Rep. Robert Wexler, who recently announced a pending resignation to join the Center for Middle East Peace as their new president, expressed support today for President Barack Obama’s approach to the Middle East conflict that includes a broad approach involving the whole Arab world, not just Israel-Palestine. His comments, delivered at the Center for American Progress, including a larger assessment of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s apparent change of heart to accept a future Palestinian state (his Bar Ilan speech) and issues facing Palestinian reconciliation.
“The most important thing that I believe the new president offered was a change of equation. Regardless of how you view the Israeli-Palestinian, or the Israeli-Arab, or the broader conflict, no matter what side you’re on, I think it’s fair to say that in the past, the construct was that the Israelis and the Palestinians were supposed to negotiate, and what benefit, what cost, what risk, were to be had by either side, was to be done between the two, and to a certain degree America would play a moderating, supporting, conciliatory, some kind of role. And if you take the example of what President Clinton attempted, then to fuse into that situation a different point—Jordan, Egypt and the others.
President Obama created a different construct, which I thought, and more importantly Prime Minister Netanyahu thought was a game-changer, and it is. And that construct is: It’s no longer just the Israelis and the Palestinians. It’s the Israelis and the Palestinians joined with the entire Arab world, which is charged with responsibilities; and, equally important, the statement that the resolution of this conflict is in America’s interest, defined from America’s self-interested perspective, and it is in the interest of the world. We all have a stake in the resolution of this conflict.
Now why is this, in my mind, so particularly important at this time? Again, regardless of your perspective, you cannot approach this equation without at least appreciating that, to a degree, when we are starting with a Palestinian society that is fractured and a Palestinian leadership that is divided, that by definition President Abbas is not able to deliver like an ordinary president would be able to deliver—he doesn’t control Gaza. So, by asking, by creating a scenario, where the Arab world plays a far more important role, it makes what otherwise by definition would be almost impossible, potentially possible. Now of course, what has happened since then, is that the president has laid out, and Secretary Clinton laid out, and Senator Mitchell has laid out, a process in which the Israelis were supposed to implement a settlement freeze—everyone continues to talk about the definition of what a settlement freeze is—the Palestinians were supposed to make significant progress on security, reduce incitement, take the ordinary steps that a people desiring statehood should take to make peace possible, and the Arab nations were supposed to engage in steps of normalization to create confidence, and to increase, in effect, the prize, for Israel to be able to take risks for peace. Now I’m not going to be naive, I’m not going to sugarcoat what happened last week [at the trilateral], but I still believe, I’m still quite confident, that the construct that the president laid out, in fact has begun a successful process.”
Regarding Hamas, Wexler said:
“That’s an excellent question, and there are essentially two schools of thought. The school that the United States and our administration presents, which is consistent with the school of thought in Israel, which is consistent with the stated position of the European Union, as well as Russia as well as the United Nations, is that Hamas is a terrorist organization and that it must meet three conditions before it will be recognized and talked to and negotiated with and that of course being: recognizing Israel’s right to exist, giving up violence, and adopting the previous agreements of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas has not yet been willing to do that. So, under that framework, you move forward with Abbas, you move forward with the broader Arab world, and at some point, I presume, we’re way ahead of the game, but there’s going to be elections in Israel and within the Palestinian Authority—within the Palestinian entities. And the Palestinian people at some point, if this all works right, will at some point make an electoral choice and they will choose a process of peace or they will choose a process that Hamas proposes. And if the Palestinian people choose the side that is not represented by peace, then we got a big problem, but we’re way ahead of ourselves.
The other school of thought, which is of course, not adopted by the American, or the Israeli, or the European, or the Russian, or the United Nations, is that it’s unrealistic in part to move forward without engaging Hamas at some level and some degree. And I would respectfully differ with that point of view, but there is that point of view. And I think to a degree, Turkey, a country I respect enormously, has tried to make that argument and there are others as well. In fairness Egypt, Saudi Arabia, to a degree, have tried to mediate between the different Palestinian divisions and have tried to create at different times under different terms, a unified Palestinian position. I think that’s probably more likely, the analysis, or the conclusion than America, or Israel, or Europe changing its view as to how to deal with Hamas, that there be some construct where officials from Gaza who are not a part of the Hamas organization become a part of a broader Palestinian government. But that all remains to be seen. I certainly don’t have any crystal ball and don’t know how that will end up.
The good news is that by every indicator it seems that the Palestinian people themselves seem to be increasing their support for President Abbas, and Prime Minister Fayyad and the forces that support a negotiated end to this conflict, and the forces of extremism, represented by Hamas, seem to be receding. And the one thing that Hamas doesn’t appear really to want to do is to in fact govern their own people. They’re not very good at it and that seems to be taking its toll on the Palestinian people themselves. We don’t focus on as much in this country, but when Hamas in effect turns its guns on the Palestinian people, which in fact they have done, there’s an enormous toll that is taken in terms of public support. Now they can’t express it as you can in Washington, or Jerusalem, or in Europe, but it takes a toll and hopefully not that there will be violence, or not that there is greater injustice, but hopefully the actions of Hamas themselves as to their own people will cause the majority of the Palestinian people to choose a course of peace. The one thing I think that should really give us hope is that throughout it all, and throughout all of the lack of confidence, throughout all of the violence, throughout all of the instability, there still appears to be a nucleus of people on both the Israeli side and the Palestinian side, if—when—presented with a legitimate shot for a comprehensive peace, would support it. Now there are a thousand things that can go wrong, from today until that time, and they undoubtedly will, however, I believe that nucleus still exists and will continue to exist with American leadership.”
