BICOM

Key Points

• The primary purpose of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the UK is to hold a detailed and substantial meeting with US envoy George Mitchell. This is an important part of the US agenda to prepare the scene for progress on its Middle East diplomatic agenda in September.
• The most important issue for the US, backed up by the UK, will be pressing Israel on a settlement freeze. Netanyahu will be pushing all sides to keep a focus on Iran, and will want to know what action is in the pipeline should engagement not bear fruit.
• A groundbreaking announcement should not necessarily be expected from this trip, but the length of the meeting planned between Netanyahu and Mitchell indicates that progress will be made behind the scenes.

Introduction

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flies to the UK next week for extensive talks with US envoy George Mitchell and his team of senior officials. Wide-ranging discussions are expected on the agenda, which will include Iran, settlements and normalisation.  The issue of a settlement freeze and what reciprocal steps the Arab states might take will be the primary focus for the four-hour Netanyahu-Mitchell meeting on Wednesday. Given that Mitchell is bringing his seven-man team, including US point man on the Israel-Syria track, Frederic Hof, Syria is among the other issues that may be discussed. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is likely to set the scene by pressing Israel on settlements in his hour-long meeting the day before. Netanyahu will want to hear from Brown what concrete steps the UK will be willing to take to up the pressure on Iran.

Netanyahu’s domestic political position looks relatively stable for now. The principal source of pressure on his government is external. The Obama administration has set a high priority on rebuilding its relationships with the Islamic world to facilitate interlinked strategic interests: withdrawal from Iraq, progress in Afghanistan, preventing WMD proliferation, tackling radicalisation and addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A major part of this effort has been rewriting the rule book on the peace process. The Americans want to see tangible, reciprocal, confidence building measures by Israel, the Palestinians and the broader Arab world to create a supportive environment for substantive direct negotiations on the Israeli-Palestinian track. They believe forward momentum in the peace process will in turn support the effort to tackle the threat from Iran.

Locked in its internal struggle with Hamas, the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad is the most vulnerable player, and apart from fairly nominal demands relating to ‘security’ and ‘incitement’, have the least expectations upon them. The PA’s success, with international assistance, in improving security in the West Bank and in holding the Fatah Conference, has satisfied the Americans and even impressed Israel.

The US, with strong British encouragement, has been pressuring Israel to show goodwill in the peace process by temporarily freezing construction in the West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem. However, with a feeling in the US that heavy public pressure on Israel may have been counterproductive, the tension now is lower than at the time of Netanyahu’s trip to Washington in May. President Obama made a point on Tuesday of praising Israel for progress on easing restrictions in the West Bank.[1] The US wants the Arab world to balance the equation, by offering some steps towards normalisation in response. All of this is the precursor to a major US initiative to seat the parties around the negotiating table. Given the September deadline for progress on the Iranian track, there is a growing need for the US to show parallel developments on the peace process.

Top of Israel’s agenda: Iran

Netanyahu’s top priority is Iran. Israel understands that the engagement track, ‘Plan A’, must run its course. However, it fears that without clear deadlines and conditions, the Iranians will exploit the process to play for time as they have done so successfully in the past. With British and French support, Obama has now accepted September – which sees an IAEA board meeting, the UN General Assembly and a G20 summit – as a point at which Iran’s intentions will be assessed. The P5+1 are still awaiting a response to their renewed offer of talks issued in April. Israel wants to know that the US and Britain will not allow Iran to manipulate them with empty commitments and warm words which amount to nothing. They want to know what ‘Plan B’, the sanctions agenda, will look like if engagement is not working. Britain and Israel have long shared similar views on the strategic threat posed by Iran, and the UK has been a leading advocate of tougher measures against Iran at the UN, within the EU and unilaterally. There is a perception in Israel and elsewhere that the Iranian regime has been damaged by its presidential election. Netanyahu will no doubt be pressing for a clear commitment to enforcing existing sanctions, and to widening the scope to include the vital energy sector.

Israel’s message on the peace process

Though it took him time to adapt, Netanyahu has reacted to the change in the US. He was elected with a policy that accepted the need for political negotiations with the Palestinians but focused principally on bottom-up economic progress in the Palestinian territories. He wanted the US to prioritise Iran, ahead of trying to make substantive progress towards an Israeli-Palestinian political accord. Now he has changed his stance. He has accepted that the Palestinian issue must be addressed in parallel to the Iranian issue.

Even more significantly, he has accepted the end goal of a Palestinian state, and set out his basic terms for its establishment. His provisos are not new Israeli demands. Yossi Beilin, an architect of the Oslo Accords, told a group of diplomats last month that Netanyahu’s concerns, including demilitarisation and acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state, were mostly met by the unofficial Geneva Accords signed in 2003.

So far, Netanyahu has followed through with his promise to promote the Palestinian economy, with measures that continue a process begun under prime minister Ehud Olmert. Checkpoints are being removed and IDF presence in population centres is being reduced as Palestinian security capacity develops. Opening hours at the Allenby crossing to Jordan have been greatly extended. The West Bank is starting to feel the benefits, with projected 7% growth in GDP, albeit from a very low base.

The economic development and the policy shift on the two-state solution should both be regarded as positive progress from the American and European perspectives. Netanyahu is likely to talk up the achievements in the West Bank economy and reiterate his readiness to sit down with the Palestinians without preconditions.

The demand for a settlement freeze

However, the Americans and the British are looking for action, not just words, and easing restrictions in the West Bank is not sufficient from their perspective. The Palestinians fear that talking is a cover for Israel to continue to put facts on the ground in the form of settlements, and the US and Britain back their position. Britain piled diplomatic pressure onto Israel over the settlements around the time that the US was in transition. Since the Obama team got their feet under the table, they have been demanding a freeze on all settlement construction ahead of renewed talks. The demand for a settlement freeze is not new. It was part of George’s Mitchell’s 2001 report into the outbreak of the Second Intifada that was endorsed by the international community. The current US administration, however, has attached a much higher significance to this issue. Intensive talks between Israeli and US officials on this subject have been ongoing for several months.

Netanyahu has followed his predecessors with a policy of not establishing new settlements in the West Bank. Even new government tenders for construction in existing settlements are on hold. However, enforcing a total ban on construction, including in well-established settlement blocs, is both logistically and politically very difficult for Netanyahu’s government. The Israeli press have reported Israeli agreement to some form of temporary freeze, but there is still a lot to be negotiated in the details.[2] Questions surround the issues of what happens to half-built houses, what happens when the agreed period expires, and perhaps most importantly, what Israel would receive in return.

The normalisation dimension of the peace process

Israel has felt wounded by what it sees as the imbalance of the Obama administration in placing such emphasis on the settlements issue. A persistent Israeli right-wing criticism of the Oslo process in the past has been that Israel gave up control of land, but never received peace in return. Concessions, it is argued, should be reciprocal. Some US commentators have pointed out that the danger of putting too much pressure on Israel is that it takes pressure off the Arab states and the Palestinians to make any effort. Lately, the US administration has tried to strike a more balanced tone in its statements about what is expected from all sides.

Since they are not in control of the militants in Gaza, the Palestinians in the West Bank have little to offer Israel in return for the concession of a settlement freeze. The US has been trying to recruit Israel’s Arab neighbours to support the process by rewarding Israel with diplomatic outreach instead. Israel will be hoping for an update on what has been achieved. The Arab world is usually unable to move as a whole. Arab League support for the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative back in 2002 was a rare exception. The reality today is that the Arab states are divided on the question of whether to support the peace process with incremental steps towards normalisation of relations. The best hope is to persuade individual states to become involved. However, reports that Saudi Arabia might lead, for example by allowing Israeli planes to pass through its airspace, were publicly rejected outright by the Saudi foreign minister in Washington at the end of July.[3]

During the Oslo process, Israel was able to open trade representation and interest offices in Morocco, Tunisia, Qatar and Oman. Those steps were reversed after the outbreak of the Second Intifada. One obvious way forward, therefore, mentioned by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his trip to Washington this week, would be for those offices to be reopened. These measures are of little material benefit to Israel. They are no substitute for Israel’s real long-term interest in having its right to exist within secure borders accepted by all states and players in the region. However, positive gestures from the Arab world to Israel do have some symbolic power for the Israeli public if they are well communicated, and could help Netanyahu bear the political cost of a settlement freeze in the short term. Whilst the principal driver to compel the Arabs to play their part is the US, Israel also recognises Britain as a country that can play a positive role, given its deep ties to many Arab states, not least in the Gulf.

The UK-Israel bilateral agenda

The main focus of this trip is not the UK-Israel bilateral relationship, but there are bilateral issues to be addressed. The relationship between Brown and Netanyahu is not new. They knew each other when each was finance minister of their respective countries. Brown is believed to have an open mind regarding Netanyahu’s potential as a peacemaker. Israel, for its part, recognises that the UK is important strategic ally as a leading nation in the international effort to put pressure on Iran. However, Israel’s relationships with Britain and Europe as a whole have been strained by the conflict in Gaza at the turn of the year, the stalls in the peace process and recent disputes over East Jerusalem. In the past, Israel has seen Britain as a balanced player, committed to the Palestinian cause but sympathetic to Israeli concerns. Currently, Israel is concerned that the Palestinian narrative appears to be increasingly accepted in Whitehall without question. Netanyahu will try to establish his credentials as a leader who is serious about the peace process, and reassert the legitimacy of Israel’s position.   

Conclusion

US policy is driving the situation, and it is now at a point with regard to both the peace process and Iran where progress is required. September will see a flood of diplomatic activity, with the UN General Assembly and the G20 as key events. Obama has marched up a long hill on the issues of settlements and normalisation. His ability to deliver a concrete result will be used both at home and abroad as a measure of his authority. The meetings in London next week are therefore part of the process to gear up for September in which key items on Obama’s Middle East agenda will move forward. It will also be a valuable opportunity for Netanyahu and his team to build relationships with their counterparts in the UK.

 

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[1] The White House; Remarks by President Obama and President Mubarak of Egypt during press availability, 18 August 2009.

^[2]Israel agrees to freeze settlement construction as gesture to US; Roni Sofer; Ynet News; 18 August 2009.

 

[3] US State Department; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks with Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal, 31 July 2009.