Don’t Freeze Israel Out!

The 20-year-old peace process launched at the Madrid Conference has now ground to a halt. In September, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, went to the U.N. and asked the Security Council to recognize the existence of a Palestinian state. Back in May, President Obama had vowed that “symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations” would be counterproductive. Nevertheless, just days after Abbas took these symbolic actions to isolate Israel, Leon Panetta, Obama’s secretary of defense, said that “it is not a good situation for Israel to become increasingly isolated.”

Panetta told Israelis that the question “you have to ask” is this: “Is it enough to maintain a military edge if you’re isolating yourself in the diplomatic arena?”

The question I wish Panetta had asked is: How can any serious person accuse Israelis of isolating themselves? Following Mr. Abbas on the podium at the U.N., Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to negotiate with Palestinian leaders anytime, anywhere—including that very day in New York City. Abbas refused outright.

Not long after, Israel’s embassy in Cairo was attacked by an angry mob armed with battering rams painted with swastikas. The Israeli ambassador and most of his staff barely escaped. Perhaps Panetta would care to suggest a less isolating approach that the Israeli diplomats might have taken?

In the last issue of Moment, Marshall Breger, whose work I often admire, argued that the real problem is the Likud, which “may be grudgingly prepared to accept a vassal statelet between Israel and the Jordan River—but not much more.” He added that while “most Jews realize that international isolation weakens Israel and marginalizes Jews worldwide. . .Israel’s leaders would rather posture and delay.”

I don’t believe they would, and I don’t believe the evidence suggests they are. For more than 60 years, Israelis have been ready to make peace with their Arab neighbors. For more than 20 years, they’ve been attempting to pursue a diplomatic path to that goal. For more than 10 years, they’ve placed offers on the table, offers that would have resulted in a Palestinian state coexisting peacefully with a Jewish state. The answer has always been the same. Yet somehow, even for many of Israel’s friends, it’s always Israel’s fault.

Consider the history that brought us to where we are today. In 1947, the U.N. General Assembly voted to partition Palestine—or what was left after three-fourths were turned into the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan—into two additional states. One would be for Jews, one for Arabs—not “Palestinians,” because, in those days, the term referred to the Jews who had long been working to build a state free of foreign rule in the land of their ancestors. The Jews accepted the U.N.’s two-state solution; most Arabs rejected it. Armies from five neighboring Arab states as well as local militias launched a series of wars but failed to drive the Jews into the sea.

In 1967, preparing for another war, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser said the goal was “Israel’s destruction.” Ahmed Shukairy, a representative of the then three-year-old Palestine Liberation Organization, was asked what would happen to Israelis after the war. He replied: “I estimate that none of them will survive.” Over six bloody days, the Israelis defended themselves and this time pushed back the lines—taking Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan. Rather than annexing those territories, they thought it might be possible to trade land for peace.

Over the decades since, they have been proven wrong. Israeli peace proposals in 2000 and 2008 would have led to the creation of a Palestinian state in all of Gaza, in more than 95 percent of the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Palestinian leaders turned them down. In 2005, Israelis uprooted their own communities in Gaza—every soldier, synagogue and cemetery. Before long, rockets from Gaza were raining down on Israelis.

Which brings us to the present: Israel’s enemies are demanding concessions. Many of its friends are urging the Jewish state to take “risks for peace.” Nothing is being demanded of Palestinians—not even that, at long last, they accept the right of Jews to self-determination in a small part of their ancient homeland. “Don’t order us to recognize a Jewish state,” Abbas recently said. “We won’t accept it.” Senior Palestinian Authority official Nabil Shaath elaborated: “The story of ‘two states for two peoples’ means that there will be a Jewish people over there and a Palestinian people here. We will never accept this.”

Suppose the Security Council or, failing that, the General Assembly, does endorse Palestinian statehood. What happens next? The Palestinians will use that endorsement to further isolate Israel, claiming it is occupying the territory of a recognized nation with standing at the U.N. The international BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement against Israel will be energized. Abbas will attempt to utilize the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice to wage “lawfare” against Israel—for example, by leveling charges of war crimes against Israeli leaders.

If negotiations do resume, Palestinians can be expected to be more intransigent than ever. They already have successfully lobbied for the support of at least 129 countries to support their unilateral declaration of independence. Abbas has made it clear that what Israel—and the United States—think is of no importance.

Sooner or later, there will be additional terrorist attacks against Israelis—legitimized by even more of the world as “resistance.” Sooner or later, the Israelis will respond. Israel will become more isolated. And Israel will be blamed for that isolation—by its enemies and, I’m afraid, by too many of its friends.

Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.