On Monday, December 10, 2012, State Dept. Spokesperson Victoria Nuland, during her regular Daily Press Briefing, started sounding like Jerzy Kosinski’s memorable character in Being There, Chance the Gardener, immortalized by Peter Sellers in the 1979 movie by the same name.

Here’s a short scene from the movie:

President: Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?

Chance: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.

President: In the garden.

Chance: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again. President: Spring and summer.

Chance: Yes. President: Then fall and winter.

Chance: Yes.

Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we’re upset by the seasons of our economy.

Chance: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!

Benjamin Rand: Hmm!

Chance: Hmm!

President: Hm. Well, Mr. Gardner, I must admit that is one of the most refreshing and optimistic statements I’ve heard in a very, very long time. … I admire your good, solid sense. That’s precisely what we lack on Capitol Hill.

And here’s yesterday’s exchange over the Quartet meeting in Brussels this coming Wednesday, dealing with the “peace process”:

MS. NULAND: We continue to work with Congress to make the case that continued U.S. support for the Palestinian people is in our national interest, is in the interest of the peace process. But again, there are a lot of views in the Congress, particularly in light of the move at the UN.

QUESTION: Just on this, there’s a Quartet meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, envoy level. Do you expect anything substantial or significant to come out of this, or is this just kind of a stock-taking exercise in looking at how dismal the chances are to get the peace process started again?

MS. NULAND: Well, I think it’s been a while since David Hale has met with his Quartet counterparts, so I think it’s an opportunity to look at where we are and if and when we might be able to be in a position to get these parties back to the table, obviously, in light of all of the factors. So it’s – let’s say that at this stage, it is gardening, but it is important gardening.

QUESTION: Gardening. You mean like weeding?

MS. NULAND: No, it’s nurturing of the soil. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Are they actually planting? Are they –

MS. NULAND: Nurturing of the soil.

QUESTION: Are they planting any seeds? (Laughter.)

MS. NULAND: They’re always trying to plant seeds, as you know.

QUESTION: There’s more gardening? (Laughter.)

And here’s the rest of Monday’s exchange regarding freezing settlements as the surefire way of bringing peace and brotherly love to the region, which preceded the above botanical discussion:

QUESTION: On the Palestinian issue, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stated today that he, in fact, called for the resumption of direct negotiations with Israel from the point where they were last and during the last negotiation session, and – provided that all settlement activity be frozen for the time being. Do you support such a call, or is that – you consider that to be conditional?

MS. NULAND: As the President has said all the way along, as the Secretary has said, we are prepared to be full partners in supporting negotiations if and when the parties are ready to enter into direct negotiations. So it always takes two to tango, as we say. So – and we’ve also called for both sides to come to the table without preconditions.

QUESTION: Do you consider it reasonable to call for resumption of negotiations from the point where they ended?

MS. NULAND: Well, again, we support any scenario in which the parties can get back to direct talks, because it’s going to be the only way to settle all of the longstanding issues between them. It’s the only way to get to the two states living next to each other in peace that we all seek.

The UN General Assembly’s resolution granting nonmember-state observer status to “Palestine” – a document drafted by the Palestinian Authority – and the worldwide negative response to Israel’s reaction to it is reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s classic 1871 poem “Jabberwocky,” which depicts a world filled with illogic and nonsensical speech.

For not only did the General Assembly’s action plainly violate the UN Charter – even the Security Council cannot create a state, it can only admit an existing one to membership – it also adopted the Palestinians’ narrative concerning their entitlement to all West Bank land won by Israel in 1967. The move compromises the very notion that such entitlement must be subject to negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Yet Israel was promptly condemned for allegedly creating roadblocks to a resumption of negotiations with its announcement that it will build new housing on a particular stretch of West Bank land it claims.

Typically, The New York Times captured the anti-Israel moment in an editorial four days after the General Assembly action:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel seems determined to escalate a crisis by retaliating against the Palestinians after the United Nations General Assembly voted to elevate Palestine to observer state status.

Instead of looking for ways to halt a downward spiral, Mr. Netanyahu…defiantly dug in on his plans to build 3000 more housing units in contested areas east of Jerusalem and in the West Bank, and to continue planning a development in the most contentious area known as E1.

Israel also announced that it was withholding $100 million in tax revenues that it has collected from the Palestinian Authority, which is financially strapped….

Mr. Netanyahu’s punitive, shortsighted moves threaten to crush the Palestinian Authority, and its president, Mahmoud Abbas, who has recognized Israel’s right to exist and represents the only credible peace negotiator.

Expanding West Bank settlements makes it nearly impossible to restart peace negotiations….

To be sure, Mr. Abbas continues to maintain that General Assembly recognition can only enhance the possibilities for negotiations by adding pressure on Israel to negotiate. But this is deception. For given the resolution’s blanket acceptance of the legitimacy of Palestinian claims to the West Bank and East Jerusalem, one wonders what there is left to negotiate. In fact, while there is language in the resolution supporting a return to negotiations, it’s not quite what it seems.

Thus the resolution

Expresses the urgent need for the resumption and acceleration of negotiations within the Middle East peace process, based on the relevant United Nations resolutions, the Madrid terms of reference, including the principle of land for peace, the Arab Peace Initiative, and the Quartet Roadmap, for the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement between the Palestinian and Israeli sides that resolves all outstanding core issues, namely the Palestine refugees, Jerusalem, settlements, borders, security and water.

Sounds reasonable, until one notes another part of the resolution calling for “the withdrawal of Israel from the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem.” This is actually a paraphrase of the language in the post-Six-Day War UN Security Council Resolution 242, which called for the “withdrawal of Israel Armed Forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.”

Significantly, the word “the” does not appear in the 1967 document. And this was not happenstance. Whether to include or omit that word was the subject of fierce negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union. The underlying issue was that the word “the” would require a withdrawal from all land seized in the war while its omission would require withdrawal from only some land. The omission of “the” in the final wording reflected the consensus that a negotiated settlement would require only partial withdrawal.

So the seemingly innocuous reference in the current resolution is really a calculated statement that there must be an Israeli withdrawal from all of the captured territory, obviously something fraught with significance. Plainly, in terms of the disputed territories, the only negotiations Mr. Abbas has in mind are those that would culminate in an orderly Israeli withdrawal from the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Nor is the issue of Israeli settlements generally a one-dimensional matter. That is, Israel is being faulted for building on land that Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama have generally signaled Israel would retain in any peace agreement. This was the underlying principle of the Wye formulae, the Bush statement that any peace agreement would have to acknowledge Israel’s right to Jewish population centers beyond the Green Line and President Obama’s “1967 lines with land swaps” approach.

While we recognize that President Obama, like presidents before him, has had serious objections to Israel’s settlement construction policies, we hope he will recognize that things are very different now. Operation Pillar of Defense showed that negotiating with Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority is a fool’s errand. Not only is Mr. Abbas not interested in negotiated borders, he controls just half of the Palestinian population centers, and should there ever be an agreement with Israel leading to Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, he would soon be eclipsed by Hamas in similar fashion to what occurred in Gaza. The emergence of another center of terror and danger for Israel is surely in no one’s interests.

Moreover, while President Obama demonstrated during Operation Pillar of Defense that, militarily, he did have Israel’s back as he said he would, the General Assembly vote and its aftermath has demonstrated that Israel is largely alone in the diplomatic arena and needs Mr. Obama’s support there as well. Times have changed, and U.S. policy should reflect that change.

By any measure, our newly reelected president has a great number of issues that will compete for his attention and among which he will have to prioritize. During the presidential campaign we repeatedly voiced concern that Mr. Obama might reprise the full-court press treatment he accorded the Israeli-Palestinian conflict early in his first term, and we can only hope he will focus elsewhere.

Indeed, what economists and politicians on both sides of the political divide are calling a looming economic disaster will certainly be an enormous challenge, while on the foreign policy front Afghanistan, Iran, Russia, China, the Arab Spring, and the growth of extremism in regions of the world like North Africa and Pakistan present formidable concerns that cannot be kept on the back burner.

So we suggest that a little benign neglect is in order when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians. The lesson of the first Obama term is that deep American involvement in trying to bring about a resolution only serves to complicate matters by encouraging unrealistic Palestinian demands.

Indeed, real peace can come only when the Palestinians recognize that Israel has more than paid its dues for a safe and secure homeland through a series of defensive wars against Arab aggression. Consistent with the normal course of human events, these victories must be reflected in any peace formula arrived at through direct negotiations between the two sides without the involvement of an overarching intermediary with goals and solutions of its own.

Yet there is no shortage of attempts to push the U.S. to reassume a robust role. Some see the current escalation of rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza as part of a continuing effort to keep attention focused on the conflict and the need for U.S. involvement. The Palestinian plan to seek observer status at the UN is of a similar nature and also designed to force an early U.S. decision on the course that Mideast policy in a second Obama term will take.

Even before the presidential election, both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his cheerleaders on The New York Times editorial board seemed intent on rejuvenating the peace process and pushing Israel into key concessions.

Thus, Mr. Abbas created quite a stir recently when in an interview on Israeli TV he seemed to renounce a right of return to Israel for Palestinian refugees. Asked what he considered to be Palestine, he responded that “Palestine now for me is the ’67 borders [sic] with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is now and forever…. This is Palestine for me. I am a refugee, but I am living in Ramallah…. I believe that [the] West Bank and Gaza is Palestine and the other parts Israel.”

Speaking of his having been born in Safed, he said, “It’s my right to see it, but not to live there.” He went on to say that “As long as I am in this office, there will be no armed third intifada. Never…. We don’t want to use terror. We don’t want to use force. We don’t want to use weapons. We want to use diplomacy. We want to use politics. We want to use negotiations. We want to use peaceful resistance. That’s it.”

Mr. Abbas had to have known that all of this would never wash with his colleagues, his constituents and his Hamas rivals – and indeed the uproar that followed his comments forced him to backtrack and clarify that he was only speaking about his personal views. His spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudainah, claimed that the interview was mainly intended to “affect Israeli public opinion.”

But Mr. Abbas seemed to have accomplished what he set out to do. Despite international opposition to his plan to seek non-member observer status for the Palestinian Authority at the UN and Israeli calls for a resumption of negotiations without preconditions, Mr. Abbas has projected himself as a “peace partner” and someone with whom Israel and the United States can work and thus someone to be empowered.

Indeed, Israeli President Shimon Peres quickly responded positively to Mr. Abbas’s initial comments, calling the Palestinian leader “courageous” and “a real partner for peace.”

For its part, The New York Times editorialized on Nov. 4that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians “are unlikely to resume any time soon,” complaining that “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has refused to make any serious compromises, and the two-state solution seems to have a diminishing chance of ever happening” and warning that “Israel, the United States, the Palestinians and the entire region will pay a high price if Israel merely settles more firmly into the role of occupier over a growing Palestinian population that is left indefinitely without any hope of statehood and self-rule.”

A few months after he had been elected, President Barack Obama attempted to renew on a gradual basis U.S. diplomatic relations with Iran, a process that was to lead to establishing embassies and full diplomatic relations. But the Islamic Republic rejected the proposal out of fear for the future of the reign of the Ayatollahs, the Israeli daily Maariv reported on Sunday. The paper claims to have received this information from two Western diplomatic sources close to the Administration.

The American offer was part of an inclusive change of approach to U.S. foreign relations instituted by Obama upon his entry into the White House. The plan was focused on emphasizing negotiations and extending a “diplomatic hand.” Shortly after being elected, the new president announced that he intended to extended his hand to Iran. An announcement of the White House declared that Obama supports “an aggressive and direct diplomacy with Iran, without preconditions.” This was a 180 degree change of the Bush Administration’s approach to Iran. The new Administration was hoping that a rapprochement with Iran would help establish a mutual understanding with Iran regarding its nuclear plan.

At the initial stage, the Americans offered the Iranians the opening of government interests offices—the lowest level of diplomatic relations—in Tehran and Washington. Later on, the Administration was hoping to enter a track of detailed agreements.

Relations between the United States and Iran were severed in 1979, at the conclusion of the Islamic revolution and the ascent of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

According to Maariv, at least two direct meetings were conducted between U.S. and Iran officials starting in the summer of 2009.

Under Secretary of State William Burns and the Iranian head of the negotiations team Saeed Jalili participated in at least one of the two meetings. The two met following the six powers’ meeting with Iran in October of 2009, in Geneva. That direct meeting lasted about an hour. According to an Israeli source close to the negotiations, the Islamic Republic was leery of any sign of normalizing relations with the U.S., and refused to give the Americans “an award.” Iran’s main concern was that the Ayatollah’s regime would be weakened as a consequence of American involvement in Iranian society.

The Administration so far has denied a NY Times report on a new attempt to open a channel of communication with Iran. The White House statement on October 20 read:

It’s not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections. We continue to work with the P5+1 on a diplomatic solution and have said from the outset that we would be prepared to meet bilaterally. The President has made clear that he will prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and we will do what we must to achieve that. It has always been our goal for sanctions to pressure Iran to come in line with its obligations. The onus is on the Iranians to do so, otherwise they will continue to face crippling sanctions and increased pressure.

“It’s not true that the United States and Iran have agreed to one-on-one talks or any meeting after the American elections a National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said following the publication of a New York Times report saying the White House and Iran agreed to hold direct negotiations over its nuclear program after election day.

According to the New York Times, secret exchanges between US and Iranian officials began early in President Barack Obama’s term, but Iranian officials stalled, wanting to wait until after upcoming presidential elections so Tehran would know if it could count on agreements made with Obama, or if Obama would be replaced.

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Michael Oren said Israel had not been informed of these plans by the White House.  “We do not think Iran should be rewarded with direct talks,” Oren said.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman told Army Radio on Sunday “I want to believe the White House’s denial, and I want to believe that they learn from experience,” Liberman said. “All the Iranians want to accomplish through direct negotiations is the lifting of sanctions.”

As Egyptian weapons including tanks and helicopters take up position in the formerly demilitarized Sinai over angry Israeli objections [see "Israel voices worry over Egyptian tanks, troops in Sinai"], it appears (based on the report below from Egypt) that Egypt’s new Moslem Brotherhood leadership has called off the anti-terrorism sweep, preferring instead to talk with the terrorists. Meanwhile its forces remain there.

Al-Masry Al-Youm (Egypt) carried this Arabic-language report in its Monday, Aug 27, 2012 edition (translated to English here):

–Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi sent a secret delegation on Sunday to meet with Salafist jihadists in the Sinai, scene of the August 5 border attacks. Security sources said the militants agreed to halt terrorism operations for one week, in exchange for the release of prisoners and a halt to the army’s “Operation Eagle” counterinsurgency…

–”The delegation met with a number of Salafist figures in two mosques in Sheikh Zuwaid, and they reached an agreement to stop terrorist operations for a week, in return for the release of prisoners and the halt of Operation Eagle that is being implemented by the armed forces with the aim of cleansing the Sinai of terrorists,” the sources said.

–”The chief of presidential staff… will hold meetings with the jihadist Salafist leaders in order to develop a program for dialogue and stability in the region,” the sources added.

–Three presidential cars arrived and entered the cities of Rafah and Sheikh Zuwaid at 7 p.m. and then were later seen on the highway outside the city at 11 p.m. en route to Cairo…

–The presidency has concluded a deal with jihadist groups in the Sinai following threats by these groups to expand their terrorist operations to a number of Egyptian governorates should the Egyptian army continue with Operation Eagle, aimed at cleansing the Sinai of Jihadists.

–The source said that it is due to these negotiations that Operation Eagle was stopped 48 hours ago. The nostalgic and optimistic among our readers might enjoy ‘Egypt’s tanks are in Sinai for fighting terrorism’. The rest of us might want to note that Egypt’s deployment on Israel’s southern border in the wake of “the battle to defeat the Sinai jihadists” now suddenly includes main battle tanks (MBTs) and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), particularly in the northeastern Sinai area, between the coastal city of El Arish and the border with Israel and Gaza [source].

The U.S.-made MBTs are M-60A3, exported to Egypt in the 1980s. Between 20 and 30 have been deployed in eastern Sinai.

The Boeing-produced Avenger air defense system, also deployed near the Israeli border, contains the Stinger surface-to-air missile. These were supplied to Egypt over the last five years.

Egypt has deployed Dutch-produced YPR-765 armored personnel carriers with their 30 mm automatic gun turrets. The Egyptian Army is believed to have about 430 such APCs. [source]

An AP syndicated story from August 15 ["Sinai terror group warns Egyptian army to cease crackdown: Statement on Jihadist website says Israel, not soldiers is groups main focus"] now also provides some interesting after-the-fact reading.

We wrote some weeks ago about the worrying signs emanating from Sinai and the Egyptian moves. See “10-Aug-12: Egypt is pouring forces into Sinai but does anyone know for sure what they are actually doing there?” We very much hope the concerns we expressed prove to be misplaced.

European Union sanctions terminating existing petroleum import contracts with Iran and banning new contracts went into full effect on Sunday morning, eliciting a defiant response from the Islamic republic.

The most recent round of sanctions is part of the West’s determined effort to halt Iran’s contentious nuclear program without resorting to force. But Iran struck a belligerent tone, with Iran’s central bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani telling the semi-official Mehr News Agency that “we are implementing programs to counter sanctions and we will confront these malicious policies.” He also claimed that Iran has accumulated up to $150 million in foreign reserves to shield itself from any potential shortfall.

On June 28, the United States also imposed additional sanctions which penalize foreign countries for purchasing Iranian oil, but the Obama administration substantially minimized their potential impact by granting waivers to 20 countries – including China (Iran’s biggest oil purchaser), India, Japan, Turkey, and South Africa -  apparently satisfied that they have reduced their purchases. Still, one of the most disruptive measures in the new EU sanctions regime is the ban on EU firms insuring shipments of Iranian oil, which has ramifications far beyond the European continent, as many countries around the globe look to EU firms to insure their oil shipments.

Experts say that beyond accumulating foreign reserves, Iran will seek to balance the loss of exports with increased sales elsewhere, but there is no denying that Iran’s oil industry is taking a hit: estimates suggest that Iran’s oil exports have declined 40% this year. Considering that petroleum exports account for half its revenue, Iran is certainly feeling the pressure.

“Today, we are facing the heaviest of sanctions and we ask people to help officials in this battle,” Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi was quoted by Iranian state television as saying.  Although the “dastardly sanctions” may result in “occasional confusion,” Rahimi insisted that the Iranian people would not be deterred.

Iran and the Western-led bloc of nations recently sought to make some progress in resolving the nuclear standoff before the onset of the new sanctions – with negotiations in Istanbul, Baghdad, and Moscow – but the negotiations ran aground, as the parties could not even agree on the agenda. While the Western bloc was demanding that Iran stop its high-grade uranium enrichment activities, ship all high-grade uranium out of the country, and close down the Fordo enrichment facility near Qom, Iran was focused on heading off the impending sanctions, and made negotiations on the substantive issues contingent on the suspension of the sanctions.