Game over
The US Adminstration has publicly admitted defeat in the task of trying to bring the Israelis and Palestinians together for direct talks to resolve their differences. Any fool could have told Pres. Obama that it wouldn't work, but let's examine why.
In the game of nations (or in the Palestinian case "entities") there are certain rules. Rule number one is never to announce in advance that you expect to solve the problem in a limited period of time, such as a year, as Obama did, foolish, very foolish. The second rule is never to take sides and try to impose the interests of one side on the other. This is what Pres. Obama did after visiting with many Middle Eastern leaders, King Feisal of Saudi Arabia, Pres. Assad of Syria, Pres. Mubarak of Egypt, and so on. He thought apparently, "if I am to get the Arabs to like us I must take their side and force Israel to accept it, after all there are a lot more Arabs than Jews." But, it doesn't work that way. After bringing pressure on Israel to introduce a 10 month freeze on settlement building in the West Bank, the Palestinians upped the ante, because they are really not interested in having a peace agreement. No leader of the Palestinians wants to go down in history as the one who declared an end of the conflict with Israel, so no conditions that Obama could impose on Israel could satisfy them. When they found that Israel would not extend the moratorium to Jerusalem, that's what they insisted on. In the end Obama was not able to persuade PM Netanyahu to make enough concessions as preconditions to talks to satisfy them. Whatever he could have done would never have been enough for the Palestinians. Finally Obama and his team realized that they were treading deeper into quicksand. They failed in the first requirement of peace talks to ask the serious question, do both sides really want peace, and the answer in this case is that the Palestinians do not!
Abba Eban is famously remembered to have remarked, "the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." But, why? Because they don't want to take any final step that will lead to peace and in effect accept their defeat at not conquering the whole of Palestine. That's why on several occasions, at Camp David, at Taba, Arafat ignored or rejected very genertous Israeli offers. Similarly Abbas does the same. Since a building freeze was not an issue in negotiations for 18 years, one must assume that it was thought up as a suitable excuse for not continuing in current talks. Of course, much of the world, including the UN Secty. Gen. Ban-ki Moon, blame Israel for the breakdown for not instituting a full and continuing building freeze. But, in reality there is nothing that Israel could do to satisfy the need for the Palestinians to avoid any agreement. So now, it up to the US again, what is their Plan B? And in truth there isn't one. But, the Palestinians have a Plan B, that is a unilateral declaration of their State within the pre-1967 borders, and Israel is hoping and expecting that Obama has learnt enough that he will strongly oppose or prevent such a Plan. Watch this space.
In the game of nations (or in the Palestinian case "entities") there are certain rules. Rule number one is never to announce in advance that you expect to solve the problem in a limited period of time, such as a year, as Obama did, foolish, very foolish. The second rule is never to take sides and try to impose the interests of one side on the other. This is what Pres. Obama did after visiting with many Middle Eastern leaders, King Feisal of Saudi Arabia, Pres. Assad of Syria, Pres. Mubarak of Egypt, and so on. He thought apparently, "if I am to get the Arabs to like us I must take their side and force Israel to accept it, after all there are a lot more Arabs than Jews." But, it doesn't work that way. After bringing pressure on Israel to introduce a 10 month freeze on settlement building in the West Bank, the Palestinians upped the ante, because they are really not interested in having a peace agreement. No leader of the Palestinians wants to go down in history as the one who declared an end of the conflict with Israel, so no conditions that Obama could impose on Israel could satisfy them. When they found that Israel would not extend the moratorium to Jerusalem, that's what they insisted on. In the end Obama was not able to persuade PM Netanyahu to make enough concessions as preconditions to talks to satisfy them. Whatever he could have done would never have been enough for the Palestinians. Finally Obama and his team realized that they were treading deeper into quicksand. They failed in the first requirement of peace talks to ask the serious question, do both sides really want peace, and the answer in this case is that the Palestinians do not!
Abba Eban is famously remembered to have remarked, "the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity." But, why? Because they don't want to take any final step that will lead to peace and in effect accept their defeat at not conquering the whole of Palestine. That's why on several occasions, at Camp David, at Taba, Arafat ignored or rejected very genertous Israeli offers. Similarly Abbas does the same. Since a building freeze was not an issue in negotiations for 18 years, one must assume that it was thought up as a suitable excuse for not continuing in current talks. Of course, much of the world, including the UN Secty. Gen. Ban-ki Moon, blame Israel for the breakdown for not instituting a full and continuing building freeze. But, in reality there is nothing that Israel could do to satisfy the need for the Palestinians to avoid any agreement. So now, it up to the US again, what is their Plan B? And in truth there isn't one. But, the Palestinians have a Plan B, that is a unilateral declaration of their State within the pre-1967 borders, and Israel is hoping and expecting that Obama has learnt enough that he will strongly oppose or prevent such a Plan. Watch this space.
posted by Jack Cohen at 8:21 AM
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