Synthetic Liberal Zionism

Last week I picked up a 1985 biography of Zionist leader Haim (traditionally spelled Chaim but pronounced Khaim) Weizmann covering his early period as a Zionist leader up to the outbreak of World War I. I read it with one eye on the past and one eye on the present and future--looking for what Weizmann could teach me about leadership and policy.

Weizmann was a young man when Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, first emerged on the scene as a charismatic savior for Eastern Jewry in 1895. Weizmann joined the new Zionist movement and soon emerged as the first internal Zionist opposition leader to Herzl while he was a leader of Russian Jewish students in Central Europe. He founded the Democratic Faction, which unfortunately soon collapsed because of a lack of common ideology and policy. Weizmann sided with the Russian Zionist opposition to Herzl in the Uganda controversy of 1903-04 when Herzl proposed that the Zionists accept a British offer to settle Jews in British East Africa (today's Kenya) as a "night shelter" to avoid any more being killed and injured in pogroms in Russia. Weizmann sympathized with Herzl's reasons for accepting the British offer, but realized that lacking his own base he would have to settle with the Russian Zionists who opposed the offer. By the time of Herzl's premature death from a heart attack in July 1904 Britain was in the process of withdrawing the offer due to opposition from white settlers already within the colony.

But Weizmann, like Herzl, appreciated the importance of Britain to the future of the Zionist movement. Even though his English was quite poor (he spoke German, French, and Russian in addition to Yiddish and Hebrew) he moved to Manchester, England to take up a position as a lecturer in chemistry. 

The first wave of Zionism from 1882 to 1897 consisted of a move to settle Palestine with Jews as farmers. A number of new settlements were established but Jews still remained only a small minority within the overall population. Herzl came along with the idea of winning a charter for Jewish colonization of Palestine from the Ottoman Empire in exchange for helping to solve the Ottomans' financial problems. He spent the rest of his live vainly trying to convince the Ottomans to grant a charter through both direct approaches to the Sublime Port in Istanbul and to the capitals of the other great powers in Europe. 

From 1906 to 1910 Weizmann led a fight within the Zionist movement to create a synthesis of "practical Zionism"--settlement activity--with "political Zionism"--diplomacy--as he saw the two as reinforcing one another. This synthesis was dubbed "synthetic Zionism" and became the policy of the labor Zionist movement until statehood in 1948. From the Uganda offer to the Balfour declaration in November 1917, which was when Weizmann won a charter for settlement in Palestine, was the low point of the modern Zionist movement. 

Likewise, the period from the collapse of the Oslo process in October 2000 to the present and the near future is the low point of liberal Zionism. The Labor Party and Meretz collapsed within Israel losing three quarters of their strength within the Knesset compared to 1992. George W. Bush briefly paid lip service to mediating a two-state solution before he turned away in 2003. Barack Obama, the new hope of the Israeli Left, made a few speeches and then abandoned the issue to deal with more immediate concerns at home and abroad (the Great Recession, health care, two wars).  

The only real positive aspect of this period was the emergence of J Street in 2008-09 as an alternative to the hawkish AIPAC lobby that supported the Israeli government of the day, and was secretly pro-Likud. J Street, like Herzl's World Zionist Organization, is fixated on the big end goal of American mediation leading to a two-state solution. According to a senior J Street member, the organization doesn't do policy. Its function is purely agitprop (agitation and propaganda or lobbying). Likewise in Israel the Left has remained focused on the failed peace process to the exclusion of all other issues. 

Today we need a new synthetic Zionism or synthetic liberal Zionism. This new synthesis should within Israel emphasize economic and social issues that will allow the parties of the Center-Left to rebuild and recover their lost strength. In the United State it should avoid calling for American mediation until a policy is developed that will give such mediation a good shot at success. This means looking at other peace processes similar to that in the Middle East--such as the effort to win the independence of Namibia by ending South African occupation and the Northern Ireland peace process.  Peace processes in which outside mediation and pressure combined with internal opposition led the ruling parties to change their approach and negotiate seriously. 

AIPAC developed its own spin-off think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, in order to build credibility for its policy prescriptions. As soon as it is financially strong enough to launch its own think tank concentrating on Israeli politics, Palestinian politics, and comparative peace process analysis, J Street should do so. This, along with the building of grassroots chapters, is the American equivalent of practical Zionism today.

Shaul Mofaz decisively beats Tzipi Livni in Kadima Primary

At about midnight Israel time this morning with about 90 percent of the vote returned, challenger Shaul Mofaz had beaten incumbent leader Tzipi Livni of the Kadima Party in Israel by a margin of 62 to 38 percent--the same margin by which Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern in 1972. There was a turnout of about 45 percent for the internal election indicating that many who had voted for the party in 2009 had abandoned it. Mofaz, who emigrated from Iran as a boy in the 1950s served as chief of staff of the IDF and then as Likud defense minister under Ariel Sharon. Initially when Sharon bolted the Likud to form Kadima, Mofaz remained behind in the Likud but then was persuaded by Sharon to follow. Tzipi Livni, who served as Kadima foreign minister under Ehud Olmert from 2006 to 2008 before becoming party leader, has not indicated what she will do now. Mofaz called on her to remain in the party. But many have speculated that she will either withdraw from politics entirely or form a new party with Ehud Barak's Atzmaut (Independence) faction.  This is because both Kadima and Atzmaut are parties without developed ideologies. Both Mofaz and the media were very hard on Livni for failing to form a governing coalition in late 2008, which forced elections, and then for refusing to join Netanyahu's ruling coalition. There was also speculation that Mofaz might return to the Likud if he lost his second bid for the party leadership.

Kadima's future course won't be clear until after a general election in Israel is held, probably in the fall of 2012 or the winter of 2013. In Israeli politics former generals seem to have a preference for going into a coalition or remaining there rather than staying in the opposition out of principle. The first former general to enter the Israeli Right, Ezer Weizman, was upset when Menahem Begin pulled his then Herut Party out of the first government of national unity in 1970. Yitzhak Rabin was upset when he lost the defense ministry due to a bid by Labor leader Shimon Peres to form a narrow coalition of the Center-Left in 1990. Both Barak and Benjamin Ben-Eliezer supported Labor joining the Likud in a coalition government in 2001. Former generals tend to look upon a government ministry as another command--a stepping stone on the way to becoming defense minister or prime minister as regional or branch commands in the army were stepping stones on the way to becoming chief of staff.

Polls indicate that Kadima will probably win between 10 and 13 seats in the next election, down from 28 at present, making the party a medium-size party like Labor or Avigdor Leiberman's Israel Beitenu. Ehud Olmert, attending the J Street conference in Washington, called for a ruling coalition of medium-size and small parties of the Left and Center to keep Netanyahu out of power. But the math and ideology is unlikely to support such a coalition.

J Street, Post-Zionism and the Two-State Solution

This weekend J Street, the liberal Zionist pro-peace lobby, will be holding its third conference since its founding in 2008. In 2009 it attracted 1500 people to its first conference, this expanded to over 2,000 at its second conference last year, and it is expected to have over 2500 attendees for its third conference. This has worried the Zionist Right in America, aligned behind the dominant Likud Party and the other parties of the ruling coalition. They have been very inventive in the ways they attack it, which mainly amounts to guilt by association and obfuscation.  But J Street may not be much of a threat to their Greater Israel project.

David Frum, a former Bush administration official and a columnist at The Daily Beast, had a column in which he claimed that Post-Zionists were Anti-Zionists. Post-Zionism was a term coined in the 1990s to cover the Zionist members of the Israeli New Historians school of historiography.  The New Historians are/were a group of Israeli historians that wrote about Israeli history outside of the prevailing Zionist narrative. They range from Benny Morris and Tom Segev who are definitely Zionists, to Ilan Pappe who is definitely anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian to Avi Shlaim who is in exile in London and is highly critical of Israel and Zionism but supports the existence of Israel. The term was then applied to the Meretz Party and to the left wing of the Labor Party to mean those who were critical of Israel as well as of the Palestinians. Frum has reapplied it to refer to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement that wants to start an economic campaign against Israel proper. His justification is that some liberal Zionists like Peter Beinart, a featured speaker at this J Street conference, are advocating a boycott of products produced by Jews living in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Daily Commentary Magazine, one of the original platforms of the neo-Conservative movement, sends out an email, which often attacks J Street. It does this by attacking progressive or radical organizations that J Street refuses to condemn, such as the Occupy movement, because J Street's pool of supporters share many positions in common with them. 

The Zionist Right in both Israel and America see J Street as a threat because it genuinely supports a two-state solution with the Palestinians, instead of paying lip service to it while building settlements meant to make it impossible. But this may soon be irrelevant because of developments in both Israeli and Palestinian politics.

On Tuesday the Kadima Party holds its leadership primary to determine who will lead the party into elections late this year or early next year (Netanyahu has not yet set a date for the general election). The two main contenders are former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who is also the opposition leader. Polls put the party in the 10-13 seat range in the next election or less than half of what it won in 2009. It will be about the same size as Labor and Israel Beitenu, the latter being the party of Foreign Minister Avigdor Leiberman. With Kadima at this size the Center-Left will be too small to form a governing coalition without participation by the Likud or other parties of the Right. 

Meanwhile a similar situation prevails among Palestinians between the former ruling Fatah and Hamas. Many Palestinians see the two-state solution as having passed its sell-by date (the date printed on perishable food items) and now serving only as a cover for further settlement.

J Street is ostensibly dedicated to facilitating a two-state solution by lobbying for such a solution in Washington. But in reality it may really be aimed at extracting more contributions for liberal Democratic candidates from liberal Jews and to keep American Jewish youth involved in Zionist issues. But its alarmist rhetoric of now or never for a two-state solution may well backfire. Politics weren't right for a two-state solution in Obama's first term. They appear highly unlikely to be ripe--for the reasons listed above--during his second term. The Republicans aren't interested in mediating a two-state solution as they are beholden to the Evangelical base that supports the Israeli Right. If J Street continues with its rhetoric it may well neutralize the college students that it is presently bringing into the liberal Zionist fold as the next generation. They might actually come to believe in that rhetoric and so drop out of the struggle once the two-state solution is deferred again.

J Street's misdirected activism

On Sunday I attended a house party for the Madison chapter of J Street. There were about ten of us there to listen to the Midwest coordinator from Chicago explain J Street's strategy for the "two-state summer" to pressure the Obama administration to reengage in Middle East diplomacy on the Palestinian track. I spoke to him for about a half hour before the meeting and although we agreed on many things, we had a fundamental disagreement about American policy. I hold that the situation is fundamentally unripe for another attempt to renew Israeli-Palestinian direct talks. The Israeli government is opposed to a further settlement freeze or any substantial concessions to the Palestinians. Mahmoud Abbas is opposed to making any substantial concessions to the Israelis and has already committed himself to the UN route of seeking UN sanction and recognition for a declaration of Palestinian independence. Until he plays this hand out he is very unlikely to try to engage in another game with different rules in which he has always been dealt a losing hand.

Several of us at the meeting spoke of the possibility of J Street attempting to persuade the Obama administration to shape the Palestinian initiative by making UN recognition and pressure on Israel to end the occupation conditional on Palestine fulfilling certain conditions such as giving up the right of return. But apparently J Street believes that that is too dangerous a course. In other words Obama is politically healthy enough to be pressured into engaging in another high-profile round of the peace process, as in 2010, but not healthy enough to take on the UN and a unified Palestinian government. I fail to understand the logic here.

Either engaging in a peace process will cost Obama valuable political capital when he is gearing up for a reelection campaign or it won't. If it will it should be avoided. If it will not then he should spend that capital in a process that has not yet failed and has a slim chance of succeeding.

Aaron David  Miller wrote a very interesting article on how the Arab Spring has affected American Middle East calculations. Here is the link.

A Speech or a Policy?

President Obama's speech was a bit of a let down after all the publicity that preceded it. Most of the speech related to the Arab Spring, and was probably just an attempt to enunciate a coherent policy. While Obama came out squarely on the side of civil and democratic rights for Arabs, he was unable to really enunciate a single one-size-fits-all policy for the myriad of American interests and local circumstances across the region. He devoted a total of eight sentences to the unrest in Syria and failed to call for Bashar Assad's removal as he had previously called for Kaddafi's removal. This is a recognition of reality--our forces can only take on so many dictators and nation-building projects at a time.

On the Israeli-Palestinian issue, about ten minutes out of a fifty-minute speech (go here for the text), he pronounced a few policy guidelines rather than announcing a new policy or a plan to achieve peace. His most controversial statement from the viewpoint of Israeli and American Zionists and their supporters in Congress was that the 1967 borders (really the 1949 armistice lines) should serve as the starting point for a peace deal with territorial swaps to take account of Israeli settlement blocs. Senator Mitchell went on the Sunday talk shows to emphasis the feature of mutually-agreed borders. Netanyahu predictably ignored this so as to be able to posture for the folks back home in declaring the 1967 borders indefensible. The speech, although not as detailed as the December 2000 Clinton parameters was perfectly compatible with them as well as with a 2005 Bush letter to then Israeli Prime Minister Arik Sharon, as Mitchell Plitnick points out.

Dan Fleshler declared this to be a "gutsy, principled speech"defying the Israeli government. It was nothing of the sort. It was in reality an attempt to demonstrate that Washington is still relevant to the region after the start of the Arab Spring. It was also an attempt to keep liberal Zionist groups and their supporters on board for Obama's reelection without endangering his support among Democratic and independent supporters of Israel who are more hawkish, by attempting another peace initiative. J Street, APN and Ameinu can all claim to their supporters that they are relevant and pressured Obama into acting. Meanwhile, Obama will be free to concentrate on his real priorities (the economy, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Russia) until after the 2012 election.  Call it Cairo 2009 Mark II.

Confusion in the Obama administration

Yesterday the New York Times ran an article reporting that there was disagreement within the upper ranks of the Obama administration about its Middle East policy regarding Israel/Palestine. It was reported that both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton favored the former making a presidential speech to the nation on the Middle East that would address policy issues raised by both the Arab Spring revolutions and the stagnant peace process. J Street, the liberal pro-Israel pro-peace lobby, is lobbying Obama and Clinton to publicly set out their own terms for an Arab-Israeli peace settlement.  Senior National Security Council advisor for the Middle East Dennis Ross, who was the lead Mideast peace negotiator in the Clinton administration, is opposed to Obama making such a speech. Ross opposes such a speech because he fears that it will lead to a confrontation with Israel and is opposed to any American-Israeli confrontation. The New York Times's Israeli equivalent, Ha'Aretz, also ran an article on the subject. I agree with Ross, but for reasons that are slightly--but very significantly different.

Like Ross I believe that the situation at present is not ripe for peace. Neither Jerusalem nor Ramallah is willing to take the steps and make the sacrifices that would be necessary for concluding a peace agreement. This was demonstrated in 2010 when the PA refused to take advantage of the Israeli settlement construction freeze to return to negotiations. It was also demonstrated by PM Netanyahu's failure to renew the freeze and his manipulating of settlement construction starts as to render the freeze largely meaningless. Should Washington, at a time when it is busy fighting three wars in the region, want peace more than the parties to the conflict? 

I do not fear an American conflict with Jerusalem--I just don't want it wasted. Obama is in no position to take advantage of a confrontation. His domestic political position is too tenuous. He should wait either until he is safely reelected or until the PA gives him more leverage by declaring independence at the United Nations in September.  

Let's review the record of presidents who made major peace efforts in the Middle East. Nixon supported Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy in the winter and spring of 1974 leading to two Arab-Israeli separation of forces agreements. Nixon was forced to resign that August to avoid impeachment. Gerald Ford supported Kissinger's shuttle diplomacy in 1975 between Egypt and Israel that resulted in the Sinai II separation of forces agreement. Ford lost the presidential election to Jimmy Carter a year later. Carter spent much of his first two years in office negotiating a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. He remained a single term president. Reagan did not do any peacemaking during his first term in office and was reelected by a landslide. George H.W. Bush convened the Madrid Peace Conference in October 1991 that eventually led to the Oslo process. Like Carter he remained a one-term president. Bill Clinton used the Oslo accords signing on the White House lawn as a photo op. But he didn't engage in heavy-duty peacemaking during his first term. He was easily reelected. He did make a serious effort at Camp David in July 2000 and Vice President Al Gore narrowly lost the election to George W. Bush in November 2000 (but won more popular votes). Bush didn't engage in serious peacemaking in his first term (or in his second) and was reelected.

The clear empirical law is that chances of being elected or reelected are inversely proportional to one's efforts to secure Middle East peace. While many other factors come into presidential elections including the economy, Middle East peacemaking does play a role. If the president invests serious efforts and energy and fails, he appears incompetent. If he succeeds, it is because he pressured Israel. For this he is punished by conservative single issue Jewish voters. Most Jewish voters are not single issue pro-Israel voters and will vote based on party identification. About two-thirds of Jewish voters are Democrats or vote Democratic. Obama risks losing the votes of independent voters who are pro-Israel, both Jews and non-Jews. Why take the risk now when the chance of success is very low?

Here is a post for Gershom Gorenberg backing up my analysis of Jewish voting patterns.

Arab Revolution shuts down peace process until 2013

The spreading Arab Revolution of the Winter of 2011 has effectively shut down whatever chances there are of an effective peace process in the remainder of Obama's first term. There are two tracks to the peace process, the Palestinian and the Syrian, let us examine in turn how each is affected by the Revolution.

The split between Fatah and Hamas has effectively blocked the Palestinian track from the Palestinian side since the summer of 2007, if not before. The two groups have been in competition for the leadership of the Palestinian people since the founding of Hamas in early 1988. Hamas helped to ensure that Arafat did not make the type of concessions on refugees and Jerusalem to Barak at Camp David in July 2000 that would have been necessary for a peace deal. Hamas, partly as the beneficiary of a protest vote, won the Palestinian internal elections in January 2006. This and the fighting in the summer of 2006 in Gaza and Lebanon prevented any resumption of the peace process that year. In summer 2007 Hamas carried out an anti-PA coup d'etat in Gaza splitting the Palestinian territories. Until this split is ended by either a sufficient political weakening of one of the two parties or a unified leadership, the Palestinians will be unable to negotiate effectively with Israel.  Israel will simply be unwilling to make the far-reaching concessions necessary to match Palestinian concessions in the areas of Jerusalem and borders.

The Likud coalition elected to power in the winter of 2009 was also a stumbling block to peace. Netanyahu is simply unable to conclude an agreement that ends the conflict with the Palestinians. This is because of Likud ideology, the eminence grise of his own 101-year old father who hovers over him mentally like a Dickensian ghost, and the threat of Avigdor Leiberman seizing control of the leadership of the Israeli Right from the Likud.

Netanyahu possibly could have been able to conclude a historic agreement with Syria, if both Damascus and Washington been willing. But the Jewish peace lobby in the U.S. led by J Street is fixated on the Palestinian track. Obama had his hands very full during his first term with domestic matters like the economy and health care and two wars in the Middle East. (Go to Realistic Dove for a early 2009 guest post by me arguing precisely this.) So he made a half-hearted effort at the Palestinian track in 2010 and left it at that. 

Egypt has scheduled elections for six months from now. Until those elections have been held and Jerusalem has a sense of the new leadership in Cairo, it will be unwilling to enter into any serious negotiations entailing the prospect of further territorial concessions. Syria this week became the latest victim or beneficiary of the Arab Revolution that like a slow plague is killing off the region's dictatorships. Bashar al-Assad will not enter into any negotiations until he has put down the revolution in his country or it has put him down. His father ended a perceived threat to the regime by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982 with a massacre in Hama that killed between 10,000 and 20,000. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree!

In 1980 former National Security Council Middle East advisor William Quandt published his account of the Carter administration's Middle East diplomacy, Camp David (the Brookings Institution/UC Press). The introductory chapter laid out the timetable for presidential diplomacy in the Middle East based on a combination of the experience of the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations and a knowledge of the political cycle in Washington. Quandt claimed that a president spends his first year learning the ropes. The next two years he has available for diplomacy and by the final year he is obsessed with reelection and unwilling to risk offending the Jewish community. If reelected, he then has his first three years available for diplomacy before he becomes a lame duck. Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush all proved the validity of this analysis. George Bush sr. convened the Madrid Conference at the end of October 1991 that inaugurated the Washington Talks. But he was too weak in 1992 and Arafat too strong for these talks to go anywhere. Clinton then did not devote himself to Middle East diplomacy until his final year in office, by which time it was too late and he had too little leverage with the various parties. Bush jr. then made a half-hearted effort at diplomacy to appease Tony Blair and King Hussein in 2003, before making another half-hearted attempt in 2007 to satisfy Condi Rice.

Expect the Arab Revolution to prevent any real movement on the peace process in 2011 and the reelection campaign to prevent any real progress in 2012. Lately, Israeli government coalitions have had about a three year lifespan, so Netanyahu's time will probably run out in late 2011 or early 2012. By the time a new Israeli government is up and running the 2012 election will be well underway. This is why presidents must seize their opportunities when presented with them! As Nixon did in October 1973, and Bush sr. did in 1991. 

Israelis are honest in Washington

J Street, the liberal pro-Israel and pro-peace lobby, is now holding its second conference, having held its first in October 2009. I attended the first out of both curiosity and a desire to support the organization by making a strong first showing at its first conference. Because of both my schedule and my wallet I'm forced to watch the conference by video feed from its website. I watched some of the panels by live stream on Sunday and then watched most of the recorded sessions from Sunday and Monday today. The conference ends today with a lobbying day of congressional offices. Having attended an AIPAC conference in 1995 during the Oslo conference and the J Street conference in 2009, what struck me about the former was that it was mostly intended to fire up the troops and allow politicians to compete in kissing up to the Israeli lobby. J Street instead of just conducting workshops on messaging and the upcoming election cycle in the U.S., attempted to educate its supporters about the conflict by inviting members of the Palestinian government and the Israeli Knesset to the conference to serve on panels.

Nachman Shai, a former academic expert on the Israeli nuclear deterrent and now an MK for Kadima, was very open. "There is no chance for electoral reform or for a constitution with the coalition parties." This means that Israel is incapable of producing the type of party system that will produce the two-party coalitions that ran the peace process in Dublin. It was these coalitions that allowed the dominant party to give up Ireland's constitutional claim to Northern Ireland. Israel has the much tougher task of giving up a physical occupation and hundreds of settlements after 43 years.

Oren Magnezy, a former aide to Ariel Sharon who is now an MK in Kadima was honest about Israeli decision making. "We work at an emotional level when making decisions. Its a lot about messaging. We have an obligation to reach Israelis in the Center who aren't liberals or Left like J-Street." Another Kadima MK, Yoel Hasson said, "Not all Israelis want peace. Some don't want it because they know the price that must be paid for peace and they don't want to pay it."

Dahlia Scheindlin, a public opinion analyst, was blunt: "The Left is toxic in Israel right now. Israelis don't like to think in the long term. This is a problem. They need a leader with a vision." She cited a polling survey to claim that 45% of Israeli Jews self identify as Right, 27% as Center, and 17% as Left. She claimed that those in the Center behave much more like the Left than like the Right when it comes to the solution to the Conflict. She also said that a larger percentage of Kadima supporters than Labor supporters listed peace as their top concern in politics. Here is a link to an article by her on her presentation at the blog 972.

"Among young people the dominant sentiments are nationalism, patriotism, and Zionism," according to Scheindlin. "This is the narrative of resignation." They grew up in the last decade with the failure of Camp David and the Al-Aksa Intifada as well as with two wars. They are volatile and could drift to the Center or even the Left depending upon how events unfold.

Daniel Ben-Simon, a Labor MK, saw the split in Labor as positive. "A month ago Labor moved to the opposition. Before I was between Israel Beitenu (Israel is Our Home--a right-wing party supported mostly by Russian immigrants) and the most radical members of the Likud. I felt like a hostage! Now Labor is like a family--no quarrels, no factions." I guess he grew up in a small family.

Shai said, "We need Labor on the Left. Otherwise we are not in the Center. We need the Left back and to weaken the Right. We need fifty seats between Kadima, Labor and Meretz so that we can attract the moderate Right into a coalition."  Labor now has eight seats and Meretz only three; polls show Labor receiving about the same number of seats in the next election.  Kadima has 28 seats and is polling at about 31 seats. 

The MK panel of Kadima and Labor MKs thought that any type of boycott of Israeli products was bad, rather it was only of products made by settlers in the West Bank or from Israel proper. "Any boycott of the West Bank is bad because it unites all the settlers," said Yoel Hasson.

The problem is that Hamas wants to delay any solution of the conflict until it is a clear majority among the Palestinians and can negotiate for peace on its terms. It will therefore carry out actions that will help keep the Israeli Right strong during the next election.

Israeli doves are expecting J Street to work as a deus ex machina to deliver Washington to impose a peace agreement on the Israelis and Palestinians. But as former Chief Negotiator for the Middle East Dennis Ross said in a plenary speech, "For peace to succeed the parties have to own it; to own it they have to invest in it." In other words Washington cannot do for Jerusalem and Ramallah what they cannot do for themselves.  Ross knows this from personal experience over eight years in the Clinton administration and a career in three previous administrations as well as his present job in this administration.