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33–316PDF 2007

NEXT STEPS IN ISRAELI–PALESTINIAN

PEACE PROCESS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

FEBRUARY 14, 2007

Serial No. 110–1

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

TOM LANTOS, California, Chairman 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

DIANE E. WATSON, California 

ADAM SMITH, Washington 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee 

LYNN C. WOOLSEY, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

DAVID WU, Oregon 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM COSTA, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

VACANT 

VACANT 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado 

RON PAUL, Texas 

JEFF FLAKE, Arizona 

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

THADDEUS G. MCCOTTER, Michigan 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

LUIS G. FORTUN ̃ O, Puerto Rico 

ROBERT R. KING, Staff Director 

YLEEM POBLETE, Republican Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST AND SOUTH ASIA

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York, Chairman 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM COSTA, California 

RON KLEIN, Florida 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia 

THADDEUS G. MCCOTTER, Michigan 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

BOB INGLIS, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

DAVID ADAMS, Subcommittee Staff Director 

HOWARD DIAMOND, Subcommittee Professional Staff Member 

GREGORY MCCARTHY, Republican Professional Staff Member 

DALIS BLUMENFELD, Staff Associate 
(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. David Makovsky, Director, Project on the Middle East Peace Process, 

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy ................................................ 8

The Honorable Martin S. Indyk, Director, Saban Center for Middle East 

Policy, The Brookings Institution ....................................................................... 14

The Honorable Daniel Pipes, Director, Middle East Forum ................................ 20

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. David Makovsky: Prepared statement ............................................................ 11

The Honorable Martin S. Indyk: Prepared statement .......................................... 18

The Honorable Daniel Pipes: Prepared statement ................................................ 23

APPENDIX 

Material Submitted for the Hearing Record .......................................................... 53

(1)

NEXT STEPS IN ISRAELI–PALESTINIAN PEACE 

PROCESS 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST

AND SOUTH ASIA, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:32 p.m. in room 

2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Gary L. Ackerman 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. The subcommittee will come to order. Today the 

subcommittee had hoped to examine those realistic and productive 

measures that the parties directly and indirectly involved with the 

Israeli-Palestinian conflict might have taken to restore a sense of 

hope, and maybe even make some material progress toward peace. 

But in light of the Mecca Accord, which if implemented will create a Hamas-Fatah unity government for the Palestinian Authority, sometimes I am not sure what is left to discuss. 

Over the past 6 years there have been many plans and many envoys. And contrary to popular opinion, there hasn’t been a deficit 

of attention, merely a deficit of performance. Commitments made 

to the United States or between the parties have often been honored in the breach. The timing was never right. What was promised was never delivered. 

There was always a provocation, an incident, an upcoming election, a crisis, an attack, and so it is again today. Recent weeks held 

the promise of change, maybe not all of it wise, but things were 

moving. The United States and Israel seemed ready to work with 

the Palestinians to provide some kind of political horizon, setting 

aside earlier obligations in the President’s roadmap. Why? To 

strengthen Abu Mazen. The President asked the Congress to agree to reprogram $86 million for Palestinian security services. Why? To strengthen Abu 

Mazen. Secretary Rice agreed to participate in a tripartite meeting 

next week. Why? To strengthen Abu Mazen. 

And what has Abu Mazen done to strengthen himself? He has 

capitulated to Hamas. The Mecca Accord neither strengthens him, 

nor helps the cause of peace. 

I, for one, have been urging a different kind of assistance to Abu 

Mazen, suggesting both publicly and privately that significant economic assistance should have been provided to him long ago. We 

are now well beyond that point. And due to the courtesy of our 

friends in Saudi Arabia, we now have what Secretary Rice once 
2

said we could not accept: A Palestinian Authority with ‘‘one foot in 

terror, and one foot in democracy.’’

How anyone can describe what happened in Mecca over the 

weekend as progress is beyond me. And if, in Abu Mazen, we have 

seen a leader who has chosen a form of government with a multiple 

personality disorder, in Israel we see a government suffering from 

depression, schlepping along with no mandate except that provided 

by inertia. Things seem so hopeless and fearful in the region that 

Arab governments are actually threatening to begin cooperating 

with each other. 

I had hoped that this hearing would explore ways to fill the gaps 

between high-minded principles and facts on the ground. So many 

Americans—indeed, so many people across the world—are desperate to see some kind of progress, some indication that this conflict between two people fated to share the same land can at least 

be put back on the path toward peace. 

Instead, we have to contend with the implications of the Mecca 

Accord. And those implications look severe. The Mecca Accord 

seems quite clear on the necessity of Hamas accepting the quartet’s 

three non-negotiable conditions for the resumption of assistance to 

the PA. It ignores these conditions altogether. 

Hamas is not required to recognize the State of Israel. Hamas 

does not have to commit to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 

through exclusively non-violent means. Instead, Hamas has to respect, but not necessarily obey, the prior obligations and agreements of the Palestinian Authority. 

Must Israel renegotiate its right to exist every time the Palestinians change government? That would be lunacy. 

In exchange for this massive reversal, Hamas will allow Abu 

Mazen to pick a new foreign minister and new finance minister. 

The foreign minister will be responsible for explaining the political 

disaster to the world, and the finance minister will have the job of 

distributing funds the Mecca Accord will preclude the PA from receiving from members of the quartet. It is a trifecta of a diplomatic 

disaster. 

Abu Mazen has gutted his own credibility, empowered his opponents, and taken upon himself the responsibility for the inevitable 

failure of his two-headed monstrosity of a government. Yogi Berra 

had it right: It is deja-vu all over again. 

I would like to turn now, with great pleasure, to my partner on 

the committee, the ranking minority member, Mr. Pence. 

Mr. PENCE. I thank the chairman for both the recognition, as 

well as calling this extremely important hearing. I am greatly privileged to serve in the capacity of ranking member on this subcommittee, and can’t help but feel that the chairman’s decision to 

begin our work on this subcommittee on this issue is commendable 

and appropriate. 

Mr. Chairman, I know we share a commitment of the long-term 

health and security of Israel, and it is heartfelt in both of our lives. 

She is our staunchest ally in the Middle East, and one of our best 

friends in the world. 

Fifty-nine years after the birth of the modern State of Israel and 

30 years after the beginning of the first Camp David Accords, the 
3

very existence of Israel still goes unrecognized by the Palestinian 

leadership and most of the Islamic world. 

The absurdity of Israel enduring years, approaching decades, of 

negotiations with an entity that does not recognize its right to exist 

is historically striking. And the fact that this is still a subject of 

negotiation is outrageous. 

Mr. Chairman, contrary to some of the testimony we are about 

to hear with respect, I believe this problem is not shrouded in great 

mystery or complexity. As President Ronald Reagan often said, 

there is a simple answer—not an easy answer, but a simple answer. 

We will hear talk about us needing to be an honest broker. We 

will hear talk about a return to the roadmap, to more action by the 

quartet of restarting the peace process. And I will listen intently. 

We will hear a lot of discussion about confidence-building measures and processes now on the political horizon. But, Mr. Chairman, I plead with the Palestinians and the Arab world: If they are 

serious about peace, take the simple answer, not the easy answer. 

But take the simple step of recognizing Israel and renouncing violence against it. 

In fact, the Bush administration and several European countries 

had three basic conditions required of the new Palestinian Government, and we know them well. Recognize the right of Israel to 

exist, foreswear violence, and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian 

agreements. 

And on 8 February, as the chairman has referenced, in Mecca, 

Saudi Arabia, Fatah and Hamas signed an agreement to form a national unity government in hopes of lifting the international embargo and ending their own virtual civil war. This step was hailed in 

many quarters, notably the Governments of Russia and France, as 

a breakthrough. But none of the basic steps that have been at the 

center of our expectation in this region were met, as the chairman 

has noted eloquently. 

Even before the ink was dry, a Hamas spokesman would tell the 

Reuters News Service, ‘‘We will never recognize Israel. There is 

nothing called Israel,’’ he said, ‘‘neither in reality nor in imagination.’’

This agreement is not a step toward reform, since it does not 

come close to addressing this basic problem, in my judgment. The 

new Palestinian Government is a hybrid, still dominated by 

Hamas. Hamas holds nine cabinet ministries to Fatah’s six. One of 

our witnesses, David Makovsky, describes the Mecca Agreement as 

a victory for Hamas, since a unity government has been one of its 

standing goals. 

And despite the President’s four separate approvals of direct 

funding for the Palestinian Authority, and the anticipated request 

of $73.5 million for fiscal year 2008 in aid to the Palestinians, I 

ask, Mr. Chairman, how can we support funding any official Palestinian entity, when an internationally recognized terrorist organization dominates that government? 

The fact that Hamas was chosen by the Palestinians to represent 

them is a bigger obstacle to peace than is any disengagement by 

this administration of the peace process. 
4

Mr. Chairman, as an aside, without getting into my opinion on 

the peace process, let me speak a word of defense of the administration and its efforts. The subject was a priority for Secretary 

Powell, and is a priority for Secretary Rice. 

General Zinni was dispatched on a round of shuttle diplomacy in 

2001, and in fact Secretary Rice will return to the region in 5 days. 

I do not believe that the peace process has suffered primarily from 

a lack of administration attention. 

I also would note, Mr. Chairman, parenthetically, that the President has faced criticism largely from the congressional majority for 

not opening an active dialogue with Iran and Syria, which I would 

point out are both internationally recognized terrorist regimes. Yet 

virtually no one in this Congress, on either side of the aisle, has 

ever called on the benign powers of this world to negotiate directly 

with Hamas, one of the main beneficiaries of those regimes. 

If negotiating with terrorists is bad policy, I would offer that we 

shouldn’t hear so many admonitions about negotiating with their 

patrons. 

Mr. Chairman, today marks the 2-year anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which was 

credibly linked to the Syrians who then occupied that country. That 

outrage and so many events in this region remind us that not everything is a matter of negotiation, dialogue, and talk. Some forces 

are evil, prone to violence, and hostile to civilization. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for calling this hearing. I look 

very much forward to our witnesses, to their presentations, and our 

dialogue that will follow. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Pence. Congratulations, and I look forward to working with you on the committee. 

The Chair will follow the general procedures of the full committee in recognizing members in order of appearance at the meeting, at the time the gavel was struck. 

Mr. Sherman. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is incredible 

aching in this world for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. We are now told that not only would it be good for the 

Holy Land, but perhaps Shiites and Sunnis would stop fighting 

each other in Baghdad, if only Israel made concessions. 

A peace agreement would be a good thing. We shouldn’t over-sell 

it. But it is hard to begin even thinking of a peace agreement if 

the Government of the Palestinian Authority doesn’t recognize the 

three conditions: Recognize Israel, renounce violence, and affirm 

adherence to previous agreements with Israel. 

The response of this new entity that has been created by discussions in Mecca fails on all three counts. Three strikes and you 

should be out. The unity government does not recognize Israel or 

renounce violence, and if you do not recognize Israel it is hard to 

reaffirm agreements made with Israel. 

The agreement instead stresses the importance of confronting the 

occupation, which means it endorses the continued use of violence 

and terror. Hamas, whenever it uses the term occupied territories, 

refers not only to Ramallah, but to Tel Aviv. Hamas is adamant 

that the agreement does not recognize Israel, as I believe my colleague from Indiana quoted. Their senior leader in Gaza said we 
5

will never recognize Israel, there is nothing called Israel, neither 

in reality nor imagination. 

Finally, immediately after signing the agreement with Abbas, the 

top Damascus-based Hamas leader, Khalid Mezal—I apologize if I 

mispronounced his name—continued to call for attacks on Israel, 

saying we devote ourselves to the battle for Jerusalem and the 

Allaksa Mosque, the battle for our prisoners, in order to recover 

our rights and enable the refugees to return to their homes. 

What does he mean when he says refugees return to their 

homes? He means the Ahmadinejad approach, which is that roughly 5.5 million Israelis should be ethnically cleansed from the Middle East, and that any Arabic-speaking person who claims—because there are no records—that they or any member of their extended family, or any of the ancestors of any of the foregoing, ever 

lived where Israel is now, has the right to move to Israel. 

Israel is alone among the countries of the world where people try 

to turn back the clock. No one suggests that Australians should not 

live in Tasmania, though once it was exclusively occupied by Tasmanians. No one says it is wrong for Turks to live in Silesia, 

though it was once part of an Armenian kingdom. And no one says 

that it is wrong for Poles to live in what was once called East Prussia. 

Yet somehow we are told that the clock in the Middle East 

should be turned back, not all the way back to before the common 

era, not all the way back to Roman times, but only turned back to 

some propitious moment at which Jewish residency and numbers 

and population in the Holy Land was at a low point. Those who 

declare that the clock must be turned back can only confront the 

results of that thinking in Kosovo, which was once called Old Serbia, where Milosevic believed the clock should be turned back. Ethnic cleansing is often a prelude to genocide, and it seems to be the 

ideology governing this new Palestinian Authority agreement. 

So I look forward to a time when Israel has a partner for peace. 

But until then, we should recognize that self-delusion is not a substitute for having a peace partner; and that pressure on Israel will 

not bring peace to the Holy Land, and certainly won’t help our 

other efforts in the Middle East. 

I yield back. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Perfect timing, you had 6 seconds left. Thank 

you very much. 

I now recognize Representative Klein, who is a new Member of 

the House, as well as of the committee. And we welcome you to the 

committee. 

Mr. KLEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am delighted to 

serve with the ranking member, as well as the other members of 

this committee. 

I have had a long personal interest in Middle East policy, as a 

civilian, as someone who has been very interested from community 

efforts, as well as travel. I know a lot about the history, but I have 

a lot more to learn. I look forward to learning more about the 

United States policy in terms of where we need to be at this moment in time. 

I think we all understand that historically, the United States, 

administration after administration, has tried many different ave-
6

nues to try to bring peace and stability to Israel and its neighbors, 

sometimes with more success than others, but this is an ongoing 

issue. And when we have pulled back from our active involvement, 

our active responsibility, unfortunately many times things have 

happened that spiral out of control. 

That being said, I had the chance to be over in Israel last year 

during the war, up in the Haifa area. And once again you see visually, first hand, when missiles are coming down one way, and the 

world’s media is reporting that view versus missiles going down the 

other way, and the world seems to cast a blind eye toward that 

event. 

So we understand, as American citizens, that Israel is a strategic 

issue for us. The only true democracy, although there are other 

friends in the area. But we obviously know that Israel’s relationship with the United States is extremely important to the United 

States and its citizens. And we need to continue to be vigilant and 

diligent, and recognize that our active involvement in the Middle 

East as a whole, and bringing stability to that area, is something 

that will be necessary for Israel’s long-term safety and security. 

But let us not mix up the differences between solving the IsraelPalestinian issues as solving everything else in the Middle East. 

There are lots of complicated issues in the Middle East, and certainly we ought to do everything we can to continue to provide 

safety and security for Israel, but don’t let it get tangled up in the 

recognition that that is the, if you solve that problem, you have 

solved everything else in the Middle East. I think we all understand that is a misnomer and a misunderstanding promoted by certain people. 

So Mr. Chairman, I look forward to learning and listening, and 

being part of this committee, and hoping to work with the administration in moving a real peace process along. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much. Next we will hear from 

Representative Scott, not new to the Congress, but new to the committee. Welcome aboard. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you very much, Chairman Ackerman. It is indeed a pleasure to serve on this committee, and I think our Subcommittee on the Middle East and Asia are very, very important, 

and at a no more critical time than now. 

I was last in Israel a couple of years ago. I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with, on one hand in one meeting, with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon; and then in the same day, just a few hours 

later, with Abu Mazen. Our hope was great at that time. At that 

time we were discussing the feasibility of building a fence of protection, which is certainly Israel’s right to defend itself. We felt that 

with Abu Mazen we were moving in a strong direction. 

No one would have foreseen that just a few years later we would 

be in a situation where a basic terrorist organization, Hezbollah 

and Hamas, would be in the rather strong positions that they are 

in now. It often brings to mind the wondrous challenge of whether 

or not peace can be found. 

But as I ponder that, I am also reminded of the interchange between two great Americans during the Civil War, Robert E. Lee 

and Abraham Lincoln. As they were in the throes of that war, they 
7

had a conversation where one said, I believe it was Robert E. Lee 

that said it is not incumbent upon us to complete the task. But before he could finish that sentence, Abraham Lincoln said, but neither are we free to desist from doing all we possibly can. 

And I believe that is the cornerstone of this subcommittee, our 

full Foreign Affairs Committee, and our entire government: That 

we must do everything we can to bring peace to this region. 

And I believe we can do that. We are going to have to talk to 

people that, unfortunately in some measures, we are not talking to, 

in Syria and Iran, and bring this about. 

So Mr. Chairman, I really look forward to the hearing today, and 

I look forward to working with you on this committee, and to my 

other distinguished colleagues. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Scott. 

The Chair is delighted to recognize a very senior member of the 

committee, and an old hand on the subcommittee, as well, Howard 

Berman. 

Mr. BERMAN. With the emphasis on ‘‘old.’’ Thank you, Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to be on your subcommittee once again, with 

the new ranking member and a number of new colleagues. 

There is a lot to say, but you have really assembled for your first 

hearing a wonderful group of people who truly can be called experts. And I would be curious to hear what they have to say. So 

I will yield back. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Berman. 

Long-time Member of the House, new member to the subcommittee, Sheila Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your graciousness, and particularly in utilizing the term old-time and not old. 

Thank you for that kindness. 

I thank the ranking member, and I am pleased to join this subcommittee as a new member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and 

to represent my views on the Mid-East, which can be characterized 

as a hopeful optimist. 

And I say that because for the last 20-plus years, the 18th Congressional District, which I represent, has sent about 17 young people from our inner city schools to Israel every summer. And they 

have come back changed and inspired. And they have spoken to 

young people from one end of Israel’s great land to the other end. 

And these families that have hosted them have expressed to them 

a sense of hope and optimism. 

And so I look forward to the testimony. I am sharing myself between two hearings at this moment, but I offer, in my thoughts, 

that we did have a period of intense engagement in the waning 

hours of the Clinton administration that at least had the doors of 

dialogue open. Some may have agreed with that process, others 

may have not. But you cannot agree or disagree with the fact that 

the process was ongoing. 

We need to engage intensely again. Speak to the hopefulness of 

the Israelis, and the hopefulness of many Palestinians, families, 

young people who don’t want violence, don’t want suicide bombings, 

but want hope and education and prosperity. And I do believe that, 

with the experts that we are about to hear and the leadership of 
8

this chairperson and ranking member, that we will be able to move 

that dodge ball along a little bit further in bringing hopefulness, 

and hopefully peace, to the Mid-East. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much. This being the first meeting of the subcommittee, I would just like to introduce the staff director for the committee, Dave Adams, who sits to my right. In 

back of him, professional staff member Howard Diamond. Sitting 

at the small table to my right again, Dalis Blumenfeld, who is our 

Staff Associate. And sitting over here to my left, Greg McCarthy, 

who is the minority professional staff member. So welcome. Everybody will get to know them. 

There certainly being no further members who wish to be recognized, we will turn to our three witnesses. I would ask each of 

them to summarize their testimony if they can, and without objection their full statements will be entered into the record. 

Moving this way, joining the subcommittee today are David 

Makovsky, Ambassador Martin Indyk, and Dr. Daniel Pipes. 

David Makovsky is a senior fellow and director of the Project on 

the Middle East Peace Process at the Washington Institute for 

Near East Policy. He is also an adjunct lecturer in Middle Eastern 

Studies at Johns Hopkins Universities, Paul H. Nietzsche School of 

Advanced International Studies. 

Ambassador Martin Indyk is the director of the Saban Center for 

Middle East Policy, and senior fellow on Foreign Policy Studies at 

the Brookings Institution. Previously, Ambassador Indyk served as 

U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Assistant Secretary of State for Near 

East Affairs, senior director for Near East and South Asian Affairs 

at the National Security Council. And he is a wonderful host when 

you get to visit him wherever he serves in his posts. 

And last but not lest, to my left, but certainly to the right of the 

panel, is Dr. Daniel Pipes, who is the director for Middle East 

Forum and distinguished visiting professor at Pepperdine University. He served in the United States in two capacities, first as vice 

chairman of the Fulbright Board of Foreign Scholarships, and also 

as a member of the Board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, and probably had the most difficult time of the panel in getting here with 

all kinds of airport problems across the country. We are so happy 

you persisted and are with us today. 

We will begin with David Makovsky. 

STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID MAKOVSKY, DIRECTOR, PROJECT 

ON THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS, THE WASHINGTON 

INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Chairman 

Ackerman, Ranking Member Pence, and distinguished members of 

the Middle East Subcommittee. I am pleased to appear before you 

today. 

The Israeli-Palestinian political landscape has been rather bleak 

over the last several years. Between 2000 and 2004, the second 

Intifada has brought almost unremitting terror and violence. Despite Israel’s pullout from Gaza in the summer of 2005, the parliamentary victory of the Rejectionist Hamas party in January 

2006 contributed to this downward trend. 
9

Compounding the problem of peacemaking today has been the inadequate leadership of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and 

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Both leaders have been weakened, Olmert by the consequences of the war in Lebanon, and 

Abbas by his willingness to yield to his Hamas rivals. This trend 

was demonstrated last week at the Mecca Summit. The agreement 

signed there will greatly complicate Secretary of State Condoleezza 

Rice’s effort to reach a ‘‘political horizon’’ between Israelis and Palestinians, which is scheduled to be launched next week in Jerusalem at a meeting with Olmert and Abbas. 

Secretary Rice’s mission is to create a political horizon for the 

Palestinians; specifically, a discussion, rather than a formal negotiating channel between Olmert and Abbas, to see if they agree on 

principles that would shape the contours of a final deal. According 

to this view, Secretary Rice sees her political horizon discussion as 

both validating Abbas’ focus on negotiations instead of violence, 

and satisfying Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s belief that 

such a wide-ranging discussion avoids ensuring that Israeli concessions are made in their contextual vacuum. 

Livni and apparently Rice believe that only under the rubric of 

discussing principles about a final status agreement can significant 

tradeoffs be reached, and a grand bargain be struck. And then the 

roadmap implementation will flow easier. 

It is critical to understand how the recent Mecca Summit has undercut this endeavor. While there are favorable aspects of the accord, especially the prospect of halting internecine Palestinian violence, the negative side weighs heavily. The Mecca Accord is a victory for Hamas, which has achieved its goal of forming a unity government without agreeing to the conditions imposed by the quartet: 

Namely, no recognition of Israel, no disavowal of violence, and no 

commitment to agree to pass written agreements. 

In Mecca, Hamas resisted Abbas’ insistence that Hamas commit 

to these principles. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Abbas 

has, in fact, legitimized an unrepentant Hamas. A rationale for 

Secretary Rice’s political horizon initiative was done in no small 

measure to help bolster Abbas, at Hamas’ expense, to show that 

progress comes through negotiations, and not terror. 

Israeli officials may wonder how it will be possible to proceed 

with such weighty issues as a political horizon under such circumstances. Moreover, there is ample reason for skepticism that 

the PA coalition policy guidelines will substantially be better than 

Mecca. Hamas’ Haniyeh will be the prime minister. Palestinian Authority officials are now publicly saying that the Hamas executive 

force militia of Gaza will continue, and this time will be financed 

by the PA. 

Hamas has the right to put forward ‘‘an independent’’ name as 

interior minister, but this person would head the security services. 

All this has implications for U.S. policy. People who felt there was 

logic to bolstering Abbas against Hamas’ growing strength, and 

therefore supported the security mission of General Keith Dayton 

and $86 million in non-lethal security assistance, must now wonder 

if the new Palestinian coalition alignment could lead to a very different outcome. Clarifications about this new setup are critical. 
10

Irrespective of the Dayton issue and the $86 million, the quartet 

should keep to its three criteria. Such a commitment by the quartet 

has not meant a cutoff of funds to individuals and humanitarian 

needs. According to the UN Special Coordinator’s Office in the Middle East that we confirmed earlier this week, overall foreign aid to 

the Palestinians in the West Bank in Gaza reached $1.3 billion in 

2006. It is estimated that this is 10 percent above the year before, 

although there is an obvious shortfall of tax revenues passed along 

by Israel. 

It is hard to see how Secretary Rice’s mission on creating a political horizon can succeed without the active involvement of the 

Saudis and Egyptians, who are critical to backing compromises, including the key issue of whether refugees cannot just—whether 

they will be able to go of course to a Palestinian state, but whether 

the Palestinians will insist they go to Israel. This is a deal breaker. 

A compromise on this issue would enable Israel to also make concessions on the territorial issue, which will be serious. 

Therefore, without Arab backing, Abbas is unlikely to succeed, 

and the political horizon will fail. In the wake of the Mecca Accord, 

as the Saudis move from the backstage to the center stage when 

it comes to Middle East diplomacy, one of my key conclusions is a 

belief that there is a need for high-level urgent United StatesSaudi consultations about whether the two countries share a common outlook toward peacemaking. A benign interpretation of 

Riyadh’s intentions is that the Saudis realize the risk of radicalism, 

and are ready to take the plunge into Arab-Israeli peacemaking. 

According to this view, there is a changing regional context that 

could create opportunities. There is little doubt that the Saudis, 

along with Egypt and Jordan, where I just visited, fear that an ascendant Iran upends the existing order. And if Iran pursues nuclear weapons, this could change the balance of power in the Middle East. The wakeup call was last summer’s war between Israel 

and Hezbollah. 

But there is also a less benign interpretation. It states that what 

is driving Saudi Arabia now is sectarianism, not the pursuit of 

Arab-Israeli peace. Under this view, Riyadh has no problem supporting Hamas’ program, so long as they are Sunni, and can keep 

Iranian money and sphere of influence at bay. 

Therefore, it would be critical for the United States to explore 

Saudi objectives and strategies. Moreover, for a political horizon to 

succeed, one needs to consider whether Riyadh and Cairo are willing to do something they were not willing to do in 2000, at the time 

of Camp David in July and the Clinton parameters in December; 

namely, they need to provide the requisite political cover for Abbas 

to compromise. If they do not, unlike 2000, I would urge that they 

need to know from the United States that they will be politically 

exposed for failing to do their share. 

In short, and in conclusion, if the Bush administration is really 

serious about a political horizon, it needs to have a dialogue, not 

just with the Israelis and the Palestinians, but also with our Arab 

friends, to discern the depth of their commitment to peacemaking 

in a very specific way. 

The Mecca experience suggests that not everyone is on the same 

page, to put it mildly. This is not a good omen, as peacemaking re-
11

quires broad support. But without such assistance, there is little 

prospect that Secretary Rice could succeed. But instead, her mission could constitute motion without movement. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Makovsky follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID MAKOVSKY, DIRECTOR, PROJECT ON THE

MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS, THE WASHINGTON INSTITUTE FOR NEAR EAST POLICY

Ackerman, Ranking Member Pence, and Distinguished Members of the Middle 

East Sub-Committee, 

I am pleased to appear before you today. The Israeli-Palestinian political landscape has been rather bleak over the last several years. Between 2000–2004, the 

second Intifada brought almost unremitting terror and violence. Despite Israel’s 

pullout from Gaza in the summer of 2005, the parliamentary victory of the 

rejectionist Hamas party in January 2006 contributed to this downward trend. 

Compounding the problem of peacemaking today has been inadequate leadership 

of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. 

At times, Abbas has been outmaneuvered by Hamas, while at other times he has 

shown a willingness to yield to rather than confront his Hamas rivals. This trend 

was embodied last week at the Mecca summit. The agreement signed there will 

greatly complicate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s effort to reach a ‘‘political 

horizon’’ between Israelis and Palestinians, which is scheduled to be launched this 

Sunday in Jerusalem at a meeting with Olmert and Abbas. For his part, Olmert 

has been on the defensive. His coalition is solid but he and his inexperienced Defense Minister Amir Peretz have—at best—anemic public support, according to a 

wide variety of polls. This is because of widespread public perception that his government slipped into war last summer and then subsequently mismanaged the conflict by overstating political objectives and by not matching military moves to meet 

those objectives. Allegations of corruption have not helped the embattled Prime Minister’s public standing either. Olmert’s future may be brought into sharper focus 

next month as the Winograd Committee examining the conduct of the Lebanon war 

of last summer issues its interim report. 

Secretary Rice’s mission is to create a ‘‘political horizon’’ for the Palestinians—specifically a discussion rather than a formal negotiating channel between Olmert and 

Abbas—to see if they agree on principles that would underline the contours of a 

final deal. According to this view, Rice sees her ‘‘political horizon’’ discussions as 

both validating Abbas’ focus on negotiations instead of violence and as satisfying 

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s belief that such a wide ranging discussion 

avoids ensuring that Israeli concessions are made in a contextual vacuum. Livni, 

and apparently Rice, believe that only under the rubric of discussing principles 

about a final status agreement can significant tradeoffs can be reached and a grand 

bargain can be struck. Both Rice and Livni have made clear that once such a grand 

deal has been struck then the interim steps called for under the moribund Roadmap 

could be implemented since all side know if there is light at the end of the road, 

and this means confidence building when it comes to security, improving daily life 

for the Palestinians, and settlements. 

It is critical to understand how the recent Mecca summit has undercut this endeavor. On the favorable side of the ledger, the accord does bring about the prospect 

of halting internecine Palestinian violence which has claimed 100 Palestinian lives 

since December 2006. This is probably the main reason that Abbas agreed to the 

accord, as he is known for his non-confrontationalist style and he wanted to stop 

the killing. Another potential benefit is that the agreement could potentially narrow 

Iranian interference in the Palestinian debate through increased Saudi support. 

Other favorable prospects include a government with a Hamas minority in ministers, and the increased possibility that the new government will witness the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit, which could in turn boost public support for Olmert. 

However, these favorable possible outcomes must be weighed against the negative 

side of the ledger, and unfortunately, the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. By forging a unity government, the Mecca accord is a victory for Hamas, as a ‘‘unity government’’ has been a goal of Hamas. Since its victory, the movement has viewed 

such a wide coalition, which would enable it to be legitimized by Fatah, as a means 

of consolidating its electoral gains, thereby positioning itself to restart international 

funding without conceding any of the three principles put forward by the Quartet—

US, EU, Russia and UN—namely commit to recognizing Israel, disavowing violence 

and adherence to past written agreements. At Mecca, Hamas resisted Abbas’ insist-
12

ence that Hamas ‘‘commit’’ to these principles, due to reasons linked perhaps to 

heartfelt ideology which is often underestimated by people outside of Middle East 

and amid hope that they could drive a wedge within the international community. 

Despite the avowal to cease intra-Palestinian fighting, there is no mention of either 

recognizing Israel, or desisting from violence against Israelis. 

It is hard to escape the conclusion that Abbas has legitimized an unrepentant 

Hamas. Current Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniye will remain in his office. Accordingly, before the ink at Mecca was dry, Hamas spokesmen openly declared that 

they will never recognize Israel. By agreeing to join a coalition with Hamas, it is 

very possible the distinctions between Abbas and Hamas have blurred. Under such 

conditions, how can Abbas call a new election and win? If Abbas and Hamas are 

joined, there is less incentive among people in the international community to bolster Abbas at Hamas’ expense. The rationale of Rice’s political horizon initiative was 

being done precisely for this purpose, namely to demonstrate to Palestinian moderates that it is Abbas and not Hamas who can reap major diplomatic gains. The 

most vocal advocate in Israel who favors Rice’s ‘‘political horizon’’ concept is Foreign 

Minister Tzipi Livni, who accepted its logic, and who believed it would heighten the 

differences between Abbas and Hamas. She is certainly bound to be less than enthusiastic after Mecca. It is fair to predict that the very premise of the Rice exercise 

will come under greater scrutiny on Sunday, as Israeli officials may wonder how 

will it be possible to proceed with such weighty issues with an Abbas who joins a 

government will the rejectionist Hamas. Olmert, who did not share Livni’s enthusiasm from the outset and has been skeptical of the political horizon idea because 

he does not think the Arabs will do their share of compromising, is likely to feel 

vindicated. In short, even if Abbas is willing to make a deal, Mecca has proved to 

many that he will not break from Hamas. As such, the ostensible blurring between 

Fatah and Hamas at Mecca is actually a clarifying moment. The onus is on Abbas 

to prove otherwise. 

So far, the response to Mecca from the international community has been rather 

muted. The Quartet issued a statement making clear that its three criteria, mentioned above, need to be met. The muted response may be partially explained as 

a show of deference to Saudi Arabia, which facilitated the agreement and in so 

doing, departed from its historically passive position on internal Palestinian affairs. 

However, the lack of a response is also due to the Quartet holding out hope that 

the new actual PA government guidelines will prove more practical and moderate 

than what was mandated at Mecca, given its new composition with Hamas as the 

minority. 

However, there is ample reason for skepticism that the PA coalition policy guidelines will substantially be substantially different from Mecca. Yes, Hamas might not 

be a majority in the new government, but it will have key posts. Haniye will be the 

Prime Minister and Hamas has the right to put forward an ‘‘independent’’ name as 

Interior Minister. Such a minister in the Middle East does not deal with national 

parks, but rather is usually the strongman of the regime. Failure to reach an agreement on an Interior Minister, which has long been a sticking point between Fatah 

and Hamas, could lead to the non-implementation of the agreement, as could deep 

disagreements of power-sharing between Fatah and Hamas in the Palestine Liberation Organization. Moreover, as of this writing, there is no indication that Hamas 

is willing to dismantle its ‘‘Executive Force’’—a nascent militia in Gaza which could 

easily grow with fresh infusions of cash. Instead, Hamas would like the Executive 

Force legitimized as another PA security force. All this has implications for US policy. People who felt there was a logic to bolstering Abbas so he not be intimidated 

by Hamas’ growing strength and therefore supported the security mission of Gen. 

Keith Dayton and $86 million in non-lethal military assistance, must now wonder 

if the new Palestinian coalition alignment could now lead to a very different outcome. While the US will not talk to Hamas ministers, the key question about who 

controls the Palestinian Security services seems to have an impact about how or 

whether, if at all, the US can or should proceed on both fronts. These are questions 

that require serious examination as Rice meets with Olmert and Abbas on Sunday. 

Irrespective of the Dayton and $86 million questions, the Quartet should keep to 

its three criteria. It should urge the Saudis to refrain from delivering aid until the 

conditions are met. Such a commitment by the Quartet does not mean that Gaza 

will worsen. According to the UN Special Coordinator’s office in the Mideast earlier 

this week, overall foreign aid to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza 

reached $1.3 billion in 2006. Of this, some $750–$800 million was channeled 

through the Temporary International Mechanism, World Bank and Arab donors. 

Another $430–$450 million was channeled via the UN system and non-government 

organizations for humanitarian programs, mainly in the form of direct food and cash 

assistance to the people. Virtually no aid was programmed through government line 
13

ministries. It is estimated that the $1.3 billion of 2006 was 10% above the year before, although there was an obvious shortfall of tax revenue passed by Israel. 

The Mecca accord has made it clear that Abbas is more dependent upon Hamas 

than ever before. He is demonstrating that he will prefer Palestinian unity to peace 

with Israel. As such, many wonder if Rice is doomed to fail in such an ambitious 

effort to reach common principles that will end the conflict. Therefore, the only way 

to prove the opposite it can be argued is that Rice pursue her course and see if 

Abbas will pick peaceful compromise with Israel over Palestinian unity on the core 

issues needed to resolve the conflict. The odds are slim. The litmus test will be the 

refugee question. The territorial demands made upon a weakened Olmert will be 

overwhelming, but without Abbas willing to compromise, as well, there is no chance 

that an overall deal can be reached. If Abbas can demonstrate that he can compromise on a core issue like refugees, Olmert could be politically energized to make 

requisite territorial compromises as well. 

It is hard to see how the Rice mission on creating a ‘‘political horizon’’ can succeed 

without the active involvement of the Saudis and Egyptians so they back compromises, including this key issue. Without their participation, Abbas will not likely 

feel he has the Arab backing to proceed. Therefore, as the Saudis move from backstage to center-stage when it comes to Mideast diplomacy, there need to be urgent 

US-Saudi high-level consultations about whether or not the two countries share a 

common outlook towards peacemaking. The Mecca accord raises key questions about 

whether the US and Saudi Arabia are aligned, or whether they are working at 

cross-purposes. 

A benign interpretation of Riyadh’s intentions is that the Saudis realize the risk 

of radicalism and are ready to take the plunge into Arab-Israeli peacemaking. According to this view, there is a changing regional context for the US that could create opportunities. There is little doubt that the Saudis, along with Egypt and Jordan where I just visited, fear that an ascendant Iran could change the balance of 

power in the Middle East. These governments fear Iran gaining nuclear weapons 

and Iran as a destabilizing force in the Mideast seeking to upend any existing order. 

The wake-up call was last summer’s war between Israel and Hizbullah, where Riyadh took the unprecedented step of denouncing Hizbullah for being ‘‘reckless’’ and 

repeated it despite public criticism. The calculus is simple: If Iran supports substate Shia actors such as Hizbullah in Lebanon under a Sunni-led coalition of Fuad 

Siniora, it is well within the realm of possibility that Tehran could support similar 

sub-state Shia groups in Saudi Arabia, where the benefits of the world’s largest oil 

reserves are enticing. Moreover, if a Shia Iran has a demonstrated willingness to 

provide material support to a Sunni-Hamas in Gaza, why would not replicate this 

formula and support other Sunni groups of similar extremist ideology to destabilize 

other Arab regimes like Egypt? According to the benign interpretation, the fear of 

Iran driven home the risk of rejectionism to Riyadh and they view Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking as at least one means to defeat it. 

There is a less benign interpretation. It states that what is driving Saudi Arabia 

is sectarianism, not moderation. Under this view, Riyadh has no problem supporting 

Hamas’ program, so long as they are Sunni and can keep Iranian money and influence at bay. According to this view, the Saudis have not changed at all and are not 

a partner for peace. 

It would be useful for the US to explore Saudi objectives and strategies. This 

would be beneficial not just to avoid surprises in Mecca, but to see if support for 

Hamas would be linked to a change of its platform. Furthermore, the US needs to 

know if a political horizon between Israel and the Palestinians can succeed. Specifically, contrary to assertions of former President Jimmy Carter and others, this entire conflict is not merely about land. Indeed, land is the most solvable part of this 

conflict. There are sufficient land swap formulas to resolve the territorial dimension 

of this conflict if one accepts the premise that both Israel and Palestine are entitled 

to a state of their own. This idea is accepted by Israel and Abbas, but not the 

Islamists. Moreover, apart from this recognition, there is a need to resolve Arab sections of east Jerusalem, and how to resolve the Palestinian refugee problem so they 

know that they can inhabit a new Palestinian state without inundating Israel and 

fundamentally altering its demographics. 

The Arab Initiative of 2002 is often touted by Arab states, but at least in its current form, it is an inadequate framework for such talks. There are at least three 

major problems with the initiative as it is currently worded. First, the issue of refugees in the Arab Initiative is addressed in a manner that, semantics aside, is best 

interpreted as meaning no compromise at all. Second, it gives little flexibility on 

how territorial arrangements are reached. Third, it essentially gives the Syrians 

veto over the Palestinian track, since there must be full withdrawal on all fronts 

or else, there is no normalization. Fourth, the Arab Initiative is completely back-
14

loaded. It is currently structured that Israel does all the heavy lifting of getting out 

of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Only after Israel does 

everything, will the Arabs provide Israel with the flag of normalization. There are 

no efforts to take parallel steps that could revive the Israeli center as it undertakes 

such herculean tasks. So far, the Israeli public has seen its pullouts from Lebanon 

in 2000 and Gaza in 2005 met with Katyusha and Qassem rockets, respectively, and 

this reinforces a sense among some that peacemaking is not possible. Such parallelism, I have argued for years, would require an Arab roadmap to go in parallel 

with Israeli territorial withdrawals. It needs to be demonstrated by deeds that withdrawal will make Israel more secure rather more vulnerable. For the Initiative to 

be useful, it needs substantial modification. 

If Secretary Rice is genuine in pursuing a political horizon in an era of weak leadership, one needs to consider whether Riyadh and Cairo are willing to do something 

that they were not willing to do in 2000 at the time of the Camp David (July) and 

the Clinton Parameters (December). Namely, they need to provide the requisite political cover for Abbas to make the key compromise so that the Palestinian refugees 

can inhabit the Palestinian state, go to a third country, or receive financial compensation, but not go back to Israel. Unless there is Arab cover on such core 

issues—especially the refugee issue which could likely trigger an Olmert response 

and lead to parallel action—it is hard to see how Rice can succeed. 

In short, if the Bush Administration is really serious about a political horizon, it 

needs to have a dialogue not just with Israelis and Palestinians but also with our 

Arab friends to discern the depth of their commitment to peacemaking in a very 

specific way. The Mecca experience suggests that not everyone is on the same page. 

It is not a good omen, as peacemaking requires broad support. Without such assistance, there is a prospect that a very well-intended Rice mission could constitute motion without movement. 

Thank you.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Makovsky. 

Ambassador Indyk. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARTIN S. INDYK, DIRECTOR, SABAN CENTER FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY, THE 

BROOKINGS INSTITUTION 

Mr. INDYK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to address this subcommittee. I want to begin by congratulating you on assuming the chair, and it is very good to see you 

in that position. 

There is a strange disconnect, which I think you, Mr. Chairman, 

now referred to in your opening remarks, between the initiative 

that the Secretary of State is about to embark upon for peacemaking in the Middle East and the reality on the ground. And that 

disconnect seems certain to render such efforts futile. So why, then, 

is she engaging? 

I think, as David has suggested, that she sees and she speaks 

of a new opportunity emerging from the war in Lebanon last summer, when Israel and Saudi Arabia in particular found themselves 

on the same side for once against Hezbollah and Iran. And it is this 

emerging threat from Iran, the sense that Iran’s rise in the region 

is generating a common threat to both Sunni moderate Arab leaders and to Israel, that I think is what gives the Secretary the sense 

that there may be an opportunity here. 

Since all these neighbors face a common threat from Iran, the assumption is that they have a common interest in working together. 

But such a virtual alliance can only cohere if there is a basis for 

the Sunni leaders, particularly King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, to 

demonstrate that he has the justification for cohabiting with Israel. 

And there the glue of this virtual alliance is progress on an IsraeliPalestinian peace process. 
15

That kind of new opportunity is something that she is now trying 

to take advantage of, through this idea of developing a political horizon of a two-state solution that would give Israelis and Palestinians a better sense of what they can expect at the end of the peace 

process. What the proximate borders of the Palestinian state might 

look like, whether refugees would have a right of return to Israel 

or not, what would happen to the major settlement blocks, how 

could Jerusalem become the capitol of two states. 

This is the kind of agenda which I believe she wants to discuss 

in informal talks with Prime Minister Olmert and President 

Mahmoud Abbas. Ironically, this is what President Clinton attempted to do at the end of his administration, when he proposed 

the Clinton Parameters for an Israeli-Palestinian final status 

agreement. The difference between the Secretary’s political horizon 

and President Clinton’s parameters is likely to be very little, indeed. 

I believe that the Secretary deserves congressional support for 

this effort, not just because of its closeness to the Clinton approach, 

which I had a role in helping define. It is rather because defining 

the end game of peace negotiations with greater granularity has 

been sorely missing from the Bush administration’s approach over 

the last 6 years. It is absent from the roadmap of the quartet, 

which defines the phases through which the parties must pass, but 

is silent on what awaits them on the other side. That has done little to assuage Israeli fears that Congressman Sherman referred to, 

that the Palestinian state that might emerge will merely be a 

springboard for further efforts to destroy the Jewish state; and it 

has done little to persuade Palestinians that the state that President Bush has offered them will be viable, contiguous, and independent. 

Defining a political horizon can therefore boost confidence in the 

process, and enable the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships to justify better the painful steps that would have to be taken along the 

way. It is not a substitute for the roadmap, but rather a complement to it, and a means of encouraging the long-delayed journey 

along it by both sides. 

All of this should be welcome news. But the Secretary’s initiative 

comes late in the game, when the ground seems unfertile for this 

new effort. My colleague, David Makovsky, has already referred to 

the weakness of both Prime Minister Olmert and President 

Mahmoud Abbas, the Secretary of State’s partners in this new effort. 

I think that Olmert’s first priority is to ensure his own political 

survival. He has to stabilize his government. And without doing 

that, he cannot pursue a peace process which is inherently destabilizing because of the Secretary’s idea that they should now discuss the politically fraught issues of settlements, refugees, Jerusalem, et cetera. 

At a minimum, I think he will want to wait at least until the 

Labor Party leadership contest is resolved at the end of May. And 

he may have a different partner in the Labor Party leader and defense minister to work with. 

On the other side, President Mahmoud Abbas is engaged in his 

own struggle for survival with Hamas. To head off an incipient civil 
16

war in Gaza, Abu Mazen, Mahmoud Abbas, has now, as we know, 

joined forces with Hamas in this national unity government. 

Hamas, in the process, has conceded some important portfolios: 

The Interior, Finance and Foreign Ministries. It no longer has a 

majority in the cabinet. Fifteen of the portfolios are not in Hamas’ 

hands. That is 15 out of 24. It only has nine now. But it has not 

yielded on its fundamental principles that it will not recognize 

Israel, nor foreswear the violence and terrorism that it calls resistance. 

So in these circumstances, how can the Secretary and Prime 

Minister Olmert engage with Abu Mazen? From a legal standpoint, 

Abu Mazen, as chairman of the PLO, has the legal authority to negotiate with Israel. All the previous negotiations with Israel were 

conducted by Israel, the Government of Israel, and the Palestine 

Liberation Organization. They were not conducted with the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority is a product of the 

agreements that were struck during those negotiations. And Israel 

still, from a legal standpoint, is dealing with the PLO when it 

comes to negotiations, especially final-status negotiations. 

So he is fully empowered to negotiate with Israel. And one option, the option that I think both Prime Minister Olmert and the 

Secretary of State are going to take, is simply to ignore the fact 

that Hamas is now in a cohabitation agreement with Abu Mazen 

as they conduct these talks about the political horizon. 

But Prime Minister Olmert’s rivals are not going to be willing to 

ignore the cohabitation agreement, and they will surely argue that 

any concession he makes, even a concession in principle to Abu 

Mazen, will be concessions now made to his Hamas partner, as 

well. 

And on the other side, any understanding that Abu Mazen might 

reach with Olmert and Rice that concedes anything to Israel is 

likely to be denounced by Hamas, his partner, as a betrayal of Palestinian rights. So in those circumstances, it is difficult to see how 

these discussions can really move forward, given the political jeopardy involved. 

Beyond that, were they to move forward, Abu Mazen does not 

have the capability to deliver on any commitments he might make 

in the peace process. Hamas, as we know, is systematically establishing a failed terrorist state in Gaza. In the West Bank it is a 

little different; Hamas is very weak there, thanks to the systematic 

efforts of the Israel Defense Forces over the last 4 years to destroy 

its infrastructure of terror. But Abu Mazen will need to restructure, train, and equip security forces loyal to the presidency before 

he can assume responsibility there for any territory from which the 

Israeli Army might withdraw. 

Moreover, because American influence in the Middle East has 

been so weakened by the debacle in Iraq, Secretary Rice is no 

longer able to wield it in a way that might compensate for the 

weakness of local partners. And without Presidential engagement, 

it is difficult to imagine that she could overcome the formidable obstacles to real progress in any negotiation. But it is hard to believe 

that this President is now likely to devote, in his waning years, the 

kind of effort involved to a peacemaking endeavor which, frankly 

speaking, I don’t think he has ever really believed in. 
17

But having said all of that, I don’t think the situation is as bleak 

as it appears on the surface. And the reason for that is that there 

are unusual alliances, tacit alliances now emerging precisely as a 

result of Iran’s power play in the region. 

The first is between Prime Minister Olmert and King Abdullah 

of Saudi Arabia. King Abdullah cannot accept Iranian Shi’a Persian hegemony in the region. And the only way that he can counter 

it, I believe, is by showing that a path of moderation and peacemaking can provide a better future for the Arab world. 

And for Prime Minister Olmert, Saudi involvement in peacemaking can help to compensate for the Israeli public’s disillusionment with the Palestinians as partners. King Abdullah’s offer to 

Israel of real peace and normalization with the Arab world, contained in the Arab League’s peace initiative of 2002, if lent real 

credibility by Saudi Arabia’s direct engagement with Israel, could 

boost Olmert’s ability to sell a West Bank withdrawal to Israelis 

who are keen to be rid of the burden of occupation, but don’t see 

a credible Arab partner to take responsibility for it. 

The second unusual emerging partnership is between Ehud 

Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinian leader, like his 

Saudi counterpart, is threatened by Iranian backing for Hamas, 

Iranian control of the Palestine Islamic jihad, and even renegades 

in Abu Mazen’s own Fatah party. Iran is now blocking an Egyptian-brokered effort to get a prisoner swap that would release the 

Israeli prisoners held both by Hamas and by Hezbollah. Iran is financing Hamas’ takeover of Gaza. And Hamas is now training its 

cadres, both in Tehran and in Gaza. 

Olmert understands, therefore, that it is in Israel’s interest to 

strengthen Mahmoud Abbas in his struggle with Iran and Hamas. 

That is why he handed over the $100 million in Palestinian tax 

revenues. That is why he agreed to Egypt’s transfer of weapons to 

Abbas’ security forces. And that is why he is using the Israeli Army 

systematically to destroy Hamas’ infrastructure in the West Bank. 

It is too early, Mr. Chairman, for these emerging partnerships to 

yield a viable peace negotiation. But it is not too early, in my view, 

for a newly engaged Secretary of State to start to put those building blocks in place. Sustaining a conversation with Abbas and 

Olmert about a political horizon is just one of those blocks. 

The United States still needs to make a serious effort to rebuild 

the capabilities of the Palestinian President, particularly in the security realm, where I still think that Congress should go ahead 

with the security package the administration is now seeking, albeit 

with the kinds of benchmarks and assurances and transparency 

about where the money will go to give some assurance that it is 

not going to end up in the hands of Hamas or security forces under 

Hamas’ control. 

And the Secretary of State—I agree here with David Makovsky—

needs to carefully orchestrate this virtual alliance between moderate Sunni Arab leaders and Israel, so that the Arab states are 

more visibly and actively involved in bolstering a process they 

claim to care so much about. 

Who knows, Mr. Chairman, from these modest beginnings, nurtured by a common Iranian threat and the hope of peace that still 
18

lies in many Israeli and Palestinian hearts, great things may eventually grow. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Indyk follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARTIN S. INDYK, DIRECTOR, SABAN

CENTER FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY, THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION

There is a strange disconnect between the new consensus that has developed in 

Washington about the need to engage in Middle East peacemaking and the reality 

on the ground that seems certain to render such efforts futile. But in the Middle 

East, things are never what they seem. Ground that looks on the surface to be arid 

may in fact contain the seeds of a new Israeli-Arab peace partnership. If properly 

nurtured by a newly engaged Secretary of State, backed by a supportive Congress 

they can yet yield the fruits of reconciliation. However, it will take lowered expectations, a tolerance for complexity, and, above all, sustained attention for this effort 

to produce results. 

For six years, the Bush Administration has resisted the notion that peacemaking 

in the Middle East could advantage American interests there. Early on, President 

Bush reached the judgment that his predecessor’s efforts were a waste of time. The 

words ‘‘Middle East peace process’’ were literally banned from the State Department’s lexicon. Instead, transformation in the Middle East was to take place on the 

Bush Administration’s watch not through peacemaking but through regime change 

and democratization. Six years later, the President’s strategy is in deep trouble, and 

there is now a new receptivity in Washington to relaunching the Middle East peace 

process. 

Joining the new consensus are those who have always argued that the failure to 

solve the Palestinian problem is the root cause of America’s difficulties in the region. 

These voices from a bygone era were not able to get much traction even when their 

views were repackaged in the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study 

Group Report. However, they have now been joined by a more influential group of 

‘‘neo-realists’’ whose passion for democratization has been replaced by concern for 

the emerging threat from Iran. In their view, Iran’s rise in the region can only be 

countered by the development of a new coalition of regional moderates that includes 

the Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as Turkey and Israel. 

Since all these neighbors face a common threat from Iran, the assumption is that 

they have a common interest in working together. The ‘‘neo-realists’’ recognize that 

such a virtual alliance can only cohere with the glue of an Israeli-Palestinian peace 

process that would enable the Sunni Arabs to cohabit with Israel and would encourage Israel to strengthen the weakest links in this new chain—the Sunni leaders of 

Palestine and Lebanon. 

Secretary of State Rice seems to be thinking along these lines when she speaks 

of ‘‘a new opportunity’’ for peacemaking that emerged from the war in Lebanon last 

summer when Israel and Saudi Arabia found themselves on the same side against 

Hezbollah and Iran. 

Consequently, while the President has dispatched another carrier battle group to 

the Gulf and ordered American forces to take on Iranian trouble-makers in Iraq, 

Secretary of State Rice has committed to making Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation 

her first priority. In pursuit of that priority, she will host a trilateral meeting with 

Prime Minister Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas on February 19 in Jerusalem, and has committed to monthly visits to the region until she has prepared 

the ground for a major peace initiative. She deserves Congressional support for this 

effort. 

Secretary Rice’s admirable objective is to launch informal talks on the ‘‘political 

horizon’’ of a two-state solution that would give Israelis and Palestinians alike a better sense of what they can expect at the end of the peace process: what the proximate borders of the Palestinian state might look like; whether refugees would have 

a ‘‘right of return’’ to Israel; what would happen to the major settlement blocs; how 

could Jerusalem become the capital of two states. Ironically, this is what President 

Clinton attempted to do at the end of his administration when he proposed the 

‘‘Clinton Parameters’’ for an Israeli-Palestinian final status agreement. 

Defining the end game of peace negotiations with greater granularity has been 

sorely missing from the Bush Administration’s approach. It is absent from the Quartet’s Road Map which defines the phases through which the parties must pass but 

is silent on what awaits them on the other side—except the general proposition that 

there will be two states for two people. That has done little to assuage Israeli fears 

that the Palestinian state aborning will merely be a springboard for further efforts 
19

to destroy the Jewish state. And it has done little to persuade Palestinians that 

their state will be viable, contiguous and independent. Defining the ‘‘political horizon’’ can therefore boost confidence in the process and enable the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships to better justify the painful steps that will have to be taken along 

the way. It is not a substitute for the Road Map but rather a complement to it, and 

a means of encouraging the long-delayed journey along it by both sides. 

All of this should be welcome news for those who care about the future of Israel 

and understand that the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would help stabilize a volatile region where American interests are heavily engaged. But it comes 

late in the game. Six years of purposeful disengagement from the Israeli-Palestinian 

peace process by the Bush Administration has left the ground seemingly unfertile 

for this new effort. 

For instance, no meaningful process can be constructed without the active involvement of Israel. Yet its prime minister, Ehud Olmert, is engaged in his own personal 

struggle for political survival. His approval ratings are below 14 percent. He has an 

incompetent defense minister who cannot be fired because he heads up the Labor 

Party, Olmert’s main coalition partner. The Prime Minister is anxiously awaiting 

the conclusions of the Winograd Commission of Inquiry into his conduct of the Lebanon War last summer. And now he faces a criminal investigation. Olmert’s first 

priority, necessarily, is to stabilize his government. Without that he cannot pursue 

a peace process, which is inherently destabilizing because of the politically fraught 

issues involved (settlements, refugees, Jerusalem, etc.). 

At a minimum, he will want to wait until the Labor Party leadership contest in 

May, which could produce a new candidate for Defense Minister in Ehud Barak (a 

former Chief of Staff and Israel’s most decorated soldier) or Ami Ayalon (former 

head of the Israel Navy and the Shin Bet internal security services). Both Barak 

and Ayalon are on record as supporting the end game that President Clinton outlined at the end of his administration. 

On the other side, Olmert’s putative partner, Palestinian president Mahmoud 

Abbas (aka Abu Mazen), is engaged in his own struggle for survival with Hamas 

an Islamist movement with a terrorist cadre that seeks to replace Israel not negotiate peace with it. To head off an incipient civil war in Gaza, Abu Mazen has now 

joined forces with Hamas in a National Unity Government. But even though Hamas 

may have conceded some important cabinet portfolios (the interior, finance and foreign ministers will be independents), it has not yielded at all on its fundamental 

principles—no recognition of Israel and no foreswearing of ‘‘resistance’’ (i.e. violence 

and terrorism). 

Abu Mazen can still engage in talks with Olmert about the end game of a Palestinian state. That is because, from a legal standpoint, negotiations have always 

taken place between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, rather than 

the Palestinian Authority that is now headed by a Hamas prime minister. Abu 

Mazen is Chairman of the PLO and is therefore fully empowered to negotiate with 

Israel. Therefore Rice, Olmert and Abbas can and probably will simply ignore the 

fact that Hamas is now in a cohabitation agreement with Fatah, the Palestinian 

President’s political party, when they meet next weekend. 

But Olmert’s political rivals will not ignore the argument that any concession he 

makes to Abu Mazen will now be made to his Hamas partner as well. And any understanding Abu Mazen might reach with Olmert and Rice that concedes anything 

to Israel is likely to be denounced by Hamas as a betrayal of Palestinian rights. 

Beyond the political jeopardy involved in talking about the end game, lies the reality that Abu Mazen does not yet have the capability to deliver on any commitments he might make in the peace process. Hamas is systematically establishing its 

control on the ground in Gaza, turning it into a mini failed terror state. In the West 

Bank, Hamas has been seriously weakened by years of systematic destruction of its 

cadres and infrastructure by the Israel Defense Forces. However, Abu Mazen will 

need to restructure, train and equip the security forces loyal to the Presidency before he can assume responsibility there for any territory from which the IDF withdraws. 

Moreover, because American influence in the Middle East has been so weakened 

by the debacle in Iraq, Secretary Rice is no longer able to wield it in a way that 

might compensate for the weakness of the local partners. Moreover, without presidential engagement, it’s difficult to imagine that Rice could overcome the formidable 

obstacles to real progress in any negotiation. Yet, facing defeat in Iraq, a doubting 

public at home, and a Democrat-controlled Congress, there is a real question whether her president is willing to devote the waning years of his presidency to a peacemaking endeavor which he has never believed in. 

Nevertheless, the situation is not as bleak as it appears. Iran’s play for regional 

hegemony is helping to forge unusual tacit alliances in response. The first is be-
20

tween Olmert and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Abdullah cannot accept Persian, 

Shia Iran’s attempt to be the arbiter of Arab interests in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. He knows that Iranian President Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah leader Hassan 

Nasrallah are popular in the Sunni Arab streets of Riyadh and Cairo. Their promise 

of dignity and justice through violence, terrorism and defiance of the international 

community is a potent and dangerous brew. Abdullah can only counter it by showing that his way of moderation and peacemaking can provide a better future for the 

Arab world. 

For Olmert, Saudi involvement in peacemaking can help to compensate for the 

Israeli public’s disillusionment with the Palestinians as partners. Abdullah’s offer 

to Israel of real peace with the Arab world (contained in his peace plan that was 

endorsed by the Beirut Arab League summit in 2002), if lent credibility at the appropriate moment by direct Saudi involvement with Israel, could boost Olmert’s 

ability to sell a West Bank withdrawal to Israelis who are keen to be rid of the burden of the West Bank but don’t see a credible Arab partner to take responsibility 

for it. 

The second unusual emerging partnership is between Olmert and Mahmoud 

Abbas. The Palestinian leader, like his Saudi counterpart, is threatened by Iranian 

backing for Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad, and even renegades in his own Fatah 

party. Iran is blocking an Egyptian-brokered prisoner swap, financing Hamas’s 

takeover of Gaza and training its cadres. Olmert understands that it is in Israel’s 

interests to strengthen Abbas in his struggle with Iran and Hamas, which is why 

he has handed over $100 million of Palestinian tax revenues, agreed to Egypt’s 

transfer of weapons to Abbas’ security forces, and is using the Israeli army systematically to destroy Hamas’ infrastructure in the West Bank. 

It is too early for these emerging partnerships to yield a viable peace negotiation. 

But it is not too early for a newly engaged Secretary of State to start to put the 

building blocks in place. Sustaining a conversation with Abbas and Olmert about 

the ‘‘political horizon’’ is just one of those blocks. The United States will have to 

make a serious effort to rebuild the capabilities of the Palestinian Presidency, particularly in the security realm where Congress needs to go ahead with the security 

package the Administration is seeking. And the Secretary of State will have to carefully orchestrate the nascent virtual alliance between moderate Sunni Arab leaders 

and Israel so that the Arab states are more visibly and actively involved in bolstering a process they claim to care so much about. 

Who knows, from these modest beginnings, nurtured by a common Iranian threat 

and the hope for peace that still lies in many Israeli and Palestinian hearts, great 

things may eventually grow. But that will only happen if the Secretary of State sustains her involvement in the effort over the remaining years of this administration, 

if President Bush is willing seriously to invest and engage in the process, and if 

Congress is prepared to work with them.

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you, Ambassador. 

Dr. Pipes. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DANIEL PIPES, DIRECTOR, 

MIDDLE EAST FORUM 

Mr. PIPES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member 

Pence. 

I am in broad agreement with almost everything that has been 

said. What I would like to do is complement it by looking at what 

one might call the big picture. 

You asked in the title of this hearing about ‘‘Next Steps in the 

Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process.’’ I shall argue three points. First, 

that these negotiations have so far been so counter-productive, they 

could better be called a war process; that their failure results from 

an Israeli conceptual error 15 years ago about the nature of warfare; and third, that the U.S. Government should urge Jerusalem 

to forgo negotiations, and instead return to its earlier policy of deterrence. 

So first, Mr. Chairman, to review the peace process. It is embarrassing to recall today the elation and expectations that accompanied the signing of the Oslo Accords in September 1993, when 
21

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with Yasir Arafat. For 

some time afterwards, ‘‘The Handshake,’’ as it was known, served 

as a symbol of brilliant diplomacy whereby each side achieved what 

it most wanted—dignity and autonomy for the Palestinians; recognition and security for the Israelis. 

President Clinton lauded that deal as ‘‘a great occasion of history.’’ Yasir Arafat called it ‘‘an historic event inaugurating a new 

epoch.’’ Shimon Peres, the former minister of Israel, discerned in 

it ‘‘the outline of peace in the Middle East.’’

These heady expectations were then grievously disappointed. Before Oslo, when Palestinians still lived under Israeli control, they 

benefitted from the rule of law and a growing economy independent 

of international welfare. They enjoyed functioning schools and hospitals. They traveled without checkpoints and had free access to 

Israeli territory. They even founded universities. Terrorism was declining as acceptance of Israel increased. 

However, then came Oslo, which brought Palestinians not peace 

but tyranny, failed institutions, poverty, corruption, a death cult, 

suicide factories, and Islamist radicalization. 

Yasir Arafat early on promised that the West Bank and Gaza 

would evolve into what he called ‘‘the Singapore of the Middle 

East,’’ but the reality he shaped became a nightmare of dependence, inhumanity and loathing. 

As for the Israelis, Oslo brought unprecedented terrorism. If the 

two hands in the Rabin-Arafat handshake symbolize Oslo’s early 

hopes, the two bloody hands of a young Palestinian male who had 

just lynched Israeli reservists in Ramallah in October 2000 that 

represented its dismal end. 

Oslo provoked deep internal rifts and harmed Israel’s standing 

internationally. Israelis watched helplessly as Palestinian rage spiraled upwards, spawning such moral perversions as the United Nations World Conference against Racism in Durban in 2001. That 

rage also reopened among Westerners the issue of Israel’s continued existence, especially on the hard left. From Israel’s perspective, 

7 years of Oslo diplomacy undid 45 years’ success in warfare. 

Palestinians and Israelis agree on little, but they concur that 

Oslo was a disaster. 

Now, why was it a disaster? Where did things go so badly wrong? 

Why did the peace process turn into a war process? Where lay the 

flaws in so promising an agreement? 

Of its many errors, and I think all analysts will agree there are 

many, the ultimate mistake lay in Yitzhak Rabin’s misunderstanding of how a war ends. And it is revealed in this catchphrase, 

which he said repeatedly; ‘‘One does not make peace with one’s 

friend. One makes peace with one’s enemy.’’

The Israeli prime minister implied by this that wars are concluded through a mix of good will, conciliation, concessions, mediation, flexibility, restraint, generosity, and compromise, all topped 

off with signatures on official documents. In this spirit, his government initiated an array of concessions, hoping that the Palestinians 

would reciprocate. But they did not. Those concessions, in fact, 

made matters worse. 

Still in a war mode, Palestinians understood the Israeli efforts to 

make peace as signals, instead, of demoralization and of weakness. 
22

The concessions reduced Palestinian awe of Israel, made it appear 

vulnerable, and incited irredentist dreams of its annihilation. Each 

Oslo-negotiated gesture by Israel further exhilarated, radicalized, 

and mobilized the Palestinian body politic. The quiet hope of 1993 

to eliminate Israel gained traction, becoming a deafening demand 

by the year 2000. 

Rabin in short made a shattering mistake, which his successors 

then repeated. One does not, in fact, make peace with one’s enemy; 

one makes peace with one’s former enemy. Peace nearly always requires one side in a conflict to give up its goals by being defeated. 

Rather than vainly trying to close down a war through good will, 

the way to end a war, Mr. Chairman, is by winning it. 

‘‘War is an act of violence to compel the enemy to fulfill our will.’’ 

That is what the Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz wrote in 

1832. ‘‘War is an act of violence to compel the enemy to fulfill our 

will.’’ And however much technological advancement there has 

been in the nearly two centuries since he wrote that, the basic insight remains valid. Victory consists of imposing one’s will on the 

enemy of compelling him to give up his war goals. Wars usually 

end when one side gives up its hope of winning when its will to 

fight has been crushed. 

Arabs and Israelis since 1948 have pursued static and binary 

goals. Arabs have fought to eliminate Israel; Israelis have fought 

to win their neighbors’ acceptance. The details have varied over the 

decades, with multiple ideologies, strategies, leading actors, and so 

forth, but the goals have barely changed. The Arabs have pursued 

their war aims with patience, determination and purpose. In response, Israelis sustained a formidable record of strategic vision 

and tactical brilliance in the period 1948 to 1993. 

Over time, however, as Israel developed into a vibrant, modern, 

democratic country, its populace grew impatient with the 

humiliating, slow, tedious task of convincing Arabs to accept their 

political existence. By now, almost no one in Israel sees victory as 

the goal; no major political figure on the scene today calls for victory in war. 

Since 1993, in brief, Mr. Chairman, the Arabs have sought victory while Israelis have sought compromise. 

It is my view that he who does not win, loses. To survive, Israelis 

must eventually return to the pre-1993 policy of establishing that 

Israel is strong, tough and permanent, the policy of deterrence: The 

long, boring, difficult, bitter and expensive task of convincing Palestinians and others that the Jewish state is permanent and that 

dreams of eliminating it are doomed. 

This will not be quick or easy. Perceptions of Israel’s weakness 

due to terrible missteps during the Oslo years and after, such as 

the Gaza withdrawal of 2005, have sunk into Palestinian consciousness and will presumably require decades of effort to reverse. Nor 

will it be pretty. Defeat in war typically entails experiencing the 

bitter crucible of deprivation, failure and despair. 

I look at this process, Mr. Chairman, through a simple prism. 

Any development that encourages Palestinians to think they can 

eliminate Israel is negative, any development that encourages 

them to give up that goal is positive. 
23

The Palestinians’ defeat will be recognizable when, over a protracted period, and with complete consistency, they prove that they 

have accepted Israel. 

My third and final point: American policy. Like all outsiders to 

the conflict, Americans face a stark choice. Do we endorse the Palestinian goal of eliminating Israel, or do we endorse the Israeli goal 

of winning its neighbors’ acceptance? 

To state this choice is to make clear that there is no choice—the 

first is offensive in intent; the second defensive. No decent person 

can endorse the Palestinians’ goal of eliminating their neighbor, 

and along with every President since Harry S Truman and every 

congressional resolution and vote since then, the 110th Congress 

must continue to stand with Israel in its drive to win its acceptance. 

Not only is this an obvious moral choice, but I think it is important to add that a Palestinian defeat at Israel’s hands is actually 

the best thing that would ever happen to them. Compelling Palestinians finally to give up on their foul, irredentist dream would 

liberate them to focus on their own polity, economy, society, and 

culture. Palestinians need to experience the certitude of defeat to 

become a normal people—one where parents stop celebrating their 

children becoming suicide terrorists; where something matters beyond the evil obsession of anti-Zionist rejectionism. 

Americans especially need to understand Israel’s predicament 

and help it win its war, for the U.S. Government has, obviously, 

a vital role in this theater. My analysis implies a radically different 

approach for the Bush administration, and for this Congress. 

On the negative side, it implies that Palestinians must be led to 

understand that benefits will flow only after they prove their acceptance of Israel. Until then, no diplomacy, no discussion of final 

status, no recognition as a state and certainly no financial aid or 

weapons. 

On the positive side, the administration and Congress should 

work with Israel, the Arab states and others to induce the Palestinians to accept Israel’s existence by convincing them the gig is up, 

that they have lost. 

Diplomacy aiming to shut down the Arab-Israeli conflict is premature until Palestinians give up their hideous anti-Zionist obsession. When that moment arrives, negotiations can reopen with the 

issues of the 1990s—borders, resources, armaments, sanctities, residential rights—taken up anew. 

But that moment is years or decades away. In the meantime, a 

war needs to be won. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pipes follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DANIEL PIPES, DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST

FORUM

What next in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which some call the ‘‘peace process’’? 

I shall argue three points: that these negotiations have been so counterproductive, 

they could better be called the ‘‘war process’’; that their failure results from an 

Israeli conceptual error fifteen years ago about the nature of warfare; and that the 

U.S. government should urge Jerusalem to forego negotiations and return instead 

to its earlier policy of deterrence. 
24

1http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubs/wye/warren.htm. 

2Los Angeles Times, 14 September 1993. 3The New York Times, 17 September 1993. 4The New York Times, 13 September 1993. 5 Agence France-Presse, 4 June 1996. 

Reviewing the ‘‘Peace Process’’

It is embarrassing to recall the elation and expectations that accompanied the 

signing of the Oslo accords in September 1993, when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin 

shook hands with Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader. For some years afterward, 

‘‘The Handshake’’ (as it was known) served as the symbol of brilliant diplomacy, 

whereby each side achieved what it most wanted: dignity and autonomy for the Palestinians, recognition and security for the Israelis. 

President Bill Clinton lauded the deal as a ‘‘great occasion of history.’’ Secretary 

of State Warren Christopher ruminated on how ‘‘the impossible is within our 

reach.’’ 1 Yasir Arafat called it an ‘‘historic event, inaugurating a new epoch.’’ Foreign Minister Shimon Peres of Israel discerned in it ‘‘the outline of peace in the Middle East.’’ 2 The press enthused; one columnist, Anthony Lewis of The New York 

Times, deemed the agreement ‘‘ingeniously built’’ 3 and ‘‘stunning.’’ 4 Time magazine 

made the three principals its ‘‘men of the year’’ for 1993. 

These heady expectations were then grievously disappointed. Before Oslo, when 

Palestinians lived under Israeli control, they benefited from the rule of law and a 

growing economy, independent of international welfare. They enjoyed functioning 

schools and hospitals, they traveled without checkpoints and had free access to 

Israeli territory. They even founded universities. Terrorism was declining as acceptance of Israel increased. Then came Oslo, which brought Palestinians not peace but 

tyranny, failed institutions, poverty, corruption, a death cult, suicide factories, and 

Islamist radicalization. Yasir Arafat early on had promised that the West Bank and 

Gaza would evolve into the ‘‘Singapore of the Middle East,’’ 5 but the reality he 

shaped became a nightmare of dependence, inhumanity, and loathing. 

To Israelis, Oslo brought unprecedented terrorism; if the two hands in the RabinArafat handshake symbolized Oslo’s early hopes, the two bloody hands of a young 

Palestinian male who had just lynched Israeli reservists in Ramallah in October 

2000 represented its dismal end. Oslo also provoked deep internal rifts and harming 

the country’s standing internationally. Israelis watched helplessly as Palestinian 

rage spiraled upwards, spawning such moral perversions as the U.N. World Conference Against Racism in Durban. That rage also re-opened among Westerners the 

issue of their country’s continued existence, especially on the Left. From Israel’s perspective, seven years of Oslo diplomacy largely undid 45 years’ success in warfare. 

Palestinians and Israelis agree on little, but they concur that the Oslo accords 

failed. 

Yitzhak Rabin’s Error 

Why did things go so badly wrong? Where lay the flaws in so promising an agreement? 

Of its multiple errors, the ultimate mistake lay in Yitzhak Rabin’s misunderstanding of how war ends, as revealed by his catch-phrase, ‘‘one does not make 

peace with one’s friends. One makes peace with one’s enemy.’’ The Israeli prime 

minister implied that war is concluded through a mix of goodwill, conciliation, concessions, mediation, flexibility, restraint, generosity, and compromise, all topped off 

with signatures on official documents. In this spirit, his government initiated an 

array of concessions, hoping that Palestinians would reciprocate. 

They did not. Those concessions, in fact, made matters worse. Still in war mode, 

Palestinians understood Israeli efforts to ‘‘make peace’’ as signals of demoralization 

and weakness. The concessions reduced Palestinian awe of the country, made it appear vulnerable, and incited irredentist dreams of its annihilation. Each Oslo-negotiated gesture by Israel further exhilarated, radicalized, and mobilized the Palestinian body politic. The quiet hope of 1993 to eliminate Israel gained traction, becoming a deafening demand by 2000. Venomous speech and violent actions soared. 

Polls and votes suggest a mere 20 percent of the Palestinian population today accepts Israel’s simple right to exist. 

Rabin made a shattering mistake, which his successors repeated. One does not 

‘‘make peace with one’s enemy’’ but with one’s former enemy. Peace nearly always 

requires one side in a conflict to give up its goals by being defeated. Rather than 

vainly trying to close down a war through goodwill, the way to end a war is by winning it. 

‘‘War is an act of violence to compel the enemy to fulfill our will,’’ wrote the Prussian strategist Karl von Clausewitz in 1832, and technological advancement has not 
25

altered this insight. So long as both sides hope to achieve their war ambitions, fighting either continues or potentially can resume. Victory consists of imposing one’s 

will on the enemy by compelling him to give up his war goals. Wars usually end 

when one side gives up its hope of winning, when its will to fight has been crushed. 

Defeat, one might think, usually follows on a devastating battlefield loss, as was 

the case of the Axis in 1945. But that has rarely occurred during the past sixty 

years. Battlefield losses by the Arab states to Israel in 1948–82, by North Korea in 

1953, by Saddam Hussein in 1991, and by Iraqi Sunnis in 2003 did not translate 

into despair and giving up. Morale and will have consistently matter more. Despite 

out-manning and out-gunning their foes, the French gave up in Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam, and the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Cold War ended, notably, 

without a fatality. Crushing the enemy’s will to fight, then, does not necessarily 

mean crushing the enemy. 

Preferring to Finesse War 

Arabs and Israelis since 1948 have pursued static and binary goals. Arabs fought 

to eliminate Israel, Israelis fought to win their neighbors’ acceptance. The details 

have varied over the decades, with multiple ideologies, strategies, and leading actors, but the goals have barely changed. The goals are also unbridgeable; eventually, 

one side will lose and one will win. Either there will be no Jewish state or it will 

be accepted by its neighbors. Those are the only two scenarios for ending the conflict. Anything else is unstable and a form of war. 

The Arabs have pursued their war aims with patience, determination, and purpose; the exceptions to this pattern (e.g., the Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties) 

have been operationally insignificant because they have not tamped hostility to 

Israel’s existence. In response, Israelis sustained a formidable record of strategic vision and tactical brilliance in the period 1948–93. Over time, however, as Israel developed into a vibrant, modern, democratic country, its populace grew impatient 

with the humiliating, slow, and tedious task of convincing Arabs to accept their political existence. By now, almost no one in Israel still sees victory as the goal; no 

major political figure on the scene today calls for victory in war. Uzi Landau, who 

argues that ‘‘when you’re in a war you want to win the war,’’ was rewarded by being 

ranked so low on the Likud party’s parliamentary list in the 2006 elections that he 

lost his seat. Since 1993, in brief, the Arabs have sought victory while Israelis 

sought compromise. 

In this spirit, Israelis have openly proclaimed their ennui with fighting. Shortly 

before becoming prime minister, Ehud Olmert said on behalf of his countrymen: ‘‘We 

are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we 

are tired of defeating our enemies.’’ Yoram Hazony of the Shalem Center correctly 

characterizes Israelis as ‘‘an exhausted people, confused and without direction.’’

In place of victory, Israelis have developed an imaginative array of approaches to 

manage the conflict:

• Unilateralism (build a wall, partially withdraw): Ariel Sharon, Ehud Olmert, 

and the Kadima party.

• Lease for 99 years the land under Israeli towns on the West Bank: Amir 

Peretz and the Labor Party.

• Territorial compromise: Yitzhak Rabin (and the Oslo process).

• Develop the Palestinian economy: Shimon Peres (and the Oslo process).

• Exclude disloyal Palestinians from Israeli citizenship: Avigdor Lieberman.

• Push the Palestinians to develop good government: Natan Sharansky (and 

President George W. Bush).

• Territorial retreat: Israel’s left.

• Insist that Jordan is Palestine: Israel’s right.

• Transfer the Palestinians from the West Bank: Israel’s far right.

Contradictory in spirit and mutually exclusive as they are, these approaches all 

aim to finesse war rather than end it. Not one of them addresses the need to crush 

the Palestinian will to fight. Just as the Oslo negotiations failed, so too every 

scheme that avoids the hard work of winning. 

The Hard Work of Winning 

Who does not win, loses. To survive, Israelis eventually must return to their pre1993 policy of establishing that Israel is strong, tough, and permanent. That’s 

achieved through deterrence—the long, boring, difficult, bitter, and expensive task 

of convincing Palestinians and others that the Jewish state is permanent, and that 

dreams of eliminating it are doomed. 
26

This will not be easy or quick. Perceptions of Israel’s weakness due to terrible 

missteps during the Oslo years (1993–2000) and even after (e.g., the Gaza withdrawal of 2005) have sunk into Palestinian consciousness and will presumably require decades of effort to reverse. Nor will it be pretty: defeat in war typically entails experiencing the bitter crucible of deprivation, failure, and despair. 

Israel enjoys one piece of good fortune: That it need only to convince the Palestinians of this, not the whole Arab or Muslim populations. Moroccans, Iranians, and 

Malaysians, for example, take their cues from the Palestinians and will with time 

follow their lead. 

I look at this process through a simple prism. Any development that encourages 

Palestinians to think they can eliminate Israel is negative, any that encourages 

them to give up that goal is positive. 

The Palestinians’ defeat will be recognizable when, over a protracted period and 

with complete consistency, they prove that they have accepted Israel. This does not 

mean loving Zion but it does mean permanently accepting it. They must overhaul 

their educational system to take out the demonization of Jews and Israel, tell the 

truth about Jewish ties to Jerusalem, stop inculcating hatred of Jews, and accept 

normal commercial, cultural, and human relations with Israelis. Stiff demarches 

and letters to the editor will be fine, but not violence. Symbolically, when the Jews 

living in Hebron (on the West Bank) have no more need for security than Arabs living in Nazareth (in Israel), one can conclude that Palestinians have accepted Israel 

and the war is over. 

Which Side Should Win? 

Like all outsiders to the conflict, Americans face a stark choice: endorse the Palestinian goal of eliminating Israel or endorse the Israeli goal of winning its neighbors’ 

acceptance. 

To state the choice makes clear that there is no choice—the first is offensive in 

intent; the second defensive. No decent person can endorse the Palestinians’ goal of 

eliminating their neighbor; along with every president since Harry S Truman, and 

every congressional resolution and vote since then, the 110th Congress must continue to stand with Israel in its drive to win acceptance. 

Not only is this an obvious moral choice, but Israel’s win is actually the Palestinians’ as well. Israel’s success in crushing the Palestinians’ will to fight would actually be the best thing that ever happened to them. Compelling Palestinians finally 

to give up on their foul irredentist dream would liberate them to focus on their own 

polity, economy, society, and culture. Palestinians need to experience the certitude 

of defeat to become a normal people—one where parents stop celebrating their children becoming suicide terrorists, where something matters beyond the evil obsession 

of anti-Zionist rejectionism. There is no shortcut. 

U.S. Policy 

Americans especially need to understand Israel’s predicament and help it win its 

war, for the U.S. government has a vital role in this theater. My analysis implies 

a radically different approach for the Bush administration and for this congress. On 

the negative side, Palestinians must understand that benefits will flow only after 

they prove their acceptance of Israel. Until then—no diplomacy, no discussion of 

final status, no recognition as a state, and certainly no financial aid or weapons. 

On the positive side, the administration should work with Israel, the Arab states, 

and others to induce the Palestinians to accept Israel’s existence by convincing them 

the gig is up, they have lost. This means impressing on the Israeli government the 

need not just to defend itself but to take steps to demonstrate to Palestinians the 

hopelessness of their cause. That requires not episodic shows of force (such as the 

war against Hizbullah last summer) but a sustained and systematic effort to alter 

a bellicose mentality. 

Also, given that Israel’s enemies—the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran—are also 

America’s enemies and that Israel has a significant role in the U.S.-led ‘‘war on terror,’’ an Israeli victory would greatly help its U.S. ally. In smaller ways, too, tougher 

Israeli tactics would help. Jerusalem should be encouraged not to engage in prisoner 

exchanges with terrorist groups, not to allow Hizbullah to re-arm in southern Lebanon or Fatah or Hamas in Gaza, and not to withdraw unilaterally from the West 

Bank (which would effectively turn over the region to Hamas terrorists and threaten 

Hashemite rule in Jordan). 

Diplomacy aiming to shut down the Arab-Israeli conflict is premature until Palestinians give up their hideous anti-Zionist obsession. When that moment arrives, 

negotiations can re-open with the issues of the 1990s—borders, resources, armaments, sanctities, residential rights—taken up anew. But that moment is years or 

decades away. In the meantime, a war needs to be won.
27

Mr. ACKERMAN. Wow. I guess we picked the right panel. Mr. Berman? 

Mr. BERMAN. Pardon my interruption, but did I hear Dr. Pipes 

say that he agrees with almost everything that the previous two 

witnesses said? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes. Yes, we heard that, but we didn’t hear 

whether the two previous witnesses agreed with Dr. Pipes. [Laughter.] 

Well, let me say at the outset, the Chair anticipates a second 

round of questions, having not begun the first round yet. I thank 

the three distinguished witnesses for their powerful testimony. Let 

us see if we can sort some of this out. 

It occurred to me, listening both to myself and my colleagues, as 

well as the panel, that it was hard to pick out a positive sentence 

or word with regard to the Palestinians in general. Negative comments were addressed to the Palestinian leadership, or generically 

the Palestinians. 

Do the Palestinians have legitimate rights and concerns? And in 

the end, should they get their own state? Let us start with Mr. 

Makovsky. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This year marks the 

70th anniversary of the Peel Commission. The Royal Peel Commission was trying to decide what to do with the land of Palestine, and 

how you could really reconcile the aims of these two different peoples. 

And I think that their conclusion is the only conclusion, frankly; 

and that is there has to be a partition. 

One can argue with the success of Oslo, certainly. But I think the 

concept of partition is the core. And you know there is just too 

much history and too little geography. And basically, they are 

going to have to split that land. 

And therefore, I argue that both sides deserve what I would call 

a moral legitimacy; that they both have come home, whether Jews 

to Israel or Palestinians to Palestine, and they both have legitimate 

rights. 

I think on the positive side of the ledger there are some very impressive people at the top of the PA. I think of Finance Minister 

Salam Fayyad, who spent 20 years at the International Monetary 

Fund, and is a world-class economist. I think they have some very, 

you know, credible, talented people. But I just fear, as I tried to 

say in my remarks, that the Mecca Agreement unfortunately, instead of bringing the best talent forward in a new hope for reconciliation and partition, I feel greatly complicates the matter right 

now. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Ambassador Indyk. 

Mr. INDYK. Yes, the Palestinians have legitimate rights as a people. I remember the formula adopted by Moshe Dayan, the former 

defense minister and foreign minister of Israel, when he said the 

Palestinians should have the right to determine their own future, 

but they should be denied the right to determine Israel’s future. 

And I think that is the heart of the matter here. 

President Bush has articulated what President Clinton before 

him developed, the notion of two states for two people, which David 

was referring to when he talked about the only solution being to 
28

divide the land between these two people because it has been, from 

its inception, a contest between two national rights and claims. 

But the heart of the matter is that the Palestinians must come 

to accept that they will have their state and their right to self-determination if they are prepared, in return, to live alongside the 

Jewish State of Israel in peace. And that is what the peace processes, in their various forms, have been trying to address; trying 

to find a way to get the Palestinians to the point where they would 

accept this compromise deal. 

And one has to say, Mr. Chairman, that the Israelis have tried 

looking for other solutions. But they, too, have come back to this 

basic formula. And it wasn’t just the Labor Party or the doves on 

the left; it has indeed become the policy of the right-wing party, the 

Likud, as well, that the Palestinians should have a state. 

That policy was introduced by none other than Ariel Sharon, 

who, after he tried all the other alternatives, including, one might 

say to Daniel Pipes, trying to achieve victory through war. But in 

the end, every Israeli leader of the right or the left has eventually 

come around—including Menachem Begin, for that matter—to accepting that the Palestinians do have legitimate rights. The challenge is to find a way to give expression to that in concrete terms 

that does not threaten Israel’s existence and future well-being. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Dr. Pipes, knowing that you agree with the other 

two. 

Mr. PIPES. We do agree. Martin just said that, he paraphrased 

Moshe Dayan that the Palestinians can’t determine Israel’s right, 

and he concurs with it, and I concur with it. Where we differ is on 

the tactics to get there. And these are major differences, but our 

goal is the same: The Palestinians must accept Israel. That, I 

think, everyone who has spoken so far concurs with that. Now the 

question is, How do we get there? 

I believe Martin has said that the war hasn’t worked, and I have 

said that the peace process hasn’t worked. Take your pick which 

one hasn’t worked. Nobody can claim that a great deal has worked 

here. 

I, too, concur that partition is ultimately the way forward. My 

major difference from my fellow panelists is that I believe there 

should be no—absolutely no—discussion of final status before the 

Palestinians have accepted Israel. No rewarding of their irredentist 

ambitions; no discussions with them while they still have this, 

while they are still engaged in murder, while they are still attacking their neighbor. While their children are still being taught in 

the schoolbooks and the television and the wall posters and the 

mass sermons and the media and the politicians speeches all agree 

that there can be no Israel. So long as that is the case, there can 

be no discussion of final status. 

But in principle, yes; partition is fine. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. In your statement you stake that position out 

pretty clearly, saying that diplomacy, final status negotiations, recognition, economic and security assistance should wait until the 

Palestinians ‘‘prove their acceptance of Israel.’’

So I come back to two questions. The last one was the first question that I asked, and that is, at that time, should they be getting 

a state. 
29

But the first question I have to ask is how do they prove their 

acceptance? What, to you, would constitute proof of their acceptance? Do they sign public oaths, or make public statements? Do 

they have to give to the UJA? 

Mr. PIPES. No, they do not have to become lovers of Zion, but 

they do have to permanently accept it. They must overhaul their 

education system to take out the demonization of Jews in Israel. 

They should tell the truth about Jewish ties to Jerusalem, stop inculcating hatred of Jews, and accept normal commercial, cultural 

and human relations with Israelis. 

They can have their differences with Israel. They can disagree 

with its policies, and dislike various aspects of it. But they must 

not engage in violence against it. And they must not engage in violence in a systematic and a consistent way over a protracted period. And one has to look beyond violence to a shift in society—the 

sort of things that were expected back in 1990/1993, with that signing on the White House lawn; that this was a new dawn. And that 

the hatred that one heard before would be gone. But in fact, there 

is more hatred since 1993 than before 1993. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Ambassador. I think we have provoked something here. 

Mr. INDYK. Could I, Mr. Chairman, just interject very quickly? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Ambassador. 

Mr. INDYK. If we accepted Daniel’s requirements, then I think a 

fair case could be made that Abu Mazen, the Palestinian President 

who is the elected Palestinian President, has met those requirements, including, once he became President, ending the incitement 

of Israel in the Palestinian media, and beginning a process of dealing with the demonization of Israel in Palestinian curricula. 

He has led the effort to bring the Palestinians around to the acceptance of Israel. He has a clear history of having done that over 

a period of the last 25 years. He has not played a double game, like 

Yasir Arafat did. And so that is why I think that, as I said, Israelis 

are prepared to deal with Abu Mazen, prepared to accept that he 

does accept Israel’s right to exist, not just its existence. 

The problem is he doesn’t have the capabilities to enforce his 

will. He is, as we all agree, I think, weak. And the challenge, therefore, is to see whether it is possible to ensure that he does get the 

capability, so that his way can prevail. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I have run the clock on myself, but David? 

Quickly. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. Mr. Chairman, I mean, in my remarks I tried to 

make clear in this where I guess I differ from Daniel. 

I don’t see by putting forward the horizon where you make the 

tradeoffs on the final deal is not the same thing as implementing 

the final deal. That is why I think it was important that Livni and 

Rice have both talked about the roadmap would remain. And the 

first phase of the roadmap has to deal with the incitement issue, 

dismantle the militias. 

I think if you at least demonstrate to people here is the light at 

the end of the tunnel, they might take the journey. And I think 

Israel wants to know this, too, and not to engage in Salami tactics, 

you know, making these concessions without any sort of context. 
30

At the same time, and I guess where Daniel and I would differ 

is, I think that time is not necessarily a neutral variable. I see the 

Islamist wave in the Middle East. I see it with great alarm. And 

I think it necessary to say that if you just put this issue in a freezer for 20 years, that everyone is better off; I mean, that is, you 

know, that is not the metaphor that I know Daniel meant. He said 

winning a war. But that I think that that ignores, in my view, the 

broader context. 

So I think the answer is not to surrender to pressure; I think the 

idea is to hold out here is the vision. If you perform on security, 

which I think is crucial, and you deal with the first phase of the 

roadmap, then you will end up here. But it is not a dead end. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you. Mr. Pence. 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you, Chairman. And I would associate myself 

with your enthusiastic reaction to the candor and the clarity of the 

testimony that was presented. 

I would like to provoke a couple of quick questions, and then 

yield to my colleagues. 

Mr. Makovsky, I believe in your testimony you described the recent Mecca Agreement as a victory for Hamas. In my opening remarks I reflected, and I think the Ambassador referenced this, that 

Hamas now holds nine cabinet ministries. And yet I hear kind of 

a consistent theme from several on the panel of continuing to engage with a government with this new political horizon vision, 

where Hamas has had a victory, has prevailed. 

And as I said, in my opening remarks, I am just, no surprise that 

the minority witness reflects more of my sentiment in this regard, 

and I expect it may actually reflect the heart of most of the people 

on this panel, about a deep suspicion about the intentions of an organization in Hamas that will not live up to those three basic criteria. 

I would like you to respond as quickly as you can if it is a victory. If the Mecca Agreement is a victory for Hamas, how do we 

then deal, then, with this unity government? 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. Thank you. Look, as I tried to say in my remarks, yes, I see it as a victory; therefore, I don’t think the criteria 

of the quartet should be changed. I think there should be a review 

now of the $86 million, and maybe of General Dayton’s role there. 

Because the question is, Who is his counterpart? 

You know, if the interior minister is going to direct all the security services, that is not a small matter even if he was the only 

Hamas member in the whole government. So therefore, I think we 

have got to know what the setup is. 

I believe those, with due respect, it would be a mistake to cut off 

communication with Mahmoud Abbas. He was elected separately, 

a 62 percent margin of victory, consistently been for a two-state solution. And I echo what my colleagues have said, and what Martin 

has said, on this. He is someone who has had death threats because he has said publicly that violence was wrong; he said it is 

immoral. He said it at the Palestinian National Legislative Council 

meeting in May 2003. I think there needs to be a channel of communication, to see what could come from it. 

But in terms of making it business as usual and engaging with 

Hamas ministers, or even, you know, other ministers of that gov-
31

ernment, we can’t put our head in the sand. We just had a major 

setback here. And I think that the idea of somehow regular business with the PA, and lifting the requirements, in my view, of the 

quartet would be a horrible mistake. 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you for that. I want to get to the Ambassador 

for a second. 

Mr. Ambassador, you made, characteristic of your reputation for 

candor and intellectual forcefulness, you made very direct comments about this administration. I think your words, if I may 

quote, ‘‘weakened by the debacle in Iraq, Secretary of State Rice is 

no longer able to wield it in a way that might compensate for the 

weakness of local partners.’’

You said and wrote, without Presidential engagement, it is difficult to imagine the Secretary could overcome the formidable obstacles to real progress. And then said this is a presidency which 

has ‘‘never believed in a peacemaking endeavor.’’

I would respectfully take exception to that. I think the President 

has taken a very hard line, I think as hard a line as can be taken 

in a negotiation. And I believe that the President has taken a hard 

line on the side of Israel in the past 6 years, and I commend him 

for that. 

I guess I would just ask rhetorically—then I want to get specifically to a real question, and I will close my element of the panel, 

yield to my colleagues. I would just ask rhetorically that the massive Presidential engagement that by your definition was present 

in the Clinton administration, and faltered, in effect, in the last 6 

months of the Clinton administration, doesn’t seem to argue for the 

American Presidency being a determinative factor in achieving a 

Middle East settlement. 

That said, let me ask you very sincerely and respectfully, on the 

question of funding, that it did seem to me there was some agreement about the ominous nature of this moment in which the chairman has called this hearing. And I was quite struck that you 

said—and I am quoting again now—that the United States will 

have to make a serious effort to rebuild the capabilities of the Palestinian presidency, and that ‘‘Congress needs to go ahead with the 

security package the administration is seeking.’’ Now, you did add, 

beyond your written testimony, you referred to benchmarks, transparency, and assurances. 

I would like to ask you to expand on how, as legislators, we 

could, seeing a victory for Hamas, and in knowing the inherent 

dangers, how we could, in good conscience, go forward with what 

President Bush has requested in funding. Maybe you could unpack 

that transparency and what those benchmarks might be. 

Mr. INDYK. If I might just comment quickly on your commentary 

on my remarks. I would say yes, indeed, the President has been a 

strong supporter of Israel. But let us also recall that he has been 

a very strong supporter of elections as a way of achieving democratization. And it was indeed our President’s insistence on elections 

that resulted in Hamas being elected, and in control of the Palestinian Authority. And we cannot ignore that when we try to find 

a way out of this very complicated situation. 

Hamas was elected, too, in a free election. And so if we are to 

be true to our values, we have to recognize that we have got a 
32

problem here. They have legitimacy, according to the election process that our President insisted upon, on the grounds that they 

would then become accountable to the people and that would moderate them. 

So there is enough blame to go around. There is no doubt that 

President Clinton and his advisors, me amongst them, made plenty 

of mistakes, too. But the question really as we go forward is, How 

do we get out of it? It was a mistake to regard everything that 

Clinton did as stupid and feckless. And that was the default position. 

It took 6 years to come around to the idea that the Secretary of 

State is now proposing which is the very thing that President Clinton was doing. There must have been some logic to what he was 

doing. So that is just my first point. 

In terms of how you unpack it, it is now very complicated. Abu 

Mazen is not a strong man, and he is not willing to confront 

Hamas if it means a civil war amongst the Palestinians. And I 

think the reason that he did this deal with Hamas was to avoid 

the civil war that was developing in Gaza. 

That said, if there is to be a capable and responsible partner to 

Israel in any way that can settle this conflict, the one hope on the 

Palestinian side is Abu Mazen. He has his own status. He is President of the Palestinian Authority, but he is not in that cabinet government. He has his own status as President. He has his own powers as the President, and he has a responsibility for the security 

services. Ultimately, they are responsible to him. 

The interior minister will not be a Hamas minister. The interior 

minister also has control over some of the security services. And we 

will have to see who that interior minister turns out to be, and 

whether he dances to Hamas’ tune or is loyal to the President. 

But the security package that was proposed was a package designed to strengthen those security services under the direct control of the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, and to give him 

a capability that would be independent of Hamas, and therefore 

strengthen him against Hamas. 

Hamas’ military capabilities—let us be quite clear about this—

are being supported, supplied, provided by Iran and its proxy. So 

that is what we are facing here. It is not a clear-cut situation 

where we can simply decide that we are going to stand back from 

this, because the consequence of that essentially is to cede the territory to Iran. 

So therefore, the question is, Does the Congress have a way of 

getting assurances that the money that it puts up is going to flow 

to the right people, and be used in the right way? And I think you 

need to have General Dayton in here, and you need to get answers 

to those questions. How are you going to ensure a transparent 

process in which Congress can follow where the money is going? 

How are you going to ensure that the commanders in charge of the 

training are loyal to Abu Mazen and committed to peace with 

Israel? How are you going to ensure that the training is done effectively, and is only going to be used for the purposes of strengthening a partner in the peace process? Those are questions that 

don’t have easy answers. 
33

From my own experience in the Clinton administration, I am 

quite sure it is not a secret, the Central Intelligence Agency played 

a critical role in training Arafat’s security forces. And in the end, 

those trained people ended up using their guns against Israel. That 

clearly is not acceptable. Cannot be acceptable. 

But having said that, we have to look and see whether there is 

a way to do it. Because I think the logic that if we don’t strengthen 

Abu Mazen, we end up with Hamas winning the game, and its Iranian backer being the beneficiary of this, is a worse outcome than 

trying to grapple with the problems of meeting the requirements of 

strengthening Abu Mazen. 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Berman. 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Just to clarify, Dr. Pipes, I mean, you made a compelling presentation. By your indication that partition is an acceptable outcome, 

I assume, but just want to make sure I am right, that for you, the 

certitude of defeat is defeat in the notion that you can eliminate 

a Zionist entity called Israel, not that you have abandoned your aspirations for a homeland, a viable nation-state. Is that fair? 

Mr. PIPES. That is correct, crushing the will to fight, to eliminate 

Israel. 

Mr. BERMAN. Right. We meet with a lot of Palestinians. Ambassador Indyk actually made I think a pretty good case that at least 

some of those Palestinians, and not the former chairman of the Palestinian Authority or President, but the existing President of the 

Palestinian Authority is one of them who seem to have accepted 

the certitude of defeat in that goal. 

In other words, when it comes up to us, there is a, it is a blurred 

picture. A lot of Palestinians seem to have accepted it and are prepared to live at peace, and do whatever, and it doesn’t seem like 

their capability is a lot, to ensure Israel’s security. And large numbers of others haven’t. So that makes a little more complicated the 

picture, the unambiguous picture that you drew. 

Mr. PIPES. I skipped over the part where I said that 20 percent 

of Palestinians accept Israel. And perhaps Mahmoud Abbas is one 

of them, perhaps not. I am less convinced, but I certainly agree 

that there are Palestinians who do, and I would say the goal is to 

change that 20 percent to 60 or 70 percent. 

Mr. BERMAN. Okay, all right. Okay, I understand in that context. 

But now let us go to this issue of the horizon. 

In hearing the Secretary talk about it, whether it is here or 

there, there is a certain ‘‘second life’’ aspect to all of this; that in 

a virtual world, with people who do not have the power to accomplish much—and by this, I mean the head of the Palestinian Authority—we will have a discussion of the political horizon and what 

people who do not have the power to implement the concessions 

they would need to make on things like the right of return or the 

acceptance of Israel, that they will make certain concessions. And 

Israel’s leadership will outline the kinds of concessions they are 

willing to make and talk about all this. That that could have happened before in the context of an Israeli leadership that would be 

willing to articulate very clearly a horizon that even brought us 

back to the 2000 parameters seemed complicated to me. 
34

With the existence now of this Mecca Agreement, it seems almost 

impossible. The Israelis are going to start publicly indicating the 

concessions they ever had to make about things like Jerusalem and 

land swaps with the Palestinians at a time when the prime minister, when the three conditions haven’t been met, how is that really going to happen at this next meeting? 

In an earlier conversation Ambassador Indyk indicated he 

thought a process underway that could describe, that could lead to 

that possibility maybe is realistic; but certainly not an articulation 

of the ‘‘horizon’’ at this next meeting between the Secretary, this 

trilateral meeting that is supposed to take place. 

And so we come to the point here now where we don’t know if 

this Mecca Agreement is going to hold. We know it is going to be 

a few weeks before it is implemented, even if it does hold. We don’t 

know who the interior minister is. We don’t know whether the 

Hamas forces are truly going to integrate into the Palestinian 

forces—one could be quite skeptical about the possibility of that. 

We don’t know who is really going to control it. 

How can we, at this point, how can the Congress release whatever instruments it has to block the aid to the Palestinian security 

forces, until those kinds of issues are resolved, much as David suggested. And do any of you see a situation where somehow this 

unity government, if it is ever really created, can agree to the three 

conditions? And don’t you think it is pretty important to stick with 

those three conditions, and not find ways that respect becomes the 

word instead of adhere? That we make those conditions—do you 

see a way in which a unity agreement, a unity government can accept them, even though Hamas hasn’t, and does that have meaning? And do you think the Europeans particularly will stick? They 

have stuck for 2 days, which is pretty impressive. But do you think 

over the long term they will stick with adherence to those three 

conditions, by either Hamas or by the unity government? And that 

is a whole series of questions. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. You raise some very important questions, obviously. On the last point about the Europeans, I actually think here 

the two issues are implicitly, in their minds, at least the ones that 

I have met, are somewhat linked. In other words, they will probably say thank God for Condoleezza Rice, she is pursuing this political horizon. There has been trans-Atlantic unity for a year on the 

three conditions. No one would have believed that we in Europe 

would have held fast with the Bush administration over the last 

year. We are willing to give it another whatever it is. We want to 

see if she gives it her best effort on this. 

So I don’t think they are going to break from the United States. 

If anything, I think the quartet’s statement on Friday was actually 

a signal that right now they wouldn’t. 

The question is, to say, Will they never break from the U.S.? I 

think is a bit optimistic. I think that right now they want to say 

that they are behind Condoleezza Rice. So they don’t want to do 

anything that will make her talks in Jerusalem with Olmert and 

Abbas even harder. 

I come back, though, in the broad picture to my recommendation 

on Saudi Arabia. I think what we have to kind of admit, and it is 

not always easy to say this, but that the center of gravity in the 
35

Middle East has changed; that it used to be we thought of Egyptians as the center of the Arab world, the center of the Arab 

League is in Cairo. 

But look at these things that have happened. This Mecca Agreement was in Saudi Arabia. 

Mr. PENCE. The Egyptians are going to be very unhappy to hear 

you say that. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. I know that. And I just met with the foreign 

minister, so he will not be too pleased with me. 

But you know, and you have had the situation of Larijani from 

Iran, when he wanted to convey messages via the Saudis. The Lebanese issue, they are trying to get the Saudis to negotiate, as well. 

Saudi Arabia has a lot of resources——

Mr. PENCE. Then why didn’t the Saudis do something in terms 

of this Mecca Agreement to get a——

Mr. MAKOVSKY. Well, that is my point, is that right now I think 

that it is too soon to say that they are devoted to peacemaking. 

That is where Martin and I would probably differ. Because I think 

that there are some real problems with the Saudi initiative. I don’t 

know if we have time now to get into that. I put it in my full testimony, that it needs substantial modification. 

And they could be really, because they see the new regional 

alignment against Iran, they might really be devoted to peacemaking. Or the less benign interpretation is it is all about sectarianism, and keeping the Shiites at bay. 

And I think unless there is a strong summit between the United 

States and Saudi Arabia about what they are about, then this is 

one of the biggest uncertainties in the mix. You, very well, I think, 

articulated a lot of uncertainties in the mix. I think it is a good 

idea to bring General Dayton here to show how he would deal with 

this. 

But I think there is too many uncertainties right now. But I 

think the biggest uncertainty, from my perspective, is where are 

the Saudis? And unless we have some sort of deeper understanding 

with them, I don’t think Rice is going to get far at all. 

Mr. INDYK. Let me try a couple of your other questions, because 

I agree with almost everything David said, so I don’t want to repeat that. 

It is going to be very difficult for this meeting between the Secretary, Olmert and Abu Mazen to move forward, precisely for the 

reasons you suggest. I think the first thing Olmert is going to want 

to know is, if he is talking about the future, is he talking about the 

future with Abu Mazen, or is he talking about the future with 

Hamas. 

And he needs to know that, because if he doesn’t have a good answer to that, he has got a problem domestically. And he is not in 

a strong position to be able to withstand the kind of heat that 

would come from this ambivalence, or ambiguity, I should say, 

about the situation. 

So again, we will have to see. I wouldn’t expect anything but modalities, agreement on modalities for conducting this discussion to 

be what emerges from this first round. 

Then that relates directly to your second question, as to whether 

the national unity government will last. I think it is probably bet-
36

ter to think about this as a temporary truce in an ongoing conflict 

between Hamas and Fatah. Clearly, Hamas’ objectives and ideology 

have not changed, but I don’t think Fatah’s have, either. And interestingly, I saw that Abu Mazen said today that he wanted Mohammed Dahlan to be deputy prime minister to Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh 

as prime minister. 

Well, that is not going to work. For Dahlan, who is the sworn 

enemy of Hamas, to be the deputy prime minister, I think tells you 

a lot about the likely longevity of this particular government. And 

that is where I come back to why Congress needs to keep its eye 

on what made sense before this national unity government was 

formed, and what I think still makes sense, which is to build the 

powers of the Palestinian President. Because I think this national 

unity government is likely to fall apart, sooner rather than later. 

And if that is, in fact, the case, then talks—these are not negotiations, they are more like pre-negotiations; they are discussions, 

informal, between Abu Mazen and Olmert can be useful in the 

event that the national unity government falls apart again. And either they go to elections—in the agreement itself, they talk about 

the potential for new elections in 2008—it will be important in 

those circumstances if there aren’t earlier elections, that there be 

some political horizon that will give Abu Mazen the ability to say, 

‘‘Vote for me because I have a better future for you that comes 

through making peace, rather than making war on Israel.’’

Mr. PIPES. On receipt of the arms from Egypt some days ago, 

Mahmoud Abbas promised the Palestinians that these would be 

used only against Israel. I think it is fair to call Mahmoud Abbas 

the good terrorist and Hamas the bad terrorist, or PLO the good 

terrorist and Hamas the bad terrorist. 

I don’t see much virtue in backing the good terrorist against the 

bad terrorist. I have no wish to see Iran get stronger, but I also 

have no reason to want to see the Saudi-backed terrorist group get 

stronger. And there are some virtues in having a terrorist group 

that speaks its mind openly. 

In my understanding, the difference between the PLO and 

Hamas is a difference of tactics, philosophy, and personnel. They 

are different in approach, they are different in personnel, and they 

are different in what they do. But their goal is all the same. They 

are very clearly the same. They are very clearly the same, to eliminate Israel. 

Mr. BERMAN. Then who are the 20 percent? 

Mr. PIPES. Well, that 20 percent is in there. But as we both 

agreed before, it is not very powerful. 

Now, Martin said earlier that Mahmoud Abbas is someone who 

accepts Israel. I would challenge Martin to present to me a single 

map in the entirety of the West Bank and Gaza that shows an 

Israel alongside a Palestine. Every single map I have ever seen, in 

any context whatsoever, shows a Palestine instead of an Israel. 

There is no presence. That is the visual symbolic way of saying 

that there is no presence to the argument that says, ‘‘Let us accept 

Israel.’’

Some people, that 20 percent, perhaps Abbas in his heart is one 

of them, do accept Israel but they are irrelevant to the process. 

What dominates is an argument between the PLO and Hamas. 
37

What is the better method to eliminate Israel? Is it by working 

with Israel and getting the benefits that working with Israel 

brings, including land and money and arms? Or is it retaining the 

purity, as Hamas does, of position, and making it clear to the world 

where you stand? 

And it is an argument that has been going on now for 20 years 

between these two groups. Sometimes they work together and 

sometimes they fight. At the moment they are maybe going to work 

together; they have just been fighting. But it is a fluid process by 

which one is trying to dominate the movement to eliminate Israel. 

But in the end, I don’t see that one is better than the other from 

an American perspective. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Before calling on Mr. Costa, I just want to observe, if one is the bad terrorist and one is the good terrorist, 

whether we have the option of entering an entry into the race as 

the very, very good terrorist, I don’t know that that option exists. 

There was a race, I think it was in Louisiana, where there was 

a Nazi running against a crook, and people had bumper stickers 

that said I want the crook. You know, if it is a two-horse race and 

you want to play, you have got to put your two dollars down somewhere. 

Mr. Costa. 

Mr. COSTA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Ambassador Indyk, when you, in your opening statement, talked 

about the groundwork that needed to be followed through at this 

current point in time, you talked about some benchmarks, but you 

didn’t lay out any timelines. And I guess, given the current negotiations that are taking place with the unity government, the most 

recent fighting that has been taking place, and your critique of the 

current administration’s efforts, and believing that the possibility 

now is that an opportunity to get on a path that you were engaged 

in previously under the Clinton administration. How would you lay 

out as, one, the benchmarks that you outlined following a timeline 

over the course of the next year or 2 years, and juxtapose that with 

currently what is going on elsewhere in the Middle East, because 

I think a lot of things are going to take place here not only in Iraq, 

but with Iran, and the hegemony that you spoke of in your comments. 

And also, I would like to get a sense from you as to where you 

think Congress’ best efforts could be applied, if we can achieve 

some consensus here through this subcommittee and through the 

Foreign Affairs Committee? 

Mr. INDYK. Thank you, Mr. Costa. I was referring, when I talked 

about benchmarks, to the specific issue of if Congress were to go 

ahead and provide the $86 million in security assistance to the Palestinian President, in which case the benchmarks are, whether you 

were in the room when I spoke to this with Mr. Pence, that the 

benchmarks relate to the issue of transparency, where the money 

is actually going. 

Mr. COSTA. I heard you say that, okay. So I won’t repeat myself 

on that. 

Mr. INDYK. I think a timeline is something that is worth thinking 

about in terms of the Secretary of State’s engagement. Because my 

argument is that it is going to take some time, and that she is 
38

going to need an understanding, not just in the Congress, but certainly in the media, who will love to write the story of her failure 

every time she goes out there and doesn’t produce some progress, 

that this is a process that really will run through this administration. It may take over 2 years, so for the next 2 years, there won’t 

be a lot to show for it. 

But the effort itself is definitely worthwhile. And notwithstanding my criticism of what I consider a purposeful disengagement from the process for 6 years by this administration, the fact 

that the Secretary of State is now willing to risk her own reputation and prestige to try to take advantage of an opportunity that 

may well be there, but is hard to see, takes courage, and she deserves credit for that. And she deserves support. 

But the process itself, and it is a process, is going to start with 

a very small step; a big idea, but a small step—discussions, not negotiations—that will nevertheless start to deal with what the shape 

of a final settlement will look like. And that may yield some fruit 

over time simply because everybody essentially knows where this 

process is going, at least those who want to get to a two-state solution. 

There is no mystery about it. The question is, How do we get 

from here to there when we have got now Hamas in the process, 

and Hamas has a very different idea of a solution—wants a onestate solution, not a two-state solution? 

So the essence of the timeline is as follows, I would say. The first 

6 months is going to be just laying the groundwork, because I do 

not believe that Prime Minister Olmert is going to be able to engage on these politically fraught issues before he stabilizes his government and gets a new defense minister. 

I also think those 6 months will be a time of testing of this national unity government on the Palestinian side. And we will have 

a much better idea after 6 months of who is calling the shots, 

whether it is Hamas or Abu Mazen who is actually able to engage 

in this with some authority and legitimacy. 

Then I think the next 6 months will be a time in which it may 

become possible to start to give some greater refinement to the 

principles that would have to be involved in the political horizon. 

And beyond that, it is the Middle East, and I wouldn’t dare to suggest. But it is only going to produce some results if the Secretary 

remains engaged in the process from now until the end of the administration. 

And the advantage of that, in terms of your question about the 

larger context here, is not that somehow an engagement here is 

going to solve the problems in Iraq; I think it is a mindless formula 

that says this is the core problem, if we solve this problem, we will 

solve all the other problems. It is not likely to make any difference 

in Iraq itself. 

But it will make a difference in the broader region, and in the 

broader Islamic world, when they see the United States engaged in 

a serious effort to try to move this process forward toward a resolution. It is something that will help defuse some of the anger out 

there, and make it—it is not going to be a great victory in the war 

against terrorism, but it will make it easier for leaders in the region to work with us, and easier for us to demand that they do so 
39

because we are engaged in an issue that they say is a hot button 

one for them and their people. 

Mr. COSTA. Thank you. Do I have time for one more question? 

Dr. Pipes, you had a very interesting, I think, analysis of describing the situation as you see it between the good terrorists and the 

bad terrorists. 

I am wondering, is there the possibility—and we have all heard 

some discussions about this—of seeing the world through a different paradigm, in terms of the groups that supposedly represent 

the Palestinians? When you look at the wealth that exists in some 

parts of the Arab world, and you look at the political rhetoric oftentimes used when it comes to the Palestinians, it just seems to me 

that, you know, if you could somehow think out of the box vis-avis a Marshall Plan, where you really were to reach out and help 

the people who really are suffering, who are sometimes, it seems 

from a distance, pawns in this political gamesmanship that is taking place; what application do you think, in looking through this 

differently? 

I am reminded of the saying that we have all heard, continuing 

to do things the same way we have always done them and expect 

different results is not only frustrating, but it can be maddening. 

Mr. PIPES. Well, thank you for your thoughtful question. I would 

tend to be doubtful that it would work, however, for two reasons. 

First, I think that over the decades it is the grassroots that is 

more radicalized than the elite. It used to be understood that it 

was the kings, presidents and emirs who were exploiting the Arab 

masses, hanging this red meat in front of them of Zionism and saying, ‘‘Go,’’ so that people wouldn’t worry about their own local conditions. 

And if that was ever true in the 1950s and 1960s, I don’t think 

it applies today. Today, in case after case, one finds that it is the 

leaders who are willing to make concessions more than the body 

politic. And one can go through this in an Egyptian case, a Jordanian case, and even a Palestinian case, where one can note that 

in September 1993, Yasir Arafat was willing to make concessions 

to Israel, and he got a very negative reaction from the Palestinians. 

So that would be one point. 

The second point I would make is that I don’t think ultimately 

this is an issue that boils down to economics, to poverty, to despair, 

and to unemployment. I think it has far more to do with love and 

hate, with dreams and fears, and hopes and desires. It is about 

ideas. It is about nationalism. It is about control of territory. 

And what one has found over the years is that Palestinians and, 

for that matter, Israelis are willing to give up—but in particular, 

it is true of Palestinians—are willing to give up material benefit in 

order to pursue this war. And were it possible to wean them from 

war through economics, it would have happened in the 1990s, because after all, that was Shimon Peres’ insight, to say that ‘‘We, 

together, Arabs and Israelis, can form a new economic order. We 

can have prosperity, and we can leave these old antagonisms.’’ But 

in fact, that is not what happened. 

So while I commend you for this new out-of-the-box thinking, I 

must respectfully say I think it won’t work. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Mr. Carnahan. 
40

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and panel. I apologize 

for coming in late. I know I have missed much of the discussion. 

But I did want to ask questions in a particular area with regard 

to your thoughts regarding the impact of progress with, between 

the Israelis and the Palestinians, with regard to the situation in 

Iraq. And again, I apologize if I may have missed some of this, but 

I would appreciate your thoughts. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. Congressman Carnahan, good to see you. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Good to see you. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. And I wish for a successful season for our fellow 

joint project of the St. Louis Cardinals. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Yes, indeed. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. But I think the Cardinals will have a better 

record this year than the Palestinian Government, because I think 

the complications of the Mecca Agreement—I think it is important, 

you want a solution among Israelis and Palestinians because you 

want to give dignity to both peoples. And I feel the Mecca Agreement, though, unfortunately complicates that. 

I don’t believe somebody in the Anbar province is going to turn 

on Aljazeera and say, well, they are making progress on the roadmap, so we don’t shoot Americans today. I don’t see a linkage between the two. I realize, though, among many Arabs and Muslims, 

this issue is important, and I think it could have a resonance in 

the wider world of the Middle East and beyond it. But I think in 

terms of the outcome in Iraq, I never believed the road to Baghdad, 

the road to Jerusalem goes through Baghdad, or the road to Jerusalem goes through Baghdad. So I am not a fan of these linkages, 

and I don’t believe in it. 

But I do think there would definitely be a big dividend if, you 

know, in the region and beyond, in terms of people, if there was 

some sort of a solution. And most importantly to the peoples themselves. Both sides in this conflict, Israelis and Palestinians, have 

suffered a lot. And you want a solution that gives dignity to both. 

I fear unfortunately we have taken a big, giant step backwards 

with this Mecca Accord. Thank you. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you. Could I ask the other panelist to 

comment? Anybody else? Ambassador? 

Mr. INDYK. I do not believe that if we were able to make progress 

on the Israeli-Palestinian front that it would make any significant 

difference to the problems that we are facing in Iraq today. I just 

don’t. I think things are far gone there, and I don’t see how one 

could influence the other. 

Where I think David is right is that the Palestinian issue is a 

hot-button issue for many people in the region, and beyond in the 

Muslim world. Their leaders are authoritarian to a man. Precisely 

because they are not elected, they fear their publics. And they fear 

public opinion. And the perception that the United States does not 

care about this issue, the Palestinian issue, is something that has 

made the leaders reluctant to identify with us and work with us. 

Or if they do it, they will do it in a very quiet way because of other 

threats they face, in particular from Iran. 

So I think it does have a value in the broader region in terms 

of helping our diplomacy and efforts across the region. But in Iraq 

itself, I don’t think it is going to make any difference. 
41

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you. 

Mr. PIPES. I am in broad agreement. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Carnahan. 

I want to take that question if I might, and just reverse it; play 

it back at a different speed, too. 

In the Middle East between the Israelis and the Palestinians 

there seems to be a lack of strength and leadership on both sides, 

for very different reasons. The hope is that the strength of the 

United States in situations such as this will be able to bring parties together. 

My question would be, has our involvement in Iraq weakened our 

hand and the perception of our strength to the extent that it makes 

us less effective as a convener, or the party that is going to bang 

the heads together, or however you would describe this tripartite 

agreement the Secretary heroically is going to try to have next 

week? 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. I will just say that I just came back from there. 

I spoke to Israelis and Palestinians. And I was struck how the 

word ‘‘Iraq’’ hardly ever came up in any of my discussions. It was 

like a parallel universe to what we are dealing with here. 

The only time it would come up, I felt, was with the Israelis, but 

in a different context: That the issue of Iran is looming. As you 

know, the President of Iran says he wants to wipe Israel off the 

map. The supreme leader calls Israel a cancer that should be cut 

out. So it is not just Ahmadinejad. 

And the only time I would hear Iraq come up in conversations 

would be the United States will be so preoccupied with the Iraqi 

issue, and some wonder if there is a neo-isolationist mood in the 

United States, which I don’t think is accurate, would so envelop the 

United States that the United States will be hamstrung with the 

ascendant Iran. And I felt also some of the Arab leaders I talked 

to also asked me that question. 

I found that was the only context Iraq would come up, was in an 

Iranian context. And I never heard it come up in a Palestinian context. And I was struck, in all my meetings with Palestinians, that 

they never raised it either. So it was a little bit of a parallel universe for me being over there, given how much this issue is critical, 

that we are having so many soldiers over there right now. 

Thank you. 

Mr. INDYK. I think, Mr. Chairman, that the prime example of our 

reduced influence was the way in which the Saudis went off 

against our will, and against our plan and strategy, and did this 

deal in Mecca. That was not what the Secretary of State had in 

mind at all. 

She, and I think the Israelis as well, thought they had an understanding with the Saudis and the Egyptians, and Abu Mazen, that 

the whole effort, of which the political horizon was one part and 

the security package was another, was designed to isolate Hamas, 

and effectively to take it out of the government and have new elections that would produce a different complexion for the Palestinian 

Authority. 

And neither Abu Mazen, nor the Egyptians, nor the Saudis went 

along with the script. They did an old ‘‘switcheroo.’’ And I believe 
42

that they did it not because we didn’t have a big enough stick to 

beat them with; it is that they were looking out for their own interests that we could not affect. 

I don’t think it is so much that the Saudis have decided to play 

a sectarian game. It is rather that the Saudis now see that the sectarian genie is out of the bottle. And they do not want Hamas, 

which is a Sunni extremist organization, to be on the Iranian side 

of that fault line. They have their own Sunni extremists that they 

have got to deal with; so do the Egyptians. 

And so they chose to try to co-opt them rather than to confront 

them. And Abu Mazen, when he saw that the Saudis were doing 

this, and it began—I don’t know how closely you followed it—but 

it began when King Abdullah sent his own private aircraft to pick 

up the Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, and take him to 

Mecca so he could perform the hajj and have a private audience 

with King Abdullah. 

And after that, the Egyptians started treating Ismail Haniyeh 

like royalty, and Abu Mazen said, ‘‘Well, hey, you know, if the 

Saudis and Egyptians are going to play this game, why the hell 

should I be the guy out on the limb confronting them? I am going 

off to Damascus to show them, and to see whether Damascus will 

help me make a deal with Hamas.’’ And from there it was a short 

step to Mecca. And we were left essentially on the sidelines. 

If we had been able to produce an effective way forward, and 

they had seen that we were still the dominant player in the region, 

they would have been, I think, more willing to go with us, and 

more fearful of our reaction if they didn’t. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. In your view, did the administration see this? Or 

did they just have no inclination for leaning on the Saudis? 

Mr. INDYK. I can’t really speak to that. My sense——

Mr. ACKERMAN. If the center of gravity is shifting, which is the 

tone of what I got before from, say, Egypt to Saudi Arabia, one 

would think that we would be more engaging with Saudi Arabia, 

and using whatever pressure points there are. You know——

Mr. INDYK. We have been very——

Mr. ACKERMAN [continuing]. Everybody has needs, and the Egyptians need bullets, and the Saudis need bodyguards. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. I don’t know if we sent a message to Saudi Arabia, but my understanding is we sent the message via the Palestinians. There was a Palestinians negotiating team here in Washington last week to prepare for the political horizon talks for Rice’s 

visit. And then, all of a sudden this Mecca thing was unfolding 

quickly. And via the Palestinians, we sent the message that we 

found Haniyeh unacceptable, we found et cetera, et cetera, and 

that was ignored. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. We are using the Palestinians to talk to the 

Saudis? 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. To convey a message to Abu Mazen in Mecca. 

But I have no way of knowing if we also communicated directly 

with the Saudis. I would hope so. But I mean, this was not a secret 

that they were there. There is a telephone, I would assume. 

But to me, it just underscores that either we seem to be not on 

the same page with the Saudis, and there needs to be some understanding about what they are up to. I am concerned it is just about 
43

sectarianism, and that is not a good sign. But maybe not. But I 

think there needs to be a high-level engagement. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Let me ask a question of Dr. Pipes, which goes 

to the premise that people either accept it, or for the time being 

accept it. And that was your assertion that the polls suggest only 

20 percent of the Palestinian population accepts Israel’s right to 

exist. You said it would have to be 60 percent to 70 percent in 

order to be meaningful. 

Khalil Shikaki, who I believe you are familiar with, is the preeminent Palestinian pollster. And he has been right on target most 

of the time. His conclusion, based on his polling—and I will quote 

you the statement—‘‘58 percent support, and 40 percent oppose, 

mutual recognition of Israel as the state for the Jewish people, and 

Palestine as the state for the Palestinian people, in the context of 

a permanent settlement and the establishment of a Palestinian 

state.’’

That is a big difference in your assertion and his polling conclusions. 

Mr. PIPES. It certainly is. My 20 percent figure comes from the 

whole range of polls of Palestinians in the Palestinian Authority, 

as well as in Jordan and Lebanon. 

Mr. Shikaki’s figures are often fantastical. It is due to Mr. 

Shikaki that we have a Hamas government. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. You were able to poll in Lebanon? 

Mr. PIPES. Oh, yes. I haven’t done the research myself, but I can 

refer to the research by Martin Kramer, that he showed how 

Shikaki had throughout 2004 and 2005 been assuring everyone 

that the PLO, Fatah, is doing well in Palestinian public opinion 

and Hamas is down and getting worse all the time. And this was 

a critical, critical factor in both the United States and Israeli decision to push for the elections, and lo and behold, Hamas did far, 

far better than Shikaki ever predicted. 

So I would take any figure from Khalil Shikaki with a great deal 

of salt. And I will be happy to provide you with this analysis by 

Martin Kramer. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Did you say the Israelis pushed for the elections? 

Mr. PIPES. Well, we pushed for them, but the Israelis didn’t protest, because everyone was looking at Shikaki’s numbers. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. My understanding is that we really leaned on 

the Israelis to have the elections. 

Mr. PIPES. They acceded to it; they didn’t try and prevent it; in 

large part because the only numbers coming out of the PA were 

Shikaki’s numbers, and Shikaki was assuring everyone it will come 

out all right, Fatah will win. 

As I said, I will be glad to provide you with this analysis. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. If we believed in exit polls, we would have different presidents from time to time. 

Mr. PIPES. Well, it was really a big difference. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. There is a big difference between 58 percent and 

20 percent, as well. The answer that was elicited due to the question by my friend, the ranking minority member of the committee, 

had to do with elections. And I was thinking at the time that perhaps we are going to consider having a hearing on elections in the 

Middle East, good or bad idea. 
44

Because from what we are seeing—and I don’t know that we 

have ever given serious thought to it—but should there be an election in Lebanon while the troubles were going on or right after it 

ended, I would not have been surprised to have seen the Hezbollah 

winning with huge numbers that they might not have had before. 

But anyway, I thank you for eliciting that question. I think 

maybe we are going to do that. 

We are going to continue with questions, if it is okay with the 

panel. First Mr. Pence and then Mr. Berman. 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you, Chairman. I want to direct my second series of questions to Mr. Pipes. And I want to recognize that, as anyone that might look on in this hearing or read a transcript could 

learn, DanielPipes.org is the single-most accessed internet site for 

specialized information on the Middle East today. 

Mr. Pipes, you have been described by major national media outlets as having been years ahead of the curve in identifying the 

threat of radical Islam. And The Boston Globe also wrote that ‘‘if 

Pipes’ admonitions had been heeded, there might never have been 

a 9/11.’’

I have been an admirer of yours since before that fateful day. 

And I would agree whole-cloth with the assertions of The Boston 

Globe in that regard, and I thank you for your service to the country. 

I want to talk to you, or ask you about radical Islam, and what 

a subject that has been bandied about in the last few questions 

might mean to radical Islam. 

The Ambassador said in his testimony that this President might 

be ‘‘facing defeat in Iraq.’’ There has been some testimony today 

about the implications of Iraq, Mr. Carnahan raising the issue of 

linkage, and I share his profound concern about the inherent danger to Israel that any linkage would mean. 

But in your testimony you said, and I quote, ‘‘Defeat one might 

think usually follows on the devastating battlefield loss, as was the 

case of the Axis in 1945, but this has rarely occurred in the past 

60 years.’’ You said, ‘‘Morale and will have consistently mattered 

more. Despite outmanning and outgunning their foes, the French 

gave up in Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam, the Soviets in Afghanistan.’’ And if the Ambassador’s inference, or perhaps prediction, is correct, we may add Iraq to that list at some time in the 

next 2 years. 

My question to you—as one of the Western world’s leading authorities and most prescient thinkers on the rise of radical Islam—

is, What would the loss of Iraq by the United States of America 

mean to radical Islam and to Israel? I mean, I would ask very 

broadly, If we lose Iraq, do we lose Israel? And because it does 

seem to me that a debate that will continue late into tonight and 

tomorrow, and a debate that will continue for months here in 

Washington, DC, hasn’t fully considered that question. 

Mr. PIPES. Indeed. Thank you so much for your kind words. 

Without being pedantic, I might raise the question of what exactly ‘‘losing’’ means. Our man, as it were—or the person perceived 

as ‘‘our man’’ in Baghdad—is a pro-Iranian Shiite, who has elements in his government who we have arrested, who have been 

found implicated in the bombing in 1983 of the Marine barracks in 
45

Beirut. The Iraqi Constitution in many ways offends us. The oil 

policies of the Iraqi Government are quite at variance with our own 

interests at times. 

So what I am getting at is that the Iraqi Government in place 

is not a puppet of ours, is not a construct of ours, is not something 

that we, as Americans, find altogether salubrious. 

The question is, How different would a government in Iraq be 

once we pull out? Would it change radically from what it is today? 

And I am not sure of that answer. The security situation in Iraq 

is so fluid, with the Sunni-Shi’a dimension, with the resurgent 

Baathists, with the tribal elements, with regional elements, with 

Kurdish interests, that it is very hard for me to get a sense of what 

Iraq will look like, whether we stay or whether we go. 

So I am not sure how—it could be a radical difference. It could 

be the forces of Muqtada al-Sadr taking over, in which case it 

would be very, very different. But it might not be that different. 

It might not make that much difference. I am optimistic that an 

American exit would not lead—I mean, the National Interest, a 

magazine, had a cover an issue or two ago that said something of 

the sort of, ‘‘Will it happen again?’’ And it showed Vietnam in 1975, 

and that famous picture of the Americans leaving the Embassy, 

and just a totally different order took over. I don’t think it would 

be quite something like that, because it is not our order exactly 

today. And I don’t know that the next order that would follow us 

would be that different from the existing one. So I am inclined to 

think it is not that radical of a difference. 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much. Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And I 

would like to explore with Professor Indyk, former Ambassador, 

thank you for your service, and I think the very lucid framework 

which we find ourselves in, as you have articulated, but also historical perspective. 

I indicated earlier that I had been hosting some, for almost 20 

years combined with my predecessor, the Hon. Mickey Leland, the 

Mickey Leland Kibbutz Program, and the life-changing experiences 

that these youngsters have had. In the course of their travels to 

Israel they visited Palestinian families, Ethiopian Jews, and others; that shows the richness of the diversity of the region. 

So I have this sense that dialogue does work. And of course, 

someone would suggest that that is a simple premise. But I think 

it works, because, as I said, in talking to Israeli families, you will 

find those who certainly will defend Israel with their lives, but also 

believe in dialogue. 

So I want to take you back to the end of the Clinton administration and the intensity of those negotiations, because we have so 

often cited and criticized previous agreements like Oslo. So many 

critics would say just another episode of, I will use the term 

dysfunctionality, that that was not going to come to anything. 

I remember right after the end of his term, going to the floor of 

the House and pleading with the present administration to continue negotiations. It might have taken a different framework. 

They might have wanted to add more stringent requirements or 

framework, but engage. And I remember the rebuke. We will not—
46

in fact, it was proudly announced, I remember Members of the Senate proudly announcing that they would not follow that policy, 

maybe even characterizing it as wimpish. 

If you would, would you take me from that point, if we had pursued that continued engagement, what kind of protocol we could 

have utilized? 

And I thank you for your kindness, but I beg to different to suggest that the present Secretary of State and others are engaging 

in the same. The reason is because they have how many years of 

failure in between, so they are obviously coming at it at a disadvantage. Look at the conditions of Palestinian territory now, look 

at the rise of Hamas, look at the failure of Fatah. And so we have 

those in the way. 

But help me to understand if that protocol could have continued 

what we would have gained. And what is the forcefulness that we 

need to use now—and I say forcefulness so it can be taken in many 

elements, such as diplomacy—to help prop up what I think the Secretary of State and some of the diplomatic actions that are going 

on now. I think they need to be propped up, because people are not 

happy with how they see the framework between Hamas and 

Abbas, and what the Mecca Agreement, though I certainly think 

there is certainly something to cite for the Mecca Agreement, I 

think we need to thank the many allies. 

But help me go back to that period. And I will just finish by saying it was dropped like a hot potato, because it frankly was. And 

that was the worst way to drop negotiations. And how that has 

played out. And how do we pick up really the energy behind two, 

at least one, serious negotiator—I certainly was disappointed in 

Arafat at that time—but one serious negotiator. How can we pick 

that up? 

Mr. INDYK. Thank you, Congresswoman. It is a very big question. 

I, at the time, shared your concern. I worked for President Bush 

as his Ambassador in Israel for the first 6 months of the administration. And I think that it is understandable, first of all, that 

when a new administration comes in, it wants to do things differently. I came into the White House with President Clinton on 

his first day in office, and we certainly had exactly the same attitude. 

But we didn’t walk away from everything that had been done before. Yasir Arafat was certainly a major disappointment to President Clinton and it was one of the last things he told President 

Bush before he left the White House. ‘‘Don’t ever trust Yasir 

Arafat,’’ I think his words were. 

But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a framework that had been 

put together over 8 years of American investment, not only of the 

President’s time and energy and prestige, but of the Congress and 

of the State Department. A major effort to build an infrastructure 

of peacemaking. 

And when the Bush administration took over, the Intifada was 

only in its 3rd month. And while the casualties were high, they 

were minor at that point. I think it was 100 Palestinians killed, 

and maybe 30 Israelis at that point, compared to the thousands 

that were killed in the following 4 years of the Intifada. 
47

And there was a framework that had been put together by 

George Tenet, the Tenet Cease-Fire Plan, and George Mitchell, the 

Mitchell Recommendations, which had been accepted by both sides, 

the Israelis and the Palestinians. And the challenge was not to pick 

up the Clinton parameters and get a final deal; the challenge was 

to implement the Mitchell Recommendations and the Tenet CeaseFire Plan to stop the conflict, and get back to negotiations. And 

that wasn’t done. 

Maybe it would have been impossible to do, but it wasn’t really 

tried. And I say that from my own personal experience, because I 

was there. Just a personal story here, if you will allow me. One of 

the things that I suggested to the administration was since they 

weren’t prepared to engage, why didn’t they let me engage, since 

I was on my way out? They could sacrifice me. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Special Envoy, you could continue in that capacity. 

Mr. INDYK. Yes. Well, basically they gave me permission, as Ambassador in Israel, to go work with Arafat and Sharon to try to 

make the Tenet and Mitchell Plans work. 

And I had said to them in order to do this, I am also going to 

have to engage in some political discussions about a political horizon. And the orders came back to me that I could go ahead and 

talk about a cease-fire, but I could not talk about anything to do 

with a political horizon. 

And that was true, by the way, of General Zinni’s efforts. He, too, 

was circumscribed. He was not allowed to talk about anything to 

do with the political horizon, or how the cease-fire might relate to 

some process that could achieve both sides’ objectives in a negotiation. 

And so, as a consequence, essentially the Israelis and the Palestinians were left to their own devices. And when they were left 

to their own devices, the Intifada and the terrorism of the Intifada, 

and the Israeli Army’s response to that, took over. And that is 

what filled the vacuum. 

Even so, there were various opportunities along the way. After 

the success in Iraq of toppling Saddam Hussein, all of the region’s 

radicals, including Yasir Arafat, lowered their profile. And he, in 

response, appointed Abu Mazen as prime minister. That was a perfect opportunity to get behind Abu Mazen and try to resurrect the 

process at that time that would have been against Arafat’s will, but 

nevertheless might have had some chance. And we left him twisting in the wind until Arafat rendered him powerless. 

So as I say, it is a big question, and there is a lot of history involved in this. But I think that it was a mistake not to engage from 

the beginning of the administration. And even though it is late, it 

is now the right thing to do, to engage, with lowered expectations, 

with an understanding that this is going to take time, and with a 

willingness—and this is perhaps the hardest part—to understand 

the complexity with which the administration now has to deal as 

a consequence of the fact that over 6 years, the entire edifice of 

peacemaking has been destroyed. And so we start from a very low 

base. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, let me just finish, and if you would just 

add to this by agreeing with your assessment. And the apprehen-
48

sion that I have is the low staying power of this administration in 

this short time of their tenure, their presence here as President of 

the United States, or as in charge of this process. 

And so is there any instructive counsel you can give as they start 

at this low stair step? They are starting at the bottom steps now, 

again. Their time is short. Time is short for the State Department. 

And the time is short for the administration. 

What, then, what counsel can you give us that we could make 

some strides, starting at the point of where we are, as well as 

starting at a fractured point, where many of even the allies, sadly 

enough, the condition of the former prime minister, which you had 

the opportunity to engage in, who brought the certain sense of military proudness and statute and unquestionable loyalty from the 

Israeli people, we don’t have that any more in terms of his presence. We have a new government. What, then, do you think is the 

counsel for us? 

Mr. INDYK. Well, as I said, the counsel is to stay engaged. The 

counsel I believe for Congress is to support the Secretary of State 

in this effort, and to back her up. 

But the effort is really to try to put the peace train back on its 

tracks, and get it moving forward again. And that is, I think, perhaps the most that one can expect to achieve in the next 2 years, 

precisely because it is the end of the administration, and precisely 

because this administration is understandably preoccupied with 

some other problems in the region that are of a very highly problematic nature, particularly Iraq, but also Iran. 

And so, you know, I think that that is the way we should look 

at it. This is an effort to put the process back on track. And if this 

administration can achieve that, then the next President will, I 

think, be in a position, much better position, to take it up when she 

comes into office. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I would like that. Then don’t let them backslide, is that my understanding? Don’t let them backslide. 

Mr. INDYK. That is one way of putting it, yes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Thank you very much. Mr. Berman. 

Mr. BERMAN. I will be real quick. You didn’t really address, except perhaps by implication, the notion of the three conditions and 

the unity government. In fact, the implication I got was more likely 

this unity government doesn’t hold, and so we shouldn’t spend a lot 

of time on it. 

But do you see a chance that this ‘‘unity government’’ actually 

comes to terms with those conditions, and can somehow do something that Hamas on its own wouldn’t do? Any of you. I take it Dr. 

Pipes thinks this is all a pointless process anyway. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. I am skeptical that the unity government is 

going to be able to go beyond Mecca. I think that Hamas made it 

clear that they have certain positions, and they were not even 

going to change them for the King of Saudi Arabia. So I find it unlikely that suddenly they are going to go beyond, in a new configuration. 

I don’t have much hope. I don’t disregard the depth of their, I 

would have to say religious commitment against recognizing Israel. 

I don’t think they feel they got elected to get business-class tickets 
49

to Davos. This is, they are ideologically committed to their platform. So I am not holding my breath that they are going to change. 

I am more hopeful, focused on Abbas. I think he is the one who 

was elected, 62 percent, for a two-state solution. And Martin might 

be right, that for a variety of reasons he will find that this is not 

a comfortable thing for him, in which case he will leave. But right 

now he probably feels it will tamp down the violence. 

Unity over peace; that is how I see it. And I will just say that 

you could say, well, once he sees the Rice horizon, maybe he will 

see that the peace is more tangible, and he will choose peace over 

unity. I wouldn’t rule it out. There are a lot of different interests 

here at play. 

Mr. BERMAN. It is funny how you call it the Rice horizon. I 

thought it was supposed to be the party’s horizon. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. Did I say Rice? I meant Rice’s political horizon. 

I mean that she is going to discuss it with them. If it is more tangible, maybe he will leave. 

There are other issues here that Fatah will find in terms of 

power sharing. I didn’t even want to get into all this because of 

your limited time, you know, in terms of power arrangements within the PLO. There are all sorts of things here where the things 

could unravel. 

It is possible that it is a very short-term hiccup, you know. We 

will have to see. But I don’t think we should assume that it is, and 

therefore pretend that Mecca is irrelevant. I do think it has real 

implications, especially, for me, the issue of who is in charge of the 

security services. And that has implications for American aid. 

And I think until we know better what this government is and 

what it isn’t, I think we should just have a review. I think this idea 

of calling General Dayton in and see how he would navigate, you 

know, in such a situation is a worthy exercise. I think there are 

just a lot of variables up in the air. For me, it isn’t an irrelevancy, 

what they have done in Mecca. I think it is a step back, and it requires a review. 

Mr. BERMAN. There is a blurb today that Abbas fired 1,500 of his 

security forces because they wouldn’t fight against Hamas, apart 

from what Hamas brings to it. 

But my final, final question is—several times you came back to 

what is in Saudi Arabia’s agenda here. I read, I think it was in an 

Israeli paper, Mecca Agreement, ‘‘Victory for Hamas, Defeat for 

Iran.’’

If the Saudi agenda is that, then why would they have even 

pushed Hamas to agree to more of the conditions? Money and 

calming things in the Gaza Strip, and the allegiance they buy with 

that is their agenda, and maybe they have achieved their agenda. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. Right. No. Look, the sectarian thing in a certain 

way dovetails nicely with the peacemaking in this camp, although 

one has to be always careful about being accused of getting in the 

middle of the Sunni-Shi’a issue. This is not a religious question for 

people in the United States, or for Israel, or anything like that. 

You want to stay out of that. 

But in a certain way, keeping Iran out is not a bad thing. But 

if it is only about keeping Iran out, then I have concerns that this 

isn’t going to go anywhere. They will have no trouble then 
50

bankrolling Hamas, as well. I am sure the King of Saudi Arabia 

did not like the idea of seeing Mahmoud Abbas sitting with Bashar 

al-Assad—the same Bashar al-Assad who said he was a half-man 

after the Israel-Hezbollah War, he had mocked every single Arab 

leader—I am sure that didn’t make King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia 

happy. And I am sure he didn’t like to see Haniyeh going to Iran. 

And I think he was also trying to signal, this is the center of the 

Arab world now, fellows. You want to do something, you come to 

Saudi Arabia. 

And he succeeded. And there is no doubt, for all our criticism, I 

think, I don’t think either Martin, Daniel, or myself would differ 

that one thing that has emerged from Mecca is the centrality of the 

Saudis. And you know, they have proved themselves. But to me, it 

might be necessary, but it is not sufficient. Unless we know what 

they are really about, we are just going to keep going in circles. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I would like to ask an end-game question, based 

on the different philosophies with the witnesses. 

My understanding of the positions of Ambassador Indyk and Mr. 

Makovsky is that you agree that a two-state solution based on certain conditions is the ultimate outcome. And I wasn’t sure about 

Dr. Pipes, if he saw a Palestinian state as part of the end game. 

I know you said that the Palestinians have to lose a war. I don’t 

know how literally you meant that. Is that a real war, or war of 

ideas? Or do they just have to give up? 

You also used the word crushed. These are very active words 

that evoke a lot of action, rather than just discussions. Do the Palestinian people, in your view, have to be crushed or neutered of 

their ambitions, or just certain ambitions? And how do you do that, 

absent a real war? Or is real war the thing? Or do they reach certain goals, and they are entitled to a state? 

If you did the polling, and in your polling they had 60 percent 

accept Israel, do they get a state then? Or do they get to go 

through another set of tests? 

Mr. PIPES. Well, there are two questions I think you are asking. 

One is the process I see here. And the second is, What is the formal 

status? 

On the process, yes, those are active verbs. And at the same 

time, I am not talking about crushing the Palestinians; I am talking about crushing the will of the Palestinians to fight. The perfect 

model for this—well, not perfect, but a model for this—would be 

the end of the Cold War. We did not defeat the Soviet Union 

through a battlefield victory. The Soviets gave up. 

Or, to turn it around, in 1975 we gave up in Vietnam not because 

we ran out of bullets or soldiers, but because we lost the will to 

continue. It is the will to fight that is critical. And the Palestinians 

very much have that will, and indeed have more of that will today 

than 15 years ago. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. I am trying to understand what you mean by the 

Palestinians, because I don’t have a picture. They went to the polls 

once and elected a guy who speaks the language of diplomacy, who 

has been a professional negotiator all his life, whose viewpoint was 

well known that he wanted to negotiate, the denounce the Intifada, 

to Yasir Arafat himself claiming it would be a disaster for even the 

Palestinian people to do that. And the only way to achieve their le-
51

gitimate goals would be to negotiate with Israel. That seems to be 

a pretty clear-cut philosophical position. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. I would——

Mr. ACKERMAN. And I know you have granted him less evil——

Mr. PIPES. May I differ? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Well, let me just finish. Then the Palestinian 

people went to the polls again. And elections do have consequences. 

And they elected, in their legislative elections, an acknowledged 

terrorist organization which, by their own words, announced themselves to be just that. 

The question is, Did they elect them for their terrorist inclinations? Or did they elect them because they were the people who 

brought home the groceries? Because they have now done both, in 

two consecutive elections. 

So is it the Palestinian people, or just certain people who were 

stirring them up, who are terrorists? Or do you believe that Palestinians are inherently terrorists, and have to be neutered of those 

ambitions? 

Mr. PIPES. No. The latter is easy; no, I don’t think they are inherently terroristic. Opinion polls and elections are certainly a good 

guide to understanding the political viewpoint. But there is also 

the clear trend toward celebration of violence against Israel, and 

agreement on the fact that Palestine must replace Israel 

But let me go back to your specific point about Mahmoud Abbas. 

He was elected quite soon after the death of Yasir Arafat. He was 

clearly the heir to Yasir Arafat. I would differ with Martin in one 

important detail: Yes, Mahmoud Abbas did denounce terrorism, but 

he denounced it as a tactic back in 2002 and 2003. I would challenge you to document that he called it immoral. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. He did once. He did, in Arabic. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. In Arabic. I think it was May 29, 2003, at the 

Palestinian Legislative Counsel. He said it is immoral; it is against 

our religious traditions. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. That is why you are at the table. 

Mr. MAKOVSKY. Whatever. I remember these things. 

Mr. PIPES. All right, I will stand corrected if Abbas did use the 

word ‘‘immoral.’’ But I will still contend that the major thrust of 

his argument was this wasn’t working; this was tactically a failure, 

and so the Palestinians should not continue with terrorism. I 

mean, if he used it once, I think you are in some sense agreeing 

with me, that he was not coming and saying this is bad, this is 

bad, you must give this up, this is immoral. He was saying this 

isn’t working, this isn’t working, let us try something different. 

And he was elected in the aftermath of Arafat’s death, as Arafat’s successor. Hamas was—one can read it in different ways—and 

one way is they are more honest, and that this was a good-governance election. But if it were good governance, there were other alternatives. There were many other parties running who were really 

good-governance parties, and who were not calling for the elimination of Israel, who were just talking about talking about cleaning 

up the governance. 

So given these facts, given the unquestionable support on a mass 

level for violence against Israel; given the celebration that terrorism brings out, given the massive funeral——
52

Mr. ACKERMAN. But is it fair to say it brings out—you know, the 

whole country doesn’t go to the funeral, and the whole country 

doesn’t celebrate. I mean, we had people celebrating when the 

World Trade Center was struck down. As I understand, you could 

have stopped that if more people listened to you. 

But if—and the other point is——

Mr. PIPES. We had people celebrating World Trade Center? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. PIPES. In this country? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. In this country. 

Mr. PIPES. Okay. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. They were. 

Mr. PIPES. What I mean to say is the public face of the Palestinian body politic——

Mr. ACKERMAN. But that doesn’t mean the American people will 

accept it, and I don’t know that it means the Palestinian people 

will celebrate when there is an act of terror. 

Mr. PIPES. If I may return to your second question? 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Please. 

Mr. PIPES. On the final status. I believe it is important not to 

hold out carrots in this sense. I believe one shouldn’t. But at the 

same time, among ourselves it is a perfectly reasonable thing to 

discuss. And some form of two-state solution does seem to me—partition, as David put it—seems to me the way forward. The only alternative to that ultimately is a one-state solution, which means no 

Israel, which means that Israel is swamped by its neighbors and 

Zionism is defunct. 

So if one is a Zionist, ultimately, one believes there should be a 

Jewish state, then one is ultimately saying there has to be a twoor a three- or however-many-state solution, absolutely. 

Mr. ACKERMAN. Well, unless there is something compelling, let 

me say this has been an excellent hearing in my view, not just because it is our first hearing of the committee. 

We did not employ the use of the timer, either to the witnesses 

or the members, and greatly appreciated the fullness of the responses. And you have added greatly to the national dialogue, and 

indicating ways that we might go forward. 

Thank you very much, panel. We are adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 5:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 
(53)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

[NOTE: A Palestinian Media Watch bulletin dated February 28, 2007, titled ‘‘Nearly 

90% of Palestinian youth deny Israel’s right to exist,’’ by Iramar Marcus and Barbara Crook, was submitted for the record but is not reprinted here. It is available 

in committee records for this hearing.]
54

ARTICLE SUBMITTED BY THE HONORABLE DANIEL PIPES, DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST

FORUM
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