When the Obama administration decided to get tough with PM Netanyahu and his cabinet colleagues over settlements in Jerusalem and generalized noncooperation with American national security interests vis-à-vis peace in the Middle East, the big challenge always was holding Congress. The President has a majority in both houses, and therefore control by his supporters of key committees, in addition to strong support from the Jewish community generally which is almost entirely Democratic. However, as I’ve been recently explaining, the Israeli strategy, I think from the beginning, has been to play Congress off against the White House and deal with a divided, rather than a united American government. As long as Obama can hold Congress on his side, and not Netanyahu’s, he’s essentially in the drivers seat. However, if Congress begins to seriously challenge him, it becomes much more difficult and politically risky and costly to confront Israel over settlements in Jerusalem and other issues. A couple of weeks ago, the President laid down the marker by saying that the lack of peace costs the United States significantly in “blood and treasure.” In other words, this is in the national interest, indeed, he called it “a vital national interest,” of the United States and not simply a bilateral, let alone domestic political, matter.

Outrage from Israel and its most dedicated supporters outside of the government started, really, during the first Netanyahu visit to Washington in the spring of 2009. He and his entourage were apparently not particularly surprised at the toughness coming from the White House, especially on settlements and the relationship between Iran policy and Israel/Palestine policy. However, they were apparently flabbergasted and appalled that typically reliable Jewish members of Congress backed up the President and were not sympathetic to the arguments they were forwarding. They went back to Israel hurt and confused, at least as much as politicians can be. During the present confrontation which began with the Biden visit that was supposed to be a lovefest and a healing of wounds but that was sabotaged by the Ramat Shlomo fiasco, the President’s greatest source of authority and leverage has been that Congress, including key Jewish members, has thus far stuck with him. It’s completely unimportant what Republicans like Eric Cantor or marginal figures like Shelley Berkley have to say. The question is, what do the key Jewish members, and indeed other members, of the foreign policy elite in both houses have to say? So far, for the most part, they’ve been very supportive of Obama.

However, in the past week some cracks in the ice have begun to appear. The letter signed by some 300 congressmen and a similar one signed by about 75 senators was pretty irrelevant, because it consisted mainly of boilerplate about the importance of US-Israel relations and did not criticize the administration directly. It was a no-brainer for most of these politicians, and no challenge to the administration in practice. However, for many weeks, Jewish advocates and others have been piling on the pressure towards members of Congress, especially Jewish ones, that siding with Obama in this instance represents some kind of betrayal of Israel or some such gobbledygook.

My suspicion is that, as I’ve written several times in the past, on a number of occasions the Jewish pro-Israel lobby (there are, of course, others) has overreached during this confrontation, most obviously the ADL’s attack on Gen. Petraeus. And, there have been other incidents like the AIPAC Congressional letters cited above, and letters to the President from World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder, angry articles by advocates such as Ed Koch, Alan Dershowitz and Shmuley Boteach, and an obnoxious ad signed by Elie Wiesel attacking the idea of negotiations on the status of Jerusalem. Wiesel’s ridiculous text emphasized Jewish rights in Jerusalem but dismissed any idea of a Muslim connection to the city, and preposterously claimed that Muslims can settle anywhere in Jerusalem, making it impossible for any informed person to take it seriously.

All of this pressure has begun to take its toll on certain legislators, and the first significant casualty was always likely to be Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY, significantly), and so it proved. At the same time that it was being reported that Jewish American leaders were publicly criticizing but privately supporting the administration (in a reverse of the usual public praise versus private criticism), Schumer was letting it be known that if this spat over settlements in Jerusalem dragged on, he was prepared to begin to side with Netanyahu and Israel rather than Obama and the United States. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when he finally came out of the closet on the “Nachum Segal Show” (you can’t make this stuff up) to vow that Jewish members of Congress “will be meeting with the President next week or the week after, and we are saying that this has to stop.” He added that, “There is a battle going on inside the administration, one side agrees with us, one side doesn?t, and we?re pushing hard to make sure the right side wins and if not we?ll have to take it to the next step.” No doubt that’s true, but for chutzpah this is pretty ripe. He added, for good measure, “Palestinians don?t really believe in a state of Israel, they, unlike a majority of Israelis, who have come to the conclusion that they can live with a 2-state solution to be determined by the parties, the majority of Palestinians are still very reluctant, and they need to be pushed to get there.” As if, of course, there was any real basis for believing the present Israeli government is not “very reluctant” on a two-state solution.

Obviously, if it’s just Schumer, this is highly containable, but, as I say, it’s the first really significant crack in the ice, and who knows who these other “Jewish members of Congress” are who will also meet with the President on this issue and what they will say. Reacting to all of this, the administration led by figures such as Sec. Clinton, NSA Jones and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel have been on something of a charm offensive over the past week or so designed to try to explain to the mainstream Jewish American community that the Obama approach is, in fact, in not only the American national interest — a case made bluntly and clearly by Pres. Obama himself, as well as Sec. Clinton, Sec. Gates, Adm. Mullen and Gen. Petraeus, among others — but also in the Israeli interest as well. If Schumer is right, and undoubtedly he is, that there is a “battle” going on inside the administration, the side that argues that the lack of peace (not, of course, Israeli policy in general) is antithetical to US strategic concerns has already won, and there’s no going back on this. It’s a consensus, and if mainstream Jewish American organizations and Jewish American members of Congress and Senators like Schumer don’t like it, they’re really just going to have to get used to it. The charm offensive thus far is working. Apart from Schumer and some individual or marginal figures in the House, there has been no major series of defections from the legislators who are Netanyahu’s only hope of beating back the President of the United States.

So, the charm offensive is wise and strategically sound. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post last week said, somewhat incoherently, that while Pres. Obama had the right policies on Middle East peace he has been unable to communicate this to the Israeli public and therefore was on the brink of some kind of “blunder.” Roger Cohen of the New York Times (almost certainly no relation) argued that Israelis, and by implication their Jewish-American supporters, operate mainly from an irrational set of existential fears that do not take into consideration Israel’s actual strategic prowess. In other words, Israelis and their American friends, especially among Jewish Democrats, are one of the main beneficiaries of the Obama approach but many of them don’t realize this. And, both publicly and privately administration officials are trying to explain that their policies keep uppermost in mind the need to deal with Iran in a serious and effective manner, which is the most urgent concern of the Israeli government and also the mainstream American Jewish community. The message is: this is about Iran, whether you get that or not.

Thus far most strategically positioned Jewish Democratic members of Congress have stuck with Obama and Biden rather than defecting to Netanyahu and Shas Interior Minister Eli Yishai. This is because they are genuinely loyal Americans loathe to side with another government over their own and also because they are loyal Democrats whose political future is strongly tied with the strength of the administration and, especially, the President. The charm offensive is required to solidify these impulses, since they’ve been under fairly heavy attack both on and off the record from those who would want these Jewish Democrats and others to actually side with the Prime Minister of Israel rather than the President of the United States.

Over the past couple weeks I’ve written many times that the name of the game for Pres. Obama is holding Congress, and if the charm offensive towards the Jewish community helps him to continue to do that, it can only be a good thing. There is, after all, no change in policy here, only an effort to explain it to a skeptical and alarmed constituency that is politically and strategically important. It therefore shouldn’t alarm supporters of the President’s policies, but rather encourage them.

And, there are real reasons for suspecting that Pres. Obama’s pressure on the Israeli leadership is starting to pay off. On Friday, there was a swath of interesting reports that suggested that the Israeli leadership is really feeling the pressure. The leaders of both Yisrael Beitenu (Lieberman’s party) and Shas (Yishai’s party), the twin centers of ultra right-wing gravity in the present cabinet and Israeli society in general issued statements suggesting that they would not be categorically opposed to an unannounced settlement freeze in occupied East Jerusalem. Akiva Eldar and several other Israeli journalists wrote about the potential for a “gentleman’s agreement,” which is another term for the older idea of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” in which Israel would not announce any settlement freeze in Jerusalem but would also refrain from any significant building, especially in Arab areas. Pres. Abbas has said several times that such an unannounced but effective freeze would be sufficient for a return to negotiations. And clearly the White House would be satisfied with such an arrangement as well. In addition, PM Netanyahu on Friday said that he was open to the idea of a Palestinian state with “temporary borders,” obviously a nonstarter from the Palestinian point of view but new language from him, and, more significantly, that the long-term future of Arab areas of Jerusalem were ?a question that will arise in the final-status arrangements.? This obviously is a far cry from the “undivided, eternal capital of the Jewish people” or any other version of the usual, impossible, boilerplate.

None of this significant movement is imaginable outside of the context of the present US-Israel confrontation, and Obama’s policies generally. It could all be posturing for American consumption, but more likely it reflects a real discomfort in the Israeli government with the present standoff, especially as they have yet to be able to seriously muster significant congressional support against the White House, and therefore signifies potential real changes in Israeli policy. So, while there is pushback going on in Washington, there are actually serious signs of progress on the broader diplomatic front. That’s why the administration’s charm offensive pushback against the angry pro-Israel pushback is so important. And, it helps to explain why people like Schumer are starting to break with the administration and the extent to which the rest need to hold firm. This is about results, and there is every reason to think they’re actually starting to be produced.

There is a second, perhaps more significant pushback beginning to develop, and it’s a serious and coordinated assault on the reputations of Pres. Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad aimed at an American audience, including many powerful people, that frankly doesn’t know very much about them. Again, it’s all about results that are starting to be produced. In particular, the policies and approach of PM Fayyad have been deeply alarming to many Israelis and their supporters on two grounds: first, his approach actually threatens to end the occupation and establish a Palestinian state, to which some of these individuals are deeply opposed; and second, even some those who theoretically are not categorically opposed to the idea of a Palestinian state are greatly disconcerted to find Palestinians taking the initiative and creating their own “facts on the ground” that narrow the range of Israeli options and force issues they would prefer to see left up to diplomacy and the caprices of Israeli domestic politics.

The most dramatic gesture in this direction has been the announcement yesterday that the so-called “Palestinian Media Watch” run by an extremist settler called Itamar Marcus, is planning to run widely placed ads all over the American media accusing Abbas and Fayyad of “glorifying terrorists” and therefore, by implication, of being terrorists as well. This dovetails with increasing concerns coming from the Israeli military and right-wing about not only Palestinian state building, but more specifically the wave of Palestinian nonviolent protests that are being increasingly encouraged and, indeed, lead by the Palestinian national leadership including the President and especially the Prime Minister. I’ll have a lot more to say about this slanderous and preposterous attack in the near future, especially as it continues to develop. Stay tuned on both counts.

A couple weeks ago I had the privilege of being invited to chair a panel at a major conference on secularism and the future of Iran at Lake Forest College in Illinois. In February, as regular readers of the Ibishblog will recall, I spoke at a conference on Iran and the Arab world at Rutgers University organized by Prof. Golbarg Bashi and her outstanding students, and I found it to be a most inspiring and uplifting event. The Lake Forest College conference, organized by Prof. Ahmed Sadri who I have known and admired for many years, was a completely different but also extraordinary event. The Rutgers conference was raw, passionate, intense and deeply emotional. All of those qualities may have been present at some level at Lake Forest, but Sadri’s conference was much more cerebral, much more academic and much more focused, and its speakers were a veritable who’s who of Iranian intellectuals in the United States. Maybe the only obvious major missing figure was the brilliant Said Arjomand, who gave the most outstanding talk at the Rutgers conference.

After the Rutgers event, I blogged that I found the affair not only inspiring, but in a marked contrast to the kind of atmosphere I’m used to encountering on the Arab academic left in the United States. The Lake Forest College conference only brought home these increasingly striking distinctions. Because it was a conference on secularism and the future of Iran, and focused very strongly on the green movement and its challenge to the Iranian ruling clique, the Lake Forest affair focused very heavily on a single, unavoidable topic: the fault line running through the Iranian opposition between secular and religious orientations. Most speakers strongly critiqued the binary between secularism and devotion, holding that such distinctions are arbitrary and false, and extraneous to the question of civil liberties and political rights now at stake in Iran. However, at least one powerful voice, Mehrzad Boroujerdi, continuously reasserted the validity of secularism as a philosophical concept and the centrality of its principles as a political value.

In this conference, as usual, the term “secularism” was overdetermined and ambiguous, referring to many things and nothing at the same time. Many speakers attempted to define secularism’s meaning, or different meanings that have been applied to the term. For me, as with Boroujerdi I think, at its bottom line secularism really refers to the neutrality of the state on religious matters, not with imposing iconoclasm or anti-clericalism on a willing or unwilling society. However, in the Iranian and broader Middle Eastern context, secularism has unfortunately come to mean varying degrees of repudiation of religion at various levels, as brilliantly dissected by Prof. Sadri himself.

The reason the conference focused so strongly on this question is that one of the greatest vulnerabilities of the green movement, and the Iranian opposition in general, is that its most significant division is precisely between those who yearn for less religion in public life and who are essentially secular, whether they define themselves in those terms or not, and devout oppositionists who are opposed to either the present ruling clique and/or the system of villayat e-faqih or the constitution of the Islamic Republic. Indeed, it’s extremely significant that much of the clerical establishment feels sidelined by the new pasdaran and basij-dominated ruling elite and has been at the forefront of oppositional politics since the election fraud last summer because they feel that a system many of them do not object to in theory has in practice been hijacked by thugs and hoodlums. To these disgruntled reformist clerics add a great many other devout but enraged protesters who either do not object to the system but to what it has become or who may object to some aspects of the system but nonetheless can in no way be described as secularists. However, obviously, many of the protesters and much of the opposition is motivated by rejection of the Khomeinite system and a drive towards a return to genuine secularism and the abandonment of divine politics in Iran.

None of this is straightforward, of course, and there are always shades of gray and gradations perhaps as complex as each single individual with their particular mix of ideas, prejudices, orientations and sentiments. My own view, which I did not hesitate to express on a number of occasions both on and off the stage, is that whether you want to call it secularism or not, the neutrality of the state on religious matters in societies that are heterogeneous in religious opinion (as all are) is a sine qua non for social pluralism, which in turn is a sine qua non for having a decent society that respects people’s basic civil liberties and rights. At the same time, obviously Middle Eastern societies including Iran are not going to be inclined to adopt the American approach by mimicking the First Amendment and its broadly interpreted establishment clause. Arabs, Iranians, Turks and Israelis, among others, are going to have to find their own ways of achieving social pluralism and religious tolerance. And obviously it’s crucial not to have the green movement split along the religious/secular fault line.

The sharpest disagreement of the event was between AbdolKarim Soroush, Iran’s preeminent living philosopher and intellectual, and Prof. Hamid Dabashi of Columbia University. Soroush’s talk was a breathtaking virtuoso performance that had all the appearance of being a sudden extemporaneous diversion from his announced topic, and I think that’s exactly what it was. It’s the kind of feat that could only be accomplished by someone in almost total command of a vast array of material in Muslim intellectual history. On the other hand, while its erudition was spectacular, some of its claims and assumptions seemed somewhat dubious, and Dabashi was quick to pounce. In effect, Soroush was arguing that much of traditional Islamic thought, including all of Muslim philosophy, has to be regarded as “secular,” because it is “worldly” rather than strictly speaking theological. This struck me as an incredibly broad reading and application of the concept of secularism, far beyond what is normally attributed to the term and probably beyond what is theoretically defensible. Soroush has long advocated the narrowest application of the concept and the realm of authority of a “religious” social register and an exceedingly broad application of what properly belongs to a “secular” social register in Iran and other Muslim countries. This orientation seems to have evolved recently into this exceedingly broad application of the political category of “secular” to any concept or practice that is anything other than, strictly speaking, theological, or to anything that has any “worldly” facets or applications. It might be, in fact, a politically useful way of framing the issue, but nonetheless it’s difficult to accept on face value. Dabashi openly scoffed that next Soroush would be arguing that the Prophet Mohammed was himself a “secularist.” Hyperbole, no doubt, but the critique struck rather powerfully.

Listening to this conversation from an Arab point of view brings home clearly that the Iranians have managed to bring their society to the point where a serious discussion about how an aspirational, but very real, oppositional political trend, centered around a reformist, civil liberties movement, can stay united by bridging the divide between secular and religious tendencies. More to the point, by example it illustrates how far the Arabs have to go to get to that stage. Obviously, we don’t have anything like the green movement in the Arab world, or any serious opposition movement that demands serious reforms for the better in the name of people’s rights. The secular-religious divide in the Arab world unfortunately doesn’t have to be carefully navigated in this context because this kind of aspirational politics either doesn’t exist or is socially extremely marginal. Indeed, secular politics generally are on the decline and the defensive across the board. Unlike in the Shiite world, among Sunni Arabs there is little tradition of clerics as political leaders, and where there are religiously-oriented political structures (all of the main opposition movements in the Arab world are, essentially, Islamist) they are invariably reactionary rather than reformist, and obviously not in the least bit interested in ensuring people’s civil or other rights. They attack the undemocratic regimes from their religious right, but clearly without believing in any of the essential components of a pluralistic or even democratic society. Sunni Arab religious leadership therefore tends to be either hopelessly quietist or alarmingly radical and therefore even more threatening than governments that, on their own, have little to recommend them.

As I noted above, a very significant segment of the Iranian clergy is disenchanted with the way the “Islamic Republic” has turned out, and feel sidelined by the new ruling clique. Ayatollahs Sane’i, Bayat-Zanjani and Dastgheib obviously speak for a great many in Qom in their bitter critiques of government repression, and implicit condemnation of concentration of power in the hands of the security services and the supreme leader as an individual. So the participation of not only clerics but extremely devout Iranians is a crucial element of the green movement, indeed in many ways it’s the green part. Mousavi, Karroubi and the other reformist politicians appeal to “a return to the constitution” and represent those Iranians who want to fix rather than change the system altogether. None of these people can be described, I think, as “secular” unless by the kind of definition Soroush was proposing. But there are obviously lots of other people involved in what is a very disparate movement with no clear leadership or clear agenda, other than the promotion of civil liberties, would have to be defined in those terms, and who want no part of any “return” to the 1989 amended constitution of the Islamic Republic.

These are real problems, to be sure, that the green movement and any effective oppositional politics in Iran will have to navigate and negotiate, but from an Arab point of view they are problems I would really like to have. One can only imagine with envy a time when the Arab world has to seriously confront reconciling religious and secular tendencies within the same broad-based, uplifting and aspirational rights movement that is confronting dictatorship with dignity and sincerity. The closest thing we see to this in the Arab world today is the budding nonviolent protest movement in the occupied West Bank, but that is confronting Israeli occupation, and not Arab tyranny. I was delighted and honored to participate in the Lake Forest conference on secularism and the future of Iran, but in truth it was yet another stark reminder of how very far the Arab world really has to go to get anywhere remotely near where it needs to be.

Recent efforts by student activists and others to convince the University of California Berkeley to divest from two companies with strong ties to Israel and its defense establishment is the first really powerful test of the “BDS” movement in the United States. The bottom line is this: if you can’t get divestment through UC Berkeley, you’re done. UC Berkeley is the epicenter of not only liberalism, but even radicalism, in American academia and indeed American social life in general. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s proving so difficult.

After a long campaign, pro-sanctions activists managed to get the student government to vote for such a resolution, but the student president vetoed it, and the struggle then became to get a supermajority required to overcome that veto. The first attempt to do this failed, but has been tabled until next week. It may or may not succeed, and at any rate it would only be a recommendation to the university without any force. So even if it passes in the end, it hardly constitutes an act of actual divestment.

But I think UC Berkeley is an interesting test in the opposite way that BDS proponents suggest: I don’t think it would be a tremendous and astonishing achievement to get UC Berkeley to go along with this idea. In fact, really it should not be difficult for such ideas to spread throughout the Bay Area. And I think that’s probably the limit, more or less, of its potential area of effectiveness in the United States, with some other, much smaller, pockets of extreme liberalism excepted. So the real test is not whether it can succeed at UC Berkeley against all expectations, but rather whether it will fail there against those same expectations, or at least my own well-informed understanding of what those expectations ought to be.

Spin is a wondrous thing, and I’ve rarely seen more spin in my life than has been engaged in by BDS proponents who have been trying to create the impression that there is a major movement in this direction in the United States and that is “succeeding” and, even more preposterously, “having results.” One day, I suppose it’s possible that such a thing may come to pass, but it’s very difficult if not impossible under present circumstances to imagine many major American institutions, even academic institutions, divesting or adopting any kind of generalized boycott against Israel. I think people who imagine this happening really don’t have a clear sense of the degree to which Israeli institutions are intertwined and enmeshed with American institutions, most specifically military and intelligence, but also corporate, nongovernmental, civil society and academic ones as well. The pushback from pro-Israel activists will be enormous and, I think in most cases, likely successful. I just don’t think there’s an appetite for this in most elements of American society. I’d be perfectly open to being proven wrong, but I think the UC Berkeley case illustrates my point extremely well. BDS activists are spinning the thus far unsuccessful UC Berkeley effort (at issuing a recommendation, mind you) as a “great achievement,” but I really don’t think any serious person can buy that line. They may have a success next week, and then some more in the Bay Area and a few other places, but I really think that will be all she wrote even in a best case scenario.

The problem, ultimately, with the BDS approach as on display at UC Berkeley, and in contrast to other boycott efforts that wisely target elements of the occupation such as the settlements, as opposed to Israel itself, is that it doesn’t advance any articulable or achievable political goal. No doubt that behind such efforts for the most part lurk one-state sentiments that, however noble they might be, don’t actually correspond to anything plausibly achievable. Since working towards ending the occupation is the only sensible course of action under the present circumstances, and the only seriously achievable goal that would advance both the Palestinian national interest and the cause of peace, activism should be measured by the degree to which it helps to promote that goal. If another goal is intended, I think people need to be very clear about what it is, and how they hope to get there, and I really don’t think anyone can really imagine that boycotts are going to be the primary tool in resolving this national conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Anyone who does think that is hopelessly, touchingly naïve. The very most generous thing one might say is that this is a movement waiting for a leadership to emerge deus ex machina that could translate its momentum, if any, into actual political results vis-à-vis Israel. If the goal is ending the occupation, then the problem with BDS is that instead of distinguishing between the occupation and Israel itself, and separating the interests of the majority of Israelis from the settlers and other proponents of maintaining the occupation at all costs, it conflates them and creates an atmosphere which encourages Israelis in general to circle the wagons against outside pressure rather than understand that ending the occupation is in their own interests.

The Berkeley resolution doesn’t, in fact, talk about occupation, but rather about war crimes, mainly with reference to the war in Gaza. So, perhaps, its proponents might argue that it is simply a principled stand against companies connected to an entity (the Israeli military) that has committed war crimes, and not to any broader political agenda or achievable goal. I think that’s probably disingenuous. If it is true, then it means this is not only a largely empty gesture, but a pointless one as well, literally, since the war is over and the political agenda has moved on in every direction. I think it’s clear from most BDS rhetoric that BDS proponents do see boycotts and divestment as part of an overall political agenda, but usually the intended outcome is left very murky — indeed, it’s noteworthy that the Berkeley effort has had support from prominent people who completely disagree about what the appropriate overall political agenda (two states, one state, etc.) has to be. This reflects a serious degree of confusion. Clarity is required and political goals dictate strategy, which then defines tactics. In this case, the goal is amorphous, even contradictory, so the strategy is unclear and the tactics, such as this action at UC Berkeley, seem unconnected to any coordinated effort that has a focused, organized goal. It’s extremely unlikely that such wild, uncoordinated efforts could ultimately produce any kind of intended effect. Indeed, it’s more likely to have unintended effects.

There are other kinds of boycotts and divestment, which I wholeheartedly support, and which make eminent political sense because they fit perfectly into a broad strategy that is being coordinated by a national leadership. Sanctions targeted at the occupation, the settlements, the wall in the West Bank, etc. and that scrupulously call attention to the distinction between Israel and the one hand and the occupation on the other hand and that separate the two and pull their interests apart are useful both in terms of political symbolism and, potentially, as practical pressure on certain vulnerabilities regarding that aspect of Israeli behavior that most needs changing. Such sanctions and divestment are consistent with the PA strategy that combines diplomacy with state and institution building, nonviolent protests and economic measures aimed at the occupation, and that has a clear intended outcome: ending the occupation. This strategy seeks to continue the process of dividing Israelis between those who support maintaining occupation at all costs and those who understand distinction between Israel as such and the occupation and the settlers.

Of course, there are plenty of people who support the broad kind of BDS that tends to unite rather than divide Israelis and which has no clear strategic aim, and who in fact are opposed to ending the occupation and prefer instead the one-state agenda aimed at the elimination of Israel and the creation of a single, democratic state in its place. For them, the fact that measures like the proposed Berkeley resolution target Israel generally is a positive thing. They’ve no interest in dividing Israeli society, only in confronting it. They’ve no interest in ending the occupation, since they don’t recognize the occupation, or at least have adopted logic that doesn’t allow for one to meaningfully speak in terms of an occupation, only discrimination in a single, at present undemocratic, state. Many of them also continue to talk about settlements, although that also doesn’t make any sense either given their logic, although they could talk about discriminatory Jewish-only towns or something like that. It never ceases to fascinate me that one-state rhetoric continues to be so deeply mired in two-state logic (occupation, settlements, etc.), categories that make no sense once a single state agenda has been adopted.

My point here is that there are sanctions and there are sanctions. Some have a clear goal and a positive effect, and others, and I’m afraid the UC Berkeley effort falls into this category, have unstated and entirely unclear goals, differently understood by different supporters, and would likely have counterproductive effects, if any. In a sense, this whole subject is rather moot, because I am completely convinced that there will not be any widespread boycotting and divesting of Israel and companies that do business in Israel in the United States generally, and that even if there were, that would not be anywhere near enough to get the Israelis to consider things like dissolving their own state. But if the Berkeley effort fails, and continues to fail, it will mean that BDS aimed at Israel in general and not the occupation, can’t take root even in the most fertile soil in the entire country. At that point, well-meaning activists really need to think of something else.

Yesterday Pres. Obama gave the first clear indication of exactly where he stands in disputes embroiling the administration on how to go forward with Middle East peace in the context of the standoff with PM Netanyahu over settlements in Jerusalem. The President said that resolving the conflict is a “vital national interest of the United States,” and, echoing points made with varying degrees of emphasis by Gen. Petraeus, Adm. Mullen and Sec. Gates, very significantly added that such conflicts are “costing us significantly in terms of blood and treasure.” These are unprecedented comments from this or any other US president, and reflect the shift in the context of US-Israel relations and the new way in which Israeli policies are perceived in Washington, about which I have been writing for many months.

Please note that neither the President nor any of his aides are saying, as is sometimes wrongly suggested, that Israel or Israeli policies are threatening American security or American lives. But what they are saying is that the lack of peace, the continuation of the conflict and the occupation are serious strategic problems for the United States throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds, including in Afghanistan and Iraq and with regard to Iran. The bottom line is that Israeli policies are no longer viewed primarily as either simply a matter of bilateral relations between Israel and the United States or functions of domestic American political considerations, as they sometimes have been in the past. Instead, they are increasingly being placed in a much broader context that gives them a very different significance and implication.

The long-standing debate over “linkage” is over: not only is linkage firmly established as a real and crucial phenomenon in the eyes of Washington, linkage is not simply being identified between one or two strategic issues, but many. Because of its symbolic resonance and political significance, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the occupation are rightly seen by the administration as linked to almost everything the United States wants to achieve in the Arab and Islamic worlds. This has created a new and extremely significant dilemma for Netanyahu, and is the context of the present standoff between the two governments.

The President’s message is unambiguous but multivalent. It is aimed at multiple audiences for multiple purposes.

First, obviously it’s a message to Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states that the United States is absolutely determined to achieve a peace agreement because it does not consider this optional, but regard it as essential to “vital” US national security concerns. The more the stonewalling from the parties continues, the more the Obama administration seems determined to express the depth of its commitment to doing something about this, not for moral or even political reasons, but for essential and unavoidable strategic considerations.

The President’s reference to “blood and treasure” is aimed, I think mainly, at the Congress. On Saturday I wrote that the name of the game in Washington now is the President keeping hold of his support in Congress, especially among well-placed pro-Israel Jewish Democrats. Thus far, he has been successful, which is one of the main reasons Netanyahu ducked out of the nuclear terrorism conference this week. I think the message is being sent to members of Congress who might be tempted to waver in their support for Obama is that the President is unequivocal that this is an issue of vital national security interests. It involves, ultimately, the lives of US soldiers. It is not a matter for political games, grandstanding or pandering. He’s drawing a line in the sand and saying: we need this as a country, now stick with me. And, of course, he’s right.

The final target audience are the factions within his own administration who have been feuding, in some cases publicly, as well as seriously debating how to move forward in the context of recalcitrance by all the parties — Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states — as well as the current standoff with the Netanyahu cabinet. No one now need wonder where the President stands. He has made that abundantly clear.

Of all of these, Congress is probably the most important audience at the moment. It comes in the context of the first glimmers of real pushback from the legislative branch, most notably a letter sent two days ago from most senators to Sec. Clinton that was essentially boilerplate, but which seemed to put the onus for resolving the standoff on the administration. In and of itself, it doesn’t signify much of anything, and I don’t think it greatly annoyed the administration, but I do think that it — along with several other efforts by pro-Israel organizations, most recently a letter from World Jewish Congress chief Ronald Lauder questioning US commitment to Israel’s security — helped prompt these extremely strong comments from the President. His remarks were buttressed by an exceptionally robust statement of US commitment to pursuing a negotiated agreement from the US deputy permanent representative to the United Nations before the Security Council also on Wednesday. Obviously, the administration’s present purpose is clarity, and making sure everybody understands this is not business as usual, that Washington is not backing down, and that it does not feel it has the option of walking away.

I have been writing and speaking about this shift of context for US-Israel relations and the peace process given the new conceptualization of regional dynamics and networked linkage for many months now, employing the analogy of a kaleidoscope in which, when one piece of the puzzle moves, the entire pattern rearranges itself. It’s becoming clearer that this is indeed a widespread perspective shared by the administration at the highest possible levels, as well as a consensus in the foreign policy establishment. It’s also clear that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is generally perceived to be at the center of that pattern of interdependent strategic dynamics, because of its tremendous political resonance. In other words, what happens in Palestine can affect what happens in Iraq, but not so much vice versa. What happens in Palestine can affect what happens even in Afghanistan, but not so much vice versa. What happens in Palestine has much more impact on what happens in Iran than the reverse, unless of course there was some kind of regime change via the green movement or some other force. Even then, it might still be the case that what happens in Palestine has, in general, more impact in Iran than vice versa. And, it’s also important to note, that more even than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is the problem of Iran and its nuclear weapons program that dominates administration concerns in the Middle East at the present time.

But none of this should be overstated. The American commitment to Israel’s security is unshaken and unshakable. The special relationship, which has this commitment at its center, operates at a level beyond such political disputes. This doesn’t and indeed cannot change that. In addition, it’s important to state again that the administration’s concern is the lack of peace, which it blames on the parties generally and not just Israel. Arabs or any others who are enjoying some kind of schadenfreude at Israel’s, or at least Netanyahu’s, expense should be bracing themselves for their own dose of tough love, or possibly even just toughness, from the administration as soon as the standoff with Netanyahu is resolved, and possibly even before that.

Many supporters of Israel are understandably concerned about the new way of looking at these issues in Washington and within the administration, the confrontation over settlements in Jerusalem, and the implications of the President’s statement and those of other administration officials. But they should understand that Administration attention is focused on this issue now in large part because of its concern about Iran and its efforts to craft a workable policy on that issue, which is also the central concern for the Israelis. Moreover, a negotiated peace agreement is not only a vital American interest for Israel and the Palestinians to reach a negotiated peace agreement at the soonest possible date, it’s also indispensable for Israel’s interests. In fact, although the present Israeli government doesn’t act like it, it’s even more important for Israel than it is for the Americans. Whatever the settlers and their supporters, and the rest of the extreme Israeli ultra-right, might think, Obama is advancing, not threatening, Israel’s most vital national interests. Until now he has retained strong support in the Jewish community and among the most important Jewish members of Congress. It’s important for everyone that he retains this support, and he’s just given the strongest possible argument to the lawmakers for that: the lack of a peace agreement is costing the United States not only treasure, but blood.

A few days ago a David Ignatius column in the Washington Post introduced a new Obama administration concept in the standoff with PM Netanyahu: the idea that the United States might develop and begin promoting its own specified plan for a Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. In effect, this plays on Israel’s deep concern about a settlement that is “imposed” by outside powers rather than one that is negotiated with the Palestinians. They fear this would deprive them of the leverage that comes from the asymmetry of power between the occupier and the occupied, and mean in effect negotiating with the United States rather than the Palestinians and suddenly being the weaker party in a new asymmetry of power. Ignatius accurately recounted that at the most recent of a series of meetings National Security Advisor James Jones has been holding with six of his predecessors, Pres. Obama dropped by for 10 minutes and asked directly about the prospects of such a move. Apparently first Brent Scowcroft and then Zbigniew Brzezinski strongly endorsed the idea, followed by others, and no one objected. The President apparently did not either welcome or dismiss this response, but listened and left. Ignatius quoted two unnamed senior administration officials endorsing the idea, creating the impression that this is a real and imminent possibility.

I think it’s impossible to read this as, at this stage at least, anything other than a trial balloon largely designed to pressure Netanyahu and his colleagues. Translated into English, the rhetoric first floated in the Ignatius column says to Bibi: “we haven’t heard back from you since the Shepherd Hotel fiasco and the insult to the President, and you have to come up with something quickly. The special relationship does not give you license to push us around, and you need to know we are going to be the winners in this confrontation. We are not going to accept a stalemate, and if you don’t come up with something acceptable, you’re going to force us to begin to move in this direction eventually. We have options. Don’t make us use them.” One should quickly point out that anyone rejoicing that the United States is seriously considering drafting its own peace plan and then trying to impose it on the parties should drink a big glass of water and breathe deeply. No doubt it’s true that there are many people in the foreign policy establishment who think it would be a good idea, and a faction within the administration that is pushing for it, obviously led by Gen. Jones. However, for many reasons it’s also obvious that the administration is quite a long way off from doing this, if it ever would.

At some point the United States will clearly have to fight with both Israel and the Palestinians, and possibly the Arab states as well, over substantive issues in order to midwife a workable negotiated peace agreement. This might involve a comprehensive American plan rather than bridging proposals. But for this to be productive, the fight needs to come at a time when it has a real chance of producing serious diplomatic benefits. It’s important to understand that this administration wasn’t looking for a fight with Israel now. Netanyahu, and much more specifically whoever decided to announce the Ramat Shlomo settlement expansion during the Biden visit and then the Shepherd Hotel expansion on the same day as Netanyahu’s visit to the White House, have forced the issue in a reckless and bizarre manner. The administration is rightly determined not to be seen as backing down, and not to take these slights and defiance with equanimity. But the administration’s goal is to get the two parties back into talks, with the hope that negotiations will begin to produce their own dynamic that can move away from bilateral US-Israel discussions about settlements in Jerusalem to Palestinian-Israel discussions about final status issues.

The problem is, of course, it’s not evident that the administration has either a clear sense of what to do once the negotiations begin, or a plan b if they continue to be frustrated by the recalcitrance of one or both of the parties. This is where the Jones-Ignatius trial balloon comes in. It serves two purposes. First, for the faction within the administration that wants the United States to intervene forcefully with its own proposals, it advances their idea in the context of a breakdown in political relations with the Israeli government. It offers a critique of “incrementalism” in this context and proposes a solution of bold gestures on the biggest issues. For the administration in general, and Pres. Obama in particular, this trial balloon more immediately and importantly serves the purpose of turning up the heat under Netanyahu, and sending the message I outlined above. Whether or not it’s the subject of any serious consideration within the administration, it underscores American determination and frustration with Israeli ambiguity on peace and defiance of reasonable US demands.

So, at the moment, this idea really operates at the level of a threat to Netanyahu, and an idea about having an idea if all else fails. Yesterday, Gen. Jones told reporters that “no decision” has been made about whether to begin drafting a plan or not, which is both clearly true and also not intended to be reassuring to Netanyahu (reassurance would have been in the form of “no intention” or “no plans” to do any such thing, which is certainly nothing like what he said). However, it is possible to imagine a scenario in the coming months and years in which mounting American frustration with the parties, especially Israel, transforms this trial balloon into a real strategic program for want of any better options. Israeli media have been expressing considerable anxiety about an “imposed” settlement, and that anxiety is not entirely misplaced. The reality is that, for reasons I’ve been explaining on the Ibishblog and in over 25 university lectures in the past few weeks, the Obama administration and more broadly the foreign policy establishment in Washington now sees an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement as a strategic imperative for the United States. So, this is more than just a squabble between politicians, or even a policy dispute, it’s about a newly perceived and fundamental contradiction between the vital national interests of the United States and policies to which the right-wing Israeli government are committed. If Israel simply will not play ball, they might leave the United States only two options: walk away, with disastrous consequences for US interests throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds, or choose the right time and method to actually try to coerce or impose a settlement on all parties, including Israel.

The substance of such a plan is easy to anticipate, since there isn’t much wiggle room within the minimum national requirements for both Israelis and Palestinians. As Helene Cooper outlined in the New York Times, it’s going look a lot like the Clinton parameters and other familiar formulae. What’s more difficult to conceptualize is what it would take to drive an administration to actually place such a high-stakes wager, and how they could keep support of Congress in the process. And, what is almost impossible to imagine is how precisely the United States could “impose” such an agreement on the parties, especially an Israeli government right wing enough (as the current one seems to be) to be opposed to key elements of any reasonable agreement, especially regarding Jerusalem. Because it’s the kind of thing that’s easy to talk about in theory and very difficult to imagine working well in practice, it’s the sort of idea that’s well-suited for a trial balloon but less attractive as a policy.

There is also an important contextual contradiction between what might prompt the United States to publicly issue its own plan and the conditions that might make it an effective gesture. Frustration with the parties, especially Israel, is what really drives this idea, and has given it its present momentum. However, that frustration is produced by the kind of recalcitrance that would ensure maximal resistance to key elements of the plan by Israel and possibly others as well. In other words, the conditions that would give rise to it are the very same ones that would probably kill it. An administration facing an Israeli government willing to play ball on peace enough to make a plan workable would probably not feel the need to take this drastic step.

And, timing is everything. An American proposal issued at the wrong moment, such as the present one for example, might well prompt an even deeper bilateral crisis with the Israelis, but it would probably be rejected with such unanimity that it would die an epic death. Obviously, that might do far more harm to the cause of peace than good. And ill-chosen timing would also risk the administration losing support in Congress, which is crucial. At present, the Obama administration has very much the upper hand with Netanyahu because it has held key support in Congress, including from a number of extremely well-placed pro-Israel Jewish Democrats. It’s obvious that the Israelis were counting on countering administration pressure with congressional support, but for once they have not been able to muster it, at least so far. It’s obvious they didn’t have a plan b either.

If Netanyahu thought he might be the recipient of some serious congressional support, he might have braved the trip to Washington that he canceled mere hours after the Ignatius piece was published. But it’s clear Washington at the moment is largely hostile territory for him because he hasn’t been able to produce anything to defuse the crisis with the Americans. The idea that he suddenly realized that Muslims might make an issue out of Israel’s nuclear arsenal or, in the other explanation the Israeli government has offered, that they suddenly remembered the prime minister has to be around for Holocaust Memorial Day are both completely absurd. The Ignatius article and other administration comments both on and off the record about considering a US peace plan were the last straw, and he canceled his trip because he has nothing constructive to tell Americans both in the administration and in Congress who are expecting a reasonable response.

So to a very large extent the name of the game at this point is for the President to keep hold of congressional support. As long as he has it, the onus is very much on Netanyahu who is simply going to have to come up with something sooner rather than later because he is dealing with a united US government and has been unable to play off one branch against another. Any gesture to issue a US peace plan would have to be done and, crucially, timed in a manner that ensures congressional support, or at least non-opposition. For that to happen, either the atmospherics regarding the likelihood of an agreement would have to be very different than they are at present, or the level of frustration with Israel in Congress has to be a lot deeper than it is now, and in either case a considerable amount of political groundwork that has not been done would be required.

In spite of all of these serious pitfalls, the present line of thinking contains a great many positive elements. It continues the ongoing process of distinguishing between US and Israeli positions and interests in a very healthy way when too often for the past 20 years the default has simply been for the United States to support Israel in all things, no matter what. It reflects salutary administration determination and an unwillingness to be stymied by Israeli stonewalling or strategic ambiguity. And it shows the administration is seriously examining what its options might be. All of these are important developments that need to be encouraged.

Moreover, it really is important for the United States to have a clear understanding of exactly where it wants to go with the peace process. Right now, the US is committed to a negotiated agreement that involves the creation of a viable, sovereign Palestinian state and a resolution of the other final status issues, and that leads to normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab states. This is incredibly vague. The only deeper specificity thus far from the Obama administration has been some clarity on what the permanent status issues are — borders, security, refugees and Jerusalem — and an insistence that they all must be on the table in either direct or proximity talks. Again, that leaves far too much up to two parties that are defined by an extraordinary asymmetry of power and who have demonstrated for a long time that left to their own devices they are not capable of reaching a reasonable agreement. Therefore, it is actually important for the administration to seriously work on formulating a more detailed outline of what it thinks a workable agreement would look like, in order to ensure that everyone in the administration is really working for the same goals and in order to craft policies that advance the realization of such an agenda.

How you actually get to such a desired outcome is less important. In other words, it doesn’t matter if it’s the result of an announced US overall peace plan that is “imposed” in some very difficult to imagine manner, or if it is the product of another process such as negotiations between the parties aided by US bridging proposals, assurances, inducements and so forth. But it is important to know precisely where you want to go. So, rather than having this idea remain simply a trial balloon designed to send a strong message to the Israelis, or having it all just go away and returning to approaches that have not yet yielded significant results, a measured way forward might involve seriously working on more specific outlines of what precisely the United States believes would constitute a workable and achievable agreement that would advance its interests in the region but not making this public or presenting it to the parties for the foreseeable future. This would allow the United States to operate with greater clarity and focus, but would avoid the pitfalls of a premature and ill-timed announcement of a US agenda that under the present circumstances would probably be rejected by Israel out of hand and possibly even also by the Palestinians and/or the Arab states, and might break key Congressional support for Pres. Obama.

This would ensure that the United States is ready with a proposal if it comes to feel it has no other choice but to present one, or otherwise finds it an attractive prospect. And, it might help end or at least reduce public squabbling between administration factions and personalities. The question is: could one really keep it off the public radar? I suppose a disciplined administration might be able to, and there is always the ability to simply deny any leaks emphatically even if they’re accurate. It’s well worth the risk in my view. Whether the trial balloon dies or grows into a real agenda, and whether or not the United States ever feels the need to publicly issue a comprehensive Middle East peace plan, a clearer sense within the administration of what precisely our country is trying to promote and achieve between Israel and the Palestinians is an extremely good idea.

Anyone who went to see the Shakespeare Theater Company’s production of Richard II, which is wrapping up this weekend, and who knows their Shakespeare, was in for quite a nasty surprise at its outset. The first several scenes, running more than 20 minutes into the production, are not Richard II at all, they’re not even Shakespeare. They are from an incomplete manuscript usually referred to as Thomas of Woodstock that is contemporaneous with early Shakespeare, but possibly slightly earlier. Though some people have tried to attribute authorship of the play to Shakespeare, I think there’s almost no possibility that Shakespeare wrote it even though it shares many themes and characters that appear in several of his plays, especially Richard II, because the quality of the poetry simply doesn’t hold up to even his earliest and crudest work. If anyone ever doubted that, the STC production, in which the language suddenly and spectacularly soars when the dialogue switches from Woodstock to Richard, should firmly convince them. I have no idea how much of the audience throughout its run was aware of what was going on (I had no idea until the play started, and my companion was shocked when I told her, “wtf, this isn’t Shakespeare, it’s from a crappy play called Woodstock,” and later when I had to reassure her, “I’ll tell you when the Shakespeare starts”), but my guess is it’s quite a large number.

Now, all things being equal, conflating plays really isn’t a bad thing at all… if it works. Unfortunately, in this case it’s really a disaster. My negative evaluation is not being colored by my short-lived feud with the STC that seems to have been thankfully resolved. The bad blood had to do with my strong objections to some of their recent ghastly productions, especially The Alchemist, which was utterly ruined, and As You Like It, which I most certainly did not. Both were just awful, and there is no other word for it. They represented what is really objectionable about the current STC approach, which is a relentless tendency to dumb everything down in an insulting manner that also seriously degrades the plays themselves. The STC suffers from several endemic problems, the most serious of which are that it is self-satisfied, complacent and committed to gaining the largest possible audiences through pandering to what it imagines are the public’s limitations. This sometimes produces dire consequences, as with the two productions cited above. But not everything they do is awful by any means. The recent Balkan war-themed King Lear starring a Saddam-like Stacy Keach, both of which just received Helen Hayes Awards, was really very good. Twelfth Night was charming and funny and also quite well done. There was some dumbing-down in both of them, but other qualities carried the day, especially Keach’s brilliant performance.

The winding-down production of Richard II falls somewhere in between the two. It’s not a complete and total disaster, but the decision to conflate big chunks of Woodstock into its opening was an absolutely terrible idea that again reflects this unfortunate tendency to underestimate the capacity of the audience to deal with complexity. I can imagine the conversation that led to this atrocious decision quite easily. Richard II is shot through with what can only be described as a conspiracy theory, or a set of conspiracy theories, surrounding the looming political question of “who killed Gloucester?” It haunts much of the play like “who killed JFK?” or maybe even “who killed Laura Palmer?” Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, was one of Richard’s uncles, and Richard II’s first scene depicts an enraged argument between Mowbray and Bolingbroke over the latter’s accusations that the former was responsible for his murder. The play is riddled with accusations and counter-accusations about the killing, and when Bolingbroke finally deposes Richard, a dizzying free-for-all of threats and blame over the murder again erupts in the court like the return of the repressed with a vengeance. But Shakespeare is never clear about who did, in fact, kill Gloucester.

Some scholars like to argue that in his audience “everyone knew” the received wisdom that the chroniclers of the day, especially Holinshed, held that Mowbray had organized the killing on behalf of Richard because of Gloucester’s outspoken criticism of his mismanagement and cronyism. I’m not sure I find this terribly convincing, and besides, if Shakespeare wanted to establish with certainty that this was the case, there are dozens of ways he could have done it. In fact, Shakespeare goes to great lengths to ensure that the question of Gloucester’s death is a zone of almost occult instability that emphasizes the eerie way in which the murder haunts not only Richard’s rule, but Bolingbroke’s as well (until Richard’s own murder supplants it), not to mention the play itself. Here’s where the STC’s dumbing-down impulse takes over. I’m sure Kahn and company were greatly worried that the audience would be confused by this deliberate and careful ambiguity about the actual circumstances of Gloucester’s murder, and all of these obscure implications and vague conspiracy theories. And then somebody had a brilliant idea: import parts of Woodstock that clearly depict Mowbray arranging for Gloucester’s murder on behalf of Richard, and then we will have clarity and the audience will not be confused anymore. Indeed, but at what price?

I would argue that this “clarity” does considerable damage to Richard II on several levels. For one thing, it undermines the finely wrought tension in the play between political legitimacy as embodied in Richard’s divine right versus political merit as embodied in Bolingbroke’s skills and effectiveness. Establishing Richard’s culpability clearly makes Bolingbroke’s case a little too strong to sustain the level of tension Shakespeare chose to craft and which the STC chucks away.

Similarly, we lose the extremely interesting interplay of the first three scenes of Shakespeare’s actual text. In the first scene, Richard appears impartial and judicious, almost wise, in remaining studiously neutral between his cousin Bolingbroke and Mowbray. However, in the second scene, another of his uncles, John of Gaunt, strongly implies to Gloucester’s outraged widow that nothing can be done about the murder because the King is ultimately responsible and must be dealt with only by God. This of course offers the potential for a completely different reinterpretation of Richard’s apparent judiciousness in the first scene, suggesting it may well have been a cynical and politically expedient means of hanging Mowbray out to dry. It also brings into sharper relief the question of Bolingbroke’s motivations for the accusation: is he merely pursuing a personal vendetta against Mowbray, or is he launching a long-term strategy aimed at Richard’s power by attacking its weakest point, the murder of Gloucester? There is a distinct and carefully crafted ambiguity about all of these questions, greatly adding to the richness of the play.

In addition, because the first and second scenes combine to create a belated sense of Richard’s own possible culpability in Gloucester’s death, this creates a potential ambiguous dual reading of the third scene, the trial in which Mowbray and Bolingbroke are going to duel to establish the veracity of their competing claims. After a tremendous buildup to the joust, at the last second Richard intervenes and banishes both men, Mowbray for life and Bolingbrook for first 10 and then, on reconsideration, six years. The reasons for this decision are not readily apparent, although Richard claims it is to preserve calm in the kingdom and apparently even Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt, reluctantly agrees with this logic. However, given Richard’s evident attachment to and deep belief in the system that has made him King by divine right, a divinely-guided and accurate test of the competing claims at stake may have seemed too dangerous if he was indeed responsible for the killing. If Bolingbroke can establish Mowbray’s culpability through defeating him in the duel, assuming one believes God defends the right, then the finger of blame begins to point squarely in Richard’s direction. So the last-minute intervention and banishment, especially making sure Mowbray, who could betray him, is gone forever, could be read as a cynical effort on Richard’s part to avoid the conspiracy theory developing any further — what Nixon termed “the hangout route” during the Watergate scandal.

The point is that in Shakespeare’s text, both of these readings and indeed others, are plausible given the ambiguity about the actual circumstances of Gloucester’s murder. All of this is lost in the STC production because of the misguided decision to “clarify” this ambiguity by introducing large chunks of an infinitely inferior play by an infinitely inferior poet. I would argue that Shakespeare knew exactly what he was doing, since he was an artist more than capable of shaping clarity and ambiguity to fit his own dramatic purposes. In fact, it’s one aspect of storytelling at which he is an almost unrivaled master. It’s possible that Kahn and the others thought that because in Shakespeare’s own audience “everyone knew” that Mowbray killed Gloucester at Richard’s behest, the modern audience needed a little help. First of all, I’m not at all convinced that “everybody knew” anything of the kind. This assumes a level of detailed knowledge of English history on the part of a lot of illiterate and semiliterate people in Elizabethan London that strikes me as somewhat implausible. But, for the sake of argument let’s say they did. More importantly, everybody really did “know” lots of things that Shakespeare makes crystal clear in his histories for narrative and other artistic purposes, so the question is: why does he go to such elaborate lengths to produce, layer and delicately cultivate this kind of ambiguity in Richard II? Obviously, the answer is because it is a crucial part of the dramatic purpose of the work and I think the STC production makes it extremely clear why that is important because of what is lost when this rich, complex ambiguity is replaced by crude, flattening clarity.

They don’t stop, unbelievably enough, at importing chunks of Woodstock. The STC production actually completely rearranges the structure of the first three scenes I described above, with the John of Gaunt/Duchess of Gloucester (Woodstock’s widow) scene that is the second in Shakespeare’s play coming before the other two, and the first and third scenes of Shakespeare’s text — the argument in the court and the duel scene respectively — incongruously and clumsily conflated. In the process, all of the carefully and delicately constructed ambiguity, tension, conspiracy and conspiracy theory about Richard’s relationship to Gloucester’s murder is completely lost. Of course, it’s every director’s and every company’s right to rearrange scenes however they want in any production, but the audience has a right to ask: does this work? In this case, unambiguously not.

And it gets even worse than that. In Shakespeare’s first scene, the argument at court, Mowbray angrily claims:
“For Gloucester’s death,
I slew him not, but to my own disgrace
Neglected my sworn duty in that case.”
What this “neglected duty” refers to is entirely obscure, and Shakespeare deliberately leaves it so. If Mowbray was implicated in the murder at Richard’s behest, since Gloucester died how did he neglect any duty? If he was not, what duty did he then neglect? According to Holinshed, Shakespeare’s main source, Mowbray wanted to spare Gloucester but was compelled by Richard to organize the killing. So, is Mowbray denying any connection to the murder? Is he appealing to Richard for protection? Is he disclaiming responsibility on the grounds of compulsion? Is he quibbling that he slew him not because he ordered other people to do it for him? Is this the line that sets up Mowbray for banishment because it implies that he might spill the beans? All of these readings and many more are opened up in Shakespeare’s text because of the carefully crafted ambiguity about the circumstances of the murder and in Mowbray’s oblique comment. In their lamentable drive to replace rich Shakespearean ambiguity with their own version of “clarity,” STC obliterates all these questions by going so far as to invent a new line for Mowbray following “Neglected my sworn duty in that case,” continuing the sentence with “by not apprehending the culprits” or something like that (obviously, I didn’t bother to write it down, but it leapt out at me like a giant wad of spit from the mouth of a hooligan).

Well, they certainly added clarity. They inserted it in the play with a bulldozer in the opening sequences jerryrigged from Woodstock, and with a scalpel in this little sliver of text deftly inserted in Mowbray’s speech like a bamboo shoot under the fingernail. With blunt force and surgical skill, STC got rid of one of the most intriguing and multivalent aspects of Richard II, largely I think because they just didn’t believe that we, the poor stupid audience, could possibly handle Shakespearean ambiguity and complexity. They’re wrong of course. I think any audience carefully paying attention, whether Renaissance or contemporary, is more than able to handle Shakespearean ambiguity and rich complexity, texts and plots that are open to a wild proliferation of signification and interpretation. Otherwise the plays wouldn’t have had the hegemonic cultural power they have wielded for so many years and in so many cultures and countries, far beyond the English-speaking world. This impulse the STC are gripped by to dumb everything down like this is the Achilles’ heel of what ought to be the most important theater company in Washington. Instead, one tends to look to productions of the Folger or even by the upstart Taffety Punk Company for genuine inspiration. What a shame.

Richard II is my favorite of Shakespeare’s early plays, and I think it’s obviously the one he spent most time and care on, in many ways. Not only does that mean I was greatly displeased by this extremely misguided adaptation because I think so much richness was lost, but it also means I have a great deal more to say about Richard II, and I’ll do so in an upcoming posting that puts the STC production aside and looks again at this astonishing masterpiece on its own terms.

For anyone with the least doubts about exactly why there is a political crisis between the United States government and the Netanyahu Cabinet in Israel — although not a strategic crisis between the two countries — or why this crisis may deepen dramatically in the coming months and years, Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Affairs Moshe (Boogie) Ya’alon has been kind enough to clarify everything in today’s issue of Yedioth Ahronoth in Hebrew. In an interview with reporter Yuval Karni, Boogie laid out the “thinking” of the extreme right wing of the current Israeli cabinet with breathtaking shamelessness and astonishing frankness. Everyone in the White House and Congress, and all Americans for that matter, should take careful note of what this gentleman has to say about what is almost universally recognized to be a core American national security priority, and take the measure of precisely how delusional and dangerous this kind of thinking truly is and what it implies for both American interests and US-Israel relations.

First off, Boogie is quite clear that all dealings with the United States on peace and the whole thrust of Israeli diplomacy regarding negotiations is a conscious deception, at least from his point of view: “Some of what we have to do is maneuver with the American administration and the European establishment, which are also nourished by Israeli elements, which create the illusion that an agreement can be reached.” So, the stupid Americans have to be manipulated into accepting the illusion that the Israeli government, or at least his wing of it, has the least interest or belief in peace. In other words, they have to be successfully lied to. A good example of this kind of “maneuver” in his eyes is the so-called settlement freeze: “We had to do a diplomatic maneuver, and we went with the lesser of the evils.? And all of this deception is required because, “I say out of knowledge, nobody in the forum of seven [the inner Netanyahu cabinet] thinks that we can reach an agreement with the Palestinians.” So much for American national security priorities and interests!

In his eyes, the American and international consensus regarding the need for a two-state peace agreement and other land-for-peace deals is absurd and not to be considered for a second: “Why is it taken for granted that in order to obtain peace, we must withdraw? As far as I am concerned, there is no discussion of this at all. No discussion.” Asked about the prospect of annexing occupied territory, Boogie says blandly, “We will get to that. At least in the settlement blocs.”

For Ya’alon, the problem between the two governments is entirely due to the Americans and their idiotic misperceptions: ?There are people in America [i.e., the Obama administration and much of the foreign policy establishment] who see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the main cause of instability in the Middle East, and this perspective has support in the administration, but what can we do?” In other words, Israel has no responsibility, its policies are irrelevant to regional stability or politics, and there is nothing Israel can do one way or the other to influence the Middle Eastern scene.

In Boogie’s eyes, the biggest reason for the political confrontation is, again, American stupidity, most specifically in not recognizing the invalidity and “failure” of the land-for-peace formula: “…the idea of land for peace has failed. We got land for terror in Judea and Samaria and land for rockets in Gaza. What, the Americans do not see it?” What a bunch of idiots! It’s very clear that Boogie, the Minister for Strategic Affairs no less, is among those Israelis who feel very strongly that Palestinians do not and cannot pose any kind of strategic threat to Israel and that an agreement with them is neither possible nor desirable, let alone necessary. However, “delegitimization [in the eyes of the international community] is a strategic threat.? Needless to say, he does not recognize the glaringly obvious and intimate connection between the policies to which he is committed, and that are so shocking and obnoxious to the international community, and the international “delegitimization” that concerns him so much.

As for the American public, Boogie actually seems to think there is a possibility that most Americans might side with him and Netanyahu, and not President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary Clinton: “There is sweeping support for Israel in the United States. I am not sure where the American public stands on this crisis, whom it supports more.” It’s quite clear that this individual has no appreciation whatsoever for the depth of anger among the US government and public regarding the repeated insults delivered first to Biden and then to Obama himself. This is not surprising perhaps, given that he believes that it is all simply the result of American stupidity. And, if anyone was questioning where the impulse was coming from to deliberately announce settlement activities in occupied East Jerusalem strategically timed to embarrass and insult senior American leaders, or what type of mentality would consider that in any sense a good idea, I think they now have their answer quite clearly.

It’s hard to know which is Boogie’s most impressive delusion, but it might be his hilarious protestation that “I come with clean hands.” Or, it might be his insistence that everything is just peachy keen with Israel: “Why do you say that everything is stuck? The country is being built up, the economy is thriving, there are investments in infrastructure and in education, settlement, water projects, alternative energy. What is stuck here? The country is blossoming.” The captain of the Titanic couldn’t have put it any better. Iceberg? What iceberg?

The obvious temptations are to dismissively say either:
1) this guy is cuckoo for cocoa puffs, and not to be taken seriously
or
2) this is just strategic political pandering to the extreme right, and also not to be taken seriously.

And to be sure, one of the most salient features of this second Netanyahu premiership has been a careful tacking between measures designed to placate the Americans on the one hand and the settlers on the other hand. This Prime Minister has even been careful to always balance statements pleasing to the settlers with every statement pleasing to the Obama administration. So, this could well be an effort on Netanyahu’s part to unleash Boogie in all his unhinged glory to hurl as much red meat as possible in the direction of the extreme right in preparation for the steps that are going to be required to mend fences with the Americans. It is definitely possible to read this as a not-so-subtle message to the Israeli extremist community not to get too upset about what is going have to be done vis-à-vis the United States in the coming days in order to restore relations. In other words, these comments certainly demonstrate why there is a crisis between the American and Israeli governments, but they don’t necessarily reveal the deepest strategy of the current prime minister. It could all be read as part of an extremely elaborate series of strategic ploys to balance irreconcilable constituencies domestically and internationally. That’s a distinct possibility.

But what if Boogie really does reflect, if not Netanyahu’s fundamental personal attitudes, at least the genuine positions of the Cabinet as a whole, or at very least of the “seven?” First of all, that guarantees an almost limitless series of confrontations with the Obama administration that would be very difficult to contain and would either lead to the forced dissolution of this coalition due to outside pressure or a political deterioration so grave with the United States that it begins to become a real strategic issue between the countries. If the United States regards it as a strategic imperative to have a peace agreement and Israel regards it as a strategic imperative not to, then the confrontations will inevitably shift from the political to the strategic register over time. How far it can go depends on too many variables to decisively evaluate, and it seems unlikely that the Israeli public would sit back and let it go that far, but with outlandish comments such as this made so breezily and so publicly, one certainly has to wonder.

One also has to wonder what that wing of the Israeli national security establishment, especially in and around the military, which may be skeptical about the mechanism for achieving it but certainly recognizes the strategic need for an agreement with the Palestinians, must be thinking when they read this from their Minister of Strategic Affairs in Israel’s most widely-circulated Hebrew daily. Only a few weeks ago at the Washington Institute, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, “A successful peace process ? especially with the Palestinians… is a compelling imperative for the state of Israel.” He called this, “the uppermost responsibility of any Israeli government.” I think it’s pretty clear that not only does he mean this, but that he speaks for and represents that wing of the government that is closest to much of the uniformed defense establishment in Israel.

The always-impressive Shai Feldman of Brandeis University said at a panel on which we were both speaking the other day at Boston College that there are three separate governments in the present Israeli cabinet: a Barak government aligned with the military and the defense establishment that understands the strategic need for an agreement with the Palestinians; a Lieberman government aligned with the settlers and the ultra-right that does not think any such agreement is either possible or desirable; and a Netanyahu government that likes to play the referee and has constructed an aura of ambiguity on the question of peace. Boogie is reportedly very close with Bibi, so given Feldman’s analysis, the question would be: is he part of the Lieberman/ultra-right camp that has its own perspective but does not really dominate or define the thinking of the Prime Minister or the Cabinet as a whole; or is he part of the Netanyahu camp and these words are a roundabout way of the Prime Minister himself expressing his views and explaining, in Hebrew, to his Israeli audience why there is suddenly a crisis with the moronic gringos? I think the answer to that question will determine a very great deal about where not only peace, but US-Israel relations, go in the coming months and years.

By now, everyone who thinks the present confrontation between Pres. Obama and his administration and Prime Minister Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition allies is meaningless, a "charade," or even more ridiculously, a "joke," should be feeling pretty silly. It’s become obvious that not only is this not "no big deal," this is, as one eminent American statesman might put it, "a big fucking deal." It’s still a political crisis between politicians and governments, and not a strategic crisis between countries, and the foundations of the US-Israel special relationship and commitment to Israel’s security are unshaken. But the depth, let alone the reality, of the Obama-Netanyahu crisis of policy and of trust has degenerated very significantly since it erupted during VP Biden’s trip to the region. It is extraordinary that, having been invited to the White House, Netanyahu would need to leave the first, lengthy, meeting, then consult with his entourage, request a second meeting which was also long, and leave without a single word of substance from either side to the public. It’s absolutely obvious that the meetings were tense and unpleasant, and that no agreement was reached.

The outstanding Laura Rozen of Politico today reports: “’Apparently Bibi is very nervous, frantically calling his ‘seven,’ trying to figure out what to do,” one Washington Middle East hand said Wednesday. ‘The word I heard most today was ‘panic.’" This rings exactly true. What other reaction is he supposed to have to being suddenly confronted with an American president who is simply not going to take it anymore and is laying down some very firm conditions? Nathan Gutmann in The Forward lists the following demands supposedly placed before Netanyahu by Sec. Clinton during her apparently angry 45 minute phone call following the Biden fiasco:
• Cancel the Ramat Shlomo building plan for 1,600 units, which sparked the crisis.
• Expand Israel’s 10-month moratorium on settlements to include East Jerusalem.
• Offer the Palestinians a number of goodwill gestures to relieve the weight of the occupation in the West Bank.
• Agree to discuss core issues — not just procedural ones, as Netanyahu desired — in upcoming proximity talks arranged by Washington between Israel and the Palestinians.
According to Gutmann and many other sources, Netanyahu agreed to the two planks that don’t involve Jerusalem settlements, and, as I’ve been writing about recently, apparently caved in on permanent status issues which has been the most important point of contention in recent months.

It’s important to step back and recall the chronology leading up to the present confrontation: first there was the slap in the face to the administration during the Biden visit over the 1,600 settler housing units in occupied Arab East Jerusalem. This led to a firestorm of angry condemnations from various senior American officials. Netanyahu was required to issue a climbdown, which involved agreeing to gestures towards the Palestinians and the inclusion of all permanent status issues in proximity talks. This was communicated both verbally and in a letter to the President which remains unreleased. That seemed to satisfy the White House and both parties engaged in a ratcheting down tensions. Netanyahu was invited by Mitchell to meet with the President on Tuesday. When he arrived in the United States, Netanyahu gave a belligerent and defiant speech at AIPAC, including his ridiculous statement that "Jerusalem is not a settlement," as if anyone had ever claimed that Jerusalem is a settlement. The point the administration and everyone else is making is not that Jerusalem IS a settlement, but that there are settlements IN Jerusalem. It was a shameless performance of both defiance and demagoguery, in marked contrast to Sec. Clinton’s balanced, constructive approach at the same conference. The real turning point, however, was the announcement of 20 new settler housing units in occupied Arab East Jerusalem on the very day of the Obama-Netanyahu meeting. In other words, Pres. Obama was being treated to a slightly less dramatic version of the insult delivered to VP Biden only two weeks ago.

This was obviously too much for the administration, greatly strengthened by its recent victory on healthcare and the emergence of an Obama presidency not to be trifled with. By all indications, Netanyahu was treated to an unexpected and rather severe dressing down by Obama. Among other things, it would appear the President reiterated the American demands first issued by Sec. Clinton, and that Netanyahu was told in no uncertain terms that his written letter to Obama was unsatisfactory and required rewriting (also known as "clarification"). That the meeting was tense and unfortunate from the Israeli point of view is strongly indicated by the dead silence from the administration regarding it, with no gesture of warmth or friendship whatsoever, let alone a photo op. Probably even more extraordinary was the sequence of the first long meeting, followed by a confab within the Israeli delegation, a request for a second meeting, another long Netanyahu-Obama meeting which did not produce an agreement either, and then negotiations between senior officials that went on until at least 2 AM, also without resolution. Also extraordinary was Netanyahu’s cancellation of all his public events and meetings yesterday in order to deal with the crisis. Rozen’s quotation about "frantic calls" and "panic" therefore, as I say, rings true.

So, it would certainly appear that Netanyahu and his government have miscalculated dreadfully and now find themselves in an impossible situation. For many months now Netanyahu has been successfully triangulating between the demands of his right-wing coalition partners and the expectations of Washington, but the Biden fiasco followed by this second, obviously carefully calculated, rebuff to the administration on Jerusalem settlements has made that now impossible. Further confrontations are almost inevitable once this current row is resolved, as long as there is this fundamental contradiction between his political interests on the one hand and diplomatic requirements on the other hand. How Netanyahu is possibly going to deal with this, short of restructuring his coalition, I’m not sure at all. It seems clear that the administration is determined, buoyed by its recent success, and utterly fed up with the nonsense coming out of Tel Aviv.

So, as Aluf Benn put it in today’s Ha’aretz, Netanyahu leaves the US as a "disgraced, isolated and weaker" actor who, "instead of setting diplomatic agenda, has surrendered control of it." Never mind the panic at being confronted with an empowered, determined American president. Netanyahu even looks like a man who doesn’t control his own government, given his insistence that he had no knowledge of these repeated insulting announcements perfectly timed to coincide with diplomatic encounters with the most senior American officials. If he knew, he is culpable, but if he didn’t know, that’s even worse, as he looks incompetent and out of touch. Either way, it’s a disaster for him. He may have gotten political mileage up till now from demagoguery on Jerusalem among Jewish Israelis, but surely the diplomatic price has now become far too high, and must begin to translate into a political price as well. No one can pretend that Netanyahu has prevailed in this confrontation.

This means the Palestinians are in a very advantageous, but also very delicate situation themselves. They have a golden opportunity, indeed a very rare one, to deal with a politically difficult Israeli cabinet in a very effective manner with American and international support, and to advance their position considerably and get closer to the United States. But they need to know that following this confrontation with Israel, the administration will be more than willing to take on the Palestinians and the other Arabs as well. If they are prepared to confront Netanyahu, there won’t be much holding them back in confronting the PLO leadership or the Arab states. They need to remember that in Obama they are dealing with an ally and friend who is doing the heavy lifting now for their benefit, as well as in the US and enlightened Israeli interests as well. It’s therefore strategically wise on multiple registers for the Palestinians and the other Arabs to be as constructive and forthcoming as possible. If the United States does not believe you’re going to run with the ball, they will not pass it to you, and there is a grave danger that having encountered a recalcitrant, obdurate and belligerent Netanyahu and faced him down, if they feel they are going to encounter similar resistance on the Arab side, they may with great reluctance choose to walk away.

The depth of the opportunity is only emphasized by Sec. Gates repeating today recent statements by Gen. Petraeus and Adm. Mullen that emphasize Israel’s policies and, more importantly, the lack of a two state peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians negatively affects US strategic interests, and, either explicitly or implicitly, the safety of US forces in the Arab and Islamic world. There is a reconsideration of American strategic interests, with Palestine and an end to the occupation at its very center, in the present worldview dominating Washington discourse and administration policy. To not take advantage of this would be utter madness. Extremely unhelpful statements from some PLO officials and bizarre, almost insane, ideas floating around the Arab League about rescinding the Arab Peace Initiative, or any suggestion of not returning to proximity talks or putting up unworkable objections at this stage after all that has been done by the administration would be an unthinkable blunder. Through Netanyahu’s gross miscalculations and the administration’s firmness, determination and new level of authority, the Palestinians and the Arabs have a golden opportunity in the present circumstance that they must take advantage of or accept their share of the blame for the probably dire consequences.

In the week immediately following VP Biden?s visit to Israel and the firestorm of controversy over the announcement of 1600 new settler housing units in occupied East Jerusalem, tensions between the US and Israel bubbled over in a most unusual manner. Administration officials, including Sec. Clinton, used language normally reserved for the likes of Iran and North Korea in order to emphasize how appalled they were at the brazen defiance. Both sides quickly developed a strong interest in containing and then reducing tensions once the United States had made its point crystal clear, and both Pres. Obama and PM Netanyahu moved quickly to do so. However, Israel was required to provide what are apparently substantial and significant assurances to the United States in private and, it would seem, in an unpublished and unreleased written document as well. Since Special Envoy Mitchell has invited Netanyahu to meet with the President tomorrow during his trip to Washington, obviously the American side is satisfied with whatever climbdown it has received from the Israelis. This is worth considering in some detail, especially from a Palestinian point of view.

First of all, it seems clear that given the outrage and exceptionally strong language coming out of Washington that the Obama administration would not have simply let the matter pass. Israel was going to have to earn release from the rhetorical doghouse. So in spite of skepticism, both logic and the known facts indicate strongly that whatever assurances Israel has provided to Washington are substantial and significant. I think many people are somewhat confused about what exactly has been at stake, and therefore are misreading this development as some kind of victory or successful defiance by Netanyahu.

Settlements were indeed the central issue between the US and Israel for many months, especially in the early fall of 2009. However, after his meetings with both Netanyahu and Pres. Abbas at the UN in October, Pres. Obama made it clear that while the United States was not satisfied with Israel?s positions or the partial, temporary and, it is now clear, largely fraudulent settlement moratorium, nonetheless Washington wanted to move on to the reestablishment of permanent status negotiations rather than continuing to be mired in the settlement conundrum. What became clear as Washington attempted and failed to get Netanyahu to agree to a complete settlement freeze is that beyond his own personal and ideological inclinations, it is unlikely that his cabinet would survive any such step and therefore there is no chance under the present circumstances that he is going to take it. They were asking for something they really couldn?t get, and when they realized that they decided to keep the issue on the table but prioritize something else.

It was at this stage that Palestinian reluctance to return to permanent status negotiations for a complex set of diplomatic, practical and political reasons became a defining feature of international perceptions and began to really harm Palestinian standing in the United States and the rest of the West. Netanyahu was able to skillfully deploy this reluctance in order to paint himself as ?the one who made positive gestures and who wants to get back into talks right away,? and the Palestinians as ?the ones who say no.? The political problem for the Palestinians was that they really didn?t have anything substantial and meaningful to show their public to justify a return to negotiations in spite of the lack of a settlement freeze. Hence the idea of proximity talks, Arab League permission and other indecorous measures designed to ease the PLO back into talks in spite of the attendant grave political difficulties. But there were other more practical and serious diplomatic problems with the idea of getting back into permanent status negotiations, even proximity talks, without any preconditions. The obvious, rational and legitimate Palestinian fear is getting back into a peace process that is all process and no peace, and that drags on indefinitely without any significant progress while settlement construction continues apace and the borders of Palestine become increasingly difficult to conceptualize, let alone determine.

Therefore, the biggest sticking point from a practical and diplomatic point of view to a resumption of negotiations in recent months has been the lack of adequate terms of reference for the negotiations that would define exactly what Israelis and Palestinians are talking about. On this point too, as with a settlement freeze, the Obama administration basically sided with the Palestinians in theory and the Israelis in practice, in that they have been pushing for terms of reference, assurances and other structures that would give the negotiations substantive meaning, but urging the parties to return to talks even if the topics were not clearly defined because Israel preferred keeping everything as vague as possible. One can understand this politically from Netanyahu?s point of view: getting into a negotiation with the Palestinians about the future of Jerusalem is probably more politically dangerous for him than any notion of a settlement freeze. On the other hand, any negotiation that doesn?t include core permanent status issues like Jerusalem are unlikely to be meaningful. And, there is a grave danger for him that should talks restart and the Palestinians prove forthcoming, constructive and clever, the colossal distance between his position and that of the Obama administration, and what may be a fundamental incompatibility between the two, will become increasingly clear. There is a real and extremely dangerous possibility for him to emerge as being perceived by all parties as the main problem once permanent status talks really get going. Demagoguery on Jerusalem might be good politics in Israel, but it?s potentially disastrous diplomacy, if the Palestinians and the other Arabs don?t provide endless ways of avoiding the topic.

It seems pretty clear that whatever the Israelis have agreed to involves, if not detailed and constructive terms of reference as such, at least putting all permanent status issues, including Jerusalem, on the table for upcoming proximity talks. This is, and should be seen as, a huge gain for both the Obama administration and the Palestinians and an eventuality that Netanyahu was trying very assiduously to avoid. In some sports this sort of thing is called an ?unforced error,? in which the blunder of one side strengthens the position of the other without the advantaged party actually having to do anything. The bottom line is this: before the Biden-settlements fiasco, the Palestinians were willing although extremely reluctant to go back into proximity talks without a clear agenda or terms of reference. Now, it?s clear that they will be able to go into them with much more satisfactory arrangements from their perspective. It seems to me one of the few ways to badly mishandle this would be to sulk and refuse to reengage the talks they had already agreed to. Clearly this is a gain to be pocketed and built upon, not squandered.

Other aspects of the US-Israel understanding reached last week appear to include some kind of easing of the blockade of Gaza, which is morally urgent and which should politically benefit the PA, which will have achieved it, rather than Hamas. In any event, the siege plainly benefits Hamas politically, and is the principal factor in the slow evolution of what is increasingly looking like a totalitarian theocracy in the Strip. Almost any opening to the outside world should weaken or slow that lamentable process. So, that?s also a good thing, and without this confrontation, it probably wouldn?t have happened either.

The most difficult subject, of course, is the problem of the settlements themselves. It?s especially tricky because on this issue the politics and diplomacy are particularly murky, as is the nature of the understanding arrived at last week. Clearly as long as he is working with this group of coalition partners, and possibly under any circumstances, Netanyahu is not going to countenance a meaningful and thorough settlement freeze, and certainly not in Jerusalem. But it?s also clear that the Obama administration is serious about its categorical opposition to increased settlement construction, including in Jerusalem, especially in Arab neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem. Therefore, it?s extremely difficult to read the reputed ?don?t ask, don?t tell? arrangement on Jerusalem settlements. Will it in practice mean that Israel reserves the right to colonize East Jerusalem, and may even plan settlement activity, but in reality not conduct any, unless specifically approved by Washington? Or will it mean that settlement activity in East Jerusalem goes ahead as planned, but remains unannounced? My guess is that the reality is something in between the two, that Netanyahu publicly insists colonization will continue in East Jerusalem, but assures the Obama administration that it will be very limited and close to zero in practice. However, if this is true, I?m sure he and his bureaucrats will try to ?cheat? as much as they can within this framework. I?m also very skeptical that any aspect of this understanding made it into the reputed written document.

Of course this is not satisfactory from the American, international and especially Palestinian perspective. However, it too is useful in that it places Israel settlement activity, especially in East Jerusalem under an even more powerful microscope than it already has been. And, it increases sensitivity in Washington to the problem. In other words, Israeli colonization of East Jerusalem is not just a Palestinian or Arab problem now, it?s become an American problem as well, and that is a serious complication for any Israelis who want to preserve political relationships with the Obama administration. So I think all in all this has been exceptionally useful from a Palestinian perspective, for the following reasons:

1) the proximity talks are now structured in the way Palestinians have wanted, not on Israeli terms;

2) any easing of the siege on Gaza is a good thing morally and politically;

3) settlement activity, especially in East Jerusalem is going to be more politically difficult and costly for Israel after this.

Obviously, this is far short of a settlement freeze, and serious progress on peace is really going to require that. However, I don?t think anyone should fail to note the gains, albeit limited, the Palestinians have been able to extract from this US-Israel confrontation. The main thing now is to build on and not squander them.

The controversy and confrontation sparked by Israel’s announcement of 1,600 new settler housing units in occupied East Jerusalem during VP Biden’s trip to the region was probably inevitable. The Obama Administration and the Netanyahu Cabinet, especially its right wing including Interior Minister Yishai of Shas who made the decision and the announcement, have been on a collision course for many months. Their visions of long-term peace and short-term negotiation strategy are totally incompatible, and as I’ve noted in the past, we now find ourselves in a most unusual situation in which the American position is closer to the Palestinian perspective on both of these registers than to the Israeli view. The added complication is that because of domestic political considerations, the United States is still politically much closer and provides much more support to the side in the Middle East conflict it now disagrees with more. In other words, yet again, there is a fairly radical gap between policy and politics that is rendering the quest for a reasonable peace agreement, and even reasonable terms for the resumption of negotiations, dysfunctional.

For the Palestinians in this situation, obviously less is more. The controversy has had a life of its own, and the less Palestinians did and do to stoke the flames, at least in any obvious way, the more traction it will have for them. When other people (in this case the Israeli government) are doing your heavy lifting for you, sit back and let it happen. For the most part, Palestinians have done and said what they should have: very little. For those who are wondering why the Ibishblog has been silent on this controversy until now, consider the usefulness sometimes of saying little to nothing, and the silliness of a knee-jerk and adolescent impulse to always want to comment on everything right away, when sometimes judicious silence can be the most effective commentary of all. Netanyahu has managed to dig himself a remarkably deep hole, and it is imperative that Palestinians do not, as they have so many times in the past, pull him out of it through their own miscalculations. This can be done by incautious words as well as ill-considered deeds.

What has happened that is so useful for the Palestinians is that American and international perceptions, especially in Washington, have now been reoriented in an extremely healthy manner. In the last six months of 2009 and into the new year, Netanyahu skillfully managed to tack between the demands of his right-wing coalition partners (and probably his own ideological inclinations) on the one hand and the expectations of the Obama administration on the other hand. He gave enough, but just barely enough, such as his Bar Ilan speech tepidly endorsing a two state outcome and a largely fraudulent “settlement freeze,” to convince many in Washington, and especially in Congress, that he was actually making significant gestures and concessions. The Palestinians found themselves painted as “the ones who say no,” because of their reluctance to return to talks after the settlement freeze and Goldstone fiascoes, and without acceptable assurances and terms of reference and with no timetable.

For perfectly rational domestic political reasons given the series of body blows they endured in the last half of last year, for many months the Palestinian leadership maintained that they simply could not return to permanent status negotiations under the prevailing political conditions. For months they begged for something substantial or even symbolic, no matter how small, that they could present to their public as a rationalization for returning to talks, even though such a return was strongly in their national interest. Again, politics interferes with policy and national strategy. They didn’t get much. Nonetheless, they came under very heavy pressure not only from the United States, but also from the Europeans, to return to negotiations, and it became an imperative for many reasons, not least to shift the appearance of being “the ones who say no,” by finding a politically viable formula to reengage Israel in some manner. The idea of “proximity talks” became more appealing given that they would be attenuated by being indirect, and at the very least not involve any photo opportunities, and the Palestinians felt compelled to seek approval from the Arab League, which they received. This is a measure of the extreme discomfort of the PLO leadership with the situation they found themselves in, since proximity talks and asking Arab permission and cover for what should be strictly a Palestinian decision both hearken back to even-worse-old-days than the present unfortunate circumstances.

Just as the Palestinians have so frequently bailed out the Israelis through colossal blunders, just when things seemed darkest politically for the PLO, Netanyahu and his colleagues charged to the rescue by grossly insulting the Vice President and the United States and by creating the appearance of a wild-eyed determination to continue settlement activity at all costs. The perception that the main problem is the Palestinians saying “no” instantaneously evaporated, replaced by a new international perception that intransigence and extremism on the part of the present Israeli government is, in fact, the main obstacle to serious progress. The delicate balancing act Netanyahu had performed for so many months appeasing both settler-supporting right-wing Israelis and Obama-supporting American Democrats came crashing down in a most dramatic manner. This has been compounded by outrageous statements from Netanyahu’s brother-in-law calling Pres. Obama an “anti-Semite,” and from the journal of his coalition partners in Shas calling the President a “Muslim,” an “Islamic extremist,” and a “stone-throwing Palestinian.” The main Israeli pushback, which has been to focus on the youth wing of Fatah (not the PA as is frequently claimed) naming a square in Ramallah after Dalal Mughrabi gained no traction whatsoever, especially given the kind of people some Israeli streets and squares have been named after throughout the country. This does not, of course, mean that now everyone believes that the Palestinians have performed in an admirable manner or are blameless for the diplomatic stalemate. But it does mean that perceptions of the nature of the diplomatic and political problem have shifted very much in the direction of Israeli responsibility and greatly strengthened the Palestinian position and hand internationally.

Therefore, the most urgent requirement from a Palestinian point of view is not to do or say anything foolish or reckless to shift international attention back to problems emanating from Palestinian positions and to keep the focus on the extent to which the present Israeli government is pursuing policies that are incompatible with long-term peace and even serious progress in negotiations. It is strongly in their interests not to put up any serious resistance towards resumption of proximity talks, which they were already prepared to enter into under much less advantageous circumstances. They should continue to press as hard as possible for terms of reference and assurances that would make negotiations meaningful, but they should not throw up conditions that shift the blame back to them or cast them once again in the untenable position of “the ones who say no.”

It’s important to recognize also that the nature of this US-Israeli confrontation is a political crisis between governments but not a strategic crisis between states. The US-Israel relationship on core matters such as Israeli security is not affected by such political disputes, and it will not be. Therefore, it is extremely important for Palestinians and their allies in the United States to understand the difference between a political and a strategic crisis, and what opportunities actually are presented here and what are misleading fantasies. On the other hand, Israel’s supporters in the United States need to disabuse themselves immediately of the delusion or at least the pretense that this is fundamentally no big deal. It is indeed a crisis, and it pits the US government against a foreign government on an issue of core American national interests.

Many pro-Israel organizations in the United States have, in my estimation, overreached and miscalculated in their reaction to the controversy, most obviously the ADL’s extremely unwise attack on Gen. David Petraeus. But beyond that truly foolish mistake, many pro-Israel organizations essentially sought to shift the blame for the confrontation to Obama and Biden rather than Netanyahu and Yishai. This was never going to wash, since it is distinctly unbecoming for otherwise patriotic American organizations to side with a foreign government in a dispute involving the core national interests of the United States. What makes things more difficult is that most of the well-placed senior foreign policy Jewish Democrats in Congress strongly sided with Obama and Biden, for obvious reasons. First, their inclination is to agree with the United States in a fundamental argument with any foreign power, including Israel, but also significantly they feel strongly tied politically to the Obama administration, and recognize that their own standing in Washington would be adversely affected by a further weakening of the administration’s position. Therefore, the pro-Israel organizations that essentially sought to shift the blame to the United States not only managed to annoy mainstream American society, they were left without their most important allies on the Hill. It is unlikely that this will do lasting and permanent damage to their standing in the United States, but it is also unlikely that everyone will simply forget this incident and pretend it never happened. This has entailed a significant political cost to many of the pro-Israel organizations, although how much can only be calculated as events continue to play out.

The attack on Petraeus was prompted by his comments at a congressional hearing that questioned the effect Israel’s policies and the failure to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement are having on the US strategic position in the Middle East and the broader Islamic world. Several reports have suggested that in less public settings Petraeus, Adm. Mike Mullen and others have been even more forthright about an emerging understanding in the US military that Israel’s policies actually endanger American troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. This doesn’t make them anti-Israel, but it does mean that Israel’s behavior is now seen in a very different, and broader light, and is no longer regarded merely as a function of bilateral US-Israel relations. It also means that strategic interests are pushing back against domestic political forces in a novel and, again, very healthy manner.

This new understanding is probably an inevitable consequence of the reassessment in Washington of how international relations in the Middle East and Islamic world actually function. During the Bush era, strategic concerns in the Arab and Islamic world were generally seen as discrete problems to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, separate from each other. In other words, there was an Iraq problem, an Iran problem, an Afghanistan problem, a Syria problem, a Palestine problem, etc. When they were linked, it was in an unrealistic and ham-handed manner as in the one-size-fits-all “Greater Middle East Initiative” for regional democratization that was dead on arrival and discarded before it was ever implemented. In the Obama era, the consensus has shifted to viewing events in the Arab and Islamic world as interdependent and interlocked in a much more realistic manner. Because of this holistic reassessment of regional strategic relations, and a correct evaluation that Palestine and the Israeli occupation are at the center of the Middle Eastern political kaleidoscope, the Obama administration took up the issue of Middle East peace at a very early stage and has not abandoned the project in spite of tremendous setbacks and false starts. This same evaluation has logically lead senior elements in the US military to contextualize Israeli policies and the failure to achieve a peace agreement, or even momentum on peace, in terms of broader US strategic interests. Once the holistic approach is adopted, the idea that this actually costs American lives becomes rather obvious and unavoidable.

However, Palestinians need to take a very sober and cautious approach to dealing with the ongoing US-Israel confrontation over settlements. If they overplay their hand, they will fail to reap any political or diplomatic benefits from what is an extraordinary opportunity. Not only do they have to not overreact, and instead cast themselves as helpful and constructive in contrast to the defiance and obduracy of the Israeli cabinet, they have to understand what is genuinely useful to them and what is not. Palestinians DO benefit from a measure of tension between Israeli and American positions that allows the United States to be more evenhanded and to use its leverage and special relationship with Israel to push Israeli policies in the right direction. However, Palestinians WILL NOT benefit from a boiling over of US-Israeli tensions that produces a level of mistrust that, while not affecting the broader strategic special relationship, prevents any serious US political influence on Israeli policies, and, worse, that might induce an administration to actually walk away from the issue and abandon peace efforts. There is no point in hoping for an end to the US-Israel special relationship, since there is no way of achieving this in the foreseeable future, and no need to achieve it in order to realize an end to the occupation. Palestinians can and should look for opportunities to leverage the special relationship and use it to pursue a goal that is in not only the Palestinian and American national interests, but in Israel’s as well, even if the present Netanyahu government does not fully understand this. That’s an achievable aim, and the present US-Israel confrontation offers a rare and extraordinary opportunity to push the ball towards that goal line.