On Obama's upcoming push for Middle East peace

Several people have asked me recently for my thoughts about President-elect Obama's apparent intention to focus intense efforts on concluding an Arab-Israeli peace agreement in his first year in office. The consensus among the chattering classes seems to be that Obama will publicly embrace the Saudi peace plan and strive to use it as the basis for structuring an agreement. What is one to make of all of this?

I believe that the proposed Saudi plan is an excellent place to start Middle East peace discussions, primarily because it's the only plan out there that involves a peace agreement with the entire Arab world in one fell swoop, vice country by country agreements. Addressing the Arab world's concerns as a "community," and depending upon the wealthier, more powerful Arab countries to underwrite and support such a comprehensive, community-wide approach is the right way to go, in my opinion; perhaps, even, the only way to go.

With regards to the geographic elements of the Saudi plan, I am in favor of Israel giving up most of the West Bank, save for the existing large "settlement blocs," to a nascent Palestinian state. I also favor giving up East Jerusalem to be its capital, and of returning the Golan to Syria. Israel doesn't need these territories and their continued control of them is not at all viable long-term, in my opinion. In fact, as the past 30 years have shown, it is extremely detrimental to Israel's interests.

One of the biggest non-geographic stumbling blocks to Obama forging such an agreement is, of course, settling the so-called refugee problem. One of Israel's suggested proposals is to offer compensation only in exchange for calling an end to all alleged refugee claims, since offering to allow more than a token number of Palestinians to resettle in Israel would be tantamount to national suicide. If the Arabs will indeed settle the refugee problem just for cash, then a comprehensive agreement may be possible.

Perhaps my biggest concern however, with the talk of Obama trying to drive home an agreement in his first year in office has to do with the US tendencies to want to conclude an agreement quickly and paper over many of the critical details in an effort to achieve speed. The speed with which such an agreement is conducted, in my opinion, is inversely proportional to its chance of durability. Each issue needs to be dealt with carefully, in detail, and in all its complexities and nuances. Speed is the enemy of long-term success in this situation.

I also know that I am not alone in worrying that in a rush to complete an agreement, whether based on the Saudi plan or some other similar framework, insufficient attention will be paid to serious, enforceable security guarantees for Israel that the additional territories from which it withdraws will not become launching pads for terrorist attacks as Gaza is today and as Southern Lebanon has been with Hezbollah. Nor that those territories will be allowed to become suffciently armed or militarized (beyond the local needs for police) that they could pose a threat to Israel should they decide at some later date to attack her in a coordinated fashion.

We are all well aware of Arafat's and Abbas' oft-stated strategy to conquer Israel in stages, even if it takes multiple generations. Getting Israel to withdraw from the territories and East Jerusalem is just one stage in their overall plan; signing a piece of paper isn't going to make their dream go away. We know from very painful experience that they cannot be trusted to honor any agreement they sign.

We also need to remember that Israel acquiesed to intense American pressure after the 2006 war to "trust" Security Council Resolution 1701 and the UN monitoring activities that Hezbollah would not be allowed to rearm. And we all know what a cruel joke that turned out to be in a matter of months after the conflict ended. Why should Israel believe that it will be any different this time?

Clinton's rush to complete an agreement prior to the end of his administration did not take enough account of the need for serious security guarantees for Israel; he brushed them aside as "unnecessary" since there would be a "peace agreement." Yeah, right----that "agreement" would have been just a piece of paper. What would have us believe that Arafat and Abbas would suddenly have honored this agreement when they violated every other one they signed?

Secretary Rice's current rush to complete an agreement prior to the end of President Bush's administration also lacks sufficient attention to this issue, which is why almost the entire Israeli defense establishment keeps cautioning PM Olmert repeatedly not to fall into the trap of rushing into an agreement before he leaves office. America has a history of wanting to force an agreement, for its own well-intentioned reasons, but which in time will leave Israel vulnerable. We as a country tend to trust that others will honor their agreements as we try to honor ours; but that is not the mindset of the enemies we are facing.

Israel, in my opinion, would be foolish to sign any agreement that did not contain real and enforceable security guarantees---not guaranteed by UN observers, not guaranteed by the Europeans, but guaranteed by the US. The US military is the only force that could legitimately police such an agreement---but that would involve a commitment of a significant number of US troops for an extended period of time (perhaps not as many as in Korea, but something along those lines). And that is going to be a very, very difficult position for Obama to take given where America is today and his orientation.

This is fundamentally what worries me about Obama's intended aggressive push on this issue. I worry that he, too, will try to rush an agreement through for his own reasons and not pay sufficient attention to the iron-clad guarantees that I believe Israel needs in order to withdraw from all the territories. He'll want to go for it, he'll want to make history, he'll want to go down in history as a peacemaker (all the same personal goals that Clinton, Bush and Rice had), and if Israel's long-term security is put somewhat at risk in the process, well that's just the price that has to be paid. I believe that is a prescription for utter failure and a dire threat to Israel's long-term survival.