The Barak-Bibi Bromance Begins To Break
September 25, 2012 § 1 Comment
Remember on Friday when I wrote that Ehud Barak is looking ahead to elections and is going to try and distance himself from Bibi Netanyahu? We got some further confirmation of this yesterday with Barak’s interview in Israel Hayom (the full interview was published today), in which he advocated that Israel pursue a policy of unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank while holding onto the three largest settlement blocs – Ariel, Gush Etzion, and Maale Adumim – which contain 90% of the settler population in the West Bank. Predictably, Barak got blasted from both the left and the right and was accused by everyone of naked electioneering and fishing for votes.
There is something slightly off about Barak calling for unilateral withdrawal though in an effort to make himself more popular with voters. First, Barak was the first Israeli politician to attempt this maneuver when he withdrew Israeli forces from Lebanon during his stint as prime minister, and in the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon War it is widely perceived to have been a strategic failure. Given that Barak is already associated with a failed unilateral withdrawal, it seems strange for him to remind voters of his previous failure by advocating for another unilateral move. Second, as Yesha head Dani Dayan and others pointed out in the course of criticizing Barak, unilateral withdrawal is not particularly popular with the Israeli public, and so you have this curious anomaly where a bunch of politicians are calling out Barak for trying to gin up votes while simultaneously reminding everyone that there are no votes to be had in what Barak is advocating. If Barak is trying to appeal to voters, why would he do so by pushing a policy that is massively unpopular? Third, new elections have yet to be scheduled and are unlikely to be held sooner than six months from now, so if Barak thinks that unilateral withdrawal is the key to his political resurgence, why bring it up now rather than closer to the election?
I think that Barak does indeed have politics in mind, but it is not so much about trying to lock down votes right now as it is about beginning the process of breaking up with Netanyahu. Barak is smart enough to see that while Netanyahu is almost certainly going to remain as prime minister after the next election, his stock and popularity have suffered a big hit. Barak at this point is going to do everything he can to put distance between himself and Bibi and try to make voters believe that he and Netanyahu have not been as close as everyone thinks. He is going to seize on any high profile issue, irrespective of its popularity, that creates a contrast with Netanyahu – unilateral withdrawal, dismantling illegal settlement outposts or neighborhoods, prosecuting settlers who build without a permit, etc. – in an attempt to reestablish his street cred with the center and the left, who think he has given cover to Bibi’s war talk on Iran. I am also going to go on record with the controversial call of the day, which is that at some point before the next election, Barak is going to go so far as to quit his post as defense minister. As I’ve written, I don’t think that an Israeli strike on Iran is in the cards at the moment, and that means that Barak’s raison d’être in this government is largely over. He is not going to be allowed to run on Likud’s list and there is no way or reason for him to continue to hitch his wagon to Netanyahu’s star. The visit with Rahm last week – which, by the way, Netanyahu did not know about – and the interview with Israel Hayom are the beginning of the end for the Netanyahu-Barak relationship of convenience.
Not All Unilateral Withdrawals Are Created Equal
May 31, 2012 § 2 Comments
There has been lots of buzz in Israel lately about the idea of a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank. Ami Ayalon and his colleagues at Blue White Future wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in April arguing that a unilateral approach would lay the groundwork for a two state solution by allowing settlers to voluntarily relocate west of the Green Line and reducing tension on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides while establishing a preliminary border based on the security fence. Then yesterday at the annual Institute for National Security Studies conference, which draws nearly every important Israeli politician and defense heavyweight, Ehud Barak said that a unilateral withdrawal must be considered by the government if negotiations with the Palestinians remain at an impasse. Barak immediately came under fire from the Palestinian Authority, which said that a unilateral Israeli withdrawal would destroy any hopes for a negotiated two state solution, and from other Israeli government ministers such as Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who called Barak’s suggestion a dangerous idea and accused him of naivete. The prime minister’s office also distanced itself from Barak’s remarks and made it clear that Barak was speaking for himself rather than for the government.
There are two major objections to a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank, one from the left and one from the right. The one from the left is that Israel has committed itself to negotiations with the Palestinians on the contours of a Palestinian state, and any moves to sidestep a negotiated solution are a violation of the Oslo Accords. I find this argument to be unpersuasive for two reasons. First, the Palestinian Authority has itself embraced unilateralism when it finds it to be convenient, such as its efforts to have the UN recognize an independent state of Palestine outside any negotiating framework with Israel. If unilateralism is ok for one side, then it is ok for the other. Second, and more importantly, the party that is currently refusing to return to the negotiating table is not the Israelis but the Palestinians. I have written before about the strategic foolishness of setting negotiating preconditions but the additional problem here is that whatever one may think of Bibi Netanyahu’s policy on settlements or his actual desires regarding an independent Palestinian state, he is not currently the obstacle to restarting negotiations. If the Palestinians were willing to sit down tomorrow, the Israelis would meet with them immediately, so the PA blasting unilateral moves as an unwillingness to negotiate when they themselves are refusing to hold talks smacks of hypocrisy of the highest order. There simply cannot be a negotiation when one side refuses to enter the room.
The objection to a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank from the right is that the Gaza withdrawal was a terrible mistake that created a terrorist enclave, emboldened Hamas, and subjected Israel to a constant barrage of rockets raining down on southern Israeli towns. These are all valid concerns, but I think the comparison to the Gaza withdrawal is not the correct one to make since the circumstances are different in a few important ways. To begin with, Israel withdrew from Gaza completely and not entirely on its own terms. In contrast, an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank would still leave Israeli soldiers in the Jordan Valley and Israel has determined the precise spot to which it would withdraw by constructing the security fence. Furthermore, while Gaza was a Hamas stronghold before Israel pulled out, the West Bank is under the firm control of the Palestinian Authority and that control has only increased in recent months as Mahmoud Abbas has cracked down on dissenters. The Palestinian Authority is far from perfect, but no serious observer would suggest that there is not a large qualitative difference between the PA and Hamas, both in terms of temperament and willingness to coexist with Israel. In addition, while Hamas has been able to smuggle rocket parts and weapons into Gaza through the Rafah tunnels along the border with Egypt, a tunnel system in the West Bank would be impossible since it shares a border with Israel and the Jordan River. Even if Hamas were to come to power in the West Bank or the Palestinian Authority reversed course and decided to launch a rocket war, the means to do so would be extremely limited as any smuggling taking place would be above ground and far easier for Israel to detect and stop.
There is also an important difference between Gaza and the West Bank in terms of environment and incentives. Gaza has always been more crowded and impoverished than the West Bank, and when Israel withdrew there was an argument embraced by many that there was little left to lose by taking the fight to Israel. There was also the fact that Israel wasn’t holding any more cards; it had withdrawn completely and Hamas was not interested in any negotiating toward a state anyway, so until Israel carried out Operation Cast Lead, there was little incentive for Hamas not to shoot rockets over the border. The West Bank, however, is not Gaza. The economy is much better, the quality of life is much higher, and Palestinians in the West Bank have a lot more to lose by risking a large scale Israeli military incursion. In addition, a unilateral Israeli withdrawal does not mean that the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has nothing left to gain through negotiations. There will still be an IDF presence in the Jordan Valley, and the Palestinians will still not have a state along the borders that they desire and certainly will not have any part of East Jerusalem as their capital (and unlike Hamas, the PA’s stated goal is establishing a viable state). In short, the incentive structure for West Bank Palestinians following a hypothetical Israel withdrawal is vastly different than it was for Gazan Palestinians following the Israeli disengagement in 2005.
An Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank certainly is fraught with dangers both known and unknown. That does not, however, mean that it will automatically carry with it the same consequences as the Gaza withdrawal did. Barak is right in noting that Israel at some point is going to have to do something, since holding onto the West Bank indefinitely is not a real option and Palestinian intransigence in negotiating needs to be met with some sort of response. The immediate PA attack on the idea itself gives you a good idea of whether Palestinian officials think that a unilateral withdrawal is in their best interests, and perhaps the credible threat of withdrawal will give them the kick they need to resume negotiations. In any event, the idea of unilateral withdrawal should not be so casually dismissed with facile comparisons to Gaza.
