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The Obama Visit --Hard Questions, Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher: March 25, 2013

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The Obama visit

Alpher discusses whether the breakthrough in Israeli-Turkish relations was the most significant achievement of the Obama visit to Israel, whether the Turkey-Israel rapprochement was the only significant achievement of the Obama visit concerning Syria, what he meant by "progress," regarding Iran and the Palestinians an whether there were failures or low points in this visit.

Q. Was the breakthrough in Israeli-Turkish relations the most significant achievement of the Obama visit to Israel?

A. Time will tell. On the one hand, the dramatic breakthrough with Turkey, important and welcome as it is, particularly in the Syrian context, is not likely to restore any sort of genuine strategic relationship with the likes of Turkey's Islamist leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. On the other, the Obama visit also produced progress on both the Iranian and the Palestinian fronts--progress whose significance cannot yet be evaluated.

Clearly, as a crowning achievement to an extremely well choreographed and scripted presidential visit, the Obama-Netanyahu-Erdogan phone conversation just minutes before the American president's departure from Israel was spectacular in nature. Factoring in President Barack Obama's visit to Jordan as well, it would appear that the United States made genuine progress toward containing some of the worst overflow effects of the chaos in Syria (though not the overflow into Lebanon; see below). In fact, as we began mentioning in these virtual pages some six months ago, Netanyahu had long contemplated saying the magic words of apology to Erdogan once Israel's elections and the forming of a coalition were behind him, when he calculated he would not pay a heavy political price for the concession. Obama's visit, and diligent diplomacy by Secretary of State John Kerry and his staff, determined the timing.

Israel in fact paid a considerably lower price for this rapprochement than Erdogan had initially demanded. Netanyahu "expressed Israel's apology to the Turkish people for any mistakes that might have led to the loss of life or injury" aboard the Mavi Marmara aid ship raided by Israeli commandos in May 2010--cautious wording any Israeli can live with in view of the death of 9 Turks in that raid. Israel will pay compensation not to the families of the casualties but to a humanitarian fund. It did not remove the naval blockade of Gaza but undertook to continue relaxing the overall blockade in response to Hamas' ongoing observance of a genuine ceasefire.

All these conditions had in fact been worked out by Israeli and Turkish negotiators around a year and a half ago, and many of Netanyahu's aides had long urged him to issue the apology. As the prime minister himself acknowledged, it was the deterioration in Syria and the threats it posed to Israel and Turkey alike that caused him ultimately to bend.

Israeli tourists are already heading back to Antalya. Almost certainly, a measure of cooperation regarding Syria will be the first order of Turkish-Israeli strategic business. But don't expect a return to the era of strategic partnership. Note that the first foreign leader Erdogan consulted about the Obama-brokered deal with Israel was in Gaza, where Erdogan now intends to visit.

Q. Was the Turkey-Israel rapprochement the only significant achievement of the Obama visit concerning Syria?

A. Definitely not, though in the Israeli media it overshadowed even Obama's spectacular success in winning over the Israeli public. Here it is important to note that, in terms of immediacy, Syria was the most urgent topic on the Israeli strategic agenda for these talks with Obama. As the situation deteriorates there, it threatens to cast the entire Levant into chaos. Even before Obama had departed the Middle East, the war in Syria had brought down the government in Lebanon. Israel particularly fears Salafist cross-border attacks on the Golan and the hemorrhaging of chemical and other strategic weaponry into the hands of militant non-state actors like Hezbollah.

Beyond Israeli-Turkish coordination, Israeli-American and Israeli-Jordanian coordination in the Syrian context were undoubtedly on the agenda for Obama's visit. Note that Obama's visit to Jordan was held against a backdrop of leaked reports that the US is training thousands of Syrian rebels on Jordanian soil and that Israel and Jordan are sharing intelligence regarding Syria.

Q. You mentioned progress regarding Iran and the Palestinians. Can you be more specific?

A. Judging by public statements made by Obama and Netanyahu during the visit, and based on Obama's achievement in gaining the confidence of the Israeli public in the course of just over 48 hours, it would appear that Netanyahu now has little choice but to stop blustering and threatening Iran, and to accept the Obama strategy and timetable for dealing with Iran's nuclear program. Almost certainly, Israel and the US are still not on the exact same page regarding "red lines". Washington insists it has more time to rely on diplomacy and sanctions until Iran is actually on the verge of building a nuclear weapon, while Jerusalem focuses on Iran's presumed preliminary achievement of bomb-building capability regardless of its immediate intentions, which are virtually impossible to know from afar. But Obama seems to have successfully imposed his approach on Israel as part of a set of broader understandings that include Syria and the Palestinians.

Regarding the Palestinian issue, Obama very powerfully made the case for Israel to take more initiatives in order to maintain its integrity as a democratic and Jewish state. In his Thursday afternoon speech and elsewhere, he pushed all the buttons that the Israeli public wants and deserves to hear. He told Israelis, "You are not alone"; that Israel is a Jewish state with deep roots in the region; that its security is paramount and that US security assistance will continue in the long term. But he also stated pointedly that the settlements are a destructive enterprise and--"look at it through their eyes"--the Palestinian case deserves to be heard by Israelis. Obama's speech to Israeli students could have been written for him by Americans for Peace Now.

Finally, Obama made clear that the initiative for a two-state process has to come first and foremost from the Israeli public, pressuring its leaders. But that is not necessarily going to happen when parties elected on a platform that awards highest priority to the two-state solution represent only ten percent of the new Knesset.

That leaves the ball, at least for now, in the hands of Secretary of State Kerry. He will have to be innovative and to avoid the Leon Panetta "just get to the damn table" syndrome if he is to succeed even in restarting a peace process. Some of the rumors floating around point to an attempt to use the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative as a starting point; there are indications that Netanyahu has also given this idea consideration. Reports on Sunday pointed to the possibility of an opening conference in Jordan involving the US, Israel and the Palestinians. Other promising possibilities for a good start involve mutual confidence-building measures by both sides and a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from a symbolic, settlement-free portion of the West Bank.

Netanyahu, who brought Justice Minister Tzipi Livni into his coalition early on as a signal to Obama that he would try to be more forthcoming about a peace process, can hardly say no to renewed negotiations. But Obama and Kerry must recognize that the new Netanyahu government is more than ever tilted in favor of the settlement enterprise in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Further, the substantive gaps between the Netanyahu government and the PLO remain huge. Nor is it at all clear just how far the American president is prepared to go in committing his prestige and his legacy to the extremely challenging and often thankless cause of a two-state solution.

Q. Were there failures or low points in this visit?

A. Obama's visits to Ramallah and Bethlehem certainly did not go as well as his stay in Israel. For one, Palestinians demonstrated against him. Then too, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas reiterated in Obama's presence that he would not agree to renew negotiations without a settlement freeze--a concession Obama pointedly did not publicly demand from Netanyahu. And while Obama once again pledged his commitment to a viable Palestinian state, all those buttons he pushed in his remarks to Israelis did not go over well with Palestinians, whose leadership remains incapable of embracing the notion of a Jewish state. Note, too, that four rockets were fired toward Israel from Gaza as a way of "greeting" the American president's visit.

Q. Summing up?

A. A number of Obama's remarks were clearly intended to dispel the negative impression left on many Israelis by his June 2009 Cairo speech--which, like his talk to Israeli students last Thursday, involved a hand-picked crowd receptive to the president's message of reconciliation. Thus, for example, in addressing the students Obama emphasized the Jewish people's 3000-year old roots in the region, and at Yad Vashem he pointedly stated that "Israel does not owe its existence to the Holocaust, but its existence prevents another one from happening."

On the other hand, Obama never referred to the ring of Islamist entities emerging around Israel--noting only that there are "non-secular" regimes in the region--or to the Islamists' principled rejection of Israel's existence or even to Mahmoud Abbas' rejection of a Jewish state. Beyond brief mention of the rocket fire from Gaza, Obama ignored the huge geographic and political schism that divides Palestinians. If these were gestures intended to avoid offending Israel's neighbors, they will only make sense to Israelis as part and parcel of a concerted attempt to reconcile between those neighbors and Israel: the Netanyahu-Erdogan deal was undoubtedly a step in that direction.

All in all, this was a brilliantly orchestrated visit with a superb climax. American planning was so complete that even Obama's extra-complimentary attitude toward Sarah Netanyahu--a formidable power behind the prime minister--was impressive. The coming weeks and months will tell just how lasting will be the afterglow. Considering events in the region, and the nature of its leaders, including in Israel, we have to be realistic.