Years ago I spent a lot of time studying the state of US-Cuban relations. I came to the subject with the optimism that most Americans bring to just about every world problem; surely there was a solution somewhere that moderate people of good will could find. But the deeper I got into the subject, and the more I met with people in the US and Cuban governments, in the Cuban American community, and in the community of activists and lobbyists who work on the issue, the more I came to see that things weren’t that simple.
After a lot of head scratching and a lot of wasted time it finally dawned on me that there were important reasons why US-Cuban relations had been frozen in this pattern for so long. Nobody really liked the status quo: but everybody preferred it to any of the feasible alternatives. This was true of the Castro government, of the Cuban American community by and large, and also of the US government. It was also true of many of the other countries in the region; no Caribbean country wants to think about what would happen to its tourism industry if Cuba suddenly opened up to Yankee visitors.
Since then, it’s become ever more clear to me that this pattern fits many of the other frozen conflicts around the world — and it definitely fits the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We don’t really like the status quo, but nobody sees a realistic path to a viable alternative that would work much better.
The situation looks so miserable — the Palestinians under occupation, the Israelis increasingly isolated and under pressure from the international community, and the United States so frustrated and hampered in our other Middle East policies because of the conflict — that we fail to see the ways in which the status quo actually serves important interests of all the major parties. We instinctively interpret the Middle East stalemate as a strategic failure for the countries involved. That is partially true, but it is also true that in important ways both the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Arabs and the United States all advance some important interests through the stalemate.
Start with the Palestinians. Since 1993 in some ways they seem to have gone backward. Power is now split between Fatah and Hamas; the settlements have expanded; the barrier has reduced the access of the Palestinians to jobs in the Israeli economy; the frustrations of living under occupation mount.
On the other hand, since that time the right of the Palestinians to a state of their own has become increasingly accepted. From Clinton to Bush to Obama, each American president has restated our commitment to the Palestinians in stronger terms. Furthermore, Israel has been steadily sweetening its offers. It has moved from non-recognition of the PLO to recognition of the Palestinian Authority and successive right wing Israeli premiers have acknowledged the need to partition British Palestine and the two-state solution. That Prime Minister Netanyahu, however reluctantly, has publicly stated his acceptance of the two state solution cannot be considered a Palestinian defeat.
More than that, by saying no and waiting, the Palestinians are getting better offers. Ehud Barak’s offer to the Palestinians in the waning days of the Clinton administration was the most comprehensive set of Israeli concessions on offer since the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War. Ehud Olmert’s offer was even sweeter. Two successive Israeli governments have acknowledged the need to divide Jerusalem, giving the Palestinians a capital there. It is getting harder and harder for Israel to change the ‘facts on the ground’ in Jerusalem.
At the same time, the Palestinians are getting unprecedented and growing international help at building their state, building their economy, and making the next Palestinian generation the best educated, most globally minded ever. This progress in developing creative, forward thinking leadership struck me most on my recent trip. A West Bank filled with entrepreneurs, internationally trained civil servants, US trained security forces and students from some of the best schools in the world is going to make progress. The growing skill with which Palestinians are getting their message out over the world media is just one aspect (and perhaps not the most constructive) of the growing sophistication of Palestinian society at every level. As each year goes by, the Palestinians aren’t just marking time. They are racing ahead to become intellectual and economic leaders of the entire Arab world.
(Hamas, too, has gained ground. Five years ago it ruled nothing; now it rules Gaza and it has more influence than ever before over the timing and nature of any future peace deal.)
The Middle East is supposed to be the home of zero-sum contests, and in some ways the Israeli-Palestinian conflict typifies this, but in other ways the Israelis are also making extraordinary gains as the status quo continues. The wall/fence/barrier (depending on your political sympathies) and the economic separation from the territories has dramatically increased security for the average Israeli. The economy is booming and during his meeting with our group Prime Minister Netanyahu had the satisfaction of getting the news that the OECD had just admitted Israel to the world’s most exclusive club of advanced countries. Israel is developing important security and economic relations with new partners like India; a deal with Germany has given Israel advanced submarines that will provide a second strike capability against Iranian nuclear strikes.
Meanwhile, despite all the noise and the shouting and the angry threats and boycotts, Israel is making steady progress toward its strategic diplomatic goal of normal relations with the Arab world. The peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan are holding; if anything, their mutual loathing of Hamas has deepened Egyptian-Israeli cooperation behind the scenes. The Arab world has now accepted — in principle — the existence of Israel within the armistice lines of 1949. Countries like Egypt and Jordan that broke the Arab boycott against Israel were once ostracized and condemned; not any more.
The Israelis are even gaining ground. Arabs are generally now willing to accept (in principle and in the abstract) that the final deal will include some Israeli territorial gains in Jerusalem and the West Bank: the “swaps” of Israeli settlement blocs for land of equal value and/or size with the Palestinians mean that Israel will be able to round out its borders and keep some of the larger settlements close to Jerusalem. The emergence of the “Shi’a Crescent” from Iran through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon has created a new network of common interests between Israel and the Sunni Arabs who were once the Jewish country’s most bitter enemies. It is likely that the increasing pluralism of a Middle East less and less defined by such concepts as an ‘indivisible Arab Muslim nation’ will be a more hospitable place for non-Arab, non-Sunni states. In such a Middle East Israel will not be the one glaring exception to an otherwise uniform pattern; it will be one of many elements in a region whose political structure will increasingly reflect its rich cultural, religious and linguistic diversity.
For the Americans, the status quo however frustrating has the advantage of cementing our position as the indispensable nation in the part of the world that provides so much of the vital global fuel supply. While Israelis and Arabs can and do strike their most effective agreements without our participation, both sides want us to be part of the final process by which agreements are translated into treaties and new facts on the ground. Even as the conflict drags on, the fact that the existential war between Arab and Jew is slowly turning into something less urgent and less total makes our task of staying friends with both sides a less taxing one. The Sunnis need us to protect them from Iran; they know that Israel is part of that equation as well.
Finally, for the Arab countries, the status quo is also not the worst thing in the world. They are able to avoid more rounds of conflict with Israel without having, yet, to sign any treaties or do anything else that is deeply unpopular at home. Furthermore, they can extract promises and concessions from the Americans in exchange for signing paper agreements and documents of hypothetical recognition — agreements to recognize Israel ‘if and when’.
There are losers from the Middle East status quo: ordinary Palestinians in Gaza and Lebanon are probably paying the highest price at the moment — just as ordinary Cubans suffer most from the present frozen state of US-Cuba relations. But as long as the major power political players benefit from the status quo, there is no reason to expect a quick change. Realistically, in both Cuba and the Middle East, we should be looking at ways to improve the lives of ordinary people caught up in the conflict while also taking steps that can help put the conflict on a glide path toward resolution down the road.
Edging closer to peace while meeting the essential needs of the main parties to the conflict: that is the best recipe for progress in messes like this.