American Resolve and Israeli Legitimacy

Irving Louis Horowitz

Irving Louis Horowitz is Hannah Arendt Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He has written widely on policy issues related to the Middle East and Latin America, and is the author of Israeli Ecstasies and Jewish Agonies, and Taking Lives: Genocide and State Power, now in its fifth edition.

One of the more fascinating characteristics of the Israeli State that emerged nearly 55 year ago is its position as a new nation embodying an old civilization, and one located in a hostile global and regional context. Israel stands in splendid isolation within the United Nations. The effort to delegitimatize Israel is ceaseless, rooted in the absence of statehood for Palestine. In terms of activities on the ground, as of May 2000 Israel is designated as part of the Western European and Other States Group. Before that, Israel was the only member state excluded from a UN regional group. And in violation of its charter, Israel could not be elected to the vast majority of bodies with the UN system, where voting is based on membership in a regional group. Israel remains denied the right to serve as the President of the General Assembly or as a member of any bureau in its main committees. For a variety of reasons, some Israelis have grown content with such global ambiguity. Being European in culture and race, yet seeking membership in its “natural” regional group -- Asia, but also geographically located in the Mediterranean, does have its attractive qualities. Such designations are as much mythological caricatures as functional in a real world situation. What is not a myth is the systematic attempt to deny Israel its rightful place in the community of nations.

And that real world situation, of course, is that Israel is part and parcel of the Middle East, with as much entitlement to such a designation as Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. But such an obvious admission, such a bow to reality, would mean that an even greater caricature -- the hegemony of a Moslem Middle East united by religion and culture, would necessarily be deflated. Indeed, such an admission would not only acknowledge the fact of a Jewish State as a permanent reality, but also open the door to a Kurdish State or a Christian-dominated Lebanon. For the greater part of the past half-century Israeli’s uneasy and ambiguous global situation has been accepted by the United States. Until recently, it was the presumed price in ideology and theology that must be paid for the fiction of a Middle East peace process. President Bush’s regional initiatives have broken the ideological back of these inherited fictions.

Partly through accident and increasingly by design Israel’s situation as a pariah State that exists in the Middle East more as a military enclave if not as a royal thorn in the side of every other State in the region is fast coming to closure. The position of the United States during the Bush administration, following the collapse of the valiant peace initiatives of 2000 attempted by former President Clinton, has made it plain to all concerned that fiction must finally yield to fact. Israel is a part of the Middle East. And if any lasting peace is to be achieved, it must be in recognition of this reality.

Amidst the howls of myth makers on all sides, President Bush has moved ahead with frank admission of the need for a two-state solution, one that would grant the Palestinians a state of their own, while providing Israel with the peace and security to which all nations are entitled. Carolina Glick of the Jerusalem Post, has called this policy “Washington’s Betrayal,” one based on compelling Israel to accept an entity on its borders that is hostile and inimical to Israel’s security interests. At the same time, the group of sixty former diplomats and officials within the State Department has been just as pained in their denunciation of the President for interfering in the internal affairs of the Arab Middle East. A central assumption in the new diplomatic situation is President Bush’s notion of a democratic Middle East -- one unified in its commitment to basic human rights and pluralistic streams of political expression. In this context of a new policy toward the Middle East, the April 14, 2004 statement by President George W. Bush on the policy guidelines of the United States toward the State of Israel in particular, and the Middle East in general, is extraordinary in its importance.

Bush’s policy pronouncement ranks with the Balfour Declaration of 1917 in its implications for the region. Like that earlier statement, it is brief and to the point. It is worth recalling that earlier declaration, given the close working relationship of the United Kingdom with the United States in the present Iraq conflict. In a brief statement that reverberated widely and deeply at the time and in the years that followed, Lord Balfour declared

His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The new policy guidelines of the Bush administration also stands alongside the statement of President Harry S. Truman, who at midnight on May 14, 1948, the same date that the Provisional Government of Israel proclaimed a new State of Israel, stated that the United States recognized the provisional Jewish government as the de facto authority of the Jewish state (de jure recognition was extended on January 31, 1949). The President so authorized the United Nations mission to vote for the establishment of the State of Israel.

The justification for the Bush statement is the failure of peace settlements in the past on three distinct counts. First, many segments of Middle East Arab nations deny the right of Israel to sovereign existence. The myth that the core issue was Jewish occupation of Palestinian lands became a ploy, one believed by the Arab masses, making any sort of settlement with Israel impossible. The statement by the President of the United States leaves no doubt that Israel is and will remain an independent Jewish state, that its survival is no longer a ground for avoiding a solution.

Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC (United Nations Security Council) Resolutions 242 and 338. In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.

The second proposition, one Bush has repeated and restated time and again for the past three years, is that

. . . the United States supports the establishment of a Palestinian state that is viable, contiguous, sovereign and independent.

The price for such a development is also made quite clear:

A peace settlement negotiated between Israelis and Palestinians would be a great boon not only to those peoples but to the peoples of the entire region. Accordingly, all states in the region have special responsibilities: to support the building of the institutions of a Palestinian state; to fight terrorism, and cut off all forms of assistance to individuals and groups engaged in terrorism; and to begin now to move toward more normal relations with the State of Israel.

The third element in the President’s position is an emphatic insistence that the Palestinian cause can move ahead only if terror is abandoned as a weapon of first recourse. Its leadership must possess some semblance of democratic authority, and a civil administration that can implement a road map to peace.

Under the roadmap, Palestinians must undertake an immediate cessation of armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere, and all official Palestinian institutions must end incitement against Israel. The Palestinian leadership must act decisively against terror, including sustained, targeted, and effective operations to stop terrorism and dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure. Palestinians must undertake a comprehensive and fundamental political reform that includes a strong parliamentary democracy and an empowered prime minister.

The Israelis for their part will make themselves more vulnerable by giving up territorial claims and on-the-ground control of Gaza and a portion of the West Bank. Premier Sharon has undertaken to do so in the name of reality. He is aware that Israeli settlements must be restructured, and a smaller geographical Israel betokens a more secure Israel in all walks of life that matter to ordinary people: work, leisure, freedom to travel and to create. The recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is integral to the capacity to develop a two-state solution in the region. Israelis are prepared for such a risky but necessary step, one that entails a stronger opponent in the region replacing a weak cluster of clans and tribes identified by their terrorist civilities. It is obviously the hope, the gamble, that along with the removal of military installations from Gaza and portions of the West Bank will come civil relationships that are similar to what Israel has with Jordan, Turkey and Egypt. These will be uneven relationships, delicately stitched together over time, but they will possess the capacity for mutual survival, if not exactly friendship.

To view in anything less than historic terms Bush’s pronouncement is to overlook an event that lays the groundwork for a broad Middle East settlement based on the legitimacy and sovereignty of Israel, and no less than the legitimacy and sovereignty of an Arab Palestinian state as well. A standard mantra of jihadists and political leaders from Arafat on down to the lowliest official of Hamas and Hizbollah has been to reject the two-state solution in a situation in which the one state that does exist, Israel, is thereby able to command a military and political might clearly absent in the chaotic and confused world of Palestinian politics. The denial of the right of Israel to exist converts the struggle from one of a nation-state home for Palestinians into an unyielding effort to destroy the Israeli nation-state root and branch. This intransigence has compelled the Bush administration to insist upon a democratic Middle East as the grounds upon which to base its decisions.

As in all statements of broad principle, what has come to be called the Disengagement Plan is not without areas of ambiguity: Who would constitute a reliable Palestinian partner in such a plan? Why is the Gaza Strip or Northern Samaria (a portion of the West Bank) redefined as an occupied territory? How is violence to cease or even be reduced given the PLO denial of Israel’s right to exist as a nation? Where are the actual boundaries to be drawn in this “two state” solution? When, if ever, would the so-called Oslo Peace Process be implemented? To raise such details makes it plain that the gap between principles and practices is wide and deep.

It might well take at least an additional half-century for the wounds to heal and the terrible deaths on both sides to be absorbed by the living. But there is evidence that such healing is feasible. The relationship of German and Russian, Irish and British, or American and Japanese, and other residual wounds of World War II, may not be fully resolved, but the process is well underway. Understanding has replaced animus. Historic respect rather than inherited guilt is now the order of the day. It may well be that the conflation of ideology and theology is such as to make such a healing process possible in fifty years. Perhaps the process will take five hundred years. But it must come, just as assuredly as peace must always follow war.

The steps taken by President Bush, in the face of enormous Middle East pressure -- and dare one add not inconsequential pressure from the practitioners of realpolitik in Europe and in the United States -- to maintain an inherently unstable and dangerous situation for Israel, can be seen as the first major fruits of the elimination of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The year that followed Saddam’s fall has been a hard education for the President. It has been a similar complex learning process for Ariel Sharon, once thought to be the hawk of Israel, the intransigent leader who would demolish previous efforts at peacekeeping initiated by his predecessors. That has not been the case. Quite the contrary, and to the shock of many, and the dismay of hard liners on both sides, Sharon has shown himself to be capable of marching in the spirit of Yitzhak Rabin and David Ben Gurion. He has moved his own Likud Party to the Center while enlisting the active support of the main opposition Labor Party in an effort to redesign the Middle East with Israel as a member.

This is indeed a moment for careful reflection rather than blatant celebration. The cause of democracy has been advanced in the Middle East by the steadfastness of President Bush. In a November 2003 speech, Bush declared that “60 years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East” had failed to contain security threats emanating from the region and announced that the United States has adopted a new “forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East.” American policy makers subsequently drafted a plan, the Greater Middle East Initiative, to promote political and economic reform in the region in conjunction with the G-8 group of the world’s leading industrial powers.

Arab hard line opposition led to a shelving of this proposal, but it re-reappeared in a modified, but acceptable form, as G-8 governments approved two documents at the Sea Island summit: a 12-point overview entitled Partnership for Progress and a Common Future with the Region of the Broader Middle East and North Africa, and a much more detailed document, entitled G-8 Plan of Support for Reform, collectively known as the Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative. The rhetorical “packaging” of the initiative was completely overhauled. Whereas the Greater Middle East Initiative mentioned only problems connected to the region’s political and economic underdevelopment, the revised document acknowledged the Arab conflict with Israel, pledging that G-8 “support for reform in the region will go hand in hand with [its] support for a just, comprehensive, and lasting settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict.” In the new draft, the G-8 declares its “support for democratic, social and economic reform emanating from that region.”

In its weakened form, the Broader Middle East and North Africa plan does not suggest that Middle Eastern governments should be encouraged by the advanced industrial nations to change in any singular direction. The final draft document notes that

. . . successful reform depends on the countries in the region, and change should not and cannot be imposed from outside. . . . Each country is unique and their diversity should be respected. . . . Our engagement must respond to local conditions and be based on local ownership. . . . Each society will reach its own conclusions about the pace and scope of change.

In consequence, international and Arab reaction to the new approach was muted in comparison to the uproar over the Greater Middle East Initiative. The Bush administration embraced the Arab regimes’ preferred strategy of dealing with their mounting internal problems: controlled liberalization. The fact that the highly developed governments in Europe and North America agreed upon a common statement of principles about the need for political and economic reform in the region is new. The emergence of a consensus on this issue, however lackluster, has driven Arab governments to launch their own reform initiatives and has generated some movement toward democratization.

The Bush administration’s success in persuading most Arab governments to launch their own reform initiatives is significant for the reconfiguration of a Middle East in which Israel is a distinct player. The fact that Arab officialdom is talking about the need to rescind emergency laws, for example, would have been unimaginable a few years ago. Most of these reform initiatives are still just talk, but the rhetoric itself is unprecedented and has greatly raised public expectations for democratic reform. This alone makes it more difficult than ever before for Arab governments not to match words with deeds. With the Bush administration displaying an unprecedented willingness to publicly criticize oppressive actions even by friendly governments, Arab regimes may find it too politically costly to backtrack on their promises.

The comprehensive Middle East approach repeatedly outlined by the President has been achieved in the teeth of bitter opposition to the continued assertion of friendship of the mighty state of the United States with the minuscule state of Israel. That such policies have been cemented anew during the administration of George W. Bush -- to the utter dismay of the hard Left and the disgust of the extreme Right -- only serves to confirm the historic commitment of this president to positions and policies of the United States that date back to the founding of Israel. Supporting such positions is far more daunting in 2004 than in 1948. 

The President’s statement to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee warrants citation in this regard. It speaks to something much deeper than electoral pledges. He makes the issue of democracy central to the bilateral relations of the two countries, and also to the prospects for multilateral solutions of long-standing Middle Eastern differences.

Our nation, and the nation of Israel, has much in common. We are both relatively young nations, born of struggle and sacrifice. Immigrants escaping religious persecution in other lands found us both. We have both built vibrant democracies, built on the rule of law and market economies. And we’re both countries founded on certain basic beliefs: that God watches over the affairs of men, and values every life. These ties have made us natural allies, and these ties will never be broken. In the past, however, there was one great difference in the experience of our two nations: The United States, through most of our history, has been protected by vast oceans to our east and west, and blessed with friendly neighbors to our north and south. Israel has faced a different situation as a small country in a tough neighborhood. The Israeli people have always had enemies at their borders and terrorists close at hand. Again and again, Israel has defended itself with skill and heroism. And as a result of the courage of the Israeli people, Israel has earned the respect of the American people.

Beyond the rhetorical devices, is the idea of Israel as a model for the Middle East as such. Bush is not calling for a new imperial system or threatening to impose military might from abroad. Instead, he is advocating the view that democratization of the region is the ultimate, perhaps only, approach that can bring peace to the region. The risk, the gamble of course, is that that such a goal can be difficult to realize in an environment in which politics and religion are so intimately linked. The culture of democracy entails some degree of separation between civil society and clerical belief. Oddly, both Turkey and Iraq have strong military traditions that permit a wall of separation to be enforced. But military regimes, even of a relatively benign sort, place as many constraints on civil society as they do on clerical involvement in secular life.

The problem is that the Palestinian Authority, under the leadership of Yasir Arafat, is unable to create, much less maintain, a civil society. Growing anarchy among Palestinians, with no solution in sight, has tremendous implications not only for that immediate conflict but also for American policy in the Middle East as whole. As Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center at Bar Ilan University reminds us:

Most immediately, there will be no stability in a post-occupation Gaza Strip, no Palestinian element willing to act decisively to end the violence, and no Palestinian leadership ready to make peace with Israel. The fundamental problem is not that the Palestinians are being offered too little but that they will continue to demand too much while being unable or unwilling to implement any agreement.

Thus it is that the policy of the Bush administration, to push for democracy (however conceived) as a condition of overall settlement and pacification of the region is subject to serious doubt.

Whatever may be its prospects for success, it is evident that the new turn in American foreign policy is to secure its historic friendship with Israel by stepping up efforts to increase democratization in the Middle East as a whole. At the same time, it is a policy that offers as an inducement to democracy a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. It is a strategy that has enlisted the support of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his government, but it has received far less support from the Palestine Authority. As late as July 17, 2003, the President did go on record “as seeing movement toward reform and freedom in the Middle East.” But he was careful to neither include nor exclude the Palestinian Authority in this sight. This is a high-risk strategy, not one calculated to attract the support of hard liners on either side. But if it serves to isolate such elements, it holds out the promise of a quieter and safer Middle East. And if that resolution is not forthcoming, then this global-regional approach at least makes it plain where the problem of peace in the Middle East ultimately resides.     *

“Posterity -- you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.” --John Quincy Adams