[x]

3

community, especially the United States. That process gradually
reduces Israel's margin of survival even while the world's media and
diplomats bewail its excesses. Torn between a recognition of strategic
necessities and the pull of emotional imperatives, Israel runs the risk
of sliding into institutionalized ambivalence.

On the Palestinian side, expulsion from a territory for centuries
considered Arab is an open wound; accepting the Israeli intrusion has
thus far been beyond Palestinian emotional and psychological
capacities. The internal Palestinian debate is essentially over how to
overcome the Jewish state; one group is arguing for permanent
confrontation, while moderates are willing to move toward the same
objective in stages. Only a tiny minority considers coexistence
Palstonian and Arab media in focus desirable.

In the half-century of Israel's existence, no Palestinian leader
has fully recognized Israel or renounced the right of refugees to

P. 3

Feb 21 04 03:46p

4

return. Government-sponsored public assaults on the very concept of
a Jewish state are unremitting. Even the Palestinian signatories of the
much-ballyhooed Geneva Accord went no further than to relate the
return of refugees to a proportion of refugees accepted by third-party
countries. The breakthrough in Egyptian-Israeli negotiations took
place in 1977, when President Anwar Sadat made his historic trip to
Jerusalem and, among other gestures, laid a wreath on the Tomb of
the Unknown Soldier. There has never occurred a similar act of grace
on the part of Palestinian leaders.

(Palestinian leaders must find a way to convey that they have accepted the permanence of Israel's existence. Dismantling the terror apparatus might be difficult to do quickly, but ending the systematic rejection of Israeli legitimacy and incitement to terror in the media are within the scope of immediate Palestinian decision. The most forthcoming Arab proposal has come from Crown Prince Abdullah of

✓
P14

Feb 21 04 03:47p

p.4

Saudi Arabia. According to its imprecise outline, Israel would return to the dividing lines of 1967 in exchange for the normalization of relations with the Arab states. Literally, this would imply Israeli abandonment of all settlements and Arab control of the Old City of Jerusalem, including the holy places. The Abdullah plan does not define what is meant by normalization, and is silent about such issues as the right of refugees to return (though it would surely be insisted on in an actual negotiation).

Welcome as this engagement in the peace process is the first by an Arab state not having a direct national conflict with Israel — its never渝 but includes specific terms represent a restatement of a position that has produced the existing deadlock. The 1967 "border" in Palestine — unlike the Egyptian, Syrian, or Jordanian frontiers with Israel — was never an international frontier but a ceasefire line established at the end of the 1948 war. It was never recognized by any Arab state until after the

p.5

Feb 21 04 03:47p

6

1967 war and has been grudgingly accepted recently by states that do not yet recognize the legitimacy of Israel. I have never encountered an Israeli prime minister or chief of staff who considered the '67 borders defensible, and especially if coupled with an abandonment of a security position along the Jordan River. This is because the '67 borders leave a corridor as narrow as eight miles between Haifa and Tel Aviv and put the border of Israel at the edge of its international airport. Moreover, Israel would have to give up settlements containing approximately 200,000 inhabitants (about 4 percent of its Jewish population).

to p. 8

In return, Israel would achieve diplomatic relations with its is a special characteristic of the Arab-Israelinegotiations, mutual recognition of neighbors. But in almost all other negotiations, mutual recognition of the parties is taken for granted, not treated as a concession. In fact, nonrecognition implies the legal nonexistence of the other state, which, in the context of the Middle East, is tantamount to an option to

g.d

Feb 21 04 03:47p

destroy it. Israel was established by a U.N. resolution in 1948. No other members of the United Nations have been asked to pay a premium for recognition, the refusal of which implies a right to extinguish a state's legal, if not physical, existence. Nor are Palestinian leaders in a position to make a general agreement. No Palestinian leader has been willing to renounce the right to return. This implies an option to overwhelm Israel demographically.

When so little confidence exists, it is difficult to move in one step from the present impasse to a final solution. At the same time, there are some hopeful signs. The formal deadlock may be obscuring the possibility that, almost imperceptibly, a psychological framework for an agreement is emerging. In Israel, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new pronouncements suggest an approach indicates that the dominant Likud party is undergoing soul-searching based on the recognition that the biblical claim may lead to a demographic time bomb as Arabs become a majority in Palestine and

P.7

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8

attitude

demand control of the entire land. This change of mood implies a willingness to give up much of what Israel gained in the 1967 war in return for Palestinian acceptance of the 1948 defeat and the division of the land of Palestine.

At the same time, the Palestinians may be in the process of learning that they have no military option and that, at least for tactical reasons, coexistence with Israel is unavoidable. An increasing number of Arab states would settle for any terms acceptable to Palestinians.

may be in the process of reconsidering their previous attitudes. The Palestinians have suffered vast losses and the total disruption of their economy. Israel has learned that time and demography threaten its existence; a large and rapidly growing Arab population undermines the prospects for a state at once Jewish and democratic. Annexation of significant portions of the West Bank can no longer be considered a national Israeli interest.

8.p

Feb 21 04 03:48p

9

This may be why all the parties have endorsed — with varying degrees of conviction — a document listing forty simultaneous steps to be carried out in three stages. Drafted by the United States, Russia, the European Union, and a representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and labeled the "Road Map," its implementation is supposed to be supervised by the quartet that drafted it.

Nevertheless, we must be careful not to exaggerate what the Road Map stands for. It is not a recipe for resolving the Middle East deadlock. Rather, it represents a reasonable compromise on rather general objectives. These goals are stated as if they could be achieved simultaneously by each side acting more or less autonomously.

The Road Map does not establish criteria for verification, consequences of violation, or the sequence of acts within each stage. The language veers toward truisms. For example, with respect to

p. 9

Feb 21 04 03:48p

refugees, the Road Map calls for an agreed "just, fair, and realistic
settlement." To the Palestinian "fair and just" means a return of most
refugees, and to the Israeli "realistic" means, at most, a token return
of refugees.

The negotiators working their way through these generalities
have ~~many~~ positive elements to sustain them. The new impetus to
diplomacy reflects the revolutionary changes wrought by American
policy in the Middle East. The elimination of Iraq as a significant
military force has removed for a considerable period the possibility of a
~~an~~ *forbidden by agental amnesties* conventional Arab-Israeli war. The American insistence that the
Palestinian Authority produce a more representative and responsible
negotiating partner than Arafat has provided the framework to weaken
the terrorist structure on the West Bank.

A combination of these factors has encouraged Prime Minister
Sharon to offer the elimination of settlements established in violation

[x]

P.10

Feb 21 04 03:48p

11

of Israeli law, to proceed to dismantle the settlements in Gaza, and to
acquiesce in the creation of a Palestinian state with "contiguous"
territory — the code word for opening a discussion over the future of
settlements that impede this objective.

If this were a negotiation unencumbered by historical and
psychological abatements, one could note the respect in which the parties
have approached each other: on the creation of a Palestinian state;
on ending the occupation in the greatest part of the West Bank; on the
principle of abandoning at least settlements beyond the dividing line;
on the need to end terrorism. What is lacking is even the minimum of
trust to negotiate the implementation of these principles. The
Palestinians believe that Israel seeks to reduce the Palestinian state to
a series of enclaves surrounded by Israeli territory and pierced by an
Israeli road network — in short, a state virtually indistinguishable from
limited internal autonomy.

[x]

P-11

Feb 21 04 03:48p

12

Most Israelis are convinced that for the Palestinians any agreement represents only a stage in an ultimate war of extermination. Arab and Palestinian newspapers and schoolbooks and Arab and Palestinian television treat the state of Israel as an illegitimate interloper that must be removed from the Arab world.

Allied divisions have compounded the problem. Critics attack U.S. policy for what they consider one-sided support of Israeli policy.

At the same time, almost all European leaders have advocated a solution which does not meet the experiences of past decades nor the realities of the moment: the return of Israel to the '67 borders with only the most minor modifications; the consequent abandonment by Israel of all (or nearly all) of the Israeli settlements established since; partition of Jerusalem; some accommodation to the Palestinian view on return of refugees, all this to be imposed by the U.S.

The guide quotes is an unambiguous "normalization" and depicts an international guaranteeing force. Jump6-7 ✓

P.12

Feb 21 04 03:48p

[A]

14

means? The historical record of multilateral guarantees is dismal,
especially in the Middle East.

The real challenge is terrorism, against which international guarantees are likely to prove empty. If Israel's armed forces, with a huge stake in the outcome, could not prevent infiltrations, how is an international or even an American force going to do it? It is much more likely to prove a barrier against Israeli retaliation than against Palestinian terrorism. The probable outcome is that an international force would become hostages who will either purchase their safety by turning their backs on violations or risk their lives by serious efforts, at which point the governments supplying the forces will be under pressure to withdraw them.

The end of terrorism must go beyond a cease-fire, which keeps the threat alive, to the dismantling of the terrorist supporting structure. At the same time, Israel needs to take American advocacy

P.14

Feb 21 04 03:49p

15

of a contiguous Palestinian state seriously. It implies not only an end
of new settlements but a reduction of the existing ones that impede
the promised contiguous Palestinian state and the new strategy foun-
must reflect firmness and security needs.

The practical implication is that the Road Map's goal of a
comprehensive settlement by 2005 is unachievable. It is unimaginable
that a new Palestinian prime minister precariously extracted from
Yasser Arafat will be in a position to renounce the right of Palestinians
to return to their place of origin in the early stages of the Road Map
process.

It is inconceivable that Israel would make a final agreement that
does not contain such a clause or that it would entertain transfers of
populations without a tested period without terrorism — if then.

This even
if a comprehensive agreement is the ultimate goal
it must contain, notably, if a prolonged interim period
for tertiy the commitments to lead the process
But if comprehensive peace is not achievable within the time

frame established by the Road Map, the establishment of a provisional
Palestinian state as envisaged in Stage II can be realized. The goal

p.15

Feb 21 04 03:49p

16

will not be comprehensive peace, which is a legal concept, but
coexistence, which reflects the absolute precondition for peace

A coexistence agreement could be helped rather than hindered
by the fence Israel is in the process of creating, though not *necessarily*

in the present location. A physical barrier *difficult to penetrate* would
*more effectively can be*  
*international guaranteeing force*. N.B.
facilitate Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian cities and the

abandonment of checkpoints that deprive so much of Palestinian life of
dignity. It would provide a line on the other side of which settlements
would have to live under Palestinian rule or be abandoned. Is the
Palestinian objection primarily to the fence, in principle, or to the
ratification of the permanence of Israel that the fence represents? By

leaving
the same token, Israel must be serious about *vacating the territories*  
and the settlements beyond the security fence. *To be a guest in Israel.*

The intrusion of the fence beyond the 1967 borders should be
kept to a strategically necessary minimum. But the principle of it is

P.16

Feb 21 04 03:49P

17

important: It should not be discouraged by the United States; rather, the United States should try to shape it to contribute to what seems the best way to a rapid breakthrough. The alternative of some sort of imposition of conventional wisdom might well bring peace at the price of encouraging continued irredentism and turning the agreement into a prelude for another round of confrontation.

An interim agreement may be the only way to keep the refugee issue from blocking a settlement. Any agreement deserving the appellation "final" must resolve the refugee question. No Israeli government can settle for less; no Palestinian leader has yet been found to renounce unambiguously the right of return.

If that problem should prove insoluble, the security fence could provide a provisional dividing line that makes possible a Palestinian state even before a final settlement. The territorial adjustments could be balanced by returning some portions of Israeli territory to

P.17

Feb 21 04 03:50p

18

Palestinian rule. Particular attention should be paid to areas where a
return of Arab population would ease the demographic problem. In
that context, a provisional partition of Jerusalem could be discussed.

A significant criticism is that the security fence will be an obstacle to the ultimate reconciliation of two peoples that must learn to live side by side. It is true that any lasting settlement implies ultimate reconciliation, and a major international effort should be undertaken to help restore civilian life in the Palestinian state. Once confidence is restored and true coexistence evolves, the incentive to maintain the security fence may well disappear.

Such an approach requires freeing Middle East diplomacy from
some of its formalistic, almost doctrinaire, constraints. Our partners in
the quartet need to view Middle East peace as something more
complex than a device for using the United States to extract
concessions from Israel for little more than the word "peace." The

P.18

Feb 21 04 03:50p

Palestinians must make a choice between the requirements of genuine acceptance of the Jewish state and an interim solution that creates a Palestinian state immediately and marks a major step toward dealing with the settlement issue, even if it falls short of the entire range of their aspirations. Israel must abandon a diplomacy designed to exhaust its counterparts and instead concentrate, in close coordination with the United States, on the essentials of its requirements.

A comprehensive diplomacy to achieve these objectives should have the following components:

- The United States would play a principal mediating role in the negotiation of an interim agreement, buttressed by a general statement of objectives for the overall goals, providing a link between an interim and a comprehensive settlement. Our European allies could contribute by suspending the flood of plans by which they seek to

p.19

Feb 21 04 03:50p

20

improve their position in the Arab world but in reality radicalize it by
raising unfulfillable expectations.

--Because the distrust between the parties is so great, Israel will not accept the word of the existing Palestinian Authority. But since it constitutes itself along with more representative lines, it is inappropriate for Israel to designate the leaders with whom it is prepared to negotiate. The moderate Arab states should endorse the Palestinian Authority's commitments and facilitate the negotiations by encouraging adjustments in the Palestinian position they would not dare on their own.

--Europe and the United Nations, backed by the United States, could generate an international commitment to assist in the creation of a viable Palestinian entity, at first under an interim agreement and later on when a permanent settlement is reached. That commitment would imply a level of assistance that could be effective only in the context of a new set of institutions.

p.21

Feb 21 04 03:50p

For both sides, a resolution will be traumatic. For many in
Israel, the abandonment of settlements and the partition of Jerusalem
will be perceived as a repudiation of much of the history of the Jewish
state. For the Palestinians, it will be an end to the myth by which their
society has lived. America's role is central: It needs to explore
whether there is a Syrian negotiating option, to abandon the illusion
that America can impose some paper plan and, at the same time, to
move the parties with determination toward a goal that seems, at last,
conceptually within reach.

M

Feb 21 04 03:51p

P.22

3,084 words

2/17/04

SFRC Testimony - February 24, 2004

A solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is often described as a key
to development and representative government in the Middle East.

But the conflict has lasted so long because the obstacles to a solution
are in some respects more psychological than diplomatic.

As for Israel, it has never been more powerful and, at the same
time, never more vulnerable. Israel is militarily stronger than any
conceivable Arab adversary; it is clearly able to inflict heavy losses on
Palestinian terrorist groups. But it has evolved into a middle-class
advanced society and, as such, the strain of guerrilla warfare is
psychologically draining. The intifada has generated an ambivalent
rigidity in Israeli society. Prior to the Oslo agreement, the Israeli
peace movement viewed reconciliation with the Arab world primarily in

2

terms of psychological reassurance; land would be traded for peace
even though the Arab quid pro quo would be revocable. But since the
intifada, the vast majority of Israelis no longer believe in
reconciliation; they want victory and the crushing of their Arab
adversaries.

At the same time, there is growing despair over the seeming
open-endedness of the enterprise. With the proportion of Israeli
casualties to that of the guerrillas going up, a sense of resignation is
growing. The desire to turn on the tormentors is beginning to be
offset by signs of a hunger for peace at any price.

Israel finds itself facing the classic dynamic of guerrilla warfare
as it has played out for two generations now. The terrorists not only
do not recoil from terrorism but practice an egregious form of it
because a violent, emotional, (and to bystanders) excessive retaliation
serves their purpose: to trigger intervention by the international

3

On the Palestinian side, expulsion from a territory for centuries
considered Arab is an open wound; accepting the Israeli intrusion has
thus far been beyond Palestinian emotional and psychological
capacities. The internal Palestinian debate is essentially over how to
overcome the Jewish state; one group is arguing for permanent
confrontation, while moderates are willing to move toward the same
objective in stages. Only a tiny minority considers coexistence
desirable.

4

5

Welcome as this engagement in the peace process is - the first by an Arab state not having a direct national conflict with Israel - its specific terms represent a restatement of a position that has produced the existing deadlock. The 1967 "border" in Palestine - unlike the Egyptian, Syrian, or Jordanian frontiers with Israel - was never an international frontier but a ceasefire line established at the end of the 1948 war. It was never recognized by any Arab state until after the

6

[y]

In return, Israel would achieve diplomatic relations with its neighbors. But in almost all other negotiations, mutual recognition of the parties is taken for granted, not treated as a concession. In fact, nonrecognition implies the legal nonexistence of the other state, which, in the context of the Middle East, is tantamount to an option to

7

When so little confidence exists, it is difficult to move in one step from the present impasse to a final solution. At the same time, there are some hopeful signs. The formal deadlock may be obscuring the possibility that, almost imperceptibly, a psychological framework for an agreement is emerging. In Israel, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's new approach indicates that the dominant Likud party is undergoing soul-searching based on the recognition that the biblical claim may lead to a demographic time bomb as Arabs become a majority in Palestine and

8

Both sides have therefore their own reasons for reconsidering their previous attitudes. The Palestinians have suffered vast losses and the total disruption of their economy. Israel has learned that time and demography threaten its existence; a large and rapidly growing Arab population undermines the prospects for a state at once Jewish and democratic. Annexation of significant portions of the West Bank can no longer be considered a national Israeli interest.

9

10

The negotiators working their way through these generalities
have many positive elements to sustain them. The new impetus to
diplomacy reflects the revolutionary changes wrought by American
policy in the Middle East. The elimination of Iraq as a significant
military force has removed for a considerable period the possibility of a
conventional Arab-Israeli war. The American insistence that the
Palestinian Authority produce a more representative and responsible
negotiating partner than Arafat has provided the framework to weaken
the terrorist structure on the West Bank.

[Y]

11

If this were a negotiation unencumbered by historical and psychological ______, one could note the respect in which the parties have approached each other: on the creation of a Palestinian state; on ending the occupation in the greatest part of the West Bank; on the principle of abandoning at least settlements beyond the dividing line; on the need to end terrorism. What is lacking is even the minimum of trust to negotiate the implementation of these principles. The Palestinians believe that Israel seeks to reduce the Palestinian state to a series of enclaves surrounded by Israeli territory and pierced by an Israeli road network — in short, a state virtually indistinguishable from limited internal autonomy.

12

13

No progress is possible without a major diplomatic effort by
America. But America should not be asked to break Israel's
psychological back and jeopardize its existence as an independent
state. Having lived unrecognized by its neighbors for most of its
history, subjected to systematic terrorism, surrounded by states
technically at war with it, and aware of an essentially unopposed
publicity campaign against its existence throughout the Islamic world,
Israel will not base its survival on assurances and guarantees without
a clear recognition of its security requirements.

I have known every Israeli prime minister starting with Golda
Meir; none believed the 1967 borders to be defensible.

Nor can this obstacle be overcome by an international
guaranteeing force. For what precisely does an international
guarantee mean? Against what danger does it protect and by what

14

15

of a contiguous Palestinian state seriously. It implies not only an end
of new settlements but a reduction of the existing ones that impede
the promised contiguous Palestinian state.

16

A coexistence agreement could be helped rather than hindered
by the fence Israel is in the process of creating, though not necessarily
in the present location. A physical barrier difficult to penetrate would
facilitate Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian cities and the
abandonment of checkpoints that deprive so much of Palestinian life of
dignity. It would provide a line on the other side of which settlements
would have to live under Palestinian rule or be abandoned. Is the
Palestinian objection primarily to the fence, in principle, or to the
ratification of the permanence of Israel that the fence represents? By
the same token, Israel must be serious about vacating the territories
and the settlements beyond the security fence.

17

18

19

20

--Because the distrust between the parties is so great, Israel will
not accept the word of the existing Palestinian Authority. But since it
is inappropriate for Israel to designate the leaders with whom it is
prepared to negotiate, the moderate Arab states should endorse the
Palestinian Authority's commitments and facilitate the negotiations by
encouraging adjustments in the Palestinian position they would not
dare on their own.

21

LC

# IN THE MIDDLE EAST, CLASHING CONCEPTS OF PEACE

By Henry A. Kissinger

The Washington Post

Monday, June 26, 2000

The death of Syrian President Hafez Assad has brought the spotlight back on the Middle East peace process. President Bill Clinton has reaffirmed his confidence in Assad's statement to him in 1993, embracing a strategy for peace, and expressed the hope that Assad's son and successor, Bashar, will complete the process. The impact on the Palestinian negotiation is widely assessed as positive. Visits to the area by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Dennis Ross, the State Department's permanent mediator, portend another American push for a final agreement.

But, as before, one piece of the puzzle was not discussed: the clashing concepts of peace held in America and Israel on the one hand, and among the Syrian and Palestinian leaders on the other. The Clinton administration - and indeed most Americans - consider a peace treaty a terminal point that defines not only an end of hostilities but a change of heart. Tensions are expected to dissolve into coexistence and animosities of a century into a pattern of cooperation.

This vision is even more strongly held in Israel. Living for most of its history within borders not recognized by the outside world, beset by terrorists and bled in three major wars and innumerable small-scale clashes, Israel confronts a paradox: On the one hand, it towers over its neighbors militarily; on the other, it is exhausted by its sacrifices and ambiguous status. Seeking surcease, many Israelis, probably a majority, have endowed

peace with the mythic attributes of a blissful state of harmony.

It is as if the Jewish messianic tradition has prevailed over the experience of centuries of persecution and the lesson that few peace settlements have ever brought about such an emotional reversal. Israel, in Assad's view - and that of most Palestinian leaders - was an illegitimate creation inspired, as he said to me once, "by imperialists in compensation for crimes committed in another continent, by another religion." He was, in the end, prepared to acquiesce in Israel's existence for want of a better alternative. Perhaps the new technology and global economics will, in time, turn grudging acceptance into long-term harmony. But nothing in Assad's attitude, or of many Palestinian leaders, justifies this expectation for the immediate future.

As for Assad, anyone who dominated Syria for 30 years - when, in the previous decade and a half, no Syrian leader had managed to stay in office for as long as a year - must have done so by understanding Syria's current realities. As a member of the Alawite minority, representing less than 13 percent of the Syrian population, Assad learned to combine caution and enormous tactical skill with great ruthlessness.

Assad's nationalism appealed to the Sunni majority, which felt betrayed by the Western powers after having led a rebellion against Turkey during World War I and then again, even more grievously, with the establishment of Israel after World War II. Unlike his great

contemporary, Anwar Sadat of Egypt, Assad did not see himself as the representative of a society harking back over millennia and therefore capable of transcending transient hatreds by a grand gesture. Instead, Assad's nationalism was defined by a militancy asserted every hour of every day. As the aggrieved party, he saw no need for generous gestures. His negotiating style emphasized recalcitrance and tough bargaining rather than currying favor with America. Syrian nationalism was put forward not on behalf of Syria as a nation, but of Pan-Arabism, enabling Assad to resist Egyptian (or Iraqi) claims to regional leadership and assert his own.

In executing his design, Assad, ever conscious of his narrow base, rarely moved ahead of his domestic consensus or, when he did, shaped it so indirectly that he could not be isolated in the aftermath. When I negotiated with him for 35 consecutive days in 1974 over the only Syrian-Israeli agreement now in existence, the daily ritual was unvarying: first, a lengthy private meeting with Assad, followed by a briefing of the leading generals and concluding with yet another briefing including civilian ministers - the process frequently extending over eight hours and skillfully steered by Assad toward his preferred outcome.

When Assad finally announced his commitment to "peace," it reflected a new reality, not conversion to the American, much less the Israeli, definition of that term. The Soviet Union, Syria's principal arms supplier, had disintegrated. America, after the Gulf War, bestrode the Middle East. Israel had made peace with Egypt and was negotiating with Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Assad had no reliable Arab allies. Remembering that Israel had wiped out most of the Syrian air force in one day in 1982, Assad had every incentive to avoid a pretext for another pre-emptive strike. An

agreement that might restore territories Syria had no means of reconquering in the foreseeable future presented the most practical way to preserve Syria's options, reduce its risks and maintain its prestige.

A profound difference in perspective shaped the subsequent negotiations. America and Israel were looking for a dramatic culmination celebrating a turning point, preferably at a colorful summit chaired by the American president. Assad would go no further than a reluctant evolution. He recoiled from an outcome that appeared to result from a personal decision, which might leave him vulnerable at home -- or was too much like what he disdained as Sadat's kowtowing to the West. (This was one of the reasons for the failure of his three meetings with Clinton.)

Still, I believe that, toward the end, Assad was creating the circumstances from which he could move in one relatively short step to a conclusion, but that he deferred that step until he was sure he had regulated the succession at home.

Assad's death has not altered the circumstances that convinced him to join the peace process; confrontation has not become a better option for Syria. But neither have the domestic constraints impelling Assad's caution eased. Bashar's chief objective must be to consolidate his power. The factions so skillfully and ruthlessly balanced by Assad will, after the period of mourning, maneuver against each other. But there is one new element never fully faced by Assad: The Syrian economy is a shambles. Syria cannot modernize without foreign investment, and that requires some semblance of peace. On the other hand, modernizing means taking on the embedded fiefdoms and constituencies that were the backbone of Assad's rule.

Therefore, the prospects for an Israeli-Syrian agreement depend far less on American diplomacy than on Syrian internal

2

dynamics. The differences between the two sides are so narrow that a compromise could be constructed in a matter of days. What is at issue is a small sliver of territory never demarcated as Syrian on international maps but occupied by it between 1949 and 1967, in the aftermath of the first Arab-Israeli war. Israel seems willing to concede even that point, provided Syria does not use it to claim riparian rights on the Sea of Galilee and interfere with Israeli fishing.

When the issue is so clear-cut, its solution is unlikely to be hastened by American exertions that may simply create an opportunity to raise the ante. America - and the Clinton administration - deserve much credit for having moved matters to this point. The time has come when, paradoxically, the best impetus America can give is to stand aside. Too hasty an American embrace of Bashar may, in fact, undermine him.

In this manner, the Syrian negotiation has become a metaphor for the entire peace process. As a negotiating challenge, the Palestinian-Israeli issue is even more complex than the Syrian. Once the dividing lines are drawn on the Syrian front, Syria should have no national claim on Israel. Tensions, if any, would be caused by Syria's support of the Arab national cause, and that will be largely defined by the Palestinian leadership.

But between Palestinians and Israelis, genuine reconciliation will be even more elusive. In fitting two groups with incompatible views of their historical patrimony into a territory 50 miles wide, no real reference points exist. The 1949 armistice lines, which were Israel's pre-June 1967 borders, were never accepted by any Arab state and were rejected by the PLO. These borders left Israel's two major cities connected by a corridor only nine miles wide and almost all Israeli population centers within mortar range. Although the PLO's rejection of the Jewish state has recently been

abandoned (in an ambiguous formulation), significant groups within the PLO still advocate the 1947 partition lines, which would reduce pre-1967 Israel by half. Then there is Jerusalem, which Israel insists on retaining as its undivided capital, while the Palestinians claim part of it as theirs. Finally, return of Arab refugees, not just to the emerging Palestinian state but to Israel itself, remains open.

In recent negotiations, Israel seems to have gone further in returning West Bank territory than was thought possible (or safe) even a year ago. Therefore, some now argue that Jerusalem and the refugee issue should be set aside while boundaries and the sovereignty of the Palestinian state are settled. This would be a grave error. The option of a more benign relationship is unlikely to survive if such disputes as Jerusalem and refugees are kept open, providing a permanent pretext for radicals to vitiate the permanence of the territorial settlement - already precarious because of the unchallenged presence of 40,000 Syrian troops in Lebanon shielding the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which is sure to reject the agreement.

Despite all these qualifications, it is likely that agreements will be reached partly because the alternatives will, in the end, seem more dangerous. But when this happens, we must avoid euphoria based on the most favorable assumptions about the future. Whatever one's hopes for a new Middle East, at this point an agreement will represent a strategic interlude for the Syrians and most of the Palestinians, not a commitment to a new world order - at least not yet. They must not be tempted by strategic opportunities opened up by a change in the political or military balance of forces. The obligation to preserve and strengthen the conditions that sustained the peace process will be an imperative for both Israel and the United States if, after an agreement is reached, the peace is to last.

3

# The Peace Paradox

By

Henry Kissinger

The Washington Post

Monday, December 4, 2000

Prime Minister Ehud Barak, in calling for new elections for the Israeli Parliament, also has indicated that he will use the interval to resume the so-called peace process. Since the last Israeli-Palestinian negotiations four months ago turned first into stalemate, then into intifada, it is important to deal with two questions: What went wrong? How can another debacle be avoided?

The realities that produced the peace process in the first place have not changed. Neither side can defeat the other. The Palestinians cannot win because Israel is too strong militarily, and Israel cannot win because the Palestinians are too strong politically. Both sides are therefore condemned to coexistence, the chief issue being whether this comes about as a military stalemate or from some sort of agreement.

Failure to keep these fundamentals in mind was a principal cause of the breakdown of negotiations. President Clinton and Prime Minister Barak had convinced themselves that the peace process resulted from nothing less than a Palestinian conversion to peace in the abstract rather than from the pursuit of historical Palestinian objectives by less violent means. This is why both ignored Yassar Arafat's repeated warning that the

time was not yet ripe for a summit. Whatever one's judgment of Arafat's motives, it is important to understand the philosophical gulf between the way Israel and America define peace and the way the Palestinians do.

Israel regards peace as a culmination of the struggle for a homeland and defines it as a normality that ends claims and determines a permanent legal status. Israeli and American leaders were applying the concepts of the 20th-century liberal democracy; but the Palestinians--or at least many of them--live by convictions more comparable to those of Europe during the 17th-century religious conflicts. To them--and to many Arabs--Israel is an intrusion in "holy" Arab territory. The territorial compromises proposed by Israel and American mediators are viewed as amputations of their cultural and theological patrimony.

When Barak opened the Camp David summit by offering Arafat something like 92 percent of the pre-1967 West Bank territory, he was going far beyond any previous Israeli prime minister. But to the Palestinians, the 1967 borders represent a concession in themselves, fully acceptable, if at all, only to the most dovish among them--always cited by Israeli and Western intellectuals as the genuine expression of Palestinian

[Lc]

2

convictions, though recent events have produced little evidence to that effect. The majority of Palestinians treat territorial compromise the way France accepted Germany's annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871--as an imposition to be reversed at the first opportunity. And a significant minority--surely larger than the doves--do not accept the state of Israel and favor all-out confrontation.

Thus what Barak considered a huge concession was, to Arafat, a minimum offering that he would not be able to present to his constituency as a significant achievement. If he risked accepting it at all, he was bound to treat it as a stage in a process of the ultimate fulfillment of Palestinian demands that he has been careful not to make explicit. In addressing Palestinian audiences, Arafat never strays far from the vocabulary of Jihad and the recovery of Jerusalem, however ambiguous his language to Westerners.

It is also why the Israeli demand at Camp David that the quid pro quo be a formal renunciation of all future claims--the essence of reasonableness to Americans and Israelis--proved impossible for Arafat. In the face of 3 million Palestinian refugees, he could give no such assurance without losing the support of a significant segment of his constituency.

Arafat no doubt was reinforced in his stonewalling by the precipitate Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, which he was more likely to interpret as weakness than generosity, and by Clinton's eagerness for an agreement. In any event, when Israeli territorial concessions were made conditional on Palestinian

"compromises" regarding the holy places, the looming stalemate headed for a blowup.

Paradoxically, the focus on finality proved the principal obstacle to agreement. The linkage of the holy places to the territorial disputes expanded the negotiation from a Palestinian to a pan-Arab, even a pan-Islamic, issue, simultaneously extending Arafat's influence and limiting his flexibility. So long as the controversy concerned territory, moderate Arab leaders could treat it as a Palestinian problem and even urge some compromises. But once that religious issue was on the table, no Arab leader could ignore the looming fundamentalist threat to his own rule. Therefore, Clinton's appeals to Egyptian and Saudi leaders, urging them to intervene with Arafat, were doomed to frustration.

Camp David failed because American and Israeli policymakers had deluded themselves about the nature of the peace process. The emotional outpouring that followed Yitzhak Rabin's handshake with Arafat on the White House lawn in 1993 caused a growing segment of Israeli opinion to treat the peace process as a mutual psychological adjustment--an attitude encouraged by an American administration prone to treat international schisms as misunderstandings.

All this obscured how deep-seated the conflict really was. Until then, both sides had acted as if they could wear down the other: the Palestinians by intifada and the mobilization of global political pressure on the model of so-called wars of liberation; Israel by refusing any

3

dialogue and enlisting American support
in that course.

The Oslo agreement was, however, less
a conversion than a recognition by both
sides of objective necessities. The
Palestinians, having backed Saddam
Hussein in the Gulf War, had isolated
themselves from most of the Arab states,
which were looking to Washington as
the most influential outside power. The
Oslo agreement provided recognition,
maneuvering room and an end to some
of the most onerous aspects of Israeli
occupation.

Israel under Yitzhak Shamir, on the
other hand, had clashed repeatedly with
the Bush administration over American
pressures for progress toward peace even
before the Palestinians had come to the
table with Israel. The new government
of Rabin wanted to put its relations with
Washington on a stable basis and saw in
the Oslo process a means to achieve a
greater control over its destiny. And it
was driven by a mystical, almost
eschatological, desire for peace by an
ever greater part of the Israeli
population, which had moved from the
pioneer spirit of the early generations to
an accommodating business ethic.

In the process, it was forgotten that the
important operational aspect of Oslo was
a tacit bargain, which deferred the most
difficult issues--final borders, Jerusalem,
demilitarization--to some final
negotiation down the road. It was hoped
that, in the interval, a process of
reciprocal moves would build
confidence between the parties. The
opposite happened. Israel was supposed
to give up incrementally control over
additional territory prior to the final
negotiation. In return, the Palestinians

were to make additional moves toward a
more peaceful atmosphere between the
two peoples. But the quid pro quo for
Israeli territorial concessions proved
hard to define. As a result, in Israel, the
process began to appear like a series of
unilateral concessions just to keep the
process going, while the Clinton
administration grew increasingly
impatient with what it considered
the foot-dragging of Israeli Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Barak took office in the aftermath--and
partly as a result of an American-Israeli
diplomatic controversy. He was
determined to avoid a clash with the one
ally on whose support Israel depended,
and he wanted to make sure that Israel
would not be blamed for any failure of
negotiations. Moreover, he was in a
hurry lest Arafat declare a Palestinian
state unilaterally, weakening Israel's
bargaining position even further.

But the emergence of a Palestinian state
is no longer an Israeli bargaining card.
Statehood had been inherent in Israeli
Prime Minister Menachem Begin's offer
of Palestinian autonomy at the first
Camp David summit in 1978. It was
implicit in the Oslo accords. Even today,
Arafat is treated as a head of state when
he travels. Within a measurable time, a
Palestinian state will be recognized by
most nations, including Europe, even
were America to hold back for a while.
Israeli ambivalence on this subject
gives Arafat a permanent means of
pressure. Once the state has been
declared, the challenge will be
coexistence with Israel--which, intifada
or not, remains the option neither party
will be able to avoid indefinitely.

4

Barak, a former commando, sought to resolve all these issues in one fell swoop, encouraged by an American president with great confidence in his persuasive ability and little experience with the tragic in history. Between them, they convinced themselves that the ultimate problem was psychological and that Arab distrust could be overcome by unprecedented Israeli territorial concessions. The effort was bold but bound to self-destruct, either before or after an agreement--as I repeatedly emphasized at that time. It now becomes crucial to draw the right lessons from the experience. These are:

First, negotiations must not start where the last ones left off. The parties are not ready for a final settlement--at least not on terms both sides can accept. At this stage, rather than a peace agreement, the formula of the second Sinai accord of 1975—that the agreement stands until superseded by another agreement-- would serve the purpose.

Second, the challenge of coexistence remains. Any new negotiation should seek to achieve a definition of coexistence between two societies sharing a territory only 50 miles wide. It should attempt to reduce friction between the two societies by separating them to the greatest extent possible.

Third, the territorial issue should be settled separately from other issues. But the resolution can no longer be--indeed, in my view, should never have been--the 1967 borders, in which Israel's major cities are linked by a corridor only nine miles wide. This does not provide an adequate buffer against the sort of guerrilla war that has characterized the conflict.

Fourth, in defining these borders, major consideration should be given to Palestinians' concerns for their ability to lead a life of dignity within an economically viable entity. Palestinian territory should be made more contiguous and Israeli checkpoints significantly reduced. It is also time for Israel to review its settlement policy, especially with respect to those settlements that are most exposed and a constant invitation to new outbursts of violence. They should be consolidated now, with or without an agreement.

Fifth, the next U.S. administration should seek to redefine the purpose and direction of a new "coexistence approach" before launching its own diplomacy. It should not bow to international pressures to plunge in immediately and "do something." In recent years, the United States has been too involved in the minutiae of the negotiations and not sufficiently attentive to overall purposes. It has used up credibility by involving itself in detail and personalities or in seeking to shape outcomes by influencing Israel's domestic politics.

Sixth, thoughtfulness will be more important than speed.

The writer, a former secretary of state, is president of Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm that has clients with business interests in many countries abroad.

(c)2000, Los Angeles Times Syndicate
International

© 2000 The Washington Post

Newsweek

Monday, April 1, 2002

For now, America should avoid pressure for a final settlement and help both sides agree on attainable goals. BY HENRY A. KISSINGER

# What We Can Do

THE REAPPEARANCE OF ACTIVE AMERICAN DIPLOMACY IN THE Middle East has been greeted with a mixture of hope and trepidation. Hope, because the rage of both parties is giving way to exhaustion. Trepidation, because both sides know their objectives to be essentially incompatible. The secret dream of Israelis is legitimization of the status quo. For Palestinians, the goal is the imposition of terms reducing Israel to its 1967 borders, which could facilitate the destruction of the Jewish state.

Many who generally criticize America's foreign policy (and count among our sins obliviousness to their advice) are joining the widespread call for Washington to play a dominant role. These pleas have been

given fresh impetus by the initiative of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, which proposes normalization of relations between the Arab world and Israel if Israel returns to the 1967 frontiers. Thus Vice President Dick Cheney's journey to the Middle East, intended to elicit Arab support for a possible showdown with Iraq, was reshaped by his Arab hosts into an occasion for a new initiative to end the Arab-Israeli conflict. This deflection of attention from terrorism to the Palestinian issue is in itself a considerable achievement for Saudi diplomacy. At the same time, the near unanimity in Europe and the Arab world urging American intervention stems from the hope that, in the end, we will impose on Israel a settlement essentially identical to the Abdullah plan.

In the past 30 years, American diplomacy has been the catalyst for practically all the progress the peace process made. But given the explosive politics of the region, it is all too easy to overestimate what is possible. In 2000, the impetuous attempt to settle all issues in one negotiation of limited duration at Camp David contributed to the outbreak of the current warfare.

In present conditions, a comparison of both sides' positions demonstrates that another attempt at a negotiated final solution would not fare better. The only formal plan by an Israeli government was put forward by Prime Minister Ehud Barak at

Camp David. In it, he offered more than 90 percent of the disputed territories (the formula was complex) but retained about 70 percent of the settlements. In exchange, the Palestinians were asked to renounce any future claims, including the right to return into Israel proper (though they would be free to return to a Palestinian state). Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has disavowed this proposal. Yasir Arafat preferred the *intifada* to the implications of finality.

The most forthcoming Arab proposal has come from Crown Prince Abdullah. According to its imprecise outline, Israel would return to the dividing lines of 1967 in exchange for the normalization of relations with the Arab states. Literally, this would imply Israeli abandonment of all settlements and Arab control of the Old City of Jerusalem, including the holy places. The Abdullah plan does not define what is meant by normalization, and is silent about such issues as the right of refugees to return (though it would surely be insisted on in an actual negotiation).

Welcome as this engagement in the peace process is—the first by an Arab state not having a direct national conflict with Israel—its specific terms represent a restatement of a position that has produced the existing deadlock. The pre-1967 “border” in Palestine—unlike the Egyptian, Syrian or Jordanian frontiers

with Israel—was never an international frontier but a ceasefire line established at the end of the 1948 war. It was never recognized by any Arab state until after the 1967 war and has been grudgingly accepted recently by states that do not yet recognize the legitimacy of Israel. I have never

In return, Israel would achieve diplomatic relations with its neighbors. But in almost all other negotiations, mutual recognition of the parties is taken for granted, not treated as a concession. In fact, nonrecognition implies the legal nonexistence of the other state, which, in the context of the Middle East, is tantamount to an option to destroy it. Once granted, recognition can always be withdrawn; breaking diplomatic relations is a recognized diplomatic tool. Nor does formal normalization involve much else: Israel's peace agreement with Egypt of 23 years ago has brought little in the way of enhanced economic or cultural relations other than an exchange of ambassadors who are rarely brought into play.

While the terms of the crown prince's proposal represent no breakthrough, Saudi engagement could be important if it is used to produce a ceasefire and to start new

(over)

-3-

Yet the imposition of the indefensible '67 frontiers is not the solution. For after the experiences of Oslo, Israelis know (as should the rest of the world) that the real division among Palestinians is not between those who want peace in the Western sense—as a point after which the world lives free of tensions with a consciousness of reconciliation. In reality, the number of Palestinian leaders holding this view is minuscule. The fundamental schism is between those who want to bring about the destruction of Israel by continuing the present struggle, and those who believe that an agreement now would be a better strategy to rally forces for the ultimate showdown later on.

Even if those Palestinians who sign a "final" agreement have no afterthoughts, no one can guarantee that they will not be replaced by radical successors. A peace agreement will not quell but may stimulate the intransigence of Hamas and other radical groups or states. If, as is asserted, Arafat cannot be asked to accept a permanent ceasefire as an entrance price into negotiations because his radical opponents would have a veto, why would not the same condition apply after a peace settlement? Thus the differences between a permanent and an interim settlement are more a matter of adjectives than substance.

NATO, American or other third-party guarantees are of marginal utility in overcoming this problem. Nobody can seriously believe that the European countries would go to war for Israel, especially against challenges that are likely to be ambitious. The only possible solution would be an American guarantee against invasion from neighboring states. Aside from raising profound domestic questions in the United States, this would bring with it an American veto of Israeli retaliation against less than all-out attack and be almost impossible to apply against the resumption of guerrilla warfare.

Therefore, the beginning of wisdom is to recognize the impossibility of a final settlement under current conditions. Some crises can only be managed, not solved. The constant invocation of unattainable goals will foster a general climate of irre-

sponsibility. Yet a less ambitious mediation may have some prospects, if for no other reason than that the status quo is becoming increasingly intolerable for Palestinians as well. They have fought ferociously on behalf of the classic paradigm of asymmetrical warfare: the guerrilla wins if he does not lose. Still, a point may be approaching where the costs of the war exhaust, or perhaps even destroy, the civil society the guerrillas are seeking to establish. For the other Arab states, their impotence on the Palestine issue threatens in time to radicalize their domestic politics. They have a stake in a truce even if they are not able for domes-

tic reasons to support an overall settlement on meaningful terms.

But before the United States launches itself into a major diplomatic effort, it must be clear about what is at stake. Will the mediation be interpreted in the region as being produced by terrorism, or as an attempt to shape an outcome based on familiar American principles? Will the perceived lesson be that September 11 in the end obliged America to adopt positions it had rejected previously? Or will terrorism be viewed as obstructing rather than inspiring a positive American role? If negotiations start, will the military prowess displayed by the Palestinians in the intifada provide an

excuse for Arafat to play the constructive role Anwar Sadat did after the temporary Arab successes of the 1973 war? Or will he view America in retreat and Israel on the verge of an abyss—toward which he will push it step by step with the help of outside mediation? The answers to these questions will determine the prospects for a peaceful evolution of the region, and also to a large extent the prospects for America's war against terrorism.

The Palestinians will not accept a ceasefire because they believe they have momentum; the Israelis will not yield because they fear for their existence.

America can bridge this gap only by making clear to both sides that the only feasible goal is a limited settlement in which each will achieve less than its maximum aim but more than it can accomplish by a continuation of the conflict. It must urge Israel toward a peace program; it must impress upon its Arab interlocutors the limits of achievable concessions.

The strength of the Bush administration has been to cut through slogans to underlying realities. Under present circumstances, this means insisting that a ceasefire must accompany negotiations and that negotiations must aim for less than a final settlement. The goal of such an agreement would be secure borders for Palestinian state with contiguous territory. As part of the necessary withdrawals Israel should be prepared to abandon outlying settlements. Issues other than the border between the two states would be left for later negotiations. There should be an interval of suffi-

cient length for normal life to resume on both sides, encouraged by outside economic assistance. The United States should play a major role in facilitating such an outcome, provided the parties agree to the principles embodied in it. In its absence the United States has no option except to stand aside. If the United States appears to be gradually veering toward imposing the '67 borders, it risks continuation of the conflict.

To contribute to genuine progress, America must back a program that combines respect for Arab dignity with Israel's necessities for survival. There is no middle way. ■

COSMOS BEITMAN

SEEKING PEACE: the Kissinger-Moskowitz Golda Meir in 1974

> The 1967 'borders' were a ceasefire line established at the end of the 1948 war... I have never encountered an Israeli prime minister who considered [them] defensible.

The Washington Post
Monday, December 22, 2003

Henry A. Kissinger

# In Israel's Fence, an Opening to Accord

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in a seminal speech last week, indicated that if Arab-Israeli negotiations do not progress in the next few months, Israel will proceed unilaterally. It would establish a security plan based on a provisional fence designed to enhance the security of Israel, ease the life of Palestinians and provide an incentive to a negotiated outcome. In that process, Sharon implied, Israel would be prepared to shutter some settlements and relocate others.

This is an important pronouncement. The abandonment of any settlement is a traumatic event that reverses the historical settlement policy of the Jewish state.

The United States and its allies have heretofore resisted the concept of a security fence. That attitude should be reconsidered. If properly coordinated with an overall strategy, the security fence could become a solution rather than an obstacle to progress. If it sharply reduced terrorism, it could provide an incentive to negotiations. In the event of negotiations, the fence could provide a safety net for security, a defining line beyond which settlements should be abandoned and a provisional border for the Palestinian state.

The Arab-Israeli peace process involves, above all, a confrontation of perceptions. The governing party in Israel has historically seen its country as the fulfillment of a biblical dispensation that would be denied by any dividing lines on Palestinian soil. For Palestinians, pulsion from a territory for centuries considered Arab is an open wound; accepting the Israeli intrusion has thus far been beyond Palestinian emotional and psychological capacities. The internal Palestinian debate is essentially over how to overcome the Jewish state; one group is arguing for permanent confrontation while moderates are willing to move toward the same objective in stages. Only a tiny minority considers coexistence desirable.

The most active diplomatic initiative comes from the so-called Quartet, composed of Russia, Europe, the United Nations and the United States. They have come forward with a "road map," a series of procedural proposals by which a final agreement is to be reached by 2005. They share this hopeful prospect because at least the non-U.S. members seem to believe that the most important instruments for forging a peace agreement are a sharp pencil and a map, with the result to be imposed by the United States. The United States has insisted on a verified end of terrorism and a dismantling of the terrorist apparatus on Palestinian soil as a precondition of negotiations on specifics.

Ironically, the formal deadlock may be obscuring the possibility that, almost imperceptibly, a psychological framework for an agreement is emerging. In Israel, Sharon's speech indicates that the dominant Likud Party is undergoing soul-searching based on the recognition that the biblical claim may lead to a demographic time bomb as Arabs become a majority in Palestine and demand control of the entire land. This change of mood implies a willingness to give up much of what Israel gained in the 1967 war in return for Palestinian acceptance of the 1948 defeat and the division of the land of Palestine.

At the same time, the Palestinians may be in the process of learning that they have no military option and that, at least for tactical reasons, coexistence with Israel is unavoidable. The fence may accelerate that. An increasing number of Arab states would settle for any terms acceptable to Palestinians. That trend may be reflected in the recent New York Times interview with Syrian President Bashar Assad suggesting that an agreement between Syria and Israel was 75 percent complete and that the United States should assist in the completion of negotiations. This

comment has not received the attention it deserved. Does it mean that Syria is prepared to make a peace agreement with Israel even before a Palestinian settlement, with the predictable consequence of easing international pressures on Israel? Is Assad prepared to expel from Syrian and Lebanese territory the Iranian-funded terrorist group Hezbollah without whose dismantling Israel will surely never make peace? And Assad's estimate of what has been completed seems modest, since the principal issue concerns the few hundred yards difference between Syria's international frontier and the land it occupied beyond it in 1967. (The issue concerns riparian rights in the Sea of Galilee, which should be capable of solution.) Could it be, then, that the most severe psychological obstacle to agreement is on the Palestinian side? And that another obstacle is the encrusted ideology of the prevalent negotiating framework? In that context, the concept of the security fence needs to be reexamined.

Within a half century of Israel's existence, the Palestinians have been the central element in the region's refusal to accept Israel. No Palestinian leader has fully recognized Israel or renounced the right of refugees to return. Government-sponsored public assaults on the very concept of a Jewish state are unremitting. Even the Palestinian signatories of the much-ballyhooed Geneva accord went no further than to relate the return of refugees to a proportion of refugees accepted by third-party countries. The breakthrough in Egyptian-Israeli negotiations took place in 1977, when President Anwar Sadat made his historic trip to Jerusalem and, among other gestures, laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There has never been a similar act of grace on the part of Palestinian leaders. Palestinian leaders must find a way to convey that they have accepted the permanence of Israel's existence. Dismantling the terrorist apparatus might be difficult to do quickly, but ending the systematic rejection of Israeli legitimacy and incitement to terrorism in the media are within the scope of immediate Palestinian decision.

All involved in the peace process should reexamine whether what has become conventional wisdom is not itself an obstacle to progress: a return to Israel to the 1967 borders, the abandonment of the vast majority of Israeli settlements and the partition of Jerusalem in return for some sort of international guarantee and acceptance of Israel by the Palestinians. The idea of an international force for that purpose is gaining increasing acceptance.

BY PEDRO UGARTE—AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

(over)

But what precisely does an international guar-
tantee mean? Against what danger does it protect
and by what means? The historical record of mul-
tilateral guarantees is dismal, especially in the
Middle East.

The real challenge is terrorism, against which
international guarantees are likely to prove em-
try. If Israel's armed forces, with a huge stake in
the outcome, could not prevent infiltrations, how
is an international or even an American force go-
ing to do it? It is much more likely to prove a bar-
rier against Israeli retaliation than against Pales-
tinian terrorism. The probable outcome is that
an international force would become hostages
who would either purchase their safety by turn-
ing their backs on violations or risk their lives by
serious efforts, at which point the governments
supplying the forces would be under pressure to
withdraw them.

Security should be pursued by other strategies
that take account of the special features of the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict:

■ The demarcation line between the two societ-
ies is not an international border but a cease-fire
line that ended the first Palestinian-Israeli con-
flict in 1948. It was never accepted by the Pales-
tinians until nearly a half-century later, and even-
then not as the border of a legitimate Israeli
state.

■ The two societies live in the closest proximity to one another; indeed, the central challenge is how to achieve coexistence when the distance be-

tween the Jordan River and the sea is 50
miles or less. There is no cushioning stra-
tegic space as in the Sinai between Egypt
and Israel.

■ In these circumstances, security can-
not be based on battle lines in a war that
ended more than a half-century ago. It
must instead be adjusted to the experi-
ence of actual security threats. (No Israe-
li prime minister or chief of staff has ever
considered the 1967 line compatible with
Israeli security.)

■ In any foreseeable agreement, the Is-
raeli concessions will be territorial and
concrete, while the Palestinian conces-
sions are largely psychological, hence re-
vocable. The pledge of abandoning vio-
lence was already part of the Oslo
agreement, with derisory results.

American opposition to the concept of
a security fence should be reconsidered.
A physical barrier difficult to penetrate
would facilitate Israeli withdrawal from
the Palestinian cities and the abandon-
ment of checkpoints that deprive so
much of Palestinian life of dignity. It
would provide a line on the other side of
which settlements would have to live un-
der Palestinian rule or be abandoned. Is
the Palestinian objection primarily to the
fence, in principle, or to the ratification of
the permanence of Israel that the fence
represents? By the same token, Israel
must be serious about vacating the terri-
tories and the settlements beyond the se-
curity fence.

A significant criticism is that the secu-
rity fence will be an obstacle to the ultimate rec-
onciliation of two peoples that must learn to live
side by side. It is true that any lasting settlement
implies ultimate reconciliation, and a major in-
ternational effort should be undertaken to help
restore civilian life in the Palestinian state. Once
confidence is restored and true coexistence
evolves, the incentive to maintain the security
fence may well disappear.

The intrusion of the fence beyond the 1967
borders should be kept to a strategically neces-
sary minimum. But the principle of it is impor-
tant: It should not be discouraged by the United
States; rather, the United States should try to
shape it to contribute to what seems the best way
to a rapid breakthrough. The alternative of some
sort of imposition of conventional wisdom might
well bring peace at the price of encouraging con-
tinued irredentism and turning the agreement in-
to a prelude for another round of confrontation.

An interim agreement may be the only way to
keep the refugee issue from blocking a settle-
ment. Any agreement deserving the appellation
"final" must resolve the refugee question. No Is-
raeli government can settle for less; no Palestin-
ian leader has yet been found to unambiguously
renounce the right of return.

If that problem should prove insoluble, the se-
curity fence could provide a provisional dividing
line that makes possible a Palestinian state even
before a final settlement. The territorial ad-
justments could be balanced by returning some
portions of Israeli territory to Palestinian rule.
Particular attention should be paid to areas
where a return of Arab population would ease the
demographic problem. In that context, a provi-
sional partition of Jerusalem could be discussed.

Such an approach requires freeing Middle
East diplomacy from some of its formal-
istic, almost doctrinaire, constraints.
Our partners in the Quartet need to view
Middle East peace as something more complex
than a device for using the United States to ex-
tract concessions from Israel for little more than
the word "peace." The Palestinians must make a
choice between the requirements of genuine ac-
ceptance of the Jewish state and an interim solu-
tion that creates a Palestinian state immediately
and marks a major step toward dealing with the
settlement issue, even if it falls short of the entire
range of their aspirations. Israel must abandon a
diplomacy designed to exhaust its counterparts
and instead concentrate, in close coordination
with the United States, on the essentials of its re-
quirements.

For both sides a resolution will be traumatic.
For many in Israel, the abandonment of settle-
ments and partition of Jerusalem will be per-
ceived as a repudiation of much of the history of
the Jewish state. For the Palestinians, it will be
an end to the myth by which their society has
lived. America's role is central: It needs to ex-
plore whether there is a Syrian negotiating op-
tion, to abandon the illusion that America can im-
pose some paper plan and, at the same time, to
move the parties with determination toward a
goal that seems, at last, conceptually within
reach.

© 2003, Tribune Media Services International

HENRY KISSINGER

12/21/03

RESTARTING MIDDLE EAST DIPLOMACY

EDITORS, CAUTION: The following article is strictly embargoed. Its use is authorized only by subscribers of the HENRY KISSINGER column. With the exception of these paid subscribers, its contents must not under any circumstance be quoted, excerpted, summarized, paraphrased or in any way published, in whole or in part. Precautions should be taken to prevent the disclosure of the contents of this material to third parties prior to publication.

By Henry A. Kissinger

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in a seminal speech, has indicated that if Arab-Israeli negotiations do not progress in the next few months, Israel will proceed unilaterally. It would establish a security plan, along a provisional fence, designed to enhance the security of Israel, ease the life of Palestinians and provide an incentive to a negotiated outcome. In that process, Sharon implied Israel would be prepared to shutter some settlements and relocate others.

This is an important pronouncement. The abandonment of any settlement is a traumatic event which reverses the settlement policy of the Jewish state. It is especially significant when put forward as a unilateral step by the former head of the settlement policy.

The United States and its allies have heretofore resisted the concept of a security fence. That attitude should be reconsidered. If properly coordinated with an overall strategy, the security fence could become a solvent of difficulties rather than an obstacle to progress. In the unilateral case, the security fence, if it sharply reduces terrorism, could provide an incentive to negotiations. In case of negotiations, the security fence could provide a safety net for security, a defining line beyond which settlements should be abandoned and a provisional border for the Palestinian state.

The Arab-Israeli peace process involves, above all, a confrontation of perceptions. The governing party in Israel has historically seen its country as the fulfillment of a biblical dispensation, which would be denied by any dividing lines on Palestinian soil. For Palestinians, expulsion from a territory for centuries considered Arab is an open wound; accepting the Israeli intrusion has thus far been beyond

[X]

Palestinian emotional and psychological capacities. The internal Palestinian debate is essentially over how to overcome the Jewish state: one group arguing for permanent confrontation, while moderates are willing to move toward the same objective in stages. Only a tiny minority considers coexistence desirable in itself.

The most active diplomatic initiative comes from the so-called quartet composed of Russia, Europe, the United Nations and the United States. They have come forward with a "road map," a series of procedural proposals by which a final agreement is to be reached by 2005. They share this hopeful prospect because at least the non-U.S. members seem to believe that the most important instruments for forging a peace agreement are a sharp pencil and a map, with the result to be imposed by the United States. The United States has insisted on a verified end of terrorism and a dismantling of the terrorist apparatus on Palestinian soil as a precondition of negotiations on specifics.

Ironically, the formal deadlock may be obscuring the possibility that, almost imperceptibly, a psychological framework for an agreement may be emerging. In Israel, Sharon's speech indicates that the dominant Likud Party is undergoing a soul-searching based on the recognition that the biblical claim may lead to a demographic time bomb in which Arabs become a majority in Palestine and demand control of the entire land. This change of mood implies a willingness to give up much of what Israel gained in the 1967 war in return for Palestinian acceptance of the 1948 defeat and the division of the land of Palestine.

At the same time, the Palestinians may be in the process of learning that they have no military option and that, at least for tactical reasons, coexistence with Israel is unavoidable - that the fence may accelerate. An increasing number of Arab states would settle for any terms acceptable to Palestinians. That trend may be reflected in the recent New York Times interview of Syrian President Bashar Assad suggesting that an agreement between Syria and Israel was 75 percent complete and that America should assist in the completion of negotiations. This comment has not received the attention it deserved. Does it mean that Syria is prepared to make a peace agreement with Israel even before a Palestinian settlement, with the predictable consequence of easing international pressures on Israel? Is Assad prepared to expel from Syrian and Lebanese territory the Iranian-funded terrorist group Hezbollah without whose dismantling Israel will surely never make peace? And Assad's estimate of what has been completed seems modest since the principal issue concerns the few hundred yards difference between Syria's international frontier and the land it occupied beyond it in 1967. (The issue concerns riparian rights in the Sea of Galilee, which should be capable of solution.)

Could it be then that the most severe psychological obstacle to agreement is on the Palestinian side? And that another obstacle is the encrusted ideology of the prevalent negotiating framework? In that context, the concept of the security fence needs to be reexamined.

In half a century of Israel's existence, the Palestinians have been the central element in the region's refusal to accept Israel. No Palestinian leader has fully recognized Israel or renounced the right of refugees to return. Government-sponsored public assaults on the very concept of a Jewish state are unremitting. Even the Palestinian signatories of the much-ballyhooed Geneva Accord went no further than to relate the return of refugees to a proportion of refugees accepted by third-party countries (and left Israel discretion in determining the final number subjecting Israel to international pressures to adjust the number for the sake of regional stability. The breakthrough in Egyptian-Israeli negotiations took place in 1977 when President Anwar Sadat made his historic trip to Jerusalem and, among other gestures, laid a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There has never occurred a similar act of grace on the part of Palestinian leaders. Palestinian leaders must find a way to convey that they have accepted the permanence of Israel's existence. Dismantling the terror apparatus may be difficult to do quickly, but ending the systematic rejection of Israeli legitimacy and incitement to terror in the media are within the scope of immediate Palestinian decision.

All involved in the peace process should reexamine whether what has become conventional wisdom is not itself an obstacle to progress: a return by Israel to the 1967 borders, the abandonment of the vast majority of Israeli settlements and the partition of Jerusalem in return for some sort of international guarantee and acceptance of Israel by the Palestinians. The idea of an international force for that purpose is gaining increasing acceptance. But what precisely does an international guarantee mean? Against what danger does it protect and by what means? The historical record of multilateral guarantees is dismal, especially in the Middle East.

The real challenge is terrorism, against which international guarantees are likely to prove empty. If Israel's armed forces with a huge stake in the outcome could not prevent infiltrations, how is an international or even an American force going to do it? It is much more likely to prove a barrier against Israeli retaliation than against Palestinian terrorism. The probable outcome is that an international force would become hostages who will either purchase their safety by turning their backs on violations or risk their lives by serious efforts, at which point the governments

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(a) The demarcation line between the two societies is not an international border but a cease-fire line that ended the first Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 1948. It was never accepted by the Palestinians until nearly half a century later and, even then, not as the border of a legitimate Israeli state.

(b) The two societies live in the closest proximity to one another; indeed, the central challenge is how to achieve coexistence when the distance between the Jordan River and the sea is 50 miles or less. There is no cushioning strategic space as in the Sinai between Egypt and Israel.

(c) In these circumstances, security cannot be based on battle lines in a war that ended more than half a century ago and must instead be adjusted to the experience of actual security threats. (No Israeli Prime Minister or Chief of Staff has ever considered the `67 line compatible with Israeli security.)

(d) In any foreseeable agreement, the Israeli concessions will be territorial and concrete, while the Palestinian concessions are largely psychological, hence revocable. The pledge of abandoning violence was already part of the Oslo agreement with derisory results. The argument that, under an agreement, confidence may be restored ultimately does not answer the challenge of the short run.

American opposition to the concept of a security fence, therefore, should be reconsidered. A physical barrier difficult to penetrate would facilitate Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian cities and the abandonment of checkpoints that deprive so much of Palestinian life of dignity. It provides a line on the other side of which settlements have to live under Palestinian rule or be abandoned. Is the Palestinian objection less the result of the principle of the fence but the ratification of the permanence of Israel it represents? By the same token, Israel must be serious about vacating the territories and the settlements beyond the security fence.

Some object to the security fence as being reminiscent of the walls created by communism, especially in Berlin and along the east-west German borders. But the Communist walls were designed to keep their peoples in; the purpose of the

security fence being built by Israel is to keep terrorists
out.

A more significant criticism is that the security fence will be an obstacle to the ultimate reconciliation of two peoples that must learn to live side by side. It is true that any lasting settlement implies ultimate reconciliation, and a major international effort should be undertaken to help restore civilian life in the Palestinian state. Once confidence is restored and true coexistence evolves, the incentive to maintain the security fence may well disappear.

The intrusion of the fence beyond the 1967 borders should be kept to a strategically necessary minimum. But the principle of it is important: It should not be discouraged by the United States; rather, the United States should try to shape it to contribute to what seems the best way to a rapid breakthrough. The alternative of some sort of imposition of conventional wisdom may well bring peace at the price of encouraging continued irredentism and turning the agreement into a prelude for another round of confrontation.

An interim agreement may be the only way to keep the refugee issue from blocking a settlement. Any final agreement deserving the appellation "final" must resolve the refugee question. No Israeli government can settle for less; no Palestinian leader has yet been found to renounce unambiguously the right of return.

If that problem should prove insoluble, the security fence could provide a provisional dividing line that makes possible a Palestinian state even before a final settlement. The territorial adjustments could be balanced by returning some portions of Israeli territory to Palestinian rule. Particular attention should be paid to areas where a return of Arab population would ease the demographic problem. In that context, a provisional partition of Jerusalem could be discussed.

Such an approach requires freeing Middle East diplomacy from some of its formalistic, almost doctrinaire, constraints. Our partners in the quartet need to view Middle East peace as something more complex than a device for using the United States to extract concessions from Israel for little more than the word "peace." The Palestinians must make a choice between the requirements of genuine acceptance of the Jewish state and an interim solution that creates a Palestinian state immediately and marks a major step toward dealing with the settlement issue, even if it falls short of the entire gamut of their aspirations. Israel must abandon a diplomacy designed to exhaust its counterparts and concentrate, in close coordination with the United States, on the essentials of its requirements.

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For both sides, a resolution will be traumatic. For many in Israel, the abandonment of settlements and the partition of Jerusalem will be perceived as a repudiation of much of the history of the Jewish state. For the Palestinians, it will be a final end of the myth by which their society has lived. America's role is central: It needs to explore whether there is a Syrian negotiating option, to abandon the illusion that America can impose some paper plan and, at the same time, to move the parties with determination toward a goal that seems, at last, conceptually within reach.

(c) 2003, Tribune Media Services International.

For release Sunday, December 21, 2003

END

# Ambassador Dennis Ross Testimony
## Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on the Middle East- Rethinking the Road Map

February 24, 2004

As the prospects for even limited bilateral Israeli-Palestinian agreements have grown increasingly more remote, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has announced his intention to withdraw nearly all the Israeli settlements from the Gaza strip. It is a revolutionary move that creates the possibility of change at a time when Israeli-Palestinian relations are frozen in a pattern of terror, siege, and hopelessness.

Efforts to fill the diplomatic vacuum created by the violence of the last three years, whether official like the roadmap to peace or unofficial like the Geneva Accords, have done little to transform the situation. Moreover, it is hard to find anyone at this point who believes that Yasir Arafat, who presently controls the Palestinian security organizations, is prepared to fulfill Palestinian security responsibilities.

In the meantime, the Palestinian reform movement that seemed so hopeful last spring withers under the weight of the Israeli siege and the chaos that Arafat cultivates. Pervasive Israeli control, the Israeli response to the Palestinian Authority's unwillingness to do anything to stop acts of terror, produces deep anger among Palestinians and keeps the reformers on the defensive. Something has to change, and perhaps it can now that Ariel Sharon, the architect of settlement construction over the last twenty five years, has declared his readiness to evacuate settlements.

But if the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and at least partial withdrawal to a new security line in the West Bank are to create a new opening, they must be done the right way. They must be done in a coordinated fashion. Israeli moves can be done unilaterally but not without an effort to shape Palestinian, Egyptian, and European responses. They must be part of a strategic effort to create a new way station to eventual agreement, not a tactical response to pressures of the moment.

For the Palestinians, the Gaza withdrawal is a moment to demonstrate that Israeli withdrawals will lead to greater calm, not greater instability. It is a moment for reformers to reassert themselves, rightfully claiming that Palestinians cannot afford to miss another opportunity to advance the cause of statehood. Indeed, it can be their moment to prove to the world that they are ready for independence and statehood, and that what they are building in Gaza can also be applied to the West Bank.

Some have argued that it is best for the international community to run Gaza after Israeli withdrawal. Leaving aside whether this is feasible given the American preoccupation with Iraq, I would argue that it is probably unwise. If the Palestinians are absolved of responsibility of running their own affairs, the lessons of the past will never be learned. There will always be someone else to blame, someone else who should be held accountable, someone else who will have to take the difficult decisions. Even with

all the internal difficulties that Palestinian security services face today, they know better than any multinational force how to combat Hamas. True, they are likely to need help in carrying out their mission and that should be forthcoming from the outside. But the essential point is that Palestinians must be in the lead in taking on this responsibility. Will Yasir Arafat seek to block the Palestinian Authority from confronting Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade after an Israeli withdrawal if it means that Palestinians demonstrate to the world that they are not ready for statehood? Can he succeed in doing so in such circumstances? If nothing else, now is a time to be making clear to Palestinians what is at stake and what can be gained but also what is expected of them after withdrawal.

Palestinians may fear that Gaza First is Gaza Last, but the combination of having set the precedent of evacuating settlements and

completing the security barrier in the West Bank will inevitably produce at least a partial pull-back there as well. The issue is not whether there will be a partial withdrawal in the West Bank. Rather, it is whether the security barrier, while not being a border, may remain the new separation line for a long time to come. Once again, it will be up to the Palestinians choose. If Israelis in both Gaza and the West Bank are getting out of Palestinian lives and Palestinians are assuming their security responsibilities, peace making will be resumed and a permanent border can be negotiated relatively soon. If the Palestinians are not prepared to assume their responsibilities, then the Palestinians may be looking at a reality that will remain unchanged for the foreseeable future with little prospect of Palestinian statehood any time soon.

Egypt should see that it too can help in this situation. An Israeli pull-out from Gaza creates a challenge and an opportunity for the Egyptians. A challenge because Egypt cannot be happy about the prospect of a Hamas dominated entity on its border. An opportunity because the Egyptians can help the Palestinians show the world they are ready for statehood -- and bordering Gaza they are in a strong position to assist in their doing so. They can certainly do much more to prevent smuggling of potentially dangerous weaponry into Gaza, assist Palestinian security forces, and publicly declare that continued terror by Hamas and Islamic Jihad will threaten the Palestinian cause.

Egypt's stature in the Arab world and its own policy of peace with Israel certainly would be vindicated by showing that the Palestinians can succeed. No one is better positioned than President Mubarak to tell Yasir Arafat that he will be held accountable if he now tries to impede this opportunity.

For the Europeans, too, who have often been vocal critics of the Israelis, Israeli evacuation of settlements and withdrawal from Gaza can only be welcomed. They must not sit on the sidelines. They have credibility with the Palestinians and it should be clear what European expectations are. They can provide material help both on security and economically, provided the Palestinians are prepared to do their part.

In particular, the Europeans should join the US and others in spearheading a broad
construction effort with strict financial oversight. They should target assistance and
investment to create a successful counterweight to Hamas's social welfare Dawa network.
If there is a targeted infusion of funds and Palestinians see their lives improve, it is the
people and not Hamas ideology that will gain.

Who can pull this coordinated effort together? Only the United States can do so.
If Israeli withdrawal from Gaza is to create a way-station to eventual peace, the US must
fashion a strategy of "coordinated unilateralism" and marshal support from an array of
parties in the Middle East and beyond to make it happen. One lesson is clear from the
past: initiatives in the Middle East are never self-implementing. The Israeli impulse to
withdraw from Gaza requires a major effort from the US to shape it, legislate it, and
produce international support for carrying it out.

Testimony by Robert Malley, Middle East and North Africa Program Director,
International Crisis Group to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Mr. Chairman: First, let me express my appreciation to you for the invitation to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This hearing comes at a critical time: the traditional tools of peace-making in the Middle East have all but exhausted their utility. From the Mitchell Plan to the Roadmap, the U.S. has led various attempts to end the violent confrontation. Yet, for the past three years, the Israeli and Palestinian people have been consistently and repeatedly robbed of a normal life, with the daily cost in pain and bloodshed reaching unprecedented heights. U.S. national security interests also have been jeopardized as, rightly or wrongly, the perpetuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the perception of U.S. disengagement harm both our image in the Moslem world and, crucially, our struggle against terrorism. Fresh, creative and bold thinking is vital, lest the current situation continue or deteriorate further, and lest any prospect for a viable and sustainable peace vanish for the foreseeable future.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) has been working in the Middle East and on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in particular for over two years. Here, as we do in some 40 countries around the world, our field-based analysis identifies the drivers of conflict and, based on that analysis, we define policy responses for specific countries and the international community to prevent or mitigate deadly conflict.

1.

Mr. Chairman, when the Roadmap was first presented, ICG cautioned in its report, "A Middle East Roadmap to Where?" that the plan "adheres to a gradualist and sequential logic to Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, a throwback to the approach that has failed both Israelis and Palestinians in the past. Its various elements lack definition, and each step is likely to give rise to interminable disputes between the two sides. There is no enforcement mechanism, nor any indication of what is to happen if the timetable significantly slips. Even more importantly, it fails to provide a detailed, fleshed out definition of a permanent status agreement." Unless the presentation of the Roadmap somehow served as a catalyst for fundamentally new political momentum in Jerusalem, Ramallah and Washington, we warned, it would rapidly prove futile. Unfortunately, that is the situation in which we find ourselves today. The Roadmap may be resuscitated in one form or another and its core ingredients – a call for a two state solution, for Palestinian security, institutional and economic reform and for an end to the occupation – will remain. But for now, its role as a political tool to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace is over, and it is best to recognize it. If the goal is to break out of the status quo, there is a need to come up with a new or significantly modified approach.

At the outset, it is important to understand why the Roadmap failed in order to avoid duplicating past errors in the future.

The broad vision put forward, first in President Bush's 24 June 2002 speech, next in the Roadmap, was welcome. But in its belief in a series of mutual, incremental steps and in

its lack of a clear and detailed vision of the ultimate settlement, it repeated what Oslo and its variants over the years had attempted, always with the same dispiriting results: agreements not reached or not implemented, accompanied by an erosion in mutual trust and, in this case, ongoing violence.

The idea that only incremental steps can resolve the current crisis flies in the face of the experience of the last decade. With each successive turn there are renewed calls to try better, try harder, but basically try more of the same: interim agreements designed to boost confidence and gradually pave the way for negotiations over a final deal. True, one can always attribute failure to the shortcomings or mistakes of the various parties. In the case of the Roadmap, some legitimately lament that the Palestinians did too little on the security front; that Israel did too much on the military one; that the U.S. stood on the sidelines and that Arafat stood in the way. But that this has become an old refrain ought to tell us something about the process itself -- namely, that the setbacks, skirted obligations, clear-cut violations and violence are not deviations from the process as currently defined, but its natural and inevitable outgrowth. And that there is no reason to believe that what has failed before will suddenly work now, that what the parties have stubbornly resisted doing in the past they can -- with a little additional pressure or persuasion -- be brought to do in the present.

What was missing from Oslo and now from the Roadmap is a clear and well-defined vision of the ultimate goal. Israelis and Palestinians were reluctant to take difficult interim steps not knowing whether they would lead to a desired end-result. As a result, they treated the interim period as a time to shape the final deal through unilateral steps rather than realize it through joint effort. Both sides were determined to hold on to their assets (territory in Israel's case; the threat of violence in the Palestinians') as bargaining chips to be deployed in the endgame. Because the objective remained vague, neither side had a sufficiently powerful incentive to carry out its obligations, the goal always being appeasement of the U.S. rather than pursuit of desired purpose. And so, each interim step became an opportunity for a misstep and the logic behind the Olso process — that interim measures would gradually boost mutual confidence — was turned on its head as each incremental violation further deepened the existing mistrust.

In response, it is often argued that movement toward a resolution of the conflict should not take place unless and until the Palestinian Authority dismantles violent groups and reforms its leadership. This is a highly appealing logic. But it has not worked. And its main victims are and have been the Israeli and Palestinian people. The Palestinian people and their leadership undoubtedly need to clamp down on radical groups within their rank who resort to terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. But it is hard to conceive that they will do so, morally necessary and politically imperative as it is, so long as it cannot be justified as being required for a clear and desired end-game — so long, in other words, as these groups are viewed as resisting the occupier. To maximize prospects that Palestinians will take such action, they need to see an end to the most brutal Israeli military actions and be proposed a genuine alternative path to ending the occupation.

Temporary lulls may be achieved. But the political dynamics of this conflict inexorably will lead to more violence and counter-violence until its resolution is in sight. Israelis cannot afford to be giving in to fear, and see no choice but to respond to every act of Palestinian violence. Each Palestinian attack both underscores the relative futility of Israeli military action and makes it all the more inevitable. For their part, Palestinians cannot afford to appear to be surrendering to force or to resign themselves to continued occupation, particularly when they have no faith in the political process that would follow a cease-fire. Each Israeli operation both takes a toll on radical Palestinian groups and swells their ranks.

As a result, partial security relaxation on the Israeli side is likely to lead to renewed Palestinian violence which will trigger tougher security measures, often with devastating impact on Palestinian civilians, and which, in turn, will provoke more desperate violence. We have seen that pattern play itself repeatedly during the past year. In the current atmosphere, the anticipated virtuous cycle – in which good will gestures by one side are reciprocated by good will gestures by the other – is much more likely to turn into a vicious one. Ending the violence is absolutely vital. But it should not be a precondition for taking the political step – moving to resolve the underlying conflict -- that has the best chance of achieving that goal. Cases as varied as Algeria, Cambodia and South Africa illustrate that successful peace initiatives can and often do take place amidst violence.

For its part, Israel must take steps to dismantle the vast majority of its settlements, not just in Gaza but in the West Bank as well, and allow Palestinians to realize their legitimate aspirations. But it is difficult to imagine it will do so, however counterproductive the settlement enterprise has turned out to be, before it is provided with security and persuaded that Palestinians are prepared to accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, free from violence and the threat of massive refugee return.

Ultimately, until they know what the endgame basically will be, Palestinians are unlikely to provide Israelis with the security they need. And until they are provided with that security and with an assurance that their needs will be met, Israelis are unlikely to carry out the political steps the Palestinians require. Put differently, Palestinians fear that what is portrayed as an interim solution (partial withdrawals in exchange for an end to violence) will become final and Israelis fear that what is portrayed as a final settlement (a two state solution) will only be interim. The mutual suspicion incrementalism is designed to remove is precisely the reason why it cannot work.

Likewise on the issue of Palestinian political reform. Its necessity is not in doubt, and Palestinians themselves would be first to agree. But to make a change in Palestinian leadership a precondition for movement toward a political settlement may well have succeeded in both preventing political progress and hindering institutional reform by portraying both as externally-driven diktats designed to promote U.S. and Israeli interests rather than Palestinian ones. Indeed, insistence on a change in leadership as a precondition for decisive movement on the political front de-legitimizes the concept of reform and undermines those Palestinian activists who have long led the fight for domestic change. Besides, as experience has shown, efforts to marginalize Arafat may

well weaken his institutional power, but he retains unparalleled status and legitimacy in
the eyes of the Palestinian people for whom he remains the embodiment of their cause.
Despite his diminished popularity and the at times disastrous mistakes he has committed,
Palestinians will rally around him in times of crisis and no rival will stand a chance.
There is a profound psychological, emotive component to the Palestinian struggle in
which Arafat and the symbolism that surrounds him plays a central part.

If the incremental and conditional approach was questionable in the past, it has become
far more so today. There have been over three years of horrendous suicide bombs and
devastating Israeli military actions. Anger and bitterness on both sides is at an all-time
high. Trust has virtually disappeared and the very Palestinian institutions expected to
restore order and clamp down on violent groups have either been destroyed or collapsed.
Radical Palestinian groups, far from being weakened by repeated Israeli attacks, have
become both stronger and more popular, making all the more unlikely Palestinian efforts
to take them on. Yasser Arafat's virtual isolation has guaranteed that he will exercise his
still considerable influence to thwart any progress that does not give him a role. Plus, the
Palestinian National Authority is no longer national and it barely exercises authority.
Under what logic would Israel entrust it with its security? For their part, not a single
Palestinian believes that Prime Minister Sharon will be prepared to reach a settlement
even remotely approaching their minimum goal. With that in mind, and with Hamas,
Islamic Jihad and other radical groups emboldened and empowered, can a Palestinian
leader realistically be expected to take the political risk of confronting them or
negotiating yet another interim deal with Israel?

Under these circumstances, it is very hard to be confident that Prime Minister Sharon and
Prime Minister Abu Alaa will be able to agree on much or for very long, let alone
negotiate their way out of the current violence. Even if they do succeed, their agreement
will be at the mercy of the first act of violence.

Two alternative ways exist to break the stalemate and make up for the lack of trust and
the parties' inability to move bilaterally. The first is for one of the two parties to act
alone. The second is for a third party to step in.

2.

A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Sharon announced his intention to unilaterally
disengage, including unilaterally withdrawal from many of the Gaza settlements and,
possibly, some isolated ones in the West Bank if, within six months, it became clear that
the Palestinians will not fulfill their responsibilities under the Roadmap. Sharon's stated
logic is clear: if the Palestinians are not prepared to take steps to clamp down on violent
groups, if they do not have a leadership trusted by Israel, Israel cannot afford to wait. It
will to what it must to maximize its security and separate demographically from the
Palestinian population. Withdrawing from these settlements will shorten Israeli lines of
defense, remove the burden of protecting small numbers of settlers with large military
forces and, by disengaging from populated Palestinian areas, reduce friction with the
Palestinians. It would be complemented by completion of the physical barrier or fence

4

intended to radically restrict movement of Palestinians into Israel. The decision, should it
be implemented, would amount to recognition that the path laid out in the Roadmap is no
more, for the time being at least.

It is important at the outset to recognize what Prime Minister Sharon's suggestion is and what it is not. It is not a long-term solution but a temporary stopgap. It is not at this point a detailed plan but a very vague concept. It would not entail merely a unilateral withdrawal but most probably a series of unilateral steps. But of the two alternative paths we have laid out – unilateral disengagement or forceful international engagement – it is by far the more probable and, as such, deserves careful scrutiny.

Evacuation of settlements is essential, a step called for by the Palestinians and the international community as a whole. No Israeli leader has seriously contemplated taking such an initiative in the absence of a comprehensive agreement – not Rabin, not Peres, and not Barak. And no Israeli leader has enjoyed the kind of political capital Sharon has in order to do this. For these reasons, a decision to evacuate settlements would clearly be welcome. Besides potential security benefits for Israel, it can lead to greater freedom of movement for Palestinians in Gaza and set the precedent of larger-scale settlement evacuation – including in the West Bank -- by formally de-linking settlements from security. Under the right circumstances, it can serve as a pilot case for the rebuilding of Palestinian Authority security services and reassertion of law and order, for Palestinian elections (for the PA as well as for Fatah), Palestinian reform and for greater international involvement. Should the PA be able to restore quiet in Gaza, in fact, a unilateral withdrawal could theoretically help rekindle Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. In short, if done right, what would begin as a consequence of failed diplomacy could become a forerunner to renewed diplomacy.

But there are considerable risks for all sides, of which the U.S. in particular needs to be
fully cognizant if it wants to avoid them.

First, a unilateral withdrawal may well be read by Palestinians as a victory for those who believe that Israel can be forced through violence to pull out. It will be hard for them to see it otherwise: even a modest withdrawal was not forthcoming during the premiership of Mahmoud Abbas – who was committed to a peaceful resolution of the conflict; now it is being openly considered not as a confidence-building measure for a courageous Palestinian Prime Minister but as a defensive reaction to continued armed attacks. Coming atop the Israeli decision to release hundreds of prisoners (again, a concession that was not granted to Abbas) in a deal with Hizbollah, this could embolden and strengthen the more radical Palestinian groups. In this context, some have evoked Gaza's potential "Lebanonisation" – a reference to Israel's decision to withdraw from South Lebanon. While that earlier withdrawal almost certainly was the right thing to do, images of a retreating Israeli army carried wide-ranging implications, not least of all by inspiring Palestinians to launch the intifada.

A related peril is that areas from which Israel withdraws, rather than fall under the PA's control, could descend into chaos and anarchy or into Hamas' hands, further radicalizing

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the Palestinian side, weakening the PA and reducing the chances of renewed negotiations. Should Israel – as is anticipated – leave behind either IDF forces or some settlements in Gaza, these quickly could become the targets of continued violence as Palestinian organizations claim that armed struggle is both what got Israel to begin its withdrawal and what will get Israel to complete it.

There also are potential threats to the Palestinians and to their future ability to build a viable state. As some Israeli officials point out, unilateral disengagement would not be a unilateral withdrawal alone but rather a series of unilateral steps intended to consolidate Israel's position by refocusing on the West Bank and separating from populated Palestinian areas. In addition, the Prime Minister may well be required (if only to placate his harder-line right wing partners that have threatened to bolt from the coalition) to take "compensatory" measures in the West Bank. Under this scenario, the partial withdrawal from Gaza and perhaps from some isolated West Bank settlements abutting Palestinian cities, thickening of settlement blocs alongside the Green Line, strengthening control over strategic areas such as Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and other border areas, and completion of the separation fence encroaching into the West Bank would all become part of a broader plan to force long-term, de facto borders upon the Palestinians. Altogether, these could deal a fatal blow to President Bush's vision of a viable Palestinian state, condemning the Palestinians to isolated, non-contiguous cantons or enclaves and, at best, a non-viable statelet that they will be free to call a state.

In other words, while some Israelis worry that this could be a road to more violence, Palestinians worry that it could be the end of their road to genuine independence.

At this point, the Prime Minister's suggestions constitute far more a question mark than a plan. Among the significant unknowns are the following:

☐ When would the withdrawal/settlement evacuation take place? Over what time period? If it is done in one fell swoop, it might bolster the impression of a hurried Israeli retreat in the face of Palestinian violence; if spread out over time, it might increase the likelihood both of resistance by settlers and of Palestinian attacks against them.

☐ Will there be a security handoff with Palestinian forces or will it be wholly uncoordinated?

☐ Will Israel proceed in the face of escalating Palestinian attacks on the eve of the evacuation?

☐ Will Israel proceed if it asks but fails to obtain U.S. guarantees – e.g., regarding financial assistance to help relocate the settlers; acquiescence in the route of the separation fence or in additional settlement construction in the West Bank; a commitment not to pressure Israel on a final status deal?

☐ How many settlements will remain in Gaza?

☐ Will the settlements that are evacuated be destroyed? Maintained intact? Turned over to the PA?

☐ Will the IDF remain in Gaza and, if so, for how long?

6

* How will Israel react if attacks emanate from Gaza after the withdrawal - aimed either at remaining settlements, at the IDF or at Israel proper?

* What simultaneous steps will Israel take in the West Bank?

* Who will control the Rafah border with Egypt? The Gaza airport? The seaport? The crossing into Israel?

* Will Palestinian workers from Gaza be allowed into Israel? Will goods be allowed in and out? In particular, what provisions will be made for the supply of water, electricity, medical equipment or food in Gaza?

Until answers to these and other important questions are known, it will be extremely difficult to anticipate the impact of an Israeli action along the lines suggested by the Prime Minister. Even then, there will be considerable unknowns as to the Palestinian reaction, given the vast political changes undergone on their side during this latest period.

Given those uncertainties, the best course for the United States would be to maximize the prospect that a process of unilateral disengagement strengthens Israel's security without jeopardizing the possibility of a viable Palestinian state or inflicting undue harm to the Palestinian population.

First, the U.S. should see to it that Israel coordinate any settlement evacuation with the PA. Coordination does not require negotiating or even cooperation, and this is an important distinction. If he ultimately opts for the unilateral route, it will mean that Prime Minister Sharon has concluded that negotiations with the PA are futile. It therefore would make little sense from his perspective to sit down and discuss with the Palestinians the implementation of his move. But to withdraw without giving the PA any advance notification and the opportunity to operate a smooth hand-off of any evacuated areas would be a recipe for chaos and for strengthening radical organizations at the PA's expense. Conversely, Israel-PA coordination could minimize the appearance of a hurried and disorderly Israeli retreat, helping both parties. This may not require direct Israeli-Palestinian discussions, although they would be preferable, and could instead be done through back-to-back talks with Washington.

Second, the U.S. and others in the international community should press the PA to exercise maximum security control over evacuated areas and assist it in this task. In particular, the PA's security organizations should take measures to try to prevent violent actions originating from Gaza.

Third, the U.S. should make clear to Israel that it will not acquiesce in harmful compensatory measures in the West Bank. These include settlement construction, activity in East Jerusalem and building the separation fence in ways that hurt Palestinians and depart in any meaningful way from the 1967 lines. Movement in Gaza ought to facilitate future progress in the West Bank, not condemn it. Ensuring that Gaza first will not mean Gaza last is critical if the U.S. wants to preserve the possibility of a two state solution.

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Fourth, the U.S. should ask Israel to minimize any hardships on the Palestinian population of Gaza, consistent with legitimate security concerns. It is hard to imagine Israel allowing free movement for the Palestinians, either across the border with Egypt, by air or sea, let alone into Israel. But suffocating the population in Gaza by denying them basic economic opportunities would be a humanitarian catastrophe for the Palestinians and — by generating an even more embittered and radicalized Palestinian people — a political catastrophe for Israel.

Fifth, to the degree possible, the international community as a whole should provide assistance to Gaza. This could take the form of economic help, security training to the PA and oversight of reform — the goal being to turn Gaza into a successful model of international engagement to be replicated some day in the West Bank. Some have gone further in this respect and suggested the establishment of an international trusteeship over Gaza, including the dispatch of foreign troops. There is reason for caution, however. In the absence of an overall territorial agreement — which an enduring if reduced Israeli presence in Gaza and the West Bank would preclude — Palestinians are likely to continue to resist and the trusteeship therefore will operate in a hostile environment. How many nations will agree to send troops under such circumstances? How would the multinational force interact with the remaining Israeli presence in Gaza, assuming as one must a less-than-total withdrawal?

Ultimately, it is important to bear in mind the limitations inherent in any unilateral disengagement however well-implemented it turns out to be. Once accomplished, most of the underlying ingredients of the conflict will remain and some may even be exacerbated. Disentanglement from Gaza and erection of the separation fence may well limit Israeli exposure to attacks by Palestinians; but at least so long as the occupation endures, Palestinian militants will have the motivation to look for other, perhaps more sophisticated and deadly means to strike. While some have suggested that Israel's suggestion of a withdrawal from Gazan settlements could pave the way for a broader bilateral agreement on security and territorial issues, the outlook in this regard is bleak. To repeat: a unilateral initiative will be taken if and when Israel concludes that the Roadmap process has failed, not in order to revive it; it will be taken if and when Israel concludes it has no partner, not as an opportunity to negotiate with one. It is hard, therefore, to imagine Israelis and Palestinians reaching a genuine agreement on a withdrawal from Gaza insofar as negotiations inevitably would put on the table other highly contentious issues: control over Gaza border areas, the sea and airport, freedom of movement for Arafat, together with Israeli actions in the West Bank, such as the construction of the separation fence, to mention but a few.

Imprecise as to its scope or character, unpredictable as to its effects, unilateral Israeli steps are not and cannot be a substitute for a political solution. They might well set in motion a process even its initiators did not have in mind.

3.

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ICG has repeatedly argued for replacing the incremental, step by step strategy of the roadmap with an endgame strategy involving forceful international presentation, led by the U.S., of a clear, detailed and comprehensive blueprint for a permanent Israeli-Palestinian settlement. Both the plan and the means of promoting and implementing it are described in detail in ICG's three-part report, "Middle East Endgame." In our view, it remains the best and surest option to produce a fair and sustainable peace and one that, far from being inconsistent with the Roadmap, can most effectively produce its desired results: an end to violence and to the settlement enterprise, reform of the PA, and a viable two-state solution. It is at once the most ambitious and pragmatic process available.

First, the U.S. should present a detailed, comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian settlement plan, in coordination with, and with the full backing of other key members of the international community -- including Arab and Moslem states. The U.S. would pre-condition presentation of the plan on strong commitments from others, particularly in the Arab world, to back it, take concrete steps to normalize relations with Israel once peace has been achieved and take immediate steps to curb any aid to groups that resort to violence. For Arab states that have been clamoring for U.S. involvement, the quid pro quo would be clear: commit to supporting the plan in word and deed, commit to cracking down on violent groups and to pressing the PA to take action to end the violence, and the U.S. will present a fair, comprehensive settlement plan.

It is clear by now, based on the parties' negotiations from Oslo onward, that a plan that protects the two sides' vital interests can be put together. Accordingly, the plan would not require either party to forsake what it considers its fundamental rights or aspirations. Rather, it would propose a practical solution to the problems they confront so that they can live in peace and security.

To be clear: an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan cannot be imposed and this ought to be neither an imposition nor an ultimatum. An imposed solution would trigger an immediate nationalistic backlash on both sides, and, from Israel, cries of unfair treatment at the hands of a trusted ally. Rather, the plan would represent the international community's best judgment of what a fair, final and comprehensive settlement should look like and would appeal to the leaderships and peoples of both sides to embrace it. In other words, regardless of whether the leaders initially reject the plan, the U.S. and its partners would continue to promote them.

Second, and as part of this plan, the international community would propose a U.S.-led international mandate to administer the territory that will make up the Palestinian state, verify compliance, help provide security and take control of land turned over by Israel. Several members of this Committee have evoked the notion of NATO troops monitoring the birth of a Palestinian state; ICG fully endorses such an idea in the context of a comprehensive settlement. The mandatory powers would be the ultimate arbiters, transferring land and full sovereignty to the Palestinians when appropriate. In other words, Israel initially will be turning over territory to NATO or some other U.S.-led multinational force - not to the Palestinians, and the force will help strengthen Israel's security by patrolling the Israeli-Palestinian border and Palestine's other international

borders and crossing points. Israel could be offered membership in NATO and a U.S. defense treaty, and U.S. and European security guarantees would be extended to the Palestinian state.

As a means of maximizing the prospects of acceptance, Israeli and Palestinian leaders could submit it directly to their people for them to approve or reject. This is the very idea Prime Minister Sharon has suggested as a means of side-stepping resistance by some members of his coalition to his Gaza withdrawal proposal and to give them political cover to remain in the government in the event of popular approval. It also is the concept accepted in the context of efforts to resolve the issue of Cyprus. A vigorous campaign in which the U.S., but also Arab and Moslem countries would play a significant part, would build tremendous pressure for the referendum and affect political dynamics on both sides. There is no doubt that, if it could be achieved, the most powerful impact of all would be made by the joint appearance of President Bush, King Abdullah of Jordan, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and President Mubarak of Egypt to address the Israeli Knesset and the Palestinian parliament and call on both sides to accept the comprehensive peace proposal. Given the virtually complete breakdown in trust, if the peace process is to be jumpstarted, it may well need such a bold diplomatic move – the contemporary equivalent of President Sadat's visit to Jerusalem. Overall, the goal should be to generate so much domestic and international support for the referendum that opposition would become increasingly hard to sustain and the momentum for change gradually would become irresistible. As opinion polls among both Israelis and Palestinians indicate, there is every reason to believe that the referendums would yield the desired outcomes.

Putting forward a comprehensive deal will provide the clarity that has so far been missing, creating genuine incentives for Israelis (security) and Palestinians (the end of the occupation) to confront extremists within their ranks and depriving them of their current legitimacy. Proposing a U.S.-led mandate will make up for the lack of trust and provide Israel with the assurance it needs that the Palestinian state it leaves behind will be stable, and well-governed. Submitting the plan to a referendum would endow the process with homegrown, popular legitimacy, while shifting the locus of decision-making to an arena where the balance of power is far more favorable to proponents of an agreement.

What is most illogical and tragic about the past three years is that majorities on both sides appear ready now to accept a final deal that will end their conflict. Postponing the final outcome – with the all too certain accompanying risk of major further death, injury, destruction and misery, not to mention the emergence of an embittered and vengeful Palestinian youth – cannot be the right answer. Instead, a process must be devised whereby the latent aspiration on both sides to end the conflict can be given practical and political expression.

Historical precedent suggests that such an approach can work. To unlock difficult diplomatic predicaments. In Northern Ireland, in March/April 1998, the British and Irish governments together worked out a peace agreement and the U.S. mediator, former Senator George Mitchell, presented it to the parties. Likewise, in Macedonia, in 2001,

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the basics of the Ohrid Agreement had been drawn up before the end of June by the U.S. and EU negotiators. In both cases, as a result of the international community presenting the actors with a game plan for the final outcome, the debate rapidly became a haggling over details rather than a debate over fundamentals.

Of all the arguments raised against such a proposal, the most salient is the lack of political willpower in Washington.

For now, U.S. policy has been reduced to the oft-repeated position that no progress will be made unless and until the Palestinian leadership takes decisive steps to end the violence. But waiting for a "reliable Palestinian partner" to emerge is a recipe for paralysis: only a credible political process can produce an effective Palestinian leadership, not the other way around. It is difficult to imagine this administration - or any other for that matter - taking on the risk of promoting an overall solution absent the most exigent of circumstances. The administration has been unwilling to put its muscle behind the far less ambitious roadmap, it is said. How could it possibly be expected to do significantly more?

The point, of course, lies precisely there: the U.S. has been deeply engaged in Israeli-Palestinian affairs for a long time. Year after year, it has expended precious energy as well as political and economic capital on behalf of a process that promised little and yielded even less. Any type of engagement involves risks and costs. These only ought to be borne for the sake of an enterprise that merits them. Here, the cost-benefit calculus is clear: a successful U.S.-led effort along the lines described here would dramatically change our posture in the region, isolate radical forces, mute the anti-Americanism that has become so widespread and reassert our position as defenders of Israel's vital interests without being oblivious to Arab concerns. Nor would the international forces deployed to the region face significant risks. In Iraq, the United States is seen to have initiated an occupation. In Palestine, we would be seen to have ended one.

It is lack of U.S. action in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not its leadership, that damages its credibility. To quote Chairman Lugar, "The search for stability in the Greater Middle East must proceed hand in hand with the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Too many Muslims in the region judge the US solely by its perceived unwavering support for Israel." A more dynamic approach such as suggested here would dry up support for radical groups and greatly enhance America's capacity to win international support and cooperation -- not least from the Islamic world -- in waging its struggle against terrorism.

The irony is that a solution likely to be embraced by those from whom the hardest concessions are being asked (the Israeli and Palestinian people) and that would serve U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East perhaps more dramatically than any other step it could undertake, is unlikely to occur at this point because of resistance from within the United States itself.

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For now, the public debate should narrow down to two simple questions: is the current
process working and would the one suggested stand a fair chance to succeed? The
answer to the former is a definite "no" and to the latter a possible "yes." Given that,
broad pressure should begin to build in the U.S. as elsewhere to lay the groundwork for
the pursuit of this realistic approach rather than of the costly illusions for which we and
others have paid so dearly over the years.

Some have argued that pushing for a political solution at this point would be an
unwarranted and dangerous reward for terror. But those responsible for terrorist attacks
don't want a negotiated peace; they call for the elimination of Israel. They do not want
refugees resettled in Palestine. They want them to return to Israel. They do not want to
share Jerusalem. They want it for themselves alone. How can a peace agreement gratify
terrorists when their goal is to destroy any chance of a just peace?

4.

Mr. Chairman, for some time now ICG along with many others has argued that the world knows what the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ultimately will be. An amendment now appears in order: what the world knows is what the solution *ought* to be. For events on the ground are making a fair two-state solution increasingly remote. Israeli settlements, despite recent suggestions floated by Prime Minister Sharon, have continued to spread throughout the West Bank. The West Bank is being cantonised and fragmented. The PA's power has eroded, with its most useful purpose today being to distribute salaries. The traditionally dominant Fatah is breaking apart geographically and organizationally. Hamas is becoming stronger, alongside a plethora of armed gangs, break-away groups and militias that do not respond to any central command. Arafat, the only Palestinian figure with a national constituency and legitimacy, and arguably the only figure still capable of selling a permanent status deal to his people, is being shunned by Israel and the U.S. Indeed, it is something of a polite fiction to imagine that an alternative leader with the requisite authority and legitimacy somehow will emerge. Reaching a Palestinian consensus that eschews further violence and clearly accepts the principles inherent in a two state solution therefore is becoming increasingly difficult and the very existence of centralized, national institutions, of a Palestinian polity able to make decisions and make them stick is in doubt.

The shelf-life of the two state solution is not eternal. Ironically, Palestinian territorial realities, politics and psychology are drifting away from the two state solution just at the time when Israel and the U.S. appear to have come to terms with it. A page in the history of the conflict may be turning before our eyes. The United States should act now if it wants the notion of an Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace to become tomorrow's reality rather than yesterday's unfulfilled dream.

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Suggested Questions:

1. How do you view Secretary Powell's statements before this committee and recent Administration statements that reflect a warming of attitudes toward Sharon's unilateral steps to disengage? How would you assess Mr. Sharon's motivations?

2. Dr. Kissinger, in your 22 December Washington Post Op-Ed "In Israel's Fence, an Opening to Accord", you suggest "Palestinian leaders must find a way to convey that they have accepted the permanence of Israel's existence." Do you view the Palestinian acceptance last summer of the Road Map and a "two-state" solution as acceptance of Israel's existence? What means would build confidence of such acceptance?

3. You also noted, the real challenge is "terrorism". While the fence may help secure Israeli territory from terrorists crossing at the borders, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become the excuse for radical Islamic terrorists around the globe. Will Israeli unilateral withdrawal and disengagement merely incite further terrorism?

4. What can or should the European nations do to facilitate the peace process? The Arab nations? Do you see any useful role for international forces in the Middle East?

5. If the US showed the same determination to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that it showed in Iraq, do you think it would make a difference, or is the conflict so deep that not even 200,000 troops and over $100 billion could fix it?

6. Comparing the mood and actions of last summer with those of recent weeks on the part of both parties, what advice would you give the Palestinian leadership today if you had them sitting across the table from you? How about the Israelis?

7. The Road Map, as Secretary Powell pointed out in the hearing last week, begins with an end to terrorism in the region. What actions do you consider must the Palestinian Authority take to demonstrate that it has broken apart militant groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad? Does the Palestinian Authority have the security capabilities to undertake such actions?

8. What actions could the Israelis take to reflect a willingness to return to negotiations?

9. How do you view the strengths and weaknesses of Prime Minister Qureia and the latest reported "power struggle" within the Palestinian Authority with Arafat? If Arafat were gone tomorrow, would the peace talks resume under the Road Map?

10. What do you make of recent overtures by Syria? The prisoner exchange with Lebanon?

11. How has the conflict in Iraq and the Coalition War on Terror affected the peace process?

12. How do you view the potential for international peacekeeping forces to be used to facilitate peace in the Middle East?

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13. Ambassador Indyk, you have proposed a United Nations trusteeship to supervise the establishment of a Palestinian state with U.S. security guarantees.¹ Do you still advocate the establishment of a trusteeship? How do you answer Dr. Kissinger's argument that an international force would fail to prevent terrorism and be an obstacle to Israeli retaliation against terrorists?

14. Is there any way to convince Israelis to have faith in the U.N., which has generated deep suspicions by passing numerous anti-Israel resolutions? How would you convince the U.N. to undertake a trusteeship and to trust Israel, which many within the organization view as a violator of international law and numerous resolutions? How would the U.N. work with or around Yasir Arafat?

15. Ambassador Ross, you have suggested that if, largely due to Yasir Arafat, a limited Israeli-Palestinian agreement or Palestinian regime change are not feasible in the short term, then the "default option" is in "coordinated unilateralism" in which the Administration would manage Israel's emerging unilateralism with the Palestinians.² This seems to be in accord with Dr. Kissinger's approach. Do you agree? How do you answer critics who suggest that unilateralism will fail to address the long term existential threat to Israel because the other side is not a true party to decision-making and therefore need not abandon its panaceas?

16. Mr. Malley, you have argued that the United States, with international partners, should present a comprehensive, "ambitious" blueprint for a final settlement.³ What would be the parameters of such a blueprint? How detailed should a third-party be in drafting an agreement on behalf of others? How would you get the parties to assume ownership of and responsibility for a blueprint that has been drafted by others?

17. Mr. Malley, you have praised the "Geneva Accord" drafted by prominent Palestinians and members of Israeli opposition parties.⁴ How would you convince Israeli and Palestinian governing authorities to take the Accord as a model agreement?

¹ Martin Indyk, "A Trusteeship for Palestine?" Foreign Affairs, May/Jun 2003, Vol. 82, Issue 3, p. 51; also, "U.S. Should Step in to Build a Palestinian State Beyond the Road Map," New York Times, August 22, 2003.
² Dennis Ross, "Unilateralism and its Discontents," *Jerusalem Post*, January 23, 2004.
³ Robert Malley, "Without a Road Map, No Rules, Just Fear," *Washington Post*, Oct. 13, 2003.
⁴ Quoted in Harvey Morris and Frances Williams, "Wide Support for Launch of Mideast Peace Accord," *Financial Times*, December 2, 2003.

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KAI DC

212 753 7248 P.01

RICHARD G. LUGAR, INDIANA, CHAIRMAN

CHUCK HAGEL NEBRASKA
LINCOLN CHAFEE, RHODE ISLAND
GEORGE ALLEN, VIRGINIA
SAM BROWNBACK, KANSAS
MICHAEL B. ENZL, WYOMING
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, OHIO
LAMAR ALEXANDER, TENNESSEE
NORM COLEMAN, MINNESOTA
JOHN E SUNUNU, NEW HAMPSHIRE

JOSEPH R. SIDEN, JR., DELAWARE
PAUL S. SARBANES, MARYLAND
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, CONNECTICUT
JOHN F. KERRY, MASEACHUSETTS
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, WISCONSIN
BARBARA BOXER, CALIFORNIA
BILL NELSON, FLORIDA
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, WEST VIRGINIA
JON S. CORZINE, NEW JERSEY

KENNETH A. MYERS, JR., STAFF DIRECTOR
ANTONY J. BUNKEN, DEMOCRATIC STAFF DIRECTOR

United States Senate
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

WASHINGTON, DC 20510-6225

February 2, 2004

FEB 11 2004

The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
1800 K Street, N.W.
Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20006

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

The Committee on Foreign Relations is delighted that you have accepted our invitation to address our hearing on the "The Middle East: Rethinking the Road Map" on Tuesday, February 24, 2004. The hearing will take place at 2:00 p.m. in Room SD-419 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

The Committee would appreciate your perspective and assessment of the way ahead in the Middle East. The Middle East Road Map, the performance-based plan accepted by the Israelis and Palestinians last summer, has been stalled for months. Neither side has taken steps to reach the comprehensive and permanent two-state settlement envisioned under the Road Map by President Bush or the Quartet - the United States, the U.N., European Union and Russia. Palestinian leadership appears divided and incapable and/or unwilling to control the extremist and terrorist factions undermining any peace efforts. The Israelis are threatening unilateral disengagement. Arab nations are frustrated by their lack of leverage and influence over the situation. And in an election year, many are accusing the Administration of abandoning the peace process.

While the obstacles appear to be overwhelming, the Committee is particularly interested in your view of what opportunities might be available for moving the Middle East peace process forward. Have U.S. objectives in the peace process changed? If not, should they? Are there alternatives to the Road Map or possible detours which should be considered?

We would ask that you summarize your written testimony for your oral presentation. Your full written statement will be included in the hearing record.

The Committee looks forward to your testimony and greatly appreciates the time you are taking from your schedule to address this important issue. Please provide your statement electronically to Kim_Savit@foreign.senate.gov, at least 48 hours before the