Herb Keinon

By Judie Jacobson

Herb Keinon, the diplomatic correspondent for The Jerusalem Post, touched down in New York this week to begin a two-week speaking tour of the U.S., which includes several stops in Connecticut.
Keinon joined the Post 25 years ago, taking over the diplomatic beat in August 2000, just after the failed Camp David summit, and just before the outbreak of the Palestinian violence in September of that year. He is responsible for covering Israel’s Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. He has followed Ehud Barak to Paris, Ariel Sharon to Crawford, Texas, Ehud Olmert to Annapolis, and Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington D.C.
In addition, Keinon has lectured widely in Israel, the U.S., Europe and Australia and appears as a guest commentator on radio and television programs in the U.S., Canada and Europe. He is the author of “Lone Soldiers: Israel’s Defenders from Around the World.”
A native of Denver, Colo., Keinon has lived in Israel for 26 years

Q: It’s been reported that the Quartet is trying to resuscitate the peace process.  Any chance of that happening?
A: The Quartet is trying to put forward a formula.  What’s interesting about that is that, in so doing, the Americans have essentially taken a back seat.  Up until about eight months ago America wouldn’t have wanted the Quartet to be the one to actively negotiate with the parties. Think back – when George Mitchell was America’s envoy he was the guy to negotiate and the Quartet sort of sat in the back and put the rubber stamp on it.  Beginning in February, however, the Quartet moved up. They wanted a bigger role and America was happy to give them a bigger role. You’re seeing a sort of lead-from-behind kind of thing – like we saw with U.S. in Libya.  President Obama is comfortable saying, “Right now, a year before the elections, I don’t need to get between Israel and the Palestinians. It’s comfortable for me to let other people do the work.  I’ll sit in the back and kind of set the strategy, but they’ll be the point people.” It’s a fairly significant change. Also, remember that after Obama spoke at the U.N. in September the Palestinians were saying “Well, he’s no longer a neutral party.  We want to deal with the Quartet.”  So, all those things have come together.
As background:  On Sept. 23, the Palestinians came to the United Nations and asked for statehood.  That same day, the Quartet put out their framework for moving back into talks.  The framework called for, within a month, a direct Israel/Palestinian meeting. The Palestinians were not willing to do that, so the Quartet was not able to carry it out.  In lieu of that, the Quartet came to Jerusalem, meeting separately with the Palestinians and Israelis to try to move things ahead.

Q:  Do you think that there is any hope of success here?
A:  That’s a huge question.  I think what you’re seeing here relates to a principle in the Mid-East that says you always need motion.  The Palestinians have said that they are not going to enter direct talks with Israel until Israel freezes all the settlements, including the new neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.  Israel’s not going to do that. That’s not going to happen.  But you need motion – even the appearance that something is happening – in order to keep other actors out.  I think that’s why it’s important for the Quartet to have launched what they did. Think back to the end of August, when everyone was having nightmares of what September was going to bring.  September came and went and the sky didn’t fall. What now? As long as you have something happening out there, to a certain extent you can keep at bay extremist elements that you don’t want to move in.  Is it going to work?  It hasn’t worked up until now.

Q:  In a recent interview, Martin Fletcher told the Ledger that he doesn’t believe there will ever be peace because the Arabs, as individuals, simply don’t want Israel to exist. Is that a fair statement?
A: When you ask me if the Quartet’s initiative will work, the question is: do the Palestinians want peace?  That’s a huge question.  If you look at what’s going down on the ground, I’m not convinced the Palestinians have come to the conclusion that we have a right to be there and that we are there to stay.  This is the what’s behind Netanyahu’s whole business about recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. A lot of people think it’s a trick. I don’t think it’s a trick. What Netanyahu is saying is that if you don’t recognize that we have a legitimate right to be here as a Jewish state then there can’t be a peace because you don’t recognize our right to be here. If you look at what Abu Mazin said at the UN, he gave a very strident speech.  He could have reached out a little bit towards Israel, but he didn’t.  He didn’t even recognize any historic Jewish connection to Israel.  That’s a big problem.  Some people say that “Temple denial” – denial that there was any Jewish presence in Jerusalem, that we have any Jewish connection at all to the land – is more nefarious than Holocaust denial. Because 500 years from now people will look at the Holocaust the way we look at the Spanish Inquisition – in other words, time will take its toll.  But it’s important to recognize that Jews have an historical right to be here.  We haven’t exactly gotten a resounding indication from the Palestinians, from the Arabs, that we have a legitimate right to be here.

Q:  There’s speculation that the prisoner swap deal to free Gilad Shalit was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to marginalize or punish Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.  Do you think there’s any truth to that?
A:  I don’t think so.  I don’t think that Netanyahu did the deal because of Abbas. But I also don’t think he took Abbas into consideration when he did the deal, which he might have done had Abbas not been doing what he’s been doing over the last couple of years, which is to isolate Israel.

Q: Has the relationship between Netanyahu and Obama improved?
A:  I don’t know about the personal dynamic, but all we have to go by is what we see.  And what we saw at the United Nations was a very empathetic address by the President regarding Israel – something the Israelis have waited three years to hear. It was a very important speech.  He said, “Look, let’s not kid ourselves, Israel is lined up against countries who want to destroy it.”  Those are things that resonated very well.  Why did he wait three years to say it?  There are all different kinds of explanations for that.  But that was something that was heard both inside the UN and outside. And it took the momentum out of the Palestinian bid for statehood. I think there’s also a different dynamic in [Netanyahu’s and Obama’s] relationship. In the past, Obama didn’t have any hesitancy in making his disagreements with Israel public. Now he does. They’re not out there for everybody to see anymore and that’s important.

Q:  What is the state of the relationship between Israel and Egypt right now?
A:  It’s a very fluid dynamic and it’s moving quite rapidly. We just saw a month ago the protests and the ransacking of the Israeli embassy in Cairo. The Egyptians moved on it  only after they were convinced to do so by the U.S. That was kind of a nadir in the relationship. Then you have the Shalit release and last week the release of Ilan Grapel, which put things on a better footing. I think the ruling military coalition in Egypt, Essam Sharaf, understands right now that they have a lot to lose by the worsening of the relationship with Israel, in terms of their relations with the U.S. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we have a warm and fuzzy relationship right now with the Egyptians.  But it’s not in their interests right now to tear up their treaty with Israel. We have a problem, though.  They will have elections at some point in time, and then who knows? So it’s very fluid.

Q:  The relationship between Israel and Jordan was once pretty good. And now?   
A:  I wouldn’t say Israel’s relationship with Jordan is pretty good – I would say Israel’s relationship with the Jordanian government is pretty good.  Not with the people.  Since the Arab spring, if you pay attention to how King Abdullah speaks he is speaking quite a bit more strident about Israel. He too has to be attuned to what his people are saying and his people are not in favor of a relationship with Israel.  There’s been a real tapering back of the relationship between Israel and Jordan because the people don’t want the relationship.  On an anecdotal level, the Israel embassy in Amman was unable to insure its fleet of cars because the guy who was insuring the fleet told the embassy he couldn’t do it anymore because of pressure he was getting.
On the security level, relations continue, but I think it’s interesting to look at two things regarding Jordan: First – and this  is one of Israel’s major concerns about the Arab spring – what happens if Jordan goes south and you have a situation on the border with Jordan similar to what we have with Gaza?  That’s a disaster. Second, it’s important to keep in mind that President Obama insists that he’s going to get the troops out of Iraq by the end of the year.  From an Israeli point of view there is concern that there will be chaos. What’s going to happen to Iraq? And who’s to say that what happens in Iraq won’t spill over into Jordan? If so, who knows what will happen then.  So, again, it’s very fluid, and we’re afraid of chaos.

Q:  And how does the situation in Syria play into all this?
A:  Again, we are petrified of chaos and that’s why we’re so concerned about what’s going on in Syria.  Obviously, we shed no tears for Bashad al-Assad.  But he was predictable and he was relatively stable. Also, when you have a chaotic situation in Libya you don’t have a situation involving weapons of mass destruction; here you do, and there’s a lot of talk about the “Samson option” – that is, what happens when Assad gets his back against the wall?  What does he do? Does he fire rockets at Tel Aviv? Does he incinerate the region? Who knows? He has the means to do that.

Q:  Despite all, we keep hearing about how well Israel is doing economically, technologically…aliyah is up…etc. Is the mood hopeful?
A:  Look, despite everything I’ve said, I’m extremely optimistic about the future of this country.  I’m not necessarily optimistic about peace tomorrow, but I’m optimistic that Israel will be able to make it and to thrive.  There are two reasons for that:  One, the country has proven itself to be remarkably resilient and energetic; and two, Israel is always able to find short-term answers to problems. We’ve done that extremely well.  You know, we can’t sit around and say “Well, we’re not going to build the country because there’s no peace.” We say, “There’s no peace, we have to protect ourselves, and we have to build the country.”  And we’re doing a pretty good job of if.  There was an interesting poll in [the Israeli daily newspaper] Yediot Achronot right before Rosh Hashanah.  When asked the question: “Is Israel a good place to live?” 88 percent said ‘yes.’  When you read the newspapers there’s a certain dissonance there; it doesn’t make sense. They also asked “describe your mood:  is it very good, good, bad?”  Again, if you read the newspapers you would think that everyone in Israel is walking around with their chins in their chest.  But 88 percent replied ‘good’ or ‘very good.’ I don’t think you’d have that situation in America.  You have to take a longer view. You can’t just live from headline to headline.
With all the forces that are laid against us, we are not sitting on our hands in Israel.   We remain the strongest economic and military power in the region.  We can defend ourselves; we can protect ourselves; and we can prosper.  And I think we’ve proven that in the past and there’s no reason to think that we can’t do that in the future as well.

Herb Keinon will discuss “Weighing the Chances for Peace: An Insider’s Perspective on Netanyahu, Abbas, Obama and the Current Diplomatic process on Sunday, Nov. 6, 9:30 a.m., at the Community Services Building, 333 Bloomfield Ave., West Hartford.  A light breakfast will be provided.  The event is free and open to the public, bur registration is required.  Call Jo LaRocco at (860) 727-6139.
On Sunday, Nov. 7, Keinon will speak at UConn/Storrs Hillel at 10 a.m.; CCSU at 12:15 p.m.; and at Yale University at 5:30 p.m.  No other information was available at press time.