Tag: European Union
The Israel we need is not the one we’ve got
Yoram Peri, an Israeli patriot who has fought in three wars for his country and now directs the University of Maryland’s new Institute for Israel Studies, gave a post-service talk Friday night at our local synagogue. His family has lived in Palestine and Israel since the 1860s. What he had to say about the collapse of the Israel/Palestine peace talks and Israel’s politics may interest readers. Here is what I remember of his impassioned presentation.*
Contrary to what has been reported, Yoram understands that Mahmoud Abbas was prepared to make major concessions in the US-sponsored negotiations. Palestine would be demilitarized. Eighty per cent of the Jewish population living beyond the wall would remain in placed. Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem would not be disturbed. Israeli troops would remain in the Jordan River valley for five years and then be replaced by American troops for another five years. Israel would decide how many displaced and refugee Palestinians would be able to return to Israel proper.
Abbas was asking in return that Israel specify within a few months exactly where the border would lie (presumably based on swaps for land in the West Bank kept by Israel). Jerusalem would be Palestine’s capital. If Yoram mentioned other important Palestinian requirements, I am not remembering them.
Netanyahu rejected this offer. His coalition has too many hardline settler supporters to allow him to accept. Nor is he himself interested in making peace. He is more comfortable talking about the Holocaust.
But when Abbas made a strong statement on the Holocaust to mark Yom HaShoah, Netanyahu rejected it as public relations. Likewise, Netanyahu has complained for years that Abbas can’t deliver on peace with Israel because the Palestinian Authority he leads does not control Gaza. Now that Hamas, which does control Gaza, has pledged to join a Palestinian Authority government consisting of “technical” ministers, Netanyahu says he won’t negotiate because then the Palestinian government will include terrorists.
Yoram thinks Hamas, as part of a unity government, will have to accept the “Quartet” (US, Russia, EU and UN) conditions for participation in the peace talks: mutual recognition, acceptance of previous agreements, and ending violence as a means of attaining goals. Abbas has also said as much. If Hamas does accept these conditions, why wouldn’t Israel negotiate with it? Yoram suggests there is no harm in talking with them to see what is possible.
Israel’s reluctance to accept a good deal with the Palestinians is rooted in the evolution of its politics. The weight of the ultra religious has increased enormously. And what the ultra religious want has also changed. Whereas traditionally Jews are prohibited from praying on the Temple Mount (they pray only at the Wailing Wall at its base), some ultra religious militants are demanding not only to pray there but also to destroy the Dome of the Rock mosque and rebuild the ancient temple. Only a few years ago, only fringe lunatics held such views. Now they are entering mainstream discourse.
Israel officially accepts only Jewish orthodoxy as legitimate. There are few reform synagogues. Most of Israel’s Jews are either orthodox or secular. They know nothing of the more liberal Reform Judaism practiced in the United States. What is needed is a reverse birthright program: one that brings young Israelis to the United States to learn about modern Jewish practices.
Ultimately, Yoram suggests the problem for Israel is the one John Kerry made recent reference to: if it holds on to the West Bank, it cannot remain both democratic and Jewish. The demography will require it to deny equal rights to the Arabs who live there, thus eventually meriting the appellation “apartheid.” This is an opinion many Israeli leaders have expressed, so it is hard to understand why it caused such a furor recently in the US.
Israel faces a difficult future. A third intifada is a possibility, though the Palestinians seem weary of the violence associated with the first two. A nonviolent one is possible, a well-informed Arab journalist told me recently, but only after dissolving the Palestinian Authority, so it would not be faced with the difficulty of repressing the rebellion. Yoram suggested the BDS (boycotts, disinvestment and sanctions) movement will grow. Israel will increasingly stand alone against a world that regards it as extreme and uncompromising. Rather than being a beacon of hope, it will be isolated in a hostile environment.
Asked about the future of Israel’s Arabs, Yoram suggested that its national anthem “Hatikvah” (the Hope) could be amended to be more inclusive. This is the current version:
As long as deep in the heart,
The soul of a Jew yearns,
And forward to the East
To Zion, an eye looks
Our hope will not be lost,
The hope of two thousand years,
To be a free nation in our land,
The land of Zion and Jerusalem.
I have my doubts any amendment will satisfy Israel’s more than 20% Arab citizens, but the Israel that would at least give it a try would also be one that signed up for the deal Mahmoud Abbas was offering. That unfortunately is not the Israel we’ve got. But it is the Israel we need.
*Virtually all of what Yoram said about what the Palestinians were prepared to agree has now been published, based on American sources: Inside the talks’ failure: US officials open up.
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Obama’s foreign policy can still surprise
Monday President Obama defended his foreign policy by emphasizing his reluctance to use force, except as a last resort. Here is the press conference at which he spoke in the Philippines (the relevant remarks begin about minute 33 and go on for six more):
Knowledgeable defenders are also out in force: Steven Cook and Michael Brooks absolve him of responsibility for what ails the Middle East, while Heather Hurlburt ponders his legacy.
I think it is too early to make definitive judgments about Obama’s foreign policy. As we know only too well from the history of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, early judgments of success or failure are often premature. The President is right to emphasize that foreign policy requires lots of singles and doubles (not to mention walks) as well as home runs. It also takes the full nine innnings. Certainly on Ukraine it will be a decade or more to see how things work out. Ditto Egypt.
But that doesn’t mean I’m prepared to suspend judgment when the Administration strikes out. That’s what is happening in Syria. Somehow the President sees no viable options there besides American boots on the ground and arming the opposition. The former he correctly rules out as unacceptable to virtually everyone. The latter he pooh-poohs, but there are ample signs he is doing it, or at least more of it, than in the past.
But that does not exhaust the options in Syria. As Fred Hof points out, we could recognize the Syrian Opposition Coalition as the legitimate government of Syria and provide the resources required to help it govern. We could play a stronger role in coordinating and marshalling international assistance. We could also ground the Syrian air force, which is a major factor in preventing liberated areas from governing effectively.
In Egypt, too, the Administration is swinging and missing. It continues to pretend that there is a democratic transition in progress. That is far from true. Egypt’s election next month will coronate Field Marshall Sisi as president, restoring the military autocracy. His secular and Islamist opponents are jailed, hundreds condemned to death in one-day trials for which “show” would be a compliment. The media is under his control. The election, while “free and fair” at the polls, will be conducted in an atmosphere that does not allow open political competition. The Administration needs to find a way to acknowledge reality, even if it thinks continuing aid to Egypt is necessary for national security reasons.
The much-predicted failure of John Kerry’s efforts to revive the Israel/Palestine peace process does not, in my way of thinking, count heavily against the Administration. He was right to try. The stars were not well aligned on either side: the split between Hamas and the Palestinian authority as well as the heavy representation of settler and other right-wing interests in Netanyahu’s coalition militated against an agreement from the first. The supposed unity coalition on the Palestinian side–yet to emerge–will not improve the situation, so long as Hamas refuses to recognize Israel and Netanyahu insists that the recognition be of an explicitly “Jewish” state.
One key to Obama’s foreign policy legacy lies in the talks with Iran. If he is able to push Tehran back from nuclear weapons, putting at least a year between a decision to make them and an actual bomb, that will be a big achievement, provided there is iron-clad verification. Whether the Congress will go along with lifting sanctions in exchange is still a big question.
Another big piece of Obama’s foreign policy legacy could come from an unexpected direction: trade talks. In his first term, the president contented himself with ratification of free trade pacts that had been negotiated by his predecessor (with the Republic of Korea, Colombia and Panama). That was small beer compared to the two massive free trade negotiations he has pursued in the second term: the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Dwarfing even the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, these are giant trade deals, involving dozens of countries with potentially big impacts on trade, economic growth, and international relations.
Trade folks agree that President Obama has not yet demonstrated the kind of strong commitment to these negotiations that will be required to complete them and get them approved in Congress. But if he wants to have a serious legacy, he will turn to them as soon as the mid-term elections are over in November and try to conclude at least TTIP well before campaigning starts for the 2016 presidential contest. That would shore up America’s alliance with Europe (among other things by facilitating US energy exports), make the TTP more likely to happen, and align most of the world with the US as challenges arise from Russia and China.
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The perils of Sonja and Jelena
Ratko Dmitrović, Director and Editor in Chief of Serbia’s daily Večernje Novosti, writes (translation courtesy of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies):
How are the views of Kristijan Golubović [a convicted armed robber, extortionist, drug and arms trafficker] and his biography more dangerous for Serbian society than the views and biography of Sonja Biserko?
What are Sonja Biserko’s sins? This is what Dmitrović cites:
…she testified at the Hague in order to prove the genocidal proneness of the State of Serbia, making lists snitching Serbian intellectuals, professors, public figures…
Dmitrović puts Jelena Milic in the same category. Her sins? According to him, she
…claims that Serbia should have been bombed in 1999. That was, as she explains, the only way to prevent Milosevic’s crimes in Kosovo in 1998/1999.
These allegedly odious views make the two women as morally repugnant to Dmitrović as Kristijan Golubović, a notorious convicted criminal. Dmitrović can’t abide the two women having more access to the media than Golubović does.
Let’s leave aside whether Jelena and Sonja, both of whom I know and esteem for their courage and conviction, actually did and said what Dmitrović claims. They can answer better on that score than I can. The question is whether the editor of a major Belgrade newspaper is unable to distinguish between the moral effect of criticizing the (Milosevic) government’s behavior and the violent criminal activities of Golubović?
I imagine he can. But he doesn’t want to. He is using his freedom of speech–to which he is as entitled as Jelena and Sonja–to make their lives even more perilous than they already are. The implications seem clear to me. If they are endangering Serbian youth, shouldn’t someone do something about it? If they are more corrosive to Serb values, as he suggests, than the Russian-killing Rambo, shouldn’t someone stop them? Dmitrović is not alone in thinking this way. The Serbian People’s Movement Naši (NSP Naši) lists them among the 30 greatest Serb-haters and traitors among public figures.
I’ll leave it to the Serbian government and courts to decide whether these particular uses of constitutionally protected freedoms violate Serbian law. They certainly violate American sensibilities, which makes little difference under the circumstances. But both the international community and the Serbian government should be stating clearly that they dislike what Dmitrović is saying and regard the safety of Sonja and Jelena, both of whom live and work in Belgrade, as paramount.
Serbia has come a long way in the 13+ years since Milosevic fell. The recent election confirmed its future lies in Europe, where those who know Jelena and Sonja regard them as among Belgrade’s finest. They should not be made martyrs to a European Serbia, or asked to sacrifice their homes in order to be safe and secure.
PS: For more on what Jelena’s organization has to say about Serbia’s relations with Russia, see this. I find it amusing that a former prime minister has forgotten about Russia sanctioning Serbia, but I understand those who take it more seriously.
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The sooner, the better
With Aleksandar Vučić confirmed as prime minister of Serbia on the wave of a strong parliamentary election result last month, questions arise about what the new government should do about Kosovo. On the well-founded principle of doing big but potentially unpopular things you know you will have to do as quickly as possible in a new mandate, here is my advice, composed in response to a colleague’s queries:
Q: Can you give me reasons why the new Serbian government should recognize the independence of Kosovo?
Belgrade has said many times it will not recognize Kosovo’s “unilateral declaration of independence.” But no one “recognizes” independence, which is declared by those wanting it, in this case not unilaterally but rather in close coordination with both Europe and the United States. Britain never “recognized” America’s independence, which was a dramatic and important political rather than a legal act.
Belgrade has already accepted, in the agreement it reached with Pristina last year, the legitimacy of the Kosovo constitutional and legal order on the whole territory of Kosovo. It is not a great leap from there to recognizing Kosovo’s territorial integrity and legitimate authority.
Kosovo is now starting to build its armed forces. They will be designed with Serbia as the main potential threat, since Belgrade does not accept Kosovo as sovereign and continues, despite the Belgrade/Pristina agreement, to say it claims sovereignty over Kosovo’s entire territory. If Belgrade were to recognize, Pristina would be able to reduce its future military commitments and reorient them towards participation in international peacekeeping deployments. That would enable Serbia to do likewise. Kosovo will eventually become a NATO member. Recognition would enable Serbia to become one as well, if it decides to move in that direction.
If Serbia does not want to recognize Kosovo in the near term, the easy way out for now is to allow it to enter the United Nations. That will not be fully satisfactory, as it will not necessarily lead to diplomatic relations, but it would certainly be a step in the right direction. The Kosovars often point to the “two Germanys” precedent. I don’t really think that applies, since on the Pristina side there is no intention whatsoever of reunification, but from Belgrade’s point of view the “two Germanys” precedent should be seen as an attractive one.
How will recognition help the region enter the EU?
The big benefit to Belgrade of recognition, followed by establishment of diplomatic relations with it and border demarcation, would be closing one of the few remaining war and peace issues in the Balkans and thereby removing a major barrier to Serbia’s EU membership. I don’t know two neighboring states without mutual recognition, diplomatic relations and a demarcated border who have good neighborly relations, which are required for EU membership.
The 23 members of the EU that have recognized Kosovo will not accept Serbia as a member without Belgrade recognition and diplomatic relations. Only one EU member taking that position is needed to impose the policy on the rest. I’ve spoken with diplomats from half dozen of those countries who assure me that is their policy. Moreover, even if the governments were tempted their parliaments won’t ratify Serbia’s membership in the EU without recognition.
How will it help economic development in the region?
Kosovo, even under current adverse economic conditions in Europe, is still a relatively dynamic economy, in part due to its young and still growing population. Serbia is aging rapidly and declining in numbers. It would benefit enormously from increased trade with and through Kosovo, which in recent years has relied far more on Macedonia and Albania, to Serbia’s detriment. Completion of the Durres/Pristina road to Nis would bring enormous benefits to both Kosovo and Serbia, but this is unlikely to happen without recognition and diplomatic relations.
Serbia is central not only to the geography of the Balkans but also to its fate. But it cannot stand in the way of Kosovo’s progress without hurting its own EU prospects. Leaving this issue unresolved for another four years will mean less growth, fewer jobs, lower investment and reduced pensions for Serbia and its citizens. Recognition and establishment of diplomatic relations are bitter pills for Serbian politicians, but accompanied by protection of Serbs and Serbian sites in Kosovo they are needed to cure what ails the region. The sooner, the better.
PS: For analysis of the Serbian election campaign and results, try NDI’s Letter from Belgrade.
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Battlefield to conference room
Today’s US/EU/Russia/Ukraine Joint Diplomatic Statement aims to de-escalate a conflict that has been spiraling for weeks. The steps it proposes are straightforward:
All sides must refrain from any violence, intimidation or provocative actions. The participants strongly condemned and rejected all expressions of extremism, racism and religious intolerance, including anti-Semitism.
All illegal armed groups must be disarmed; all illegally seized buildings must be returned to legitimate owners; all illegally occupied streets, squares and other public places in Ukrainian cities and towns must be vacated.
Amnesty will be granted to protesters and to those who have left buildings and other public places and surrendered weapons, with the exception of those found guilty of capital crimes.
The Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE) is to provide monitors, as had been hoped in Crimea (but Russia did not permit it, preferring to annex the peninsula).
Like many diplomatic statements, this one is well-intentioned but riddled with ways to wriggle out. There will always be violence, intimidation or provocation on which one side can base its own violence intimidation or provocation against the other. Disarmament of armed groups generally requires a superior force to undertake the task. Which building and other seizures are illegal is in the eye of the beholder. Where are those who allegedly committed capital crimes to be tried and by whom?
Whether the statement is a turning point will depend on political will. It is difficult for me to imagine that President Putin is ready to de-escalate. He has been on a winning wicket both in Ukraine and in Syria. Why would he want to stop now? The statement presumably forestalls further EU and US sanctions, but he knows as well as everyone in the DC and Brussels press corps that agreement on those was going to be difficult. Ukrainian military and police action to counter Russian-sponsored takeovers in the east has so far failed. I suppose Putin knows even better than this morning’s New York Times that Russia’s economy was on the rocks even before the Ukraine crisis. It will get worse, but since when did Putin or Putinism worry about the economy? Oil prices around $100/barrel are all he has needed to get Russia up off its knees. Crisis helps keep the oil price up.
So I’ll be surprised if this agreement holds, or even begins to change the perilous direction Ukraine is heading in. But the statement includes an important bit that should not be ignored:
The announced constitutional process will be inclusive, transparent and accountable. It will include the immediate establishment of a broad national dialogue, with outreach to all of Ukraine’s regions and political constituencies, and allow for the consideration of public comments and proposed amendments.
The Ukraine crisis, like the Syrian one, is fundamentally a political crisis: it is more about perceptions of legitimacy and distribution of power than about who military balance or who speaks which language. We’ve seen in Libya, Egypt and Syria the results of failure to conduct an inclusive and transparent discussion of the kind of state their people want and how its leadership will be held accountable. It is very difficult to move from violence to the negotiating table unless one side is defeated or both sides recognize they will not gain from further violence. Tunisia and Yemen have done it, but they are the exceptions, not the rule.
The odds of successfully moving from the battlefield to the conference room in Ukraine are low. But that is the challenge our diplomats now face, along with the OSCE monitors. I can only wish them success, no matter how unlikely that may be.
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What to do about whoppers
The Russian Foreign Ministry tweeted this today:
#Lavrov: Active Russian involvement in European affairs has always brought long periods of peace and growth to all European countries.
He must have lived through a different Cold War than the one I experienced, along with millions of Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians. Not to mention Ukrainians. In another whopper, he denies that there are Russian agents in southeast Ukraine.
NATO today gave the lie to Moscow’s claims that it has not built up military forces on the Ukrainian border by publishing satellite photos. Moscow appears to be hesitating to use them, because it knows as well as any Ukrainian that invasion (and its aftermath) will not be a cakewalk. Instead it is bargaining for a federal Ukraine, one that affords the eastern and southern provinces a wide degree of autonomy. That is not the worst idea I’ve heard, but Kiev will have to be careful to ensure that the result is not a kind of stealth independence. Americans may have forgotten where and what Republika Srpska is, but the Russians know and no doubt see it has an attractive model. They are even offering it hundreds of millions in euro loans.
But Ukraine is different from Bosnia. Residents of eastern Ukraine identify as Ukrainians even if relatively few say it is easier for them to speak Ukrainian than Russian. A pre-crisis Bertelsmann Foundation study of language, identity and politics in Ukraine found:
Nothwithstanding any linguistic, political, or cultural differences, the vast majority of Ukrainians consider Ukraine their motherland. Even in the south of the country, 88% believe that Ukraine is their home country. This conviction is even more popular among residents of the allegedly pro-Russian east–93% share this belief, in comparison to the traditionally patriotic west and centre (99%).
Nor is there much difference between Russian and Ukrainian speakers in Ukraine on the importance of democracy (both rank it close to 8 on a 10-point scale) or satisfaction with how democracy has performed in Ukraine (4.6 on a 10-point scale). Crimea was “poles apart” from the rest of the country on whether Ukraine should favor a Russian or European orientation.
The question is what can be done to prevent a Russian invasion and to make one unsuccessful if prevention fails. Moscow is working hard to polarize opinion in eastern and southern Ukraine, trying to ween Ukrainians from their Ukrainian identity and promote the Russian alternative. Kiev has to be careful not to make that task easier. This means caution in dealing with Russia-supporting protesters, who are occupying government buildings in several eastern cities. It also means avoiding legislation or other moves that would infringe on existing rights to speak and use Russian. The right posture if Ukraine wants to avoid invasion is one that is welcoming and friendly to Russian speakers, ensuring as much as possible that they retain their Ukrainian identities.
But invasion may not be avoidable. Some have talked of an armed insurgency against any Russian takeover in the east or south. The trouble with that idea is that insurgencies take a long time and are far less often effective than nonviolent struggles, as Maria Stephan and Marciej Bartkowski discuss this morning. Nonviolent resistance succeeds quicker, better and more often, regardless of the character of the regime against which it is used. Violence would compel Russian speakers in Ukraine to make a choice between speaking Russian and being Ukrainian. That’s what Moscow wants. Kiev, as well as Brussels and Washington, should not.
Lavrov’s whoppers are advantageous. The more he says things that can be readily and definitively disproved, the less appealing the Russian alternative will be. If Moscow invades, presumably claiming to protect Russian speakers from alleged abuse, the West and Kiev will need enormous self-control to avoid making things worse. Washington should be supporting pro-Western civil society groups in eastern and southern Ukraine even now. They will be the nucleus of any nonviolent resistance that emerges later.
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