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December 25th, 2020 
Awake Goy 
Happy holidays and a happy end to 2020! This is Phil Weiss and I’m filling in for Michael Arria on this newsletter this week, and the best value seemed to me to relay what the Democratic Party’s Israel lobby sees as Israel/Palestine policy under a Biden administration.
What will Biden do on the conflict? What should he do?
And there’s a consensus from Israel’s liberal supporters. Biden won’t push for a two-state solution because there won’t be a Palestinian state in the next few years (or ever!). But he will take measures that keep the idea of two states on life support. I’m a cynic about these policies; I think the two-state solution is a charade that prolongs Palestinian suffering but allows American politicians and others to maintain the claim that they stand behind Palestinian human rights. But I’m putting on my reporter’s hat here, because these are D.C. insiders.
Biden has ‘zero percent chance’ of solving conflict
First off, here is Swedish professor Anders Persson speaking to Ori Nir of Americans for Peace Now on the chances of Biden reaching peace between the parties. Zero.
I would place Biden in the zero percent chance category. As far as I can see, there are no serious observers either in the Middle East or in the U.S. or in Europe who actually believe that Biden will solve the conflict. The expectations are low in terms of final status issues.”
Iran will be a bigger priority to Biden than the Israel-Palestine conflict. Partly because Israel hypes the Iran issue “because it serves to marginalize the Israeli Palestinian issue.”
The two-state solution is like a drowning man, Persson says:
There is no doubt that the two state solution is in great jeopardy right now, like a person who can’t swim back to shore, slowly drowning. To go from there to a one state solution would be for the drowning person to say I realize that I cannot swim back to shore, so I am going to fly back…
‘We’ve moved from how to get two states to how to try to save two states’ — Deutch
At the Israel Policy Forum, Florida Rep. Ted Deutch, a big Israel supporter on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, agrees that two states is on life support in the wake of the Trump administration’s moves paving the way for annexation.
We’ve moved from a place of how to get a two state solution to how to try to save a two solution. There’s a lot of trust to rebuild. The domestic politics are very challenging.
Suzie Gelman of Israel Policy Forum asked Deutch if Biden will try to “resolve” the conflict or undertake “conflict management.” In between, Deutch said. Biden will unpack a lot from Trump — and reopen a relationship with Palestinians. But that doesn’t mean Biden will launch a “peace process.”
What Biden will do early on is demand that “both parties refrain from unilateral moves… The goal obviously is to retain the possibility of a two state solution.” Life support.
Forget about the ‘Holy Grail’ of two states
Deutch’s view is echoed by two Israel lobby stalwarts, Michael Koplow and Tamara Cofman Wittes. Biden has got to keep the two-state solution alive, just not do anything to try and get there.
Koplow says, Stop talking about peace talks.
U.S. policy should put the goal and prospect of negotiations on the farthest back burner and pay much more direct and sustained attention to accomplishing some tangible good. That includes policies designed to preserve the possibility of two states, and also policies that have nothing to do with the final outcome but will improve the lives of people on both sides.
While Wittes says that the focus on “the Holy Grail of a final status agreement” ignores the fact that “this conflict is not anywhere near resolution.” So: rebuild relations with Palestinians but don’t name a senior presidential envoy to negotiations. And try to sustain “the viability of a two state outcome.”
A new report by Wittes and Koplow and Ilan Goldenberg at the Dem-hawk Center for a New American Security says that Biden will have to take a stand with Netanyahu over settlements.
The United States must also take early steps to deter Israeli annexation and settlement expansion by expressing unambiguous opposition to both….As part of this approach, the United States should make clear that it will not shield Israel from international consequences it might face when it takes actions, such as settlement construction, that are contrary to U.S. policy.
The U.S. should demand a “partial, but strict settlement freeze,” applying to areas of East Jerusalem in particular, where “Jewish settlement” aims to shatter Palestinian urban communities.
One fresh thing about the CNAS report is that it acknowledges the possible death of the two-state solution.
Finally, recognizing that a two-state outcome may no longer be achievable, or may come to be so in the future, it is prudent for the U.S. government to explore the likely consequences of alternative scenarios …beyond a vision of two independent states living side by side in peace. In particular, we believe American policymakers should be clear that any outcome to this century-old conflict must provide both Israelis and Palestinians with freedom, democracy, and equal rights.
Even these insiders seem to know the reality, One State with a struggle by Palestinians to achieve equal rights.
Don’t fall into trap of discussing acceptable settlements with Israel
A report by the International Crisis Group/U.S. Middle East Project on three pillars for Biden’s policy in the conflict says that the U.S. has just facilitated settlements and it has to take a stand.
Over the years, U.S. policies have had the unfortunate – at times unintended – effect of facilitating entrenchment of Israeli control over Palestinians…
So the U.S. needs to “desist from actions that enable and empower Israeli policies seeking to prevent any peace deal or Palestinian state.” And that means not vetoing U.N. resolutions on settlements, working with the E.U. on its efforts to distinguish commercially between Israeli and settlement products.
And: “Avoid entering into negotiations with Israel over so-called acceptable settlement expansion.” (I include this report in a wrap up of Israel lobby recommendations because Tzipi Livni and Larry Summers are on its board and J Street friends Rob Malley, Wendy Sherman, and George Soros are too).
Don’t blink with Netanyahu!
Hagit Ofran of Americans for Peace Now made a similar recommendation to Biden in a podcast of two weeks back. Don’t ever get into a discussion with Israel about legitimate and illegitimate settlements. “It’s an opening to an endless discussion with the Israeli government [for]… negotiations, on what it means, the footprint of a settlement.” The same thing happens with “settlement blocs.” As soon as Americans “blink” and say some are OK, Biden will spend all his political capital “to overcome Israel’s explanations and pressure and sending members of Congress… to explain why this settlement is also legitimate…”
Netanyahu wants a confrontation with Biden over things he’s pocketed from Trump, Ofran said.
“Netanyahu wants this clash, wants to show that it is not going to be easy…Trump did a lot of damage, not only on the ground, but also for those who would want to undo what he did.”
She reminds us of the right-wing nature of Israeli politics: “In Israeli politics no one wants to even talk about the settlers.”
Israeli Jews will never accept true equality. It’s sad to say….
But Ofran refuses to believe the settlement project has reached a point of no return. She offers a typical liberal Zionist opposition to one democratic state: We can’t get along.
“For me, there is no such point of no return really. Because… it means that Israel is doomed…. There is no one state solution! The Israeli Jews will not wake up one morning and say, ‘Ah you know what, occupation didn’t work, let’s give all Palestinians in Hebron and Ramallah and Nablus full rights, equal citizenship and we’ll live together happily ever after and in the Knesset, we will have a Likud Party and a Hamas Party, it’s not going to happen.’ It will be easier for Israelis to evict settlements, even if it will be a lot of settlements, than to allow true equality. It’s sad to say but I think it’s much much harder to get to a one state solution. The one state solution is the apartheid situation.
Ofran wants the American discourse to reflect the inability of Israeli Jews to live as equals with Palestinians.
All of our talk about settlements can’t be evicted, or it’s irreversible– we should change our talking points… It makes the settlers more legitimate or less of a problem…. From the perspective of more than a decade of this work, I see how it became another challenge not only to talk against those who support settlements– now our challenge is to talk to those who gave up already on the chances to reverse it.
That’s because many progressive Americans think that international pressure and isolation will ultimately force (privileged refractory right-wing) Israelis to treat Palestinians subjects as equals.
Biden will never make Israel pay for killing child protesters
What will Biden do? J Street’s new Israel director says that Biden will have the political capital to take on Netanyahu. Nadav Tamir writes in the Jerusalem Post:
The Israeli government, for example, has ignored the Democratic Party in the US and, by extension, the sentiments of most American Jews, causing long-term damage to our relations with the United States and with the most important Diaspora community….
But Ted Deutch says, Not so fast. Biden won’t do anything to condition aid, Deutch promises. The incoming administration “values real diplomacy enough that we are not going to need assistance as a lever. They will have an actual strategy to engage here in a constructive way that furthers all the goals here.” I.e., never pressure Israel.
Deutch speaks for the Israel lobby:
“I don’t think it’s in our interest to start putting restrictions on aid that might impact Israel’s ability to protect innocent civilians…
I don’t support conditioning aid [to Israel]. Period… I believe in following the law and that’s what we do. The law lays out what our assistance can’t be used for, it’s for self defense.
Yes and Deutch and Suzie Gelman have nothing to say about Israel’s murder of a 15-year-old Palestinian protester in occupied territory, using an American gun.
Deutch acknowledges that the left in the U.S. is trying to change the discussion.
Some of my colleagues want to shift the conversation on Israel and talk about withholding aid and punitive measures. It’s up to all of us to explain why it’s not in our interest to do that. And so we’ve got to elevate the voices of the majority of the members of the caucus who are friends and supporters of Israel who believe in a two state solution, who condemn BDS, who understand the need to engage with the Palestinians, and recognize that it’s not an either/or….
So there you have it. There won’t be a two-state solution under Biden, he will only act to keep the idea of two states alive so that American politicians can get away with saying I sure support Palestinian rights!
We have our work cut out for us! I am hugely optimistic. I believe that a crisis is approaching in this hypocrisy. Democrats now will govern the discussion of Israel and Palestine in Washington, and Democrats cannot stand for accountability in the American streets and against Israeli accountability. It’s too glaring a contradiction. It’s the job of activists, journalists, dreamers and their friends to make the contradiction more glaring and unignorable. So I have great resolutions for 2021. Happy new year!
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