Israel’s Defense Minister on Friday dismissed a Middle East peace plan actively being pushed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, calling it “spin.”

Soon after becoming the nation’s top diplomat, Kerry immediately began a renewed U.S. effort toward a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. A key element of this effort has been the revival of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, an offer by the Arab League for normalization with Israel in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967, a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, and the creation of a Palestinian state.

Since it was first introduced in 2002, Israelis have voiced concerns with what they see as the non-negotiable nature of the initiative, particularly the demand that Israel withdraw from all lands occupied in 1967, on which hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers now live. Last month, in meeting hosted by Kerry in Washington, an Arab League delegation amended the proposal, saying that it would now consider “comparable,” mutually agreed and “minor” land swaps as part of any peace deal.

Israeli officials, including the government’s cabinet minister charged with negotiations with the Palestinians, Tzipi Livni, praised the Arab League’s decision. Fifty-two Members of the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, signed a petition requiring Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu to address the issue formally and a majority of Israelis said in a recent poll that they support implementing the initiative in some fashion.

But today at an event at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon “was bluntly dismissive of Obama administration efforts to restart the Palestinian-Israeli peace process,” as JTA noted, calling the revised Arab League plan “spin”:

YAALON: Regarding the Arab Initiative. It’s a spin in my mind. It’s not a decision of Arab League or whatever. And generally speaking about the Arab Initiative, Prime Minister Netanyahu responded to it officially saying, “We’re willing to sit to the table without preconditions with any initiative. But without dictations.” And actually the Arab Initiative as it is, as we know it, is a dictation. First of all you have to give up territory, 67 lines, Jerusalem, [inaudible] and then we the Arabs will consider relations with you. It is a dictation. So to sit to the table without preconditions, we are ready with any initiative.

Watch the clip:

Fatah, the political party currently in charge of the Palestinian Authority, also endorsed the updated Arab Peace Initiative last month, saying that it was dealing “seriously with US efforts in order to make them succeed. The success of these efforts first requires a clear Israeli recognition of the two-state solution on the basis of the 1967 borders, a freeze of settlement construction and the release of prisoners, especially those who were arrested before 1994.”

Israelis have publicly balked at halting construction of settlements — which Obama has said are an obstacle to peace and are illegal under international law — but they are apparently quietly instituting a partial freeze to acquiesce to Palestinian demands and move the peace process forward.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently praised the Arab League’s revised plan. “We can’t miss this opportunity to return to negotiations,” Olmert told an Israeli television news channel last month. “The taboo, that there isn’t anyone to talk to, has been broken.”

Ehud Olmert (Credit: AP)

The article’s “Exclusive” headline notwithstanding, aside from a picture of Abbas’ hand-drawn map of Olmert’s proposal there was virtually nothing in it that wasn’t already reported by Israeli journalist Bernard Avishai in a February 2011 piece in the New York Times Magazine. But, as the interview was published in The Tower, which is a new initiative of the right-wing Israel Project, Olmert’s comments were presented as “Details Behind the Peace the Palestinians Rebuffed,” in other words, as yet more evidence that the Palestinians just aren’t prepared to accept Israel. And this is how the interview was spun elsewhere, as Avishai himself observed in a subsequent piece in Open Zion that added some important details left out of the Tower article.

Yesterday, at an event at the Woodrow Wilson Center, I had the chance to ask Olmert about the interview myself, and whether he interpreted Abbas’ (also known as Abu Mazen) behavior this way.

“I never said, never did I mean to say that the fact that he didn’t say no was really just a more polite way of blaming him for not having peace with Israel,” Olmert replied.

OLMERT: There were many reasons, some of which can be understood. You know, I kept saying all the time that when people talk to me about Abu Mazen they said, “He’s not serious, he doesn’t mean it seriously, he’s very weak, and so on and so forth,” I said, “Look, everyone within the context of Israel understands that the pressures on Bibi [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] from the right-wing make it very difficult for him to take a decision, and must be understood, and must be, you know, reconciled with…

But I say, “You understand it about Bibi but you don’t understand it about Abu Mazen? Does he not have [Mohammed] Dahlan who is willing to overthrow him at any minute? What about Hamas? And what about all of the others in his own party? Do you think that opposition is a creation only of Israeli politics? So he’s got his problems just as well. [...]

So I think that he is a partner for peace, and I don’t know amongst the Palestinians who may be a better partner for peace. So if we want peace, we have to find the good excuses on why to make peace with him rather than to say why he is not ready to make peace.

Watch it:

It’s also good to see an Israeli leader recognize that the Palestinians actually have their own legitimate political concerns. As I discussed last December with the Brookings Institution’s Khaled Elgindy, we often hear about how Israeli Prime Ministers are constrained from doing this or that because of domestic political pressures, and it’s true that they often are, but it’s too rarely acknowledged that Palestinian leaders have their own domestic pressures to contend with. Getting to a two-state agreement will require navigating some complicated politics among both Israelis and Palestinians, so it’s important that Olmert acknowledged that.

Danny Danon

Secretary of State John Kerry has been pushing both sides in recent weeks to come to the negotiating table, promoting the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative — a comprehensive peace deal calling for two states and the Israelis to withdraw from the territories seized in the 1967 war, with agreed upon land swaps, in exchange for a normalization of relations — as the basis for talks. Kerry warned this week that time for a two-state deal is nearing its end. “We’re running out of time, we’re running out of possibilities. Let’s be clear, if we do not succeed now — and I know I’m raising the stakes — we may not get another chance,” he said.

While Netanyahu suggested this week that he is willing to consider the Arab-backed plan, Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon told the Times of Israel that a two-state solution is a non-starter among many in Netanyahu’s governing coalition:

“Look at the government: there was never a government discussion, resolution or vote about the two-state solution,” Danon said. “If you will bring it to a vote in the government — nobody will bring it to a vote, it’s not smart to do it — but if you bring it to a vote, you will see the majority of Likud ministers, along with the Jewish Home [party], will be against it.” [...]

Today we’re not fighting it [Netanyahu’s declared goal of a Palestinian state], but if there will be a move to promote a two-state solution, you will see forces blocking it within the party and the government,” Danon said.

Indeed, other members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition have recently questioned whether the two-state solution is official government policy. Member of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin (Likud) said there are “substantial divides inside the government” on the issue and MK Orit Struck (Jewish Home) said that “two states for two peoples is not the government’s official position.”

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who is also serving as the top Israeli official on peace talks with the Palestinians, acknowledged to the TImes of Israel that some in governing coalition don’t want her to succeed but added, “I know that I have the support of the prime minister in the attempts to relaunch the negotiations.”

Kerry will reportedly travel to Israel next week in what will be his fifth trip to the region since becoming the nation’s top diplomat. “I will make a judgment at some point whether I need to go and push a little bit, or help that process, and I am certainly willing to. I am open to that possibility but we are not raising any expectations about an American plan,” Kerry said on Monday.

(Credit: Jerusalem Post.)

The Arab Peace Initiative, debuted in 2002 and reaffirmed by Arab states in 2007, sets up a basic peace framework in which Israel would withdraw from all territories acquired in 1967 and 1973 and provide a “just” settlement for refugees in exchange for recognition and normal diplomatic relations with all Arab states, including an independent Palestine. While the Initiative’s provisions are not specific enough to constitute a full deal, the document is designed to serve as a guiding framework from which a more detailed final status agreement can be hammered out. For instance, the Arab League has recently signaled that it would support land swaps as a substitute for full Israeli withdrawal from its 1967 and 1973 acquisitions.

Israelis have historically been skeptical of the Arab League’s seriousness, but the new polling numbers suggest Israelis are willing to give the deal a chance. Once the contours of the deal were explained to respondents, 55 percent of Israelis said they would support implementing it “to some degree.” By contrast, a scant 27 percent “strongly oppose” the deal and 17.5 percent weren’t sure how they fell about it.

Perhaps most interestingly, Israelis would strongly support efforts by their prime minister to pursue the Arab League’s deal. A vast majority — 69 percent — of Israelis would approve of Netanyahu adopting the Arab Peace Initiative framework and used it to come to final terms with the Palestinians and Arab states more broadly. Only 18 percent would “strongly oppose” such a move. While Netanyahu’s response to recent Arab overtures has been cagey, he cannot avoid taking a position on the Peace Initiative indefinitely: a petition signed by 52 Knesset members legally forces him to address the legislature on the issue.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the Arab League’s recent announcement on land swaps discredits the view that “there is no one to talk to” for peace. “We can’t miss this opportunity to return to negotiations,” Olmert said. “The taboo, that there isn’t anyone to talk to, has been broken.”

The poll, which sampled 500 Jewish Israelis, was conducted by an Israeli polling firm on behalf of the Israeli Peace Initiative, an organization attempting to build support in Israel for negotiating on the Arab Peace Initiative’s terms.

These results come at a time of renewed American attention on Israeli-Palestinian peace. During Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Israel in April, aides leaked that the secretary “welcomes efforts to enhance the constructive role the Arab Peace Initiative can play moving forward.” In more recent testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Secretary Kerry warned that in “a year, year and a half to two years or [so, the two-state solution is] over.”

Secretary of State John Kerry believes that time is running out for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with at most two years before it is no longer possible.

During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, Ranking Member Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) asked the Secretary about President Obama’s recent trip to Israel and the West Bank, inquiring about the stalled peace process. Kerry’s response highlighted the urgency with which the administration views restarting talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders:

KERRY: But I can guarantee you that am committed to this, because I believe the window for a two-state solution is shutting. I think we have some period of time a year, a year and a half, to two years or its over. [...] So there’s an urgency to this in my mind, and I intend, on behalf of the President’s instructions, to honor that urgency and see what we can do to move forward.

Later in the hearing, Rep. Ted Deutch (R-FL) followed up on Engel’s earlier question, placing the onus of restarting negotiations solely on the Palestinians. Deutch specifically asked why Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had not done more to “prepare his people for peace,” lamenting Palestinian preconditions on negotiations — like demanding Israel end its illegal settlement construction — and its push for statehood recognition at the United Nations.

“Look, the hurdle we have to get over here, part of the difficulty is the level of mistrust on both sides is gigantic,” Kerry responded. “President Abbas deep-down is not convinced — and that may be a light word for it — that Prime Minister Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and Israel are ever going to give them a state. And on the other side, Israel is not convinced that the Palestinians and others ever going to give them the security that they need. So we have to find an equation here, folks, where we can try to dispel those years of mistrust and get both sides to understand that both things are in fact possible.”

While President Clinton laid the groundwork, U.S. support for the two-state solution has been official policy since 2002, when President George W. Bush announced his desire to see an independent Israel and Palestine living side-by-side. Since then, the peace process has moved forward in fits and starts before and stalled in 2010. While a report from CAP in 2009 also implied that the window of opportunity is closing, this is the first time a Secretary of State has been so blunt in producing a narrow timeframe. Secretary Kerry recently returned from his third trip to the Middle East in the latest round of shuttle diplomacy intended to jump-start direct negotiations between both sides.

As CAP’s Matt Duss notes, however, in the absence of direct talks, there are several options the United States could pursue in the meantime to help lay the ground for a lasting peace. And while the political process has yet to move forward, the U.S. did win agreement from Netanyahu and Abbas to help boost economic development in the West Bank. Kerry, in response to questions from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lesthein (R-FL), made clear that the economic process is meant to move forward along side the political track, not as a replacement.

Kerry with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

For weeks, media outlets have been reporting that Kerry might seek to revive the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative as the basis for the new talks. The Saudi-proposed and Arab League-backed plan is a comprehensive peace deal calling for the Israelis to withdraw from the territories seized in the 1967 war in exchange for a normalization of relations.

And it appears that there is some validity to the reports. The AP says today a senior State Department official said Kerry “welcomes” the role the plan can play in his current push:

Kerry “welcomes efforts to enhance the constructive role the Arab Peace Initiative can play moving forward,” a senior State Department official said, while denying that he was proposing changes to the plan. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of Kerry’s orders not to brief reporters.

Bloomberg also reported that a unnamed Turkish official said Kerry discussed the Arab Peace Initiative with Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in meetings ahead of his trip to Israel and the West Bank. Bloomberg says the Turkish official reportedly asked for anonymity “because talks about the plan are intended to remain private.”

If the reports are true, it’s worth noting that back in 2011, President Clinton told a blogger roundtable that the Israelis missed an opportunity for peace by not seizing on the Arab-backed plan, as Foreign Policy reported at the time:

Israel also wants a normalization of relations with its Arab neighbors to accompany a peace deal. Clinton said that the Saudi-inspired Arab Peace Initiative put forth in 2002 represented an answer to that Israeli demand.

“The King of Saudi Arabia started lining up all the Arab countries to say to the Israelis, ‘if you work it out with the Palestinians … we will give you immediately not only recognition but a political, economic, and security partnership,’” Clinton said. “This is huge…. It’s a heck of a deal.”

While the Israelis saw flaws in the plan, and obstacles on both sides remain today, CAP’s Matt Duss noted last month that “a number of liberal Israelis promulgated the Israeli Peace Initiative, which called on the Israeli government to ‘accept the Arab initiative of 2002 as a basis for negotiations for peace agreements in the area’”:

One of the leaders of this initiative is Jacob Perry, a former head of the Shin Bet security service who is now the number two man in Yesh Atid, the new party that made a surprising second-place showing in Israel’s recent elections, and is now a member of the governing coalition.

“I am convinced there is a road forward. I would say to everyone that I have no illusions about the difficulties, we’ve seen them,” Kerry said as he met Israeli President Shimon Peres this afternoon in Jerusalem.

“The two-state solution is the best solution and the parameters for that agreement already exist, two states for two peoples – a Jewish state, Israel and an Arab state, Palestine,” Peres said.

President Obama told an audience of Israeli university students, in what is being hailed as a historic speech, that if they want see peace with the Palestinians, they must put more pressure on the Israeli government to act.

While Obama reiterated that Israeli settlement activity “is counterproductive to the cause of peace,” he acknowledged that Israel “has taken risks for peace.”

“You made credible proposals to the Palestinians at Annapolis. You withdrew from Gaza and Lebanon, and then faced terror and rockets,” Obama said, adding, “Across the region, you have extended a hand of friendship, and too often have been confronted with the ugly reality of anti-Semitism.”

But he said that ultimately, achieving peace will mean that they must urge their leaders to move forward to take the risks necessary to achieve an agreement. “You must create the change that you want to see,” he said:

OBAMA: That is where peace begins – not just in the plans of leaders, but in the hearts of people; not just in a carefully designed process, but in the daily connections, that sense of empathy, that takes place among those who live together in this land, and in this sacred city of Jerusalem. And let me say this as a politician, I can promise you this: political leaders will never take risks if the people do not push them to take some risks. You must create the change that you want to see. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things.

Watch the clip:

Indeed, as CAP’s Rudy deLeon, Brian Katulis and Matt Duss observed recently, based on conversations with officials and experts from the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority, “There are few political incentives to tackle the Palestinian issue”:

There is little sense of urgency in Israel about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict beyond continued concerns about possible security threats from the Gaza Strip. Israelis seem resigned to the status quo and lack a clear sense of the next possible steps forward. Even among those Israelis who express more concern about the need for a two-state solution to the conflict, there is little clarity about the pathway forward to advance that agenda.

They recommend that Secretary of State Kerry “embark on an active process of listening to both Israelis and Palestinians, quietly encouraging both sides to take steps that build trust and public support for the eventual restart of negotiations in the coming year.”

(Photo: AP)

Transcript from Obama’s speech:

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