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Fifteen years ago, the Obama administration pressured Israel to agree to a 10-month settlement freeze. The goal, the Americans told us, was to incentivize the Palestinian Authority to join peace talks.
Our government responded that the freeze would not only fail to bring President Mahmoud Abbas to the negotiating table, it would make it almost impossible for him to negotiate in the future. People around him would ask, “why enter talks when you’re already driving a wedge between the U.S. and Israel? Why join talks where you’re going to have to pay a price for concessions when you can boycott negotiations and get concessions for free.”
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Former US President Barack Obama and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas
(Photo: AP)
In the end, Israel gave in to President Obama and froze settlement construction for 10 months. After that, President Abbas simply asked for an additional 10 months. The Palestinians never joined the negotiations and in the end simply walked away.
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I recalled that example this week with word of the first-ever direct talks between the United States and Hamas. My first thought was that Israelis must support every effort, however difficult, to bring every last hostage home.
But my second thought was to wonder whether America’s policy toward Hamas today would have the same result as that between the U.S. and the Palestinian Authority in 2010.
Clearly, in achieving direct contacts with the United States, Hamas has been given a great prize, but will that concession make it more flexible? Will it, rather, lead Hamas leaders to believe that they have driven a wedge between the U.S. and Israel? Would it recreate the situation in which the terrorists will ask, “why give up something in talks when we’re getting it outside of talks?”
Michael Oren Photo: Alex KolomoiskyIn light of that experience, I can appreciate the government’s opposition to the administration’s decision. I similarly understand the government’s desire to downplay its differences with Washington. And I fully understand the fear of many Israelis that distinctions might be made between American and Israeli hostages.
But I still hope that the administration will not repeat Obama’s mistake and lead the Palestinians to believe that they can drive a wedge between Jerusalem and Washington and that they can gain more by refusing to negotiate. I sincerely wish for the American envoy’s success and that the U.S. will always stand by its pledge to rid Gaza of Hamas—militarily as well as politically—in the future.
- Michael Oren is an American-Israeli diplomat, writer, and politician, who served as a former Israeli ambassador to the United States