
The Kerry initiative, 2013–14
The talks sponsored by US Secretary of State Kerry ran from July 2013 to April 2014, which Kerry set as the deadline. The aim of the talks was to be a comprehensive agreement. PLO negotiator Nabil Shaath declared that the Palestinians insisted on a permanent settlement and would not accept ‘temporary’ solutions. (Abbas has since said similar things.) The lesson here is this: as bad experiences with interim, partial, temporary or (solely) ‘economic’ solutions have caused the Palestinians to reject any further such arrangements, only a comprehensive settlement is now possible, in terms of agreements at the national political level.
As part of Kerry’s initiative, there were to be confidence-building measures in support of the negotiations: Israel was to release Palestinian prisoners, in four tranches; and the Palestinians agreed to put on hold their proposed applications for membership of international bodies. But confidence-destroying measures also took place: Israel refused to release the fourth tranche of prisoners, and the expansion of settlements continued. In response to Israel’s failure to release the prisoners, Abbas signed letters seeking Palestine’s accession to 15 UN and other international bodies, a move that was followed in turn by Israeli measures against the PA.
Regarding the third-party role in the initiative, the US administration provided a mix of facilitation and mediation, led by Special Envoy Martin Indyk. But according to the Palestinians, Israel prevented Indyk from attending most of the negotiating sessions. Abbas called on the US to take a more proactive rather than merely ‘supervisory’ role. Indeed, the US did not use its clout with both sides to push them to come to an agreement. In his speech of December 2016, Kerry implicitly admitted as much: the language is about exhortation, encouragement and assistance rather than the use of US leverage.19
The talks ended without agreement. The main reason, perhaps, was that neither side felt obliged to do as Kerry wanted: there were clearly no penalties for not doing so. President Barack Obama allowed Kerry to run the process and gave him public support, but at no point did he make it clear to the parties that he would use the power and prestige of his office to reward or punish their behaviour. An important lesson that emerges from the Kerry initiative is that without the commitment of the president of the US to an effort facilitated by the US administration, the Israelis and Palestinians will feel free to do as they wish, constrained only by the desire not to get the blame for the failure of peace efforts.
According to Michael Herzog (who took part in the talks), the ground rules laid down by the US team were not clear; nor were the US’s messages, which the two sides understood differently. According to Herzog, the Kerry talks also undermined the secret, back-channel talks (the so-called ‘London track’) which were taking place in parallel and which were more likely to succeed.20 (A senior member of the Palestinian team in the back-channel talks has told the authors the same thing.)
For his part, Netanyahu faced opposition to the talks from within his own government. In December 2013, Likud ministers promoted a bill to annex the Jordan Valley. The bill was intended to counter a US proposal that the Jordan Valley and border crossings into Jordan be placed under Palestinian control, with border security provided by Israeli forces and the US. In January 2014, hardliners in Netanyahu’s coalition threatened to withdraw from the government if he accepted the 1967 borders as a baseline for talks. He may have felt this as a constraint on his negotiating flexibility or as a useful pretext to take a tough line in the talks. There was opposition to the talks on the Palestinian side as well (Hamas and PIJ called for a third intifada instead), although it is not clear to what extent Abbas felt constrained by this. All this suggests that determined and single-minded leadership is needed at the top, on both sides, to deal with the inevitable opposition to any peace process.
Neither side would accept the other’s conditions for the continuation of the talks beyond the original deadline of the end of April 2014. Just before the deadline was reached, Fatah and Hamas announced that they would form a unity government and hold new elections – presumably because Abbas had realized that he would not be able to get a deal with Netanyahu and that he therefore had nothing to lose by pursuing intra-Palestinian reconciliation, which is always popular with the Palestinian public. Netanyahu refused to negotiate with a government backed by Hamas.
One lesson that can be drawn from the response of Abbas and Netanyahu to the Kerry initiative is that there is always a temptation for leaders to concentrate on managing their own constituencies or to retreat to their respective domestic comfort zones, unless put under pressure to do otherwise.
Kerry continued informal peace efforts thereafter. Obama maintained his reluctance to get involved. According to one account: ‘The White House told Kerry that President Obama wanted to let Netanyahu and [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas stew in their own juices.’21 For his part, Netanyahu appeared to be playing for time with Kerry while pursuing the secret London track with the involvement and cooperation of Isaac Herzog, leader of the opposition Zionist Union.
Leaders are risk-averse about their retention of power, and those who try to maintain broader support than is necessary for a ‘critical mass’ will never be successful in advancing peace
In domestic political terms, Netanyahu should have been able to pursue either the London track or the Kerry initiative. Had he been willing to include the Zionist Union (with 24 seats in the Knesset) in his coalition, he would likely have lost HaBayit HaYehudi (eight seats) and perhaps Yisrael Beitenu (five seats) too, as well as some from his own party. But he could probably still have retained a majority. And two out of three Israelis, according to a Peace Index poll published in August 2016, remained supportive of peace negotiations with the PA.22
So the political risk for Netanyahu was not as great as he seems to have feared. The lessons from Netanyahu’s posture at this stage are that leaders are risk-averse about their retention of power, and that those who try to maintain broader support than is necessary for a ‘critical mass’ (in the Israeli case, a Knesset majority and majority support among the public) will never be successful in advancing peace.