The Obama Administration’s Push for Arab-Israeli Peace, 2.0

Credit: Jim Young/AP, Pool

Much attention has been paid to United States Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent visits to Israel and the Palestinian territories. As Kerry shuttled back and forth between officials on both the Arab and Israeli sides, reporters have scrambled to provide details about the meetings. Yet the only concrete thing that has emerged from his visits has been the much-publicized announcement of $4 billion in private investment in the Palestinian economy. Besides that, the contents of Kerry’s diplomatic ventures have been largely limited to speculation and generalities.

But perhaps this is precisely the strength of the Obama administration’s current diplomacy.

In his first term, Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wasted no time in publicly calling for Israel to halt all settlement construction. In turn, the Palestinians made a settlements freeze a precondition for talks. There is little doubt that representatives from the Palestinian Authority and Israel would have negotiated had President Obama not made his calls for a settlements freeze so public (the Palestinians had never made it a precondition for talks before). Months later, when the Israeli government did implement a settlements freeze, the Palestinians still would not resume talks because the freeze did not include East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as their future capital. Almost nine months later, when the settlements freeze was about to expire, the United States finally persuaded the Palestinians to negotiate. However, when the freeze expired just weeks after negotiations had begun, the Palestinians withdrew, demanding an extension to the freeze in order for negotiations to continue.

What then ensued was an embarrassing public political drama. America tried to induce Israel to extend the freeze for 90 days by offering the Jewish state advanced fighter planes, in addition to security and diplomatic guarantees. The idea was that in those 90 days, the Israelis and Palestinians would agree on the borders of a future Palestinian state, which would obviate the need for a settlements freeze. When Israel did not immediately agree and talks over the exact terms of the extension and America’s rewards for it dragged on, the United States finally gave up on it altogether. The Obama administration belatedly realized that the issue of East Jerusalem settlement construction would remain and that 90 days was not much time to work with.

By publicly and persistently calling for a freeze, the United States set in motion a series of events characterized by the Palestinians calling for a settlements freeze as a precondition for talks, the Israeli government needing to respond to the public request with a public answer, and America publicly squabbling and flailing to convince Israel to extend the freeze so that there could be just 90 days to solve one of the biggest obstacles on the road to a peace agreement: borders.

While the Palestinians still refuse to negotiate unless Israel halts all settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Kerry has taken a markedly different diplomatic tack. Almost everything has been under wraps. No grand public announcements or demands. Even if Kerry’s chances of succeeding in facilitating a peace agreement are slim to none, his discreet statesmanship shows that the Obama administration has learned a lesson.