realclearworld Newsletters: Mideast Memo
There was little agreement to be found this week in the remarks delivered at the annual U.N. General Assembly meetings by the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian territories. However, the two men clearly agreed on one thing: the world must do more.
While he thanked a number of world leaders and international institutions in his speech, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas also urged members of the General Assembly to press Israel into international compliance, and to protect the Palestinian people.
"It is no longer useful to waste time in negotiations for the sake of negotiations; what is required is to mobilize international efforts to oversee an end to the occupation in line with the resolutions of international legitimacy," said Abbas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was less sanguine than Abbas, to put it mildly. Netanyahu laced into the international body for what he argued was its failure to rebuke an increasingly aggressive and ascendant Iran:
"Seventy years after the murder of six million Jews, Iran's rulers promise to destroy my country. Murder my people. And the response from this body, the response from nearly every one of the governments represented here has been absolutely nothing!
Utter silence!
Deafening silence."
And then came the stare. For 44 seconds, the Israeli premier stood in stony disapproval, glaring out at the body before him, in what the Times of Israel's David Horovitz described as an act of "mourning for international morality."
Theatrics aside, both Mideast leaders arrived in New York this week amid uncertain domestic political situations. While Mr. Netanyahu struggles to cobble together a more stable governing coalition, Mr. Abbas finds himself under pressure, and increasingly out of favor, with his own leadership and people. Promising a "bombshell" announcement at this year's Assembly, Abbas instead delivered a somewhat vague pledge to divorce Palestinians from their negotiated obligations with the Israeli government.
"Words are important, but they should never be conflated with deeds," said former Mideast peace negotiator Aaron David Miller, who now serves as a vice president at the Wilson International Center for Scholars. "Even Abbas' dramatic disavowal of the Oslo Accords stopped short of the kind of steps" that would truly jeopardize Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, explained Miller in an email exchange with the Mideast Memo. While implied, Abbas neglected, perhaps intentionally, to enumerate his next steps, such as dismantling the Palestinian Authority or ending security cooperation with Israel.
Netanyahu's oratory and outrage belied a sense of isolation and of frustration with the international community. "Like Abbas' speech the day before, Netanyahu's remarks seemed focused primarily on his own domestic political audience," said Matthew Duss, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. "While most of the rest of the world considers Netanyahu to be completely outside the international consensus on [the Iran deal and Palestinian statehood], he calculates that being seen as defying international opinion will benefit him politically at home."
"In this," concludes Duss, "he's been repeatedly proven correct."
And while Netanyahu shores up his own support back at home, Abbas, says Miller, is hanging on for dear life.
"If you think the international Israeli-Palestinian conflict is hopeless," said Miller, then "think about the other one playing out on the ground." Rumors of his retirement have circled the 80-year-old Abbas for weeks now, as he fends of a political insurrection within his own organization and an actual one in the West Bank. Tensions continues to flare over the Temple Mount holy site in Jerusalem as the Palestinian leadership finds itself increasingly out of touch with its own people.
"Neither side wants a blow up, and a third intifada would require both Fatah and Hamas to commit to one, which is unlikely," Miller told the Memo. "Still, for the foreseeable future, tension and violence will prevail."
Around the Region
Lebanon's weapons windfall. Al-Monitor's Julian Pecquet reports on how the Lebanese government, once in America's doghouse, found its way back into Washington's good graces:
"Congress over the past year has approved more than $1 billion in proposed arms sales for the Lebanese armed forces, including attack aircraft and helicopters. And lawmakers on Sept. 29 cemented Beirut's status as a key ally with the release of a compromise annual defense bill that puts Lebanon on equal footing with longtime partner Jordan.
"The free flow of aid and weapons represents a sea change from the situation five years ago, when Congress briefly held up all military aid following an incident in which Lebanese soldiers shot and killed an Israeli officer on the border. Hezbollah's political dominance over the following three years caused further hand-wringing on Capitol Hill, but over the past few months Lebanon's military has emerged as a trusted backstop against Islamist militants of all stripes."
The optics of appeasement. Vox's Max Fisher takes issue with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's joint press conference on Wednesday with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov:
"The image of Kerry nodding alongside Lavrov, the two of them discussing their efforts to ‘deconflict' in Syria, lent, however unintentionally, the appearance of an American stamp of legitimacy on Russia's Syria intervention. It will be difficult for the Obama administration to shake the appearance that it's decided to accept Russia's intervention and to deem it as legitimate.
"That's more than just a gaffe when the entire world is watching to see how the United States handles Russia's Syria strikes and is waiting to take -- or not take -- America's cue."
Lavrov, when pressed by reporters on Thursday to explain his country's choice of targets in Syria, replied "If it looks like a terrorist, if it acts like a terrorist, if it walks like a terrorist, if it fights like a terrorist, it's a terrorist, right?"
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