Obama's last-ditch effort to resolve the Arab-Israeli crisis

Several US presidents have succumbed in the dying days of their presidency to the temptation to make one final, heroic effort to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Presumably they sincerely have wanted it resolved, but so, too, have they wanted to bolster their legacies.

Bill Clinton's ill-fated Camp David summit in July 2000, illustrated most dramatically the perils of legacy enhancing diplomacy, resulting as it did in the complete collapse of the peace process and the outbreak of the second Intifada.

President Obama is surely not ignorant of this long track record of failure nor of the Clinton disaster. Yet it seems that he, too, is succumbing to the temptation to try one last throw of the dice in a diplomatic gamble. That Obama's initiative is being undertaken with no fanfare and essentially in secret probably reflects the negative learning experience of the Clinton precedent.

If the initiative fails it never happened, but if it succeeds it would provide the high note for Obama's departure from office, a tenure characterised by few if any foreign policy successes, especially in the Middle East. 

Penetrating the veil of secrecy surrounding this current diplomatic effort has thus far proven difficult. The veil was almost rent by the popular explosion in Egypt that greeted President Sisi's precipitate announcement in May that Egypt was handing the islands of Sanafir and Tiran back to the Saudis.

The primary focus of the critics of that move was, however, not on its role in the larger drama of the US-backed effort to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, but on its putative violation of Egyptian sovereignty. So the key decision makers in Washington, Cairo, Riyadh and Jerusalem must have breathed sighs of relief when it became clear that the anger of the Egyptian street was misdirected away from the more vital, vulnerable target of secret US-Arab-Israeli diplomacy.

But the incident did provide a glimpse into that process. Among other things the transfer of the islands' sovereignty to the Saudis was probably intended as a confidence-building measure to help propel negotiations based on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative (API), which then Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had launched the preceding year.

The basic trade-off involved Israel's acceptance of Saudi control over those two strategic islands at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba, in return for Saudi acceptance of the military appendix of the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement, so by implication the principle of a settlement of the conflict between these states, not necessarily involving the Palestinians, as was also the case with the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli treaty.

If the initiative fails it never happened, but if it succeeds it would provide the high note for Obama's departure from office

The first step in building a peace process on the basis of the API thus appears to have been taken. Follow up efforts, including those by Secretary of State John Kerry, are now concentrating on narrowing differences between Israel and the Saudis over the key provisions of the API, which call for a withdrawal by Israel to the June 4 1967 lines.

It also calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as its capital, and a solution to the refugee problem based on a right of return. A parallel effort seems also to be underway to draw Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestine Authority he controls into the process, an effort in which Egypt's President Sisi appears to be taking the lead.

So, are the prospects for success of Obama's diplomatic gamble better than those of his predecessors, all of whom failed?

According to the highly respected former US Ambassador to Egypt and Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, the answer is no. He wrote in January that basing negotiations for a two-state solution on the API "makes no sense". Israel will not accept its key provisions, while "the Arab world is in no position to deliver on what the API promises".

The Arab world of 2002, he notes, "was far more stable than the Arab world of 2016". The appointment in May of ultra-nationalist Avigdor Lieberman as Israel's Defense Minister would seem to suggest that Israeli compromises over the border, Jerusalem and the right of Palestinian return, or even acceptance of a Palestinian state, however small and constrained, have become even less likely.

Betting on a favorable outcome of negotiations over this conflict has been a mug's game for more than a century. Nevertheless, a diplomatic process now seems to be gathering momentum, with even Lieberman recently stating that Israel remains committed to a two-state solution and that the API "contained positive principles that, if appropriately updated, could serve as a basis for negotiations." It is worth assessing, therefore, the chances for success, rather than writing them off categorically.

It is worth assessing, therefore, the chances for success, rather than writing them off categorically

As for the Israelis, the attraction to Prime Minister Netanyahu of diplomatic engagement could be similar to that which drew Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin into the Oslo Process some quarter of a century ago.

That attraction is the weakness of the opposition. To Rabin the undermining of Arafat and Fatah by the growth of Palestinian Islamism held out the opportunity to do a deal whereby the old nemesis would be converted into a junior partner of Israel, with both of them opposing more radical elements.

Similarly, with the Arab states now under pressure from various quarters, Netanyahu may perceive that they are willing to make substantive concessions on the API out of their hopes that at least some of that pressure can be relieved and that, in any case, Israel and the US would assist yet more in helping them deal with it.

As for the Saudis, a negotiated peace with Israel might be perceived by King Salman's son Muhammed as an excellent opportunity to bolster his stature and to complement the transition from petro-state to emerging industrial powerhouse that his Vision 2030 lays out and in which Israeli technical and other assistance could play a key enabling role. His over-extension in the fight against the Houthis in Yemen might also propel him toward a deal with Israel.

While all of these actors do indeed pose threats to Obama securing his legacy through a negotiated settlement, none is necessarily insurmountable

Egyptian President Sisi, under threat from a variety of Islamists, whether at home or in the near abroad, to say nothing of struggling with a collapsing economy and disgruntled population, has already made it clear that he seeks an ever tighter embrace of Israel, even with Netanyahu and Lieberman in control there.

Not only are they mutually engaged in counter-insurgency operations in Sinai, but the pro-Israel lobby in Washington has played a vital role in damping down criticism of the Sisi regime's human rights abuses and sustaining the flow of foreign assistance.

The key Arab states can thus be seen in terms analogous to Arafat's position when he came on board the Oslo Process in that they are in need of Israel to save themselves from more threatening opponents.

But what of the potential wreckers of the process now underway? Will the Palestinians again play second fiddle to the Arab states, or indeed, be left out of the orchestra entirely as those states do deals with Israel about their future? What of Iran and its allies and proxies, whose claim to be more anti-Israeli than the Sunni dominated Arab states is central to their propaganda, if not their actual beliefs?

Now that the Russians are back in the region with a vengeance, will they want to see Washington preside over a deal between Israel and the Arab states? And finally, will the Saudi and Egyptian people sit by as their respective new and somewhat shaky leaders seem to emulate Sadat in selling out the Palestinians and the Arabs more generally? 

While all of these actors do indeed pose threats to Obama securing his legacy through a negotiated settlement, none is necessarily insurmountable. The Palestine Authority and Hamas can be played off against one another and, in any case, the Palestinian people are war-weary in the extreme.

Maybe the weakness of the Arab world combined with Israel's strength and Obama's desire to bolster his legacy will be sufficient to overcome the doleful history of diplomacy

A dramatic improvement in their living conditions would be a huge temptation, whoever is responsible for delivering it. Iran could conceivably seek to come in yet further from the cold and no better way of so doing than at least tacitly agreeing not to wreck a peace process.

Assad has his hands full in Syria, as does Hizballah, while Iran's Shia clients in Iraq are struggling to retain their grip on the country. Israeli-Russian relations have been steadily improving so Moscow would probably prefer to be a co-sponsor of a peace agreement than an opponent of it.

Lastly, as unhappy as Saudis, Egyptians and citizens of other Arab states may be with their leaders and their policies, they recoil from the negative experiences of Yemen, Syria, and Libya, so are unlikely to go down that path in support of Palestinians.

In sum, maybe the weakness of the Arab world combined with Israel's strength and Obama's desire to bolster his legacy will be sufficient to overcome the doleful history of diplomacy regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. But it would still take a mug to bet on that.

Robert Springborg is Visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies, King's College London, and non-resident Research Fellow of the Italian Institute of International Affairs. Until October, 2013, he was Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and Program Manager for the Middle East for the Center for Civil-Military Relations.

From 2002 until 2008 he held the MBI Al Jaber Chair in Middle East Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he also served as Director of the London Middle East Institute. Before taking up that Chair he was Director of the American Research Center in Egypt.

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.