Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are considered illegal under international law. Several , as well as the International Court of Justice, have also found settlements to be illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

As stated in a  on settlements, ā€œIsrael has disputed the assertion that the West Bank and East Jerusalem can actually be considered occupied territories because they were not part of a legitimate sovereign state before 1967. Thus, it argues that the Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply to these disputed territories, which renders the settlements legal.ā€

Today, around live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and are seen by the Palestinians as a key impediment to the peace process.

With about 60% of Palestinian territory still under control of Israel, Arabs are severely restricted in accessing the resources of their land and the freedom of movement within it.

In December 2016, the as illegal to reaffirm its position, while the US abstained from the vote in a move that angered Israel. But with nearly , these are now two nations inextricably linked through common history and conflict.

Watch this video by Vox on Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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In early December, US Secretary of State John Kerry to the leaderships of Israel and Palestine on the urgency of resuming face-to-face negotiations and reaching a final settlement. His comments came after recentĀ visitsĀ to Ramallah and Jerusalem, and in anĀ appearanceĀ before the in Washington, DC.

Kerry warned that the (PA) is under risk of collapse. Were that to occur, Israel would have to assume the responsibility of administering all of the West Bank and, in theory, Gaza; although Hamas presumably would make that problematic if not nearly impossible at the moment without provoking yet another violent clash between Israel and Hamas.

Collapse of the Palestinian Authority

Kerry is correct that without the PA, Israel would have to take on an enormous burden, no doubt costing billions of dollars and requiring the insertion of additional Israeli security forces as well as hundreds of administratorsā€”from hospital supervisors to school principals to utilities authorities. And while Israel would likely resort to using many of the Palestinians already employed in these activities, the cost and supervisory administrative demands would be prohibitively high.

With the increased Israeli presence throughout the West Bank, one should also expect a commensurate increase in security incidents. The ongoing spree of knife attacks and related incidents have already taken the lives of more than 100 Palestinians and 20 Israelis. Expect those to skyrocket as frustrated and angry Palestinians resort to violence with the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority and the consequent ever diminishing hope of a Palestinian state.

Moreover, with closure of the PA, one is left wondering what would happen to Palestinian security forces. Despite all the failures and frustrations of Israeli-Palestinian relations, the Palestinian security forces have managed to become an effective andā€”especially important for Israelā€”cooperative security organization. Its operation is largely funded from the outside, principally by the United States. Would these forces continue as an organization? To whom would they report, Israeli Defense Force commanders? Who would fund their activities? Most importantly, if they were also dissolved, what would happen to the thousands of Palestinian police officers who have received excellent trainingā€”again from the USā€”in weapons and tactics? Would Israel really like these well-trained and disciplined policemen and women out in the street?

Dissolving the PA would also present grave risks to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, his party (Fatah) and the Palestinian people.

First, it would be tantamount to challenging Israelā€™s conservative government to move ever closer to a . That would be terribly unwise for both sides. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isnā€™t prepared to move that far that quickly. But his right-wing governing coalition is. It would be an invitation to Israelis like Naftali Bennett, settlers and others to start moving, perhaps even provoking a call for new elections in Israel.

Even if their efforts were to fail initially, complete Israeli control of the West Bank would invite increased settler activity and settlement development and place the one-state solution firmly within the ambit of Israeli politics. That would be disastrous for Palestinian ambitions for their own state.

Second, throwing in the towel of self-governance in the Palestinian Territories would be an affirmation not only by Abbas, but also by his Fatah party and the Palestine Liberation Organization that they lack credibility among Palestinians.

In fact, Abbasā€™ weakened position in the West Bank is already all but transparent. Palestinians are fed up with his leadership, which has produced neither a Palestinians state nor even improved living conditions or a better economy. More than the aforementioned affirmation, it would be an admission of failure, opening the way for Hamas to move in to dominate the Palestinian political space, despite whatever obstacles Israel might present. That would be disastrous for Palestinians as well.

Finally, it is unlikely that the international community would step in to help the Israelis bear the financial burden of administering the West Bank. All that American and European largess that has come to the PA and eventually trickled down to every-day Palestiniansā€”in subsidies, salaries and servicesā€”would quickly dry up. The already miserable state of their economy and living conditions would worsen.

So, what options are there?

It must be clearly stated that a return to any sort of meaningful negotiations is extraordinary unlikely if not impossible at the moment, despite the well-intentioned entreaties of Secretary Kerry. Neither Netanyahu nor Abbas possesses the stature or inclination to move into negotiations. Their respective political environments simply wonā€™t allow it. This situation isnā€™t likely to change until one or preferably both of them leave their respective perches and are replaced with new leaders who can truly take charge of Israeli and Palestinian politics and become empowered to take bold action, both of which are indispensable for a return to meaningful negotiations.

Elections and Settlements

Perhaps the first place to start is Palestine. After nearly eight years, Abbas and his leadership institution have become ossified. Itā€™s time for a shakeup. Working with the United Nations (UN), he should call for UN-assisted and supervised elections that would allow all parties and candidates who accept theĀ Quartet PrinciplesĀ to run for office within the PA and the Palestinian Legislative Council. Elections would give Palestinians change and, thereby, hope for greater opportunity.

Israel should support and facilitate such elections, for instance, by allowing both UN and Palestinian election officials and candidates free access within the West Bank and ensuring that Palestinian media are also allowed to cover campaigns and the elections throughout the West Bank and Gaza. During the election and campaigning period, Israel should also consider suspending all new settlement activity.

Finally, once a new Palestinian governing authority is installed, Israel should begin opening up Area B to complete Palestinian supervisionā€”security as well as administrative controlā€”and Area C to Palestinian development and administration.

These actions still fall short of what most Palestinians want: their own state. But they would give hope that change is under way. And hope is needed at this time when, as Kerry effectively suggested, despair has begun to set in among the majority of Palestinians. Furthermore, such changes would also demonstrate to Israelis that Palestinians want to be the negotiating partner that Netanyahu now claims is absent.

Secretary Kerry asserts that negotiations must commence ā€œthe sooner the better.ā€ However, that is not going to happen in the near-term. So, perhaps with the aforementioned recommendations, ā€œbetter late than neverā€ might also work.

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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The has claimed the lives of nearly 250,000 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. In the two months from June 9 alone, it recorded around 10,000 deaths. More than 71,000 of those killed since March 2011 have been civilians.

To date, diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict or mediate a long-term truce have failed. Two United Nations (UN) special envoysā€”former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and seasoned Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimiā€”resigned from their posts in frustration at the impasse.

However, since the Iran nuclear deal on July 14, several new developments have arisen, hand in hand with significant Syrian government battlefield losses, which some observers describe as the strongest sign of a renewed diplomatic effort to end the war. One such sign was Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallemā€™s first visit to a Gulf Arab country since the start of the war in 2011. On August 6, Moallem traveled to Oman, where he met his counterpart, Yusuf bin Alawi.

While Oman has steered away from direct involvement in the Syrian Civil War, other Gulf Arab states are staunch backers of the Syrian rebels and are strong opponents of Syrian President , who they see as an extension of Iranian power in the Middle East. During the meeting in Muscat, the two foreign ministers agreed that it was time for ā€œconstructive effortsā€ to end the crisis.

Diplomats tracking the situation in Syria said that it was Assadā€™s allies, Russia and Iran, who were this latest push in the wake of the nuclear deal. In a similar vein, diplomats have spoken of a lighter mood since the deal was reached. One was quoted as saying in reference to Moallemā€™s trip: ā€œTo go to Tehran and then straight to Oman is significant in itself ā€¦ It is an indication that there is something in the oven.ā€

Before the meeting in , US Secretary of State John Kerry met with his counterparts from and Russia in Qatar, an unusual gathering considering Moscowā€™s strong alliance with the Syrian regime, while the US and Saudi Arabia support the rebellion. A senior US State Department official Ā the three foreign ministers ā€œacknowledged the need for a political solution to the conflict and the important role to be played by opposition groups in reaching that solution.ā€

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who met Kerry for a second time several days after the trilateral meeting in , has been aiming to bring about a rapprochement between Syria and regional states, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey, in order to forge an alliance against theĀ  (IS). The Russian foreign ministry said the formation of a ā€œwide anti-terrorist frontā€ had been one the key themes of the trilateral talks.

In another development, the UN Security Council passed a resolution on August 7, which established the groundwork for an inquiry into who perpetrated chemical weapons attacks in Syria. The resolution saw an unusual cooperation between the US and Russia on Syria and had been in preparation by the two countriesā€™ diplomats for months. Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, called the unanimous Security Council vote a ā€œmodestā€ step toward ending the impunity of war criminals in Syria.

What is behind this diplomatic opening?

There has been a flurry of analysis about what led to the current rapprochement. While the Iran nuclear deal played an important role, observers see other issues as pivotal. As Anne Barnard for The New York Times, Russia and the US are making progress toward goals they have long said they shared: ā€œA political solution to Syriaā€™s multi-sided civil war and better strategies to fight the Islamic State.ā€

The persistent threat of the Islamic State is a unifying fear, shared by regional powers in opposite camps such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, as well as the US and Russia. Some analysts, Barnard writes, say the current opening shows the Obama administration has softened its stance on President Assad, whose departure was previously among its key demands, and shares Russiaā€™s concern that IS could benefit from a further weakening of or full-scale collapse of the Syrian government.

The Pentagonā€™s training program to create a moderate Syrian rebel force that could push back against IS has, moreover, experienced several setbacks, as the number of trained Syrians falls far short of 100, whileĀ some members of the newly trained force have reportedly been kidnapped by Syriaā€™s al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra.

Saudi Arabia has experienced an uptick in violence at home, with several deadly attacks having been claimed by IS affiliates, while the country is becoming more entangled in a major conflict in neighboring Yemen. Turkey, which has been long accused of having turned a blind eye to IS activities within and beyond its borders, has also been hit by attacks and has now vowed to establish an IS-free zone in northern Syria.

Russian and Iranian officials have suggested that those opposed to Assad are increasingly realizing that fighting the Islamic State is more important than ousting the Syrian president.

The Syrian government might also be inclined to show more flexibility after a string of battlefield losses, publicly admitted by President Assad, and recruitment problems even among its key constituencies. It has in the past stated that it supported any efforts to combat IS if coordinated with Damascusā€”otherwise it would regard them as a ā€œbreach of Syrian sovereignty.ā€

Since 2011, the Assad government has framed its war against the rebellion as a fight against terrorism (a blanket term used for all armed opposition groups), in an effort to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the international community. Cooperating on battling IS would certainly help toward this end.

A theory about what might happen next has emerged through all the discussions, as Barnard notes: a new government, including members of the current one and figures from the moderate Syrian opposition, and Assad could be part of it for a limited time period. The Syrian army would subsequently absorb rebel fighters from moderate groups, with both Sunnis and Alawites represented.

Syrian analyst Ibrahim Hamidi writes in Al-Hayat that in this case, ā€œthe government and army will have the necessary political legitimacy and sectarian representation to ā€˜unite against terrorism.ā€™ā€

Remaining obstacles

Despite this latest flurry in diplomatic activity and dialogue, there is still no clear sense on how to resolve the crisis as divisions on crucial issues remain. One of these, despite indications the US might be less adamant about his departure, is the fate of President Assad. A meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and his Saudi counterpart, Adel al-Jubeir, in Moscow earlier this week highlighted that the two countries still disagree over the Syrian presidentā€™s future.

Jubeir was unequivocal that Assadā€™s actions are a key reason for the Islamic Stateā€™s emergence. ā€œAssad is part of the problem, not part of the solution to the Syrian crisis … There is no place for Assad in the future of Syria,ā€ he said at a press conference in Russia, also ruling out any coalition with the Syrian president.

UN Envoy Staffan de Mistura believes the different sides are not ready for talks. While certain groups might be inclined to engage, it is virtually impossible to imagine the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra taking part or complying with a negotiated solution. Considering how much territory these two groups hold combined, the impact on the ground would be limited.

Another issue relates to the UN Security Council resolution which, while laying out the process for forming an investigative team and reporting back, is short on what would happen to suspected perpetrators, simply saying that those responsible must be held ā€œaccountable.ā€ It should be noted that China and Russia have, in the past, blocked a referral of the Syria situation to the International Criminal Court.

Despite a diplomatic opening on multiple fronts, there is no clear sign that each of the major powers involved in Syria will abandon their side in the conflict. It is doubtful at this stage of whether renewed diplomacy can translate into tangible progress for a political solution that is accepted by the major players on the ground.

*[This article was originally published by .]

The views expressed in this article are the authorā€™s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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The older of these two challenges resurfaced only recently in the now ā€œsuspendedā€ negotiations between the two sides but, in fact, has been at the core of Israeli aspirations since the dawn of the Zionist movement in the late 19^thĀ century. Israelis want the Palestinians ā€” and, indeed, the world ā€” to recognize Israel as the nation state, or homeland, of the Jewish people. Without that, many Israelis reason, Israel can never be certain of Palestinian and broader Arab acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state in the Middle East.

The newer obstacle is the presence of Israeli settlements in the West Bank ā€” Israel closed its settlements in Gaza in 2005. Settlements in the Golan are a matter with Syria. While Israeli forces have occupied the West Bank since the end of the 1967 war, Israeli settlement construction within those occupied areas did not begin until 1975.

The settlements may have been seen initially as temporary but, after nearly 40 years, their existence along with more than 500,000 settler residents is now viewed as effectively permanent, with some important exceptions. Nevertheless, Palestinians see Israelā€™s unwillingness to halt settlement expansion as evidence of its refusal to accept a viable Palestinian state.

In With the Old: Recognizing Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People

Israelā€™s desire for recognition as a Jewish state has been articulated most forcefully only recently by Israeli Prime MinisterĀ . It speaks to Israelā€™s need to be recognized by the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors as the state for Jews, a place that for the first time in nearly 2,000 years, Jews ā€”Ā regardless of where they may actually live in the world ā€” may consider ā€œour homeā€ and live, pray and practice according to their faith without fear of persecution.

Recognizing Israel as the nation state for Jews means that the second exile, which followed the Jewsā€™ unsuccessful revolt against the Roman Empire in 70 AD, cannot happen again. Israel as a Jewish state in the Middle East and home to the worldā€™s Jews would be permanently recognized. Importantly, Netanyahu and others have promised that non-Jewish citizens of Israel, including its 21% Arab minority, will continue to enjoy full rights and protections as citizens of Israel.

Recognition by the Palestinians and other Arabs would also put to rest Israeli perceptions that their neighbors view the current state of Israel as just another temporary Western incursion in the region, much like the European ā€œKingdom of Jerusalem,ā€ established after the Western victory of the first Crusades in 1099. That European incursion effectively ended with the surrender of the crusaders to Arab forces in Jerusalem under the leadership of Salah ad-Din in 1187.

Israeli distrust of Palestinian intentions is fundamentally rooted in the concern that any agreement struck without such recognition would be a temporary accommodation until such time as the Israelis, like the crusaders more than 825 years ago, were expelled. In this view, failure to recognize the Jewish state translates to failure to recognize the Jewsā€™ inherent right to their state in the region.

Fundamentally, without strong leadership, the will to undertake painful compromises for peace and daring risk-taking, the trust equation in Middle East peace may be unsolvable for now.

But to Palestinians like Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen, such recognition presents special problems. Neither Egypt, nor Jordan, which signed peace agreements with Israel in 1979 and 1994 respectively, was asked to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

Yielding something more than either of Abbasā€™ Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts could be viewed by Palestinians and the broader Arab public as too concessionary. He could not be sure that a peace agreement with such recognition would receive the support of Arab and non-Arab Muslim governments that he will assuredly need.

Abbas has also expressed concerns for Palestinians living in Israel. His concerns are less well-founded on this matter, however, given the repeatedly demonstrated protections of Israeli law extended, however imperfectly at times, to non-Jewish minorities. Nonetheless, a concession on this issue could easily be interpreted by uninformed West Bank and Gaza Palestinians as a ā€œselloutā€ of the more than 1.5 million Palestinians in Israel.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly for Abbas, accepting Israel as a Jewish state would effectively foreclose the right of Palestinians anywhere to return to their homes in ā€œhistoric Palestineā€ ā€” present-day Israel. Until now, Palestinian negotiators have insisted on Israelā€™s recognition of this right of return, even if there was little expectation of many Palestinians doing so.Ā , born in present-day Israel, has in the past indicated that he has no intention of returning to live in Israel. For Israel, however, recognition of this right of return would mean failure to accept Israel as a permanent Jewish state.

And In With the New: Accepting Settlements as Illegal

To nearly all Palestinians, the settlements in the West Bank stand as abject evidence of Israelā€™s unwillingness to accept a Palestinian state and of Israelā€™s alleged aim to reclaim all ofĀ Eretz Israel, or the ā€œland of Israel,ā€ extending to the Jordan River.

Settlements fuel the flame of distrust of Israel that burns in the heart of so many Palestinians and Arabs, and the reason for their suspicion of Israelā€™s intentions in Middle East peace talks. Palestinians have called for a suspension of any Middle East talks until Israel foregoes all further expansion of and development in West Bank settlements. How, they argue, can they negotiate the price of the pie when the other side keeps gobbling up more slices?

Practically speaking, settlements and the territorial administrative apparatus established after the Oslo Accords have deprived Palestinians of significant chunks of the West Bank for living and development.

Under the Oslo Accords, the PA retained administrative and security control only in Area A in the West Bank. In Area B, they were allowed administrative control, while the Israelis are responsible for security. In Area C, Israel has all effective control. What this has meant is that while actual built-up settlement areas in the West Bank probably occupy about 2% of West Bank land, the Palestinians cannot fully take advantage of more than 40% of the West Bank.

Israel has argued that rather than debate specific settlements and development suspensions, the sides should focus on borders ā€” a key issue for Palestinians as well. Settle borders, say Israelis, and the settlement question goes away: what is east of the border is Palestinian and what is west is Israeli.

Israelā€™s concern over settlements, which are held by the United Nations as illegal and are not recognized by any government in the world, including the US, stems from domestic politics. Significant numbers of Israelis ā€” some for religious reasons and others for political and/or security reasons ā€” firmly hold that Israel is either entitled to or justified in keeping all or significant portions of the West Bank. Most of the 12 parties represented in the current Knesset support retaining all or most of the settlements in the West Bank, as do a number of members of Netanyahuā€™s cabinet.

Israeli prime ministers going back to Yitzhak Rabin have assured Israelis that any accord reached with the Palestinians would be submitted to a national referendum. And today, even the most pro-peace Israeli citizens probably accept and even support keeping at a minimum the largest settlements along the Green Line ā€” the now all-but-forgotten line established under the 1949 Armistice separating Israeli and Arab lands. So, any concessions on settlements are sure to rankle significant numbers of Israelis.

Furthermore, closing settlements inevitably will mean relocating and compensating settlers who purchased homes and established lives there. Israelis remember painfully the evictions from and destruction of some 21 settlements in Gaza in 2005. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were called in to forcibly remove some of those settlers, making many Israelis enormously uncomfortable.

Additionally, closing the Gaza settlements and resettling their approximately 7,000 settlers was an expensive undertaking for the government and Israeli taxpayers ā€” almost $900 million in compensation and relocation expenses. Resettling even 20% of the more than 500,000 settlers in the West Bank would be a costly and politically contentious nightmare for any Israeli government.

Most of the PAā€™s leadership and Palestinian negotiators concede that much of the settled areas will end up in Israel. However, they simultaneously insist that they must be compensated on a one-for-one basis and that the quality of received territory must be equal to that which they may transfer to Israel. The latter may be difficult since most of these settlements occupy prime land in the West Bank.

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Secretary Kerry and Middle East Peace

In the failed negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Abbas in 2008, the Israelis proposed retaining 6.3% of the West Bank as opposed to 1.9% offered by the Palestinians. Neither side seems willing to formally accept those figures today.

David Makovsky, previously with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and now part of US Secretary of State John Kerryā€™s Middle East peace negotiations team, proposed in 2011Ā three viable Ā that could conceivably bridge the divide. These scenarios offer concessions between 4.72% and 3.73%, allowing 80-68% of settlers to remain.

While several issues may account for the failure to reach even a framework agreement by the April 30 deadline of the nine-month period that Kerry had set for the negotiations, these two issues unquestionably lie at the center of the two sidesā€™ profound distrust of the other. And distrust may have been what ultimately doomed the negotiations.

If the US administration pursues an extension of the negotiations ā€” and, more importantly, if the sides agree ā€” their time would be occupied with searching for a way to navigate through these two especially difficult obstacles. Ultimately, the newer challenge may be resolvable. But to address the older, thornier challenge of recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, Secretary Kerry will have to find a way to make it palatable to Abu Mazen and all Arabs.

In the past, that would have meant approaching the Palestiniansā€™ closest allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who traditionally have exerted considerable influence over the Palestinians and Abbas. Unfortunately, however, US leverage with both of these Middle East stalwarts is constrained. The US has riled the current Egyptian leadership by its recognition of the previous Islamist government, failure to reestablish close relations with the current military government, and a reduction in aid.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is angry with US policy toward Egypt, failure to take action against Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and formal negotiations with the much loathed Islamic Republic of Iran. Moreover, both countries face significant challenges at home and are not as engaged on Middle East peace as they once were. Even theĀ Ā as recently as March reasserted its refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state. Therefore, the task may be exceedingly difficult for Kerry.

Inability to satisfactorily address any one side of the trust equation renders the whole equation highly problematic. Fundamentally, without strong leadership, the will to undertake painful compromises for peace and daring risk-taking, the trust equation in Middle East peace may be unsolvable for now.

The priority ought to be accepting an approach that does not render the process dead in the water, which would lead to all kinds of sordid outcomes, including potential violence. Such an approach would concentrate for now on the core issues (borders, security, right of return and Jerusalem); use a plan similar to that proposed by Makovsky to address the borders-settlement question; and then, once each of these is satisfactorily addressed ā€” and only then ā€” take up the question of recognition of Israel as the Jewish homeland. Even this approach, however, would mean Netanyahu accepting the deferral and Abu Mazen conceding to discuss it as part of a final settlement, albeit at the end.

This effectively means kicking the can down the road ā€” an unfortunate and tragic characteristic of Middle East peace negotiations dating back to 1979. What this approach might conceivably do, however, is begin to restore trust where virtually none currently exists. With trust, then, there may come will. And determined will, as we saw with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat in 1979, can find a way.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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As violence in Fallujah escalates to near-unprecedented levels, the entire narrative of the fighting seems to evade a number of key points. Namely, this fighting was not precipitated by the capture of Sunni strongholds by al-Qaeda or the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS).

The precursor to the fighting between Iraqi government forces and Sunni tribesmen of Anbar was a result of a ruthless policy of repression, aimed at nationwide protest camps opposing government measures on public services, counterterrorism, illegal house raids and a perpetuation of sectarian violence, as well as a number of other policies that continue to marginalize Sunni communities.

have been at the center of demonstrations for the past year. It was on December 30 ā€” a week after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had threatened to “burn down” the camps ā€” that special forces (SWAT) and the army descended upon the Ezz and Karama Square to crush protests, which had gained momentum after the arrest of Sunni MP Ahmed al-Alwani and the murder of his brother and five of his security guards.

Two witnesses reported to that SWAT and the army had arrived in a procession of military Humvees, pick-up trucks, and armored vehicles to clear the squares. All this just seven hours after Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi had negotiated the release of Alwani on the condition that the camps were to be cleared within 48 hours.

This is not the first attempt by government forces to clear protest camps. In April 2013, SWAT and the army opened fire on more than a thousand , south of Kirkut, killing 50 people and leaving 110 injured. The event passed without as much as a whimper in the press, let alone widespread condemnation.

The only difference between the events in Hawija and what happened in Ramadi was that, in the latter case, tribal militias decided to pick up their guns and fight back ā€” the repercussions, two months later, can be witnessed in the form of heavy aerial bombardment of Fallujah.

As fighting has escalated, the role of tribal militias has become watered down and has taken a backseat to the widely accepted, yet unproven mantra that “al-Qaeda-linked” ISIS is among half of the resistance faction that have seized Fallujah.

According to an Interior Ministry official, half of Fallujah has fallen to ISIS, while the other is “.”

Who is Fighting the Iraqi Forces?

There are two important issues that must be highlighted here. The first of which is that claims of ISIS being the dominant group in the opposition seem to be unsubstantiated. There is no solid basis to validate any statement that ISIS is even present in large contingents in Fallujah, let alone playing a significant role in the fighting.

A group of prominent Anbari tribal leaders led by Sheikh Ali Hatem al-Salman, the Emir of the Dulaim tribe, has insisted that this and they will continue fighting until their demands are met.

Feirut Alaani, a French-Iraqi journalist, has reported that . Much has been said about ISIS raising a flag over a building in Fallujah, as this has been widely accepted as a sign of their power within the city. Yet Alaani argues: “They took their flag down five minutes later when ordered to by tribal leaders. This shows that tribes control Fallujah.”

The only evidence that seems to give any credibility to government claims about a sizeable ISIS presence in the city is the statement of an anonymous member of the Tribal Revolutionaries Council, who confirmed that ISIS members had arrived in Fallujah on January 3. According to the council member:

“Tribal gunmen surrounded the al-Qaeda gunmen as soon as they arrived… The Fallujah tribes didnā€™t clash with al-Qaeda, but they didnā€™t coordinate with it either. It was agreed that [al-Qaeda would] move to the outside of the city of Fallujah, and that did happen.”

If there is even the slightest bit of truth about this statement, then it does nothing further than prove that ISIS is present. However, it renders government claims about the capture of the city by the group as implausible, since the statement refers to ISIS operations being relegated to the outskirts of the city, which has avoided the majority of the violence in the last two months.

The fact that the anonymous source used al-Qaeda and ISIS interchangeably in further statements leads to a second important point: ISIS is not the Iraqi face of al-Qaeda.

It becomes a rather arduous task to highlight this point when the vast majority of media agencies continue to parrot a headline that has made ISIS sound like a surrogate of al-Qaeda, as opposed to a separate radical outfit that has its own agenda.

Maliki has constantly reiterated the rhetoric during the course of the fighting that al-Qaeda-linked militants must be driven out. It is more than just rhetoric at the moment; it is now his casus belli to heavily bombard Fallujah, perhaps to further cripple a city that has been the most vocal about Malikiā€™s indifference to Sunnis.

The name which seems to link al-Qaeda with ISIS is that of the shadowy figure of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. According to US officials, he was the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) ā€“ which later went on to become ISIS by including al-Sham (the Levant). His group was reported to be operating in Iraq at the behest of al-Qaeda, after he pledged his allegiance to Osama bin Laden in 2004.

The problem for the White House, however, is there appears to be no solid evidence that the man ever existed in the first place. Prior to being “killed” in 2006, Zarqawi was never seen or captured alive. He was never mentioned before the Iraq War and his entire past has no coherent script.

If we are to accept that he did exist, then his allegiance to al-Qaeda does not mean that ISIS was al-Qaedaā€™s extension in Iraq. US intelligence during the war cited al-Qaedaā€™s frustration with ISIS, as the group refused to follow orders. Even Donald Rumsfeld said that Zarqawi may have been more of a as opposed to being its lieutenant.

If there were any doubts about this, they should surely be dispelled by a statement released on February 2 from the . “ISIS is not a branch of the Qaidat al-Jihad [al-Qaeda’s official name] group, we have no organizational relationship with it, and the group is not responsible for its actions.”

It is not hard to see why this has gone ignored. To offer a pretext in which the Iraqi government is fighting al-Qaeda affiliates in Fallujah not only evokes sympathy across the media, but also unlocks doors to the US Congress who needs no second invitation for getting involved in any fight that involves al-Qaeda.

How Involved is the US?

The Obama administration has wasted no time in expressing its concern over the “al-Qaeda-linked ISIS” and its growing influence, not just in the fighting in Fallujah but in Iraq as a whole.

The Pentagon has pledged its support to the “struggle” by promising to deliver ā€” some of these have either been delivered or are pending delivery. These are just among a few items on the shopping list that is worth up to $4.7 billion.

The Wall Street Journal also cited State Department and Pentagon figures who stated: “As of January 2013, .” Some of these contractors are military specialists helping the Iraqi military maintain its growing number of surveillance drones, attack helicopters and powerful missiles. The statistics run contrary to Secretary of State John Kerryā€™s statements that the US will not be putting their boots on the ground and that fighting in Fallujah is “.”

Humanitarian Situation

Fallujah is quickly plunging toward its most violent period of violence since 2004. Government forces and government-contracted tribesmen belonging to the Sahwa group ā€” Sunni tribesmen who were the key components in the US policy to drive ISIS out during the Iraq War ā€” have surrounded Fallujah in an attempt to regain control of the city.

, with over 530 wounded in a relentless campaign of shelling. According to the United Nations (UN), almost 370,000 people have been left homeless, without any access to water and electricity due to daily bomb attacks. Several bridges, which are the only channels for the besieged citizens to receive any food, have also been utterly destroyed.

Just last week, the Fallujah General Hospital was bombed, killing nearly all the doctors, nurses and patients, forcing the hospital into closure. Almost 44 Sunni MPs have resigned from their post due to the Iraqi governmentā€™s methods in the fighting.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the UN Assistance Mission to Iraq have continued to plead with Maliki to provide humanitarian aid and negotiate an end to the fighting. But the response he received was that “we donā€™t negotiate with terrorists.”

The crisis further adds to the trauma that inflicted Fallujah in 2004. During that year, two US sieges of the city aimed at tackling Sunni insurgents saw between 3,000 to 6,000 civilians killed, while 300,000 people fled to seek refuge elsewhere. The brutality of Operation Vigilante Resolve and Operation Phantom Fury can be seen in the increase of children being born with severe birth defects ā€” since the US-led sieges.

The Future of Iraq?

The scenes in Fallujah are not surprising if we base it upon what happened across the country in 2013. Iraqi people have grown accustomed to sectarian violence since Saddam Hussein was toppled, but 2013 alone was one of the worst years for Sunni-Shi’ite violence since 2006-2007.

were killed in sectarian violence over the past year. More than 5,000 of the casualties were from attacks after April 2013, the same month in which government forces raided the Hawija camps. It would not be off the mark to suggest that Malikiā€™s policies of disenfranchisement and isolation of the Sunni community has had a significant part to play in the escalation of sectarianism.

that began under Paul Bremer during the US invasion have continued under Malikiā€™s helm, leaving thousands of Sunnis jobless. Thousands have also been imprisoned without charges being investigated, while many are being kept in prison for indefinite periods based on evidence provided by secret informers under counterterrorism charges.

Corruption has been endemic as there have been hardly any improvements to state services, despite the Iraqi government generating $100 billion a year from the sale of oil.

The non-violent protests taking place across Iraq have highlighted these very same issues and have also received support from the Shi’ite community, including Muqtadr al-Sadr and his followers.

Despite all this, the protests continue to be denounced by Maliki as a ploy by pro-Baā€™athists and other enemies acting as proxies for hostile states; an argument on the basis of which the Iraqi prime minister has continued to either ignore or crush protest camps.

The fighting in Fallujah is a culmination of antigovernment sentiments that Iraqi Sunnis have harbored for a long time. It was only a matter of time until arms would be taken up against government forces. Yet the third battle of Fallujah will go down as another episode of Malikiā€™s War on Terror. The hundreds of casualties in the fighting will be deemed as collateral damage in a noble attempt to drive out al-Qaeda.

As for the US, the White House continues to watch on with benign neglect. The scenes in Fallujah continue to be parroted across US media as a lamentable tragedy, now that al-Qaeda” has seized the city that American troops put their lives on the line to “liberate.”

As Malikiā€™s rhetoric over fighting al-Qaeda affiliates is gobbled up by the White House, there seems to be no reason to slap his wrist, let alone reign in his entrenched system of anti-Sunni discrimination. Instead, he receives military aid in abundance. Yet this is still supposed to be the “Iraqi peopleā€™s fight” and, as always, the world will continue to believe it so.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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Last weekend, as Ukrainians commemorated over a hundred dead protesters, Russian troops entered the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea, taking advantage of the country's mourning.

The international community, including the United States and the European Union (EU), are holding their breath as one wrong move could lead to war. Ukraine's acting-president, Oleksandr Turchynov, has the country's armed forces to be on standby. However, with Ukraine's military, it will be difficult to resist a Russian offensive.

Across the Atlantic, US President Barack Obama has warned of possible sanctions in a bid to isolate Russia, as the standoff continues.

Meanwhile, Moscow's United Nations envoy, Vitaly Churkin, has claimed that former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych asked the Russian government for support. While the US and EU member states back Ukraine's interim government, with US Secretary of State John Kerry due in Kiev on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin has dubbed Yanukovych's ouster an "unconstitutional coup."

51³Ō¹Ļ's  talks to , vice president of the International Advisory Council of the Institute of Peace and Development. Of Ukrainian origin, Korobko is currently in Kiev and explains Russia's move.

Marian Manni: What is happening on the streets of Kiev?

Yana Korobko: I can feel the sadness. Everyone, including children, are going to Maidan with flowers to show their gratitude to those who were killed — those who gave their lives for the future of Ukraine. Everyone is doing what they can: doctors are working for free, giving medicine if someone is injured; there are free psychologists and psychotherapists for those suffering from post-traumatic syndrome; free food; and facilities to sleep for those who come from other cities and countries.

Manni: How have people in Kiev reacted to the news that Russian soldiers have entered Crimea?

Korobko: There are protests against the Russian invasion everywhere. Some people are carrying banners stating: "Boycott to Russian Products" or "This is an Invasion into Domestic Affairs." They are very frustrated about the Kremlin taking advantage of Ukraine's calamity and the actions of its sister country. I am seeing a big change in the Ukrainian people's attitude toward Russia.

Manni: Why did Russia send its troops to Crimea?

Korobko: The main pretext for this was the rotation of troops that had already been located in Ukraine in accordance with the Kharkiv Accords, signed on April 21, 2010, which extended the Russian lease on naval facilities in Crimea. Russia had not confirmed that its troops were somehow linked to the Ukrainian crisis until now.

Manni: But even the Ukrainian prime minister has said that this isn't just a red alert, it’s a declaration of war.

Korobko: Absolutely! No country has the right to invade the territory of another country just like that in modern times. There will be severe repercussions if Russia continues to interfere with force in Ukrainian domestic affairs. We are already witnessing declarations from the West in possibly isolating the Russian government, like withdrawing from global conferences or the freezing of funds.

Manni: Do you think this crisis will lead to a full-blown conflict?

Korobko: This is a very delicate diplomatic game between the West and Russia. Even if the Ukrainians wanted to, they wouldn't have the power to influence the outcome of events that are occurring in their territory. This depends on the delicacy with which the West will be handling Vladimir Putin's mentality, tactics and diplomacy.

The situation reminds me of the Cold War. If one side starts a military offensive, it could lead to not even a regional conflict but instead a world war. To prevent such an outcome, the West would have to find a common language with Putin, which isn't very easy at all.

Manni: What can we expect Russia to do next?

Korobko: Russia is waiting for Ukraine to attack first, in order to make Kiev accountable for the war. That’s why it’s so important for Ukraine to keep calm and to ignore all this provocation. There will be thousands of them coming from the Russian side. Putin uses provocations to achieve what he wants.

Manni: And what does Putin want?

Korobko: All of this has to do with Russia’s obsession with power and its ambition to become the next world superpower. Without Ukraine — with its strategic geopolitical location — Russia would never be able to fulfill this historic ambition.

Manni: Is Ukraine the first step in Russia's plan to gain power in the whole of eastern Europe once again?

Korobko: For a country intending to become the superpower, the question is when will be the appropriate moment to start implementing such a plan. It seems the moment has come for Russia.

Of course, there are hidden agendas and tactics. Russia has been carrying plans for its revival as an empire since the collapse of its monarch regime, and now Ukraine has somehow become the starting point for Russia's realization of its supremacy ambitions.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļ’s editorial policy.

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In April 2013, US Secretary of State John Kerry made clear his opinion on the necessity of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, elucidating his dedication to the current negotiations. He : 

"I can guarantee you that I am committed to this, because I believe the window for a two-state solution is shutting. I think we have some period of time — a year to a year-and-a-half to two years, or it's over… So there's an urgency to this, in my mind, and I intend, on behalf of the president's instructions, to honor that urgency and see what we can do to move forward."

Secretary Kerry's  are reminiscent of the widely repeated trope that there is a rapidly dwindling timeframe for a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Often used as a scare tactic to emphasize the vital nature of bringing about peace, the "two-state solution window" narrative does not clearly spell out what exact steps or time limit will render peace impossible.

For this exact reason, this article does not attempt to make a comment on the longevity of the opportunity for two-states, but instead about the possible and destructive ramifications of the current peace talks' failure.

While perhaps this is not the last chance for the two-state solution, if these nine-month negotiations do not end in a resounding success, the fallout could cripple the peace process for the foreseeable future.

Palestine's Political Strategy

During August 2013, I had the opportunity to hear policy leaders conjecture specifically on these predicted consequences while traveling through Washington DC, New York, Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan. My organization, the Olive Tree Initiative (OTI), entered into meetings at the White House and State Department the same day that negotiations began in Washington DC, and landed in Jerusalem the day the diplomatic entourage moved to the Middle East.

Thus, we were inundated with discussion about the talks from every direction. However, one argument from a Palestinian official struck me as particularly cogent, portending the future of Palestine’s political strategy and the possible impending collapse of the international system as we know it. 

Husam Zomlot, the executive deputy commissioner for Fatah's Commission for International Affairs, met with OTI and spoke of the overwhelming complacency the conflict has engendered, and his resulting trepidation going into the current negotiations. Citing the then recent  of 1,200 settlement units, he questioned Israel's dedication to a two-state solution as well the United States' willingness to pressure its ally for peace.

Recent developments of Israel's declaration of a new security wall in the Jordan Valley, the suggestion that the current separation barrier would replace the 1967 Green Line as a starting point for negotiations, and continued settlement expansion have further thrown Israel's motivations and the efficacy of America's influence into question.

To Zomlot, these actions reflect an undermining of Palestinian national sovereignty and dedication to maintaining the status quo in Israel.

"Bringing Israel to its Senses"

To challenge the counterproductive strategies of the Israeli government and the seeming ambivalence of the Israeli public, he calls for the need to "create a sense of crisis, of bloodless pain," and of urgency to "bring Israel to its senses, not to its knees."

In doing so, he argues that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) should not wait for the US to broker a solution, but should press beyond its success in the 2012 United Nations (UN) bid. If these talks fail, Zomlot stated that the PNA will return to the UN, seek full recognition, join all UN bodies, and bring a case against Israel to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

It seems that Zomlot's words were an accurate indication of the pulse of the Palestinian government, as these sentiments were echoed on December 2, 2013 by President Mahmoud Abbas, who : 

"The [peace] talks are going through great difficulties because of the obstacles created by Israel. If we don't obtain our rights through negotiations, we have the right to go to international institutions. The commitment to refrain from action at the UN ends after the nine-month period agreed for talks."

Bearing in mind the ramifications for the 2012 UN bid, Secretary Kerry and the international community should be incredibly wary of this alternative option and push for a peace settlement at all costs.

On the one hand, a Palestinian pursuit of prosecution at the ICC and an effort to update their status at the UN could result in dire consequences for the Palestinian people, as the past UN bid resulted in Israel's withholding of $120 million of tax revenue collected on behalf of the PNA.

However, an even more explosive dilemma could land in the lap of the international community, courtesy of the US Congress.

According to 22 USC 287e, as  

"No funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or any other Act shall be available for the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states."

This law took its full effect after the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)  107 to 14, with 52 abstentions, to recognize Palestine's bid for full membership. While the US provided around 22% of UNESCO's budget, failure to pay dues resulted in the removal of the United States' voting rights in that body last 

Potential Overturning of the International Order

Unless the peace talks succeed, the law changes or if Zomlot and Abbas are misleading us, the outcome could be catastrophic.  

Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, : "We know that the Palestinians are going to go back to the UN… They have applied, or let's say they set the wheels in motion, for roughly 50 new agencies they'd like to apply to."

If Schanzer is indeed correct and the Palestinians expand their efforts in joining other UN organs, there could be a substantial and automatic defunding of the UN that would render countless vital services defunct.

Additionally, the retraction of America's monetary assets and the denial of voting rights would equate to a massive loss of US influence on the world stage, effectively overturning of the international order as we know it.

Finally, if a case in the ICC was to be successful in pursuing justice for the Palestinians, it would crystallize Israeli resistance to renewed talks, perhaps shutting the doors for a negotiated solution for years into the future.

Thus, while the two-state solution may not have reached its natural expiration date, if this nine-month negotiation period does not deliver, hope for peace in our time may be as good as dead.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļ’s editorial policy.

The post The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process: What if Kerry Fails? appeared first on 51³Ō¹Ļ.

A little over two years ago, in a speech at the Australian Parliament, President Barack Obama announced a major shift in US foreign policy. After a decade of costly, bloody wars in the Middle East, Washington would now be turning its attention to the "."

The reasoning for this shift was presented in an uncharacteristically blunt fashion. Asia Pacific, with its lion’s share of global economy, is critical to advancing American prosperity. The ultimate goal, however, is significantly broader: advancing "security, prosperity and human dignity across the Asia Pacific." As Obama stated, the region will play a major role in defining what the world will be like in years to come, whether it will be defined by conflict or peaceful cooperation.

For that reason, the US seeks long-term engagement in the Asia Pacific in a manner that would be deeper, strategic and sustainable. To this end, US defense posture in the region is being reshaped against this benchmark. Existing commitments to Japan and the Korean Peninsula are to be maintained, while US engagement in Southeast Asia undergoes a significant increase, primarily through cooperation on country-specific issues and reengagement with regional organizations.

At the same time, as President Obama proclaimed, the US is poised to build a cooperative relationship with China, whose peaceful rise he considered to be in the interest of every nation in the region.

Two years later, how is this grand strategy faring and how is Southeast Asia responding to the rebalance? 

The rebalance has . The US has officially reengaged with Myanmar by  to Yangon after 22 years. It also  the first non-ASEAN permanent mission to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) based in Jakarta. A  of programs designed to deepen US-ASEAN relations have been rolled out and are being implemented. On the defense side, the US has continued to  in multilateral mechanisms such as the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting. 

While concrete gains have been made, ASEAN member-states are always in need of reassurance that the US will not abandon its newfound commitment to the region. However, they also know that under the shadow of a rising China, ASEAN has to chart a course that does not put the region completely under the sway of either of the two powers.

Southeast Asia and the Rebalance

ASEAN member-states are wary of the rivalry between the US and China. Alice Ba  for an ASEAN that has deep reservations regarding over-dependence and abandonment. ASEAN encounters the potential fear of being pressured in the future to choose between China or the US, or the abandonment by either of them if and when great power interests shift to other regions.

Nevertheless, ASEAN member-states have looked to the US as the security guarantor of the region since the end of the Cold War. Many of these states recognize that if the US completely abandons Southeast Asia, the choice is either to engage in an arms race or accept the dominance of Beijing; two scenarios which are not very appealing to the region's political and economic elite.

Distrust of China remains high – despite every effort to socialize Beijing into the ASEAN way.  loom large in the minds of regional leaders. China is a great power and, despite the appeal of its market, it also serves as an economic competitor for ASEAN states. As several ASEAN member-states share a maritime or land border with China and because of disputes in the South China Sea, Beijing cannot yet replace the US as the security guarantor of the region. 

This, however, is not an impediment to better ASEAN-China ties. In fact, the rise of China greatly benefits Southeast Asia, yet it does not translate into acceptance of Beijing as a regional hegemon.

Thus, ASEAN wants a closer relationship with the US based on three strategic goals. According to , these goals are: To deepen economic ties to build up internal balancing capabilities of individual countries and to help the region as a whole to diversify and prevent over-dependence on China; to manage key crisis issues such as Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula in concert with other big powers; and to support efforts to engage with China and the region through multilateral institutions.

Washington's role in the wider region, therefore, is so strategic that any hint that it might not follow through on the rebalance sets many ASEAN members on edge. Thus, when Obama canceled his visit to Southeast Asia due to the US government shutdown, Singapore’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong,  when he said: "Obviously we prefer a US government which is working to one which is not, and we prefer a US president who is able to travel and fulfill his international duties to one who is preoccupied with his domestic preoccupations."

Challenges

From its inception, the rebalance has faced a number of challenges, both internal and external, that have led some to proclaim it a failing or failed strategy. , such proclamations are premature and exaggerated. It is true, however, that the rebalance does face a difficult strategic landscape. 

Internally, the US has found itself severely restricted by its financial troubles. With the sequestration going into effect in March 2013 and defense spending deeply affected, US foreign policy necessarily underwent some adjustments. Just a few months later, a government shutdown led Obama to cancel his trip to Asia to attend the APEC, EAS, and US-ASEAN summits as well as his visits to Malaysia and the Philippines. Although Secretary of State John Kerry did his best to make up for the US president's absence, it was not enough to allay doubts on the ASEAN side about Washington's commitment to the region.

Outside of its borders, the US faces even more pronounced and daunting challenges. China’s rapid economic growth has undermined the unipolarity in the global balance of power. While the US is still considered the world’s only superpower, its position is no longer unchallenged. China has become a power to contend with — especially for Southeast Asian nations.

As they increasingly question Washington's supposedly unwavering commitment, regional leaders strive to balance their own position vis-à-vis the great powers in order to guarantee their own security, as well as rely on the emerging network of regional strategic partnerships. Those partnerships not only strengthen the respective states’ own capabilities, but also provide moderate leverage against the two great powers vying for dominance in the region.

As part of this strategy, ASEAN member-states remain somewhat ambiguous in their positions, with perhaps the exception of the Philippines, whose relationship with China is at present particularly strained due to territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea.

The two countries had a ; subsequently, the Philippines  against China’s claims over the South China Sea under Article VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Although Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have territorial claims of their own, they are still engaging China in economic and functional cooperative endeavors. 

Both the US and China add to this uncertainty. The former has deliberately avoided siding with any of the regional actors in their disputes with China, and the latter’s foreign policy is largely open to interpretation. This may be partly due to the fact that China has focused on domestic issues for so long that it simply lacks the capacity to clearly articulate its foreign policy goals. It could also be that China purposely exercises ambiguity to maximize its flexibility on the international arena. Whatever the case may be, this lack of clearly stated foreign policy objectives on all sides does undermine the rebalance to some extent. 

Interesting Times?

China’s rise, the United States’ internal weakness, flaring territorial disputes, and the changing global and regional security environment all add up to make Southeast Asia’s future an interesting one. Whether as individual states or through ASEAN, the region has to find a viable path between the two contending powers.

However, ASEAN capitals are not going to choose between the two. The choice, one could argue, has been made: ASEAN wants to engage both China and the United States because that is the only way regional prosperity and security can be assured.

The rebalance, therefore, is not just about the US giving the proper attention that Asia needs. It is also the key to achieving ASEAN’s own strategic goals. Satu Limaye US, "getting relations with both China and US allies right is the key to getting Asia right." This convergence creates a mutuality of interest, which can provide the stability that ASEAN requires to continue building its regional community. 

*[Note: The views expressed in this article are the authors' own and do not reflect the position of the institutions they are affiliated with.]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļ’s editorial policy.

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In fact, the environment today may be the worst in the entire history of the 65-year conflict, and certainly more so than the high-water mark of the 1993 Oslo Accords or even the ill-fated 2007-2008 negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas. This last attempt unsuccessfully concluded with the Fatah-Hamas split and the eventual election of Binyamin Netanyahu. Why are these negotiations for the Holy Grail of Middle East peace and stability so much more difficult today?

Shortly after taking office last year, US Secretary of State John Kerry undertook what many considered as a fool’s errand: restart Middle East peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians. Kerry’s efforts to achieve peace now appear to be focused on getting the sides to reach a consensus on a framework agreement, which would ultimately serve as a basis for negotiating and concluding a final settlement.

Kerry's predecessor, Hillary Clinton, a strong supporter of peace in the region, had shied away from the challenge after President Barack Obama’s special Middle East envoy, former Senator George Mitchell, failed spectacularly. Following Mitchell’s resignation in May 2011, no one — with the possible exception of former UK Prime Minister and Quartet Representative Tony Blair — saw any hope or value in renewed talks, least of all Israelis, Palestinians or even the US president.

A Different Middle East

Reasons for the current problematic conditions are manifold. The first is obvious: today’s Middle East is very different from the Middle East of the last 60-odd years. Regional peace stalwarts are no longer able to lend their voice or weight to the process.

Egypt, which under Hosni Mubarak had provided strong support for Fatah and President Abbas, is wracked by internal conflict and instability; and Saudi Arabia, a passionate supporter of the Palestinian cause and a significant financial backer, is fearful of a greater nemesis — Iran. Both had been very active and generous supporters of the Palestinians.

Similarly, the rest of the region and especially the Gulf States, which had always been prepared to lend at least vocal, political and much-needed financial support, are either convulsed by internal conflict — Syria, Libya, Lebanon and Yemen — or have simply grown weary from previous fruitless efforts.

Also contributing to the changed picture is the rise of extremism and terrorism in the region. That has aggravated the region’s distraction away from Middle East peace and toward strengthening security, combating al-Qaeda, and quelling violence in Syria, the Sinai and (again) in Iraq.

The Israeli public, perceiving security threats rising in concert with the region’s instability, is increasingly skeptical of prospects for peace. According to a poll published last May, only 50% of Israelis believe in the possibility of a two-state solution. Israeli interest in peace is directly tied to the region’s security environment — less security generally means less interest in peace ventures.

Rightward Shift in Israeli Politics

The external climate is not the only factor militating against Israeli-Palestinian peace. In Israel, there has been a rightward shift in politics, brought about not only by Prime Minister Netanyahu’s leadership but also by changing Israeli demographics.

Increased immigration from the non-Western diaspora, most especially the former USSR, and rising numbers of ultra-orthodox Israelis, have meant fewer Israelis disposed toward what they view as capitulation or surrender of hard-won gains in previous battles between Arabs and Israelis.

Likud, once Israel’s preeminent representative of the right, is now joined by newer conservative parties, including Naftali Bennett's Habayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home) and Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Is Our Home). Each party has a significant anti-peace, pro-settler following. The mere mention of difficult issues, such as the 1967 borders or Jerusalem, could threaten the current governing coalition.

Also, the 2002-2005 Second Intifada severely affected Israeli public attitude toward peace prospects. As a result of that disastrous miscalculation by the Palestinians, many Israelis lost faith in the peace process, had their trust in the Palestinians’ desire for peace badly shaken, and consequently now believe that peace with Palestinians is not attainable — certainly not in the near- to medium-term.

Finally, Israel enters these negotiations under an existential threat unlike anything it has faced since the founding days of the Jewish state. That threat is Iran, its antipathy toward Israel, and its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

While it may be unfair to insert this seemingly exogenous factor into the Israeli-Palestinian equation — after all, Palestinians cannot be held responsible for Iran’s behavior — it cannot be ignored. Iran complicates the notion of Israel’s eastern border governed by an independent Palestinian state that might not — and, in fact, probably could not — successfully thwart subversive Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps infiltrators bent on killing Israelis and destroying the State of Israel.

Who Represents Palestine?

If complicating changes have occurred in Israel, circumstances have not remained static on the Palestinian side. The most glaring change for Palestinians and obvious question for Israel is, who represents Palestine?

After the 2007 split between the two Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas — the former eschewing violence and prepared to negotiate with Israel and the latter renouncing both and sidling up to the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt — is it unreasonable to question the efficacy of negotiations with only one side? How would an agreement reached by just one Palestinian faction be implemented over the whole of Palestine, both Gaza as well as the West Bank?

More profoundly, however, is what has not changed in Palestine. Both of its dominant parties are commanded by corrupt, ossified and opaque leaderships lacking both creative thinking and innovation when it comes to outreach to Israelis, the negotiations, and the future of a Palestinian state. Both still maintain an iron lock on Palestinian politics.

In Newsweek magazine in November 2011, Owen Mathews wrote that Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers' Party's grip on Turkish Kurds showed: "…the power that a group of well-organized revolutionaries can still exercise on a traditional, poor society with a strong martyr culture and an all-consuming sense of grievance." This is also an apt portrayal of Fatah and Hamas’ political monopoly in Palestine.

Both parties continue to play on that sense of grievance, making the same shopworn promises and holding firmly to tired positions, such as the "right of return" of Palestinians to historic Palestine, that bear little resemblance to facts on the ground.

In some ways, their thinking resembles the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the latter’s waning years. The Palestinian political leadership, both Fatah and Hamas, have done an exceedingly poor job of educating Palestinians about the reality of an eventual final settlement.

The Palestinian media also bear some of the blame. (Thankfully, most Palestinians follow the Israeli as well as international media and are not, therefore, clueless.) Is this the kind of enlightened and practical leadership capable of negotiating and implementing a permanent peace with Israel?

Negotiations Cannot be Postponed

All of the aforementioned obstacles present a daunting task to the two sides’ negotiators and to Secretary Kerry and the US negotiating team. Nevertheless, as apparently insurmountable as they may be, they should not serve as an argument for turning away from pursuing peace in the Middle East. Rather, they demand that the parties and the US, as the indispensable facilitator and guarantor, engage and commit to finding a way toward a settlement.

These circumstances underscore that negotiations cannot be postponed, as has happened so many times previously, for a better day, which inevitably brings more unforeseen complications. The parties must — and must be made to — push through the seemingly most intractable issues toward agreement and final settlement.

Peace between Israelis and Palestinians as well as Arabs would not solve all of the region's problems. But it could provide a clearer lens through which to view and ultimately address those problems and set a course toward bringing stability to the Middle East. That remains the most enduring and ineluctable cry of all of those who live in this conflict-plagued region.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļ’s editorial policy.

The post Middle East Peace Only Gets Harder appeared first on 51³Ō¹Ļ.

Background

In the early hours of November 24, 2013, Iran and the P5+1 countries – the US, UK, France, China, Russia, and Germany – signed an interim agreement for six months on Iran’s nuclear program. Ever since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran’s nuclear ambitions which date back to the rule of the Western-backed Shah, have been viewed with increasing suspicion.

After Iran announced it would resume uranium enrichment after a temporary suspension in 2003 under former President Mohammed Khatami, the United Nations (UN) implemented its first round of sanctions in 2006. The UN Security Council passed six resolutions since then, asking Iran to stop uranium enrichment. Uranium enriched to certain levels can be used for civilian purposes but also to build nuclear weapons.

Iran is a signatory of the international nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Tehran argues that its enrichment activities are solely for peaceful purposes and are covered under the NPT guidelines. The US, the EU, and other members of the international community remain suspicious regarding the peaceful nature of the program. The US and EU both imposed additional sanctions targeting a wide range of Iranian sectors, most prominently the crucial energy sector. 

There have been several rounds of negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 before the recent talks in Geneva — for example, in February and April 2013 in the Kazakh city, Almaty. However, these previous meetings failed to produce any tangible agreements.

As revealed by , the US which has no official diplomatic relations with Iran had established a secret diplomatic backchannel with their Iranian counterparts in March 2013.

The deal struck in Geneva contains the following :

• Iran halts enrichment above 5% and neutralizes stockpile of near-20% within six months
• Agreement on no further installations of centrifuges and on Arak plant
• Improved access for International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors
• In return, no implementation of new nuclear-related sanctions during interim phase
• Unfreezing of $4.2 billion in assets
• Suspension of certain sanctions on gold and other precious metals

Reactions to the announcement of the deal were mixed. Hundreds of supporters greeted the Iranian negotiators upon return from Geneva. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu strongly criticized the deal, calling it a “.”

Several US lawmakers argued the deal was too lenient on Iran and stressed the need for new sanctions. US President Barack Obama, on the other hand, defended the deal and his diplomatic approach to solve the issue. The , at its summit in Kuwait in December 2013, “expressed their comfort” towards the interim agreement. Several Gulf states, including , a traditional opponent of Iran, have issued cautious statements welcoming the deal.    

Why is the Iran Nuclear Deal Relevant?

The Iranian nuclear deal is a controversial agreement which has the potential to either lead to a significant stabilization of the Middle East — if a satisfactory, comprehensive, and long-term agreement is reached — or in the worst case scenario trigger a regional war.

Whereas have surfaced that parts of the Israeli security establishment do not agree completely with Netanyahu’s negative assessment, the military option is not off the table. Some Arab Gulf states’ long-standing tensions with Iran and their for military action against the nuclear program are also a case in point. 

The nuclear deal that will potentially bring a rapprochement between Iran and the US has to be seen in a wider regional context. Iran is a close ally and supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Saudi Arabia, a long-time US ally, criticized the Washington's decision to refrain from military strikes against the Syrian government in the wake of a chemical weapons attack in August 2013. Some analysts also see the Saudi decision to turn down a non-permanent UN Security Council seat as connected to both issues.

US Defense Secretary assurances at the Manama dialogue security conference in December 2013 are to be read in this context. Hagel presented proposals for closer ties with the Gulf states, enhanced missile defense systems, and no US troop reductions after the interim deal with Iran.

The agreement in Geneva is an achievement in itself after years of negotiations without tangible results. However, as stated, “huge challenges remain” and reaching a comprehensive solution is far from certain. 

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From the old cityā€™s Damascus gate, Eitan, Samuel, a Dutch anthropology student and I tread through the strange faces and smells of a Ramadan bazaar until we reach what seems to be an East Jerusalem bus station.

ā€œWhat kind of passport do you have?ā€ Samuel asks, as it dawns on me that if not for the last name, in his jeans, plaid button down and sleek glasses, I would have mistaken my first Arab-Israeli friend for a hirsute Jew ā€” perhaps a Yeminite, Iraqi, or even a Persian member of the tribe like myself.

ā€œNone. Just my American driverā€™s license,ā€ I explain while fumbling through my overstuffed wallet to prove it.

ā€œWhere is your passport?ā€

ā€œIn my suitcase in Efrat.ā€

ā€œEfrat.ā€ He pauses to make sure I feel his dusky eyes on me. ā€œLike the settlement?ā€ he inquires while sneaky beads of sweat make their way down his caterpillar eyebrows.

It turns out that Eitan only has his newly acquired Israeli identification card on hand and the meal lies in an alphabetical area of northern Judea and Samaria (either A, B, or C ) ā€” illegal for an Israeli to set foot in.

ā€œWhy in the world would you make aliya [move to Israel], man?ā€ Samuel probes Eitan in a voice on the border of sardonic and serious.

To beat the checkpoints we devise two schemes:

1. Plan A: From Ramallah, we take one of those shared Arab taxis to Gush Etzion junction ā€” frequently the site of attacks by Palestinians against settlers ā€” south ofĀ JerusalemĀ andĀ BethlehemĀ in theĀ West Bank. From there, we would hitch-hike back to the nearby Jewish settlement of Efrat.
2. Plan B: If the dinner ends too late, stay by Samuelā€™s friend in Ramallah, then catch a bus to Hebron in the morning, and from there hop on a Jewish bus straight to Jerusalemā€™s Central Bus Station.

Simple? No. Safe? Far from it.

Nonetheless, it was my last week in Israel and curiosity would not allow for my parting sans a peak at the other side. I spent my entire year studying in a Gush Etzion Jewish settlement, yet I knew next to nothing about my neighbors. A gust of remorse or fear of missing out rushed over me for not having looked into this earlier.

From Hummus to Habibti

Now at the meal, a chortling note or two slipped out as I imagine the color my parentsā€™ faces would turn upon hearing that their only daughter is in a quaint village just outside Ramallah. After mixing and mingling for quite some time, we begin a circle of introductions.

First, an Italian-Palestinian participant tells how he actually met his fiancĆ©e through YaLa, and thanks to Israelā€™s strict marriage regulations for Arab-Israelis and Palestinians ā€” a response to a dangerous phenomenon in the late intifada ā€”Ā he and hisĀ fiancĆ©eĀ plan on calling America their new home. The man then sings a rendition of Pete Seeger’sĀ We Shall Overcome, a civil rights anthem, followed by an unidentifiable Italian opera number.

The singing did not stop there.

ā€œItā€™s actually my birthday,ā€ our host discloses with an audible smile.

ā€œHappy Birthday to…ā€ we sing in unison, then in Arabic too.

ā€œYom huledet Sameach. Yom hule…ā€ Eitan and I started singing the Hebrew version only to be shushed for fear of inciting unsuspecting neighbors.

Fragrant tea is served and, accordingly, Eitan and I pull our plastic chairs closer to those around us. Mani, a Palestinian working in a Hebron bank, is a dark man in his late twenties who carries a sweet gentleness belied by a pugnacious appearance. He breaks into a story.

ā€œI was in Israel once and officers asked for my documentation,ā€ he says with gesticulations reminiscent of a Talmud student.

ā€œI told them I didnā€™t have a permit. ā€˜When do you get a permit?ā€™ I asked the soldiers. ā€˜Only when youā€™re sick or working, but not for enjoying yourself. I donā€™t need a permit to party!’ They laughed and let me go.ā€

Meanwhile, another touching Israeli-Palestinian story was transpiring in a chair near me, between Eitan and the man to his left.

ā€œI am also programmer but I like to call myself a hacker,ā€ says Sebastian. A Ramallah resident and computer science student, Sebastian, is barely 20-years-old like Eitan. ā€œI got arrested three times by the PLO.ā€

I listen as Eitan, Sebastian and Mani prattle in a very foreign language ā€” computers. Nonetheless, I do manage to catch a snippet between Javascripts.

ā€œI once took down the Ā website, those extreme Jews who meet up with Ahmadinejad,ā€ Eitan boasts as he collects a round of high fives from the men.

Here on the other side of the wall, in a village where Ā and children play ā€œArab and Army,ā€ Eitan found his alter-ego. He met a guy just like himself, instead of a national, political or religious figurehead on the media. He successfully began to see the “other” as the “self.”

Over one meal we broke bread and taboos; we created innovative solutions to seemingly invariable problems; and we managed to reduce toxic gaps between two sides (I strategically broke a few Torah commandments too).

Can we bring this individual amiability to the masses? If Arabic speakers and Hebrew speakers can share a laugh; if we use the same computers; if we all like to party; if we all just want to be with the ones we love, why canā€™t we all just get along?

From ā€œIā€ to ā€œYouā€

Headlines of stealthy prisoner swaps, bellicose rhetoric, and settlement building do not imbue hope for peace; rather, individual interactions like this one humanize the “other,” transforming an objectified relationship of an ā€œIā€ into that of a personal ā€œYouā€ and pave the path to long lasting changes on top.

After all, the recent agreement to resume peace talks is partly due to John Kerryā€™s very own face-to-face intercession. If there is hope for peace in the days to come, it will lie in some power, or some people, who overcome negative assessments, and surpass the perilous polarity plaguing our countries.

Flailing his hands inward as a signal to encircle him, Mani tells us he has ā€œa monumental idea.ā€

ā€œAre you ready?ā€ I give him a thumbs up, topped by a wink.

ā€œWhy donā€™t you guys hack every media outlet… for peace?!ā€

Eitan, Sebastian and a few others share a skeptical glance then a roaring laugh.

We have seen so many use this power on the ;Ā why not bring it over to the good?

I put out my hand reflexively, not to shake his but to clap as if to assure Mani that his proposal is neither naive nor inane.

In the corner, I spot a strange head covering, the last I would expect here: a yarmulke.

This Gush Etzion resident ends up driving Eitan and I right up to my friendsā€™ home in Efrat, dropping off Samuel in Jerusalem on the way. With our driverā€™s white beard and that knitted circle on his head, the checkpoint is no problem.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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Quite apart from the current fury in the West over the use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian Civil War has been the latest chapter in the continual collapse of ersatz national sovereignties in the Middle East since the notion of the nation-state was first imposed upon them a hundred years ago. In a political rendition of "if the right fist don't get you, the left one will," the eminent transnational forces of Islam and Facebook have taken to leap prescribed country borders in a single bound. All this while Big Oil still maintains a series of overweight marionettes in the Gulf to fuel a still ravenous industrial world.

The recent images of US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva deciding the fate of the Assad regime is redolent of the Paris Peace Conference following WWI when Britain and France decided on who got what real estate in the Middle East. One has to wonder how the architects of the Arab Awakening view today's photos. Surely, with great pain. 

So, where does this lead us? Syrians – as Tunisians, Egyptians and Yemenis did earlier – lost their fear of tyranny in March 2011 when the people of Dara'a revolted. Have no doubt, no matter the cost, Syrians will have some shade of participatory governance and that will mean that the Sunni majority will eventually take a leadership role.

It makes little difference to them that the tyrant may have his chemical weapons confiscated, as he kills them just as quickly with his air force and armored divisions. 100,000 dead. Too late now ever to put . Inevitably, Assad will go down at the hands of its citizens. Either that or preside over a much smaller part of Syria.

Chemical weapons or not, the forecast remains: partition in Syria; Syria, in the main, as Sunni; Hezbollah diminished; Lebanon disturbed further by Christian and Shi’a refugees; Saudi and Turkish influence enhanced; the substitution of America's hard power with soft power as a changing paradigm for its foreign relations unless, of course, Israel and the Strait of Hormuz are threatened and then its terrible swift sword gets unsheathed.

And, as for Russia, beyond its continuing grasp on its port in Tartus, even as it struts and touts its inclusion in the photo, it is belittled. It has failed to read the tide in the Arab world and especially of its "generation next." Its photo is and will be remembered as that of a petro state with its own rendition of a caped crusader keeping fast company in the public limelight with a Middle East tyrant of Frankenstein proportions.

America at this time and place will be remembered as almost Hamlet-like in its policy meanderings, but still and all, vaguely and certainly inconsistently, on the side of citizen empowerment.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļ’s editorial policy.

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The agreement that US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov recently hammered out in Geneva will, if implemented, prove a milestone in the century-long effort to contain the horrors of modern war. For the first time, the world community will have compelled a country that has used weapons of mass destruction within its own borders in suppression of an armed insurrection to relinquish them to international control and destruction.

It had taken Saddam Hussein's defiant annexation of Kuwait, and a war to expel his forces, to subject Ba’athist Iraq to such measures; no one in major capitals much cared when he gassed Iranian infantry or Kurdish civilians. A desperate Ba’athist regime in Syria that resorted to episodic use of chemical weapons has discovered that even its closest allies would desert it for breaking the poison-gas taboo.

In this respect, President Barack Obama's determination to rally global opposition to confront the Syrian challenge on chemical weapons has unexpectedly succeeded in strengthening not only the global ban on their use, but the multilateral foundations upholding international peace and security. Americans had faced the prospect of a one-off military strike that might touch off an unpredictable chain of events in the region, but would with certainty undermine respect for the UN Charter globally. Instead, the United Nations will implement the inspection, control, and accelerated dismantling of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles under a Security Council mandate.

The Syrian government affects to renounce voluntarily these weapons stockpiles that it had never before acknowledged having. This is a convenient fiction for those concerned about safeguarding national sovereignty from international interference, but it is clear that Syria's sudden accession to the chemical weapons convention was either coerced or a deathbed conversion. Damascus authorities were plainly rattled by the threat of a US military strike – and, perhaps not so plainly, by Russian and even Iranian pressure to come clean on gas.

The Real Ingredients

Already Washington echoes with the refrain that this negotiation succeeded only because Obama wielded a "credible threat of force." But before Washington gets carried away with the heady notion that its threat of missile attacks will cut through other Gordian knots – whether Bashar al-Assad's departure or Iran's nuclear program or China's claims to offshore islands – it had better get a grip on the real ingredients of Kerry's diplomatic success.

First, the threat of military force had already lost its credibility once the head counts in Congress showed the war authorization was doomed in both houses. If Obama had proceeded to military action anyway, he would have faced his own regime crisis, domestically as well as internationally, for riding roughshod over the legal limitations on waging war in both the US constitution and the UN charter. Whispers of impeachment were already in the Washington air, and Obama internationally seemed quickly to be assuming the detested plumage of another George Bush.

Second, Obama had carefully described the object of US military wrath as the flagrant use of chemical weapons, the "norm" that Kerry cited to a skeptical Congress. This limited purpose put Russia on the defensive (and even more so Iran, the world's biggest victim of chemical weapons use since Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia). Vladimir Putin went so far as to volunteer that if there were solid proof that Assad's forces had gassed Ghouta, even he would supposedly support a punitive strike.

Third, UN inspectors on the ground promptly visited the site, ensuring there would quickly be an internationally verified account of what really happened. The Russians eventually realized that the UN findings would  with Damascus' shifting charges of rebel responsibility. The secretary-general's recentput beyond question that the attacks were of sarin gas delivered by surface-to-surface missiles – both of which are in the Syrian government's arsenals.

Obama's determination to make Damascus pay a heavy price for upping the ante on chemical weapons did create a sense of crisis. Without that crisis, there would have been no opportunity to effect a landmark precedent. Scaffolding that crisis around a core principle to which even Assad's allies subscribe created the pathway to a diplomatic solution.

Try threatening a strike to make Assad step down, and it will blow up in our face: The Russians will invoke with vehemence the principle of state sovereignty and noninterference in a country's internal politics. Nor are they alone in having a narrow view of the "responsibility to protect" that Western interventionists interpret so expansively. Churlish  that Foreign Minister Lavrov is a "Mr. Nyet" miss his personal commitment to the UN and international law – and the resonance that commitment has in the international community.

The spotlight on the international legal architecture against chemical weapons, which Syria's accession and the new Security Council resolution's adoption will strengthen, might remind us that America's own adherence to the chemical weapons convention was bitterly contested. The "strong defense" right-wing of the Republican party mobilized no less than 26 Republican senators to vote against US ratification of the convention in 1997. None has yet to acknowledge his vote against it was a mistake.

Finally, the apparent resolution of the Syrian chemical weapons crisis – and the ferocious public opposition to being sucked into another Middle East war that the crisis uncovered – should not lull Washington into thinking the war can just go on as before. It becomes even more urgent to bring Syria's appalling civil war to an end. Recently, I  an approach to do just that, drawing on the Security Council action to end the Iran-Iraq War in 1987. Other approaches may prove better. Let's just do it.

*[This article was originally published by the .]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļ’s editorial policy.

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Is American-led military action the only way to deal with the presence and use of chemical weapons in Syria? Why not try to negotiate, together with all the relevant parties, including the Russians and Iranians, a post-civil war Syria, without chemical weapons? And why not begin negotiations to establish a Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone in the Middle East?

We will soon be marking the 40th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, which began on October 5, 1973, with a surprise attack by Syria and Egypt against the Israeli forces on the Golan Heights and in Sinai. I happen to be an Israeli, who unlike the Americans in the Congress and Senate that will soon be voting on the next steps in the current drama, actually faced the Syrians on the Golan Heights in 1973-74, for eight months, in the Combat Engineering Corps of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Like Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, I know the horrors of war.

One of my primary conclusions from that experience was the importance of doing everything possible to resolve the Israeli-Arab conflict, and to seek a peaceful and non-violent long-term resolution to conflict situations in general. That does not equal pacifism, because there clearly are situations where there is no alternative but to use military force in self-defense, and to keep and maintain the peace.

When it comes to Syria, there are the zoom-in and the zoom-out approaches. 

The Zoom-In Approach: Action, No Matter What the Consequences

The zoom-in approach focuses on one detail: chemical weapons were used in Syria. This is a violation of universal norms and of President Barack Obama's red-line. Action is required — whatever the complicated consequences.

The Zoom-Out Approach: Focusing on the Bigger Picture

The zoom-out approach focuses on the bigger picture. There is a civil war in Syria and over 100,000 combatants and civilians have been killed. Chemical weapons were used, apparently by President Bashar al-Assad's forces, though there are claims that it was a provocation by the rebels. There is a need to prevent the use of chemical weapons and to arrive at a stable post-civil war situation in Syria, which will guarantee the safety of all three major communities: the Alawites, Sunnis and the Kurds — as well as the Druze and Christians.

The quest for a post-civil war Syria will probably require American-Russian, and perhaps American-Iranian cooperation, and the involvement of the United Nations and the Arab League. That solution will be achieved by diplomatic, not military, means; although a peace-keeping force may be required in the transition period. The American readiness to explore the to place Syria’s chemical weapons under international control is a possible first step in that direction.

Iran

Another part of the picture is the crisis around the Iranian nuclear program. With the election of President Hassan Rouhani, an apparent Iranian readiness for diplomatic discourse with the West, and first and foremost the United States, should be explored. Such an exploration could help to resolve the conflict around the Iranian nuclear program, and it could also contribute to the creation of a stable post-civil war Syria.

The Israeli-Palestinian Track

There is also the renewal of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, thanks to the determination of Secretary of State Kerry. Progress on this track, which is dependent on the readiness of the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and continued American determination to be an effective facilitator, could be a major building block towards resolving the general tensions in the Middle East. It would also eliminate the Israeli occupation as a mobilizing factor for radical and extremist forces in the region.

WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East

All of the above requires the creation of a new regional regime for security and cooperation, as was done in post-World War II Europe. One of the foundations of this new regime would be the creation of a WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East. This would mean no chemical weapons in Syria; no nuclear weapons in Iran or any other country in the region; and a treaty with ironclad guarantees and the means for monitoring and maintaining the treaty.

This is not just a theoretical idea. The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) Review Conference, meeting in New York in April/May 2010, resolved that an international conference should be convened, to begin the process of moving towards a WMD-Free Zone in the region, under the auspices of the US, the UK, Russia, and the UN Secretary General. Although the conference was not convened in 2012 as originally planned, it is still on the international agenda, and must be convened before the next NPT Review Conference in 2015 to save the current international non-proliferation regime.

There is no doubt that if the American government wills it, and does what is necessary to promote it, a regional conference on a WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East can and will be convened.

*[An earlier version of this article was published in The Times of Israel under the title "."]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļ’s editorial policy.

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What appears to have been a chemical weapons attack in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, has made a potential US-led military strike against the Syrian government a very real possibility. Shocking videos of dozens of dead bodies in makeshift hospitals have widely circulated around the Internet. US Secretary of State John Kerry, when addressing the press on August 26, spoke of a “” and, in a more personal tone, of how as a father himself he couldn't “get the image out of [his] head of a man who held up his dead child, wailing while chaos swirled around him.” Kerry clearly conveyed President Barack Obama’s belief that “there must be accountability for those who would use the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable people.”

On August 31, Obama stated: “.” In the same speech, he also announced that he would seek congressional authorization for such action.

At the time of writing, the US Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee reached a bipartisan agreement allowing the US president “.” While voting on the resolution will not occur before the end of the summer recess next week and since the House Foreign Affairs Committee is yet to meet, on September 3, Obama gained crucial .  

Before the president’s official statement, there was a clear build-up to his decision in favor of deploying military force, as the rhetoric on the need to ensure accountability,  with the exiled Syrian opposition in Istanbul, and the publicly stated  of the US and allied militariessuggested.

The Last of the Red Lines?

In the aftermath of the Iraq War and with the Afghanistan conflict still raging on, President Obama has always made it very clear that he does not intend to involve the US in another conflict. However, he already mentioned a red line regarding the movement and use of chemical weapons one year ago, on : “We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is [if] we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus.”

Images of the aftermath, combined with statements by Obama that “,” give the impression that the often cited “red line” has been breached. It has to be noted that previous  of the use of chemical weapons have not triggered a similar reaction.    

American Motivation

The very real possibility of “” military strikes against the Syrian Army has caused many analysts to speculate over why the US government, after more than two years of bloodshed and over 100,000 deaths, wants to engage in military action.

In an with PBS, Obama stated that if there was to be a military strike, “the Assad regime, which is involved in a civil war, trying to protect itself, will have received a pretty strong signal, that in fact, it better not do it again.” The US president also clarified that a military strike would not end “the death of innocent civilians inside Syria.”

The main point here is that any attack would serve as a punitive act against Bashar al-Assad, which is not intended to end the regime's rule. With regard to this last point, it is important to recall that there still remains a high degree of uncertainty and apprehension regarding power configurations in a potential post-Assad Syria, with Islamist groups such as the al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat Al-Nusra being among the strongest fighting forces.

The question at this point, however, is what the effect of such a limited punitive act would be on the Syrian government. To assess the material impact on the strength of the regime would be too far-fetched at present. However, one can speculate about the non-material impact on the government and its supporters.

Unsurprisingly, President Assad has demonstrated defiance in the face of a possible attack: “.” Although military strikes might cause further defections, such an attack, orchestrated by foreign powers, would buy into the regime’s narrative of a foreign conspiracy, and thus potentially strengthen overall cohesion among its supporters.

Moreover, Obama cited that the situation “.” He also hinted at potential dangers to allies such as Israel, Turkey, and Jordan, as well as US bases in the Middle East in case of a proliferation of chemical weapons. Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for example, stated in May 2013 that Syria had used chemical weapons and urged the US to “.” Erdogan is also at this point one of the main supporters of an intervention.

Another reason, as Rachel Shabi argues, is that an attack would be to “.” This idea is directly related to Obama’s frequent reference to the red line and many actors urging him to take action due to continuous bloodshed. Notably, the US president said on August 31: “We cannot raise our children in a world where we will not follow through on the things we say.”

An important point in this regard, which is also mentioned by Shabi, is morality. As mentioned above, this theme featured prominently in Secretary Kerry's remarks on August 26 when he spoke of a “moral compass” and that the events defied “any code of morality.” Obama, in a similar tone, spoke about international norms. Without a  at the time of writing, the question is, will this be the main argument surrounding an intervention?  

In this context, it is crucial to remember the humanitarian dimension that the “red line” statements and the rhetoric surrounding the attack in Damascus have. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton clearly stressed  when the “red line” was mentioned. The language of morality is closely related to the humanitarian dimension of the debate. Obama’s reference to “young girls and boys gassed to death by their own government” and the subsequent characterization of the attack as an “assault on human dignity” tie these two issues together.

Regardless of whether one is convinced of the humanitarian reasoning or not, it has to be remembered that the failure of the Clinton administration to act during the Rwandan genocide in 1994 has had a profound impact on the concept of humanitarian intervention.

Shadows of the Past

Russia, a supporter of the Syrian government, strongly voiced its opposition to a potential military strike. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described it as a “.” Referring to Washington's past military incursions into the Middle East, he warned of a repeat of the “Iraqi and Libyan scenario.” In the past, Russia, which had  from the UN Security Council Resolution authorizing action in Libya in 2011, has often voiced its opinion that this resolution was abused and turned into a campaign for regime change. Lavrov also called any military action “” and lamented the fact that the US has not produced evidence for the Syrian government’s culpability.

Russia’s opposition is rooted in several factors. Due to a , Moscow views the Syrian government as a key ally, in part due to the Russian Navy’s base in the port of Tartus. Furthermore, Russia is — as are, for example, the US — concerned about a post-Assad Syria, which, considering Russian support for the Assad regime, is unlikely to be friendly.

The Obama administration’s invocation of morality and norms has to be seen in this context in order to properly understand the build-up to a potential military strike. It would be not be the first time that moral justifications are a strong part of the reasoning before a military conflict. The rhetoric before the Afghanistan and Iraq wars brings up memories of such reasoning.  

*[This article was produced in partnership with the .]

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John Kerry celebrated a personal victory when announcing the resumption of direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, as he defied the predictions and cynicism of most Middle East observers in Washington and elsewhere, who poured cold water on his efforts. So, the secretary had his moment of glory, but historic context, as well as sober realization of Middle East realities, should lead to the conclusion that while talks will be, a peace treaty will not.

It was in August 2010, when then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ceremoniously announced the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks, and that happened after 10 months in which Israel imposed a freeze on construction in the settlements. The talks? Well, they never took off the ground. Almost two years earlier, in Annapolis, Maryland, President George W. Bush, outflanked by Mahmoud Abbas and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, announced exactly the same – resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Then too, talks about talks did exist, but talks about peace, not really.

These examples – and there are many more – enable us to put things in historical context. It is clear that the resumption of talks, or announcements to that effect, can achieve some PR advantages to the Americans and the parties concerned. But to achieve a lasting, binding peace treaty, we need something else. Altogether, we do not only need American determination — although this is always an essential element in the search for peace — but also determination of the parties themselves, based on their understanding of their respective interests. We are not in that place.

Netanyahu: Limited Maneuverability

Let us start with Israel. When Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the average Mr. Cohen in Jerusalem, and Mrs. Levi in Tel-Aviv watch their nightly news, they see mayhem in the streets of Cairo, a terrible civil war in Syria, beginnings of one in Lebanon, expectation of impending troubles in Jordan, a Hamas government in Gaza and, on top of all that, an Iranian relentless drive towards the bomb. Not a pretty sight, and one which fills Israelis with worry about deep instability on their doorstep; the type of situation which calls for caution.

Who will prevail in Egypt? Will Islamists take over Syria and open troubles along a border which was the most peaceful of all of Israel’s borders for the last four decades?

And what if sanctions against Iran do not work, and the new president there gains more time for the Iranian nuclear program and, in some time in the spring of 2014, Israelis wake up with the dreadful news that Iran has successfully completed its first nuclear test? Clearly, Israeli leaders have a full plate on their hands, and the prospect of talks with the Palestinians, which will inevitably lead to international pressure to make huge concessions, are not their most favorable political scenario.

Yet Netanyahu agreed to resume the talks. There are three possible reasons. First, exactly these events in the Middle East, described above, brought about a warming of relations between Israel and the US and between the two leaders, who during Barack Obama’s first term were chilly, if not outright cold. The Middle East is in turmoil, and Israel and the US need each other. So, Netanyahu realizes that he should not antagonize President Obama at this particular juncture, especially — and this is the second reason — when the two countries seem to close most of the gaps in their position about Iran. The official spin is that there is ongoing discussion about the Iranian threat, all options are on the table, and Iran should not and would not be allowed to possess the bomb. Netanyahu needs American support with regards to Iran, and he is, in fact, ready to pay back by showing flexibility regarding the Palestinian situation.

Then there is the sense in Israel that the deadlocked talks have led to growing criticism, even with Israel’s isolation in the international arena, which is mainly in Europe. Henceforth, a readiness for talks seems to be helpful in easing up these pressures, which also have the potential of damaging Israel’s economy. With all that in mind, Netanyahu voted for the resumption of the talks. However, he is not ready to get back to the pre-1967 lines; far from it, he has no desire to remove the lion’s share of the settlers, he objects to the ‘’right of return‘’ of Palestinian refugees and, surely, he is not going to be flexible about Jerusalem.

Even if by some miraculous development, Netanyahu personally underwent a metamorphosis and changed his positions, Avigdor Lieberman, Naftali Bennett and Likud’s own radical right-wingers did not, and they made their position very clear: They are ready for talks, but they are not ready for concessions.

Netanyahu, therefore, has a very limited scope for maneuverability. He has support from Yair Lapid, Tzipi Livni, and the Labor party, but he needs his own party. At the moment, he does not have its support. Likud initiated and supported the historic peace treaty with Egypt, but at that time it was under the charismatic leadership of Menachem Begin and Sinai is not Judea and Samaria, which for the Likudniks is the real thing. It follows, that altogether, the reasons which pushed Netanyahu into the talks will not be enough to push him into a conclusion of a treaty – two entirely different things.

Recently, Netanyahu got a clear indication of his problems within his own Likud bloc. Only half of his own party ministers voted in favor of releasing 104 Palestinian prisoners. Some of them have a lot of blood on their hands, a very sensitive point in Israel, and most of them are old, having been in jail for over 20 years. A majority of the Likud ministers reject the inclusion of Israeli Arab convicts in the list of those to be released. No doubt, we will witness the shape of things to come. It is evident though that Netanyahu has no mandate from his own party to make crucial concessions.

Mahmoud Abbas’ Calculations

Mahmoud Abbas also has his reasons to be worried. The Arab world is engulfed in a regional Sunni-Shi’ite conflict, and is not attuned to the problems of the Palestinians. The conflict, which once seemed to be the linchpin of regional politics, is very low on the current priority list of the Arab states. The Hamas government in Gaza continues to defy Abbas' authority, and the internal situation in the West Bank is on the verge of deterioration. The economy is doing worse than before, the well-respected Prime Minister Salam Fayyad resigned, and the last thing that the Palestinian president wants is another intifada. You know how something like this starts, you never know how it ends.

So, the Palestinian leader, weighing his options, voted for the resumption of talks. He can now mobilize Arab diplomatic support, as well as European. He is assured to get financial rewards from the latter, as well as American, and altogether he is gaining time. Abbas needs time before he can make his own substantial decisions.

He also looks around him, and sees mayhem in Syria, potential civil war in Egypt, dangers to the huge Palestinian community in Lebanon, and instability in Jordan. Under such circumstances, he prefers to wait and see, while in the meantime reaping whatever dividends he can. This is why Netanyahu's concession about prisoners is a significant net gain to him. He can also be encouraged by the debacle of Hamas in Egypt, as the coup there brings to the fore the tensions between the Egyptian military and the Gaza government. This is bad news for Hamas, but it is not clear how good the news is for the Palestinian Authority.

Yet like Netanyahu, Abbas did not change any of his basic positions, regarding borders, settlements, refugees and Jerusalem. He is not under any domestic pressure to do so. If at all, he is under pressure, and not just from Hamas, to further harden his policies.

That said, we are bound to be realistic about the new round of talks. It is always better to have talks, rather than not, but talks for the sake of talks have a limited time span. The moment for crucial, fateful decisions will come, but as things appear now, both leaders are unwilling and incapable of making them.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļ’s editorial policy.

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Amid the hand wringing from the outside world over how free and fair Zimbabwe's elections will be, one uncomfortable question lingers. Does it really matter? Yes, 1 million dead voters remain on the voters roll. Yes, Robert Mugabe has banned all but African election observers. And no, the new constitution has not ushered in a new era of press freedom.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group sums up the concerns. "The voters roll is a shambles, security forces unreformed and the media grossly imbalanced," it said in a report released on Monday. "Conditions for a free and fair vote do not exist."

And yet Zimbabwe's neighbours do not appear to care. South African President Jacob Zuma says Zimbabwe has "done the best so far" considering the short amount of time they had to organize this election. His thoughts echoed that of his ex-wife, the African Union chief, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma who claims she has been assured by Zimbabwe’s Electoral Commission that problems have been rectified and everything is in place.

Realpolitik Trumps Principles

So why does South Africa and the rest of the African Union turn a blind eye to the concerns raised by the outside world? It comes down, according to one observer, to realpolitik.

"I think whether a free and fair election is possible is totally irrelevant at the moment," says Muhamed-Nur Nordien, a political analyst in Johannesburg. "Stakeholders within SADC (Southern Africa Development Community) really just want to see this election happen, and for it to go off as smooth as possible. Trying to contain whatever happens post this election is probably more important from a realpolitik perspective than whether the election really is free and fair."

It is a sad fact of politics that pragmatism trumps principles. The last thing South Africa wants is an unstable Zimbabwe, which could lead to a refugee crisis on its border. It is also reluctant to criticize Mugabe's political party, Zanu-PF. If South Africa points out that a liberation movement can lose its democratic credentials, what does that say about the African National Concress (ANC)?

Western powers also appear to have resigned themselves to an extension of Mugabe's 33-year rule. The European Union lifted most of its sanctions after Zimbabwe's new referendum was approved in March. And US Secretary of State John Kerry offered to “revisit” current sanctions against Zimbabwe if upcoming elections are transparent and peaceful — or at least are seen to be.

So despite the best effort of activists, there's no political will to criticize these elections. Diamonds, it seems, are worth more than democracy.

It matters little whether ordinary Zimbabweans' votes are cast freely or counted fairly. What matters most is that this election does not disturb the status quo, so that everyone can all go on with business as usual. 

*[Note: This article represents the views of the author and not the perspectives of AFP.]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļ’s editorial policy.

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US Secretary of State John Kerry that Israeli and Palestinian negotiations will start back up with a visit of both sides to Washington. Oddly, he made the announcement alone, not flanked by either Palestinians or Israelis, prompting questions of whether he really had a breakthrough or firm commitments.

Palestinians had been reluctant to give predatory Israeli policy toward them any legitimacy by negotiating at a time when Israel was actively pouring more Israeli settlers into the Palestinian West Bank. It is like negotiating with someone about how to share a piece of pie while that person is sneaking a fork into the pie and eating it up. For their part, the Israelis have refused to stop stealing Palestinian land and water as a prerequisite for talks.

For Palestinians, the point of negotiating with the Israelis is to achieve a Palestinian state on the territory of the West Bank and Gaza as they existed in 1967. That is also the point of any serious Western negotiator attempting to achieve peace.

Fig Leaf of a “Peace Process”

However, from the point of view of the ruling far-right Likud Party of Israel, the point of negotiations is to create a fig leaf of a “peace process” while continuing to appropriate as much Palestinian land as possible, putting more hundreds of thousands of squatters into the West Bank, while decisively and forever preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state. In short, for the Likud Party, the “peace process” with the US and the Palestinians is like the ski mask worn by a bank robber: it allows you to get away with it.

For this reason, Kerry’s quixotic quest to restart talks is both a welcome distraction and an unwelcome threat for the Likud. It is welcome, because without a fictional “peace process,” the massive Israeli theft of Palestinian land and resources is nakedly exposed to the world. It is a threat, because there is always a danger that the negotiations may have some successes, requiring actual Israeli concessions of practical import, which is definitely not what the Likud wants.

The right wing Israeli project of slowly annexing the West Bank and starving out the Palestinians in Gaza involves a great deal of future-blindness and magical thinking. They seem to imagine that the Palestinians at some point will abruptly vanish into thin air, like an illusionist’s rabbit. After decades of carefully hiding from themselves their acts of butchery and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians in 1948, and then more decades of denying that there are any such things as Palestinians, the Israeli Right appears to have half-convinced itself that there is not really a problem with their Drang nach Osten.

1967 Borders and Auschwitz

These attitudes are clear in the Likud responses to the news that Secretary Kerry has succeeded in reconvening the Israeli and Palestinian sides for talks, as translated by the USG Open Source Center:

"Tourism Minister Uzi Landau said to Ynet that ‘there is an Israeli interest to enter negotiations; however, the Israeli consent to release prisoners is a mistake. Whoever speaks of the 1967 borders speaks of Auschwitz. Whoever pushes for negotiations based on the 1967 boundaries, even with border adjustments, actually speaks of the 1967 borders. We must negotiate with no preconditions and without prisoner release,’ Landau emphasized."

Apparently far-right wing Israelis live in such a cocoon that they cannot understand how extreme a statement such as "1967 borders are Auschwitz" sounds to normal people. Really? Letting the Palestinians have a decent life is comparable to gassing innocent Jews? Trivializing Auschwitz like this is the real crime, and ratcheting up the rhetoric so that any concession to political reality is equated to genocide, is an offense against common sense. And, you will never ever hear mainstream American news programs report or quote Landau’s absurd and deeply offensive pronouncement.

Then there is this:

"Knesset Member Miri Regev addressed the issue of renewed talks with the Palestinians, and said: ‘In light of the various statements regarding an agreement about the 1967 borders, as well as agreements on releasing Palestinian prisoners, the prime minister should clarify the truth,’ Regev said, adding: ‘I expect to hear what the Palestinian leadership is doing for a peace agreement, because in my opinion they have no real intention of reaching one.’ According to her, US Secretary of State John Kerry’s ‘cleverness’ will increase the dangers to Israel’s security."

In other words, Regev does not want the negotiations. She wants the West Bank. She sees giving up the West Bank and the establishment of a Palestinian state as unacceptable “dangers” to Israel. She implicitly believes that only by strangling the Palestinians can Israelis breathe free. Thus, she dismisses Kerry’s skillful diplomacy as mere "cleverness" and condemns it as unsafe at any speed.

Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon blasted his boss, Binyamin Netanyahu, for the concession of freeing Palestinian prisoners, telling the Jerusalem Post "We must learn from our past mistakes and not free terrorists with blood on their hands, neither as a gesture nor as a reward." He insisted that Israelis must not again commit the "injustice of the disengagement (in Gaza) by returning to the 1967 borders." Danon, the Likud Convention chair, said that the Netanyahu government "must not uproot thousands of Jews from their homes."

Danon, in other words, rejects any concessions to the Palestinians. He wishes Israeli troops and squatters were back inside Gaza, instead of the Israeli military only surrounding it and preventing its Palestinians from exporting most of what they make. He rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state or a return to 1967 borders, which would require that Israeli squatters on Palestinian land (which they stole outright) return to Tel Aviv and Haifa. He sees all Palestinians that dared resist occupation and apartheid as mere "terrorists" and thinks they all, even the children among them, should stay in Israeli prisons forever. It should be remembered that many Palestinians in Israeli prisons are guilty of much less than Nelson Mandela was when he was in South African prisons.

Negotiations as Window Dressing

In his response, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has openly boasted of derailing the 1993 Oslo Peace Process, said:

"With the resumption of the diplomatic process, we are faced with two main goals: preventing the creation of a bi-national state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River that would endanger the future of the Jewish state, and preventing the establishment of an additional Iranian-sponsored terrorist state on Israel’s borders, which would endanger us no less."

In other words, Netanyahu believes that no Palestinian state can be allowed to come into existence, because it would inevitably be an Iranian-sponsored satellite and would conduct violence against Israel.

Netanyahu, on the other hand, understands that with no negotiations and no political settlement of any sort, Israel will likely become responsible in the eyes of the world for the stateless Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, and will be forced to give them Israeli citizenship. People in the 21st century cannot be allowed . If Israel will not allow the Palestinians to have a state (and it will not), then it will be pressured to make them citizens of Israel.

So if Netanyahu absolutely rejects allowing a Palestinian state to be erected, and absolutely rejects giving the Palestinians citizenship in Israel, what is left? Apartheid is what is left, which is what Netanyahu wants. He wants Israeli control over the West Bank’s land, water and air, but wants to keep the Palestinian population there stateless. He hopes that Palestinians can be persuaded to accept apartheid if only they are given a better standard of living, that, in essence, they can be bribed to accept their status as stateless inmates of an Israeli police state on the West Bank.

So for Netanyahu, the negotiations are not in good faith. They are window dressing. They give him a reply . Just wait, he can say, there may be irregularities now, but who knows what things will look like at the end of the peace negotiations, which we are actively pursuing. It is the old dodge of the Israeli right wing. Those negotiations are aimed at browbeating the Palestinians into accepting their statelessness forever, in return for empty Israeli pledges not to completely expropriate them and further pledges to allow them a standard of living similar to that of Jordanians.

*[This article was originally published by Juan Cole’s .]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļ’s editorial policy.

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Following a string of high-profile victories by Syrian government forces, the Obama administration announced that it would begin sending  to rebel factions. Washington is attempting to save face by justifying its decision with the insufficiently substantiated  that the Syrian regime used sarin gas in the battlefield. This is likely meant to help preserve the deterring power of American threats, as otherwise, the " in Syria" rhetoric would be meaningless.

However, it is Bashar al-Assad's renewed momentum that has changed Barack Obama's strategic outlook. While the US president has been able to resist bipartisan calls for intervention on Capitol Hill, the combination of high-profile victories for Assad loyalists and mobilized Russian and Iranian support was too much to bear. The United States is now involved in Syria — from military assistance to a large contingent of jets and soldiers now ominously  in Jordan.

Due to these events, the Syrian Civil War has entered a new phase. It is therefore important to understand what this means, and the consequences that face both Syria and the wider region.

War of the Proxies

Before discussing the involvement of powers such as Iran, it is crucial to analyze the coming infighting among the US and its allies. The Obama administration has repeatedly stated that it wants aid to go to "moderates" in the rebellion. This means that it wishes for weapons to primarily go to rebels most likely to uphold US interests in the country after Assad is overthrown.

The specification of "moderates" means that US officials will find themselves in direct conflict with their stated allies in the war. Saudi Arabia and Qatar will now straddle the line between ally and antagonist, as they both fund distinctly immoderate guerrilla factions.

Qatar embodies this role more fully than Saudi Arabia, as although Saudi Arabia has been funding an ideological mixture of rebel groups, Doha has been working  with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood to almost exclusively support Salafi militants. This rival military alliance is part of Qatar's move for greater strategic independence from Saudi Arabia, and also complicates the US relationship with the Gulf monarchy, as Doha plays  to a political office of the Taliban for peace talks.

Thus, as the CIA supports its rebel allies, Washington will have to strategically leverage itself against American allies, who are supporting groups directly at odds with its strategic interests in the country. The most feared example is Jabhat al-Nusra, a rebel group that has ties with al-Qaeda in Iraq, as well as with senior al-Qaeda leaders.

Supporting and Purifying

The main reason that Obama has exercised caution in providing support for the rebels is because of al-Nusra. This has been wise strategic thinking, as there are clear historical parallels in supporting a diverse armed opposition including far-right Salafi militant groups. The situation is frighteningly similar to the Soviet-Afghan war that ultimately led to the birth of al-Qaeda.

It is likely that the CIA and US military, neither of which have any interest in dealing with a new generation of veterans-turned-terrorists, will attempt to simultaneously purify the rebellion, as they support it. The announcement of supporting "moderates" in the rebellion may even lock together with a  by a US official to a rebel leader last December: "We'd prefer you fight al-Nusrah now, and then fight Assad's army. You should kill these Nusra people. We'll do it if you don't."

US assistance will arise in direct proportion to a demand to control the Salafi militant groups in the rebellion. If they can't be controlled from afar, more direct forms of intervention, either by drone strikes or allies such as Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey — a NATO ally that allows for Washington to have political and military distance from the conflict's excesses — may be seen as necessary.

These direct interventions would inevitably mean that the United States is forced to strengthen its allies in nearby governments. This will have a large effect on domestic politics in these states, most obviously in Turkey, where Erdogan desperately attempts to crush local dissent and finalize a agreement with Kurdish seperatists in order to ensure that domestic upheaval will not compromise the Turkish parliament's  for possible intervention. Monarchical regimes will likely see their ties to the United States deepened if American airpower will be used, whether through the US personnel now  in Jordan, or the formerly secret  in Saudi Arabia.

The Specter of Shi'ism

These proxy-within-proxy battles are in addition to an international proxy war that has materialized in Syria.

The main reason that Assad has been able to make such impressive gains is because of a revitalized strategy that depends on backing from Russia and Iran. Iranian assistance happens to involve Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's willing deployment of his fighters to support the regime (at great expense of his own regional ). Just one example is the fact that Hezbollah’s backing was crucial in the regime taking back control of the strategic Lebanese-Syrian border town of al-Qusayr last month.

Part of this involves a brutal religious framework. The fact that an avowedly Shi'a revolutionary Islamist state, Iran, has commanded a Shi'a militia to defend an Alawite Shi'a head of state has led to a popular image of the proxy war in Syria as an inevitable result of the Sunni/Shi'a schism that dates back over a millennium. The fact that Hamas knew better than to support Assad, and has been  for it, unfortunately makes these sectarian lines seem even cleaner.

As a result, events in Syria will do their own part to contribute to an upsurge of sectarian violence that reaches as far as Pakistan. The bloodshed is likely to continue in the Muslim-majority countries that have significant Shi'a populations. It also combines with other trends in Sunni-Shi'a violence from diverse factors, such as the continued fallout (and impending second outbreak) of the Iraqi Civil War, Saudi-circulated ideologies of Sunni predation, and ongoing US tensions with Iran.

The misunderstanding is that US military aid to the rebels will help stem this reality and its dramatic sectarian consequences. It is far more likely that the United States will exacerbate it significantly by involving itself as another global power in the tumult. This is especially true with its apparent strategy of forming a new regional axis through Sunni Islamist allies, with leaders such as Erdogan, Morsi, and King Abdullah.

A Levantine Chessboard

The Syrian Civil War, like the Iraqi conflict before it, is turning an entire country into a chessboard. No matter how it concludes, this war has become a story of consolidating a new status-quo.

Every international actor currently involved in Syria sees the war as an opportunity to expand its own role in the regional power structure, and also the historical trends of the Arab revolts. Whoever wins the dual proxy-war between the US, and its allies, and the Assad regime's supporters, will almost certainly do so at the expense of the Syrian revolution.

International support for the uprising against Assad is likely to wane, along with the strength of grassroots organizations such as the , that do not want to align with a foreign benefactor. Groups like the Popular Front, along with the still present nonviolent factions that started the revolt, can expect to be sidelined in the coming years. They are inconvenient to the larger powers, both regional and global, that seek to claw parts of the country into their own spheres of influence, as it becomes a rotting corpse of Ba'athist governance.

There are many questions of this new phase that unfortunately cannot be answered yet. Among them, will an extended war in Syria ultimately empower a new generation of Salafi terrorists, as occurred in Afghanistan 30 years ago? Will that empowerment occur in conjunction with the fact that some fighters are already veterans from fighting during the American-led occupation of Iraq? What can the role of the United Nations possibly be, as we mark a decade of its most powerful member completely ignoring it in occupying Iraq, and now completely ignoring it by involving itself in Syria along with setting up a potential no-fly zone of dubious legality?

This much is clear. As Syria bleeds, and is cannibalized by its neighbors, it also becomes a stage that reveals the most nightmarish aspects of the Middle Eastern status-quo. Given that a huge part of the Arab Spring was envisioning a new social order for the Middle East, it is up to regional activists who pushed for its most positive aspects, such as an end to military rule, to confront this devastating reality. Syria will either mark the evolution of a suicidal political structure for the region, or its closing chapter in favor of something new.

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On the of his presidency, Barack Obama is set to begin his week-long visit to sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) on , which will see the US president travel to Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania from June 26 to July 3.

However, why is Obama visiting Africa and why now? Prior to the scheduled trip, Obama met with Xi Jinping, the president of China, on June 7-8 at a summit in southern California. It seems the Ā were correct when they stated: ā€œPresident Obama is planning major diplomatic initiatives with China and Africa.ā€

International relations are always about strategic interests. Why did Obama meet up with Xi Jinping in June 2013? Among other reasons, it might have something to do with Chinaā€™s growing importance economically on the world-stage ā€” not to mention the fact that China holds the greatest percentage of US debt.

How about Africa? What is Washington’s strategic interest in Africa? That is the golden question. If African leaders understood the answer to this question, they would begin to think differently, lead responsibly, and take advantage of the worldwide shifts occurring to the benefit of their own citizens. Africa has an opportunity, if it manages the competing interests in its political economy well enough, to lift millions out of systemic poverty while providing them with better standards of living.

What is Special About Sub-Saharan Africa?

Officially, the press statement from the White House states the trip ā€œā€ To decode this statement, one must cast their minds back to comments made by Secretary of State John Kerry when, as yet, the public was unaware of this Africa trip. These statements were captured in a and in the .Ā In response to questions by Rep. Karen BassĀ (D-Calif), Kerry said:

“Africa we need to be deeply engaged in and intend to be. And the president will travel there. We have a lot to do.Ā Six of the 10 or 12 fastest growing countries in the world are in Africa. We all are concerned about our economic future. China is investing more in Africa than we are and it doesnā€™t have to be a zero-sum game. We have to recognize where our future economic interests and capacity may lie.”

Obamaā€™s trip is about safeguarding Americaā€™s economic interests ā€” bearing in mind where Washington’s future capacity may lie. This is what the press statement loosely framed as ā€œto discuss our strategic partnerships on bilateral and global issues…[while] broadening and deepening cooperation between the United States and the people of sub-Saharan Africa.ā€ Africa is the new economic frontier and the US does not want to be left out while China capitalizes on its African partnerships.

Kerry alluded to the fact that some of the fastest growing economies are found in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This is correct, according to the 2013Ā ,Ā as well as its predecessor from the previous year. African economies have maintained a consistent solid expansion for over a decade, right through what is termed the global economic downturn. The International Monetary Fundā€™s Ā forecasted similar growth trends for SSA as the World Bank did. Seven SSA countries outgrew China last year, and ten out-performed India. This is history in the making and Africa could miss this opportunity if it is not awake and focused on what is transpiring on the table of nations. Africa desperately needs to harness its strengths and exploit the opportunities now available, in such a way that it generates better human development dividends for its masses who are projected to double in a mere 37 years, according to the United Nations Statistics Division.

What is the Source of this Growth?

ToĀ adequatelyĀ understand theĀ principal sources of growth in SSA, one can consult the Ā ā€”Ā launched by the Africa Progress Panel, chaired by Kofi Annan on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on Africa. The report states: ā€œOn one estimate, extractive industries have accounted for around one-third of regional GDP growth over the past decade ā€“ more than transport, telecommunications and manufacturing combined.ā€ It further clarifies that the 20 countries the IMF identified ā€” in their Ā ā€”Ā as resource intensive in SSA account for about 56 percent of the regionā€™s population and around 80 percent of its GDP. The good thing is that the SSA growth phenomenon is not limited to resource intensive countries. It extends to much of the region.

Naturally, China is a big part of the increased economic activity on the continent. It makes absolute sense then that the Obama administration will allocate its single longest journey during the summer season to go politik in Africa.

A Great Opportunity for Africa: Sagacity Required

I have often heard the following statement: ā€œ…but Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania are not necessarily the economic giants in Africa.ā€ My retort is that while this may be true, Obama is not going to spend the longest trip of his presidency with just these three governments and their private sector actors alone. They are mainly a base from which he can reach out to strategic partners he hopes toĀ connect with.

Whatever the case, it is high time Africa realizes the worldwide shifts taking place and the unique opportunities they present. African leaders, civil society, and the many youths that make up most of SSAā€™s population, must ā€œwise-upā€ and ā€œshine their eyesā€ ā€” to use a colloquial Nigerian expression. A better future could be within reach in less than one generation if SSA leaders continue to improve state capacity, promote good governance, transparency, accountability, and long-ranged public policies aimed at promoting industrialization, alleviating poverty, creating jobs, eliminating illiteracy, and so on. All of this and more are elucidated in the 2013 Africa Progress Report, which champions equity in extractives. At the end of the day, if wealth generated from solid expansion is not equitably redistributed to the benefit of all, development will remain at best but a mirage; and that would be a huge travesty which future generations would hold the present generation accountable for.

I end this piece with the words of Secretary Kerry to Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.). Do ponder over them:

ā€œWe have to recognize where our future economic interests and capacity may lie.”Ā 

Allow me to elaborate. Relations between states, otherwise known as international relations, are all about interests. As the US considers its interests and rightly so, African leaders should also consider the interests of their people and negotiate on a peer to peer basis.

*[Note: The graph in this article is part of the , and has been used with permission from the report’s producers. A version of this article was originally published by the.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51³Ō¹Ļā€™s editorial policy.

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Economic doldrums mean that India is not much of a destination for global investors nowadays and the is depressing the rupee's value to record lows vis-à-vis the US dollar. Even domestic investors . The country was the toast of the 2006 World Economic Forum in Davos, with "India Everywhere" emblazoned throughout the conference halls and a Bollywood extravaganza staged as the main social event. But it was at this year’s gathering.*

Third Largest Economy

Still, as a series of developments in recent weeks prove, New Delhi is nonetheless emerging as an important pivot point on Asia’s geopolitical stage. One set of events attests to India’s long-term economic significance. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that India, even with its current decade-low growth rate of five percent, has likely moved past Japan as the world’s third-largest economy and the second largest in Asia. It added that by the end of this decade, India may even have supplanted China as the world’s fastest-growing major economy, and that over the next half-century the country’s GDP per capita will increase more than eight-fold.

Reinforcing these points is a by WealthInsight, a London-based consultancy. It projects that India will possess the world’s fifth-largest population of high net-worth individuals by 2020.** Both it and the OECD estimate underscore the made last fall by the US National Intelligence Council that “India will be the rising economic powerhouse that China is seen to be today.”

A Bollywood Romance

Next, consider how the Asian diplomatic scene has started to resemble a Bollywood romance, in which three zealous suitors (America, China and Japan) vie for the affections of a woman (India), whom they previously took for granted. Beijing and Tokyo have both spent the last month chasing after New Delhi, and Washington is now rejoining the pursuit.

Until very recently, China to India. Four years ago, The Global Times, a state-run news outlet, out of hand:

"India cannot actually compete with China in a number of areas, like international influence, overall national power and economic scale. India apparently has not yet realized this."

And two years ago, Beijing Washington’s suggestion to hold a trilateral dialogue with New Delhi, telling US officials that India was a “lesser power” that had no place in an exchange among equals.

But the Chinese were singing a much different tune during Premier Li Keqiang’s four-day visit to India in mid-May. The Global Times now ran an opinion piece noting that “Chinese people lack understanding and respect toward India. They tend to judge it according to ill-conceived preconceptions.” It added that:

"China's surrounding environment will suffer if India, a country which has the prospect of running neck-and-neck with China, becomes another Japan or Philippines in terms of its policies toward China."

The China Daily, another official press organ, resurrected the neologism of “,” a theme that Li picked up in an , in which he stressed that Asia’s future hinged on the tight cooperation between the two countries. Li had previewed this pitch a few days before his trip, when he a visiting Indian youth delegation in Beijing that India and China "must shake hands" to make Asia an "engine of the world economy."

During his stay, Li played up the symbolic honor he was according India by making it his first foreign stop since assuming the premiership in March. And he repeated a line he’s been using for a while about how Sino-Indian ties were destined to become the century’s important bilateral relationship. It’s striking that Li’s phrase is a virtual echo of the Obama administration’s regular formulation about Washington and New Delhi constituting “an indispensable partnership for the 21^st century.”

Li went on to  Indian business leaders that “China will make your dream come true” and offered talks on a free trade agreement. With New Delhi looking for greater foreign investment in Indian infrastructure projects, Beijing has to pump as much as $3 billion into a project expanding the Mumbai metro system. And Li topped off the wooing by recalling a Chinese proverb about how a distant relative may not be as useful as a near neighbor, a reminder of the attractions Beijing holds out compared to what Washington is offering. The People’s Daily underscored the point by  that the United States should not be jealous of a China-India combination.

No sooner had Li departed than it was Japan’s turn to ride the courtship carousel, when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Tokyo for a four-day visit. With Japan being the largest foreign investor in India and India being the top recipient of Japanese development funds, Tokyo has traditionally been more solicitous of New Delhi than Beijing. But this pursuit has now kicked into overdrive with Shinzo Abe’s return to the prime minister’s office.

Abe has long put on collaboration with India. In a written for his 2006 bid for leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party, he argued that it would “not be a surprise if in another decade, Japan-India relations overtake Japan-US and Japan-China ties.” Speaking before the Indian parliament in August 2007 during his first stint as prime minister, he that Japan has “rediscovered India as a partner that shares the same values and interests and also as a friend that will work alongside us to enrich,” what he dubbed, a “broader Asia.”

Abe reiterated this theme during Singh’s visit, terming the Japan-India duo essential to ensuring that “Asia remains in peace and prosperity.” He was of Singh, saying his friendship with the Indian leader has “touched me most deeply” and that “I think I have learnt from you more than I am aware myself.” He plied New Delhi with gifts, including offers to lend $700 million to the Mumbai metro project and invest in India’s high-speed rail system. And in a rare honor, the Japanese emperor hosted a private lunch for Singh, and plans were laid for the imperial family to visit India later this year.

Predictably enough, Beijing reacted in jealous fashion to Abe’s serenade. The People’s Daily carried an contending that China-India relations were now so tight that Japanese leaders would only embarrass themselves by trying to break them apart. The Global Times that “Japan does not have the strength to prevail over China’s influence in Asia” and “the little tricks that Japan is playing are nothing but a struggle for self-comfort, which will not affect the development of Asia.” Surveying the bickering, the Hindustan Times newspaper that: “Traditional Asian rivals, Japan and China, are at loggerheads again, and one country stands to gain the most from the chilly ties this time round: India.”

John Kerry in India

It is now the Americans’ turn to pay court with Secretary of State John F. Kerry, who arrived arrived in New Delhi on Sunday for the annual US-India strategic dialogue. His predecessor, Hillary Clinton, kicked off the inaugural dialogue three years ago by proclaiming that bilateral relations were  The Pentagon’s most recent strategy review as the only country deemed “a strategic partner,” and US Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta made clear during his trip to New Delhi last summer that the Obama administration sees India as a . Stating that the United States “views India as a net provider of security from the Indian Ocean to Afghanistan and beyond,” Panetta proposed the formation of a long-term strategic partnership, one that featured greater Indian access to the latest US military technology and a defense trade relationship that went beyond a focus on one-off transactions to include joint research and co-production efforts.

New Delhi has so far played hard to get when it comes to US overtures. So look for Washington to sweeten the pot during Secretary Kerry’s visit, as well as during in a few months.

With India having been overlooked for so long in world politics, it must be gratifying for leaders in New Delhi to see their geopolitical dance card now filling up. But the question they should ponder is just how much more ardent the wooing would be if the country .

*Apropos of India’s plight, reports that the website created for the “India Everywhere” public relations campaign has not been maintained and is riddled with broken links.

**HNWIs are usually defined as persons holding financial assets (excluding primary residence) of at least US $1 million.

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