A Path to Peace

A Brief History of Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations and a Way Forward in the Middle East

George J. Mitchell, Alon Sachar

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781501153921
• eBook ISBN: 9781501153938
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Diplomacy & Treaties
• Index: History

The "illuminating" ( Los Angeles Times ) answer to why Israel and Palestine's attempts at negotiation have failed and a practical, "admirably measured" ( The New York Times ) roadmap for bringing peace to the Middle East—by an impartial American diplomat experienced in solving international conflicts. George Mitchell knows how to bring peace to troubled regions. He was the primary architect of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement for peace in Northern Ireland. But when he served as US Special Envoy for Middle East Peace from 2009 to 2011—working to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—diplomacy did not prevail. Now, for the first time, Mitchell offers his insider account of how the Israelis and the Palestinians have progressed (and regressed) in their negotiations through the years and outlines the specific concessions each side must make to finally achieve lasting peace.

1

LEADERS IN DISAGREEMENT

The exchange between Begin and Reagan—the “saddest” of the Israeli prime minister’s life—took place in 1982. Reagan’s timing was not random. Israel had just withdrawn the last of its troops from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in accordance with the peace treaty between the two nations. Two months after the withdrawal the Israeli Army invaded Lebanon in an effort to push out Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization. From there the Palestinians had launched attacks on Israel’s northern cities and towns. Israel’s military operation in Lebanon lasted for months, ending only with U.S. mediation and when the PLO agreed to leave Lebanese territory.

With Israel out of the Sinai, the violence in Lebanon reduced, a pro-Western government set to be inaugurated in Beirut, and the PLO on the run, President Reagan decided to adopt a “fresh start” initiative. He hoped to capitalize on what suddenly appeared to be a favorable regional environment. The core of the initiative was a comprehensive diplomatic solution to Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors, to be achieved in part by providing autonomy for Palestinians in parts of the West Bank.¹

But Begin immediately and categorically rejected the Reagan Plan. Relinquishing control of any of the West Bank was antithetical to his ideological commitment to Israeli control of biblical Jewish lands, and he had just paid a heavy price to push the PLO away from Israel’s northern borders. Palestinian autonomy, Begin worried, would bring them right back.

• • •

U.S. and Israeli policy disagreements have existed since the relationship first began. President Harry Truman (1945–53) is often celebrated for initiating our close and strategic partnership with Israel. But that good relationship was not a foregone conclusion in the decades following Israel’s independence.

From the outset of his administration, President Truman concerned himself with the plight of Jewish refugees, the survivors of Hitler’s Final Solution who remained stranded in dilapidated displaced persons camps in Europe. Israelis have never forgotten that he was the first world leader to recognize their fledgling state, just eleven minutes after their 1948 declaration of independence. “At our last meeting,” recalled David Ben-Gurion, a founding father of Israel and its first prime minister, “I told [Truman] that as a foreigner I could not judge what would be his place in American history; but his helpfulness to us, his constant sympathy with our aims in Israel, his courageous decision to recognize our new State so quickly and his steadfast support since then had given him an immortal place in Jewish history. As I said that, tears suddenly sprang to his eyes. And his eyes were still wet when he bade me goodbye.”²

The early years of the U.S. relationship with Israel took place within the context of the cold war. With Soviet influence entrenched in eastern and central Europe, Asia, and beyond, the United States believed it urgent to prevent the Soviets from gaining a foothold in the Middle East. Even with his sympathies, Truman’s decision to recognize Israel was not easy or automatic; because he feared that either Israel or the Arab states would be pushed into the arms of the Soviets his initial inclination was for a binational arrangement in which Jews and Arabs would coexist. Therefore his decision to recognize Israel surprised even some of the most senior officials in his administration.³

One day after Israel’s declaration of independence, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia⁴ began military action against the new state. This first of several Arab-Israeli wars lasted ten months; Israel was ultimately victorious, and without U.S. military assistance as Truman had imposed an arms embargo on both sides. The policy of pursuing balance in America’s relationship with the Arab states and Israel continued for decades.

In 1956 President Dwight Eisenhower did what today is unimaginable: he threatened to break off ties with Israel altogether. This crisis in relations followed a combined surprise attack by France, Britain, and Israel to gain control of the Suez Canal, which had just been seized and nationalized by Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Because the Canal provided the shortest route for ships traveling between Europe and Asia, its geopolitical significance at the time, and even today, cannot be overstated.

France and Britain had their own reasons for initiating the war, not least of which was to protect their influence and interests in the region. The British government was the largest shareholder in the Suez Canal and British and French shippers among its largest patrons. Israel believed Nasser’s populism and celebrity status posed a threat to its existence. Nasser had become the charismatic face of pan-Arab nationalism, positioning himself as the leader who would unite the Arab world and destroy Israel. To that end, Egypt had for years supported a steady stream of Palestinian guerrilla attacks into Israel, and enforced a blockade against Israel’s southern port city on the Red Sea. Following Egypt’s nationalization of the Canal, Nasser banned its use by Israel.

Eisenhower worried that armed conflict would enhance Soviet influence in the Middle East. Though wary of Nasser and his arms deals with the Soviet Union, Eisenhower disfavored war and preferred a diplomatic solution to the Suez crisis. He immediately and unambiguously cautioned the British and the French against armed conflict. When they did not heed his warning and proceeded to involve Israel in their plans, Eisenhower was shocked and angered. With the Soviet Union threatening to engage militarily in support of Nasser, Eisenhower scrambled to end the war in a way that preserved regional balance. But by then Israeli forces had taken full control of Sinai.

Over strong objections from the Israelis, Eisenhower pushed through a United Nations resolution calling for their full and immediate withdrawal. He warned Israel that failing to comply with the resolution would “impair the friendly cooperation between our two countries.”⁵ Eisenhower went so far as to threaten to cut off U.S. assistance to Israel, to seek Israel’s eviction from the UN, and to withhold U.S. support in the event of an attack by Soviet-allied forces. Ben-Gurion desperately sought a meeting with the president to explain his position, that Israel was reluctant to simply withdraw its forces without clear assurances of its security and its continuing right to navigate the Canal and other international waters. But Eisenhower refused to meet until after Israel agreed to withdraw. Ben-Gurion complied, but bitterly.⁶

The Suez crisis was the lowest moment in U.S. relations with Israel. Efforts to prevent the Middle East from becoming yet another cold war arena had failed, for the Soviet Union made inroads. Cairo, Baghdad, and other Arab capitals drew closer to Moscow.

• • •

In the land of King David, Israel believed that resisting Arab Goliaths would require a giant ally of its own. And America came to view Israelis as partners in curbing and offsetting Soviet influence. Under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations Israel received its first large-scale shipments of sophisticated American weapons systems, including antiaircraft missiles, tanks, and jet fighter planes. The sales were intended to help Israel maintain its defenses against the larger and better armed Arab states still bent on its destruction and also to counterbalance Soviet arms pouring into the region. In return Israel provided the United States with intelligence information about Soviet weapons systems and the USSR’s posture in the Middle East.

President John F. Kennedy told Israel’s foreign minister Golda Meir, “The United States has a special relationship with Israel in the Middle East really comparable only to what it has with Britain over a wide range of world affairs.” He was the first president to speak of this “special relationship” by name. But he also said, “For us to play properly the role we are called upon to play, we cannot afford the luxury of identifying Israel . . . as our exclusive friends . . . and letting other countries go.”⁷ To preserve its influence in the region, the United States also supplied certain Arab states, such as Jordan, with arms.⁸

Tension developed when the United States feared Israeli actions might destabilize the balance in the region, as when Kennedy and Ben-Gurion clashed over Israel’s nuclear program. Kennedy worried about a broader nuclear arms race; Ben-Gurion viewed the arms race as inevitable absent U.S.-Soviet détente and was determined to own the ultimate weapon of deterrence before his neighbors could. Frustrated, Kennedy warned Israel in a bluntly worded letter that U.S. support “would be seriously jeopardized” and that Israel risked isolation from the West if it pursued nuclear weapons. The disagreement ultimately played a role in Ben-Gurion’s resignation as prime minister.⁹ By the time President Lyndon Johnson assumed power, Israel had agreed to allow American inspectors to examine its nuclear capability.¹⁰

As have many other U.S. presidents, Johnson had deep and emotional ties to the Jewish state. He spoke of his admiration for Israel’s commitment to democratic values and of the “gallant struggle of modern Jews to be free of persecution.” When asked by Soviet premier Aleksei Kosygin why the United States supported Israel, a country of only 3 million people, when there were 80 million Arabs, Johnson replied, “Because it is right.”¹¹

Johnson was the first U.S. president to host an Israeli prime minister at the White House and the first to directly supply Israel with offensive military weapons. Like his predecessors, Johnson was in part reacting to Soviet moves in the Middle East. He worried that an imbalance in power between the Israelis and the Arabs would invite an Arab attack and instigate a regional war that would threaten U.S. interests. But close ties between Johnson and Israel did not mean the absence of disagreement.

In 1966 the West Bank was under the control of Jordan. Although they tried, Jordanian forces could not prevent Palestinian guerrilla groups from launching attacks against Israel. One land mine killed three Israeli soldiers and provoked a heavy Israeli cross-border response with tanks and hundreds of troops. It was meant as a show of strength and a warning to Palestinian militants against continued attacks. However, Johnson was deeply troubled by Israel’s action and was critical in public; he worried that the move undercut King Hussein of Jordan, America’s closest Arab ally at the time, so he joined the Soviet Union in support of a UN Security Council resolution that deplored the move and warned of further Security Council action were it to be repeated.

Even during the escalation that led to the Six-Day War in 1967 Johnson warned Israel against making any rash moves. In the preceding years Nasser had continued calling for a united Arab war against Israel, organizing a coalition of states under his direct or indirect control. He gave speeches to crowds of tens of thousands extolling the virtue of ridding the Middle East of the Jewish state and reinstated a blockade against Israel in the Straits of Tiran.¹² When he ordered a massive buildup of Egyptian forces in the Sinai Peninsula, Israel launched a preemptive and decisive strike against Egypt. At Nasser’s request, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon joined the conflict, with broad support across the Middle East, initiating a multifront war from the south, north, and east.

The all-out, regional war that Johnson feared had become a reality, but his concern that the United States would be drawn in turned out to be unfounded. By the war’s end Israel had captured the entire Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria. Unlike Eisenhower, Johnson would not force the Israelis to withdraw without security guarantees. His administration viewed Israel’s greatly strengthened position as leverage for a peace treaty with the Arabs.

But instead of peace the decade following the Six-Day War saw even greater escalation of hostilities. The Arabs issued their infamous Three No’s—“No peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel”—and Israel would not agree to retreat from its more fortified positions.

President Richard Nixon assured his counterpart, Prime Minister Golda Meir, of his desire to see “a strong Israel because he did not want the United States to have to fight Israel’s battles.”¹³ He felt that the Arabs, and Nasser specifically, would not make peace with Israel until they realized they could not destroy it. So as long as he was president, he promised, “Israel would never be weak militarily.”¹⁴ The country had to have “a technological military margin to more than offset her hostile neighbors’ numerical superiority.”¹⁵

Yet, at least initially, the Nixon administration blocked arms supplies, to Israel’s frustration. Nixon’s hope was to slow down the arms race, even as the Soviet Union was undertaking a massive rearmament of Egypt, even sending in military personnel. In the years following the Six-Day War, Nasser had engaged in a war of attrition against Israel; a constant barrage of attacks on Israeli positions in the Sinai met with fierce Israeli retaliation.

Nasser died of a heart attack in 1970. By then the Nixon administration had secured a cease-fire between Egypt and Israel, though both remained on edge. Anwar Sadat, Nasser’s successor, began to loosen ties with the Soviets to see what he could get out of the United States in return. He also was more receptive to U.S. overtures for peace. When the Nixon administration saw an opening and pursued a diplomatic initiative, Meir equivocated. She feared that a full withdrawal from the Sinai, one of Sadat’s conditions, would leave Israel far too vulnerable. “I understand the difficulties Israel faces in exchanging something concrete—territories—for promises and guarantees,” Nixon told the Israelis in March 1973. “But you should remember that your pipeline of military supplies is liable to dry up. Under no circumstances will that happen as long as I am president of the United States. But I won’t serve forever.”¹⁶

In September 1973, on the Jewish High Holiday of Yom Kippur, Egypt and Syria launched a surprise coordinated attack on Israel. During the first weeks of that war Nixon withheld arms from Israel in the hope that a military stalemate would lead to a peace agreement. But as the Egyptians were gaining the upper hand in Sinai and the Soviets were not reciprocating his restraint, Nixon acknowledged that an Israeli defeat was intolerable. According to his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, “The judgment was that if another American-armed country were defeated by Soviet-armed countries, the inevitable lesson that anybody around the world would have to draw is to rely increasingly on the Soviet Union.”¹⁷

Nixon initiated a large-scale operation to arm the Israelis despite concerns over a possible Soviet response. “We are going to get blamed just as much for three planes as for three hundred,” he told Kissinger.¹⁸ So he ordered the military to “use every [plane] we have—everything that will fly.” The United States flew 567 airlift missions, delivering over 22,000 tons of supplies, with another 90,000 tons of arms delivered to...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Leaders in Disagreement
• Chapter 2: Early Conflict
• Chapter 3: Moving in Opposite Directions
• Chapter 4: From Madrid to Camp David
• Chapter 5: Annapolis
• Chapter 6: Contested Territory
• Chapter 7: Overcoming the Trust Deficit
• Chapter 8: Much Process, No Progress
• Chapter 9: Isratine
• Chapter 10: A Path to Peace
• About George J. Mitchell and Alon Sachar
• Notes
• Index
• Copyright