Published in the new issue of the Jerusalem Report, dated 24 July 2023
In the past 75 years a
great deal of time and effort has been expended by a great many people – kings
and presidents and prime ministers among them – seeking a possible peace deal
between Israel and the Palestinians. Although
much ink, paper and film has been expended covering this series of consistently
unsuccessful efforts, the peace process still spends long periods below the
political horizon. The latest hiatus has
lasted nearly ten years. Yet it refuses
to die.
Its most recent
manifestation surfaced in, of all places, Beijing. Palestinian Authority (PA) president, Mahmoud
Abbas, spent June 13 to 16, 2023 there on a state visit. China’s President Xi Jinping has more than
once proposed resolving the Palestinian issue by way of the two-state solution,
and Abbas was following up on the April announcement by China’s foreign
minister, Qin Gang, that China was ready to facilitate peace talks between
Israel and the Palestinians. The chances
of anything substantive emerging from this Chinese-inspired initiative seem
remote, especially since Sino-US relations are at a low ebb and negotiations
would be impossible without US involvement.
July 29, 2023 marks the
tenth anniversary of the last time Israelis and Palestinians sat down together
to discuss a possible end to the interminable dispute. On July 29, 2013, by dint of a truly
herculean diplomatic effort, then-US Secretary of State, John Kerry, succeeded
in bringing Israeli and PA representatives together to shake hands at the start
of a new determined attempt to make peace.
US President Barack
Obama was in his second term in office, and was as determined as ever to broker
a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. His first unsuccessful effort had been based
on a 10-month freeze on construction in the West Bank that he persuaded Israeli
prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to initiate. Abbas frittered away most of the 10 months
quibbling over technical details and seeking Arab support for the negotiations.
Finally, with less than a month of the building moratorium left, the two
parties met for the first time, but when the 10 months came to an end on
September 26, 2010 Abbas – backed by Obama –demanded a renewal of the
construction freeze as the price for continuing the talks. Netanyahu could not gain the political
backing to do this, and the peace initiative ground to a halt.
For his second effort
Obama charged his Secretay of State, John Kerry, with overseeing the
process. He could not have chosen a more
dedicated negotiator. Kerry was tireless
in his diplomatic efforts, travelling constantly to and around the Middle East
to get all parties to agree the terms for peace talks to take place. Finally he succeeded, and on July 29, 2013
Tzipi Livni for Israel, and Saeed Erekat for the PA, met under his aegis.
Politicians do not
generally relish being faced with their past pronouncements, but comparing what
was said back in 2013 with current attitudes highlights the hardening of
sentiment that has taken place over the past decade.
If Netanyahu currently
envisages any two-state Palestine at all – a dubious hypothesis given the
nature of the coalition he heads – he sees it, according to a recent statement,
as a demilitarized entity, only partially sovereign since its security would be
controlled by Israel. His vision was
simpler back in the day. Addressing
Congress in May 2011 he said:
“Two years ago, I publicly committed to a
solution of two states for two peoples − a Palestinian state alongside the
Jewish state…No distortion of history can deny the four thousand year old bond
between the Jewish people and the Jewish land. But there is another truth: The
Palestinians share this small land with us. We seek a peace in which they will
be neither Israel's subjects nor its citizens. They should enjoy a national
life of dignity as a free, viable and independent people in their own state.”
Abbas’s current position is
also no longer what it was. These days
he constantly denies the Jewish connection to the Holy Land. On May 15, 2023 he
claimed that the Western Wall –the retaining wall of the Temple Mount – and the
Mount itself, on which Solomon built the second Temple, belonged: “exclusively
and only to the Islamic Wakf.”
He adopted a far more
conciliatory tone in 2012. In an
interview on Israeli TV in the November he said: “Palestine for me is the 1967
borders with East Jerusalem as the capital…The West Bank and Gaza is Palestine,
everything else is Israel.”
Addressing the UN
General Assembly a few days later, he said: “We did not come here seeking to delegitimize
a state established years ago, and that is Israel. Rather we came to affirm the legitimacy of
the state that must now achieve its independence, and that is Palestine... to
live in peace and security alongside the State of Israel…”
The optimisim marking these
statements by Netanyahu and Abbas infected those initiating the negotiations in
2013. Such was the heady feeling that
success was just around the corner, that jointly they declared they required no
more than nine months to reach an agreement.
Kerry’s carefully
crafted peace project was effectively ambushed by Hamas, an organization established
specifically to overthrow and remove Israel from the Middle East. Back in 1993 Hamas had opposed the Oslo
Accord which recognized Israel’s legitimacy, and accused then-PA leader Yasser
Arafat of betraying the Palestinian cause.
Later they opposed Abbas supporting a two-state solution, and refused to
regard it as a stepping stone toward eventually gaining the whole of Mandate
Palestine. They attempted to wrest control of the PA from Abbas, and continue
to do so.
To scupper the peace
talks in 2014, the Hamas leadership played a master-stroke. They hoodwinked Abbas into believing they
were prepared to put aside their differences with Fatah and enter a coalition
with them. The nine-months allotted to
the peace negotiations were due to end on April 30. In mid-April Hamas set up secret talks with
the PA in Gaza. On April 23 Abbas made an
announcement that shocked the diplomatic world and brought the talks to an
immediate end.
Fatah and Hamas, he
declared, had agreed an historic reconciliation. Within the next five weeks Hamas would join
an Abbas-led Palestinian government, and parliamentay and presidential
elections would be held within six months.
Netanyahu responded by saying Abbas could have peace with Israel, or an
alliance with Hamas, but he could not have both. He would never negotiate with a government
containing Hamas leaders dedicated to liquidating Israel.
Abbas had been duped,
and Hamas had achieved its objective of blowing the whole peace process, and
especially the two-state solution, out of the water. Needless to say, neither a united Palestinian
government nor presidential and parliamentary elections ever materialized.
For Hamas, as for those
Palestinians outside Gaza who subscribe to its philosophy, the concept of a
sovereign Palestine living alongside a sovereign Israel is totally
unacceptable. They regard the whole area “from the river to the sea” (that is,
from the Jordan to the Mediterranean) as Arab territory to which Israel has no
right. Their aim is to eradicate Israel
altogether and ensure that no Jews remain in the area.
“Judenrein” or
“Judenfrei”, with its chilling Nazi connotations, are entirely apt to describe
their purpose. Indeed, the connection between earlier Islamist leaders and the
Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s, and their common stance on the “Final Solution”,
is well documented. All that can be
expected from Islamist fundamentalists, their eyes set on eventually subjecting
the whole world to Sharia law, is constant opposition to Israel’s presence.
Given that the two-state
solution is an article of faith for China, as for much of world opinion, the
Chinese and all those holding it will sooner or later have to face up to an
awkward truth. In a two-state solution one of the two states would be Israel,
and Hamas’s whole purpose is to eliminate Israel from the Middle East. So until Hamas, which rules over half the
Palestinian population, has been out-maneuvered or disempowered, two states can
never become practical politics.
Published by the Jerusalem Post on-line (Premium Plus):
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-749927
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