Prospects for peace?
With the "direct talks" between PM Netanyahu and Pres. Abbas due to start next week there have been numerous opinions cast, varying from the very pessimistic to the very optimistic. I would say that I am somewhere in between, mildly pessimistic.
The reason that I am pessimistic is that the beginning of the talks were calculated by the Palestinians to put pressure on Netanyahu, in other words they waited until near the end of the Israeli building moratorium on the West Bank and then agreed to talks under pressure "without preconditions" according to the US, but they have already said that if the moratorium is stopped on Sept 26, they will leave the talks and so Israel will be blamed for the breakdown of the talks. Is this the kind of attitude that one would expect from a partner who is enthusiastically engaging in talks and wants a positive outcome. It seems that the US from the start gave the Palestinians an easy out, by insisting on a building freeze, that they now know Israel cannot maintain. Israel has the legitimate right, pending an agreement, to continuie building in the territories, that are only occupied by Israel because they were previously occupied illegally by Jordan. Whether they should or not build is a matter of opinion, but legally Israel has the right to build there, since it is not and has never been part of a Palestinian State. Further, this was not an issue for the first 18 years of direct negotiations from the Madrid Conference in 1990 until 2 years ago when Pres. Obama came to power and accepted the Palestinian position on this issue. So we are in the state we are in today, when progress towards peace is impossible, because although the talks are not supposed to be with preconditions, the PA leaders have already staked out their position that the talks will fail because Israel will continue building in the West Bank after its 10 month building moratorium ceases.
There are two other possibilities, that Netanyahu accept their demand and continue the moratorium, in which case his coalition will collapse and there will have to be new Israeli elections and all talks will be off. Or a compromise is reached, along the lines suggested by Minister Dan Meridor, that building will only be allowed in the densely Jewish populated areas that Israel intends to incorporate in any agreement. In that case the talks could continue, but it is expected that Abbas will reject this compromise because he is still insisting on a complete freeze in the whole of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. So he has staked out a position that will reduce pressure on him from the other Palestinian factions such as Hamas, that are against any negotiations with Israel, so that he can then say, well I tried but the Israelis were too intransigent. That is why these negotiations are not realistic, when one side has doomed them in advance.
The reason that I am pessimistic is that the beginning of the talks were calculated by the Palestinians to put pressure on Netanyahu, in other words they waited until near the end of the Israeli building moratorium on the West Bank and then agreed to talks under pressure "without preconditions" according to the US, but they have already said that if the moratorium is stopped on Sept 26, they will leave the talks and so Israel will be blamed for the breakdown of the talks. Is this the kind of attitude that one would expect from a partner who is enthusiastically engaging in talks and wants a positive outcome. It seems that the US from the start gave the Palestinians an easy out, by insisting on a building freeze, that they now know Israel cannot maintain. Israel has the legitimate right, pending an agreement, to continuie building in the territories, that are only occupied by Israel because they were previously occupied illegally by Jordan. Whether they should or not build is a matter of opinion, but legally Israel has the right to build there, since it is not and has never been part of a Palestinian State. Further, this was not an issue for the first 18 years of direct negotiations from the Madrid Conference in 1990 until 2 years ago when Pres. Obama came to power and accepted the Palestinian position on this issue. So we are in the state we are in today, when progress towards peace is impossible, because although the talks are not supposed to be with preconditions, the PA leaders have already staked out their position that the talks will fail because Israel will continue building in the West Bank after its 10 month building moratorium ceases.
There are two other possibilities, that Netanyahu accept their demand and continue the moratorium, in which case his coalition will collapse and there will have to be new Israeli elections and all talks will be off. Or a compromise is reached, along the lines suggested by Minister Dan Meridor, that building will only be allowed in the densely Jewish populated areas that Israel intends to incorporate in any agreement. In that case the talks could continue, but it is expected that Abbas will reject this compromise because he is still insisting on a complete freeze in the whole of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. So he has staked out a position that will reduce pressure on him from the other Palestinian factions such as Hamas, that are against any negotiations with Israel, so that he can then say, well I tried but the Israelis were too intransigent. That is why these negotiations are not realistic, when one side has doomed them in advance.
posted by Jack Cohen at 7:45 AM
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