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August 7, 2007
Israel Office
SHATIL
Weekly Message
On their recent tour through the Middle East, Secretaries Rice and Gates sought to strengthen United States ties to the region and to counter the Iranian threat by offering to sell top-of-the-line weaponry to America's Gulf allies, including Saudi Arabia. To the relief of foreign policy realists, who feared President Bush's rhetoric about promoting democracy in the region was becoming the driving force of American policy, human rights and political progress considerations were removed from the agenda. Rice's own devastating critique offered just last year of American presidents "Democrat and Republicans, who pursued stability at the expense of democracy" is, to use the Nixonian phrase, inoperative.
The Israeli government has accepted the Administration's argument about the need to provide moderate Arab countries with significantly upgraded armaments; Israel will also receive major military aid as part of the overall package. Nonetheless, several (mostly Jewish) members of Congress have voiced their objection to the deal, principally on the ground that Saudi Arabia, in particular, is not doing enough to support the war on terror. Concerns about human rights and democratization are occasionally referenced, but are not at the core of the opposition to the sales.
Many Washington-based Middle East peace advocates also tend to ignore the issue of democratization in the region. Their focus is on the peace process; the domestic political arrangements in Arab countries are of little consequence given this broader interest. The peace treaties Israel signed with and Egypt and Jordan are the model; both were imposed by authoritarian rulers and may not have received majority backing had they been placed before the respective populations in referenda.
I have a different perspective. I fully appreciate that the United States has multiple interests and agree that we cannot single-mindedly pursue a democratization strategy. At the same time, relegating issues like democracy and human rights to the dustbin, or even the back-burner, does a disservice to values that are integral to our strength as a nation and, ultimately, undermines our efforts at building long-lasting alliances.
In this context, Palestine may again provide a test for how we weave democracy considerations into our foreign policy calculations. The Administration must balance its emphasis on building democratic Palestinian institutions with a willingness to push for a political horizon for the Palestinians and an improvement in their quality of life.
The Administration must also appreciate that Palestinian political life is complicated and that, for many Palestinians, elections provide the appropriate basis for sorting out competing claims of political legitimacy. While foreign policy realists and peace process advocates may despair at the prospect of another round of elections, several leading Palestinian policymakers view the scheduling of elections, preferably with changes in the laws governing political party qualification and the formula for allocating legislative seats, as a political imperative in the near future. This may delay movement on peace process negotiations, but given the Palestinians circumstances, much more so than in Egypt and Jordan, it is important that any agreement with Israel have the popular support of the Palestinian population.
In this week's NIF News, we report on the inauguration of the Israeli government's new welfare-to-work program following exposure of the Mehalev (Wisconsin Plan) program's shortcomings by the NIF family. We also report on two new Knesset laws, which further the rights of agunot (women whose husbands refuse to grant them a divorce) and ease the plight of the country's poorest citizens living in public housing. SHATIL highlights a recent demonstration that brought together Jewish and Arab activists fighting home demolitions and its successful Northern Exposure program.
