Dr. Stephen Cohen: Obama may set deadline

I sat down yesterday with Dr. Stephen P. Cohen, a longtime advisor to Israel Policy Forum who serves as President of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development. In the 1970's, Dr. Cohen was able to become one of the first to lecture in Egypt on the potential for peace with Israel and to serve as a behind-the-scenes confidant of Israel's Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and President Sadat in the launching of the peace process. Today, he maintains close relations with Israeli leaders from all parties, Labor and Likud, religious and secular, and with Arab heads of state, foreign ministers, and leading figures in almost every state in the Arab world.  Cohen is the author of the forthcoming book, Beyond America's Grasp: A Century of Failed Diplomacy in the Middle East.

How do you see the current stand-off between the United States and Israel with regard to West Bank settlement construction being resolved? 

The question that is most important is whether President Obama will decide that the credibility of his Cairo speech and of his clear words to Prime Minister Netanyahu in their face to face meeting - and in many other diplomatic meetings since then - will require Obama to give himself a deadline in his waiting for Prime Minister Netanyahu to carry out even a temporary settlement freeze.

The reason for such a self imposed deadline would be so that President Obama would not allow the highly positive impact of his Cairo speech on attitudes in the Muslim world and especially among the Arabs to erode into yet another instance of an American lofty diplomatic promise that will not be kept.

When, in your view, should that deadline be? And what would be the consequences if Israel did not meet that deadline?

First of all, such a deadline cannot be later than a couple of weeks before the UN General Assembly, so somewhere in the beginning of September at the latest. And, the deadline means that at that point Obama will have to drop the other shoe.  That shoe might be the US setting down its own view of the shape of a final agreement with much greater detail than the United States has ever allowed itself. It also might mean that at that point, the President would make a major address to the Israeli people and to the American Jewish community in which he would spell out their responsibility to take advantage of the opportunity of Arab readiness for peace to show the truth that Israel is a peace-loving nation and is seeking a genuine peace with real security and real peaceful relations among the societies.

So would you agree with Aluf Benn's op-ed in the New York Times calling for Obama to address the Israeli people?

The New York Times piece (by Benn) was about a speech to the Israeli people which makes them feel loved again. Making them feel loved again is appropriate as they show through their leader or through their public advocacy that Israeli and American strengths are united in seeking peace and removing the threat of any more violence either in the bilateral Israeli-Palestinian relationship or in the wider threat of nuclear proliferation.

Earlier this month, the Crown Prince Shaikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa of Bahrain published an op-ed in the Washington Post calling on Arab states to do more to advance the Arab Peace Initiative. President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt published an op-ed with a similar message in the Wall Street Journal in June.  What is the role of the Arab Peace Initiative in the current environment and how do you see it being advanced? 

The Arab Peace Initiative has been allowed to be a declaration that sits on the shelf. It must become the basis of active diplomacy by the Arabs to explain their peaceful intentions to Israeli audiences and to elaborate the initiative through discussion with American, European, and Israeli opinion-makers, scholars and retired military and political figures of importance.

This is the worst time to aggravate an already constipated peace process. There must be communication across the boundaries of loyalties.  It is very much understandable for the Arabs to resist normalization before peace, but political discussions about the major peace issues is not normalization, it is facilitation and preparation of peace negotiations and peace agreements.

The reconciliation discussions between Hamas and Fatah also appear to be at a stalemate. Most recently, Hamas has threatened to keep Fatah representatives in Gaza from travelling to the Fatah convention in Bethlehem scheduled for next week. How can this divide be overcome?

First of all, I think the Fatah convention can give new energy to the Fatah movement by bringing in new blood, leadership yet to be corrupted, and people who are ready for the next stage of Palestinian history after armed struggle.

Second, a successful Fatah convention which gives promise of better public opinion toward Fatah, going into the next election should help to convince Hamas that they are risking not only exclusion from a Fatah-led negotiation process with Israel, but also risking possibility of losing control of public opinion in Gaza, so that they would not be elected there again.

So will Hamas try to disrupt the conference?

Hamas will do many things to try to undermine the public effect of the Fatah convention.  But if it uses force, it risks bringing still further internecine war and still further Israeli military attacks on an already deeply wounded Gaza society.

There is every reason to believe that Hamas has still not accepted the recognition of Israel, but will Hamas be willing to bring upon itself responsibility for another major bloodletting?

Egypt, meanwhile, has been very persistent though very frustrated in its negotiations with Palestinian factions. In the last meeting of Khaled Meshal with Omer Suleiman, the head of Egyptian Intelligence, who leads their negotiations with Hamas, Meshal said that he now accepted the two-state solution based on the 1967 border, although he reiterated his rejection of Hamas' official recognition of Israel.

Turkey has announced it would return to a mediating role between Israel and Syria.  What should be the role of the United States in promoting such talks, and do you see any potential for progress?

At this point there is slim likelihood that the Israeli government will meet the basic condition of Syria-the return of the Golan Heights. And secondly, for Syria to be removed from the U.S. terrorist list, would require a major reversal of congressional attitudes. The Democratic-led Congress has been backing the president on his settlement demands of Israel, but will not want to further excite pro-Israel constituencies by clearing Syria's way to economic growth through American aid and Western investment until there is evidence of Syria's distancing itself from Hezbollah, Iran and radical Palestinians.

The juggernaut is that Syria would only consider such major foreign policy changes before withdrawal from the Golan, if the United States had in fact removed Syria from the terrorist list. This causal circle of obstacles is not likely to be cut in 2009 or 2010.

What do you make of American Jewish concerns about President Obama's policies vis-à-vis Israel thus far?

This intense diplomatic interaction between Israel and the United States has made many Jews uncomfortable with presidential policy under Obama, yet there is still no context for open and serious debate and discussion within the American Jewish community about what is the best direction for Israel with President Obama and what is the best role for the American Jewish community at this time where its deepest commitments are meeting at a crossroads.

Our communal structures have not matured enough to convene such discussion and debate about this most important set of issues on the world Jewish agenda.  This is our moment in history. American Jews have been a backbone of the Democratic Party and a backbone of world support for Israel. We must understand now how these two commitments come together.