Zelikow, in his own words

The Washington Institute Web site now has the full text of Philip Zelikow's remarks Friday night. Zelikow, a senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, stirred some controversy last week when he made a connection between the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the Iranian nuclear problem. Since he made the speech, the Americans calmed the Israelis through many channels, saying that U.S. policy will not change. Rice made efforts to restore the calm yesterday in her meeting with Livni (Zelikow was present in the meeting), and messages were also sent to the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem. Anyway, the question still stands: What was Zelikow trying to do? Here he is, in his own words, talking about Israel and the Palestinians. (You can read the full text of his remarks - the Palestinian issue was just a small part - here):

"The significance of the Arab-Israeli dispute across these problems is, I think, obvious to all of you. What I would want to emphasize is if you see the threats in a way something like the way I've just described them, think then about what is the coalition you need to amass in order to combat those threats. Who are the key members of that coalition? You can imagine the United States, key European allies, the state of Israel and the Arab moderates - Arabs who seek a peaceful future. You could call it the coalition of the builders, not just a coalition of the willing. The coalition of the builders as opposed to the coalition of the destroyers.

"What would bind that coalition and help keep them together is a sense that the Arab-Israeli issues are being addressed, that they see a common determination to sustain an active policy that tries to deal with the problems of Israel and the Palestinians. We don't want this issue doesn't have the real corrosive effects that it has, or the symbolic corrosive effects that it causes in undermining some of the friends we need friends to confront some of the serious dangers we must face together."

In the Q&A session, Zelikow was asked to elaborate and here's what he said there:

"For various reasons, I believe the Europeans and the Arab moderates are central allies in the coalition we need to forge against our most dangerous enemies. Now, if you start with that as a premise then what you always need to do when you share power is you share a common mission with friends. You have to think about what they want and what they need too. For the Arab moderates and for the Europeans, some sense of progress and momentum on the Arab-Israeli dispute is just a sine qua non for their ability to cooperate actively with the United States on a lot of other things that we care about. We can rail against that belief; we can find it completely justifiable, but it's fact. That means an active policy on the Arab-Israeli dispute is an essential ingredient to forging a coalition that deals with the most dangerous problems.

I would take that even further. I would say that it is essential for the state of Israel because, in some ways, I do not believe that the Palestinian threat, per se, is the most dangerous threat to the future of the state of Israel. If Israel, for example, is especially worried about Iran and sees it as an existential threat, then it's strongly in the interest of Israel to want the American-led coalition to work on an active policy that begins to normalize that situation. It's an essential glue that binds a lot of these problems together. And so ironically, even if your primary concern is not the Palestinian danger, you have to give it primary attention while you're looking at other problems as well."

"I want to reiterate that, from the United States point of view, a National Unity government [in the Palestinian Authority] cannot succeed if it doesn't meet the Quartet conditions. From the view of our policy, the quartet conditions are an essential prerequisite not only to obtaining the international assistance that the government will be seeking, but in fact, to obtain the kind of assistance from the state of Israel that will be indispensable for the viability of any Palestinian budget or economy."


"In a lot of respects, all the different societies and warring points of view in the Middle East have to try to reconcile their dreams with reality and with some fundamental respect that other people have to live too and have to live in the region and figure out how to live together. Here, though, is where I thought moves like the moves that Arab leaders announced in Beirut in 2002 are ingredients in a peaceful outcome for the Middle East because there's a fundamental premise there that there can be two states living side by side and that the state of Israel can exist as part of a peaceful Middle East. So clearly some Arab governments and some Arab leaders are prepared to accept that.

"Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, has made that point perfectly clear. A lot of Arab leaders are prepared to accept the continued existence of the state of Israel. And so now what we're about is defining the contours of the respective states, defining the circumstances under which they can live together and feel secure, but those are premises upon which diplomacy can be conducted."