Although Israeli leaders and the Obama administration have yet to reveal their Mideast peace proposals, both governments reportedly are working on a regional plan rather than on a “narrow” Israeli-Palestinian one.
Both sides have reached the conclusion that an Israeli-Palestinian peace can only blossom within the context of a greater peace between Israel and the Muslim world.
According to sources, President Barack Obama will be discussing such a scenario when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes to the White House for a May 18 meeting.
And Obama is expected to publicly discuss his proposal during a speech to the Muslim world that he has scheduled for June 4 during a trip to Egypt.
In preparation for that event, Obama will meet with the country’s president, Hosni Mubarak, in Washington on May 26 and two days later with Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority.
Until now, the default mode in regional diplomatic efforts has been to first crack the Israeli-Palestinian nut, and then deal with the larger Israeli-Arab conflict.
The Oslo process, with its almost exclusive focus on the Palestinian issue, usurped the more regionally and multilateral-focused Madrid process in 1993. Former President George W. Bush tried to get the Arab world more involved by inviting them to the Annapolis conference in 2007, but the involvement pretty much stopped there.
Even the much-touted Arab peace plan follows the same sequence.
Israel, under this plan, withdraws completely to the pre-1967 lines, and then there will be a normalizing of ties with the Arab world. First withdraw; then normalize.
The thinking that is now emerging is that the two processes need to go hand in hand: If Israel is ever to make further concessions, then it must begin tasting the fruits of regional integration.
Netanyahu alluded to this comprehensive approach during his comments in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, this week after meeting with Mubarak.
Netanyahu said that the Jewish people “want harmonious relations with the Muslim world.” Israel, he said, “yearns to reach peace with its Palestinian neighbors, and with all the Arab nations; we all live in this region, and we are all the sons of Abraham.”
No more is the talk merely of peace for Israeli and Palestinian children, but rather of harmony between the Jewish people and the entire Muslim world.
Netanyahu’s comments dovetailed well with the emphasis Jordan’s King Abdullah II placed on the regional component during an interview published May 11 in the Times of London.
“We are sick and tired of the process,” Abdullah said. “We are talking about direct negotiations. That is a major point. We are approaching this in a regional context. You could say through the Arab peace proposal. The Americans see this as we do, and I think the Europeans [as well].”
According to the Jordanian monarch, “What we are talking about is not Israelis and Palestinians sitting at the table, but Israelis sitting with Palestinians, Israelis sitting with Syrians, Israelis sitting with Lebanese. And with the Arabs and the Muslim world lined up to open direct negotiations with Israelis at the same time.
He said it “is not a two-state solution, it is a 57-state solution.”
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) said, “I think that most Israelis have issues, exceptions, to the Arab peace initiative, and so do I, and we in America. But it is time to test them.”
Wexler — an early Jewish supporter of Obama during the primary campaign — met with Netanyahu in Israel on May 10, and said afterward that the two men are “not headed for a train wreck” during their scheduled meeting in Washington. He added that any concern expressed in the media about it is overblown.
“I can say unequivocally that the anxiety is not warranted,” Wexler said. “I am in constant contact with those in the administration responsible for policy in this region, and nothing could be further than the truth.”
The congressman also said he did not believe that the administration would link progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue with stopping Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon, and that Obama would not “pressure” Netanyahu.
Since the process that has centered almost exclusively on the Israeli-Palestinian track has not worked over the past 15 years, the time has come to widen the lens.
It is no coincidence that Israeli, Jordanian and U.S. officials are all making the same allusions. They are all marking the same goal line.
What is left is figuring out how exactly to get there.