Paul Brill: Why Obama Continues To Lash the Lifeless Body that Is the Peace Process

The peace process does not bring peace and is hardly a process. But as long as the U.S. sees itself as a power with global responsibilities, the White House simply does not have the luxury to let the Middle East solve its problems itself, says Paul Brill.

Once upon a time, “peace process” was a phrase we could utter with ease. Nowadays, we say it while sighing and groaning because the words are irreversibly connected with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which has become meaningless: Peace is nowhere to be found, and we can hardly call it a process anymore.

The previous government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not seriously interested [in the peace process]; it remains to be seen if his new team will put in more effort because that would be asking for internal disputes. The Palestinians are still heavily divided, and many keep believing in the illusion that the international community can impose a peace process from outside.

The Arab world has shown interest — without action — in the Palestinian cause, but most governments have something else on their minds. As for the U.S., the only power that is a factor of interest to both parties, there does not seem to be much excitement to put in effort for a new diplomatic initiative, which in itself has little chance of success and can easily lead to a damaged reputation.

A New Focus

Yet, Israel was U.S. President Barack Obama’s first foreign visit in his second term. And U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry traveled intensively to the Middle East before making his appearance in East Asia, which will be the new focus of U.S. foreign policy. These facts do not coincide with the stories about the generally decreasing U.S. interest in the Middle East and Israeli-Palestinian affairs in particular.

Those stories are definitely not made from thin air. After the setbacks the president encountered during his attempts to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, an old adage re-appeared in Washington last year: “The U.S. cannot want peace more than the parties themselves.”

It indicated that Obama had run into the same problems as his predecessors, including George W. Bush, who remained engaged in the peace debates during the last phase of his presidency, after former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had come into close contact after a series of direct conversations.

Shale Gas

Perhaps the biggest influence is the structural fact that the U.S. is becoming less and less dependent on energy supply for the Middle East, unlike Europe and China. Oil imports have declined by 20 percent in the past three years; the International Energy Agency predicts that the U.S. will become an energy exporter, especially because of shale gas production (in the event that this is not blocked as an environmental offense).

But does this mean that the U.S. cares less about the situation in the Middle East? I think this is only partially the case. The region may contribute less as an oil supplier over time, but it is the main supplier of instability and terrorism. As long as the U.S. sees itself as a power with a global responsibility — which is the case in Obama’s more measured vision of U.S. leadership — the White House simply does not have the luxury of letting the Middle East solve its problems for itself.

What this does show is that the U.S. views the region more strategically and tries to forge informal alliances with and between some crucial players, who share certain principles and are affiliated with the West from time to time.

A sort of “axis of stability”: This should bring to mind Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, the background to Obama’s personal efforts to clear the air between Ankara and Jerusalem, with a most recent success in convincing Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan not to visit Gaza in the foreseeable future.

But even in this strategic game, the Palestinian question remains a source of unrest that can obstruct a united front against a larger threat, like a nuclear Iran. Because of this alone, Obama and Kerry will continue to lash the lifeless body that is the peace process with the realization that room for a two-state solution — in both a factual and political sense — is decreasing.

This should be an alarming scenario for Israel because a decent alternative is absent. The Palestinians will not go away, and if the light of the two-state solution fades, only unsavory options remain, and only the militant settlers and Hamas will be celebrating then.