Confrontation with a Friend

The border question has resulted in a public fight between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama that not even their meeting at the White House was able to resolve. But what happens if thousands of Palestinians suddenly rush to the Israeli border? A bloodbath could ignite the whole region. Obama must clarify his position for Netanyahu’s own good.

What a pleasure it is to celebrate Arab Spring. Instead of war and crises, suddenly it is all Facebook and freedom, peaceful demonstrations and democracy. But now summer is almost upon us and the dictator in Syria is shooting down his own people while civil war rages in Libya.

The change accompanied by so much hope hasn’t yet ended, but a shadow has begun to loom over it. For on the way to a new Middle East, an age-old problem for the region has reared its head: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It’s therefore high time that the most powerful man in the world address that problem. In his Middle East speech, Obama formulated both goals his administration hopes to achieve in the region: democracy in the Arab world and an armistice between Israel and the Palestinians. Success, however, is dependent upon whether he can achieve both goals simultaneously. Without widespread democracy, there will be no peace, and without peace, the Arab quest for democracy can’t succeed.

Obama conclusively outlined how the United States envisions the transformation process in the Arab nations. This is America’s strength. The keywords here are financial aid and debt relief, investment and trade. The path to democracy will be paved, as far as the strained financial conditions permit, with dollars. That’s the right approach because a civil society first and foremost needs jobs and future prospects in order to be stable. There are successful historical precedents: A similar aid program worked in Western Europe in 1945 and in Eastern Europe after 1989.

But money alone will be insufficient in the Middle East. A concrete expansion plan must be accompanied by a concrete peace plan — and here we see America’s weakness. In the nearly two and a half years of Obama’s presidency, he has not been able to get Israel and Palestine back to the negotiating table, despite his grandiose proclamations. He has failed principally because of the man he received in the White House a mere 24 hours after his Middle East speech — Benjamin Netanyahu. That’s how short the path can be between the heights of emotion and back into the depths of practical politics.

The Break with Obama

The U.S.-Israeli friendship, we hear over and over, is unbreakable. The relationship between the president and the prime minister, however, is full of fractures. That’s now apparent in their assessments of the Arab Spring. Where Obama has recognized that he cannot hold back the tide of change but must help to shape it, Netanyahu continues under the illusion that Israel can simply sit the whole thing out.

How dangerous this illusion is was shown repeatedly this past week. In Egypt, the people’s anger turned suddenly away from local grievances and reflexively toward its hated neighbor. The message of the rioters protesting in front of the Israeli embassy is unmistakable: The peace supported by toppled President Hosni Mubarak is in danger.

The second alarm bell comes from the Israeli-Syrian border that has been peaceful for 40 years; Israeli military forces were only able to break up a crowd of demonstrators surging toward the border recently by using deadly force that resulted in several fatalities. Pressured by domestic discontent, President Bashar al-Assad could redirect his people’s anger outward and use a war with Israel to provide relief for himself.

Those are threatening scenarios that should be enough to support the position taken by Obama, Merkel and others: The Arab Spring — regardless of whether it achieves its goals or not — makes an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord all the more urgent. But rather than finally work proactively with its allies, the government in Jerusalem awaits with supreme ignorance the next wave that may possibly head its way: a new Palestinian uprising.

The next intifada will certainly differ from those before it. It could conceivably begin in September when President Mahmoud Abbas puts Palestinian statehood before the U.N. General Assembly for a vote. That will have no real practical effect because only the Security Council can recommend consideration for statehood and final recognition can be granted only by the membership. But the propaganda effect of widespread sympathy from the General Assembly would be enormous help for the Palestinians.

Another Intifada?

For one thing, the Palestinians could embarrass Obama, who at the last General Assembly were promised membership for Palestine within a year. Now he would have to sabotage the vote if there is no negotiated settlement with Israel. That would result in further deterioration of his credibility among the Arabs.

At the same time, the Palestinians could show Israelis their growing isolation, because a large majority in favor of statehood is a certainty; numerous European nations would also support Palestinian statehood.

In addition to pressure from U.N. members from above, pressure would also come from below, from people on the streets of Ramallah, Nablus or Gaza. But what would happen if tens of thousands, inspired by the democratic uprisings in neighboring Arab states, decide to march, unarmed but resolutely, to Israel’s borders or toward Israeli settlements? The Israeli army would either be forced to capitulate before the Palestinian protest — something hardly imaginable — or it would have to forcibly stop it. But such a bloodbath could ignite the whole region.

There is far too much at stake in this game for Obama to allow a recalcitrant Netanyahu to make the rules. It’s time for a showdown between these friends — for Netanyahu’s own good. There is only one way to avoid the approaching escalation in the United Nations and on the Arab streets: a quick return to the negotiating table. After years of dangerous inaction, the time has come for the United States to take its positions and lay them out on the table.

Obama put down the initial stake with his demand that there be a return to the 1967 borders — much to Netanyahu’s dismay. He also has to lay out his position on other contested issues. If he refuses to do so out of regard for relations with Israel, he might as well save himself the trouble of trying to improve relations with the Arab world and begin preparing himself for a hot autumn in the Middle East.