Conference Call with Prof. Naomi Chazan – In the Aftermath of Gaza: A Post-War Assessment

On Tuesday, January 27, 2009, political science professor, and former Meretz MK, Naomi Chazan spoke by conference call with Meretz USA supporters. The following is an extensive summary of her remarks.

Prof. Chazan opened by noting that it was no coincidence that Israel had declared a unilateral cease-fire on January 17, just prior to the Obama inauguration. No one in Israel, she said, wanted to push the fighting into the Obama presidency. Domestic political considerations also played a part in the timing of the cease-fire. On the other hand, Prof. Chazan argued, the humanitarian situation and the heavy civilian casualties in Gaza were not a major factor that helped end the war.

Prof. Chazan explained that the Israeli government's decision to cease fire unilaterally - not through a diplomatic agreement - was designed to send two messages:

1) Israel has no intention of negotiating with Hamas
2) Israel would unilaterally determine its actions in the future, and would not compromise on the blockade of Gaza without securing two objectives:

a. Absolute proof that weapons smuggling into Gaza had ceased
b. The reopening of negotiations for the release of Gilad Shalit

Looking at the justification given for starting the war and the minimal results the war achieved, Prof. Chazan wondered why the US-Israeli agreement to cooperate against weapons smuggling into Gaza - reached just before the cease-fire - could not have been secured before the offensive. Why had Israel not made the effort to get these guarantees before the war? And why, she asked, did Israel launch the war when everyone knew that the Israeli military could not stop the smuggling?

Asked about recent reports that Israel had violated international law by using white phosphorous in populated areas of Gaza, Prof. Chazan replied that this allegation had first been made by Human Rights Watch. She said that Israel had first denied using white phosphorous, then claimed it had used this material in accordance with the restrictions imposed by international law. Prof. Chazan said that the white phosphorous was part of a larger question of war crimes and international law violations - of which both sides were probably guilty. These violations were very troubling, but were also bound to continue in the absence of a political solution.

Prof. Chazan suggested that Israel had not emerged in better shape from the war: Its international position was weakened. The regional situation had become destabilized (although Egypt's reentry into a central diplomatic role was a positive). And, on the home front, no Israeli leader or major candidate was interested in acknowledging that there is no military solution to end the violence. As a result, the war had created a precarious situation, both diplomatically and militarily.

With Israeli elections coming on February 10, Prof. Chazan did not expect Israel to initiate any major offensive within the next two weeks. Nor would George Mitchell's arrival in the region this week generate any major decisions - at least as long as Israel was in campaign mode and possibly beyond that. For his part, Mitchell would have to be careful not to play a role in Israel's politics, as he'll need to work with whomever becomes Prime Minister. Prof. Chazan also related in this context that all the major Israeli candidates were busy bragging about their respective ability to work with Obama. Each would try to exploit Mitchell's visit to deliver this message.

Prof. Chazan discussed the war's impact on the Israeli election campaign: The war, she noted, had changed the election agenda, which was now focused on security, not the economy or corruption as had earlier been the case.

Likud, Labor and Kadima were all trying to distinguish themselves from the others in terms of their positions on the war, but the picture has actually become much more homogeneous in the war's wake, Prof. Chazan explained. All three parties supported the war, and their positions vary only in nuance: Kadima is claiming victory in the war; Labor is playing up Ehud Barak's leadership as Defense Minister; and Likud is hinting that the war was just a link in what will be an ongoing military operation.

The major victors of the war, politically, were Bibi Netanyahu of Likud and Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beiteinu. Particularly worrisome is the swing to Lieberman, who has tied the war to his claims that Israel needs a "strongman", and to his campaign to expel Israel's Arab citizens from the political arena. Lieberman has also been promoting a bill that would create a loyalty test for Israeli citizenship.

Prof. Chazan predicted that Likud would be the largest party after the election, and would try to form a government with Labor, Lieberman/Yisrael Beiteinu, and the right/religious Shas party - but not necessarily with Kadima.

The two parties that have suffered most from the war are the "Jewish Home" party (an incarnation of the National Religious Party) and Meretz, which lost the strong momentum it had before the war broke out. One might expect, Prof. Chazan said, that the Obama election would benefit the parties that promote diplomacy - Meretz and Hadash (diplomacy is not part of Labor's current focus, she noted). But, in practice, this has not been the case.

Returning to the regional picture, Prof. Chazan stated that the Israeli-Arab situation was now worse than at any time since 1967. On one side, Hamas is being regarded as a victim, even by those Palestinians who reject Hamas' approach. The PLO, she said, is in dire straits. On the other side, with the vast majority of Israelis supportive of the war, peace-speaking Israelis have become heavily marginalized in the public arena.

For progressive Israelis, the picture is not rosy. Just as Barack Obama takes up the American presidency, she said, Israel will be getting its own version of George Bush, and this will have serious ramifications for diplomacy.

Prof. Chazan did suggest several avenues for positive movement. She said that PLO-Hamas rapprochement should be allowed (a la the short-lived Palestinian national unity government of 2006) under an Arab League umbrella. This development could help jumpstart negotiations, but she cautioned that the only negotiations worth holding are those that concern a permanent settlement, not more interim arrangements.

But Prof. Chazan also suggested that peace efforts might need to take a dramatic turn away from the traditional trajectory outlined by Oslo, the Road Map, and the Annapolis conference, which had failed to end the conflict. For example, creative alternatives such as international trusteeship might need to be considered.

With this in mind, she said, the Obama administration will be faced with two alternate strategies for Middle East peacemaking: One is to revive negotiations, while the other would be to usher in some form of internationally imposed solution. The US, she suggested, needs to become more assertive, and perhaps even coercive - it needs to suggest political solutions; and then it needs to make them happen. The situation, she summarized, is about to become even more complicated.

Asked what arrangements would allow for a stable cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, Prof. Chazan included the lifting of the blockade on Gaza, which has been having a devastating impact on human rights, alongside stepped-up efforts by Egypt and others to prevent weapons smuggling, both through the tunnels and by sea.

But Prof. Chazan warned that although such immediate steps are needed, a preoccupation with them is dangerous, since it steers the discourse away from long-term political solutions - the only real way to produce stability. Indeed, she argued, too strong a focus on cease-fire arrangements is almost a prescription for the next round of violence, since violations of a ceasefire are essentially inevitable.

Prof. Chazan warned if that there is no diplomatic movement soon, the recent Gaza war would be only part of a much worse escalation. Indeed, she noted, there seem to be no likely scenarios other than renewed diplomacy, on one hand, and renewed fighting on the other.

Asked how American Jews could help the cause of peace, Prof. Chazan remarked that progressive American Jews appeared to have the same dilemma as progressive circles in Israel. First, there was an internal split on the left regarding the war - some justifying its initial stages, while others, like herself, opposing it from the start. In addition to its weakened internal unity, progressive Israel has also been hurt by the very broad Israeli consensus that supported the war through its final day. American Jewry seems to have had a similar experience, she noted.

Nonetheless, progressive Zionists in the US should continue to drive home two central lessons from the latest war:

• Military action cannot achieve anything positive over the long term.
• Further military escalation will entail such large-scale damage to the civilian population that it will be ethically and morally intolerable.