Israel

What Could a Second Trump Administration Mean for the West Bank?

The most revealing moment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the UN occurred when he revealed two side-by-side maps of the Middle East. One, labeled “The Curse” represented an Iran-dominated Middle East. The other map, labeled “The Blessing,” presented a connected region with trade routes between the Mediterranean and the Gulf enabled by Saudi normalization. Notably, both maps fully incorporate the West Bank and Gaza into Israel proper – a revealing glimpse into a Trump-endorsed plan that could come to fruition in his potential second administration.

The hope of Saudi normalization as seen in “The Blessing” map almost never came to be. The Netanyahu government in 2020 had plans to annex the West Bank, but internal hesitation stalled the process, and negotiations led by the UAE formalized the Abraham Accords. The deal officially normalized relations between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco and was interpreted as removing annexation in the near future. A skeptical Netanyahu accepted the deal, and abandoned annexation with the understanding he could not begin the process without steadfast support from his governing coalition and Washington.

The next four years provided little support for the annexation plan, as the Biden administration stood in firm opposition. The Biden administration continued to pursue a Saudi normalization deal in hopes of integrating Israel further into the Arab world yet largely ignoring the Palestinian issue. Biden long expressed support for a two-state solution, though his term was marred by the expansion of Israeli settlements and an intensifying West Bank status quo.

Since Hamas’ attack on October 7, the prospects for a two-state outcome are historically low. Israeli settler violence against Palestinian villages has escalated with the IDF often ignoring outbursts. Illegal Israeli outposts have increased deep in the West Bank and Israel has doubled the amount of West Bank land it has claimed since the Oslo Accords of 1993. Palestinian terror groups have grown in prominence in West Bank cities and plotted attacks within Israel, resulting in frequent Israeli raids in Area A. Israel’s withholding of tax funds has ravaged the fragile economy, putting thousands of West Bank day laborers out of work. The Palestinian Authority (PA), led by Mahmoud Abbas, is viewed as weak, corrupt, and incapable of governing an eventual state in its current form. In the meantime, the most far-right government in Israeli history has considered de jure annexation once again while expanding settlement construction deeper into the West Bank. Hopes of removing the current coalition in favor of a more pragmatic one have diminished further with Netanyahu’s coalition still growing, likely extending his reign until October 2026.

While a Trump Middle East policy is unclear, annexation is a realistic possibility. Influential Trump donors and advisors have openly advocated for annexation. Trump is unlikely to continue Biden’s practice of sanctioning Israeli settler groups, evidenced by the administration’s 2019 reversal of longstanding U.S. policy declaring settlements illegal under international law. In May, Trump said, “I’m not sure a two state solution is going to work,” to the delight of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who responded, “A Palestinian state would be a terrorist state that would endanger the existence of Israel.” Ultimately, a second Trump administration would do little to restrain the extremes of the Israeli government and would instead work to cement Israeli control over the entirety of the West Bank.

The implications of annexation are far reaching and damaging. Legal annexation solidifies the segregated systems for Palestinians and Israeli settlers, increasing the likelihood of violence. Palestinians are further removed from self governance, leading to deeper resentment threatening Israel’s own security. Smotrich’s plan includes settlement expansion further into the West Bank, as opposed to the majority of current settlements which reside adjacent to the Green Line which separates Israel proper from the West Bank. Hamas has been unsuccessful in mobilizing West Bank militants to resist en masse, but if economic hardships persist and settlements expand Israel, there is a risk of a Third Intifada that experts have warned about in recent years. Expanded settler violence and annexation pose existential threats to Israelis and Palestinians, and an ambivalent attitude from Washington enables the most radical of the Israeli right wing. The current Israeli government lacks the same internal divisions over annexation as the prior coalition, and a green light from Trump accelerates the process.

Not only would annexation threaten a Saudi deal, but it strains Israeli alliances with the Egyptians and Jordanians. Israel does not have the luxury of testing alliances in its fragile regional standing, and Jordan is almost certain to retaliate against annexation whether through recalling ambassadors or scrapping the peace treaty. While Egypt is less likely to take drastic measures, it is a major player in Gaza’s reconstruction, and Israel needs its cooperation. While Israel is isolated and condemned by countries in the Middle East and across the world, it cannot risk weakening its already fragile peace with its neighbors.

Surely, a peace plan with two secure states will not be crafted amid heightened tensions and a potential regional war. But a policy of annexation ensures that Israel will be embroiled in regional conflict for the foreseeable future, and Palestinians in the West Bank will continue to be deprived of political autonomy. These steps delegitimize the PA and demonstrate a lack of control, yet a competent PA is in Israel’s best interest. Israel should be taking steps to strengthen the PA as a viable governing body, instead of the corrupt and ineffective body it currently is. On both sides, the prospect of peace feels impossible at this moment, but a two-state solution is the only solution to ensure long-term safety and justice for Israel and Palestine. Small steps seem futile in a period of maximalist agendas and constant escalation, but annexation threatens to exacerbate the conflict irreversibly.

The West Bank is at a breaking point; annexation not only worsens the already intolerable situation for Palestinians in the West Bank but also threatens Israeli security in the long term. In a time of great uncertainty in the region, a second Trump administration threatens to remove the guardrails from Israel’s worst instincts and poses to plunge the region into further chaos. If there is any hope of “The Blessing,” the U.S. must reject maximalist actions and create conditions for the inevitable Palestinian state and Israeli regional integration.

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October 29, 2024 0 comment

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Featured Israel Middle East Palestine

Unfulfilled U.N. Resolutions

written by thegeneration

By Seb Zerilli, University of California, Los Angeles

The establishment of the State of Israel received widespread support from the Western world, often seen as a response to the suffering of the Jewish people during the Holocaust. However, the international community did not fully account for the displacement of the population already residing on the land they sought to assert as their own – the Palestinians.

In response to the perceived oversight, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 in 1947, a document that has faced ongoing academic scrutiny due to its perceived inequities toward the Palestinian people. The resolution outlined the establishment of two separate states, one for the Arab population and one for the Jewish community, with Jerusalem designated as an international territory. A major point of contention arose from the territorial distribution proposed in the UN Partition Plan. The plan allocated fifty-five percent of the land to the Jewish state, encompassing cities with predominantly Palestinian Arab populations and a crucial coastal stretch from Haifa to Jaffa. Critics argued that this distribution would significantly compromise the agricultural and economic viability of the envisioned Palestinian state. Consequently, the proposal was rejected by the Palestinians, leading to armed conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Zionist groups. Adding to the complexity, some viewed the conflict as unjust given that Zionist factions had received significant training and arms from their collaboration with Britain during World War II.

As such, these actions associated with the establishment of the State of Israel led to the Nakba, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, which was a significant event in 1948 that resulted in widespread devastation of Palestinian territories. Some believe that the Nakba was included attempts at ethnic cleansing. Rooted in the ideological principles of Zionism, a political and ideological movement supporting the creation and maintenance of a Jewish homeland in the region of Israel, approximately 750,000 Palestinians were displaced, and 530 cities and villages were destroyed. In response to the humanitarian crisis, the international community addressed the situation through UN Resolution 194 in 1948. The resolution affirmed the inherent right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland, specifically their return “at the earliest practicable date.” It also recognized the entitlement of reparations for losses incurred during the forced diaspora. Despite the legal safeguards provided by Resolution 194, the realization of the right of return for Palestinians has not materialized, highlighting a human rights concern and emphasizing the enduring consequences of historical events such as imperialism.

In 1949, the establishment of Jewish settlements covered seventy-eight percent of historically Palestinian territory. Following the Six-Day War in June 1967, the United Nations responded to Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip by enacting Resolution 242. This resolution called for the “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.” However, Israel has consistently violated this resolution, asserting control over Palestinian territories through the construction of illegal settlements, accommodating between 600,000 and 750,000 illegal settlers. The majority of these settlements have been built, either entirely or partially, on privately owned Palestinian property, thus extending beyond the officially recognized boundaries of the Israeli state. Many settlers have been attracted to the land by government-subsidized housing and additional benefits specifically extended to Israeli Jewish citizens. As of 2017, 6.6 million Jewish individuals were residing on land beyond the internationally recognized borders, a figure that has substantially increased since then.

The strategic policies and geographical positioning of the Israeli occupation are perceived by critics as deliberate efforts aimed at undermining the viability of the Palestinian state. This is often achieved through economic exploitation and the utilization of resources from the local population, particularly in agriculturally advantageous regions. The economic benefits Israel gains from the occupation are evident in the approximately $3 billion generated annually from the sale of Dead Sea minerals and the roughly $130 million in revenue obtained through the use of native Palestinian land and its resources. In 2016, the United Nations indicated that ending the occupation would lead to a twofold increase in economic and financial prosperity for the Palestinian territories. Israeli-controlled areas are established on fertile lands conducive to optimal mining and mineral extraction, as well as possessing abundant water resources. In the West Bank, Israeli settlers control approximately 90 percent of the water resources, a disproportionate share compared to the 3.1 million Palestinians residing in the same region. Notably, over 96 percent of the water in Gaza’s aquifers is rendered non-consumable, leading to the need to purchase trucked water at inflated rates. The intentional control over water resources in the Israeli-occupied territories is argued to not only exacerbate economic hardships but also perpetuate a cycle of dependence. This compels Palestinians to buy water at inflated rates due to the contamination of Gaza’s aquifers. Additionally, the prohibition on Palestinians collecting rainwater since 1967 is seen as not only criminalizing a basic practice but also deepening the manipulation of essential resources as a method of exerting control and causing suffering to the civilian population.

The disregard for the mandates of the UN Resolutions sustains a cycle of displacement and hinders justice for those forcibly uprooted from their land. As the international community observes the erosion of justice and human rights, essential questions emerge. What potential repercussions may arise from the ongoing non-compliance with UN Resolutions? How can the international community actively enforce accountability for governments that fail to adhere to these mandates? What is the efficacy and purpose of the UN if there is no mechanism in place to hold member states accountable for their failure to comply with mandated resolutions? These inquiries seek an objective assessment of the challenges and effectiveness of the UN in ensuring adherence to its resolutions.

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January 24, 2024 0 comment

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Featured Guest Article Israel Middle East Palestine

Taking a Closer Look at the U.S.-Israel Partnership

written by thegeneration

By A. Avery, University of Southern California

While the United States has been a steadfast ally of Israel for many years, recent events on the Gaza Strip warrant a closer examination as to why Israel has continued to receive such unwavering and unparalleled support from the U.S.

On October 7th, the terrorist organization Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on a music festival in Tel Aviv, resulting in the murder of over 1,400 Israeli citizens. An additional 200 Israeli citizens were taken hostage, with 136 that have yet to be released. In the aftermath of this attack, Israel has retaliated by moving forward with the declared intention of fully eradicating Hamas from the Gaza strip. Under this auspice, Israel has conducted indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas, with health authorities in the Hamas-run territory estimating that about 40% of the 23,357 killed were under the age of 18. 4,000 of the reported civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip are children, according to U.N. reports. The result has been the creation of a complex humanitarian emergency (CHE) that threatens to disrupt the already fragile balance of peace in the Middle East.

As the civilian death toll in Palestine continues to rise and the U.S. continues its unwavering support for Israel, it risks stoking resentment across the developing world and driving a further wedge between the U.S. and key partnerships in the Global South.

Political pundits often suggest that supporting Israel is essential for ensuring the survival of democracy in the Middle East, claiming that the two are inextricably linked. As Israel is the region’s sole democracy, its survival is often threatened by its autocratic neighbors that have expressed their displeasure through anti-semetic rhetoric, funding of extremist terrorist groups, and conventional warfare. Hence, the subsequent rationale suggests that withdrawing U.S. support would result in the death of democracy in the Middle East. Therefore, the only way to guarantee the propagation of democratic ideals throughout the region is to ensure the survival of Israel.

However, suggesting that the U.S.’s motivation in supporting Israel rests on its faith in democratic ideals may not be the whole truth. In fact, the U.S. has a long history of working alongside dictators in order to topple democracies. For example, in 1953, the U.S. aided in toppling a democratically-elected Iranian leader in order to prop up an autocratic leader that would ensure continued Western control of Iran’s oil reserves.

In terms of strategic gains, proponents of the U.S.-Israel partnership often claim that the relationship is necessary for the U.S. to have a foothold in the region. In reality, Israel continues to be both a strategic and financial burden to the United States. Israel was of little aid to the U.S. during both the Iranian Revolution and the first Gulf War, as any level of military aid from Israel risks triggering further Arab opposition. Conversely, the aid the U.S. provides Israel comes at a high cost. In 2022, the U.S. committed over $3.3 billion in aid to Israel alone, despite Israel’s advanced military and prosperous economy. Few other U.S. allies have received such unwavering support.

The ongoing U.S. support for Israel strains relations with the Global South, especially as the Biden administration seeks international cooperation for the Ukraine conflict. Many nations – including Indonesia, home to the world’s largest Muslim population – have objected to the U.S.’s continued support of Israel while simultaneously attempting to rally the world against Russian violence. Unfortunately, the U.S.’s apparent hypocrisy threatens to push potential allies towards American adversaries such as Russia, China, and Iran, who have all been vocal about their disapproval of Israel’s actions.

Recent events have illustrated a growing shift in public sentiment in the United States as well, as pro-Palestinian protests have increased in major cities and universities and social media has become a platform for resistance. Even in the U.S. House of Representatives there is internal strife. Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was censured by the House for using rhetoric in response to the Israel-Hamas war, including sharing a video with the phrase “from the river to the sea,” which critics argue calls for the abolition of Israel, leading to bipartisan backlash.

However, this still begs the question – why does the United States continue to give such unwavering support to Israel?

The answer is lobbyists. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, wields significant power and influence in Congress. Through its broad efforts, it is able to achieve two goals: (1) pressure policymakers’ views to support Israel and (2) influence the American public’s perception of Israel to be positive. In return, according to Federal Election Commission records, the 31 AIPAC-backed lawmakers have received a total of at least $3.6 million from AIPAC since February 2022. Without AIPAC’s continued support and funding, policy makers risk losing a key source of funding.

Creating substantial change is a complex and challenging endeavor, especially in the realm of domestic politics. To better ensure U.S. policymakers represent the interests of their constituents, greater transparency and limitations are required in regards to campaign funding sources and their motivations. However, the outpouring of public frustration in regards to the influence of special interest groups over policymakers may hopefully serve as a catalyst for institutional reform.

Regardless, it may be time to take a closer look at the U.S.-Israel partnership. Failing to do so risks further disruptions to the global balance of power, alienating potential allies, and hurting the U.S.’s reputation on both the global and domestic fronts.

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January 22, 2024 0 comment

Featured Geopolitics History Israel Middle East Palestine Security and Conflict Territorial disputes

Destructive Ambiguity: The Failure of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process

written by Alex Choy

“While … ambiguity may have motivated extremist contingents on both sides to acquiesce, intractable issues were kicked like a can down the road.”

Nearly three decades have elapsed since the signing of the Oslo Accords by Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), yet peace continues to elude the region. The Accords, initially praised as a monumental breakthrough, resulted in mutual PLO-Israeli recognition of each other’s legitimacy – and were intended to serve as a framework for peace that would see the PLO renounce terrorism and affirm Israel’s existence. Accordingly, an interim Palestinian Authority (PA), would be established to govern contested territories for five years before an eventual two-state solution.

While the negotiating climate was initially optimistic, subsequent treaty violations and the Second Intifada have caused a near-complete breakdown in negotiations. Therefore, while I hold treaty violations culpable for stymieing the peace process, I argue that a deeper problem facilitates them: the constructive ambiguity of open-ended agreements which allow certain factions to pay mere lip service to compromise; pursuing instead domestically appealing outcomes on intractable issues such as settlements and ‘the right of return’, or by appeasing extremist factions – all at the expense of mutual trust.

Intractable issues in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict center around the biblically significant and contested Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Previously occupied by Jordan and Egypt post-Palestinian Mandate, Israel has occupied these territories since the 1967 Six-Day War, seeing significant influxes of Jewish migrants to so-called ‘settlements’, and reciprocally, significant outflows of Palestinian refugees into surrounding Arab nations. Consequently, the PLO consistently advocated for an end to Israeli occupation from all the territories, and the ‘the right of return’ of refugees under the authority of Security Council resolutions 237 and 338. However, Israel interprets its obligations under these resolutions differently, and maintains that the return of refugees is not explicitly a right, but limited return could potentially be part of a long-term peace deal.

Therefore, before a sustained peace, these intractable issues must be resolved through compromise. To accomplish this, the strategy chosen by diplomats was constructive ambiguity: the deliberate use of ambiguous language when negotiating intractable issues. Used successfully in the past to negotiate Security Council Resolution 242 between Egypt and Israel – proponents reasoned that such a strategy could advance both PLO and Israeli interests by enabling each party to claim concessions, thus achieving an interim conclusion of sorts on intractable issues. In short, constructive ambiguity “is about postponing hard choices.” Accordingly, the negotiating text was then portrayed as an interim ‘framework’ for peace, based on the hope that mutual trust could be fostered gradually through reciprocated conciliatory initiatives.

Nonetheless, amid ambiguities, one critical factor remains steadfast: “For a framework agreement to be credible, it must not only mention the core issues but actually identify how each issue is to be resolved.”

However, Oslo I, which produced The Declaration on Principles (DOP), was “conspicuously silent about the form the permanent status arrangements [would] take.” Its full name, The Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, is fitting, because only two of the treaty’s seventeen articles even hint at a permanent settlement.

The first, Article I, proposes “a permanent settlement based on Security Council resolutions 242 and 338” as the desired endstate of negotiations. Given pre-existing disagreements over interpreting these already ambiguous UN resolutions, because the DOP does not even bother to put forth a definitive interpretation, its vagueness is thereby compounded twofold. The second, Article V, proposes ‘permanent status negotiations’ regarding the aforementioned intractable issues, to be held on a date to be later specified. Therefore, while the DOP’s ambiguity may have motivated extremist contingents on both sides to acquiesce, intractable issues were kicked like a can down the road. Subsequently, this lack of specificity invited leaders on both sides to “interpret the agreements … in a manner that was convenient for them – even if this meant that they would be moving in opposite directions.”

For example, Prime Minister Rabin promised his constituents that “the borders of the State of Israel, during [a] permanent solution, [would] be beyond the lines which existed before the Six-Day War.” Operating based on its victory in 1967, Israel approached subsequent negotiations under the belief that an eventual settlement would entail the retention of East Jerusalem and Palestinian concessions regarding claims to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On the other hand, the PLO believed that they were negotiating through a pre-1948 lens, and according to Chairman Arafat, expected nothing less than “the dismantlement of occupation and the complete withdrawal of occupation troops from [Palestinian] land, … holy places and holy Jerusalem.”

Furthermore, the two parties maintained their uncompromising positions on the aforementioned ‘right of return,’ and Israel continued to increase its settler population in the West Bank, albeit at a slower pace during 1995-96. Consequently, the sheer incompatibility of their opposing positions, which were allowed to solidify during the ambiguous interim period, only strengthened unrealistic expectations among extremist factions, cementing mutual distrust and divergence from the spirit of compromise.

Former Israeli Labor Party politician Yossi Beilin, suspects that the interim solution was created “so that a permanent agreement would never be reached … [before] another round of elections in Israel, which would allow extremists from both sides to thwart” the peace process. His premonitions materialized with Rabin’s assassination by an ultranationalist and the election of Benjamin Netanyahu, a right-wing Likud politician in 1996. Under Netanyahu, Israeli deviations from the DOP’s object and purpose, increased in latitude, given the Likud’s uncompromising stance on the intractable issues.

For instance, Netanyahu lifted the partial freeze on settlement building in the West Bank and authorized the opening of an ancient tunnel that led to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, which was interpreted by Palestinians as “a declaration of war on the peace process.” Reciprocally, the inability, or rather, unwillingness, of Arafat to wrangle extremist Hamas resulted in numerous terrorist attacks in response to perceived Israeli provocations.

Later that year, tensions came to a head when Likud politician, Ariel Sharon, visited the religiously sacred Temple Mount, also known as the Haram al-Sharif, which is claimed by both Jews and Muslims. As Sharon asserted Israel’s sovereignty over the holy site, he was met with violence and condemnation by Palestinians, who labeled the incident as yet another Israeli provocation to “kill the peace.” Subsequently, the violence, which became known as the Second Intifada, only escalated with the brutal retaliatory killings of two Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers. In turn, the killings were met with overwhelming force by the IDF, who reoccupied territories that they had previously vacated during redeployment five years earlier.

As a result, no progress was made at the Taba Summit: a last-ditch effort to broker mutual concessions in July 2000, and when Sharon was elected Prime Minister in 2001, he did not resume negotiations – given the extent that mutual trust had deteriorated. Furthermore, with Arafat’s death in 2005 and Hamas’ ascendence within the PA to fill the vacuum, negotiations have since reached a diplomatic impasse that remains unresolved.

In summation, while constructive ambiguity was needed to bring parties to the bargaining table, it proved destructive rather than constructive – and has since stymied the resolution of intractable issues by empowering factions to pursue unilateral interests, rather than compromise.

Therefore, instead of gradually building mutual trust, the Oslo Peace Process eroded it. Even before the Second Intifada, the Israelis did not believe that Arafat was capable of abandoning his militant origins, due to Hamas terrorist attacks, and the Palestinians doubted Israeli sincerity due to Likud hardliners. Therefore, for future negotiations to be successful, parties must approach negotiations wholeheartedly, ready to make specific concessions on the spot that are spelled out explicitly in binding legal text.

Ambiguity over intractable issues, while convenient in the short term to give the illusion of progress, merely enables extremist factions in their efforts to topple the entire house of diplomatic cards – thereby creating a larger, and more complicated mess to further alienate parties.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect any official policy or position of the US Government, the Department of Defense or the US Army.

April 27, 2021 0 comment

Israel Palestine Security and Conflict Territorial disputes

Israel/Palestine: Challenging Narratives

written by Grayson Peters

This article is the third of five pieces from our summer series for 2020. The theme this summer is “Challenging Narratives.” In the coming days and weeks, The Generation will publish more articles where our writers challenge various notions to provide new and different perspectives on the debates and events shaping your world.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is unparalleled in global notoriety for its controversiality, complexity, and seeming intractability. Even the term “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” itself is contested: some advocates of the Palestinian cause prefer that “Palestine/ian” come first or dispute the use of the term “conflict,” which implies a generally equal balance of power, preferring instead to focus on the word “occupation.” The geopolitics of Israel and Palestine are probably unique in the sense that they provoke unparalleled intensity of rhetoric and emotion from Western observers, including those who identify as Jewish/Israeli or Arab/Palestinian, and those with no clear personal stake in the conflict’s outcome.

In light of this, it goes without saying that that this essay is in no way intended as an all-encompassing or definitive statement on the conflict, the content or validity of competing Israeli and Palestinian narratives, or an ideal resolution. Instead, it is a response to the proliferation of simplistic, one-sided, and often factually misguided opinions. In that spirit, let’s challenge some narratives.

Broadly speaking, two historic and political narratives — Palestinian and Zionist — have solidified in opposition to each other, and the gulf of understanding between these two narratives presents a serious obstacle both to the chances of Israeli-Palestinian peace and to the complete understanding of the dispute by international observers. I will present each narrative on the conflict, discuss important weaknesses of both, and provide a synthesis.

The Palestinian Narrative

What I will, for the sake of argument, refer to as the “Palestinian narrative,” is as follows: Zionism, the ideology which advocated pre-1948 for the establishment of a Jewish state in the Palestine region and post-1948 for the maintenance and support of the existing Jewish state of Israel, was not a national liberation movement but a settler-colonial movement. This narrative, drawing heavily on the academic tradition of anti/post-colonialism, argues that because Zionism was advocated primarily by European Jewish intellectuals whose families had not lived in the Middle East for centuries and was effectuated by the mass migration of largely European Jews to the Palestine region, the dynamic was one of European colonialism.

Also important to advocates of this theory was the support of Western countries in the establishment and defense of Israel following the Second World War, which is used as evidence of Western imperialist collaboration, the colonialist views of prominent Zionist thinkers, and the fact that many of these prominent Zionists explicitly conceived of their state building project as a colonial one.

Because the final goal of settler colonialism is total territorial domination and the complete replacement of the indigenous people, critics argue that Israel is an inherently expansionist and genocidal entity whose telos is the utter destruction of native Palestinians.Accordingly, the state of Israel in its current form — as an explicitly Jewish state in Palestine — is considered to be racist, colonialist, and illegitimate.

Article 22 of the Palestinian National Charter, adopted by the Palestine National Council in July 1968, reads: ‘Zionism is a political movement organically associated with international imperialism and antagonistic to all action for liberation and to progressive movements in the world. It is racist and fanatic in its nature, aggressive, expansionist, and colonial in its aims, and fascist in its methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement, and geographical base for world imperialism placed strategically in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes of the Arab nation for liberation, unity, and progress.”

The Zionist Narrative

The “Zionist narrative” provides a different account of history. Zionists (including the vast majority of Jews today) argue that the Jewish people are not European interlopers but in fact a diasporic indigenous ethno-religious group derived from ancient Judeans who lived and worshipped in Judea, modern-day Palestine, before forced expulsions by the Assyrian, Babylonian, Hellenic, and Roman Empires. Zionists point to the central role of Jerusalem and Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel, in Jewish culture and theology before and after expulsions in antiquity.

Although Ashkenazi Jews, those of Central and Eastern European diasporic descent, were the primary architects of Zionism, modern day Zionists point out that not all Jews have this European background. For example, Mizrahi Jews, those whose families remained in the Middle East after the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE and many of whose families were expelled during expulsions and evacuations from Arab-majority countries after 1948, today constitute slightly over half of Israel’s population.

The Zionist narrative rejects the notion that Zionism and Israel are colonial in nature, arguing that Israeli Jews are equally indigenous to the region, that Zionism is a national liberation movement pursuing justified self-determination, and that Israel is a pluralistic, liberal democracy whose 20% minority of Arab citizens enjoy full political and legal rights.

The Israeli Proclamation of Independence justifies the establishment of Israel by specific appeal to asserted Jewish indigeneity, beginning, “The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books. After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.”

Key issues of dispute

There are many points of tension between the Palestinian and Zionist narratives of the conflict, but here are two important questions for which different sides present different answers.

First, are the Jews indigenous to the Palestine region, and if so, does that indigeneity create a right to a Jewish state in Palestine? And second, is it true that the Zionist project was and/or is colonial in nature, and what are the consequences of either determination?

While both of these questions may seem highly abstract and retrospective, their repercussions on the conflict are profound. As long as the parties in the Israel-Palestine conflict hold firmly to drastically different accounts of history, they cannot easily reach consensus on what constitutes present reality. And with that kind of epistemic gap, a lasting peace settlement is essentially impossible.

The Indigeneity Question

The question of Jewish indigeneity is, like all of the fundamental questions underlying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, deeply contested. The status of indigenity is generally understood to apply to people who self-identify as members of groups which can claim historical continuity with a given territory prior to colonial or settler contact, who can be classified as having distinct religious, cultural, social, and linguistic practices, and who self-identify as indigenous.

In many ways, this definition fits the Jewish people, who, despite enforced diaspora, claim religious, linguistic, ancestral, and genetic ties to the land of Israel and have a distinct culture. Indeed, an argument can be made that Jews, having lived outside of Judea as persecuted minorities in European, Middle Eastern, African, and Asian nations for centuries, can lay claim to the term indigenous. And, the imperial domination of the Levant by Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, Arab Caliphs, Crusaders (briefly), Ottoman Turks, and the British Mandate for Palestine parallels the imperial and colonial oppression of other, unambiguously indigenous peoples.

However, the issue is more complex. Converts to the Jewish faith are considered full members of the Jewish people, and qualifying converts to Judaism can also claim Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return and emigrate, even if they have no Jewish ancestry at all, a fact which complicates the traditional indigenity paradigm. Moreover, a majority of Jews in late 19th and early 20th centuries were not living in modern-day Israel, but mostly scattered across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Most of their ancestors had not set foot in the Levant for over two thousand years. Can indigenity expire over the centuries? Certainly, when European Jews emigrated en masse in the 20th century, many Palestinians interpreted the new arrivals not as long-estranged neighbors but as Western interlopers. This raises the question: is indigenity required for a state to be legitimate? Can a state founded on colonialism — as some consider Israel to be — ever be considered as legitimate and recognized as having authentic ties and rights to its land?

If, however, we accept the argument that Jews are indigenous to Judea, then does this suggest a right to self-determination, and thus to a Jewish state? Article III of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples reads, “Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” Self-determination, being the capacity and right of a group of people to exercise independent sovereignty and political decision-making, would suggest a right to a state.

The Colonialism Question

Early intellectuals of the Zionist movement were open about their vision for a colonial project in Palestine. Theodore Herzl, founder of modern Zionism and the Zionist Organization in the late 19th century, corresponded with English colonialist Cecil Rhodes, inviting him to partake in the colonial establishment of a Jewish state.Ze’ev Jabotinsky, theorist of Revisionist Zionism, argued that the Jewish state should come about not through the carefully-courted endorsements of European powers, but by mass immigration of Jews to Palestine to establish a power base and force the issue. Jabotinsky wrote in 1923, “Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach.”

However, the question is more complicated than these quotes might suggest. For one, the paradigm of settler colonialism has traditionally been applied to European countries who exported their residents to other continents like Africa in the hope of enriching and strengthening the host colonial nation, establishing dominance over new territory, and displacing and replacing indigenous peoples. The Zionist project, while in some respects arguably colonial, was not an attempt by a foreign state to occupy and consume indigenous land, because there was no Jewish state at all prior to the establishment of Israel. In fact, the most consequential wave of Jewish emigration to Palestine immediately preceding Israeli statehood was that of European Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors, many of whom migrated from displaced persons camps. It is thus difficult to describe the immediate circumstances of Israel’s founding in 1948, as opposed to the political writings of Zionist leaders in prior decades, as some sort of pre-meditated Western endeavor. Indeed, the United Kingdom’s policy with respect to Jewish emigration and Zionism, as expressed in the 1939 White Paper issued by the Chamberlain Government at the urging of Arab Palestinian leaders and in fear of Arab revolts, had been to severely restrict Jewish emigration, condition future Jewish statehood on Arab approval, and tamp down on the purchase of Palestinian land by Jews. Unfortunately, while this policy may have preserved political stability in Palestine on the eve of World War II, it also had the side effect of denying Jews from escaping Europe in the 1940s a safe haven.

Further, depending on one’s views of the indigeneity of Jews to the Levant, the colonialism debate raises the question as to whether or not a group of people indigenous to a land can subsequently colonize it, or whether their return and reestablishment of sovereignty should instead be characterized as a national liberation movement. Critics of Israel might find a parallel example of indigenous repatriation as colonization in Liberia, which began as a settlement founded by the American Colonization Society (ACS). The ACS sought to voluntarily “repatriate” free African Americans to Africa in the first half of the 19th century and was successful in sending tens of thousands of freedmen to what is now the nation of Liberia. However, Liberia developed quickly into a very unequal society, in which Liberians of American descent, known as Americo-Liberians, ironically established a politically and economically dominant planter class and ruled over the “native” Liberians. This example differs from Israel, however, in that there has been a continuous Jewish presence in Eretz Yisrael since the earliest days of Jewish people, and in that Jews have ties to that specific region, whereas ancestors of Americo-Liberian colonists were not from Liberia specifically but the African continent generally.

In recent decades, the military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and growth of Jewish settlements, both unauthorized and government subsidized, into the West Bank has been understandably interpreted as expansionist and even colonial in nature, bolstering the claims of those who characterize Israel in its entirety — both within and beyond its internationally-recognized borders — as a colonial entity. Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promised but not delivered de jure annexation of much of the West Bank was similarly described by critics as colonial Zionism’s inexorable next bite into Palestinian land.

Synthesis

So, the Palestinian narrative of Israel as a totally foreign settler colonial state is undermined by Jewish claims to indigeniety and mismatches between the settler colonial model and the facts of the conflict’s history. And, the Zionist narrative of Israel as an exceptionalist national liberation project is challenged by the unmistakably colonial elements of Zionism’s intellectual history as well as Israel’s prolonged occupation and creeping de facto annexation of land theoretically reserved for a future Palestinian state.

In early July, leading liberal Zionist Peter Beinart, a longtime defender of a two-state solution, declared that he no longer believed that two states were feasible, instead suggesting a single state or two-in-one federation to ensure full political equality for Palestinians.Others have rejected this suggestion, arguing that a single state governing two groups with incredibly deep historical grievances and, assuming that a single state would provide a full right-of-return for Jews and Palestinians alike, a substantial Palestinian majority and Jewish minority would lead only to worsened conflict.

Come August, however, Israel suspended plans for annexation of the West Bank in exchange for the normalization of diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates, followed swiftly by normalization with Bahrain. Despite the objections of Palestinians, it appears that Arab states are abandoning the “Arab consensus” that resolution of the Palestinian question be a prerequesite for diplomatic ties with Israel.

There is no panacea for the conflict, but whatever form peace takes when and if it finally arrives, it will depend on the ability of Israelis and Palestinians to appreciate the complexities of their own national narratives and consider the alternative narrative with empathy and respect. Unless each group can acknowledge the other’s national story and claim to the contested territory, there can be no peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

September 14, 2020 0 comment

Featured Geopolitics Israel Middle East Military Security and Conflict United States

Water Politics: The United States’ Role in Israeli Water Security

written by Abdus Najmi

Part 1: Research Question

Located on the border between Israel and Jordan, the Dead Sea is a natural body of water high in salinity – in fact, the levels are so high that one can easily float on the surface. As a frequently visited tourist site, the Dead Sea holds is famous among the wonders of the Middle East. However, this reality is soon coming to an end. Scientists have noted that the “surface area has almost halved,” bringing the water elevation level to a new low.^[i] Though Israel and Jordan have agreed to combat this impending environmental disaster, little work has been done. Despite words of affirmation, the Red Sea-Dead Sea project is stuck at a standstill, as relations between the two countries “are at a historic low.”^[ii] As the crisis looms closer and closer, policymakers have been attempting to grapple with new and innovative modes of effective diplomacy over water resources.

New responses are not necessarily better responses. It is critical to examine the past to help illuminate previous mistakes administrations have made in the realm of water politics. This paper will examine the history of US-Israel relations in regards to water security and management. The amount of literature on the role of the US in Israel’s water policies is actually surprisingly large.

My analysis will focus specifically on Israeli-Jordanian cooperation and conflict, and the role of the US in mediating the allocation of water resources. I will focus specifically on the Johnston Plan in the early 1950s and the 1994 Treaty of Peace between Jordan and Israel. The question I will answer is: What conditions lead to the failure of Israeli-Jordanian water cooperation? In the conclusion, I will answer potential counterarguments and explain how understanding the conditions of failure and success over water security can help provide insights to policymakers for dealing with current failures of Israeli-Jordanian water projects, such as joint-desalination and the Red Sea-Dead Sea project discussed in the introduction.

Part 2: Thesis

My thesis is two-fold: first, I argue that a realist approach to water politics falls short of explaining historical collaboration between Israel and Jordan. Current realist approaches approach water as a commodity, arguing that the reason why cooperation is unsuccessful is because water security is seen as a zero-sum game, where the other opponent is reluctant to cooperate due to fears of losing out on greater access to that resource. In addition, the realist approach looks at that time period as a battle of competing influences between the United States and Russia.

Thus, cooperation fails insofar that policy decisions over water allocation affect the regional hegemonies of the United States and Russia respectively. However, I posit that a constructivist approach better explains the failure of cooperation, specifically focusing on Israeli/Arab identities as social constructs, including discussions of Zionism, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and the Syrian conflict. Amity and enmity are determined by identity.

Part 3: Current/Main Approaches

Current approaches to water security have mainly centered around a realist approach. The approach is as follows: water, in and of itself, cannot be divided. For example, if two people are dying of thirst in a desert, and there is only one cup of water left, it either has to be shared or given to only one person. It’s a non-negotiable good in the sense that it is a rare commodity that directly necessitates a trade-off. If someone receives water, it is inherently at the expense of the other. For many international relations scholars, this is why water cooperation over the Jordan and Yarmouk river fail. Israel and Jordan lose if the other defects, as the scenario is depicted as “a zero-sum game in the national discourses and as a situation of interdependence and possible mutual gains.”^[iii] Scholars cite numerous empirical examples to demonstrate this. For example, after the Johnston plan negotiations failed, the Hashemite Kingdom “announced plans to divert the Yarmouk river […] through the construction of the East Ghor Canal,”^[iv] while Israel attempted to retaliate back by beginning the “construction of a National Water Carrier to transport the water of the Sea of Galilee to its arid South.”^[v]Water was seen as a resource that was mutually exclusive – just as nations race to proliferate for nuclear weapons, states race to secure the most amount of water. In fact, escalation from the rush to securitize water has actually produced conflict between these two states. Israel “bombed the East Ghor Canal,”^[vi] believing that Jordan had malicious intent and was bent on overusing the canal. Furthermore, realists also examine the status quo division of water to prove their theory as well, showing that negotiations focus on the nitty gritty details of water allocations. Post the Madrid talks that ushered in the peace treaty between Jordan and Israel, Jordan was able to secure most of its water from the Yarmouk river, while Israel keeping most of the Jordan river.^[vii] Small caveats were made, with the treaty allowing the allocation “from the other river to each country […] Israel receives 25 million cubic meters (mcm) from the Yarmouk, and Jordan receives 30 mcm from the Jordan.”^[viii]

Additionally, realists would point to the way in which Israel and Jordan conduct and view water policies, especially in how they sell water to each other. The buying and selling of “water at a discounted rate to its neighbor […] reflects an understanding that the price of water is not just the marginal cost of its production but […] a political stability dividend.”^[ix] Water compromise is political compromise – political stability hinges on the zero-sum transaction of water allocation. However, I will argue that though these details may be true, the over-focus on the specifics of water allocation ignores the root causes of identity formation in constructivist theory which prevent effective compromise in the first place.

In addition, the realist approach prides itself in understanding this conflict in the context of the pursuit of hegemony. Because states pursue policies that maximize their self-interest, the US wanted to properly negotiate a solution to the water conflict between Israel and Jordan as a way to counter “communist influence spilling over to Jordan and spreading in the region.”^[x] Especially after the Soviets had managed to establish “a foothold in Egypt and Syria by supplying weapons to both countries,”^[xi] the US began to fear a growing Soviet Union presence in the Middle East writ large. The US attempted to expand its influence by appearing as a broker and friend between both parties, Israel and Jordan. This is why it initially attempted to broker the Johnston plan and provide “funding for both the Israeli National Water Carrier and the Jordanian East Ghor Canal Project.”^[xii] The US wanted to appease both sides, ultimately playing a balancing act between the favoritism of the Arabs and Israelis, but to no avail. Realists also look at the way the Soviet Union approached this conflict as well to see if the theory could be supported by the actions of both actors. When examining the actions of the Soviets, they found deep evidence of a Soviet pursuit of regional hegemony and establishment of a sphere of influence in Israeli-Jordanian water politics as well. For example, upon arrival of US ambassador Eric Johnston to the Middle East region, the Soviets “attempted to spread anti-Johnston mission propaganda and labeled the Main Plan US imperialism,”^[xiii] even going so far as to tell the Arabs that he is a “well-known Zionist.”^[xiv]

The battle of regional hegemonies and the idea of water cooperation as a zero-sum game clearly lend credibility to the realist approach. However, I will argue that though much of the theory is warranted, it falls short in explaining in entirety why cooperation fails, specifically in the context of the failure of the Johnston plan and the success of the Madrid talks. Identity formation and social constructions function as better explanations for the eventual demise of water cooperation.

Part 4: Discussion

Groups function as imagined communities, constantly constructing different identities which function as in and out groups. In a sense, there remains no possibility for the construction of one group without another; in order to first exist, something must exist in opposition to it. For example, many view the rise of Islam and the West as imagined communities; there is nothing that inherently makes them enemies besides constructions of what an enemy is and what interests they have. The same phenomenon happened during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. However, these constructions can be dangerous since “interests are neither primordial nor rational; instead, they emerge from the perceptions and interpretations of the respective groups.”^[xv] That framework is critical when thinking about what cooperation means in the context of constructivism. For the realist, cooperation over water would be about attempting to maximize one’s own self interests and power. For the constructivist, cooperation functions “as a social continuity, since cooperative – like conflictive – behavior is enabled and shaped by hegemonic discourses.” ^[xvi] Cooperation is thus about managing behavior in regards to identity negotiation, almost like negotiating which parts of social construction the other side is willing to cave in on. Seemingly, conflict is described by how dearly a group plans to stick to its social construction.

This actually manifests itself in a problematic manner – if this theory holds true, then cooperation is an extremely difficult process. It requires societal attitudes towards that social construction to change, easily proven true by these exact same water disputes. It took almost forty to fifty years after the Johnston Plan in 1953 for there to be any real progress on water management (since the Israeli-Jordanian peace settlement was in 1994). Identities naturally “cannot easily be manipulated by elites,”^[xvii] which illuminates why a realist approach of attempting to strike a balance of interests in water disputes doesn’t really make sense. It’s not necessarily about maximizing which side secures the most resources; it’s about how strong identities attempt to exist in opposition to each other.

This framework of identity formation is critical when examining water disputes between Israel and Jordan. Firstly, it’s important to understand the importance of the concept of water for Israeli/Jewish identity. For Jews, water is intertwined deeply with “the creation of a Jewish state and the Israeli identity […] water’s ideological meaning […] [lies] in political Zionism.”^[xviii] Driven out of their land starting with the Babylonian Exile to the Holocaust, Jewish people have linked water to their own survival, and naturally so. The ability to access water “is a question of existence for the Jewish state,”^[xix] as over half of the resources are “located outside its internationally recognized borders.”^[xx]Securitization of water is thus necessary for the security of Jewish existence. Especially given the track record of water used as a weapon in Israel’s past, securitization seems inevitable. For example, 1964 was the year in which Arab states “tried to divert the tributaries of the Jordan River,”^[xxi] which Israel responded to by regaining access during the Six Day War. Negotiations and questions of peace are necessarily tied to Israel’s access to water. Images of future Zionist possibilities also demarcated the securitization of water, since much of the discourse was filled with phrases like “making the desert bloom.”^[xxii] This gave credibility to the notion of Jews making Israel an agricultural paradise and settling the land permanently. Zionist propaganda and government statements supported this settlement ethos as well, as they mentioned the importance of “irrigating the deserts of southern Palestine.”^[xxiii] Statements by important figures such as Chaim Weizmann even stress the importance of linking water and security for Israel. For him, it was paramount that “the future Jewish state would […] ensure its control over […] water.”^[xxiv] He even wrote to the Prime Minister about the necessity to “ensure claims to territory in the North.”^[xxv] Water and security were framed as top issues in Zionist discourse, constructing Israeli identities in direct opposition to Arab access to water resources.

Moreover, as much as Zionist discourse stood in opposition to Arab control of water, Jordanian discourse equally advanced an anti-Israeli doctrine in terms of water policy, ultimately leading to the demise of the Johnston Plan of 1953-1955. Jordanians saw themselves as part of a broader Arab identity, which greatly hindered any progress on Johnston’s proposals. They followed the decision-making of the Arab League Council, who told them that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a conditional issue on which Israel needed to resolve before any agreement. Johnston’s shuttle diplomacy ultimately failed, as “two political considerations stood in the way of ratification.”^[xxvi] The first was the “plight of the Palestinian refugees, […] the other was the fact that cooperation with Israel could be interpreted as political recognition of Israel.”^[xxvii] For Jordan, Arab identity superseded any form of negotiation, no matter if the Johnston Plan would have actually been better for Jordan’s access to the water supplies of both the Yarmouk and Jordan rivers. Even though Jordan’s government may not have even liked the Palestinians, Arab constructions of identity were more influential than incentives to negotiate with the Israelis. Negotiation with Israel would also imply an acceptance of Israel as a nation-state. Media reports highlight that this wasn’t a favorable opinion among the people, as Jordanian “editorials went on to argue that it was better for Jordan to develop water within its own boundaries than ‘to cooperate with Israel.”^[xxviii]

As mentioned before, cooperation is difficult because it requires whole populations to shift their orientations about the social constructs they have created. This is clearly witnessed in the failure of the Johnston agreement. There were vast tensions between the Jordanians and Israelis, “notably at the level of the population.”^[xxix] The Jordanian people themselves felt as if the “treaty [was] unfavourable to them,” and when coupled with the “violence between Israelis and Palestinians,” it’s easy to understand the “lack of trust of Jordanians [have] towards Israel.”^[xxx] However, one can notice that these identities become problematic, especially considering the fact that the Johnston Plan would have actually been beneficial for the Jordanians. The plan would have allowed “Israel […] 30 per cent of the total water, Jordan 63 per cent, Lebanon 3 per cent, and Syria 4 per cent.”^[xxxi] This disproves the realist notion that states act in their own self-interest – if that were true, Jordan would have maximized their own access to water resources. It also disproves the notion that water security is a zero-sum game. Jordan would seek to attain the most amount of water, which they would have gotten with this plan, if it was at the expense of Israel. In addition, scholars note that the conflict should not be understood “as a zero-sum game […] if both parties were to apply joint management the potential benefits would be huge.”^[xxxii] Arab identity clearly took precedent over rational claims of maximizing self-interest. The fact that the Lebanese parliament speaker said that “rapprochement with Israel” would cause leaders to “be assassinated, as was Jordan’s King Abdullah,” really highlights how groups view opposing identities.^[xxxiii] Constructivism provides a better framework to understand the failed negotiations of the Johnston Plan.

Likewise, the evidence is bidirectional – the Israelis saw Jordanian support and sympathy with Palestine as a reason to forestall and hinder water cooperation post-Johnston plan. Specifically, in 1969, Israel failed to cooperate with the Jordanians under the banner of Jordanian support for the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Israelis went ahead and “bombed the East Ghor Canal […] scholars also point out that this attack was […] linked to the fact that Jordan was supporting the PLO.”^[xxxiv] The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains a huge concern for both sides in terms of cooperation, as Israeli-Jordanian cooperation is contingent on the way that Jordanians see themselves as the direct allies of Palestinians, just as Israelis see themselves as part of an exclusive, Zionist project. The same thing happened with the 1994 peace treaty between Jordan and Israel. Though the agreement was successful, Arab versus Israeli identity became a central factor that severely hampered full-blown cooperation. The treaty included discussion of Palestinian refugees, but “left [it] for final-status negotiations.”^[xxxv] The issue of Palestinian refugees has yet to be resolved, however it bodes that any type of future water conflict is “instrinsically linked to the central issues of the Arab-Israeli conflict […] a regional water agreement will depend on the resolution of the entire conflict.”^[xxxvi]

My argument falls short when Syria enters the picture. If constructivism is about group identity, then why do Syria and Jordan also fail to cooperate when it comes to water allocation? Syria and Jordan are both Arab nations, yet both of them failed to properly divide water resources right after the Johnston plan. Surprisingly, “Jordan’s relations with Syria have not been very brotherly.”^[xxxvii] Syria violated a 1951 treaty between the two nations in regards to water security, by “constructing earthen dams on the Yarmouk tributaries inside its borders.”^[xxxviii] Even after that, Syria and Jordan remained even more divided as both supported “opposite sides in the Iraq-Iran War.”^[xxxix] Arab identity was not enough to illicit proper diplomacy – even to this day. Currently, Syrian attitudes towards Jordan regarding water policy “in the Yarmouk catchment did not change, and Jordan continues to be adversely affected.”^[xl] Further research will have to be done to understand what other factors besides identity are at play here. Constructivism may be able to explain why the Israeli-Jordanian cooperation over the Johnston plan failed, however falls short when it discusses conflicts among the same identity group.

The realist argument that water cooperation fails due to the pursuit of hegemony between the US and Russia definitely has strong backing, but it falls short very quickly when we examine how cooperation becomes a success during the Madrid Peace talks. If it was about rivalries and the pursuit of hegemony, then why do the Soviets and US end up collaborating to put on the Madrid Peace talks? By 1991, the Soviet Union leadership under Gorbachev changes drastically, so much so that the “Soviet transformation […] in the mid-1980s” ends up making “Russia a much more acceptable partner for joint conflict resolution in the Middle East.”^[xli] The Soviet Union switches over from competition to cooperation before their collapse at the end of the year, which realism can’t explain well enough. The sudden ideological shift does not make sense given the Soviet Union’s previous drive towards revisionism. If all states exist to maximize their hegemonic influence, then it makes even less sense that the Soviet Union would do this when it was still considered to be the United States’ greatest competitor at the time.

Part 5: Conclusion

Current approaches to understanding Israeli-Jordanian water security fall short because most of the discourse assumes a realist approach to IR. Policymakers tend to view water security as a zero-sum game, which treats water as a mutually exclusive good. The realist idea of states pursuing hegemony to expand their spheres of influence can offer some explanatory potential but not all. Instead, policymakers should adopt a constructivist approach that centers decision-making around issues of identity and social construction. This will help explain the failure of the Johnston Plan as a broader Arab-Israeli conflict, rather than a Jordanian-Israeli one. My research falls short when it comes to discussing the failure of cooperation between Jordan and Syria, but I believe that as a short-term heuristic, policymakers can adopt a constructivist approach to understand Arab conflicts with non-Arab actors. We may need to develop a new framework when it comes to in-group vs. in-group violence. Further research needs to be done on the role of water conflict and scarcity from an Arab identity perspective. My future research will examine why cooperation among Arab states fails in the realm of water security. This may be due to sectarian differences in faith, essentially creating out-groups within the in-groups. Given the analysis in this research paper, it is critical for the US to realize that if it wants to play any role in resolving the Red Sea-Dead Sea canal project, it needs to address the broader issue of Israel-Palestine first.

^[i] Surkes, Sue. “Sinking Israel-Jordan Relations Leave Dead Sea, a Natural Wonder, Low and Dry.” The Times of Israel, November 7, 2019. https://www.timesofisrael.com/sinking-israel-jordan-relations-leave-dead-sea-a-natural-wonder-low-and-dry/.

^[ii] Ibid.

^[iii] Tobias Ide and Christiane Fröhlich, “Water conflict or water cooperation? A discursive understanding of water conflict and cooperation in Israel and Palestine,” Institute for Peace Research and Security Politics (2014): 17.

^[iv] ECC. “Jordan and Israel: Tensions and Water Cooperation in the Middle-East: ECC Factbook.” ECC Library, Jan. 2018, library.ecc-platform.org/conflicts/jordan-and-israel-water-cooperation-middle-east.

^[v] Ibid.

^[vi] Ibid.

^[vii] Mitha, Farooq. “The Jordanian-Israeli Relationship: The Reality of ‘Cooperation.’” Middle East Policy 17, no. 2 (September 2010): 105–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4967.2010.00442.x.

^[viii] Ibid.

^[ix] Shay, Shaul. “Regional Water Security: Challenges and Opportunities in the Middle East .” IDC Herzliya: Institute for Policy and Strategy, (2017), www.idc.ac.il/he/research/ips/Documents/publication/5/ShaulShayWaterSecurity2.pdf.

^[x] Haddadin , M.J. “The Jordan River Basin: A Conflict Like No Other.” Edited by Erika Weinthal, Jessica Troell, and Mikiyasu Nakayama. Water and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding 1 (2014): 250. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781849775809.

^[xi] Ibid.

^[xii] ECC. “Jordan and Israel: Tensions and Water Cooperation in the Middle-East: ECC Factbook.” ECC Library, Jan. 2018, library.ecc-platform.org/conflicts/jordan-and-israel-water-cooperation-middle-east.

^[xiii] Sosland, Jeffrey. Cooperating Rivals: The Riparian Politics of the Jordan River Basin. Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press, 2007. Page 46.

^[xiv] Ibid.

^[xv] Tobias Ide and Christiane Fröhlich, “Water conflict or water cooperation? A discursive understanding of water conflict and cooperation in Israel and Palestine,” Institute for Peace Research and Security Politics (2014): 4-5.

^[xvi] Ibid.

^[xvii] Ibid.

^[xviii] Ibid, page 7.

^[xix] Renger J. “The Middle East Peace Process: Obstacles to Cooperation over Shared Waters.” In: Scheumann W., Schiffler M. (eds) Water in the Middle East. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (1998): 50.

^[xx] Ibid.

^[xxi] Ibid.

^[xxii] Morag, Nadav. “Water, Geopolitics and State Building: The Case of Israel.” Middle Eastern Studies 37, no. 3 (2001): 179-98. www.jstor.org/stable/4284179.

^[xxiii] Ibid.

^[xxiv] Ibid.

^[xxv] Ibid, page 191.

^[xxvi] Haddadin , M.J. “The Jordan River Basin: A Conflict Like No Other.” Edited by Erika Weinthal, Jessica Troell, and Mikiyasu Nakayama. Water and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding 1 (2014): 252-253. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781849775809.

^[xxvii] Ibid.

^[xxviii] Wishart, David M. “The Breakdown of the Johnston Negotiations over the Jordan Waters.” Middle Eastern Studies 26, no. 4 (1990): 542. www.jstor.org/stable/4283397.

^[xxix] ECC. “Jordan and Israel: Tensions and Water Cooperation in the Middle-East: ECC Factbook.” ECC Library, Jan. 2018, library.ecc-platform.org/conflicts/jordan-and-israel-water-cooperation-middle-east.

^[xxx] Ibid.

^[xxxi] Morag, Nadav. “Water, Geopolitics and State Building: The Case of Israel.” Middle Eastern Studies 37, no. 3 (2001): 194-195. www.jstor.org/stable/4284179.

^[xxxii] Jägerskog A. (2007) “Why States Co-operate over Shared Water: The Water Negotiations in the Jordan River Basin.” In: Shuval H., Dweik H. (eds) Water Resources in the Middle East. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2007): 116.

^[xxxiii] Sosland, Jeffrey. Cooperating Rivals: The Riparian Politics of the Jordan River Basin. Albany, NY: State Univ. of New York Press, 2007. Page 40.

^[xxxiv] Ibid.

^[xxxv] Mitha, Farooq. “The Jordanian-Israeli Relationship: The Reality of ‘Cooperation.’” Middle East Policy 17, no. 2 (September 2010): 110. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4967.2010.00442.x.

^[xxxvi] Renger J. “The Middle East Peace Process: Obstacles to Cooperation over Shared Waters.” In: Scheumann W., Schiffler M. (eds) Water in the Middle East. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (1998): 54.

^[xxxvii] Haddadin , M.J. “The Jordan River Basin: A Conflict Like No Other.” Edited by Erika Weinthal, Jessica Troell, and Mikiyasu Nakayama. Water and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding 1 (2014): 253-254.

^[xxxviii] Ibid.

^[xxxix] Ibid.

^[xl] Ibid.

^[xli] Jägerskog A. (2007) “Why States Co-operate over Shared Water: The Water Negotiations in the Jordan River Basin.” In: Shuval H., Dweik H. (eds) Water Resources in the Middle East. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2007): 87-88.

February 5, 2020 0 comment