Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas waged an unusual charm offensive in Washington this week after his White House meeting, attending a dinner with Jewish leaders Wednesday night, appearing on Charlie Rose, and addressing the Brookings Institution Thursday.
It was his first such public forum speaking event in Washington ever, Brookings' Vice President and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk noted when he introduced the Palestinian leader, who he said he had known since 1993.
An upbeat and refreshed-looking Abbas used the flurry of Washington public appearances to convey a larger message: that he is a willing and reasonable peace partner both for the White House and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and to put forward his proposals for moving the process forward.
“Now, we’d like to reach a solution on two initial issues – borders and security,” Abbas told the Brookings audience, giving his prepared remarks in Arabic, and answering the audience's questions in English.
Abbas said if Netanyahu agrees that proposals on borders and security that he and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert negotiated in 2007-2008 can serve as the basis of their talks, “then we could start direct negotiations to discuss the remaining issues,” Abbas said.
“This is what we discussed with Pres. Obama in detail and we also talked at length about what happened recently against the freedom flotilla, that set out to help the people of Gaza – to end the unjust blockade,” Abbas said.
Indyk pointed out that it's generally understood in the West that Abbas did not accept the proposal Olmert offered, based on 1967 borders and agreed land swaps, but Abbas said they were still negotiating when Olmert stepped down amid an Israeli corruption investigation.
“The man has said in the clearest of terms he accepts Prime Minister Netanyahu’s assessment of a demilitarized state,” former Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) told POLITICO Thursday. “He doesn’t want tanks, he doesn’t want missiles, he wants an internal security force.”
Abbas “accepts the Jewish people’s connection to the land of Israel and their connection to Jerusalem as its capital,” Wexler continued. “He readily accepts the 1967 borders with swaps that acknowledge realities on the ground, and he accepts a third party intermediary for security purposes on his in his state so long as it is not Israeli. It could be American, NATO, he has even said it could be composed of Jewish people.”
Wexler, in his new role as head of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, hosted the Wednesday dinner for Abbas at the Newseum, which was attended by former national security advisors Steve Hadley and Sandy Berger, former Bush National Security Council Middle East adviser Elliott Abrams, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's Howard Kohr and Lee Rosenberg, Alan Solow of the Conference of Presidents of Jewish Organizations, Americans for Peace Now's Deborah DeLee, former Bush Pentagon comptroller Dov Zakheim, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's David Makovsky, the Anti Defamation League's Robert Sugarman, and U.S. News publisher Mort Zuckerman.
It was surreal, said the Center's Zvika Krieger of the Abbas dinner. Almost "every single major Jewish organization was here represented at the highest levels, sitting at the table with Abu Mazen."
The Washington Institute's David Makovsky, who attended both the Wednesday Abbas dinner and Thursday Brookings event, also said the Palestinian leader has been quite engaged and conciliatory on the visit.
Abbas, for instance, addressed the concern among some Jewish and Israeli leaders about the issue of incitement, saying he’s willing to work with the U.S. and Israel to try to end it.
“About the incitement, I am ready and we reiterated our position many times, there was a [trilateral] committee established during the era of Wye River ... to deal with the incitement,” Abbas said at the dinner. “Anytime, anytime they want to revive this committee we are ready to sit around the table and to talk about the incitement from both sides. We are ready, if the judge who is the Americans will say that this is incitement from the Palestinians, we are ready to eliminate any kind of Palestinian incitement of Israel.”
One Abbas dinner attendee said after deflecting the question a couple times, Abbas cited "Obama" as the reason he was not going into direct talks with the Israelis yet.
His "really interesting answer was [in response to a question], 'why won't you negotiate face to face,'" the attendee said on condition of anonymity. "He ducked twice. The third time he was pressed, he said Obama! He said once the Administration had said all [settlement] construction had to stop first, what else could he say."
The U.S. administration "came to us with a proposal: let us go to proximity talks,” Abbas told the Jewish leaders and former officials. “They sent a letter to us. We will go through ...the proximity talks for a while. If we achieve any progress, we will go to the direct talks. That is exactly what we are doing."
Other Washington Middle East hands familiar with Abbas’ discussion with the White House said Abbas won some breathing space from the administration on going into direct talks – a couple months.
"The administration has recognized that while direct negotiations remain the goal and the whole purpose of proximity talks, there is more political and diplomatic groundwork to be laid, as the Palestinians have been saying, and that this could take a couple of months," the American Task Force for Palestine's Hussein Ibish said.
“Abbas gave the president a clear understanding of where he is, and now [Obama] has to get that from Bibi,” Wexler said. “And if and when he does, it will give Abbas the ability, depending on the answer, to move forward.”
UPDATE: Aaron Miller writes in response that Abbas was "playing to his strengths and trying to cultivate the image of a wise and beneficent Palestinian leader reaching out, in contrast to the brashness and defensiveness [of] the Israeli Prime Minister."
But, Miller continued, "none of this will make a bit of difference. What counts is Abbas's capacity to make decisions (and Bibi's of course)."
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