Israel/Palestine Conflict: What can a President Do?

For decades, American presidents have tried to broker a lasting peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. But what can “we the people” expect the U.S. president to do about this complex conflict? 

As leader of the free world, the U.S. president has a unique function -- mediator and peacemaker. The powerful President of the United States is a special diplomat that can influence foreign policy like no one else through personal relationships, promises of grand support, and threats of serious sanctions. 

But as Commander–in-Chief, the president is also charged with looking out for US interests around the world, in the short and long-term. Presidents have to be careful that negotiations don’t become too politicized so that other nations can trust our policies to have some continuity.

President Bush’s January 2008 visit to the Middle East is the latest example of the executive’s special role. The president, traveling to the region for the first time in the seven years of his presidency, wants an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty to be signed during his last year in office. 

The U.S. interest in Israel and Palestine lies in the strategic importance of the surrounding region, including access to the oil there. The U.S. gives Israel billions of dollars of aid each year, more than any to other country. The money is used to buy weapons and technology (often from the US), to promote political and economic stability in Israel and the region, and for humanitarian purposes relating to the constant conflict there. Providing aid to Israel is also seen as a way to maintain a foothold in the region. Among other things, the US relies on Israel to provide intelligence on its (mostly Arab) neighbors.

President Bush’s interest likely lies also in the way history will judge his leadership and legacy. He wants to leave a mark, but will Israelis and Palestinians cooperate?

Mr. Bush Goes to Israel

President Bush’s January 2008 visit comes at a time of increased tension in the area due to escalating Israeli and Palestinian violence in Gaza during the two weeks after Bush held a peace summit in Annapolis. 

Mr. Bush has said that the peace agreement should include an end to the Israeli occupation of territory captured in the “Six-Day War” of 1967 and guarantee Israel secure and defensible borders with formal recognition of Israel as a state.

But Bush did not convene any meetings between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, nor did he meet with the elected government of the Palestinian people, called the Hamas party.

Who is Hamas?

Hamas entered public consciousness in the late 1980s, during the first Palestinian uprising, intifada. The group violently protested peace negotiations with Israel through suicide bombings that killed dozens of Israelis. Publically, then-President Yasir Arafat, leader of the Fatah party, neither supported nor denounced Hamas, but he was friendly with its founder Ahmed Yassin despite international pleas for Arafat to condemn the group.

Hamas’ military branch, al-Qassam Brigades, continued to bomb Israeli civilians throughout the 1990s and then encouraged the second Palestinian intifada, which broke out in 2000.

For these reasons, the Bush administration considers Hamas a “terrorist entity,” but Hamas plays a complicated and important role in the region.

The other side of Hamas

Hamas is a multifaceted organization not only responsible for violence, but also for charity. The group provides child care, education, and other social services to Palestinians in need. This is likely one reason that Palestinians elected Hamas to the majority of seats in parliament in January 2006.

The Palestinians’ democratic decision created a major storm since Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s existence and has vowed to take over the contested West Bank, which borders the Jordan River. For more on the conflict between Israel and Palestine. click here.

For the history of this feud, click here.

The two faces of Hamas illuminate the complicated dynamics in the region - shedding light on why no US President has yet been able to broker a successful Mid East peace deal (and not for lack of trying).

Bush plan

Peace talks proposed and pursued by US presidents have focused on resolving three interrelated issues: the Israeli occupation of territories seized following the “Six-Day War” in 1967, the return of displaced Palestinian refugees, and choosing a capital that both sides can agree on.

For the most part, President Bush has followed the rough outlines set forth by his predecessors. He did not give specifics, but recommended drawing new defensible borders, creating a proper Palestinian state, and removing Israeli settlements in the West Bank. He also suggested compensation for Palestinian refugees, though no clues on who would pay the reparations.

Further, The White House announced that Air Force commander, Lt. Gen. William M. Fraser III, will serve as a mediator of disputes between the Israelis and Palestinians over their previous agreements.

Bush has said that although the U.S. can help, America will not be able to decide the terms of the agreement between Israel and Palestine. He further pointed out that the only way to have lasting peace is for the inhabitants of the region to come together.

More than his predecessors, however, President Bush has emphasized “promoting democracy,” both in the Middle East and around the world. The irony, of course, is that Hamas itself was democratically elected.

Shifting Dynamics: A Three Way Tug-of-War

Even more problematic than the democratic election of a “terrorist entity,” is the three-way tug-of-war that Hamas’s rise to legitimate power has created. For a U.S. president seeking to mediate a peace agreement in the region, the election of Hamas has rendered the complex conflict between Israel and Palestine only a piece of the puzzle.

When Hamas took power, the Bush administration largely cut off aid to the Palestinian government, or Palestinian Authority, which was created under the 1993 Oslo accords with Israel and had been dominated by the secular Fatah movement for years. In June, 2007, however, a unity government deal between Hamas and Fatah fell apart and Hamas forcibly took over the Gaza strip.

Since Hamas seized Gaza, the administration has sought to demonstrate support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in part by increasing aid to the Palestine Authority, of which he is still official leader. 

Providing aid to Palestinians makes good political sense. Economic prosperity in the region is seen as a way to promote the long-term security of Israel and make a lasting peace deal more likely. Under international law, Israel remains the occupying power in the West Bank and Gaza and the Palestinian Authority has been providing health, education and welfare services to the roughly 4 million Palestinians in those territories that Israel would have to finance in its absence.

Providing continuing aid is also a strategic move - if the U.S cuts funding, the governments of the Palestinians’ Arab neighbors are likely to step in, seizing the chance to improve their own relations with the Palestinian government at our expense.

Nevertheless, the three way power struggle among Israel, Hamas, and Fatah – each of which are actively opposing an agreement between the other two – make a situation that is delicate at best, more fragile still.

Perhaps more than any U.S. president before, our next president will require not only in-depth knowledge about the region, but also supreme negotiating skills. Even that may not be enough.

What do you think?

Is “democracy” worth fighting for on its own merits?

Which presidential candidate do you think is best prepared to navigate the complicated dynamics in the Middle East? Find out the positions that your representatives – and potential future presidents- have taken here:

Click here for a Chronology of Major efforts at presidential Middle East peacemaking

 

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Update Posted on: 1/18/2008