I spent last week in Israel on a trip sponsored by the American
Israel Education Foundation, which is an AIPAC-linked charitable
organization. When you travel around the country and speak with
public officials, citizens, and scholars, it becomes clear that
there isn't any sort of monolithic opinion of Israelis, so it was
a good opportunity to get a variety of perspectives ranging from
a far-right settler who doesn't believe the much discussed
two-state solution model is practical to a mom who supports the
current peace process. I also had a chance to speak with a
negotiator for the Palestinian Authority. It's hard to know where
to start, but I figured I'd offer the following impressions, and
hopefully as the week goes on I'll try to provide more detail on
at least some of them.
-- It's pretty clear to me that the Israeli government views the
possibility of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons as a worse outcome
than the consequences of military action against the Islamist
state. While the rest of the world -- including America –
struggles with the issue, Israelis I spoke with believe that they
don't have the luxury to gamble on whether or not Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is serious about his threats to
wipe them off the map. (Whether or not Ahmadinejad himself has
power, or is merely a mouthpiece for the ayatollahs, is
irrelevant in this context). While the threat to Israel from
Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups is profound, a
nuclear Iran would present an immediate existential threat. A
significant majority of the Israeli population lives on a narrow
band of coastal land north and south of Tel Aviv, so any nuclear
attack there would have catastrophic consequences. Israelis hope
that economic sanctions can stymie Iran's nuclear ambitions
(especially with oil prices falling), but they are also convinced
that time is running out, and they are prepared to do whatever it
takes if sanctions don't do their job.
-- Israelis, overall, don't really know what to make of Barack
Obama's victory. Most of those who I spoke with viewed Obama as
intelligent, charismatic, and as a gifted orator. But from
there, the views I got were quite divergent. Some Israelis were
positive about him, and thought that his intelligence would guide
him to the right conclusions. Those who liked Obama were somewhat
envious of the U.S. for having an exciting new leader, given the
boring choices in their own upcoming elections (more on that
below). However, I also spoke to a number of Israelis who are a
bit nervous about Obama given his conflicting signals on Israel
and the fact that they simply don't know him as well as other
American politicians. One man said he was utterly perplexed that
Americans' memories could be so short that they would elect
somebody so inexperienced just seven years after the Sept. 11
attacks. He said he thought Obama's victory speech was amazing,
but he went back and replayed it several times and was shocked
that Obama did not mention 9/11 once -- not even when he
recounted the events witnessed by the 106 year-old woman. The
Israelis will be watching his national security-related
appointments quite closely.
-- The Israeli elections are coming up in February, and right now
polls show a tight race between Kadima, led by Tzipi Livni, and
Likud, controlled by Benyamin Netanyahu, with Ehud Barak's Labor
way behind. Overall, Israelis are dispirited with their choices.
Barak and Netanyahu already served as prime ministers and were
overwhelmingly thrown out of office, while Livni lacks experience
and represents a party that has been run by the widely unpopular
Ehud Olmert. With Livni arguing for continuing the peace process
and Netanyahu calling for pulling out and focusing on economic
development in the Palestinian territories, the election outcome
will largely be determined by events over the next three months.
If the current relative calm persists, then Kadima has a better
chance of winning, but if violence flares up before the election
and Israelis become much more skeptical about the current
prospects for peace, than it would favor Netanyahu's Likud.
-- I'm more convinced than ever that the current peace process
between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is a joke. The PA
has absolutely no control over Hamas, which has only grown in
military strength since the Israelis pulled out of Gaza. With
Hamas in control of the area, rockets continue to harass citizens
in southern Israel, and the terrorist group is no closer to
reconciling with the Fatah arm of the PA. Earlier this month,
Hamas pulled out of planned talks with Fatah, and a clash between
the two groups is likely in January, when Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas' term ends. He's arguing for an extension of his
term until 2010, which Hamas is fiercely opposed to. If the
Palestinians cannot make peace among themselves, Abbas is
powerless to prevent attacks originating from Gaza, and his grip
on power is tenuous, it makes little sense for the Israelis to
strike a deal with him. A PA negotiator I spoke with was
dismissive of the Hamas issue, and tried to argue that Israel
should cut a peace deal with the PA first, and then Hamas could
be dealt with easier afterward. But imagine if the Israelis
came to the negotiating table and told the Palestinians that they
wanted peace, but had no control over the IDF. Still, the peace
process itself does have an appeal to some Israelis. One
Jerusalem mother of three who I spoke with explained to me how
difficult it would be to continue living under the constant
threat of Palestinian terrorism if there were no hope that the
issue could be resolved peacefully.
