The Vatican created quite a stir last week when it announced it would formally acknowledge Palestinian statehood in a soon to be signed formal treaty covering such issues as property ownership, taxes, and visits to holy sites. The tumult erupted despite the fact that the Vatican has informally recognized de facto Palestinian statehood since 2012, when the UN granted the Palestinians non-member observer status.
What rankled many of us is the belief that legal recognition not premised on a settlement of conflicting territorial, political, and security issues is a prescription for failure. Nor did the action seem to take into account the chaos arising out of the Arab Spring, the collapse of U.S. foreign policy in the area, the continued domination of Gaza by Hamas, and the reality that the demise of Mahmoud Abbas’s regime at the hands of Hamas would promptly follow any significant Israeli pullout from the West Bank.
Perhaps most troubling is that according legal recognition to a Palestinian state outside of a negotiation dynamic would seem to encourage the Palestinians in their recalcitrance.
Somewhat surprisingly, the Vatican’s unwelcome gesture was diametrically at odds with what President Obama signaled in an interview with the news outlet Al Arabiya.
The president has been widely criticized for fostering unrealistic expectations on the part of the Palestinians by coming down hard on the growth of Israeli settlements while echoing the Palestinian position that final borders would be the product of minor adjustments to the pre-1967 lines separating Israelis and Palestinians.
This approach, rather than permitting the great disparity in military and economic capacities between the two sides and Israel’s compelling security needs in a dangerous neighborhood to drive the process, sent the message to the Palestinians that a better deal would always be around the corner. We continue to believe that this as much as anything else accounts for the Palestinian rejection of several sober offers from Israel that were rooted in reality.
Mr. Obama seems at long last to have realized that present circumstances require a very different approach. Here is part of what he said in his exchange with his Al Arabiya interviewer last Friday:
Interviewer: You’re the second president I’m interviewing who is leaving office without realizing the vision of a Palestinian state. You had serious efforts in the first and second [terms]. Yet we receive – we reached a dead end. Why? Who is responsible for that?
President Obama: Well, this is a very difficult challenge. On the one hand I am a deep and strong supporter of Israel, and the connection between the United States and Israel is obviously powerful. And Israel has legitimate security concerns. There’s no doubt about it. And what is also true is I’m deeply committed to a Palestinian state…. And we worked very hard, but frankly, the politics inside of Israel and the politics among the Palestinians as well made it very difficult for each side to trust each other enough to make that leap.
And what I think at this point, realistically, we can do is to try to rebuild trust – not through a big overarching deal, which I don’t think is probably possible in the next year, given the makeup of the Netanyahu government, given the challenges I think that exist for President Abbas – but if we can start building some trust…then I continue to believe that the logic of a two-state solution will reassert itself.
Because I’ve said to the Israelis you cannot remain a state that is both a democracy and Jewish if you continue to have this problem unresolved. And with respect to the Palestinians, I’ve said that you cannot expect to have a state of your own and the full dignity and respect that is inherent for all human beings if you don’t also recognize Israel, because Israel is not going anywhere.
And I think people of goodwill on both sides understand that. Unfortunately, the politics of fear has been stronger than the politics of hope over recent years – partly because of the chaotic situation in the region overall. And it’s going to take some time to rebuild it….
It’s remarkable that the president said all this to an Arab media outlet with a predominantly Arab following. And because Mr. Obama is facing a revolt by the Gulf Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, over his imminent nuclear deal with Iran, it might have been expected that he would seek to placate the Arab “street” by admonishing Israel and sweet-talking the Palestinians. The fact that he did not would seem to indicate he meant what he said.
So, in startling contrast to the Vatican, President Obama appears to have eschewed third-party nostrums and grand gestures as a means of trying to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As we have repeatedly observed, peace can only come when the Palestinians acknowledge that Israel has to be satisfied that its security interests are met.
But this is only a start. President Obama must couple his newfound realism with continued support for Israel in the United Nations and he must urge a resumption of negotiations without conditions. He must also maintain his opposition to Palestinian efforts at pursuing recognition outside the negotiating process. If he stays the course, who knows – even the Vatican might experience a revelation of sorts.