The Weaker Gives In First

First and foremost, Israel is the loser in what’s happening in the Middle East. The Israeli government needs to conclude a peace with the Palestinians before it’s too late.

The Middle East Quartet’s special envoy Tony Blair recently displayed a map on his website showing Israel’s future. The map was titled “Arab Spring” and the name Israel wasn’t included on it. The Middle East map showed only the names of Arab states.

It was a stupid omission, a bit of awkwardness that is already gone since the map was removed from the website. But Blair’s map unwittingly focused on a truism: the entire region is in transition while Israel, geographically caught on center stage, has no role in this play. It resembles a spectator on the sidelines, albeit not a neutral one. The uprisings in those fossilized North African countries have mainly resulted in a great deal of concern in Israel. While the rest of the world celebrated the downfall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Israel mourned the loss of an ally.

The alignment of stars that created the events of recent months seems to be of devilish perversity. The only real democracy in the Middle East, the only nation that truly shares our values, now fears the blossoming of democracy in the region. With all the openly hostile nations surrounding it, the current regimes at least guaranteed a sort of cold peace. Now that stability of terror has been shaken.

There’s only one solution for Israel: immediate peace. But that peace will come at a price, and the price will be higher than Israel has thus far been willing to pay.

People may disagree which side is to blame for the fact that countless peace negotiations and endless international diplomacy have not resulted in peace between Israel and the Palestinians. In realpolitik terms, however, the weaker always surrenders. Israel needs peace more urgently than its Arab neighbors do. Time is getting away from the tiny Mediterranean nation. The changes in the region bring risks, and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government is meanwhile maneuvering itself further and further toward diplomatic isolation. In Egypt, the anti-Israeli Muslim Brotherhood, thus far repressed by Mubarak, will now have a say in future events. The Egyptian military has long complained that the peace agreement with Israel should be scrapped. There’s no doubt that large segments of the Egyptian public don’t agree with Mubarak’s Israel-friendly policies and these people will be helping chart Egypt’s future political direction at the ballot box.

Israel’s “kiss my ass” attitude is not helpful

People in other Arab countries also think their respective governments should be doing more to support their Palestinian brethren. And where dictators can’t be toppled, they are usually able to redirect public anger toward Israel. Mubarak tried to do so – in vain – during the Tahrir Square uprisings.

Israel can’t even wish for the Syrian government, a government that supports the Shiite militia Hezbollah, to fall. President Bashar al-Assad also represents a certain amount of stability. At the same time, Israel must fear that Iran is gaining influence because of the uncertainties in the region.

It’s already very apparent how explosive a situation this can become for Israel. The violence between Israel and militant Palestinians in Gaza is escalating. Israel has threatened a new military offensive and the jihadists would welcome that because no matter the outcome, Israel will be the loser. The spiral of violence and counter violence can’t be ended militarily — as was proven by the 2009 war. What remains is a more broken, more desperate and more dangerous spot on the map. And in the West, Israel would find little understanding despite the fact that United Nations officer Richard Goldstone, much to Israel’s satisfaction, just retracted his charge that Palestinian civilians had been targeted in that war.

Netanyahu’s government has frittered away much of the international goodwill that Israel needs more than it needs bombs and rockets. Israel’s “kiss-my-ass” attitude on the issue of settlement construction has cost it much sympathy, even among supporters. President Obama was forced to give in to Israel’s inflexible stance and abandon his doctrine – stop settlement expansion, then negotiate – and his participation in the process has been on the back burner ever since.

The Israeli government is slipping increasingly onto the defensive with its policy of refusal. The United Nations General Assembly will, in all probability, recognize the newly created Palestinian state and accept it into the U.N. The Middle East Quartet, the U.S., the United Nations, Russia and the European Union are currently working on a peace plan. Even Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak sees the “political tsunami” that is rolling toward his nation.

It’s a known fact that peace is a possibility ever since the release of the “PaliLeaks” documents. The dispatches, made public by the al-Jazeera network, show that many of the sticking points have already been overcome. Anyone who has followed the process through the years can already sketch out how any agreement must and will look in the end: two states based on the 1967 borders with some negotiated adjustments; symbolic recognition of the plight of Palestinian refugees but only a very limited right of return; security guarantees with recognition of Israel’s right to exist; and Jerusalem as a shared capital city.

The devil is always in the details, but in this case it’s even more in the failure of both sides to make the first concession. Israel has to take a chance. Then the “Arab Spring” will have a chance to blossom into a beautiful summer as a democracy among other peaceful democracies. Israel should heed the words of its former friend Hosni Mubarak as he previously wrote in a piece for The New York Times: “A permanent peace between Israel and the Palestinians would bring the light of hope to the Middle East and to people everywhere.”

Pathos or realpolitik, the necessity remains the same: peace now.