Prospects for Peace

 This piece appears in today's Ha'aretz.

Speaking at Bar-Ilan University last Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to be targeting three distinct audiences with his messages. First was an audience of one - the president of the United States. The words "Palestinian state" were intended primarily for his ears. Next were Netanyahu's supporters in the United States, desperate for ammunition in the battle to depict their Israeli champion as reasonable, and to push the blame for any impasse back onto Arab and Palestinian shoulders. Third, and no less important, was the premier's domestic constituency. That his speech did not spark even the slightest coalition crisis reveals more about the stinginess of his words than it does about the sturdiness of his coalition.

So who was Netanyahu not talking to that night?

Certainly, the Arab and Palestinian publics, including 1.3 million of his own citizens, were not priority audiences. Yes, technically, the premier did turn to "all Arab leaders" and to "our Palestinian neighbors"; he is, of course, ready to meet them, any time, anywhere, and to cooperate on advancing an "economic peace." But Netanyahu was not engaging, or even reaching out. He was offering a history lesson.

By far the longest section of the Bar-Ilan speech was devoted to answering a question that Netanyahu himself posed: "What is the root of the conflict?" For him there is only one narrative: a narrow, unreconstructed and self-righteous nationalist discourse. It is designed to resonate well with the Israeli-Jewish public, and its exclusivity guarantees its inability to muster any legitimacy on the other side.

The emphasis Netanyahu placed on this narrative begs the question: Can it coexist with a two-state solution? Before one even begins to address that, two important caveats should be noted. The prime minister raised a host of practical issues (among them territory, settlements, Jerusalem, refugees and security), all of which he would have difficulty swallowing for a two-state solution to become reality, and that would probably happen only under a strong, U.S.-led external push. His narrative also precludes any true equality for the 20 percent of Israel's population that is Palestinian Arab. Irrespective of any two-state arrangement, Israel finally needs to square the circle of being both a democracy and a national home to the Jewish people. Indeed, the "Jewish state" framing has thus far fallen woefully short in practice.

If Netanyahu really believes that in order to make peace, the Arabs and Palestinians will need to become Zionists, then there will be no peace. If retaining this recalcitrant narrative is his way of delivering a rightist-led yet viable two-state reality, however, then things get interesting. As Likud leader and bearer of Ze'ev Jabotinsky's Revisionist legacy, Netanyahu should understand the inadmissibility of the former proposition. Jabotinsky understood that the Palestinian Arabs would never embrace Zionism - regardless of the economic peace and industrial parks on offer. One could even argue that the Abbas-Fatah leadership, in bucking this trend, was doomed to fail: It unconditionally accepted Israel, rejected resistance and assumed the mantle of peace partner, even while the Palestinians remained under occupation. Israel under Netanyahu is offering nothing to such a Palestinian partner, and perhaps it is more honest and even healthier that way. But can narratives be one thing and practicalities another?

Such an approach would have clear implications. It offers a cold peace of the kind that has worked and withstood the test of time with Egypt and Jordan. It should inform Palestinian strategy and drive the need for Palestinian national reconciliation. Most of all, it calls for a mature and dispassionate reading of those power dynamics by all the key protagonists.

I would agree with Palestinian academic Ahmad Khalidi, who suggested in The Guardian last month that "despite their current split, the majority of Palestinians - including Hamas - have accepted the political reality of Israel." Nonetheless, he went on to argue, it would be a mistake to think they will "acknowledge Israel's historic and moral claim to what were once Palestinian Arab lands." Hamas has not gone far enough in recognizing the limitations and counter-productive nature of indiscriminate violence. The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has gone too far in limiting its toolbox exclusively to negotiations with Israel and in giving a nod to the idea of governance and security capacity being prerequisites to de-occupation. Neither Palestinian party has sufficiently appreciated the efficacy of nonviolent resistance to occupation.

Israel may have a longer journey to acknowledge the overreach constituted by continued occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and its thickening of the infrastructure of that occupation. Israel may be the world's highest defense spender relative to its population (according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), but there are limits to what that spending can deliver (as witnessed recently in both Gaza and Lebanon).

The increasingly aggressive and egregious measures that Israel's occupation takes against the Palestinian civilian population are beginning to threaten, on an unprecedented scale, both Israel's democracy and its international support. And this is no longer a conversation just among ourselves. Truths are being belatedly spoken to all sides where it matters most - in Washington. Israel now has a friend in the White House who is willing to hold a mirror up to these hard realities of political power. 

 By Daniel Levy and Amjad Atallah

 This piece also appears at The Huffington Post.

"One giant leap for Benjamin Netanyahu, but just one small step for Middle East peace."
That was how commentators in both of Israel's leading dailies, Yehidot Ahronot and Ma'ariv, chose to describe the Prime Minister's address yesterday. One thing can definitely be concluded from the speech, Ben Rhodes has not been on loan from the White House and stationed in Jerusalem for the last week. It was a poor speech stylistically. Even the historical and biblical quotes were of the predictable and plodding kind, it lacked grandeur or any sense of occasion. More importantly, it was also a mean-spirited, often petty and parochial speech in its substance, "a speech without a gram of nobility," as commentator Ofer Shelach wrote in Ma'ariv.

Israel has just lived through two prime ministers who made significant journeys from their right-wing roots and even if neither entered the promised land of peace, both made gestures in that direction. Ariel Sharon acknowledged the occupation as did his successor Ehud Olmert, who went much further in recognizing a Palestinian narrative and displaying some empathy to, for instance, the Palestinian refugees. Judging from the Bar-Ilan University speech, Benjamin Netanyahu has barely set out on that journey. For him, there was no occupation, talk of Judea and Samaria but no West Bank, and there was no sense of humanity in his approach to the Palestinians. Although they are his neighbors and even 20% of his own citizenry, their world would seem to be totally alien to him. He called, for instance, on the Arab world to develop together joint tourist sites, such as, "around the walls of Jericho and the walls of Jerusalem," with no apparent appreciation for the irony of referring to walls in this context.

Netanyahu, perhaps understandably, spoke to a lowest common denominator - Jewish Israeli consensus, and his right wing coalition was sleeping easy last night. And yet, he uttered those two magic words, Palestinian state. The list of conditionalities surrounding the establishment of that state may have been so extensive as to drain the very idea of statehood of any meaning but still, he said it.

The Obama administration had asked for two things: on a settlement freeze they received a blunt 'No'; on Palestinian statehood, it was a highly conditioned 'Yes, but...'. As Israel TV and Ma'ariv analyst Ben Caspit put it, "welcome Mr. Prime Minister to the 20th century. The problem is that we're already in the 21st."

So what happens next? What are the consequences of this speech and what can be done in its wake? Here are five suggestions, most of them for the Obama administration but a thought also on the Palestinian response.

First, as the White House Press Secretary immediately did, pocket that Palestinian statehood commitment. However minor it may seem, however wrapped in negatives, it is something to build on. It is also clearly something that cannot be left to the parties themselves to translate into a workable plan for actually realizing a two-state reality. That will be a job for the US and its international and regional allies.

Second, treat the Israeli Prime Minister's emphasis on security issues and conditionalities as an invitation. Once he got past the historical lecture, Benjamin Netanyahu actually laid out some reasonable concerns with regard to the security arrangements and guarantees that a peace agreement would have to address. Netanyahu spent three paragraphs outlining the demilitarization, monitoring, air-space requirements, and other security factors weighing on his mind, and Netanyahu made a direct plea, "today we ask our friends in the international community, led by the United States for what is critical to the security of Israel."

The Obama administration should respond and present a detailed plan for answering Israel's legitimate security concerns in the context of a two-state solution. There will of course be a parallel ask of Israel from its "friends in the international community led by the United States" - end the occupation, agree to a border based on the '67 lines with only minor reciprocal modifications, including arrangements for Jerusalem, and for the refugees, and for real Palestinian sovereignty.

Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday opened the door for this kind of an arrangement. He also notably did not mention the effort of American General Keith Dayton or the Palestinian Security Forces. The message is clear. Security will have to be an internationally-led effort and capacity-building in the Palestinian security sector should from now on be treated as something that is perhaps useful but of a secondary order of magnitude.

Third, the Obama administration and the Quartet must push back in response to Netanyahu's settlement freeze rejectionism. Netanyahu promised there would be no new settlements or additional land confiscations but there would be a normal life, which is referred to in the technical jargon as "natural growth". The settler leadership understood this ruse for what it is, and when Israel Channel One cut from the speech to settler leaders in Ma'aleh Adumim, they were celebrating. "We do not need new land or new settlements," said local mayor Benny Kasriel, former head of the settlers' council, "just to keep building." One can see his point. The West Bank settler population has increased from 111,000 to over 290,000 since the Oslo process began in 1993 (the number reaches almost 500,000 including East Jerusalem). The vast majority of that was under the rubric of natural growth, and there are vast expanses of land annexed to settlement municipalities awaiting construction.

The Obama administration needs to stick to its principle of a total freeze, whether in public or private conversation, and as former ambassador Daniel Kurtzer pointed out in Sunday's Washington Post, there are no previous understandings on this matter between Washington and Jerusalem (and supposed friends of Israel, like Elliott Abrams, are a danger to Israel and to the America-Israel relationship when they claim otherwise). There can be only one place for a discussion of the future of settlements and that is delineating a permanent status border between Israel and Palestine.

Fourth, Netanyahu's speech should provide a spur for Palestinian national reconciliation and unity (though we doubt this will be the case). The disappointed PA response, while understandable, was somewhat beside the point. The Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and Gaza have heard an Israeli national narrative and position. Adhering to Palestinian divisions, and a strategy exclusively based on negotiations has even less logic or credibility as of yesterday. The Palestinians will need to find a way to sufficiently unify their own national narrative. Simultaneously they need to develop a common position on negotiations in parallel with a willingness to use nonviolent struggle in opposing the continued occupation (as President Obama hinted at in his Cairo speech).

Finally, the Obama administration should interpret both the venue of Netanyahu's speech (the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies) and his repeated reference to Begin-Sadat as a subliminal message. Benjamin Netanyahu is asking to go down in history as a historical leader of Israel just as Menachim Begin did, and this time by securing a comprehensive peace and final borders with all of Israel's neighbors, including the Palestinians (Menachem Begin settled for just Egypt). Begin never thought he would withdraw from all of the Sinai and evacuate the settlements there, but with American guidance, it happened and has vitally served Israel's interests.

 This piece was also published at TPM Café .

The Obama team’s remarkable wordsmithery and the president’s unparalleled capacity for delivery were exquisitely on display again today in Cairo. But this speech should perhaps be remembered as much for what was not said. Gone was the arrogance and lecturing: there was no lavishing of praise on Egypt’s undemocratic leader – the word ‘Mubarak’ was not even mentioned once. Out too was the purple finger version of democratization and even the traditional American condescension toward the Palestinian narrative. But perhaps most remarkably of all, the words ‘terror’ or ‘terrorism’ did not pass the president’s lips. Here was a leader and a team around him smart enough to acknowledge that certain words have become too tainted, too laden with baggage, their use has become counter-productive, today the Global War on Terror framing was truly laid to rest.

Particularly striking was that President Obama almost certainly has emerged from the Cairo speech having accumulated additional capital rather than expending it, with greater popularity, traction, and respect among not only his ostensible target audience, the Muslim world, but also globally, including at home in America and even in Israel and with the world’s Jewish community. His future leverage across a range of issues has been enhanced.

It’s true that whenever the speech descended from the lofty heights of 30,000 feet to the 100-feet resolution of policy specifics and details, the magic dust seemed to dissipate as it emerged from the clouds, and those details were too often more autopilot than reset. But this was a big picture speech, and there is room later to make those course corrections on policy detail.

Here then are ten quick thoughts:

1. The Mother of All Resets

 The president’s speech literally in one fell swoop will have much of the Muslim world and certainly elites, opinion leaders, and activists scratching their heads and recalibrating their stance toward America. Yes, for everyone the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, what comes next and whether policy changes on specific issues. The immediate effect though is to buy America space and time. It gives those who share an affinity with American values a new lease of life, causes the majority who are not hostile to the US but deeply skeptical of its intentions to reconsider and suspend judgment, and it will induce in America’s enemies a splitting headache.

At a most basic level, the president managed to connect. He spoke humbly and touched on buzz words for this audience, discussing dignity, justice, and the truths we hold in our hearts. He even uttered the word colonialism and mentioned denial of rights and cold-ward proxies. Obama evoked Islam’s contribution to the world and to America, and yes, he quoted the Quran.  Above all, he restored balance, confining the label of enemy only to those violent extremists who threaten America’s security, while opening up to the vast majority of practicing Muslims, including, I would argue, Islamist movements.

2. In Cairo the Conversation with Political Islam Began

By narrowly focusing on al-Qaeda as the enemy and apparently articulating an understanding of the non-al-Qaeda Islamist narrative, the president seemed to extend a tentative but visibly unclenched fist to mainstream political Islam. It is those Islamist movements that we should be most closely watching in the weeks and months ahead as they begin to work through their own responses to the new administration.

Obama seemed to implicitly accept the legitimacy of political Islam and its role in the democratic process while challenging it to unequivocally reject violence against civilians. There was a stark contrast, for instance, between the president’s message to al-Qaeda (we will defeat you if you threaten us) as compared to his message to Hamas (whom he addressed directly as having a role to fulfill Palestinian aspirations and unify the Palestinian people).

The president’s historical analogies may not have been the best ones. In discussing the nonviolent resistance of black America to the “lash of the whip” in achieving equal rights he obviously made a powerful and reasonable point but one that may be more relevant to a Palestinian struggle for a one-state democracy rather than for national liberation and de-occupation. By claiming that the same story can be told in South Africa and elsewhere, he simply rewrote history – the ANC did of course use armed resistance in their struggle as did so many other successful liberation movements.

That said, Obama’s effort to carry the argument in somewhat sympathetic terms to the Palestinian resistance–“violence…rockets…is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered”–was a valiant one and should be encouraged, not least in Israel. I might be reading too much into this but the speech could be seen as an acknowledgement that a process that engages Hamas is more likely to produce results than one that does not.

Responding immediately on al-Jazeera, Ahmed Yusuf, advisor to Gaza Prime Minister Haniyeh, lavished praised on Obama’s “Martin Luther King-like speech” and his rejection of the clash of civilizations discourse while defensively questioning his call for Hamas to accept the international community’s three preconditions (end violence, accept past agreements, recognize Israel).The distinction though was clear and the years of wrong-headedly lumping together the Salafist jihadis of al-Qaeda with the Muslim Brothers of Hamas or the Hezbollah movement is over.

3. Regaining the Moral Clarity of 9/11

Almost eight years on, there it was, an American president explaining to the world what happened on that day and the war of necessity against al-Qaeda that was launched in its wake. It was an important moment in resetting and reconfiguring for international and Muslim public opinion what happened then and has happened since. It is also perhaps the most damning indictment of all for the Bush presidency that in 2009 such a reiteration by an American president is so necessary.

President Obama also reissued a clear statement of America’s interests across a range of issues from getting out of Iraq and achieving a Palestinian state to its goals in Afghanistan, and shared values with so much of the Muslim world in promoting basic freedoms, religious pluralism, women’s rights, and development.

4. Finally a President Who Can Talk to Palestinians

 Obama’s words on the Palestinian situation were not remarkable for his advocacy of a two-state solution, his mentioning of Palestine, or his opposition to the settlements. All of that we have heard before, and in fact, the speech gave precious little by way of actually articulating a plan for Palestinian de-occupation and statehood. But that was also its strength.

The idea of a Palestinian state, even before it exists, has lost much of its luster and appeal for Palestinians precisely because American and Israeli leaders talked about statehood as a technical fix for a Palestinian problem, in exclusively economic, governance, and security terms. In so doing, they ignored or demeaned and denied the Palestinian narrative and made the whole arrangement sound rather unappetizing.

Today, President Obama began to redress that. PA capacity and economic opportunities were something of a footnote. And thankfully, the building of Palestinian security forces was not even mentioned.

Instead Obama spoke a language that actual Palestinians could relate to, recalling the 60-year “pain of dislocation,” the “wait in refugee camps” (without in the same breath emasculating the refugees of any rights). He spoke of humiliation, occupation, and an intolerable situation – in other words, Palestinian daily reality. Only after recognizing the Palestinian experience did he chart the course for achieving “the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity,” namely, via a Palestinian state. This shift in discourse may be lost on most American ears, not so for Palestinians and in the Arab and Muslim world, and it begins to give Obama a moral authority that will allow him to address this issue in speaking directly to the Palestinian people above the heads of their divided leadership.

5. Shimon Peres Could Not Have Done a Better Job

In what is becoming classical Obama, he at the same time presented perhaps the most compelling justification and explanation of Israel’s rights and its existence ever spoken in an Arab and Muslim capital. No Israeli has ever done a better job, he is a true friend. In the most unequivocal of terms and in a speech that so captured Muslim world attention, Obama placed the notions of threatening Israel’s destruction, stereotypes of Jews, and Holocaust denial, as being irredeemably beyond the pale and unacceptable. And he reaffirmed America’s “unbreakable bond with Israel.”

Tellingly, if unsurprisingly, it is these messages that are leading the Israeli news coverage of the speech. While the government of Benjamin Netanyahu may be squirming in discomfort at Obama’s reasoned and repeated calls for a settlement freeze, for reopening Gaza, and for Palestinian statehood, the Israeli public will, I think, be both reassured and keen to believe in the hope for change and a better future for them also.

One imagines too that the day is not so far off for an honest, empathetic, and home-truths Obama speech to Israel and the Jewish world. Expect that speech to be not only well-received but also to bring us dramatically closer to finally ending the Arab-Israeli conflict and achieving that two-state solution. Obama’s use of the phrase, “align American policies with those who pursue peace,” will also be noted in Jerusalem. Finally, by referring to “Jewish homeland” rather than a Jewish state, Obama, I think, studiously avoided giving succor to the slew of racist laws being presented in the new Israeli Knesset. 

6. Policy Details – More Auto-Pilot Than Reset.

In a speech that I genuinely think carries game-changing potential for so many issues that America and the Muslim world are caught up in, there was virtually nothing new in detailed policy terms. That is very probably due to the nature of the speech, and the detailed policy changes might follow in the coming months. But if they don’t, Cairo will go down as a moment of unrequited promise and opportunity.

On Israel-Palestine, we dusted off the Road Map (yet again), a Bush relic that should have long ago been filed in the trash can, and the Afghanistan and Iraq plans still do not sound too convincing. It’s unclear how even Obama’s more sophisticated version of democratization will be advanced with America’s staunchest and most democracy-resistant allies, and the way forward with Iran remains opaque. Noteworthy, too, was that in a speech stating that America has no designs on maintaining military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, the continued American military footprint elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim world was not touched upon.

7. Hosni Mubarak and the Perils of Playing Host

Egypt’s rulers would no doubt have been mortified had this speech taken place anywhere else in the Arab or Muslim world. There is an understandable Egyptian sense of pride in their history and sense of longing to still be considered the region’s leading power. Having landed those hosting rights, Mubarak’s regime today had to live with the consequences. Obama spoke to his audience and to the Egyptian people, and in an interesting break from past practice, his presidential host Mr. Mubarak was not even mentioned let alone lavished with praise. It will not go unnoticed.

Obama did mention Egypt’s Christian Coptic minority and of course spoke to human rights and people choosing their own governments to loud applause. So much for all the neocon bleating before the speech about Obama being a valueless realist ready to sell freedom-spirited Egyptians down the river. I was not there, but a sense of being empowered almost seemed to echo around the room at Cairo University and well beyond, and it might have major implications for Egypt and the region that will be played out in the coming years.

And finally, we have an American president who avoided the Pavlovian repetition of how American support for the Egyptian regime is so linked to Egypt’s historic peace with Israel. The way that linkage has played out – that America goes soft of non-democratic tendencies in the Arab world as long as they are pro-Israel – has done a great disservice to the public perception of not only peace but also of America and even Israel.

8. More Hand Less Fist on Iran

There was even some encouragement for Obama’s Iran policy in today’s speech. It was beginning to look disturbingly like the Obama administration would be brandishing the stick of sanctions in one hand and the stopwatch of deadlines in the other, thereby leaving no hand free to shake any prospective Iranian unclenched fist.  Obama moved beyond that. Many will point to his acknowledgement of history: “The United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government,” as being the money line.  It’s true that is a big deal and goes further than what was said in his Norouz message. However, I think this was more important, if not entirely new: “any nation- including Iran – should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the NPT.”

The president also had this intriguing chestnut to share on nuclear nonproliferation: “I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not.” Now I may be a bit Israelocentric in how I look at the world but this sounds like a not too subtle hint to me. Might this be a kind of “yes – we acknowledge there is a double standard here regarding the Israeli nuclear issue, and eventually we will get to that too.” It won’t be a headline, Israel will officially ignore it, and when asked Obama’s spokespeople will obfuscate but in more than a few capitals, including Jerusalem, a parsing industry will grow up around those few words.

9. Giving a Finger to the Purple Finger Theory of Democratization

Obama did it. He reclaimed the democratization agenda by placing it in a broader context as a set of rights and freedoms, and by going on to address religious pluralism, women’s rights, and the challenge of adapting economic development and modernity to traditional values. To be honest, it’s not a particularly difficult one to pull off, but to give him his fair dues, Barack Obama does do it better than anyone else. And there’s something of a new policy here, timely with the Lebanese election elections next week: “…we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments - provided they govern with respect for all their people.”

The genius was in the pivot. Obama respected Islamic tradition and religious piety, and for instance, a woman’s right to wear the hijab, and he then pivoted that into a broader discussion of the values of female education and women’s rights, placing those things in seamless harmony rather than in contradiction. After an American president who was perceived as doing so much to sow division in the Muslim world, one of Obama’s most powerful lines was undoubtedly, “fault-lines must be closed among Muslims… the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence,” and all this couched in a constant appeal to young people.

10. And He Was Also Speaking to the American Public

After years of fear-mongering, Islamofascist awareness weeks on campuses, and tens of millions of copies of the vile “Obsession” DVD appearing in newspapers and mailboxes, yet another, no less important, reset button was pressed today. The president will no doubt be accused of apologetics and moral relativism, but he decided to face this head-on, to go to Cairo, speak with respect and honesty to the Muslim world, and to do what was best for America’s national security interests.

In so doing, he was also broadcasting a message back home. Most American Muslims will no doubt be feeling a great sense of pride and inspiration from this speech. The rest of America was given a timely and even touching reminder of the contributions that American Muslims have made to this country and that Muslims have given the world in general. Oh, and there might have even been a little message in there upping the ante, for Congress and even for his own party–“I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.”

This article appears in Ha'aretz.

The morning after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds his own formula for embracing the two-state solution - perhaps in Cairo next week or in Washington the week after - will we wake up to a new Middle East? I somehow doubt it. There may be internal political criticism (which Netanyahu can harness) and some may call his move courageous, but the focus will soon shift to settling into a diplomatic process in which the ultimate goal of two states is never reached.

With renewed American interest in delivering a two-state reality, the leaderships in both Jerusalem and Ramallah appear to share one common goal: finding a comfort zone, a place where the peace process can continue ad infinitum, and hard decisions can be avoided.

Netanyahu's proposal for three negotiating tracks with the Palestinians (economic, security and political) fits neatly within that comfort zone. While a vigorous discussion with the Obama administration over settlements and mutual steps to be taken by Israel and the Arab states to advance the Arab peace initiative gradually might appear less convenient for Netanyahu, this, too, will have a comforting familiarity to it. It's easy to envisage endless months spent (wasted) on the sequencing of who goes first, on the scope of limitations for settlement expansion, and on the time-honored tradition of mutual recriminations and blame games.

Despite their desperate situation, such a reality has the quiet trappings of a comfort zone for the Palestinian Ramallah-based leadership, too. The bills are paid by donor countries, the political life-support tubes remain firmly attached. The PLO might even succeed in goading the U.S. into an occasional public spat with Israel. The Arab states can grandstand over the injustice of it all, while the resistance movements will decry the hypocrisy of the West and the impotence and complicity of the so-called moderate Arab regimes.

If simply declaring the two-state solution as a goal, but doing nothing meaningful to achieve it, is so convenient and comfortable for all concerned, then why not just go with the flow? One reason is that the narrow interests of political leaderships don't necessarily accord with their respective peoples' broader needs, with the desire for regional stability and certainly not with U.S. national interests. Business as usual, postponing the two-state solution, may well place that option beyond reach, feeding radicalization, encouraging the eruption of greater violence - as witnessed recently in Gaza - and crippling American efforts elsewhere in the region.

Today's fault line on the two-state solution is not about declarations - whether by Netanyahu or anyone else. It is about what one might call the "comfort zone" versus the "decision zone." Consequently, the two critical questions have become: How does one negotiate a two-state solution, and how does one implement a two-state solution? The comfort zone leaves the negotiations up to the parties alone, with their endless bilateral wrangling, and it conditions implementation on the Palestinians meeting a high bar for proof of self-governance capacity. Entering the decision zone would change that equation. The parties can continue talking, but reaching a solution becomes externally-driven, being U.S.-led and involving back-to-back consultations with all the key actors, Israelis and Palestinians included. Likewise, implementation of the two-state solution is no longer conditioned on incubating Palestinian self-governance while under hostile Israeli occupation. Instead, the international community assumes responsibilities and creates a partnership for a period of time, as it did in Bosnia, East Timor and elsewhere, thus playing a decisive role in filling the security and governance vacuum.

Entering the decision zone involves hard choices for all concerned. The Palestinian Authority leadership in Ramallah will be asked to accept a heavy international footprint (notably in the security arena) during the early years of statehood, and a far-reaching practical compromise on the refugee issue. Hamas will be asked to acquiesce to this outcome as constituting the conditions for a long-term hudna, or cease-fire (yes, Hamas will have to be engaged, whether directly or indirectly, and guaranteed full political participation in exchange for reciprocal obligations).

The Arab states would be expected to make good on the Arab peace initiative and to establish normal relations with Israel. In this respect, the two-state solution should be part of a comprehensive regional approach also addressing Israeli-Syrian and Israeli-Lebanese peace. Iran should be pushed to make good on its own commitment to accept any outcome agreeable to the Palestinians, and if it refuses, then Iran will become a lone voice, no longer able to rally popular regional support for its rejectionism.

Israel, of course, will be asked to dismantle the infrastructure of occupation and cease its control over the West Bank and East Jerusalem (reciprocal and minor modifications to the 1967 lines will have to be delineated alongside other practical and thorny arrangements).

Only the U.S. government can lead this process, invest in it politically, and drive home a resolution to the conflict - which itself will entail international and notably European and NATO support, incentives and active involvement.

Making the transition from the comfort zone to the decision zone will by definition be unnerving and disruptive, but in reality, there is no comfort in continuing a process whose design guarantees that the conflict will be prolonged and that the two-state solution will never be reached.

This piece appears as a web exclusive for Foreign Policy

President Obama's special peace envoy, former Sen. George Mitchell, is just wrapping up his latest visit to the Middle East. It's his third trip since being appointed and this time in addition to Israel, the West Bank, and Egypt, included Saudi Arabia and North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria), with an emphasis on a comprehensive regional peace, building on the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002. (Mitchell has yet to visit Damascus or Beirut, something unlikely to take place until after June's parliamentary elections in Lebanon.)

In meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Mitchell continued to reiterate U.S. support for a two-state solution, although the emphasis of the visit, perhaps understandably, still seems to be the listening tour aspect, including the first meetings since Israel's new government took office.

Some reports on these latest meetings portray PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas as carrying a message of hope and peace in the face of a rejectionist Israeli premier. Others depict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as being seized by the more urgent calling of the Iranian threat, and showing a willingness to make progress on practical issues with the Palestinians, such as the economy, while avoiding a possibly dangerous and premature effort to address the political differences -- especially given the enfeebled nature of the Palestinian counterpart.

Both views are wrong.

The sad truth is that neither leader has a meaningful strategy for creating a new equilibrium for resolving this conflict. Despite all their differences (and there are many), Netanyahu and Abbas are similar in two major respects: Both stand atop deeply dysfunctional political systems that eschew bold decision-making. And both are focused on short-term political survival, an understandable instinct and one certainly not unique to the Levant, but also woefully inadequate given the challenges faced by their respective peoples.

So, due to both circumstance and a generous dose of intentional design, Senator Mitchell's Palestinian and Israeli interlocutors are busy preparing sugar-coated traps and distractions. The Mitchell team should be well prepared to recognize the pitch of a snake- oil salesman when they hear one.

On the Israel interlocutor side, here are the main traps Mitchell should look out for:

1) The ‘Say the Magic Words' Game. Thus far, Netanyahu is refusing to explicitly endorse the two-state formula. This is being nicely set up to become a rather large red herring, whereby diplomatic attention becomes focused on teasing out a linguistic formula to claim that Israel's premier is indeed a "two-stater." Last Friday's headline in the Israeli daily Ma'ariv even suggests that Netanyahu is planning for a dramatic climb- down gesture during his first visit with U.S. President Barack Obama (now postponed from early May to possibly later in the month), during which he would declare acceptance of the two states position. What a colossal distraction and waste of time.

To paraphrase what always used to be said of former PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat --what matters are his actions, not his words. Saying the magic words is of minor import. Ending the occupation and actually delivering on a two-state solution is what should matter to the Mitchell team. The latest ruse to apparently come out of the Netanyahu-Mitchell meeting was an Israeli demand that the Palestinians first recognize Israel as a Jewish state (something that neither Egypt, nor Jordan, did in their respective peace treaties with Israel) -- a meaningless diversionary tactic.

2) It's not the economy, stupid. Netanyahu advocates focusing first on what he calls "economic peace" -- developing the Palestinian economy as a prerequisite for two states. Indeed, economic improvement would be welcome, and no one should oppose moves such as ending the closures, removing the 600-plus obstacles to freedom of Palestinian movement in the West Bank (that dovetail with the map of settlements and settler road use arrangements), lifting the siege on Gaza, etc. However, by now the secret may be out that developing the Palestinian economy in order to make the Palestinians a peace-loving people, while maintaining the Israeli occupation and the settlements, is precisely what's been tried for the last 15 years -- with dismal results. The Palestinians won't be bought off; this is a political conflict requiring political solutions. Economic improvements are important as a support ballast, not as a central plank.

3) "You go first; no you go first." If Netanyahu is smart (as I consider him to be), then he is likely to spot a tantalizing diversionary opportunity in the Arab Peace Initiative. That plan, initiated by the Saudis and adopted by the Arab League in 2002, and reissued in 2007, calls for recognition, security, and normal relations between all the Arab states and Israel in exchange for a comprehensive agreement between Israel and its immediate neighbors, based on land-for-peace, two-states, and U.N. resolutions. It's a potential game-changer, and the Obama administration (unlike its predecessor, which ignored the initiative) is apparently keen on using the initiative as a framing principle for its peace efforts. Its beauty is in its simplicity and in its comprehensive nature: everything for everything.

The lurking danger would lie be if Netanyahu attempts to break the initiative down into gradual, sequential, bite-size mini-steps that each side would be expected to take. For instance, Israel says the words "two states" or returns to negotiations, or freezes settlements in return for partial normalization from the Arab side. This may sound nice, but beware: In practice, it will prove to be a recipe for an endless, fruitless, and oxygen-sucking debate on the sequencing -- "you go first; no you go first" -- reminiscent of an Alphonse and Gaston routine, minus the exaggerated politeness.

All this even before Netanyahu gets out his bag of Iran party tricks and distractions. So much for the Israeli side. On to the Palestinians, who talk a good game and often sound eminently reasonable, but are equally infatuated with distraction promotion. (Here, it's important to remember that Mitchell's interlocutor is not the "Palestinians"; it is a political leadership with political calculations and a well-developed fear of change.) So what cards might they be expected to play?

1) Cheering on a fight. Judging by reports from Friday's meetings, the focus in Ramallah right now seems to be egging on a fight between Israel and America. Such a spat would undoubtedly create a fleeting, feel-good factor, but then what? While it's nice to sound good on CNNi, to play the blame game, and to appear closer to Washington's talking points, winning the media war is hardly a strategy for national liberation.

If Israel and America are at some point to publicly disagree, then it should be about something meaningful, such as an actual plan for implementing two states, rather than, for instance, over terminology or a dozen out of more than 600 obstacles to Palestinian freedom of movement. Often, the PLO leadership seems interested in spectacle for its own sake rather than real results. Bottom line: the U.S.-Israeli spat is a distraction.

2) Cross-dressing on preconditions. Ever since the first Palestinian national unity government was formed in 2007, bringing together the electorally victorious Hamas, and the ousted Fatah, Israel, America and the Quartet demanded that any Palestinian government meet three preconditions (recognize Israel, accept past agreements, and renounce terrorism). Since the Netanyahu government was sworn in, the PLO leadership has adopted this same mantra: In order for negotiations to continue, the Israeli government must accept two states, abide by previous agreements, and freeze settlements.

Preconditions were a mistake when applied to the Palestinians, and will be equally mistaken if applied to the Israelis. (And in fact, this is much more about domestic Palestinian politics than Israel-Palestinian affairs and it's being used by Fatah in its struggle with Hamas.) Most troubling, this approach could hamper an especially urgent issue: reopening Gaza and allowing a regular flow of goods and materials, including those desperately needed for reconstruction following Israel's Operation Cast Lead.

3) Nostalgia for Bush and Annapolis. Palestinian leaders never had very many good things to say about the Bush administration, so it's ironic that they are advocating a return and adherence to the Roadmap and the Annapolis process. Again, don't be fooled. The latter is little more than a pushback against the Israeli government's apparent rejection of Annapolis as explicitly stated by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Plus, as with so much of the Bush legacy in the Middle East, Annapolis was a failure and structurally flawed, relying on bilateral negotiations between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships with no U.S. presence, and making Palestinian performance a prerequisite for ending the occupation.

Just as there have been policy reviews and significant course corrections on Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, the Mitchell team should apply the same principle of a rethink on the Israeli-Arab track. The United States should not be maneuvered back to the flawed Annapolis design, whether in response to a Palestinian bear hug or an Israeli pushback.

Indeed, there seems little value then in recycling that approach. A moment has presented itself where there is a new U.S. administration, a new Israeli government, and a chance to devise a new way of finally achieving -- and not just talking about - two states living side by side in security and dignity. These new circumstances can be seen more as an opportunity than a crisis. The Mitchell team would do well to avoid the distractions and traps on offer, whether from Israelis or Palestinians, and take its time in devising an American plan that delivers on the American interest in resolving the conflict. It's time for the United States to step up.

This piece appears at The American Prospect

Engaging the Muslim World

By Juan Cole

Palgrave Macmillan, 282 pages, $26.95

Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East

By Rashid Khalidi

Beacon Press, 308 pages, $25.95

Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East

By Robin Wright

Penguin Press, 464 pages, $26.95

 
Few if any foreign-policy challenges will command the attention of the Obama administration more than those emanating from the broader Middle East. The scars of the Bush years are deepest there, adding to a long history of mutual suspicion between America and the Muslim world. As a step toward overcoming that distrust, President Obama has said he would deliver a keynote address to the Muslim world in a Muslim capital during his first 100 days in office (though we shouldn’t be surprised if that deadline slips). Among the people of the region there is a fragile sense of hope for a changed relationship because of who Barack Hussein Obama is and, perhaps even more, because of who he is not—George W. Bush.

Success in the region, or just improved relations between America and the Muslim world, will require more than a feel-good speech. It will take a fundamental re-evaluation of policies and a rediscovery of the long-dormant capacity to listen, empathize, and understand on terms other than one's own. In their new books, Robin Wright, Juan Cole, and Rashid Khalidi all begin to map out that terrain. Any re-evaluation cannot wish away, or continue trying to blast or boycott away, the most potent nongovernmental social force in the region today--Islamism. A survey course, Political Islam 101, should be compulsory for Middle East policy-makers, and they cannot be allowed to skip the class on distinguishing between the revolutionary destructive Islamists of al-Qaeda and the reformist democratic-oriented Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood (as troublesome as the latter may be across a range of issues).

If there were such a course, Dreams and Shadows, Engaging the Muslim World, and Sowing Crisis might all appear on the required reading list. When it comes to rethinking policy on political Islam, all three have much to offer. Cole has made engagement with political Islam the animating theme of his work, while Wright puts us in the room with leading Islamists, and Khalidi provides essential historical background, notably on the U.S. promotion of Islamism as the alternative to Soviet ideology during the Cold War.

Both Cole and Khalidi present their materials thematically--Cole from the perspective of America's interaction with the Muslim world and the anxiety that each society has about the other; Khalidi from the vantage point of the Cold War, when American regional dominance developed and then took on even more imposing dimensions afterward. Wright takes us on a tour of eight regional destinations, introducing us at each turn to a triad of figures--autocrats, theocrats, and democrats--who will be shaping the future of the region, and her particular passion is for the latter. When she began her journey in 2006, the democrats were in the ascendancy, but by its conclusion they were cowering in the basement, to paraphrase former Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher, who has his own fascinating book on the subject, The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation.

Of the three books, Wright's Dreams and Shadows is by far the longest but also probably the most accessible for the general reader. The book is replete with sociocultural insights and depictions of colorful characters, recounted by a keen journalistic observer. Wright is at her best, for instance, when contemplating what recent controversial Iranian movies such as Under the Moonlight or The Lizard tell us about contemporary Iran or when noting the proliferation of phone cards bearing the image of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah after the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War. In an ironic variation on the old "Where are they now?" genre, Wright tracks down former U.S. hostage takers in Tehran (now disillusioned with aspects of the revolution) and the topplers of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad (now equally disillusioned with the American occupation of Iraq). She explores the significance of the region's youthful demographic profile and the potential impact of the new generation weaned on satellite TV, SMS, and the Internet. Her analysis of such matters as U.S.?Iran relations and the role that judges may play in advancing change in Egypt is astute.

Through her interviews with Islamist leaders and defenders of existing regimes, or in her enthusiastic, at times gushing depictions of liberal challengers to the status quo, Wright illuminates a Middle East that Americans rarely glimpse. In thoughtful and rich detail, she tells us about a new generation of women activists and their struggles, such as the story of Morocco's Fatima Mernissi, author of the 1995 book Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood. Wright's recounting of Mernissi's efforts to secure equal rights in Morocco from within an Islamic discourse is a refreshing antidote to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's recent book, Infidel [see Stephen Holmes' review, "The European Dilemma," April 2007], and the peddling by right-wing think tanks of the notion that Islamic and Western values are incompatible.

Yet Wright's tendency to romanticize the region's Western-oriented reformers may also be a weakness of Dreams and Shadows. In each of the eight destinations in the region where Wright takes us to meet a democrat, a theocrat, and an autocrat, she provides a detailed description of the interview setting as well as the interviewee's appearance and public role. The format becomes a bit predictable and belabored, though she does serve up a good read, and in breaking bread with Islamist leaders from Hamas' Khalid Mashaal to Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah, she puts flesh and bones on characters who often appear as two-dimensional cardboard cutouts in the American media. Demystification is a necessary station on the path to more mature policy. Wright has an impressive capacity to open a space for dialogue that America's governmental decision-makers are often legally prohibited from conducting.

But in discussing political Islam or the challenges of democracy, Dreams and Shadows is strangely inattentive to the role of the United States itself. Sowing the Crisis and Engaging the Muslim World fill that gap by the spade-full. If Wright is about personalities, Cole and Khalidi are all about context--historical, contemporary, and geo-political--and especially the shaping role of American influence.

A professor of history at the University of Michigan, Cole has acquired a wide reputation for his award-winning blog on Middle East politics, Informed Comment. Here he sets out to examine "the myths and realities that provoke Islam Anxiety in the West, and the grounds, legitimate and illegitimate, for America Anxiety in the Muslim world." Each chapter introduces and then critiques another form of anxiety--U.S. dependence on oil from Muslim states, Muslim radicalism (which he usefully distinguishes from Muslim activism), Wahabism, and the challenges posed by Iraq and Iran and now Pakistan and Afghanistan. To bring home the analysis to an American audience, Cole draws analogies between Islamists and what he sees as their American counterparts. In Cole's vernacular, Salafi Jihadists are, for instance, best understood as fundamentalist vigilantes in the Timothy McVeigh or Waco mold, while Wahabis are akin to the Amish or Mennonites. That the paramilitary radical right in America draws on some of the same ideological sources as the right wing of the GOP does not make them synonymous, and for Cole the same criteria should be applied when considering al-Qaeda's relations to the mainstream political Islamists of the Muslim Brothers. Not everyone will accept the comparisons, but it is a usefully provocative way of walking readers through the arguments.

Anyone familiar with Cole's Informed Comment blog will not be surprised to discover that Engaging the Muslim World is rich in policy prescriptions across a diverse range of subjects. He is at his best when demolishing myths and dealing with complex issues. Can America make energy policy independent of Middle East oil considerations? For the next generation, Cole argues, it cannot. He has timely and pertinent things to say about the role of regional diplomacy in stabilizing Iraq, what to do about Kirkuk, engaging Islamists in Pakistan, and addressing the Iranian nuclear program. Most important of all is his call for an honest, ongoing conversation of equals between America and the Muslim world.

Engaging the Muslim World's most scornful moment is its critique of the disastrous and misinformed policies of the neoconservatives and the radicalizing and destabilizing effects they have had on the broader Middle East. Some of the omissions in Engaging the Muslim World are unfortunate. An examination of the Justice and Development Party and the role of political Islam in Turkey belongs here, and Hamas makes only a cameo appearance in the Iran chapter. But Cole has delivered an important book that members of the administration would be wise to read en route to the Middle East.

The role that the United States played in promoting Islam as an alternative ideology to the nationalist left in the Arab world forms only a backdrop of Cole's study, but that story takes center stage in Khalidi's Sowing Crisis. The two books complement each other nicely, as Khalidi discusses Lebanon, Turkey, and Palestine, as well as a possible source of future Gulf instability, namely Yemen, which Cole hardly mentions.

Sowing Crisis sets out, 20 years after the Cold War, to re-examine the effect of that era on the Middle East and the continuities as well as changes in policy since that time. Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, builds a rather strong case that even during the Cold War, the United States exercised regional dominance. Since then and most especially under George W. Bush, America has combined unprecedented military engagement with an equally unprecedented diplomatic self-marginalization. If Wright's Middle East focuses on the internal dynamics of the region, Khalidi emphasizes external influence as the driving factor, even if the tail occasionally wags the dog (and that applied to both Soviet and American allies sometimes playing their superpower masters). Sowing Crisis provides a useful recap of a long and rich history of American undermining of democracy and support for authoritarianism in the Middle East, whether in Lebanon, Jordan, and Iran in the 1950s or in Palestine today.

Khalidi's emphasis on the relationship between the expansion of U.S. military bases and arms sales in the region and the domestic military-industrial complex is particularly timely given the current economic crisis. Being an American ally in the region has translated into massive arms purchases, whether or not they are subsidized. In recent years, the United States also shifted from maintaining a largely over-the-horizon security presence to basing a huge and permanent physical military concentration in the region. Khalidi suggests that we should be concerned that the current economic crisis may create a dangerous incentive to ramp up elements of a war economy.

The global war on terrorism has replaced the Cold War as a defining frame of reference, acting as justification for this massively increased U.S. military role. Islamofascists have taken the place of Reds, and being "soft on terrorism" has become as terrifying a political accusation as being "soft on communism" once was. Sowing Crisis hardly bemoans the passing of the Cold War or its Arab world manifestation of competing camps led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but it does express a concern that a predictable and rules-based set of relations and constraints that held between America and the Middle East has been replaced by a rules-free environment, not least with regard to America's own actions.

Khalidi describes America's current Middle East posture as resembling a "stumbling giant." The United States is deeply invested and embroiled in the region yet also likely to be outflanked by small or medium-sized local actors such as Qatar or Turkey. But his criticism of the other international powers and many Arab regimes is also stinging. He condemns the failures of international actors such as the European Union, Russia, India, and China as well as the Arab states themselves to act responsibly and in their own interests. With only rare exceptions he describes the Arab states as being "no longer an actor or a force," unfavorably comparing them with non-Arab Middle East states such as Israel, Turkey, and Iran, which have demonstrated an independent capacity to act. And in one of the weak points of an otherwise impressive and highly useful book, Sowing Crisis in its final chapter descends into lists of seemingly hurriedly laid out policy prescriptions that it would have been helpful to expand on in greater detail.

Though Wright, Cole, and Khalidi are not exactly wide-eyed optimists, they all see paths to a more hopeful future for the region and for America's relations with it. The Obama administration has so far displayed an interest in rethinking policy and re-engaging the region. It has empowered envoys to deal with the crisis in Afghanistan-Pakistan and the Arab-Israeli conflict, announced a plan to withdraw from Iraq, and sought a deal with Russia to help in pressing Iran on its nuclear program. It's a meaningful beginning, but the hard work of steering American policy to less choppy waters has just started.

Even Wright, who most emphasizes the potential of indigenous regional actors to drive change, recognizes America's decisive role in not undercutting or embarrassing reform efforts by guilt of association. For Cole and Khalidi, an inescapable centerpiece of any new strategy for the region must also be a genuine effort to address Palestinian grievances and to achieve a solution on Israel-Palestine. "Resolving this conflict in a way acceptable to all the major parties involved," Cole says, "should be the highest priority of [Obama's] administration. This step would resolve 90 percent of America's problems with the Muslim world." While that number is impossible to prove, it certainly has a powerful logic behind it.

But beyond Israel-Palestine, there has to be a move toward co-existence with non-al-Qaeda political Islamists. That is the message of these three books, and as the Obama White House speechwriters gear up for that address to the Muslim world, they might consult these studies to try to figure out how that new co-existence could become a reality.

 This piece also appears on Ha'aretz.

A sense of the absurd hovers over the current negotiations to form a new governing coalition in Israel. After previously serving in governments together, Yisrael Beiteinu and Shas are belatedly discovering that they might just be incompatible. Having secured a clear mandate for a government composed of right, ultra-right and religious-right partners, Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be distinctly unenthusiastic about such a prospect. While Tzipi Livni's principal stance seems principled rather than absurd, it too contains an element of the unreal.

Livni is demanding that Netanyahu affirm the "two states for two peoples" approach as a prerequisite for Kadima joining the coalition. Netanyahu's response has been to suggest that the Likud and Kadima negotiating teams convene around a blank sheet of paper and draw up the coalition guidelines together. Translation: What's important is that we can agree to a formula on paper; what happens in the real world after that is something we can argue about for the next four years. After all, paper can absorb anything. Indeed, a special place really should be preserved in Israel's national pantheon for the wordsmiths of coalition guidelines throughout the ages.

So even if Netanyahu were to find a formula regarding two states that would satisfy Livni, would it really matter? Would two states really come into existence? This is not to suggest that Livni is insincere in her support for this position. Far from it. She pursues the issue with the true zeal of a convert, which is exactly what she is when it comes to the question of Palestinian statehood. After all, a mere declaration of intent to achieve two states would not satisfy the driving force behind Livni's conversion in the first place. Urgency was the key then: She adopted the two-state formula out of a sense of urgency, perceiving that, as the occupation struck ever deeper roots, time was working against Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state. And if immediacy is the litmus test, then a linguistic formula without any practical teeth is of little use.

I would hold that the demographic argument both misses the point (the other ramifications of the occupation for Israel and its democracy are far more dramatic) and can be co-opted by Avigdor Lieberman and his ilk (as it has been already), if one does not at the same time stake out a more inclusive vision of Israeliness, especially with regard to Israel's Arab-Palestinian minority. But we are discussing Livni's logic here, not mine.

For the Kadima head's demand to receive greater weight and seriousness, it needs to include a more tangible and concrete yardstick. Here, Livni is in something of a bind. She could call for a settlement freeze, but that would ring rather hollow, given the record of expansion during the term of the outgoing government in which she was a senior partner. The same "gotcha" problem would exist if she were to make an issue of outpost removal. Livni could insist that the new government continue negotiations with PLO chairman Mahmoud Abbas, but those talks look more like a recipe for avoiding decisions than reaching them.

No, if Livni wants her vision of two states to be both credible and meaningful, she needs to come up with a game-changer. Agreeing that Israel will define its permanent borders with the Palestinians by the end of the new government's term of office would meet that test. One path to achieving that goal could be the traditional one, via negotiations with an empowered and domestically legitimized Palestinian leadership, but this need not be the only option.

Israel's interlocutor might be the United States or the Quartet, either of which could conduct back-to-back talks with relevant Palestinian and Arab decision-makers. Alternately, Israel might negotiate indirectly, in the context of the Arab peace plan, with Arab states, which would in turn consult with the relevant Palestinians, thereby guaranteeing the necessary Palestinian buy-in and representation. Once a border is defined, this would of course have to be followed in short order by a withdrawal of the Israeli occupation to that line.

It is true that such a position was not part of the Kadima electoral platform; then again, neither was the veritable love-in between Kadima and Yisrael Beiteinu seen in the days following the ballot.

At first glance, such an agenda would appear to be anathema to Netanyahu. It could, though, be linked to additional innovations, such as the establishment of an interim international trusteeship over the de-occupied area, thereby allowing him to avoid being directly responsible for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Perhaps this is what Netanyahu meant when he suggested to Livni that there might be another formula for defining the political approach to the Palestinian issue.

Certainly, the debate sparked by such a proposal would be a clarifying moment, and would move us beyond the yawn-inducing re-incantation of the "two-state" mantra. If it is accepted, then glory be. If not, then Livni has a real agenda with which to lead the opposition, and the public will finally be presented with real choices.

The elections were a clarifying moment for Israel and the Palestinians, but what about the Obama administration?

This piece also appears on Foreign Policy.

With the final results now in, the horse trading over forming a new government in Israel is very much underway after Tuesday’s elections seemed to produce the messiest of political outcomes – anything but clarity.

Two narratives regarding the voters choice are currently competing with each other; Livni and Kadima are claiming a mandate for a centrist government, being the largest party while Netanyahu and Likud argue that a shift to the right has occurred producing a mandate for the right to govern (the right-wing bloc has taken 65 seats in the 120 member Knesset). Some time next week in accordance with the Israeli rules of the game, President Shimon Peres will call on either Netanyahu or Livni (and most money is on the former) to form a governing coalition within 28 days with a possible extension of 14 more days. The coalition bargaining in the weeks ahead will suggest that everything is up for grabs. Yet in more ways than may seem immediately apparent, Tuesday’s results have added a degree of clarity to where Israel is at.

Some ways in which this is true are obvious. The structure of the Israeli system has, for instance, been definitively exposed as broken. It endemically produces dysfunctional governments by way of fragile, fractured, and survival-obsessed coalitions. Again, the largest single faction in the Knesset will constitute less than a quarter of the members of parliament. The system seems designed to avoid making hard choices given the permanent preponderance of either hybrid governing coalitions or reliance on small niche parties, or both. That is exacerbated by the way in which Israel’s relationship with its principal sponsor and ally, the United States, plays out. America’s coddling and often irresponsible indulgence of specific Israeli policies that work against America’s own national interest and often contribute to undermining Israel itself further exacerbate this tendency toward decision avoidance. Not surprisingly then, Israel is abuzz right now with discussion of the need for electoral reform and reevaluating governance system.

Israelis also witnessed during this election the stunning paucity of any meaningful public policy debate. One could search far and wide for a meaningful plan on the economy, on health care, on education policy, let alone realistic or detailed proposals regarding the security and regional challenges Israel faces. There is a degree of illiteracy clouding the election debate in Israel and surrounding the Israeli media coverage of issues that would be difficult for Americans to comprehend and indeed, Israel’s voters deserve better.

But the real clarifying moment in this election was a swing to the right that has at least made the Jewish part of the Israeli conversation into something resembling a family argument within the Likud household. What happened in this election is that the breakdown between the blocs went from being 70-50 in favor of the center-left to 65-55 for the right, ultra-right, and religious-right (although even these numbers are a little misleading, as the ten or so members of non-Zionist and ostensibly Arab parties are not considered to be potential coalition allies by the Zionist center-left). In simplified terms, there was a 15 seat swing from center-left to right which can be largely explained as eight seats lost by Labor and Meretz along with all seven seats of the imploded Pensioners party having mostly gone to Kadima, while about an equivalent number migrated from Kadima to Likud.

Always expect the unexpected in Israeli politics. At this stage, a Netanyahu-led government, with both Lieberman, religious parties, and Kadima, seems most likely. While a rotation of government between Netanyahu and Livni (as Israel experienced in the 1980’s) is possible, a Livni-led coalition is rather a stretch but not totally inconceivable.

Livni’s last minute message of hope for a non-Netanyahu-led government swallowed up much of the Zionist-left of Labor and Meretz. In one encouraging sign, Israeli voters, especially women, seemed to respond positively when Livni played up the change she represented as being a woman candidate, and they rejected some of the more chauvinist sloganeering of the Likud and Labor leaders.

So here we are in the Israel of the three Likudniks. Allow me to explain: Israel’s three largest parties (together accounting for about 75 of the 110 mandates decided by the Jewish vote) are now all led by Likudniks and by a Likud-derived outlook - albeit of slightly different emphases.  Kadima was of course birthed by the Likud, its founding father is none other than Ariel Sharon; its current leader Tzipi Livni was a former stalwart Likudnik; and its number two joined the Likud following a career in the military (Shaul Mofaz). Let’s call this Likud-lite. Then one has the brand name version of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. Let’s call this traditional Likud. Finally, there is Yisrael Beiteinu (or Israel Our Homeland) led by longtime Likud party functionary and the party’s former director-general, Avigdor Lieberman. His number two, Uzi Landau, was a 22-year Likud Knesset member and led the so-called Likud rebel faction during Sharon’s Gaza disengagement. Lieberman rebranded the Likud for a Russian audience and gave it a nasty and overtly racist edge. Let’s call this Likud gone wild.

The power that has now been accrued by Lieberman’s party is one of Tuesday’s most stunning outcomes – he appears to be the king or queen-maker. What is more sinister and disturbing is how muted a political effort there has been to draw a red line in front of Lieberman’s racist rhetoric and policies and to place him beyond the coalition pale (for an excellent discussion of the Lieberman phenomenon, see Gershom Gorenberg’s piece at The American Prospect). Yisrael Beiteinu ran on a platform that would have Israeli Arabs needing to pass a loyalty test to Israel in order for their citizenship not to be rescinded. Lieberman is an almost bizarre Israeli twist on the European model of the populist, ethnonationalist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant parties that have done so well in France (Le Pen’s Front National), Austria (Heider’s Freedom Party), Belgium (Vlaams Blok), Switzerland (Blocher’s Swiss People’s Party), and elsewhere. Why the Israeli