Authors: Elliott Abrams
That evening, Rice and
Hadley hosted a dinner for Abbas and his team in which the focus was on what sort of agreement with Israel might be possible. A full final status agreement? How can you close the gaps? Abu Ala'a replied, telling Rice that they were working against 100 years of enmity. It had taken Fatah and Arafat 30 years, from 1965 to 1995, to persuade Palestinians to accept the need for a two-state solution. It was only in 1988 that the PNC, the PLO's legislative body, accepted it. Backchannel work had led to Oslo, but then there had been no progress; Netanyahu's government had focused on a deal with Syria instead. After the interlude of Camp David, there had been years of intifada. So negotiations are hard and there is great mistrust. I cannot see how we solve Jerusalem, he added, and then there is the refugee issue; they cannot imagine any “right of return” and we cannot imagine an agreement without it. Territory is the easiest issue. What we ought to do now is not seek a framework agreement or a final status agreement but an agreement on a
number, a percent of territory. Yasser Abed Rabbo, who usually seemed to me the sharpest member of their team, reminded us that the Geneva Initiative
(of which he had been a prime Palestinian mover) called for 2% or 2.3% of the West Bank for Israel, with one-to-one swaps, and said the built-up areas of the major blocks actually only take up 2% of the West Bank. And, Abbas chimed in, a link between Gaza and the West Bank can count for some of that percentage.
They then started talking about maps they would soon show the Israeli team and the chance to set borders, but Abu Ala'a returned to the topic of Jerusalem. There are modalities for security and for the holy places, he said, that we should negotiate; we can agree on taxes, municipal government, security arrangements – everything but sovereignty. Rice told the Palestinians she could not see how they would reach agreement now on Jerusalem; that just seemed to her impossible. Your goal for now should be to set up your state, she said; Jerusalem is too hard for now, so put it off. Do not delay setting up a state now because you cannot reach an agreement about the holy sites in Jerusalem. Ambiguity may be the best outcome for that. The debate continued: Erekat said they could not defeat Hamas and al Qaeda without something on Jerusalem. You are telling us Israel cannot give the Arabs sovereignty over Jerusalem now? Right, said Rice; they cannot. If you insist on it as part of a deal, we're through. Sovereignty in the Old City is the only zero-sum part of your negotiations with the Israelis, so delay it. They went back and forth on Jerusalem for a while, and I wondered: These people are on the verge of a breakthrough? Rice was talking with Livni and Barak and Olmert, I knew, about the president's May visit and wanted to see if some deal – however vague – could be closed then. That trip was three weeks way, and the goal seemed completely unreachable to me.
Abbas and
Olmert met one more time after this Abbas visit to Washington and before President Bush arrived in Jerusalem again, and discussed the Egyptian efforts to arrange a truce in Gaza. The PA was most afraid of a direct Israeli-Hamas agreement that would make the PA seem marginal. In their one-on-one meeting, Olmert had again told Abbas that a deal based on Israel retaining 2% of the West Bank was unworkable, and he proposed 8%; Olmert suggested that Livni and Abu Ala'a chew on those numbers in their channel. The talks were still alive, it seemed from the accounts I received, but progress was hard to discern. Olmert spoke with Rice and
was far more optimistic. He told her the Palestinians had been very responsive to his proposals and that it would be possible to close some deal in May, during the president's visit. In her memoir, Condi discusses an offer Olmert explained to her – one that seemed to her a breakthrough. But it does not seem that Olmert actually made his proposal to the Palestinians until much later in the year, in fact in September or October, when his own political fate was even clearer – and his demise nearer – than when he explained his thoughts to Condi in April.
Olmert's and Condi's optimism was balanced by certain realities on the ground as well: The PA was broke again. As we used our diplomatic clout to
advance negotiations, we were not using it to lean on the Arab oil producers to provide more support of the PA budget. Fayyad told us that he was out of cash and could not pay June salaries unless more Arab money came in.
While we were working on the preparations for the president's trip, the notion that Olmert could lead Israel into a final deal took another blow: Yet more corruption charges surfaced. This time he was accused of taking bribes from an American businessman; Olmert denied the charges but said he would resign if indicted.
4
The pressures on him were building, and politicians were calling on him to step aside, arguing that the many investigations took up too much of his time and Israel needed a trustworthy, full-time prime minister. In the days leading up to our trip, the Israeli press was full of corruption stories – and stories about machinations inside Kadima as rivals positioned themselves for the post-Olmert period. The president had once described the Knesset as a shark tank, and as Olmert slowly but steadily sank, all Israeli politics took on that likeness.
The president's trip began in Israel on May 14, and its highlight, for me, was his powerful speech to the Knesset the following day. It struck me as one of the greatest speeches in Israel's history and in the history of Zionism. Bush placed Israel's independence in the context of all of Jewish history and God's promise to the ancient Hebrews, rooting Israel in five thousand years of history and not just in the context of the Holocaust. He reasserted America's relationship with Israel firmly:
The United States was proud to be the first nation to recognize Israel's independence. And on this landmark anniversary, America is proud to be Israel's closest ally and best friend in the world.…Earlier today, I visited Masada, an inspiring monument to courage and sacrifice. At this historic site, Israeli soldiers swear an oath: “Masada shall never fall again.” Citizens of Israel: Masada shall never fall again, and America will be at your side.…[W]e insist that the people of Israel have the right to a decent, normal and peaceful life, just like the citizens of every other nation.…[W]e condemn anti-Semitism in all forms – whether by those who openly question Israel's right to exist or by others who quietly excuse them. We believe that free people should strive and sacrifice for peace. So we applaud the courageous choices Israeli's leaders have made. We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its destruction. We believe that targeting innocent lives to achieve political objectives is always and everywhere wrong. So we stand together against terror and extremism, and we will never let down our guard or lose our resolve.
Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of the enemies of peace, and America utterly rejects it. Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because the United States of America stands with you.…Over the past six decades, the Jewish people have established…a modern society in the Promised Land,
a light unto the nations that preserves the legacy of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And you have built a mighty democracy that will endure forever and can always count on the United States of America to be at your side.
5
The Israelis were deeply impressed by this display of friendship and commitment to their state. Used to decades of withering criticism from abroad and endless attacks on their conduct and their very right to exist, this emotional expression by the American president was a tonic. Bush's popularity, high in Israel since early in his presidency, soared even more.
For the core team of negotiators in the Prime Minister's Office and the Defense and Foreign Ministries, the difference in tone between this speech and the meetings with Condi must have been startling. People close to Rice denied that there was the slightest hostility to Israel in her position, then or ever. As one put it, “If you look at like UN resolutions and things like that, she always tried to weigh in and protect the Israelis up there. I frankly think it came down to this: she wanted to get this [the peace negotiations after Annapolis] done and trying to get it done just led to being brusque and tough and pushing both sides; it was just trying to knock heads on both sides. She would get unhappy with the Israelis at times, but it was always a reaction to things getting in the way of the process.” In that analysis, there was a good cop–bad cop element to the Rice–Bush relationship with the Israelis: she pressured, he cajoled and supported. I thought there was more to it than this because Rice's desire for an agreement was deeper than Bush's. He was already comfortable, in 2008, with his place in history, which he knew would revolve mostly around 9/11, the war on terror, and Iraq. She was still trying to make her mark and time was running out, so a Middle East peace agreement was an important goal.
In private meetings during his trip, Bush wondered if a deal would be possible in 2008. It's too early to tell, Foreign Minister Livni told him. She was, I thought, negotiating seriously; she had concluded that mutual recognition by the Arab states and Israel would be an important strategic victory for Israel. Even if it took years for the Palestinian state to come into being, agreement on a two-state solution would mean all talk of the one-state solution would be dead, and Israel could begin to build a relationship with Arab states beyond Jordan and Egypt. The president was focused on the Olmert-Abbas channel, however, not on Livni's talks with Erekat and Abu Ala'a. Given my own opinion of both channels, I thought his focus was correct; whatever Livni's intentions, that channel would not reach an agreement. The president met with Tony Blair while in Jerusalem and told him that Olmert would likely go for the long ball, bypassing all the negotiators and pulling Abbas along into a deal.
We met with Abbas in Egypt; the Israelis had asked that this visit, meant to commemorate their 60th birthday as a state, not include travel to the West Bank. Abbas confirmed that Olmert was serious: He claimed Olmert had proposed retaining 7.3% of the West Bank and giving in exchange territory equal to 5% from Israeli territory, plus the link between the West Bank and Gaza.
This is the first time he has been so specific, Abbas went on, so that's progress. We also talked about Jerusalem, and that is a real problem for us because it is not a Palestinian issue; it is an Islamic issue. But, he told us, the Palestinians could not accept that Israel would keep the settlement blocks of Ariel, or Ma'ale Adumim, or Givat Ze'ev. If that was true, no deal was in sight – not in 2008 and not ever, I thought. Ma'ale Adumim, just east of Jerusalem, was the very definition of the major block that Israel would keep and was now home to nearly 40,000 Israelis. Abbas too was worried about failure. The road is not paved with roses, he told the president, and Iran and Hamas want us to fail. I can't help but remember Camp David, he said, because the outcome was terrifying; we lived through seven years of terror and destruction because of that failed effort.
The president told the king of Jordan, whom we also saw on this trip, that he thought a deal could be done. I did not see how. Whenever Olmert met with Abbas, two problems were lurking in the background. The first was the corruption accusations against Olmert, which seemed likely to shorten his time in office and undermined his legitimacy. Any deal he offered Abbas would be seen by many Israelis as designed to rescue his prime ministership, or at least his reputation, and might well be rejected by his own cabinet and the Knesset. Such a chain of events would be a disaster for Israel. I knew that some of Olmert's most intimate advisers shared this worry that he would go too far and had told him so, informing him that they would resign if they came to the conclusion that he was acting to salvage his reputation and had lost his moorings. I passed this concern on to the president through Steve Hadley. Hadley reported back that the president had commented that if any staff member ever said that to him, his reply would be, “No, if that's your attitude, you just resigned.” Right, I told Hadley; and what does it tell you about Olmert and his own situation that his reaction to such warnings from his staff was apparently to swallow glumly? Olmert's situation was one huge problem; the other one was Gaza. What would happen to the negotiations if there were a major Israeli incursion? The talks had survived significant Israeli attacks, but the kind of ground action Israeli officials told us might be coming would certainly be the end of them.
The president was more optimistic. We need to try to get this done before the end of my presidency, he told Fayyad. Meeting with Fayyad was always a tonic even if he brought somber news because his very sobriety was evidence that the PA now had serious and dedicated leadership. I think we are approaching the point where the culture of violence is being broken, Fayyad told the president, but we still do not see enough change on the ground. People need more freedom to move around, and the IDF has to hold back more and let our guys do the job. Their morale is getting better and better and so is their capability. As they do more and more, Palestinians will be taking responsibility for themselves – and that is the backbone for a state. We say to people, persevere; Israel was not established in 1948. It was
announced
in 1948. I say create institutions now, Fayyad told us, and that is what I tell our people: don't sit and wait for the occupation to end; build a state despite the occupation.
As usual, it seemed to me Fayyad's approach was far more realistic. That occupation was not ending soon, even if a deal were reached – something I still thought far-fetched. The work of creating a state could and must be carried on, not delayed. There was a great and sad irony here because we were often accused of just plain loving Fayyad in Washington, where he was said to be far more popular than among Palestinians. And yet we were focusing our efforts on Abbas and the negotiations still; although we were helping Fayyad's efforts for sure, we were not making them central to our approach. Fayyad was paying the price for being an American ally or favorite without getting any of the benefits such a position might have been expected to bring.