“Unscrupulous optimism” was a very useful expression coined by the German philosopher Arnold Schopenhauer to capture that kind of hope that has become detached from evidence and so is dangerously delusionary.
There has been no shortage of commentators who have accused the US Secretary of State John Kerry of this sin since he began his pursuit of a final status deal between the Israelis and Palestinians. And after Kerry’s fifth visit to the region since March–a frantic 72-hour whirl involving four meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and three with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas–produced no announcement of final status talks, the charge is being made with new even greater vigour.
But is it fair? Kerry’s protestations that real progress has been made, that gaps have been significantly narrowed, that a resumption of final status talks may be within reach, were all taken to be further proof of his unscrupulous optimism.
But what if Kerry is right? What if too many commentators are guilty of what Raymond Tallis calls ‘unscrupulous pessimism’–a demoralising cynicism that sneers at any attempt to improve things as doomed, forever picturing us as acting "in darkness in the grip of impulses that we haven't fully understood" and laughing at the liberating idea that "conscious human agency [is] the chief motor of change".
So, here is the case for John Kerry’s scrupulous optimism.
First, the two peoples still support the two-state solution, despite all, as a poll this week confirmed.
Second, the international community–with its diplomatic weight, capacity to legitimise and its material resources–supports the two-state solution.
Third, the Arab League supports the two-state solution. The 2001 Arab peace initiative–which offers recognition to Israel in return for a two-state deal along the 1967 lines–was renewed this year with an amendment; the principle of land swaps was accepted. This matters hugely for two reasons: the Palestinians need the regional diplomatic cover to make the two-state deal; the Israelis need the regional buy-in to take the tremendous security risks involved in making the two-state deal. Kerry secured this and should have got more credit for doing so.
Fourth, both leaders, Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu, are (reluctant) two-staters. Abbas gave a television interview in 2012 to Israel's Channel 2 which he said, "Look, I want to visit the village I was born in, Safed, but I know I can’t go back to live there". He has declared that for him Palestine is the West Bank and Gaza ‘now and forever’.
Benjamin Netanyahu committed himself to the two state solution in his Bar Ilan University speech in 2010. He reaffirmed that commitment during President Obama’s visit, saying he is ready to make a "historic compromise" to "end the conflict". He has said he has no intention of allowing Israel to drift into bi-nationalism. He has put Tzipi Livni–the two-stater, the loudest and most determined advocate of reaching a two-state deal and effective leader of the Israeli peace camp–in charge of leading the negotiation with the Palestinians. And when he spoke recently to directors at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he spoke openly about the need for Israel to reach a "two states for two peoples’" agreement because of the unacceptability of a bi-national state.
Fifth, the gaps have narrowed dramatically. We have gone from a situation where it is a criminal offence to speak to the Palestinian Liberation Organisation to handshakes on the White House lawn between an Israeli prime minister and the PLO chairman. We have gone from the two-state solution being a fringe idea to it being the only real policy framework accepted as the way forward across the spectrum–across enough of the spectrum for it to happen–in Israel, Palestine, the Arab world, the US, and Europe.
Sixth, settlements have not killed the two state solution. 80 per cent of the settlers live in large blocs close to the Green Line. To connect those blocs up to Little Israel will require a land swap of about 6 per cent. That is possible and has been the basis of talks at Camp David and Annapolis (not agreement, but talks). That is supported by Obama, the EU and the now Arab League. 20 per cent of the settlers live outside these green line blocs, often dotted around Route 60, the ridge running down the West Bank from north to South. These settlements will not be part of Israel proper after a deal. Between 20-30,000 households will have to be absorbed back into Israel (not the half a million people of legend). Is that doable? Yes.
Israel does absorption. Israel’s population doubled from 4 to 8 million between 1980 and today. Israel does disengagement: from Sinai, Southern Lebanon, Gaza, and the northern West bank. The Israeli Defence Force–religious soldiers included–does forcible disengagement. Settlers who had lived in Gaza for decades were removed within one week. A national trauma but it was done when the political leadership declared it policy and the majority of Israelis believed it was in the national interest.
Of course, the challenges ahead remain huge. The vast distance between final status talks beginning and a final status agreement being concluded is known best by those closest to the process and it is, make no mistake, huge.
But the deal is not impossible. To paint it so is not only unwarranted; it is also political impotent. Despair is not a programme. Let’s hear it for scrupulous optimism. And get to work.
