Indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, with American mediation, are beginning with each side in the equation distant from the other when it comes to the actual goal they seek. It is ironic that none of these sides believes that these negotiations can lead to a state of peace in the Middle East, for which they all publicly claim to strive.
Let’s begin with the Barack Obama administration, which has shown itself to be paralyzed when it comes to confronting Benjamin Netanyahu. Ever since President Obama gave his defeatist speech about the exaggerated ability of his country to convince the sides to accept the conditions for peace, he granted the Israeli government the ability to fight any initiative the White House might take. With the difference in priorities between the Americans and the Israelis with regard to the dangerous problems that threaten the security of the region, Obama has been subject to Israeli blackmail, more so than any of his predecessors. It is true that senior political and military officials in the administration have repeatedly affirmed that solving the Middle East problem is fundamentally important for the protection of American interests. However, this contradicts the Israeli vision of the dangers that it claims are threatening the Jewish state, led by the Iranian nuclear program. And this has turned Obama into a prisoner of the Israeli formula: concessions by the Palestinians, in return for a hard-line stance on Iran that goes beyond sanctions, which currently serve as the foundation of US policy.
In his recent article in Foreign Policy, Aaron Miller sums up this formula by saying: “It’s hard to imagine Netanyahu making any big decisions on the peace process until there’s much more clarity on what he and most Israelis regard as the existential threat of an Iran with a bomb.” The Arabs might disregard such an opinion and consider it offensive, coming from a state armed with nuclear weapons, but it has become Item Number One in any Israeli-American discussions of the peace process.
The Palestinians are the second party to the negotiations. They also lack considerable confidence in what these talks will produce. The proof of their caution lies in their insistence on not being “drawn into” direct negotiations, face-to-face with Netanyahu, and their desire for Arab political cover for such a step. They are linking the negotiation process to a four-month period, which everyone knows is a prelude to declaring the process a failure. No one expects a conflict that has raged for 60 years to be solved in 120 days. Moreover, the Palestinian negotiating side is weakened by the division in its ranks, allowing Israel to legitimately ask: Can Mahmoud Abbas impose a settlement on his people, even if such a settlement is reached?
The final party is Israel. While Netanyahu has agreed to these negotiations, he did so for one reason, which was to end the crisis with Obama and give the American president this “victory” in form, while the Israeli prime minister has retained all of the tools to obstruct progress. He has done this since Day One: he affirmed that he could not expect significant decisions on core issues without direct negotiations, and denied that settlements in Jerusalem were part of the “provocative” measures that Washington had asked both sides to refrain from (this denial confirms the promise that Elie Wiesel said he obtained from Obama). In Israel, talk has returned to the idea that solving the conflict with the Palestinians will not reduce the threats from other crises from which America is suffering in the region, from Iraq to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and of course Iran. Thus, there is an “analytical contradiction” between the Israelis and a large number of American Jews, on the one hand, and the US administration, on the other, with regard to what the United States considers a danger to its security and interests.
At the Camp David peace talks in the final days of the Bill Clinton administration, the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat would repeat to his American interlocutors: I cannot make the concessions that you want, because you won’t be attending my funeral! What can Mahmoud Abbas say today, even if indirectly, to the Israelis and the Americans if they say that the issue of borders, which should be discussed now, will not include Jerusalem, or settlements? Is there any Palestinian leader who can take such a course of action?
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