U.S. House of Representatives,
Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs,
“After Annapolis: Next Steps in the Middle East Peace Process”
December 5, 2007
Testimony of David Wurmser, Ph.D.
Chairman Lantos, Ranking Member Ros-Lehtinen and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts on this very important subject.
In the last 20 years, several Secretaries of State, and often the President himself, have traveled to Israel and the West Bank over 100 times to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The greater Washington area now represents the geography of peacemaking: Wye, Shepherdstown, Camp David and now Annapolis. In short, no foreign policy issue has consistently governed so much, and so high a level of, official U.S. attention as the Palestinian issue over the past 20 years.
Similarly, we have tried -- through over sixty trips to Damascus by Secretaries of State, and Deputy Secretary of State – to turn Damascus from foe to friend. Damascus has been offered the return of the entire Golan captured in 1967. And yet, today Damascus stands closer to Tehran, more resolute than ever, in challenging our power and interests regionally.
In all those efforts – despite Israel’s offer at Taba (while rockets were flying onto Jerusalem) in 2000 to cede about 95 % of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians -- the violence and tension between Israel and the Palestinians has not abetted. Indeed today, the tension and danger is arguably more intense than ever.
Throughout the period, anti-Americanism in the region has not declined. In fact, it grew most intensely from 1990 to 2000, when our peacemaking efforts were most focused and energetic. Throughout these 20 years, we have worked diligently to define a Palestinian leadership which recognizes Israel’s right to exist. And yet, even Abu Mazen’s government cannot bring itself to do so. For these two decades, we have tried intensely to create a Palestinian entity that severs its ties to terrorism and becomes a responsible actor, and yet, we now have a dangerous terrorist mini state on Israel’s border. And for a decade now, we have tried to reform the PA to become a proper government – and yet the Palestinians themselves have rejected that leadership.
For two decades, we have called on Israel to take risks for peace and make painful concessions so that it will be accepted more broadly and solidly by the international community. And yet, after two decades, the voices questioning Israel’s very right to exist even in Europe are louder than ever. Polls there show that even the populations of even our closest allies revile Israel and Israelis more than even Iran or North Korea.
The prospects that this time will be different and that we will see real progress follow Annapolis, and that all these trends will be reversed, are bleak for several reasons. First, the concept behind Annapolis was divorced from the President’s forward strategy of freedom. Second, the Fatah leadership is so irredeemably weak that it cannot deliver. Third, we are ignoring the danger of the situation in Gaza. Fourth, the Annapolis framework “regionalized” the Palestinian issue when the historical record of regionalization of conflicts is tragic and violent. Finally, the Palestinian issue is not our highest national priority in the current strategic environment. Yet, it disproportionately occupies our attention at the cost of displaying commitment to more important causes, such as Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea. In short, Annapolis failed to emerge from, and thus advance, our national interests.
Freedom:
The forward strategy for freedom remains the only proper foundation for dealing with Israel and its neighbors. To create a leadership capable of making peace with Israel, we need local institutions and accountability of governance among Palestinians. Over time, a genuine, popular and responsible leadership will emerge which will command the profound internal credibility to make the required decisions with respect to Israel and then deliver on those decisions. This is a long process that begins with institutions and civil society, not elections and phony democracy. These principles were the foundation of the June 24, 2002 speech by President Bush, and their realization remains the only viable foundation for a process to create a responsible and moderate leadership among Palestinians.
The roadmap inverted that effort. By putting Israeli-Palestinian talks up front, we and Israel needed a Palestinian interlocutor. The quest for the interlocutor forced us to abandon the June 24 principles in order to artificially define and prop up a corrupt and domestically unpopular leadership elite at the top of Fatah. It represented a microcosm of what we had tried to do for decades: bolster weak, secular Arab-nationalist dictatorships as a bulwark against extremism. This was hope against experience. This idea failed in Iraq in 1990. It failed with Arafat in 2000.
It failed again among Palestinians in 2006. Precisely because the Roadmap took precedence over first building a profoundly new Palestinian leadership, the Palestinians entered the January 2006 elections with a choice between a failed and corrupted ideology and leadership of the past – secular Arab nationalism under Fatah -- and Islamist delusion for the future. Neither represented freedom. Forced to choose between despair of the past and delusion of Islamism, the Palestinians chose delusion. Hamas’ victory and its takeover of Gaza in August 2007 are directly a result of the replacement of the June 24 principles with the Roadmap.
Current efforts to reform and build up Fatah leadership must succeed were the Annapolis process to mean anything. But the prospects of this are dim. For years, we have urged Fatah to reform. It has not. For years, we have tried to build the PA into an army capable of confronting Hamas. The trained soldiers and weapons of that army fell to Hamas in Gaza in days. For years, we have pushed Israel to withdraw and concede to prove to the Palestinians that Abu Mazen alone can “bring home the bacon” for the Palestinian people. But every Israeli concession has been viewed by the Palestinians as a result of Hamas’ strength and Israel’s weakness, thus confirming and reinforcing Hamas’ leadership and rewarding its extremism, not Fatah’s leadership.
And they cannot deliver:
Further investments in this leadership are wasted. Precisely because Abu Mazen and Fatah represent a weak leadership, they lack the sort of domestic credibility to govern, let alone make fateful decisions, so they are driven to seek legitimacy through tough postures. In fact, so weak and rejected is that leadership that it cannot deliver on the cornerstone of any negotiation structure: the acceptance of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish nation. And as long as that issue cannot be put behind us, then the process of negotiations called for by the Annapolis summit is a structure without anchoring foundations. And we cannot ask of Israel – or any other nation -- to enter risky negotiations and make concessions until after it is accepted as a legitimate nation.
In fact, the failure of the current Fatah leadership to accept the essence of Israel raises a serious question, the answer to which must precede any meaningful negotiation: Are basic Israeli demands necessary for its survival capable of being reconciled with the minimal Palestinian national aspirations entirely within Cis-Jordan (i.e., the land west of the Jordan River)? If we cannot answer that question, then we can have no confidence in the entire framework we are pursuing – namely, the creation of two states west of the Jordan River.
The danger of Gaza:
The reality with which we must deal right now is not a Fatah/Abu Mazen government’s finally gaining momentum and resurrecting its political fortune, but the emergence, consolidation and growth of a dangerous terrorist mini-state only miles from Israel’s populous center, Tel Aviv. That mini-state is building an army reminiscent of Hizballah’s in Lebanon, but this time buried in tunnels under, and hiding behind, well over a million civilians concentrated in only a couple of hundred square miles. Israeli units fighting along that front recently have commented that they are encountering not a guerilla force, but a real army.
Hamas now has rockets that reach into Ashqelon, the first major city up the road from Gaza on the way to Tel Aviv. It has already turned one Israeli city, Sderot, into a ghost town. Hamas now boasts that it has missiles that reach much further. Indeed, two months ago, Hamas shot a rocket into the Negev with considerably farther range than before, meaning they already have a proven range north of Ashqelon. During last summer’s war, Hizballah rockets came down on Hadera, about 35 miles north of Tel Aviv. Hizballah claims it now has much more than it did when war erupted last summer. Last summer, we witnessed nearly a million Israelis flee their homes from Hizballah rockets to seek safety in the center of the country. How safe will that center be next time? And is the growing vulnerability of Israel’s population to strikes from terrorist mini-states along its borders a strong foundation for future stability?
But the real danger of Gaza is not just Hamas’ military build-up. Hamas now is Iran’s phalanx. Its success and its challenge to Israel – like Hizballah’s was last summer -- are regionally understood to be a test of our, not just Israel’s, resolve to confront Iran and the coalition of forces that seek to destroy the West. Our Sergeant Schultz response – we see and hear nothing – to Gaza is perceived regionally as a failure of our, not just Israel’s, resolve to take on Iran.
The bottom line is that Hamas is strong. It drives events. Abu Mazen is weak and is driven by them. Hamas, along with its other allies headquartered in Damascus and aligned with Iran, drives events in directions dangerous not only to Israel but to us. As long as we place the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict at the center of our strategy to take on Iran, and as long as Hamas has the power to drive events, then Iran – via Hamas and other Palestinian factions and Hizballah -- exercises a veto over any progress in forging a coalition to confront it.
If Annapolis were a summit of nations congregating to forge a coalition to destroy Iran and take out Hamas – rather than to try to achieve Arab-Israeli peace now -- then it would have had purpose. Instead, the summiteers whistled past the problem of Hamas and Iran and pinned all hopes on another negotiation process with Abu Mazen.
The danger of regionalization:
The Annapolis summit also took a dangerous turn in that it sought a solution by regionalizing it. The history of the Middle East tells us nothing if not that the regionalization of local conflicts is the problem, not the solution. Indeed, it is the persistent recurrence of internationalization of internal politics that afflicts, distorts and ultimately destroys so many Arab nations.
Whatever problems Lebanon may have had early in its life, the stream of intrusions by regional forces – the most dangerous of which was Nasserism and the tide of pan-Arab nationalism – killed it. Now a brewing fight over the soul of Islamism between Iran and Saudi Arabia threaten Lebanon reborn.
Similarly all the signs in Iraq, left to itself, point to a collection of Iraqi communities engaged in a rancorous, but ultimately reconcilable debate. Every time we have sought to load a regional solution onto the internal debate in Iraq – be it neighbor’s conferences or the role of the UN representative Ladhkar Ibrahimi – it has overloaded the system and led to dangerous breakdowns. More simply, every time we invite Iraq’s covetous neighbors to dinner, Baghdad finds itself on the menu, not at the table.
But no issue has been as distorted, dominated and ultimately made as dangerous by exposing it to international trends as the Palestinian issue. Almost every war fought in the Palestinians’ name has been fought to their detriment because those wars really had more to do with the agenda of other nations – mostly Arab, but also other great powers -- and served their interests. Indeed, there is no solution possible to the Palestinian problem until the Palestinians are finally isolated and insulated from broader regional trends which seek to use the Palestinian cause as part of their regional strategy.
In that context, we have to understand the nature of the election of Hamas in 2006. Instead of cutting their own path and rejecting regional extremist trends, they voted to embrace those trends. They identified Iran, and Hamas as Iran’s local representative, as the next great hope to ride to victory over Israel and the West. In short, in 2006 the Palestinians defined themselves and their national identity as the expression of, rather than bulwark against, the region’s extremist trends.
Herein lies the core problem with the effort to resolve the Palestinian issue as a prerequisite for dealing with the problem of Iran. By this summit, we are again subordinating the Palestinian issue to regional trends, while also placing the resolution of the issue at the center of trying to create an international coalition to confront Iran. But the Palestinians have effectively chosen sides in January 2006; and they have chosen Iran. Until Iran is defeated and their revolutionary ideology thoroughly discredited, the Palestinians will place their hopes in Tehran and we will have little traction among them.
Priorities and timing:
Finally, the United States faces some of the gravest and most complex problems it has faced in a long time. In recent months, our Secretary of State has traveled to Israel and Ramallah nine times. But Ramallah is a sideshow compared to the places she has not traveled.
Not only the legacy of this administration, but the stature of the United States, truly rides on success in Iraq. It is imperative that all our top officials – not only our President and Vice President -- regularly visit Baghdad to show the flag.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea remains an unresolved issue, even though we have an agreement with Pyongyang on paper. If reports are true about the target Israel hit in Syria last September actually involved proliferation-related nuclear technology from North Korea, then we see just how unresolved that problem actually is. To deal with this problem, we need the closest and most intense cooperation of our most important regional ally, Tokyo – which sits within nuclear missile range of the DPRK.
Pakistan is at the brink. We face a conceivable scenario in which this nuclear nation falls into chaos and could wind up dangerously aligned with Taliban-like forces. And yet, the top agenda item the same week as Islamabad’s upheaval is Annapolis.
As far as the Middle East goes, Iran poses the gravest challenge this nation has yet regionally faced. Tehran believes it has become the soul and sword of Islam and the vanguard to destroy the West, not only Israel. Across the Middle East there is broad fear that Iran will drag down the whole region into a civilizational clash, the consequences of which are unfathomable. And we have yet to devise a strategy that guarantees that Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons. The trajectory we are on will not stop Iran, nor will it bring about a collapse of the regime -- which is the only way the region will ever see a day of peace in any corner.
For those nations most threatened by Iran, the Palestinian issue is the last issue with which they really want to cope. Iran has wired the Palestinian issue to its complete advantage. By becoming the champion of Palestinian extremism, Iran has positioned itself to accuse any regional leader who wishes to come to terms with Israel of betraying the Palestinian, Arab and Muslim trust to save his regime. The result is that in public, Arab leaders are driven to radicalize their positions lately on this issue. Now is not the time to expect moderation from Arab capitals since it plays into Iran’s hands.
Conclusions:
As far as the region goes, now is the time to confront Iran decisively, not descend into sideshows. This might be able to be achieved without military force, but to ignore that option and take it off the table only emboldens the regime and makes it more likely that in the long run this will be resolved by war.
Iran is entering a particularly dangerous phase of its existence, one which will lead to even further war and escalation with us either through proxy or even directly. The longer we dally on side issues and fail to confront that regime, the more dangerous this problem becomes and the more Iran will transform this conflict into a civilizational struggle.
And as far as the Palestinian issue goes, before we plunge headlong into another process grounded on the same foundations as previously failed processes, we should step back and engage in a zero-based analysis of our real interests, of our experience and of our first principles. We now have 20, indeed 80 years of experience in peacemaking (if we include Britain’s pre-1948 attempts to reconcile its commitment to Zionism with its relations with the Arab world). And arguably, we have not advanced much toward peace – other than perhaps the most stable and brief period between 1982 and 1989, which was not an era of peacemaking.
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