End of peace prospects
David Horovitz, the Editor of the Jerusalem Post, has written an interesting article entitled "Five years of dithering," analyzing the President of the PA, Mahmud Abbas. His assessment is very negative, the words he uses to describe Abbas's approach to decision making apart from "dithering" are "lacking in courage," and "crippling, paralyzing, hopeless ambivalence" (see http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1255547729518&pagename=JPost% ).
Recently Abbas characterized Hamas rule in Gaza as an "emirate of darkness," yet as leader of the Fatah party and the PA he has agreed to Egyptian sponsored unity with Hamas, in order to have a joint election in the PA. But, once again Hamas have backed out, not wanting to be seen making agreements with him.
As soon as the Goldstone Report was announced, Abbas supported it, since it criticized Israel and Hamas for "war crimes" during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, but did not mention Fatah and the PA. Then under American pressure, he backed off and agreed that the GR should not be brought before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva for a vote until March 2010. Then when criticism of this decision mounted, he backed down again, highly criticized Israel and asked for the GR to be brought before the HRC immediately.
The HRC, with an automatic majority (25) of Arab and Muslim States and other non-human rights countries such as China and Russia, voted to send the GR to the UN Security Council and General Assembly in New York. The covering preamble of course blamed only Israel for "war crimes" and Hamas was dropped from blame, even Goldstone himself complained about this. Only the US and a handful of others (Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia and the Ukraine) voted against it, claiming that it was "one-sided," and the UK, France and nine others abstained.
This situation signifies great danger for Israel, if the recommendations of the GR are implemented by the SC (the GA has no enforcement powers) or the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in the Hague decides to go ahead and indict Israeli leaders for "war crimes" or "crimes against humanity," then things could get very tough. The Palestinians and their Arab supporters hope to gain by diplomatic and legal means what they could not gain on the battlefield, the demonization, delegitimization and defeat of Israel.
PM Netanyahu has made it clear that Israel will cease all negotiations and meetings with the PA and Abbas once this process is initiated. Why should Israel pretend to negotiate with Abbas, the so-called "moderate" and trustworthy leader of the Palestinians, when not only is he pursuing this campaign against Israel, but he is also hardly in control of the PA? He cannot deliver, his political capital among the Palestinians has sunk to a new low, and it is highly unlikely that he can survive much longer. Furthermore, every indication is that extremists in Fatah and Hamas will join against him, and topple him, either violently or in forthcoming elections.
The net outcome of this situation is that there is certainly no peace process, specifically at a time when Pres. Obama is talking up his intentions of pursuing such a process between Israel and the PA. Obama thought that by forcing Israel to deliver on the building freeze, he could then deliver a reciprocal response from Abbas and the Arabs, but he was wrong on both counts, and now the prospects are dire. Even the plan by PM Salam Fayad, who has little popular support, to announce a Palestinian State in two years without Israeli agreement, would be in abeyance.
If there is a unity Palestinian Goverment that includes Hamas, then not only will it be hostile to any compromise with Israel, and it will reject the four requirements of the Quartet (recognize Israel, accept previous agreements, stop violence and incitement, stop all terrorism), but Israel would certainly not deal with it. Then the situation is set for another inevitable round of war.
I, like most people, abhore war, it is a terrible and destructive process, yet one of the problems in the Arab-Israel conflict is that the Palestinians have never been comprehensively defeated by Israel, even OCR was only a partial defeat. Two of the major hostile Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, made peace with Israel only once they were definitively defeated. So if Abbas falls soon, and if Hamas is included in the PA Government, and if terrorism restarts, then if there is another round of war, lets hope for a definitive defeat of the Palestinians, so that they too will eventually sue for peace.
If there is another round of fighting, you can be sure that with the precedent of the GR, that Israel will once again be criticized for "war crime." But we must depend on our right to defend ourselves against attack and the high morality of our armed forces.
Recently Abbas characterized Hamas rule in Gaza as an "emirate of darkness," yet as leader of the Fatah party and the PA he has agreed to Egyptian sponsored unity with Hamas, in order to have a joint election in the PA. But, once again Hamas have backed out, not wanting to be seen making agreements with him.
As soon as the Goldstone Report was announced, Abbas supported it, since it criticized Israel and Hamas for "war crimes" during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, but did not mention Fatah and the PA. Then under American pressure, he backed off and agreed that the GR should not be brought before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva for a vote until March 2010. Then when criticism of this decision mounted, he backed down again, highly criticized Israel and asked for the GR to be brought before the HRC immediately.
The HRC, with an automatic majority (25) of Arab and Muslim States and other non-human rights countries such as China and Russia, voted to send the GR to the UN Security Council and General Assembly in New York. The covering preamble of course blamed only Israel for "war crimes" and Hamas was dropped from blame, even Goldstone himself complained about this. Only the US and a handful of others (Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia and the Ukraine) voted against it, claiming that it was "one-sided," and the UK, France and nine others abstained.
This situation signifies great danger for Israel, if the recommendations of the GR are implemented by the SC (the GA has no enforcement powers) or the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in the Hague decides to go ahead and indict Israeli leaders for "war crimes" or "crimes against humanity," then things could get very tough. The Palestinians and their Arab supporters hope to gain by diplomatic and legal means what they could not gain on the battlefield, the demonization, delegitimization and defeat of Israel.
PM Netanyahu has made it clear that Israel will cease all negotiations and meetings with the PA and Abbas once this process is initiated. Why should Israel pretend to negotiate with Abbas, the so-called "moderate" and trustworthy leader of the Palestinians, when not only is he pursuing this campaign against Israel, but he is also hardly in control of the PA? He cannot deliver, his political capital among the Palestinians has sunk to a new low, and it is highly unlikely that he can survive much longer. Furthermore, every indication is that extremists in Fatah and Hamas will join against him, and topple him, either violently or in forthcoming elections.
The net outcome of this situation is that there is certainly no peace process, specifically at a time when Pres. Obama is talking up his intentions of pursuing such a process between Israel and the PA. Obama thought that by forcing Israel to deliver on the building freeze, he could then deliver a reciprocal response from Abbas and the Arabs, but he was wrong on both counts, and now the prospects are dire. Even the plan by PM Salam Fayad, who has little popular support, to announce a Palestinian State in two years without Israeli agreement, would be in abeyance.
If there is a unity Palestinian Goverment that includes Hamas, then not only will it be hostile to any compromise with Israel, and it will reject the four requirements of the Quartet (recognize Israel, accept previous agreements, stop violence and incitement, stop all terrorism), but Israel would certainly not deal with it. Then the situation is set for another inevitable round of war.
I, like most people, abhore war, it is a terrible and destructive process, yet one of the problems in the Arab-Israel conflict is that the Palestinians have never been comprehensively defeated by Israel, even OCR was only a partial defeat. Two of the major hostile Arab states, Egypt and Jordan, made peace with Israel only once they were definitively defeated. So if Abbas falls soon, and if Hamas is included in the PA Government, and if terrorism restarts, then if there is another round of war, lets hope for a definitive defeat of the Palestinians, so that they too will eventually sue for peace.
If there is another round of fighting, you can be sure that with the precedent of the GR, that Israel will once again be criticized for "war crime." But we must depend on our right to defend ourselves against attack and the high morality of our armed forces.
posted by Jack Cohen at 7:24 AM
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