An Israeli Prime Minister Comes to Washington Again

By George Friedman~ Honorary Political Season Contributor

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting Washington for his first official visit with U.S. President Barack Obama. A range of issues — including the future of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Israeli-Syrian talks and Iran policy — are on the table. This is one of an endless series of meetings between U.S. presidents and Israeli prime ministers over the years, many of which concerned these same issues. Yet little has changed.

That Israel has a new prime minister and the United States a new president might appear to make this meeting significant. But this is Netanyahu’s second time as prime minister, and his government is as diverse and fractious as most recent Israeli governments. Israeli politics are in gridlock, with deep divisions along multiple fault lines and an electoral system designed to magnify disagreements.

Obama is much stronger politically, but he has consistently acted with caution, particularly in the foreign policy arena. Much of his foreign policy follows from the Bush administration. He has made no major breaks in foreign policy beyond rhetoric; his policies on Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and Europe are essentially extensions of pre-existing policy. Obama faces major economic problems in the United States and clearly is not looking for major changes in foreign policy. He understands how quickly public sentiment can change, and he does not plan to take risks he does not have to take right now.

This, then, is the problem: Netanyahu is coming to Washington hoping to get Obama to agree to fundamental redefinitions of the regional dynamic. For example, he wants Obama to re-examine the commitment to a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. (Netanyahu’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has said Israel is no longer bound by prior commitments to that concept.) Netanyahu also wants the United States to commit itself to a finite time frame for talks with Iran, after which unspecified but ominous-sounding actions are to be taken.

Facing a major test in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Obama has more than enough to deal with at the moment. Moreover, U.S. presidents who get involved in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations frequently get sucked into a morass from which they do not return. For Netanyahu to even request that the White House devote attention to the Israeli-Palestinian problem at present is asking a lot. Asking for a complete review of the peace process is even less realistic.

Obstacles to the Two-State Solution

The foundation of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for years has been the assumption that there would be a two-state solution. Such a solution has not materialized for a host of reasons. First, at present there are two Palestinian entities, Gaza and the West Bank, which are hostile to each other. Second, the geography and economy of any Palestinian state would be so reliant on Israel that independence would be meaningless; geography simply makes the two-state proposal almost impossible to implement. Third, no Palestinian government would have the power to guarantee that rogue elements would not launch rockets at Israel, potentially striking at the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem corridor, Israel’s heartland. And fourth, neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis have the domestic political coherence to allow any negotiator to operate from a position of confidence. Whatever the two sides negotiated would be revised and destroyed by their political opponents, and even their friends.

For this reason, the entire peace process — including the two-state solution — is a chimera. Neither side can live with what the other can offer. But if it is a fiction, it is a fiction that serves U.S. purposes. The United States has interests that go well beyond Israeli interests and sometimes go in a different direction altogether. Like Israel, the United States understands that one of the major obstacles to any serious evolution toward a two-state solution is Arab hostility to such an outcome.

The Jordanians have feared and loathed Fatah in the West Bank ever since the Black September uprisings of 1970. The ruling Hashemites are ethnically different from the Palestinians (who constitute an overwhelming majority of the Jordanian population), and they fear that a Palestinian state under Fatah would threaten the Jordanian monarchy. For their part, the Egyptians see Hamas as a descendent of the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks the Mubarak government’s ouster — meaning Cairo would hate to see a Hamas-led state. Meanwhile, the Saudis and the other Arab states do not wish to see a radical altering of the status quo, which would likely come about with the rise of a Palestinian polity.

At the same time, whatever the basic strategic interests of the Arab regimes, all pay lip service to the principle of Palestinian statehood. This is hardly a unique situation. States frequently claim to favor various things they actually are either indifferent to or have no intention of doing anything about. Complicating matters for the Arab states is the fact that they have substantial populations that do care about the fate of the Palestinians. These states thus are caught between public passion on behalf of Palestinians and the regimes’ interests that are threatened by the Palestinian cause. The states’ challenge, accordingly, is to appear to be doing something on behalf of the Palestinians while in fact doing nothing.

The United States has a vested interest in the preservation of these states. The futures of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states are of vital importance to Washington. The United States must therefore simultaneously publicly demonstrate its sensitivity to pressures from these nations over the Palestinian question while being careful to achieve nothing — an easy enough goal to achieve.

The various Israeli-Palestinian peace processes have thus served U.S. and Arab interests quite well. They provide the illusion of activity, with high-level visits breathlessly reported in the media, succeeded by talks and concessions — all followed by stalemate and new rounds of violence, thus beginning the cycle all over again.

The Palestinian Peace Process as Political Theater

One of the most important proposals Netanyahu is bringing to Obama calls for reshaping the peace process. If Israeli President Shimon Peres is to be believed, Netanyahu will not back away from the two-state formula. Instead, the Israeli prime minister is asking that the various Arab state stakeholders become directly involved in the negotiations. In other words, Netanyahu is proposing that Arab states with very different public and private positions on Palestinian statehood be asked to participate — thereby forcing them to reveal publicly their true positions, ultimately creating internal political crises in the Arab states.

The clever thing about this position is that Netanyahu not only knows his request will not become a reality, but he also does not want it to become a reality. The political stability of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt is as much an Israeli interest as an American one. Indeed, Israel even wants a stable Syria, since whatever would come after the Alawite regime in Damascus would be much more dangerous to Israeli security than the current Syrian regime.

Overall, Israel is a conservative power. In terms of nation-states, it does not want upheaval; it is quite content with the current regimes in the Arab world. But Netanyahu would love to see an international conference with the Arab states roundly condemning Israel publicly. This would shore up the justification for Netanyahu’s policies domestically while simultaneously creating a framework for reshaping world opinion by showing an Israel isolated among hostile states.

Obama is likely hearing through diplomatic channels from the Arab countries that they do not want to participate directly in the Palestinian peace process. And the United States really does not want them there, either. The peace process normally ends in a train wreck anyway, and Obama is in no hurry to see the wreckage. He will want to insulate other allies from the fallout, putting off the denouement of the peace process as long as possible. Obama has sent George Mitchell as his Middle East special envoy to deal with the issue, and from the U.S. president’s point of view, that is quite enough attention to the problem.

Netanyahu, of course, knows all this. Part of his mission is simply convincing his ruling coalition — and particularly Lieberman, whom Netanyahu needs to survive, and who is by far Israel’s most aggressive foreign minister ever — that he is committed to redefining the entire Israeli-Palestinian relationship. But in a broader context, Netanyahu is looking for greater freedom of action. By posing a demand the United States will not grant, Israel is positioning itself to ask for something that appears smaller.

Israel and the Appearance of Freedom of Action

What Israel actually would do with greater freedom of action is far less important than simply creating the appearance that the United States has endorsed Israel’s ability to act in a new and unpredictable manner. From Israel’s point of view, the problem with Israeli-Palestinian relations is that Israel is under severe constraints from the United States, and the Palestinians know it. This means that the Palestinians can even anticipate the application of force by Israel, meaning they can prepare for it and endure it. From Netanyahu’s point of view, Israel’s primary problem is that the Palestinians are confident they know what the Israelis will do. If Netanyahu can get Obama to introduce a degree of ambiguity into the situation, Israel could regain the advantage of uncertainty.

The problem for Netanyahu is that Washington is not interested in having anything unpredictable happen in Israeli-Palestinian relations. The United States is quite content with the current situation, particularly while Iraq becomes more stable and the Afghan situation remains unstable. Obama does not want a crisis from the Mediterranean to the Hindu Kush. The fact that Netanyahu has a political coalition to satisfy will not interest the United States, and while Washington at some unspecified point might endorse a peace conference, it will not be until Israel and its foreign minister endorse the two-state formula.

Netanyahu will then shift to another area where freedom of action is relevant — namely, Iran. The Israelis have leaked to the Israeli media that the Obama administration has told them that Israel may not attack Iran without U.S. permission, and that Israel agreed to this requirement. (U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went through the same routine not too long ago, using a good cop/bad cop act in a bid to kick-start negotiations with Iran.)

In reality, Israel would have a great deal of difficulty attacking Iranian facilities with non-nuclear forces. A multitarget campaign 1,000 miles away against an enemy with some air defenses could be a long and complex operation. Such a raid would require a long trip through U.S.-controlled airspace for the fairly small Israeli air force. Israel could use cruise missiles, but the tonnage of high explosive delivered by a cruise missile cannot penetrate even moderately hardened structures; the same is true for ICBMs carrying conventional warheads. Israel would have to notify the United States of its intentions because it would be passing through Iraqi airspace — and because U.S. technical intelligence would know what it was up to before Israeli aircraft even took off. The idea that Israel might consider attacking Iran without informing Washington is therefore absurd on the surface. Even so, the story has surfaced yet again in an Israeli newspaper in a virtual carbon copy of stories published more than a year ago.

Netanyahu has promised that the endless stalemate with the Palestinians will not be allowed to continue. He also knows that whatever happens, Israel cannot threaten the stability of Arab states that are by and large uninterested in the Palestinians. He also understands that in the long run, Israel’s freedom of action is defined by the United States, not by Israel. His electoral platform and his strategic realities have never aligned. Arguably, it might be in the Israeli interest that the status quo be disrupted, but it is not in the American interest. Netanyahu therefore will get to redefine neither the Palestinian situation nor the Iranian situation. Israel simply lacks the power to impose the reality it wants, the current constellation of Arab regimes it needs, and the strategic relationship with the United States on which Israeli national security rests.

In the end, this is a classic study in the limits of power. Israel can have its freedom of action anytime it is willing to pay the price for it. But Israel can’t pay the price. Netanyahu is coming to Washington to see if he can get what he wants without paying the price, and we suspect strongly he knows he won’t get it. His problem is the same as that of the Arab states. There are many in Israel, particularly among Netanyahu’s supporters, who believe Israel is a great power. It isn’t. It is a nation that is strong partly because it lives in a pretty weak neighborhood, and partly because it has very strong friends. Many Israelis don’t want to be told that, and Netanyahu came to office playing on the sense of Israeli national power.

So the peace process will continue, no one will expect anything from it, the Palestinians will remain isolated and wars regularly will break out. The only advantage of this situation from the U.S. point of view it is that it is preferable to all other available realities.

China: The 2008 Olympics as a Major Activist Inroad

Today, this blog is participating in In Solidarity: Global Day for Darfur called by Modern Musings and supported by Black and Missing But Not Forgotten, BlackPerspective.net, Black Women Vote, CEO Mum, Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth, Eddie G. Griffin, Electronic Village, Musings of the Night, My African Diaspora, Regina's Family Seasons, Slant Truth, Take Political Action, The Jose Vilson, Trav’s Thoughts, UltraViolet Underground, Vanessa Unplugged, What About Our Daughters and others.

Analysis courtesy of Strategic Forecasting. Also, be sure to watch the Featured Video on Darfur.
Fidelity Investments has sold off more than 90 percent of its holdings in Chinese state-owned oil giant PetroChina, Fidelity announced in May 16, 2007. Although the company declined to explain the sale, it almost certainly is related to pressure from human rights and religious activists.

Activists argue that, as the primary oil field operator in Sudan, PetroChina is propping up the Khartoum regime responsible for the genocide in Darfur, so putting pressure on PetroChina is viewed as a way to pressure the Sudanese government indirectly. Fidelity's move marks an important strategic turning point in the battle between human rights groups and China over the Darfur region, and sets the stage for a far more powerful strategic thrust that will emerge during the summer -- one in which Darfur activists move from a financial divestment campaign to one focused on the 2008 Olympic Games.

Activists have long sought effective pressure points on China, and the Olympics look to be the answer. More specifically, activists are eyeing the list of Western corporate sponsors that are investing tens of millions of dollars in the Olympics and in companion marketing campaigns designed to run before and during the Olympics.

Olympic sponsorship in 2008 means more than in most past years. For Beijing, giants such as Kodak, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and General Electric are not simply the means to put on a good show; they are integral to its efforts to radically change international perceptions of China and establish its new place in the world. Beijing can control most of the variables that come its way -- the protesters, media investigations into corruption and other potential public relations problems that usually come with hosting the Olympics. And, with the sites chosen and no backup available, it can largely ignore the International Olympic Committee. What Beijing cannot control, however, are the decisions of the games' sponsors and the pressures placed upon these companies in the West.

Through the Olympic sponsors, activists have determined that the year leading up to the Olympics offers a unique opportunity to use market mechanisms to change Beijing's policies. The first Western movement to begin to capitalize on this vulnerability is the Save Darfur Coalition, which turned Sudan into a pariah state with which no Western company will do business only to have its efforts undermined by Chinese state-owned enterprises. Many other issues could have taken this mantle, but it appears that Darfur-focused activists have taken the lead on exploiting Olympics-related vulnerabilities -- and will manage the most effective Western campaign to change China's policies.

The coming year will determine whether activists can actually make Beijing blink. Moreover, it will determine how groups active on issues other than Darfur deal with the likelihood that the more focused Darfur coalition will overshadow their use of this golden opportunity.

Olympic Sponsorship

The decision to become an Olympic sponsor is a strategic one for companies. The price of sponsorship is steep -- estimated at roughly $55 million -- but that pales in comparison to the broader investment these companies make. The largest and most familiar sponsors have attached their most valuable asset, their brands, to the games, and have built long-term marketing plans in which the Olympics play an integral part.

With so much invested, Olympic sponsorship has always brought tension. The 2004 Athens games, which were twice threatened with a move to an alternate city due to poor organization, created stress among investors. Sponsors now have established offices in future Olympic cities, where they work as closely as possible with municipal authorities to ensure that the logistics and setup are on track.

In the years since 2001, when the 2008 games were awarded to Beijing, the games have carried an added political dimension for sponsors. Beijing recruited sponsors not just as sources of money, but as partners, and for large multinational corporations trying to learn how to operate in China the opportunity to work with Beijing was tempting. Those who signed on as sponsors see the success of these games not only as an opportunity to build their market share in the West, but also as a way to increase their presence in China. Beijing also subtly offered improved market access and other preferential treatment to companies that threw in behind the 2008 games.

Beijing, in order to assert itself on the international stage, has spent billions of dollars preparing for the games. It brought in the best stadium architects to build venues and hired Stephen Spielberg to choreograph the opening and closing ceremonies. In addition, the Chinese have razed entire neighborhoods to ease transportation and shuttered industries to clean Beijing's air. If it can be bought, Beijing is buying.

The support and presence of high-profile Western companies provided one thing that Beijing could not buy: legitimacy. The thinking is that the participation of major corporate icons will give a degree of continuity with previous Olympics, and that by extension China will be seen as a modern country rather than a developing one or, more negatively, as the killer of Tiananmen Square, the violator of human rights and the repressor of basic freedoms.

Activists who succeed in portraying corporate sponsors of Beijing's Olympics as supporters of China's behavior would undermine not only the companies' marketing efforts, but also Beijing's plan to use the games as a coming-out party

Darfur

The human rights controversy surrounding the civil war in Darfur has been growing since 1998. Khartoum's operations in Darfur mostly target Christians, and the issue surfaced from the concerns of evangelical Christian organizations active in Africa. By 1999, Darfur had emerged as a mainstream human rights concern, and organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch joined religious groups in calling for the United States and other Western governments to impose sanctions on the regime in Sudan.

Sudan essentially was a pariah state by the late 1990s, so it was obvious even at the beginning of the movement that diplomatic pressure on Sudan would be of limited value. Instead, recognizing the country's dependence on its southern oil production -- and on the companies that turn the resource into revenues for the regime -- activists focused on the corporations. With the flight of most Western companies in the first half of this decade, Khartoum, rather than lose its oil revenue, turned to China. Thus, through PetroChina the Asian giant has managed Sudan's oil operations and kept the money flowing into Khartoum.

Beyond the funding aspect, however, PetroChina's entry into Sudan has stood as a major symbol for Western human rights activists, who have come to view state-owned oil and resources companies as the most significant barrier to their ability to use market campaign pressure to change policies in developing countries.

In response to the globalization of corporations' operations and the rise of the World Trade Organization, human rights groups have come to rely increasingly on codes of conduct and other marketplace initiatives, such as the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, to hold corporations accountable for their activities in developing countries. Western companies in particular are sensitive to allegations that they are complicit in human rights violations. State-owned enterprises abroad, on the other hand, are insulated from these pressures, and have begun to thrive in those places that Western companies dare not operate.

In human rights discussions, this is termed the "parastatal problem." It is the chief unsolvable barrier to successful efforts by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to use corporations as instruments of change in developing countries.

'Genocide Olympics'

Bumping up against the parastatal problem, the Save Darfur Coalition has begun to build toward using Olympic sponsors as leverage against Beijing. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed article published in late March, actor and activist Mia Farrow and her husband called for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics. The threat will fall on deaf ears, as the vogue of boycotting Olympics -- started by U.S. President Jimmy Carter in 1980 and re-tried in 1984 by the Soviets -- had no diplomatic effect and only made the boycotters' citizens angry.

The Farrow op-ed, however, contained a more serious threat: As long as China's state-owned enterprises remain in Sudan, the coalition aims to attack Olympic sponsors directly and rebrand the 2008 games as the "Genocide Olympics" (a term first used by Amnesty International to describe China's internal human rights record and the human rights implications of its foreign policy). More sensationally, the coalition threatened to name Stephen Spielberg the "Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing games," a reference to the German filmmaker whose documentary of the 1936 Berlin games glorified the Nazi regime in the broader context of the Olympics. Spielberg now publicly calls for China to change its policy toward Sudan.

The threat to boycott is idle talk, but the threat to change the perception of the games is not. The Save Darfur Coalition includes many of the most talented corporate campaign groups in the world, and the realistic opportunity to change the situation in Darfur is attractive to Western activists of almost all stripes. In addition, the public has a high level of awareness of Darfur as a controversial issue, and most U.S. consumers recognize that China has a controversial human rights record. Sponsors are likely to be sensitive to allegations that they are supporting a "Genocide Olympics" and will take their complaints to Beijing. Given these factors, then, the campaign has an excellent chance of attaining at least some degree of success.

That said, defining "success" is a difficult task. China cannot simply stop the genocide in Darfur with a wave, and it must make a move that simultaneously satisfies its critics, has a chance of changing what is happening on the ground in Darfur and results in China's continued presence in Sudan. (Sudan supplies more than 5 percent of China's oil.) One problem is that China remains one of the last countries with any leverage against Sudan, so it is valuable to activists and governments alike as a point of communication with Khartoum. If pushed too hard, Khartoum could simply open to another state-owned company immune to Western public condemnation, kicking China out. Ultimately, China has few options. It could agree to try to convince Sudan to allow more U.N. and Africa Union peacekeepers into Darfur, but that would end the campaign only if the Save Darfur Coalition agreed that such a deal was sufficient.

In focusing the "Genocide Olympics" campaign squarely on Darfur, however, human rights groups are using a one-time opportunity to achieve a relatively modest goal -- and are passing up a unique moment to effect major change in China.

Falun Gong is another group that appears to recognize the unique opportunity the Olympics offer. This summer, Falun Gong is planning a wave of protests and actions that will bring world attention directly to China's human rights record. Other organizations -- labor, environmental, religious -- also could try to swoop in and use the Olympic moment.

China might be able to manage activist campaigns effectively and relatively peacefully. However, should pressure on internal fronts -- from Falun Gong or other human rights, democracy or free-expression activists -- get too high for Beijing to handle temperately, it could consider using Darfur as a public relations safety valve. Giving in and basically agreeing to work with NGOs on Darfur would satisfy critics by addressing what is for Beijing a third-tier issue.

Here are some things you can do, courtesy of Modern Musings and Dream for Darfur.

All actions sponsored by Dream for Darfur

1. Write to the ambassadors of the US, the UK, Russia and France to the UN. Urge them to help China insist that Khartoum stop its obstruction.

2. Email or call the Olympic Corporate Sponsors.
Send a letter to companies sponsoring the 2008 Olympics, hosted by China. (Dream for Darfur’s email system will let you do this with the touch of a button.)

3. Pledge to turn off the commercials of Olympic Sponsors during the Games. Olympic corporate sponsors have been silent about China’s financing of the Darfur genocide, even as the sponsors are spending billions to enhance China’s image as Olympic host. If sponsors continue to ignore China’s complicity in the Darfur genocide, we will ignore their million-dollar ad campaigns.

4. Write to the UN Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace.
Mr. Adolf Ogi represents the UN Secretary-General in contacts with international sports bodies. Tell him you are concerned that the world will gather for the Olympics while the people of Darfur are being slaughtered.

5. Petition the International Olympic Committee.
Urge the IOC to work with the international community to ensure that China uses its leverage with the government of Sudan to help stop the genocide in Darfur, and avoids tarnishing the 2008 Games in Beijing.

Organizations dedicated to ending the genocide in Darfur

• 24 Hours for DarfurSave Darfur
• Darfur Genocide
• Amnesty International
• Eyes on Darfur
• Human Rights Watch
• Crisis Group
• United States Holocaust Museum
• Dream for Darfur