Turmoil in Iran could benefit Israel-Palestinian peace process

Thursday, June 25, 2009 | by Yossi Alpher

As a wave of ramifications and reverberations from Tehran washes across the Middle East, it is intriguing to consider how it may affect the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Precisely because we don’t know when and how the unrest in Iran will end, these thoughts must be understood at this point as little more than informed speculation. Note that the protests in Iran remain within rather than against the regime itself. Hence no major change in Iran’s orientation toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears likely.

At an obvious but indirect level, the Iranian elections and the post-election protest in Iran can be seen to reflect at least in part the new liberal spirit projected by President Barack Obama’s Cairo speech earlier this month. Arabs and other Muslims seemingly recognized in Obama a friendlier, fairer America.

In Lebanon, this phenomenon may have moved voters to the pro-Western camp. In Iran, the regime’s blatant falsification of election results in order to favor hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could conceivably reflect its fear of engagement with Obama and the more enlightened American policies he represents. Could the Obama spirit now also affect politics in the Palestinian Authority? If so, how? In the PA elections that are talked about for early next year and that probably require the prior formation of a unity government? In Fatah’s convoluted and arcane internal politics?

Hamas, on the other hand, could conceivably be affected by the chaos in Iran, both directly and via Hezbollah. The two Islamist movements, allies of the regime in Tehran, must be wondering whether their base there could be weakened by the current post-election events. Any development in this direction would enhance both the PLO’s and Israel’s strategic position in confronting these militant Islamist organizations.

If Iran is weakened by the post-electoral events there, then it becomes less of a preoccupation for Israel, the PLO and the United States — and all can devote more energies to an Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

This may be inconvenient for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has tried to present the Iranian threat to Israel as a more urgent challenge than the Palestinian issue and has only reluctantly and partially embraced Obama’s agenda by agreeing guardedly to a two-state solution. In this sense, the events in Iran could weaken Netanyahu’s bargaining position vis-a-vis Washington.

But they could strengthen his stance if he chooses to renew peace negotiations with Syria. Iran is Damascus’ sole strategic partner. In order to contemplate a successful peace process, Jerusalem wants to be reassured that that process would significantly weaken Syria’s links with Iran.

Conceivably, Damascus may now in any case want to reevaluate its relationship with Tehran. And, as many Palestinians point out, if Damascus can be neutralized as a forward base for Iranian interests, this would weaken Hamas in Gaza, thereby improving the prospects for renewed Israeli negotiations with the Ramallah-based PLO.

Thirty years ago, immediately after the mid-February takeover by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Yasser Arafat was the first foreign leader to visit post-revolutionary Tehran. His embrace with Khomeini provided one of the most famous photos of the Islamist victory in Iran. The PLO diplomatic delegation was awarded the building that used to house the Israeli embassy in Tehran.

But with the passage of time, the PLO became more moderate and entered peace negotiations with Israel, while the Islamic Republic embraced the PLO’s enemy, Hamas, and adopted an extreme attitude negating the very notion of a two-state solution.

Now, the pro–Mir Hossein Mousavi demonstrators in the squares of Tehran are claiming (almost certainly without foundation) to have encountered Hamas and Hezbollah cadres among those forces violently suppressing the demonstrations.

Is it too much to ask that the events in Iran produce a regime that reverts to an earlier revolutionary profile and ends its active and hostile involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Yossi Alpher is coeditor of Bitterlemons.org, where this piece first appeared. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.