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Go Home Dershowitz And Netanyahu's Myopia

JONATHAN CHAIT MAY 26, 2011

Dershowitz And Netanyahu's Myopia

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Alan Dershowitz says that President Obama weakened Israel's bargaining position vis a vis the Palestinians:

This recent statement clearly reveals the underlying flaw in Obama’s thinking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is no way that Israel can agree to borders without the Palestinians also agreeing to give up any claim to a “right of return.” As Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad Salaam once told me: each side has a major card to play and a major compromise to make; for Israel, that card is the West Bank, and the compromise is returning to the 1967 lines with agreed-upon adjustments and land swaps; for the Palestinians, that card is “the right of return,” and the compromise is an agreement that the Palestinian refugees will be settled in Palestine and not in Israel; in other words, that there will be no right to “return” to Israel.

President Obama’s formulation requires Israel to give up its card and to make a “wrenching compromise” by dismantling most of the West Bank settlements and ending its occupation of the West Bank. But it does not require the Palestinians to give up their card and to compromise on the right of return. That “extraordinarily emotional” issue is to be left to further negotiations only after the borders have been agreed to.

This is a stronger argument than the predominant pro-Israel objection to Obama's speech, which is based on simply distorting Obama's statement. But I see three flaws here.

First, Dershowitz assumes that Benjamin Netanyahu actually wants to negotiate a feasible two-state settlement with the Palestinians. This assumption is unproven at best.

Second, Dershowitz simply assumes that a maximalist negotiating posture is the strongest, and that Israel can't strengthen its position by appearing reasonable, enticing Palestinians to negotiate, and/or make Palestinians look unreasonable if they refuse to do so. Sometimes this holds true, but sometimes it doesn't. Given Netanyahu's history of spurning peace and encouraging settlements, I believe he'd benefit more from conciliation than from maximalism.

Third, Dershowitz doesn't seem to take into account the United States' need to establish some international credibility in order to defend Israel at the United Nations if and when Palestinians unilaterally declare a state. Indeed, not only does the U.S. need credibility, but Israel needs the U.S. to have that credibility. Netanyahu's approach does not appear to be shrewd negotiation but meandering into a diplomatic nightmare.

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20 comments

So much ink spilled - to use a Neanderthal metaphor - for so little movement. We will probably still be having these go-rounds in 2020, and perhaps far beyond.

- liberalref

May 26, 2011 at 1:39pm

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Dershowitz is parroting a line that's been circulating in Israel since Obama delivered the speech -- Jeff Goldberg highlighted Haaretz's Ari Shavit making the same point here http://bit.ly/jIbZDJ. Assume for the sake of argument that negotiating the border without resolving right of return and final status for Jerusalem is not a good idea. How difficult would it have been for Netanyahu to respond, "great speech; we appreciate the support -- but we do think that any serious negotiations should encompass all issues"? Is that such a radical disagreement btwn allies? Also, borrowing Dershowitz's premises, wouldn't postponing right of return and Jerusalem status leave each side with a chip -- partial division of Jeru in exchange for no real right of return? That's part of the consensus imagined agreement too.

- adsprung

May 26, 2011 at 1:48pm

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Clearly, Obama mis-spoke, in an attempt to 'give something' to the Palestinians. He NEVER should have mentioned the 1967 borders. I don't think Obama's position and Netanyahu's position differs that much. Both want peace. Both think some land-swaps are necessary. Both want "defensible" borders for Israel. Both want an eventual "Two-State" solution, but one in which the Palestinians aren't using their autonomy (such as it is) to lob missles into Israel. The fly in the ointment is that there's NO WAY the Palestinians are ready to make any meaningful agreement at this point.

- AllanL5

May 26, 2011 at 2:07pm

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I think Dershowitz's point is a reasonable one, and there's always some room for genuine critical give-and-take between parties who are supposed to be allies, as that does not mean complete merging to the point of indivisibility. What I see is that Netanyahu appears to be continually contributing to, and then head-butting to ward off, problems that in no way have to grimly overshadow the basic architecture of the U.S.-Israel relationship. What's he going to do during Obama's second term? These thoughts: 1) The best argument against the Palestinian lunge for global sympathy at the UN is to have a process on the move for which that UN gesture would be clearly a pre-emptive and destructive event. That would lend credibility to a U.S. argument that other countries should avoid getting on board for only short-term feelgood results. 2) The (now unemployed?) Fayyad Salaam was quite correct -- there are these two major cards, one each that each side has to play. However, if the general debate internally to Israel and the Palestinians has led to the sense that these cards are not in fact playable items, then the "strategic" vision of things has diverged dangerously from the popular vision. Leaving aside the possibility that an increasing number of Israelis simply believe the settlements won't have to be given up, a much more ominous questions is, how does a Palestinian leadership "play" the card of RoR if generations of Palestinians have been told and believe deeply that RoR is not a card and will never be played? 3) I think Obama might well have -- if he was going out on a limb at all -- confronted this issue more openly. I share Dershowitz's criticism there. But the corollary of being honest about RoR is the U.S. assuming a posture that doesn't -- as the general vibe in Congress does -- paint the Palestinians as quasi-terrorist Others who shouldn't even really have a card to play while the Israelis are folks like us whose cards are virtuous by default. To that extent, Obama is trying to frame potential negotiations as "the right thing to do" so that all the parties -- as in standard mediation procedures -- begin to share a mutual investment in success. 4) Although I don't overrate its importance, Netanyahu's appearance before Congress seemed like a pointless involvement in American domestic politics, as if Obama were to make an appearance at an opposition rally in Israel to suggest how happer he would be meeting those folks than the actual government.

- ironyroad

May 26, 2011 at 2:25pm

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What Libref said. As Dave Barry once wrote, "They can hold all the peace talks they want, but there will never be peace in the Middle East. Billions of years from now, when Earth is hurtling toward the Sun and there is nothing left alive on the planet except a few microorganisms, the microorganisms living in the Middle East will be bitter enemies."

- Tristan

May 26, 2011 at 2:26pm

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Dershowitz is absolutely right. Whatever one may thing of Netenyahu's bona fides, my sense is that a significant majority of Israelis would support '67 borders with swaps in exchange for clear renunciation of right of return, but a clear majority of Palestinians would not. It is utopian thinking to imagine that if Palestinians think that they have a clear path to a contiguous state with real borders that they would be more willing to budge on right of return in a final status negotiation. Rather, it is far more likely that Palestinians would be emboldened and dig in their heals for right of return, intensifying delegitimization efforts against Israel and offering a rationale for Palestinian hardliners to dig in their heels. As Dershowitz says, there is a grand bargain to be had. However, I fear that Obama's current effort, as well as his aborted settlement freeze approach, makes it harder to achieve.

- scottbirnba

May 26, 2011 at 2:42pm

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Hard to disagree with any of that. I think Israelis of all reasonable political colours understand that Israel needs to pay attention to Iran; the bond markets; Chin;, Egypt and other newsworthy items. Israel needs a more flexible leader, one that can read the American tea leaves and realize that Obama's here for another term and The Randians are...nut cultists.

- IggyPop

May 26, 2011 at 2:45pm

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Of course it would be stupid for Israel to agree to borders and withdrawal without a resolution of the RoR. Just as stupid as it would be for the Palestinians to renounce their major "card" in advance of negotiations, which is what Netanyahu has been demanding they do by "recognizing Israel as the Jewish state" as a precondition. If there were any doubt about the meaning of Netanyahu's formulation, Michael Oren explained it to us in the NYT, that recognizing Israel as the Jewish state is simply shorthand for the abandonment of RoR. Of course, in contrast to Israel, the Palestinians haven't demanded that Israel agree to borders in advance of final negotiations. They have demanded that Israel stop changing the status quo by building in defiance of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Oslo accords, and the legal opinion of the relevant international legal organs and pretty much every nation on earth other than the US (which has declined to state an opinion since Reagan on the grounds that the settlements are "bad policy" rendering the legal position moot). There are not going to be any "agreed upon" land swaps because Israel's idea of a swap is to keep the major settlements in exchange for patches of desert that neither Israel nor the Palestinians want. That is not how a bargain is struck. Failing that, Israel's strategy is to hold Palestinian statehood hostage until the Palestinians concede Israel's land claims. That does not look like a very promising tactic. We don't know whether or not the Palestinians would abandon their claims west of the Green Line in exchange for Israel abandonment of its claims east of the Green Line because it has never been tried. It has never been tried because Israel wants the settlements more than it wants peace. If Netanyahu had so much as an ounce of brains, of which there is no evidence at all, he would make a deal with Livni and put the Palestinians to the test by agreeing to suspend settlement construction during the pendency of good faith negotiations. His backup plan should be to recognize a Palestinian state along with the rest of the world while declining to accept Palestinian border claims and then start rationalizing the border himself by getting out of settlements that Israel knows it will not keep. Palestinian statehood really isn't Israel's to give or withhold and it is pointless to hold it hostage. Better to make clear that it is largely irrelevant to the core issues of the dispute - borders and security, both of which will still have to be settled even if there is a Palestinian state that has not concluded a peace with Israel. By recognizing Palestine itself, Israel pulls the sting. If Netanyahu knew how to handle himself, of which there is absolutely no evidence, the new default and status quo could be a Palestinian state with Israel in control of the Jordan, the settlement blocs, the airspace, and all of Jerusalem pending the willingness of the Palestinians to make peace and concede their major claim, the RoR. If there is to be no peace, Israel's lines are grossly over-extended. They aren't even lines because of the settlements. The time is right now to take the strongest possible shot at a final settlement. Failing that, time to shorten the lines and hunker down while abandoning occupation of all but the parts that Israel is striving to hold onto. Then, if Palestine, no longer under occupation, wants Israel to give up those pieces, it will have to offer something -- peace, security, and the end of the RoR.

- roidubouloi

May 26, 2011 at 2:51pm

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"a significant majority of Israelis would support '67 borders with swaps in exchange for clear renunciation of right of return" No, not even a large minority of Israelis would support this unless what is meant by "swaps" is that Israel keeps the settlements and the Palestinians get a few patches of desert. There is no land of value to either side that Israel is willing to swap. This is a rhetorical trope only. It is a fiction in reality.

- roidubouloi

May 26, 2011 at 2:54pm

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If there is "a grand bargain to be had" it is only that Israel abandons its claims east of the Green Line in exchange for the Palestinians abandoning their claims west of the Green Line. It is clear that Netanyahu won't do this. It is not at all clear that the Palestinians won't which is why Netanyahu does everything possible to avoid coming to the table. He is afraid of just this outcome in which he is refusing peace and the abandonment of the RoR in order to hold onto the settlements, forfeiting thereby the support of the United States. He wants to keep insisting that the Palestinians won't make peace, while creating new obstacles, just to avoid this moment of truth.

- roidubouloi

May 26, 2011 at 2:57pm

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If I were advising Palestinians I would tell them now is the time for a non-violent mass protests. If they had the courage to do that, Israels position and legitimacy vis-a-vis the border issue would evaporate in the U.S. If the Palestinians could find an MLK/Gandhi leader, even the hard-right in this country would have to rethink their position.

- Archon

May 26, 2011 at 3:18pm

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Chait's summary of the flaws in Netanyahu's position are pretty accurate. To me though his biggest flaws are based on his political skills which are almost non existent.

- arnon

May 26, 2011 at 4:58pm

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What did Gandhi achieve, Archon? India would have gotten its independence anyhow. And the blood letting that followed took the lives of millions of Hindus and Muslims. Not a great legacy if you ask me.

- arnon

May 26, 2011 at 5:00pm

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How exactly is the Hindu-Moslem violence upon the partition of India attributable to Gandhi?

- roidubouloi

May 26, 2011 at 5:22pm

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Read the new biography of Gandhi if you want to know.

- arnon

May 26, 2011 at 5:24pm

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Don't know much about Gandhi's flaws, my general point is they need a non-violent movement if they really want legitimacy in the U.S, which is really all that matters because a U.N vote on independence means nada to most Americans.

- Archon

May 26, 2011 at 5:32pm

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Archon "Don't know much about Gandhi's flaws, my general point is they need a non-violent movement if they really want legitimacy in the U.S, which is really all that matters because a U.N vote on independence means nada to most Americans." So what you are saying is that the Pals need to adopt non violence as a tactic in order to gain Statehood. After that they can continue killing Jews.

- arnon

May 26, 2011 at 6:06pm

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No, once Palestinians gain statehood, and if they continue to attack Israel, that is an act of war, and they can be dealt with accordingly, and in such a manner that would make them think twice about ever doing it again.

- zardoz67

May 26, 2011 at 10:54pm

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Isn't the flaw in Dershowitz's argument more basic in that it ignores part of Obama's formulation? I thought Obama stated that one of the objectives of negotiations was a secure Israel that is the state in the region "for the Jewish people." While that does not explicitly address the right of return issue, I believe it does so implicitly.

- dpinkert

May 27, 2011 at 10:09am

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Seems that Bibi's building more settlements during periods of relative peace and quiet is doing EXACTLY what Obama has been calling for. Unless Bibi (and Israelis ingeneral) really are kicking the can or think that a Palestinian state be like a somewhat larger Gaza, surrounded by walls

- NR027810

May 27, 2011 at 12:11pm

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