How would you assess the effects of President Obama's Cairo speech? What about a demilitarized Palestinian State? Any
tips for those following the current unrest in Iran?
Q. How would you assess the ramifications and effects of President Barack Obama's early June speech in Cairo to
the Arab and Muslim worlds? How might this influence Obama's strategy in the weeks ahead?
A. While there is no convincing way to "prove" that the speech made a difference at the level of realpolitik, the accumulating evidence--in Lebanon, Iran and Israel--is really quite impressive.
In Lebanon's parliamentary elections the pro-western March 14 bloc, against general expectations, defeated the Hezbollah-led March 8 bloc by a resounding margin. Those elections were held barely three days after the Obama speech. It seems likely that the friendlier, fairer United States projected by Obama--the sense that the US president was leveling the playing field between America and the Arab/Muslim world--persuaded undecided voters to cast their lot with the moderate pro-western bloc led by Saad Hariri.
The possibility that Obama influenced the Iranian elections of June 12 appears to be more complex. None of the four presidential candidates can conceivably be described as pro-western. Whether voters chose the more moderate Mir Hussein Mousavi over extremist incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad because of the Obama message is pure speculation, particularly insofar as we do not know the true outcome of the election. Besides, there were plenty of other reasons, such as the economy, to reject Ahmadinezhad.
A more intriguing direction of conjecture concerns the regime's apparent flagrant falsification of the election outcome: could this have happened because the Supreme Leader and/or the Revolutionary Guards--whoever falsified the vote--feared the possible consequences of a dialogue between Mousavi and Obama. The latter, after all, represents an America to which the appellation "Great Satan" no longer seems to stick?
Certainly it is intriguing to hear and read so many Iranians who, in referring to the US, say "Obama should... " Not "America should" but "Obama should." They seem to identify with the president personally.
Turning to Israel, one direct consequence of the Obama Cairo speech was PM Binyamin Netanyahu's Bar Ilan University address of June 14. So obvious was the cause-and-effect chain that Netanyahu insisted on giving his speech in a university, seemingly to mimic Obama's venue. In his speech, the Israeli prime minister sought both to satisfy at least a portion of Obama's policy demands and to strengthen his popular support base in the face of American pressures over the Palestinian issue. Hence his grudging acceptance of the two-state solution, coupled with the many conditions he added and his refusal to yield on the issue of the settlements' "natural growth".
Netanyahu's speech improved his public approval rating by a considerable margin. But not at the expense of Obama's demands regarding an Israeli-Palestinian peace process. According to the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University, following Obama's speech Israelis' support for a two-state solution increased from 59 to 63 percent; assessments that the chances for a Palestinian state are medium or high increased by 10 percent; and the belief that it is possible to reach a final status settlement increased by six percent.
How might all this influence Obama's strategy for the Middle East? Perhaps the most impressive part of Obama's performance thus far is that he has proven that words matter. After all, he really hasn't begun to "deliver". Nor has he yet presented a comprehensive strategy for the region. All that will presumably happen in the months ahead--although at this juncture that phase could be delayed until the smoke clears in Iran.
Meanwhile, Obama's reserved and carefully calibrated response to the post-election events in Iran is correctly designed to avoid providing ammunition for reactionary elements in the regime who would like nothing better than to blame the US. His readiness to welcome Netanyahu's acceptance of the two-state solution while his emissaries and Congress more quietly maintain the pressure regarding settlements also seems to reflect the right "mix". And his apparent willingness to begin expanding the renascent peace process to include Syria is also welcome, although here too--given Bashar Asad's and Netanyahu's opening positions--a lot of US pressure may be needed on both sides.
Q. Netanyahu spoke emphatically at Bar Ilan about the need for a Palestinian state to be demilitarized. Is this an innovation in Israeli thinking regarding a two-state solution?
A. Not at all. Constraints upon the military profile of a Palestinian state have been a constant demand by Israeli negotiators since the Oslo process began in 1993. Netanyahu's only innovation is to present demilitarization provocatively, before negotiations have even begun.
Broadly speaking, the PLO long ago agreed to some sort of constraints on the military profile of a Palestinian state. Moreover, both Israel and the PLO have agreed that an international peacekeeping force would play a role in monitoring demilitarization and supervising border crossings. The latter idea was promoted energetically by General Jim Jones, currently President Obama's national security adviser and a former commander of NATO. Jones even reportedly recognized the possibility that NATO forces would be deployed in the Jordan Valley as part of a two-state peace deal.
The Palestinian position has generally sought to make a virtue out of the absence of a heavily equipped army, suggesting that the nascent state's limited resources would best be spent on civilian pursuits. On the other hand, the Palestinians' threat assessment takes into account the possibility of violence perpetrated by extremist Israelis bent on sabotaging peace by attacking them or even, in certain circumstances, by Israel itself. Hence the PLO has always insisted on being able to deploy a force with minimal defensive capabilities and on receiving international guarantees for the defense of a Palestinian state.
The extent of those defensive capabilities has been a constant issue in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Perhaps of greater interest, Palestinian demands for international guarantees have now been paralleled by Netanyahu's insistence in his Bar Ilan speech that Israel must receive similar international (read: US) assurances regarding security threats from Palestine. This seems a somewhat bizarre request given Israel's military capabilities, unless Netanyahu means that an Israeli military response to attacks by Palestinians should rely on international rather than bilateral treaty provisions.
One of the constant features of Israeli-Palestinian security talks has been the tension between Palestinian demands for additional arms and ordnance and Israeli reservations. This characterizes not only peace talks but even discussions of the profile of Palestinian forces recently trained by the US, UK and Jordan and deployed very successfully and effectively in Jenin and elsewhere in the West Bank. Do these forces get armored vehicles? Can they mount heavy machine guns on them? Here the Israeli defense establishment frequently finds itself at loggerheads not only with the Palestinians but also with the countries, led by the US, that are training the Palestinian forces and vouch for their reliability.
Another controversial aspect of demilitarization is the air over a Palestinian state. Granted that the state will not have anything even reminiscent of an air force: why, Palestinians ask, does Israel have to control the right to fly in Palestinian air space? Why does Israel insist on controlling the electro-magnetic sphere?
Given Israel's and Palestine's tiny dimensions and the fact that a Palestinian state will be split territorially and flank Israel from the east (the West Bank) and the southwest (the Gaza Strip), Israel can make a persuasive case that flight and frequency controls must be carefully coordinated, not only between Israel and Palestine but with Jordan as well. The controversy here is over the structure of the control mechanism: does Palestine have its own flight controllers at a Palestinian airport or do they sit at the control tower of Ben Gurion Airport? A related issue of controversy is the need for Israel Air Force planes to maneuver over Palestinian territory; in effect, given the small territorial dimensions, they cannot really maneuver without crossing Palestinian air space. By the same token, civilian aircraft landing at Ben Gurion come close to entering West Bank air space many times every day.
Israel long ago ceased insisting on counting the number of Palestinian police and gendarmes. Rather, it concentrates on their weaponry. It knows they have to be capable of suppressing Hamas and other Palestinian dissidents who reject a two-state solution. By the same token, it will look at the international relations developed by a Palestinian state solely in terms of their military potential: links with Iran, Libya and Syria will be no problem as long as they don't develop a military dimension.
All this has been negotiated several times already in final status talks, and will be discussed again if and when the Netanyahu government resumes negotiations. The Palestinians are fully aware of the issues. But Netanyahu's "in your face" manner of framing the demilitarization provision certainly did not improve the pre-negotiation atmosphere.
Q. Thirty years ago you followed the Islamic revolution against the Shah of Iran as an intelligence analyst for the state of Israel. Any tips for those following the current unrest in Iran?
A. First, this is a revolutionary situation (though not yet necessarily a revolution) in which it is impossible to predict what will happen. So be wary of those who do presume to predict. And be extremely wary of the rumors posing as accurate reports that tend to characterize this sort of situation. The best anyone can do is to accurately describe the current reality--the dynamic and the balance of power--and that is a hard enough task.
Second, thus far we have witnessed a protest movement within the regime, not against it. I have yet to encounter any significant Iranian actor who proposes that events be directed toward the creation of an alternative regime to the Islamic Republic. This means that, at least as of today, the outcome of the current drama is likely to be less revolutionary than what many outside observers expect or wish for.
Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst, co-founder and co-editor of the Israeli-Palestinian internet dialogue bitterlemons.org and Middle East roundtable bitterlemons-international.org. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, and a former senior official with the Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency. His views do not necessarily reflect those of Americans for Peace Now or Peace Now.
A. While there is no convincing way to "prove" that the speech made a difference at the level of realpolitik, the accumulating evidence--in Lebanon, Iran and Israel--is really quite impressive.
In Lebanon's parliamentary elections the pro-western March 14 bloc, against general expectations, defeated the Hezbollah-led March 8 bloc by a resounding margin. Those elections were held barely three days after the Obama speech. It seems likely that the friendlier, fairer United States projected by Obama--the sense that the US president was leveling the playing field between America and the Arab/Muslim world--persuaded undecided voters to cast their lot with the moderate pro-western bloc led by Saad Hariri.
The possibility that Obama influenced the Iranian elections of June 12 appears to be more complex. None of the four presidential candidates can conceivably be described as pro-western. Whether voters chose the more moderate Mir Hussein Mousavi over extremist incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad because of the Obama message is pure speculation, particularly insofar as we do not know the true outcome of the election. Besides, there were plenty of other reasons, such as the economy, to reject Ahmadinezhad.
A more intriguing direction of conjecture concerns the regime's apparent flagrant falsification of the election outcome: could this have happened because the Supreme Leader and/or the Revolutionary Guards--whoever falsified the vote--feared the possible consequences of a dialogue between Mousavi and Obama. The latter, after all, represents an America to which the appellation "Great Satan" no longer seems to stick?
Certainly it is intriguing to hear and read so many Iranians who, in referring to the US, say "Obama should... " Not "America should" but "Obama should." They seem to identify with the president personally.
Turning to Israel, one direct consequence of the Obama Cairo speech was PM Binyamin Netanyahu's Bar Ilan University address of June 14. So obvious was the cause-and-effect chain that Netanyahu insisted on giving his speech in a university, seemingly to mimic Obama's venue. In his speech, the Israeli prime minister sought both to satisfy at least a portion of Obama's policy demands and to strengthen his popular support base in the face of American pressures over the Palestinian issue. Hence his grudging acceptance of the two-state solution, coupled with the many conditions he added and his refusal to yield on the issue of the settlements' "natural growth".
Netanyahu's speech improved his public approval rating by a considerable margin. But not at the expense of Obama's demands regarding an Israeli-Palestinian peace process. According to the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University, following Obama's speech Israelis' support for a two-state solution increased from 59 to 63 percent; assessments that the chances for a Palestinian state are medium or high increased by 10 percent; and the belief that it is possible to reach a final status settlement increased by six percent.
How might all this influence Obama's strategy for the Middle East? Perhaps the most impressive part of Obama's performance thus far is that he has proven that words matter. After all, he really hasn't begun to "deliver". Nor has he yet presented a comprehensive strategy for the region. All that will presumably happen in the months ahead--although at this juncture that phase could be delayed until the smoke clears in Iran.
Meanwhile, Obama's reserved and carefully calibrated response to the post-election events in Iran is correctly designed to avoid providing ammunition for reactionary elements in the regime who would like nothing better than to blame the US. His readiness to welcome Netanyahu's acceptance of the two-state solution while his emissaries and Congress more quietly maintain the pressure regarding settlements also seems to reflect the right "mix". And his apparent willingness to begin expanding the renascent peace process to include Syria is also welcome, although here too--given Bashar Asad's and Netanyahu's opening positions--a lot of US pressure may be needed on both sides.
Q. Netanyahu spoke emphatically at Bar Ilan about the need for a Palestinian state to be demilitarized. Is this an innovation in Israeli thinking regarding a two-state solution?
A. Not at all. Constraints upon the military profile of a Palestinian state have been a constant demand by Israeli negotiators since the Oslo process began in 1993. Netanyahu's only innovation is to present demilitarization provocatively, before negotiations have even begun.
Broadly speaking, the PLO long ago agreed to some sort of constraints on the military profile of a Palestinian state. Moreover, both Israel and the PLO have agreed that an international peacekeeping force would play a role in monitoring demilitarization and supervising border crossings. The latter idea was promoted energetically by General Jim Jones, currently President Obama's national security adviser and a former commander of NATO. Jones even reportedly recognized the possibility that NATO forces would be deployed in the Jordan Valley as part of a two-state peace deal.
The Palestinian position has generally sought to make a virtue out of the absence of a heavily equipped army, suggesting that the nascent state's limited resources would best be spent on civilian pursuits. On the other hand, the Palestinians' threat assessment takes into account the possibility of violence perpetrated by extremist Israelis bent on sabotaging peace by attacking them or even, in certain circumstances, by Israel itself. Hence the PLO has always insisted on being able to deploy a force with minimal defensive capabilities and on receiving international guarantees for the defense of a Palestinian state.
The extent of those defensive capabilities has been a constant issue in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Perhaps of greater interest, Palestinian demands for international guarantees have now been paralleled by Netanyahu's insistence in his Bar Ilan speech that Israel must receive similar international (read: US) assurances regarding security threats from Palestine. This seems a somewhat bizarre request given Israel's military capabilities, unless Netanyahu means that an Israeli military response to attacks by Palestinians should rely on international rather than bilateral treaty provisions.
One of the constant features of Israeli-Palestinian security talks has been the tension between Palestinian demands for additional arms and ordnance and Israeli reservations. This characterizes not only peace talks but even discussions of the profile of Palestinian forces recently trained by the US, UK and Jordan and deployed very successfully and effectively in Jenin and elsewhere in the West Bank. Do these forces get armored vehicles? Can they mount heavy machine guns on them? Here the Israeli defense establishment frequently finds itself at loggerheads not only with the Palestinians but also with the countries, led by the US, that are training the Palestinian forces and vouch for their reliability.
Another controversial aspect of demilitarization is the air over a Palestinian state. Granted that the state will not have anything even reminiscent of an air force: why, Palestinians ask, does Israel have to control the right to fly in Palestinian air space? Why does Israel insist on controlling the electro-magnetic sphere?
Given Israel's and Palestine's tiny dimensions and the fact that a Palestinian state will be split territorially and flank Israel from the east (the West Bank) and the southwest (the Gaza Strip), Israel can make a persuasive case that flight and frequency controls must be carefully coordinated, not only between Israel and Palestine but with Jordan as well. The controversy here is over the structure of the control mechanism: does Palestine have its own flight controllers at a Palestinian airport or do they sit at the control tower of Ben Gurion Airport? A related issue of controversy is the need for Israel Air Force planes to maneuver over Palestinian territory; in effect, given the small territorial dimensions, they cannot really maneuver without crossing Palestinian air space. By the same token, civilian aircraft landing at Ben Gurion come close to entering West Bank air space many times every day.
Israel long ago ceased insisting on counting the number of Palestinian police and gendarmes. Rather, it concentrates on their weaponry. It knows they have to be capable of suppressing Hamas and other Palestinian dissidents who reject a two-state solution. By the same token, it will look at the international relations developed by a Palestinian state solely in terms of their military potential: links with Iran, Libya and Syria will be no problem as long as they don't develop a military dimension.
All this has been negotiated several times already in final status talks, and will be discussed again if and when the Netanyahu government resumes negotiations. The Palestinians are fully aware of the issues. But Netanyahu's "in your face" manner of framing the demilitarization provision certainly did not improve the pre-negotiation atmosphere.
Q. Thirty years ago you followed the Islamic revolution against the Shah of Iran as an intelligence analyst for the state of Israel. Any tips for those following the current unrest in Iran?
A. First, this is a revolutionary situation (though not yet necessarily a revolution) in which it is impossible to predict what will happen. So be wary of those who do presume to predict. And be extremely wary of the rumors posing as accurate reports that tend to characterize this sort of situation. The best anyone can do is to accurately describe the current reality--the dynamic and the balance of power--and that is a hard enough task.
Second, thus far we have witnessed a protest movement within the regime, not against it. I have yet to encounter any significant Iranian actor who proposes that events be directed toward the creation of an alternative regime to the Islamic Republic. This means that, at least as of today, the outcome of the current drama is likely to be less revolutionary than what many outside observers expect or wish for.
Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst, co-founder and co-editor of the Israeli-Palestinian internet dialogue bitterlemons.org and Middle East roundtable bitterlemons-international.org. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, and a former senior official with the Mossad, Israel's national intelligence agency. His views do not necessarily reflect those of Americans for Peace Now or Peace Now.
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