Fareed: Netanyahu May Have to Choose Since this summer, Middle East diplomacy has been the subject of intense speculation. What’s standing in the way of a breakthrough? After a report in July that the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel had begun considering a blockbuster three-way diplomatic deal—which would involve the two regional rival normalizing relations, US security assurances and civilian-nuclear assistance for Saudi Arabia, and Israeli concessions to Palestinians—Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column that the biggest challenge will be presented by Israeli politics, given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing governing coalition. That coalition is “the most extreme right-wing government in Israel’s history,” Fareed writes, and it has sought “to make a Palestinian state an impossibility.” As real concessions to Palestinians may be necessary to win support for a grand bargain from both Riyadh and Washington, Fareed writes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may “have to decide what he wants more—a truly historic advance in Israel’s security or keeping afloat his rickety, controversial, extremist coalition.” Heads Shake at Possible Shutdown The US appears to be headed for yet another government shutdown, as lawmakers can’t agree on a measure to fund the government amid House Republican demands for spending cuts. As Washington now sinks semi-regularly into budget crises, Bloomberg’s editors call for reform to the federal budgeting process, noting the costly, own-goal quality of shutdowns. “In no other country does the government routinely incapacitate itself for the sake of political stunts,” they write. “This year’s shutdown, if indeed it comes, should be the last.” Such crises bring geopolitical downsides, Daniel B. Baer of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace writes for Foreign Policy: “The basic geopolitical strategy puzzle faced by the United States today is how to manage the relative decline of U.S. economic and military power, while maintaining U.S. leadership and influence to protect the country’s security and prosperity. … (One) basic requirement is to conserve political capital and spend it wisely—above all, by avoiding unforced errors that diminish U.S. power with no benefit for Americans. … (The current crisis over a potential government shutdown) is consuming the energies of Congress and the White House at a moment marked by a major European war, tensions with China, risks associated with dramatic breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, and ongoing efforts to contain global economic strains.” The Economist seeks to differentiate this budget crisis from other recent ones, writing that if a shutdown arrives it “could be the strangest yet” for America, given the “bizarre” politics of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s fight with hard-liners in his own party. Oslo at 30 The above-mentioned wave of Middle East diplomatic speculation has coincided with an anniversary: Thirty years ago this month, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn, cementing the 1993 Oslo Accords before the outstretched arms of US President Bill Clinton. Delegating Palestinian governance to the PLO, which renounced terrorism, the accords were to pave the way for peace and, eventually, Palestinian statehood. What happened? As the two-state solution lies in tatters three decades later, commentators are reflecting on the course history has taken. At an event hosted by the Middle East Institute and the European Council on Foreign Relations, Palestinian-Jewish-British author Claire Hajaj suggested the Oslo Accords offered a “moment of hope” but eventually came to drain “legitimacy” from Palestinian resistance, suffered from a mismatch of agendas between political actors and armed groups, and has left the international community “wedded to this corpse bride” of a now-defunct peace process. At the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s The Strategist blog, former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami writes: “Alas, 30 years after its signing … the Oslo process is largely remembered as a prime example of diplomatic deception. Israel’s land grabs and settlement expansion … have rendered the establishment of an independent Palestinian state unfeasible. ... The Oslo process sowed the seeds of its own demise by maintaining ‘constructive ambiguity’ regarding the nature of the final settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. The accords were complicated, were riddled with gaps, and reflected the power imbalance between the occupied and the occupiers. They raised expectations that were destined to collide with conflicting national narratives and domestic political considerations. ... The 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalised diplomatic relations between Israel and four Arab countries—the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan—are a testament to Oslo’s failure. The prevailing wisdom during the Oslo era was that peace with the Palestinians would serve as a stepping-stone to peace between Israel and the broader Arab world.” Nagorno-Karabakh and ‘Russian Weakness’ After a brief military operation by Azerbaijan this month, the ethnic-Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh is disarming and dissolving its forces, and Armenia’s government has chosen not to intervene, as Vasif Huseynov details at The Jamestown Foundation. In an op-ed for Le Monde, essayist Michael Marian laments the outcome for eCNN FAREED'S GLOBAL BRIEFING You are receiving this newsletter because you're subscribed to Fareed's Global Briefing.

 

Fareed: Netanyahu May Have to Choose Since this summer, Middle East diplomacy has been the subject of intense speculation. What’s standing in the way of a breakthrough?   After a report in July that the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel had begun considering a blockbuster three-way diplomatic deal—which would involve the two regional rival normalizing relations, US security assurances and civilian-nuclear assistance for Saudi Arabia, and Israeli concessions to Palestinians—Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column that the biggest challenge will be presented by Israeli politics, given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing governing coalition.   That coalition is “the most extreme right-wing government in Israel’s history,” Fareed writes, and it has sought “to make a Palestinian state an impossibility.” As real concessions to Palestinians may be necessary to win support for a grand bargain from both Riyadh and Washington, Fareed writes that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may “have to decide what he wants more—a truly historic advance in Israel’s security or keeping afloat his rickety, controversial, extremist coalition.”

Heads Shake at Possible Shutdown The US appears to be headed for yet another government shutdown, as lawmakers can’t agree on a measure to fund the government amid House Republican demands for spending cuts. As Washington now sinks semi-regularly into budget crises, Bloomberg’s editors call for reform to the federal budgeting process, noting the costly, own-goal quality of shutdowns. “In no other country does the government routinely incapacitate itself for the sake of political stunts,” they write. “This year’s shutdown, if indeed it comes, should be the last.”   Such crises bring geopolitical downsides, Daniel B. Baer of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace writes for Foreign Policy: “The basic geopolitical strategy puzzle faced by the United States today is how to manage the relative decline of U.S. economic and military power, while maintaining U.S. leadership and influence to protect the country’s security and prosperity. … (One) basic requirement is to conserve political capital and spend it wisely—above all, by avoiding unforced errors that diminish U.S. power with no benefit for Americans. … (The current crisis over a potential government shutdown) is consuming the energies of Congress and the White House at a moment marked by a major European war, tensions with China, risks associated with dramatic breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, and ongoing efforts to contain global economic strains.” The Economist seeks to differentiate this budget crisis from other recent ones, writing that if a shutdown arrives it “could be the strangest yet” for America, given the “bizarre” politics of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s fight with hard-liners in his own party.

Oslo at 30 The above-mentioned wave of Middle East diplomatic speculation has coincided with an anniversary: Thirty years ago this month, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn, cementing the 1993 Oslo Accords before the outstretched arms of US President Bill Clinton. Delegating Palestinian governance to the PLO, which renounced terrorism, the accords were to pave the way for peace and, eventually, Palestinian statehood. What happened?   As the two-state solution lies in tatters three decades later, commentators are reflecting on the course history has taken. At an event hosted by the Middle East Institute and the European Council on Foreign Relations, Palestinian-Jewish-British author Claire Hajaj suggested the Oslo Accords offered a “moment of hope” but eventually came to drain “legitimacy” from Palestinian resistance, suffered from a mismatch of agendas between political actors and armed groups, and has left the international community “wedded to this corpse bride” of a now-defunct peace process.   At the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s The Strategist blog, former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami writes: “Alas, 30 years after its signing … the Oslo process is largely remembered as a prime example of diplomatic deception. Israel’s land grabs and settlement expansion … have rendered the establishment of an independent Palestinian state unfeasible. ... The Oslo process sowed the seeds of its own demise by maintaining ‘constructive ambiguity’ regarding the nature of the final settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. The accords were complicated, were riddled with gaps, and reflected the power imbalance between the occupied and the occupiers. They raised expectations that were destined to collide with conflicting national narratives and domestic political considerations. ... The 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalised diplomatic relations between Israel and four Arab countries—the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan—are a testament to Oslo’s failure. The prevailing wisdom during the Oslo era was that peace with the Palestinians would serve as a stepping-stone to peace between Israel and the broader Arab world.”

Nagorno-Karabakh and ‘Russian Weakness’ After a brief military operation by Azerbaijan this month, the ethnic-Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh is disarming and dissolving its forces, and Armenia’s government has chosen not to intervene, as Vasif Huseynov details at The Jamestown Foundation. In an op-ed for Le Monde, essayist Michael Marian laments the outcome for ethnic Armenians “who did not adopt a ‘separatist’ ideology 30 years ago, but have lived on this land for 20 centuries.”     The Economist sees a “humanitarian disaster” as residents flee. The magazine delves into the complicated geopolitics of passivity on the part of Russia—the nominal ally of Armenia with peacekeeping troops in the region—suspecting President Vladimir Putin of turning against Russia’s erstwhile ally after pro-democracy protests “swept away a Russia-back regime run by corrupt politicians” in 2018. “(T)he immediate cause of the chaos is Russia’s weakness,” The Economist writes, citing its “floundering” war effort in Ukraine as critically distracting Moscow from tensions in the Caucasus.

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