Proximity to peace?
"Peace in our time" is the hope of many that has echoed down the years, uttered most notably by PM Neville Chamberlain, who also said "Herr Hitler is a decent man." Now that "proximity talks" are due to start this week between Israelis and Palestinians, can we look forward to "peace in our time"? Probably not!
It's a case of one step forward, two steps back. First of all, it is understood that only relatively unimportant technical issues such as PA policing can be handled in indirect talks. Even Pres. Obama has apparently agreed that the indirect talks are merely a first step leading to direct talks, that can then handle the important issues, like borders, Jerusalem and refugees. There were direct talks going on as recently as a year ago between PM Olmert and Pres. Abbas. Why did Abbas change his mind, no it wasn't due to Netanyahu arriving on the scene, but Obama. He immediately promised the Arabs progress by pressuring the Israel Government, and so why should they do anything, they sat back and let Obama do the work for them. But, finally even Obama realized that he could not squeeze an overt building freeze in east Jerusalem from Netanyahu, or his coalition might collapse. So they have apparently done a deal, that no freeze will be announced, but no actual building approvals will be handled by the local building committees for the time being in east Jerusalem. That enabled Obama to tell Abbas that he could agree to go to indirect talks because his precondition was implemented. But now the PA leader doesn't have to actually negotiate with the Israelis, all he has to do whenever he wants something is refuse to continue talks until the Americans put pressure on Israel to concede. What can the Americans use to pressure Israel, simple, they only have to infer that they might not veto a UN Security Council resolution that condemns Israel and calls for sanctions against it. After all the Muslim states will be pushing for such sanctions if sanctions are passed against Iran. As far as they are concerned Israel is far worse than Iran.
Apart from the lack of expectations in Israel from these proximity talks, the Palestinians also have low expectations. Their spokesman said that for progress to occur Netanyahu has only to accept their conditions and progress can be made! In other words, its the same recipe as before, the Palestinians say in effect that "because our claim is just, we don't have to do anything, Israel has to remove the "occupation", stop building in the occupied territories, accept the right of return of the "refugees", give up Jerusalem etc. and then we can have peace!!" Talk about wishful thinking.
Then even if Abbas and Netanyahu could come up with a deal thru the Americans, Palestinian Hamas in Gaza will reject it and do all they can to prevent its implementation, including going to war. They now have thousands of rockets, and in the north Hizbollah have ca. 40,000 rockets and probably Scud missiles, despite UN resolution 1701 forbidding all of it, and they are a lot closer to Israel than Saddam Hussein was. So the prospects for war seem as likely as the prospects for peace. If anything does come out of these proximity talks it will be a miracle.
It's a case of one step forward, two steps back. First of all, it is understood that only relatively unimportant technical issues such as PA policing can be handled in indirect talks. Even Pres. Obama has apparently agreed that the indirect talks are merely a first step leading to direct talks, that can then handle the important issues, like borders, Jerusalem and refugees. There were direct talks going on as recently as a year ago between PM Olmert and Pres. Abbas. Why did Abbas change his mind, no it wasn't due to Netanyahu arriving on the scene, but Obama. He immediately promised the Arabs progress by pressuring the Israel Government, and so why should they do anything, they sat back and let Obama do the work for them. But, finally even Obama realized that he could not squeeze an overt building freeze in east Jerusalem from Netanyahu, or his coalition might collapse. So they have apparently done a deal, that no freeze will be announced, but no actual building approvals will be handled by the local building committees for the time being in east Jerusalem. That enabled Obama to tell Abbas that he could agree to go to indirect talks because his precondition was implemented. But now the PA leader doesn't have to actually negotiate with the Israelis, all he has to do whenever he wants something is refuse to continue talks until the Americans put pressure on Israel to concede. What can the Americans use to pressure Israel, simple, they only have to infer that they might not veto a UN Security Council resolution that condemns Israel and calls for sanctions against it. After all the Muslim states will be pushing for such sanctions if sanctions are passed against Iran. As far as they are concerned Israel is far worse than Iran.
Apart from the lack of expectations in Israel from these proximity talks, the Palestinians also have low expectations. Their spokesman said that for progress to occur Netanyahu has only to accept their conditions and progress can be made! In other words, its the same recipe as before, the Palestinians say in effect that "because our claim is just, we don't have to do anything, Israel has to remove the "occupation", stop building in the occupied territories, accept the right of return of the "refugees", give up Jerusalem etc. and then we can have peace!!" Talk about wishful thinking.
Then even if Abbas and Netanyahu could come up with a deal thru the Americans, Palestinian Hamas in Gaza will reject it and do all they can to prevent its implementation, including going to war. They now have thousands of rockets, and in the north Hizbollah have ca. 40,000 rockets and probably Scud missiles, despite UN resolution 1701 forbidding all of it, and they are a lot closer to Israel than Saddam Hussein was. So the prospects for war seem as likely as the prospects for peace. If anything does come out of these proximity talks it will be a miracle.
posted by Jack Cohen at 7:59 AM
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