the implementation of a deal would require time. The Palestinians, on the other hand, will want to move quickly, and this could lead to a breakdown.
• Obama puts a plan on the table: There is speculation that the US administration sees direct talks as the next, but not necessarily final stage in the process. If talks are insubstantial, there is the possibility that President Obama will present his own formulation. If the Palestinians feel talks are getting nowhere, they may campaign for some of international endorsement of their independence. Both these moves would limit Israel’s room for manoeuvre.

Conclusions

In the wake of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, the next phase of the peace process appears clear. Israelis and Palestinians will bring their negotiating positions to direct talks in pursuit of a final status agreement. The US plays a key role in this, not only nudging the sides together on a tactical level, but articulating a strategy that gives Palestinians confidence that the administration is prepared to champion their cause and Israelis the confidence that America sees its own national security at stake in the region.

But it should not be forgotten that the future of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was only one theme of Netanyahu’s visit to Washington. Consistent with his long-held views, he spoke extensively about the dangers that Iranian poses to the region, both in military and political terms, and kept it clearly at the top of his list of priorities. Avoiding rifts with the US on the peace process facilitates the greater purpose of keeping the US focused on a concerted effort to oppose Iran’s bid for nuclear weapons. When considering his next moves regarding the opening of direct talks with Mahmoud Abbas, Netanyahu will surely have this uppermost in his mind.