by John Kerry
After an endless week of working through the last-minute issues, finally the Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams came to Washington. But the negotiations almost blew up before they even started. We all gathered in an eighth-floor reception room at the State Department for a short meeting before the initial press conference. We read over our statements to make sure we were on the same page. After listening to the expected bromides about the peace process from me and Tzipi Livni, who coheaded the Israeli negotiating delegation with Yitzhak Molho, who represented Bibi, we were all listening with half an ear when Saeb said, “I look forward to having a negotiation on the basis of the 1967 lines,” as if he could just casually slip in a critical negotiating point as an aside.
In a nanosecond, everyone went from making small talk to a DEFCON 1 alarm. “What are you doing, Saeb?!” we all asked in unison. Saeb sat there stubbornly, saying, “Of course, this is what we’re negotiating about.” He wouldn’t budge, so I had to take him out to a metaphorical woodshed in the adjoining secretary’s ornate private dining room and tell him in no uncertain terms to cut the crap. Needless to say, by the time we got out to meet the press, we were all a bit sobered. If the smiles at that press conference seemed forced, it’s because they were.
After the press conference passed without Saeb veering disastrously off script, we all went over to the White House to see President Obama. This was the president’s idea, which I naturally welcomed since it would serve to signal his commitment to the process.
In one sense, the meeting was remarkable. It was as if the negotiators, who had just been squabbling over the terms of reference at the State Department, were suddenly transformed by their presence in the Oval Office. They each spoke heartfelt words about their commitment to peacemaking and their common belief that this time it was possible to get it done. As was his practice in such meetings, the president went around the room to make sure everybody had an opportunity to speak before he had the last word. He graciously welcomed the pervasive optimism but then expressed his own skepticism, reminding the negotiators of how difficult their task would be but committing his team to help the parties try again.
After the Palestinians departed, the president told me and the Israelis to finish “the London track.”
The London track was a back-channel attempt to draft a framework agreement that would address all the final status issues so everyone knew what the outline of a peace agreement would be. It was a great concept, but closing required the same difficult compromises as the peace process itself.
The track started during President Obama’s first term under then national security advisor Tom Donilon and Middle East advisor Dennis Ross. It was a secret negotiation involving senior officials from the United States and Israel and a longtime friend and colleague of Abbas’s, Hussein Agha, who lived near London and was not officially a member of the Palestinian team. They had spent over a year working on a lengthy and detailed document addressing all the final status issues, some in more specificity than others.
Tom was still national security advisor when I took over at State. He and the president made it clear to Tzipi and Molho that they wanted them to finish London within a few weeks. The Israelis were invested in London, which they kept calling “the only game in town,” because they thought they could make more progress dealing with Agha than with Saeb or any of the other Palestinians. While the London track included Yitzhak Molho, Bibi’s closest advisor, it was never clear how much buy-in it had from Abbas. Indeed, as we became more engaged in the negotiations, we grew increasingly concerned that he was using the London track as a mere fishing expedition to determine the extent of Bibi’s concessions while he maintained plausible deniability. In any event, apparently he had not told his lead negotiators—Saeb Erekat and Mohammad Shtayyeh—about it. So right from the beginning, we had divergent lines of effort and big secrets.
With the Israelis willing to make compromises only in the context of the secret back channel, the direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians that Martin was managing were severely handicapped. While it was useful to hear the parties explain their positions on final status issues in depth, there was no real negotiating going on between the two sides.
Meanwhile, we were in hurry-up-and-wait mode on the London track, which was an external process that I couldn’t fully control. Despite President Obama making clear he wanted the London track wrapped up in short order, it continued to drag on. It became Waiting for Godot. The participants spoke in reverent tones about an almost mystical drafting process, where ideas needed time to “marinate,” and the effort simply couldn’t be rushed. That’s all well and good, but we didn’t have the luxury of giving them an unlimited amount of time to finish their work since the nine-month clock was ticking on the other negotiation.
Over time, I grew increasingly frustrated with what felt like a lack of urgency on the London track. At one critical moment, I called to ask when they were next meeting. I was told they weren’t planning to meet for another ten days. I gathered them all together at our ambassador’s residence in London to see where the document stood. Some members of my team and the White House thought the document was too one-sided in favor of the Israelis. President Abbas had never seen the actual document, whereas Bibi was very familiar with it. One thing that everyone agreed on: it was not done.
While that process was playing itself out, much of our day-to-day focus turned to General Allen’s security effort. John continued to report he was having constructive conversations with the IDF. But eventually he realized that people who had been enthusiastically cooperating with him were pulling back. He told me he had gotten as far as he could go with the military people. He was disappointed, detecting a sudden shift in the attitude of his counterparts. John told me directly that the turnaround had been so abrupt, so distinct, there was no doubt in his mind politics had interfered. His counterparts were clearly uncomfortable and limited by the defense minister, Bogie Ya’alon, and the prime minister as to how far he could go in solving the security problem. Knowing that Ya’alon opposed two states, it did not come as a total surprise.
But General Allen had already explored a vast number of possibilities and had narrowed the options. On the basis of the work already completed, we designed a comprehensive security strategy for Israel. We knew the plan had to be decisive, robust and capable of meeting all the IDF’s contingencies. One of Israel’s major concerns regarding a withdrawal from the Jordan River Valley was the question of what the future might bring in Jordan itself. Bibi expressed great concern about thirty- or even forty-year eventualities should Israel find itself with a swarm of terrorists or another nation’s army on the Jordanian border. That—and other questions like it—had to be answered.
The Palestinians had already accepted, as they had previously, that their state would be forever nonmilitarized. Police, but nothing more: no heavy weapons and no air force. In addition, the IDF would be the ultimate failsafe. These were critical up-front terms that immediately put Israel in enhanced security status. But we went significantly further than any previous security discussion.
First, it was clear that the Israelis would never feel safe leaving the West Bank unless they had the right to redeploy in the event of an emergency. The Palestinians understood this position. Further, while America’s deterrent capacity has fundamentally been understood to be online on behalf of Israel for decades, we were ready to make that explicit. In addition to proposing joint-force response capacity with Egyptian and Jordanian forces, we agreed that if it took American forces on the ground to provide further deterrence or defense, we would do so. We proposed to put American forces on the Jordanian side, which would also signal a strong commitment by the United States to Jordan’s stability. U.S. forces would act as an effective deterrent against any threat from the east. The forces would adopt a low profile and work jointly with the Jordanian military. Peace in the Middle East would be well worth that price.
We also offered to stage Am
erican forces on the Palestinian side, and the Palestinians were fully supportive of an indefinite U.S. presence on the border and throughout the West Bank. Moreover, we supported the Israelis maintaining forces on the border for a time to be agreed upon but certainly a number of years and conceivably much longer depending on conditions on the ground.
In addition, we proposed unprecedented extensive upgrades to border security. We envisioned two fences, one on each side of the Jordan River, that would be monitored by video and controlled constantly, effectively creating an approximately two-kilometer no-go zone that would provide ample time to interdict any threats. We provided for Israel’s ability to stage rapid-response troops with helicopter scramble authority to respond to any breach within minutes if the Palestinians failed to act effectively. We envisioned two separate staging areas for this rapid Israeli response—one on the northern end of the border in Israel and the second in a nearby settlement—which would have allowed a less than ten-minute response time from warning to troops arriving. And being realistic, long before that kind of scramble would be necessary, Israel and just about everyone else would have detected an enemy mobilization days if not weeks beforehand. This rapid capacity was intended to deal with a supposedly small unit, covert or terrorist activity—and to annihilate that threat, relying on the best of U.S. technical capacity.
Importantly, we never contemplated a sudden withdrawal or immediate turnover of full security responsibility. The Palestinians accepted that their capacity to ensure security had to be proven. They were willing to do that—but understandably, they wanted to do it within an agreement defining their future state. We contemplated testing this plan for as many years as necessary to demonstrate its effectiveness in meeting objective standards, which had to be passed before any IDF withdrawals.
Taken together, these steps would have created the safest border in the world while ensuring that Israel could defend itself by itself always. We believed these integrated and redundant border security systems, along with the U.S. presence, would make it easier for the Palestinians to accept some of the measures necessary to ensure Israel’s security needs.
During all this time, our conversations with the Palestinians about security cooperation were constructive. President Abbas agreed to a “forever” commitment to partner with Israel in a long-term, joint counterterrorism coordination. This was intended to be of extraordinary benefit to both Israelis and Palestinians. Both had a shared interest in making certain no terrorist could infiltrate the West Bank. Building the cooperative capacity well beyond what it is today, which Israeli security officials have praised, would enhance stability and security for both peoples.
I described for Bibi the ways we could ensure a long-term program of deep cooperation with Shin Bet, Mossad, the IDF and the Palestinian security services. I emphasized the benefit of that counterterrorism coordination being joined by Jordan, Egypt and the United States. A security envelope could be created that was orders of magnitude stronger than anything ever attempted in the West Bank or between Israelis and Palestinians. If these security measures were implemented together with a peace agreement, the elimination of the occupation over time as conditions were met and a dramatic increase in economic opportunity, there was no reason not to envision Israel’s relationship with a Palestinian state on the West Bank being transformed in the same way the relationship between Jordan and Israel was transformed. In 1967, Jordan and Israel were at war. Today, they are partners for peace. Why not the Palestinians too?
When we were finally ready to present the plan, I sat in Bibi’s office with Defense Minister Bogie Ya’alon while General Allen walked him through the plan in detail. This was a key moment. If we could resolve Israel’s security concerns, I thought we would have solved one of the most difficult problems of all.
We made absolutely clear that at the core of our thinking was a bedrock principle: Israel would not withdraw until it had been clearly and objectively established that the security system would work. Even then, Israeli soldiers would remain in close proximity, ready to return in full force within hours to address any emerging threat. The time frame for the phased IDF withdrawal was left open, entirely dependent on the ability of the security system to meet our agreed-upon criteria. We presented detailed maps showing exactly how the contingencies would unfold, all of which we had coordinated with the Jordanians. We emphasized repeatedly that this would be the most secure sixty miles of border anywhere in the world. I stressed to Bibi, “We have reduced risk to the lowest possible level. With General Allen’s enhancements and the border security zone stretching at least a kilometer into Jordan, you’ll always have an early-warning system that will give you plenty of time to defend yourself, by yourself, against any threat.”
Bibi’s initial reaction was positive. I remember him saying, “If this process fails, it won’t be because of the envelope,” meaning the security of the Jordan River border. I left that night feeling cautiously optimistic.
That optimism was short-lived. The next morning, I met with Bibi to consolidate our progress and talk about how to integrate General Allen’s concepts into the London track. Bibi was in a very different mood. He said, “We’re never going to leave that area until we, Israel, decide ourselves that it’s safe, and that’s going to be a very long time.” Bibi was willing to accept some of the enhancements we were offering, but he made clear that they wouldn’t result in Israel withdrawing the IDF from the West Bank border with Jordan unless they decided in their sole discretion that they were ready. Moreover, while we had been focused on the border, Bibi then began stressing the need for an IDF presence throughout the West Bank. In effect, Bibi was doubling down on a long-term presence in the West Bank, the duration of which would be decided unilaterally by Israel—no standards, no incentives, no goal for the Palestinians to work toward. It was a quick rejection of a security plan that promised extraordinary benefits for Israel and the region.
It was now clear to all of us that Bibi was not interested in actually addressing the security questions in a way that could allow for the eventual withdrawal of the IDF, even with critical benchmarks being met along the way. In fact, he was never going to agree to any kind of realistic process for IDF withdrawal. It seemed to me that this was an article of faith. I kept saying, “Bibi, you can have the entire Israeli army positioned right above the border and U.S. troops on the border.” Bibi said, “We don’t want U.S. troops getting shot at to protect Israel.” I replied, “We don’t want to get shot at either. The minute they start shooting at us from across that border, the IDF can come right back in a matter of hours if there is a real threat.”
I concluded that this wasn’t about security. I wondered what Bogie Ya’alon had said to Bibi the night after we’d left. We had reached a turning point. If Bibi couldn’t accept a way to solve the security problem that could work for both sides, it was hard to see how the negotiations would ever succeed.
I let him know I thought he was creating an insurmountable stumbling block if he couldn’t accept the best advice of one of his ally’s most brilliant military minds. He smiled and said we’d table the discussion for now.
Bibi walked me out of his office, and he pointed to a picture he kept of the two of us on his shelf. “See, I tell everyone you and I are good friends, yours is the only picture I have up here.” I laughed. “And I don’t take it down when you leave either!” He slapped me on the back, clearly trying to smooth over any ill will from his summary rejection of a security plan that we had spent an enormous amount of time working on.
As the end of 2013 drew near, I insisted that the London group finish their work and present the document to Abbas. The final version had some creative ideas and concepts in it, but on key issues—including Jerusalem—they were unable to agree on anything meaningful.
Moreover, the White House thought the London track was so slanted toward Israel that Abbas would never be willing to negotiate an agreement based on it. The White House was prepared to work with it only
if both parties would accept it.
Agha finally showed the London document to Abbas around Christmas. We soon heard back that Abbas wasn’t willing to embrace it. Bibi suggested that we turn it into an American paper that both sides would accept “with reservations.” So while we were able to incorporate elements of the London effort, we essentially had to create a new document. Critical months had been wasted.
It was at this point that we began intense work on a new U.S. framework. If we were going to put it out as an American document both sides would accept, it had to be balanced. We had a series of intense, secure calls with Bibi and conversations with the Palestinians to get their input. The framework was also informed by lessons learned from the public negotiations and the private track in London.
The Israelis wanted us to negotiate the document with them exclusively and then basically impose it on the Palestinians. Even more problematic, the Israelis were not willing to say anything about a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. We knew there was no way the Palestinians would accept final status principles that didn’t include a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. They couldn’t cede to the Israelis sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif, the third holiest site in Islam. At the same time, Bibi was clear that he was not going to touch that issue. So we had to be prepared to go beyond what the Israelis were willing to do.
In February 2014, we met with Abbas in Paris to update him on the framework. In a private room with Abbas I let him know that we were prepared for the first time publicly to support the international consensus on a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem as part of a comprehensive solution that addressed the needs of both sides.
I was optimistic that we were putting something significant on the table, but from the second I walked into the room, it was clear his body language was foreboding. Abbas had a cold and appeared exhausted. His mind-set about the entire process was negative. He seemed disengaged and unwilling to have a serious negotiation.
