Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Tortuous path

The President of the PA, Mahmoud Abbas, must be getting desperate, he invited Israeli journalists into his office last week and spoke to them "over the heads" of the Israeli political leadership. He is in effect appealing to Israeli public opinion to show that he is serious about compromise in order to arrive at a peace agreement with the Israeli Government. But, at the same time, in order to start direct talks, instead of the current indirect talks that are not progressing, he demands further Israeli concessions. In order to start direct talks he insists that Israel must continue the building freeze in the West Bank past the deadline of the end of September set by PM Netanyahu. This is of course blackmail, but Netanyahu wants to have direct talks in order to try to achieve some kind of agreement. It seems that the Americans are behind this PA demand, since according to reports a representative of Pres. Obama has already visited PM Netanyahu and asked him to extend the freeze in order to facilitate direct talks. Since Netanyhu is going to Washington tomorrow to meet with Obama, these items will top the agenda. There is a potential compromise that Netanyahu may propose, allow building in the main settlement blocs (that will become part of Israel anyway), but freeze building in all other locations, i.e. a partial West Bank freeze. Whether or not this would be acceptable to Obama and/or Abbas remains to be seen.

It appears that Pres Abbas is getting desperate because he has so far nothing to show for his efforts and time is runnning out for him. But, he too has a deadline of the end of September for the proximity talks to end, set by the Arab League. In order to entice Netanyahu, Abbas has made two apparent concessions, he has stated that he will accept Jewish control over the Jewish Quarter and the Kotel in any agreement (although he reserves the right to take control of the rest of the Old City of Jerusalem), and he has indicated that he is prepared to give up 2.3% of the West Bank (not his previous 1.9%) of densely Jewish populated areas, in exchange for an area of land south of Hebron. Although these proposals seem to be concessions on his part, they still fall far short of the Israeli position that all of Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel, and that the exchange of territory must account for all the densely Jewish portions of the West Bank. Still, on paper, these positions are at least coming closer together and so Netanyahu might be persuaded to extend the freeze on the West Bank in order to initiate direct talks with Abbas.

This concession, of extending the freeze, might cause severe problems for Netanyahu's coalition, and will create great resentment among the settlers and right wing elements. They are already publishing newspaper ads giving Netanyahu's quote that the freeze will not be continued and they are demonstrating. But, Netanyahu might try to sell this arrangement to the general Israeli public and he will obtain left-wing support, because he will say that such a concession is necessary in order to ensure that negotiations don't come to a halt, but will continue with direct face-to-face talks, and there is now an opportunity to have serious negotiations with a Palestinian leader.

There are several reasons why Abbas might be a good partner, first he publicly eschews violence and tells his Palestinian constituency (mainly Fatah) that violence and terrorism will not work for them. Second, he is the opponent of Hamas and Israel needs to "reward" him with serious talks in order to strengthen him against Hamas. On the other hand, there are good reasons not to make concessions to Abbas, first his position in the PA is weak and any agreement he makes and his signature on any piece of paper may be worthless in a short period of time. Second, by making concessions he will make himself more vulnerable, and this might trigger a Hamas takeover of the West Bank. That's why the PA needs effective security forces that are loyal and that will not melt away or change sides in any future clash with Hamas.

The path to peace is long and tortuous, but to quote Pirkei Avot 2:21 - "It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it" (Rabbi Tarfon).

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