The Arab_Israeli Conflict
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Arab-Israeli conflict significant but secondary Islamist Extremism
Israel in U.S. strategy Liability Asset (though not always) Asset
Ideology, theology, prejudices Secondary: residual anti-Semitism Secondary: “Anti” anti-Semitism Primary: Special Commitment to Israel, some Islamophobia
Taking sides Unfavorable Neutrality Favorable Neutrality Favor Israel
Outline of peace settlement Pro-Palestinian State
Vs. Settlements
1967 Borders
Divided Jerusalem
Equivocal re recognizing “right” of return Pro-Palestinian State (if = pro-U.S.)
Vs. Settlements
–
–
Vs. “right” of return Equivocal re Palestinian State
Equivocal re Settlements
Vs. 1967 border
United Jerusalem under Israel
Vs. “right” of return
Blame for the conflict Israel Mainly Arab/Muslim radicals
Radical Israeli Settlers too Palestinians, Arab states, Islamists
Morality Moral Equivalence Palestinian Terror worse
Israel also criticized Palestinian Terror worse
Onus for concessions Israel Both sides; shifts around Palestinians
* * *
The Conservative Discourse: Narrating the Rise and Fall of the Peace Process
This section surveys the elite conservative discourse regarding Israel and the peace process since the early 1990s. The survey is based on relevant articles in the major highbrow conservative magazines: National Review, Commentary, the Weekly Standard, the American Spectator, and the American Conservative. The most established and most widely read conservative magazine in America is National Review. Taken together, the circulation of the pro-Israel National Review, Commentary, Weekly Standard, and American Spectator from 1991 to 2010 was approximately 250,000–380,000; in contrast, the circulation of the anti-Israel American Conservative was about 8,000.109 Also surveyed are the columns of the leading conservative columnist George Will in the Washington Post, William Safire in the New York Times, and the syndicated columns of Pat Buchanan; all of whom wrote consistently on the issue over the years.110
The Heyday of the Peace Process
In the 1990s the conservative discourse was generally sympathetic to Israel, but there was a divide over the peace process. In this period National Review generally followed the approach of Kissingerian “favorable neutrality” and in 1993 came out in support of the Oslo process, while expressing concern about the PLO’s reliability and the fear that giving the PLO a foothold might eventually allow them to threaten US allies Israel and Jordan.111 The magazine supported the cautious approach of Israeli Realists like Yitzhak Rabin, who viewed the peace process as a test of Palestinian intentions. Right-wing Israeli settlers were presented as a threat to the peace process and by extension to US interests.112 When Netanyahu came to power, he was praised for continuing Oslo, and for being the first right-wing Israeli leader to accept partition.113 Although there was some concern over the way Netanyahu handled the peace process, the main threat was viewed as coming from Hamas and other radical forces tied to Iran. Gradually skepticism increased about whether Arafat and Assad were really committed to peace.114 Nonetheless, the magazine remained cautiously supportive of the peace process, right up to its collapse in 2000.115
By this time the old conservative establishment approach had very little traction in mainstream conservative magazines. In 1992 National Review endorsed Pat Buchanan for the presidency. But this was the last time it expressed support for the conservatism of the old establishment. Following a long essay in the magazine in which he declared Buchanan to be anti-Semitic, Buckley fired the columnist Joseph Sobran for “contextual anti-Semitism.” Subsequently, the old establishment approach to the Middle East was almost entirely missing from National Review. Nor did it receive much of an airing in the other major conservative magazines in the 1990s. In any case, the old establishment was quite subdued on the peace process in the 1990s, because they were generally supportive of the direction of American policy. Only in 1998, when the right-wing Israeli government was in conflict with the Clinton administration, did Buchanan call for the U.S. to pressure Israel by cutting aid and by formally coming out in support of the creation of an independent Palestinian state.116
Meanwhile, in line with the neoconservative approach, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, the American Spectator, George Will, and William Safire saw the PLO and Syria’s engagement in negotiations as a tactical ruse, believing that they remained ideologically opposed to the existence of the Jewish state and practically committed to its destruction in phases.117 Evidence for this thesis was brought from Arafat’s statements in Arabic and from the Palestinian Authority’s role in facilitating Hamas terrorism.118 In any case, the neoconservatives did not think real peace was possible with the dictatorial Arafat and the Ba’athist regime in Syria.119 They argued that Arab dictators would misconstrue Israel’s willingness to compromise as weakness and they would then exploit it. Indeed, America’s embrace of the peace process reminded them of the appeasement of dictators in the 1930s.120 In a phrase Netanyahu used a lot, they demanded “reciprocity” – making further Israeli concessions conditional on the Palestinians doing far more to combat terrorism and incitement, while simultaneously demanding changes to the PLO charter (which negated Israel’s right to exist), as the Likud demanded.121 The key was deemed to be rebuilding Israeli deterrence and avoiding further concessions until the Palestinians changed.122
The Collapse of the Peace Process and the Rise of Radical Islamism
The Dominant Narrative: Overwhelmingly Pro-Israel
When the peace process collapsed in 2000, the bulk of the conservative discourse placed the blame unequivocally at the Arab door for rejecting generous (they thought too generous) Israeli offers. This was viewed as demonstrating that they had been right all along regarding Arab intensions and the effect of “appeasement.” The mainstream conservative discourse called for Israel to deliver a knockout blow to terrorism. Further negotiations or Israeli forbearance were deemed not only futile but very bad, because they effectively rewarded, and thus encouraged, terrorism.123 Thus, following the Passover Massacre at the Park Hotel in 2002 in which thirty Israeli civilians were murdered and a further 140 injured, strong support was given to Israel’s major offensive against terrorist infrastructure – Operation Defensive Shield – and there was strong opposition to U.S. pressure on Israel to resume negotiations until terrorism was vanquished and Arafat replaced.124 The onus was thus completely on the Palestinians. George W. Bush’s June 2002 speech conditioning a Palestinian state on the removal of Arafat was viewed as a vindication of their approach.125
Following 9/11, the influence of the neoconservatives expanded as theirs became the dominant orientation within National Review. As such, the mainstream conservative discourse totally rejected the idea that American support for Israel was the cause of the attacks. Instead, anti-Americanism, Islamist extremism, and terrorism were understood as emanating from a hatred of American values, with the core of the problem being the dominant political culture in the region.126 The key objective for the United States was to create “a balance of power for freedom,” and in this conflict democratic Israel was viewed as a frontline ally. As such, Israel’s fight against terrorism was the same as America’s fight against terrorism. Israeli victories against terrorism were American victories against terrorism, while a defeat for Israel would be a defeat for the U.S.127
However, the mainstream conservative discourse was not all about defeating terrorism with military might. Paradoxically, another theme was the advocacy of unilateral concessions by Israel. In 1998 Charles Krauthammer first suggested that Israel should unilaterally set its own border by withdrawing from the majority of the West Bank and Gaza.128 With the onset of the second intifada, the priority became the defeat of terrorism, and any idea of withdrawal was shelved as it would demonstr
ate weakness. However, the idea of a “short war” followed by the construction of a “big wall” behind which Israel would unilaterally withdraw continued to have support among columnists like Krauthammer, David Brooks, and George Will.129 Furthermore, once Israel had effectively defeated terrorism, Safire and Podhoretz came out in favor of the disengagement from Gaza.130 Writing in Commentary, Hillel Halkin went further, advocating a withdrawal from the vast majority of the West Bank that would make the security barrier the de facto border.131 A necessary part of this plan involved the removal of all Israeli settlers east of the security barrier. While Halkin noted that settlements were not the main obstacle to peace, and that under a real peace these Jews would be able to live under Palestinian sovereignty, he argued that such a peace was not in the offing, and that therefore the only way to secure them was by deploying the Israel Defense Forces throughout the West Bank. If made permanent, such a situation would amount to a policy of Bantustans; therefore Israel had to withdraw.132 This was in line with the position of the centrist party Kadima, not the Likud.
However the Second Lebanon War in July 2006 once again buried talk of unilateral withdrawals, and the emphasis swung back to enhancing deterrence against the Iranian-led axis that included Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah.133 Conservatives felt solidarity with Israel in that war, but when Israel failed to crush Hezbollah, they were disappointed.134 The rise of Hamas in Gaza was obviously viewed as a setback for the democratization agenda. Yet at the same time the democratization agenda was not entirely abandoned, as it was advocated that the U.S. should strongly support Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad’s economic and institutional reforms.135 Though, when the U.S.-sponsored peace process restarted at Annapolis, it was dismissed as a farce and criticized as a renunciation of the Bush doctrine that political reform had to precede peace diplomacy.136 Finally, when Israel launched the Gaza War in December 2008, it received strong support in the mainstream conservative discourse, where it was viewed it as part of a wider civilizational struggle.137
Minority and Marginal Narratives
Following the collapse of the Oslo process, Kissingerian Realism was relegated to a minority viewpoint in National Review. According to this approach, the failure to achieve a deal at Camp David was not a function of Palestinian wickedness but simply reflected the fact that the positions of the parties were too far apart, and that such ethnic conflicts take a very long time to resolve.138 Once the violence started, Buckley came out in favor of a decisive Israeli campaign to defeat Palestinian terrorism by targeting Arafat and his henchmen directly.139 But he denounced Israel’s major attack on the terrorist infrastructure launched after the 2002 Passover massacre – Operation Defensive Shield, which he thought would only intensify Palestinian hatred of Israel.140 Buckley was also very skeptical of Bush’s June 2002 speech, in which he conditioned Palestinian statehood on the replacement of Arafat and democratic reforms in the Palestinian Authority.141
Simultaneously Buckley was very critical of the settlements, which he viewed as an “endless source of tension”; he called on the U.S. to pressure Israel to dismantle them, once Israel had began to defeat Palestinian terrorism.142 Indeed, against this background an editorial in the first week of September 2001 advocated that Israel unilaterally withdraw from most of the West Bank and erect a security barrier.143 This was the position being given by figures within the Israel Labor Party at the time, a position staunchly opposed by the Israeli Right. Later on, when Israel was in the midst of erecting the barrier, another editorial called for U.S. pressure on Israel to ensure the route of the barrier did not preclude the future creation of a Palestinian state, while calling on Israel to “retrench” from settlements outside the barrier.144 While cautious at the time, after the disengagement had occurred, the magazine unequivocally praised the withdrawal from Gaza.145 Indeed, National Review never became a cheerleader for the ideology of the Israeli Right. Consequently, Israeli moderates on the peace process who also took a tough stand on Iran and Islamic extremism received very positive coverage.146
While the approach of the Kissingerian realists was very much a minority position, the approach of the old conservative establishment was marginal within the conservative discourse, being reduced to the columns of Pat Buchanan and some articles in Chronicles and in the American Conservative. Here the blame for the collapse of the peace process was placed primarily on Israel.147 Hamas on the one hand and Ariel Sharon and Likud on the other hand were viewed as constituting equal and equivalent obstacles to peace; though the onus for concessions was placed primarily on Israel.148 9/11 intensified their hostility to the special relationship with Israel. Al Qaida’s attacks were presented as a reaction to America’s “neocolonial” presence in Saudi Arabia,149 with Israel being identified as “among the greatest crosses” that the U.S. “had to bear in the war on terror.”150 When Israel assassinated the spiritual head of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, in 2004 using an American-made helicopter gunship, the act was presented as playing “straight into [Osama] Bin Laden’s hands” by implicating the U.S. in Israel’s actions and thereby serving to unite Muslims and Arabs against the United States.151 To improve America’s standing in the Arab world, it was argued that the U.S. distance itself from Israel by applying pressure on the Israeli government to freeze settlements and impose a permanent status settlement.152 After Hamas seized control of Gaza, they advocated bringing it into the negotiations.153
Finally, one of the main themes in the American Conservative was virulent criticism of the mainstream pro-Israel lobby and the neoconservatives. It was argued that these groups promoted policies that were not in the American interest.154 One article bombastically declared that the pro-Israel lobby received orders from the Israeli government in a similar manner to which American Communists received orders from Joseph Stalin.155 In venomous attacks, the neoconservatives were referred to as that “cabal behind the Iraq War.”156 Indeed, blaming the pro-Israel lobby for the Iraq War was a major theme,157 popularized by the academics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.158
Having surveyed the various approaches in the elite discourse among conservatives, one question remains: how much support did these elite approaches have among the mass of Republicans and Conservatives?
Public Opinion among Republicans and Conservatives
Grand Strategy and the Middle East
In the first decade of the new millennium, most Republicans identified with the grand strategy of the new conservative mainstream. From 2001 to 2009 a majority supported an internationalist strategy, and conservative Republicans were the most internationalist of all.159 Two-thirds of Republicans justified the application of preemptive force against countries that threaten the U.S.,160 and a similar percentage was also skeptical of multilateralism and international institutions.161 Meanwhile, between 1997 and 2009 the percentage of Republicans who agreed that the best way to ensure peace was through military strength increased from two-thirds to three-quarters.162
After 9/11 this hawkish approach was directed mainly at forces emanating from the Middle East. Between 2002 and 2011 the percentage of Republicans who thought that Islam encouraged violence more than other religions doubled, reaching 59 percent.163 In addition, around three-quarters of Republicans viewed Islamic extremist groups and Iran’s nuclear program as the greatest threats to the United States. About the same percentage approved using force if it were certain Iran had produced a nuclear weapon.164 Clearly then, a majority of Republicans believed that Israel and the United States faced common threats deriving from common enemies. Consequently, it is no surprise that three-quarters of Republicans also perceived Israel as a strategic ally.165 Indeed, when asked in 2010 to identify the two best reasons for supporting Israel, the most popular answer among Republicans was “Israel is our most important ally in the Middle East” (40 percent) and the third most popular answer was “Israel is a partner with the U.S. in our fight against terrorism” (26 percent). The belief that “God gave the land to the Jews who had lived ther
e for thousands of years” came in fourth with 21 percent (common democratic values came in second with 34 percent).166
Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Just as support for Israel in the elite conservative discourse skyrocketed after 9/11, so did support for Israel among the Republican and conservative public. From 1967 until 9/11 a little more than half of Republicans sympathized more with Israel;167 whereas in the decade after 9/11 this figure shot up to more than three-quarters of Republicans.168 Similarly, in terms of ascribing blame for the conflict, Republicans became increasingly pro-Israel. In 2002, at the height of the second intifada, a majority thought that neither Ariel Sharon nor Yasir Arafat really wanted peace; however, they were far more negative about the Palestinian leader by a margin of 27 percentage points.169 In 2006, Republicans blamed Hezbollah rather than Israel for the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War by a margin of 46 percentage points. And in 2011, Republicans thought that Israel was making more effort that the Palestinians to achieve peace by a margin of 50 percentage points.170 All of this had consequences in terms of the onus for peacemaking. Thus, in 2007, when asked whom the U.S. should pressure more, more than half of conservatives said the Palestinians, and only a fifth answered the Israelis.171
On the substantive issues, more than half of Republicans favored Jerusalem remaining united under Israeli control even if there were a two-state solution, compared to a quarter who preferred to divide the city between Israelis and Palestinians.172 Yet, on the creation of a Palestinian state, Republicans were about evenly divided,173 as they were regarding settlements.174 This indicates that some Republicans who are generally supportive of Israel oppose settlements and support Palestinian statehood.