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The Annapolis Conference which is taking place as I write this is presented as a start toward solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (it was originally intended to be more than just a start, but it quickly became evident that this was unrealistic).

I’ve argued that Israel and the Palestinians are now almost irrelevant to the conference, whose real purpose is to help the US get concessions from (primarily) Saudi Arabia and Syria regarding Iraq.

So the Israeli right wing opposes the conference because it fears that some of these concessions will be paid for with Israeli coin, and Hamas opposes it because they will weaken its patron, Iran, which is happy to see the US stuck in the Iraqi sand.

But it’s unlikely that this gambit is going to help the US, either. Here’s why.

Drilling a Hole in the Lifeboat
By Barry Rubin

What would you do if your foreign policy agenda had these priorities:

• Get Arab and European support for solving the Iraq crisis.
• Mobilize Arab and European forces against a threat led by Iran and its allies, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah.
• Get Iran to stop its campaign to get nuclear weapons.
• Reestablish American credibility toward friends and deterrence toward enemies.
• Reduce the level of Israel-Palestinian conflict.

That pretty much describes the U.S. framework for dealing with the Middle East nowadays. The Annapolis conference is not going to contribute to these goals. The most likely outcome is either failure or a non-event portrayed as a victory because it took place at all. No one is going to say: We are so grateful at the United States becoming more active on Arab-Israeli issues that we are going to back its policy on other issues.

On the contrary, the conference is more likely to show the inability of the United States to produce results, thus undermining belief in U.S. leverage in the region in general. It shines the spotlight on the most divisive issue, the great excuse for not doing more to help U.S. efforts, raising its prominence. What most of Washington simply fails to understand is that any real demand for Palestinian or Arab concessions will be fodder for radical groups and frighten Arab regimes, pushing the latter away from support for America rather than toward it. And any Israeli concessions obtained by this process will not satisfy their demands either.

Despite thousands of claims by lots of famous people, national leaders, and respected journals, solving the Arab-Israeli conflict will not make radical Islamism or terrorism go away. Would you like to know why? Because even if this issue could be solved — which isn’t about to happen for reasons requiring a different article — to do so would necessitate a compromise including an end to the conflict, acceptance of Israel, and compromises by the Arab side. These steps would inflame the extremists and make any Arab rulers who accepted it vulnerable to being called traitors. It would increase instability in the Arab world, also by removing the conflict as splendid excuse and basis for mobilizing support for the current rulers. Arab politicians understand this reality; most people in the West don’t.

Such considerations are accurate analytically but the conference will take place anyway. It has been reinterpreted by the U.S. government as the opening of a long-term process rather than its culmination. The analogy is to the Madrid meeting of 1991 — which started a nine-year-long failed peace process — rather than to the Camp David summit of 2000, which marked its breakdown.

Given the fact that the meeting is going to take place, and one would like to see as little damage result as possible, what is the worst mistake that could be made to ensure that an already difficult situation becomes worse? Answer: invite Syria.

Let’s remember a few things. The meeting was called to deal with the Palestinian issue. Bringing in the Syrian question is going to destroy that focus. Palestinian leaders know this to be true and no doubt are horrified by Damascus getting equal time.

But that’s just the start of the problem. Run your eye back up the page to the five points listed as priorities for U.S. policy.

Iraq? Syria is the main sponsor of the terrorist insurgency. It has a deep interest in ensuring that no moderate, stable, pro-Western regime takes root in Iraq.

The radical alliance? Syria is a leading factor in the problem, a partner with Iran for twenty years. Anyone who believes that Damascus can be split from Tehran understands nothing about the mutual benefits Syria gets from the alliance, far greater than anything the West could possibly give to its dictator President Bashar al-Asad.

Iranian nuclear weapons? When Iran gets atomic weapons it will be a great day for Syria, ensuring its strategic protection, damaging Western influence, and helping the radical Islamist cause that Syria backs.

American credibility? It undermines years of U.S. efforts to pressure Bashar away from radical adventurism. Syria can now show that it can kill Americans soldiers in Iraq, murder democratic Lebanese politicians, foment Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip, and sponsor Hizballah’s effort to seize power in Lebanon without incurring any serious risk or cost.

On the contrary, Syria is now making demands on the United States for concessions in order to entice it to show up. This is happening at the very moment when plans for an international trial of Syrian leaders for political assassinations in Lebanon is gathering momentum, as Syria’s campaign to install a puppet government in Beirut has just been foiled.

Is the conference’s purpose, however ill-conceived, to make progress on Arab-Israeli peace and strengthen the Palestinian Authority? Having Syria present lets in the main Arab sponsor of Hamas, a state working tirelessly to throw out the current Palestinian leadership and raise the level of Arab-Israeli violence.

. . .

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA). His latest books are The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan) and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).

Technorati Tags: Annapolis Conference, Syria, Israel, Palestinians

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov. 26 — The Sudanese police arrested a British schoolteacher and accused her of insulting Islam after she allowed her 7-year-old pupils to name a class teddy bear Muhammad, Sudanese officials said today…

Ms. [Gillian] Gibbons is in jail, pending further investigation, [Government spokesman Dr. Rabie A. Atti] said. “If she is innocent, she will be set free,” said Dr. Rabie. If she is guilty, Dr. Rabie said, she will face punishment, possibly including lashes…

According to BBC, Ms. Gibbons, 54, asked a seven-year-old girl to bring in a teddy bear and for her classmates to pick a name for it…

When it came time to vote, 20 out of 23 children choose Muhammad, one of the most common names in the Muslim word.

The students then took turns bringing the bear home on weekends, and wrote a diary about what they did with it. According to the BBC, the children’s entries were bound together in a book with a picture of the bear on the cover and a message that read, “My name is Muhammad.” — NY Times

I’m prepared to bet that it will turn out that the unfortunate teacher will be released upon payment of a large ‘fine’, like the Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor held for 8 years in Libya (see The Barbary Pirates at the Security Council).

The fact that ‘respect for Islam’ is used as an excuse for political intimidation and sometimes outright extortion does not tend to make us non-Muslims feel a high regard towards Islam.

I would be pleased if some of my Muslim readers would take time off from trying to hack this site and would comment on this.

Technorati Tags: Islam, Sudan

The US State Department and others in the Bush Administration aren’t stupid. Yet, they supposedly believe that the Annapolis conference will bring peace. Efraim Inbar lists five false premises on which this initiative is based:

The first is that Palestinian society can be reformed by outsiders. Middle Eastern societies have already proven their resistance to attempts by Western powers to change their old ways of doing business. It is naïve to believe that political and social dynamics rooted in centuries-old traditions can be easily manipulated by well-intentioned, but presumptuous Westerners. President George W. Bush should have learned this lesson from his experience in Iraq…

…second… that economic assistance to the Palestinians can alleviate political problems. Since the Oslo Accords in September 1993, the Palestinian Authority has received the most economic aid per capita in the world. Yet billions of euros transferred to the PA have been squandered or misused. Like some other Third World actors, the PA has been ingenious in siphoning a not insignificant amount of the aid it gets to those least in need of outside support…

…third… that Mahmoud Abbas can become the agent for change and therefore he deserves the support of the West… The Hamas takeover of Gaza is an obvious indication of his weakness.

…fourth… that Palestinian society can be quickly transformed into a good neighbor of Israel and that a stable settlement is within reach. Since the Oslo Accords, the PA’s education system, media, and dramatic militarization process has done great damage to the collective Palestinian psyche… Numerous facets of Palestinian society have been radicalized and the widespread influence and popularity of Hamas is a clear indication of such a process… What they expect to get from Israel is totally unrealistic… Palestinian demands for bringing refugees from 60 years ago and their descendents into Israel and for control over parts of old Jerusalem are simply not acceptable in today’s Israel.

…fifth… that Hamas control of Gaza can be uprooted by intra-Palestinian politics. While Hamas’s takeover of Gaza is correctly identified by the US as a victory for the Islamist forces in the Middle East and inimical to Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement, a Fatah led by Abbas cannot bring Hamas back under the PA umbrella.

OK, so it won’t fly. But as I said, they are not stupid. So why are they trying to launch it?

One word: Iraq. There is nothing more important to the US than a non-disastrous exit from Iraq, and two of the major players in the upcoming conference (they are not Israel and the Palestinians) hold what appear to be the keys. I’m talking about Saudi Arabia and Syria, of course.

Recently, there has been a phenomenon of Iraqi Sunni support for US operations against foreign Sunni insurgents associated with al-Qaeda. This is being called the first sign of real progress for the US in Iraq. As the major Sunni power in the region, Saudi Arabia can certainly influence the Iraqi tribal leaders; and they can reduce the infiltration of foreign insurgents (most of whom are Saudis). Recent improvements in the situation in Iraq indicate that perhaps they have already begun to exert their influence.

In return, the Saudis want their vision of the future of the former Palestine Mandate — the Saudi/Arab League initiative — to be imposed on Israel. In this way they, not Iran, will be the ones to finally put the Jews in their place, and they will take their rightful position as the leader of the Arab world. And President Bush’s recent speech indicates that the US views this plan positively.

Syria’s contribution is quite simple. They are the major suppliers of arms to the Sunni insurgents, and both fighters and supplies pass through their porous border. Former head of the Coalition Provisional authority L. Paul Bremer accused Bashar Assad of inciting Shiite factions to wage jihad against US and British forces. What Washington wants of them today is, in Bush’s immortal words, to “Stop doing this shit!”

And what Syria wants is also simple: the Golan Heights, without having to give Israel anything in return; and a free hand to exploit Lebanon.

The Arabists in the State Department that are pushing this plan are doing their best to convince others in the Administration that it will not seriously damage Israel’s security, and that it will enable the US to get out of Iraq without leaving a violent civil war in its wake. Inbar and others have argued persuasively that the first proposition is false.

Regarding the second, we need merely ask: what incentive will Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran have to behave themselves once US forces have gone?

Technorati Tags: Annapolis conference, Syria, Saudi Arabia

Choose one of the following:

1. The Annapolis conference is likely to make it possible for Israelis and Palestinians to start a process of overcoming differences, which will ultimately lead to a two-state solution. Both sides actually want this; they only need to be prepared to make compromises and find creative solutions.
2. The Annapolis conference will be just another exercise in futility, with lots of photo-ops and posturing, but no change in the situation, because the sides are too far apart.
3. The Annapolis conference will be a venue at which the US, influenced by Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations by means of threats and promises about Iraq and oil, will force Israel to concede control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and possibly even accept some form of responsibility for the Arab refugees. The Palestinians and their backers have no interest in a two-state solution other than as a step on the path to replacing the Jewish state with an Arab one.

It’s clear that your attitude toward this meeting will depend on which you choose. Defense Minister Ehud Barak apparently likes no. 1:

Barak said he planned to do everything in his power to ensure that the summit would be successful. He has met in recent months several times with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salaam Fayad and was a proponent of the decision to allow 500 armed Palestinian policemen to deploy in Nablus…

“There is a high chance that it [the summit] will succeed,” he said. “It will begin the process. The real test will be when we discuss the core issues when the talks begin after the summit.” — Jerusalem Post

There are others, however, who do not:

“There is no real partner for peace. The Palestinians have a very weak government,” [opposition leader MK Binyamin Netanyahu] told IDF Radio. The unilateral concessions being made by Israel “do not strengthen security but according to every security official opposed to these moves, they endanger the security of Israel’s citizens and soldiers. We have already paid a price for this process and we must stop it,” Netanyahu declared.

Minister for Strategic Matters Avigdor Lieberman told IBA Radio Wednesday that there were two possible outcomes to Annapolis: the first – a complete Israeli surrender to the PA’s demands, and the second – an impasse in the negotiations. He repeated that Israel must demand the PA’s acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state as a precondition for further negotiations. — Arutz Sheva

So which is it? Ami Isseroff seems to think that because the official position of the Israeli government and the point of view of the majority of Israelis is that a negotiated two-state solution is desirable, then anyone who does not support the Annapolis conference might as well join Hamas:

The ZOA and the the anti-peace propaganda of a minority of extremists serves to promote the narrow political views of those groups. In reality, it serves the interests of the enemies of Israel. This vicious and hysterical campaign [against Annapolis] does not represent the position of the government of the state of Israel, nor that of the majority of Israelis, Jewish and non-Jewish. It paints Israel as a pariah state that does not want peace. It paints Zionism as a reactionary movement that desires to use force to dominate the Middle East. It paints the “Israel lobby” as a collection of chauvinistic and xenophobic warmongers, uninterested in the strategic needs and goals of the United States, single-mindedly pursuing an unrealistic messianic vision for Israel. It does more for Arab and Muslim extremism then all the drivel of Mearsheimer and Walt, and all the ill-judged and ignorant diatribes of Jimmy Carter. — ZioNation, ‘The real Zionist position on Annapolis’

But there is a gaping hole in Isseroff’s argument: the unstated premise that the Annapolis conference will advance a peaceful two-state solution.

Most of the arguments of the ZOA which Isseroff targets in his piece are aimed exactly against this premise, and not against such a solution, if it could be achieved:

In November, a U.S.-sponsored conference involving Israel, the Palestinian Authority [PA] and possibly several Arab states will convene in Annapolis to frame yet another plan meant to end the Arab-Israeli war and create a Palestinian state. This conference is doomed to fail. The reason: The Palestinians’ ultimate goal is not statehood, but rather Israel’s destruction.

That fact has remained unchanged since Israel embarked on the disastrous Oslo process with Yasir Arafat in 1993, culminating in a terror war after then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered a Palestinian state on nearly all of the disputed territories, which was rejected.

Despite this, the Bush administration, with international approval, is proceeding on the fiction that Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party, which he co-founded with Arafat and which controls the PA, want peace and accept Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.

If only it were true. The PA is required under signed commitments in the Oslo agreements and also in the 2003 road map peace plan to arrest terrorists, confiscate their weaponry and end the incitement to hatred and murder, including against America, in PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps. It has failed to do so. — Morton Klein, ZOA President [my emphasis]

Klein makes it quite clear that he simply does not believe that the PA and its Arab sponsors have peaceful intentions, and that is why he opposes the Annapolis conference. There is also the issue of Hamas, which is poised to step in and take advantage of any Israeli concessions. It is slander to say that opponents to Annapolis are “opponents of peace”, when they are actually opponents of a pseudo-peace that, like Oslo, will ultimately result in war — a war that will be fought at a strategic disadvantage.

What about option 2, that Annapolis will turn out to be exactly nothing? This is probably the best that we can hope for, but there are rumblings that suggest that we may not be that lucky. Saudi Arabia (in the person of Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisa) has announced that it will attend, as will Syria. It seems to me that the only inducement strong enough to bring them would be a promise from the US that there will be substantive Israeli concessions.

We may find out which description of Annapolis was correct this coming week.

Technorati Tags: Annapolis conference, Israel