The Trouble With Politeness

Lurking amidst a fairly dull article about regional strategy in the Middle East, Richard Haass and Martin Indyk offer a provocative proposal:

When it comes to settlement activity, the Olmert government reduced new construction beyond the security barrier, but it also gave permission for the construction of thousands of new housing units inside existing settlement blocs and in greater Jerusalem, evoking an outcry from the Palestinians and Arab leaders. Obama will need to seek an understanding with the next Israeli prime minister that all settlement activity will be frozen for a certain time period (say, six to 12 months) while negotiators finalize the borders of a Palestinian state. Once an agreement on borders is reached, settlement activity could resume, but only in the agreed settlement blocs that would be formally annexed to Israel after the other final-status issues have been resolved.

I think there are two problems with the way they put this. One is that as Gershom Gorenberg’s Foreign Policy article on the settlements makes clear, it’s quite politically difficult for Israeli politicians to take on the settler lobby. So to merely “seek an understanding” might well be to lead to the understanding not being achieved. To be maximally effective, I think the United States need to commit itself publicly to this goal as well as raising it privately. Israelis need to understand that their leaders are under pressure from their country’s most important ally and that ordinary Israelis need to choose between the settlers and the United States. Second, a big part of why the U.S. needs to be involved in Israel-Palestine issues is the role the conflict plays in driving perceptions of America in large swathes of the world. So to get the maximum effect out of a serious drive for a freeze on new construction within settlements, we need to be seen as exercising pressure not just pleading behind-the-scenes.

Practical politics, I understand, pushes in the other direction. Lots of Americans who have no particular brief for the settlers are nevertheless very touchy about Israel being subjected to any kind of strong criticism and are very wedded to a narrative in which the failure of Oslo rests 100 percent with the Palestinians. Under the circumstances, speaking bluntly about the settlements is politically risky. But it’s much more likely to work, and much more likely to advance American interests.

Thus far most discussion of the Obama administration’s approach to the Middle East has tended to focus on personalities—Ross vs. Kurtzer in particular—but at the end of the day no envoy can make up for the fact that progress requires political courage.