Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in suspended animation
A strange and untoward calm descended on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the first week of October, and has persisted throughout the month. The appearance of inactivity, however, is deceptive. Much has been going on beneath the surface, and the results may become apparent quite soon in November.
To recapitulate: what might be termed this “October phase” dates back to the ending on 26 September of the 10-month freeze on construction in Israel’s West Bank settlements. This building moratorium was instituted by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November 2009 as a confidence building measure, at the instigation of President Obama. The aim – to induce the Palestinian Authority to resume the peace negotiations broken off at the start of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.
And indeed, after a wearisome journey along a convoluted path, with many a twist and turn on the way, and only at the very end of August, PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu did finally attend the launch of direct face-to-face peace discussions. And there they both expressed complete confidence in their ability to reach an agreement within one year which would lead to peace and the establishment of a sovereign Palestine alongside Israel.
Aware that the building freeze was reaching its end, as 26 September approached Abbas declared that he would find it difficult to maintain the peace process unless it was renewed. Netanyahu found himself in precisely the contrary position. His government is a fragile coalition heavily dependent on right wing parties, especially Yisrael Beiteinu, and he faced political meltdown if he did not formally allow the building moratorium to end at its predestined time. What he could – and probably did – do, was assure the Palestinians that heavy restrictions would be placed on permissions to construct in the West Bank.
This was clearly not good enough, and at a meeting of the Arab League on 8 October, Abbas sought backing to abandon direct peace talks with Israel unless the building freeze was renewed. Following its meeting, the League announced that it supported Abbas's decision, but agreed to give the US one month to find a compromise which could save the talks, and said that they would reconvene early in November to discuss certain "alternatives" mooted by Abbas.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters that these “alternatives” included asking the United States “to recognize the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders", and studying the possibility of a similar UN recognition through a Security Council resolution.
These may not be mere empty words, although Erekat probably set out the possibilities in inverse order. It would be most unlikely for Washington suddenly to reverse its stance, however recalcitrant they might consider Netanyahu, and agree to a unilateral declaration of independence on the part of the Palestinian Authority. The United Nations is, however, another kettle of fish.
The first purpose of Erekat’s statement might have been to apply pressure on Israel to impose a new West Bank building freeze, which would allow Abbas to return to the negotiating table without losing face. And indeed, Netayahu did announce in a speech at the opening of the Knesset's winter session on 11 October that he would be prepared temporarily to renew the settlement moratorium on the West Bank – but his price for doing so was recognition by the Palestinian Authority of Israel as a Jewish state.
This threw an extra ball into the air, which Abbas promptly batted away. “The Palestinian Authority will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” said senior Palestinian Authority officials. Behind the Palestinians’ intransigence on this issue lies the complex matter of the “right of return” of Palestinians to the family homes they occupied before the founding of the state of Israel. The PA fear is that to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state would in some way downgrade the rights of former Palestinian inhabitants. These rights would inevitably form an important element in any final peace accord. The fact of the matter, however, is that the “right of return” would probably be transmuted for those who cannot go back to their previous family residences into some form of financial compensation, or perhaps some guarantee of development aid. So like most issues that lie on the table, it is probably susceptible of a solution satisfactory to both sides, given only an easing of suspicion and a modicum of goodwill.
So it is in the United Nations that any bid for unilateral recognition of a sovereign Palestine might be made. The Palestinians would easily be able to secure a majority for recognition in the General Assembly, given the certain backing of non-aligned and Muslim states. But they need more than that. They need a totally assured and legally watertight allocation of territory based on the situation immediately prior to the Six-Day War which started on 5 June 1967. For that they would require a resolution from the UN Security Council, an outcome so unlikely, given the veto powers of the USA, as to be virtually impossible.
All the same, the Palestinians are pushing ahead with a campaign to be recognized internationally as a functioning state. Towards the end of October they approached the International Criminal Court at The Hague to urge recognition of the Palestinian Authority as the equivalent of a fully-fledged state government. Recognition by the international court would, as Middle East commentator Leslie Susser has pointed out, not only open a crack for the possible prosecution of Israeli civilian and military leaders, it also would hand the Palestinians a major PR victory in their quest for internationally recognized statehood. The Palestinians would be able to cite the court's recognition as legal backing for their case.
Meanwhile, at his weekly Cabinet meeting on 24 October, prime minister Netanyahu said: "We are in close contact with the American administration with the aim of restarting the peace process. Our aim is not only to renew the process, but to renew it in such a way that it won't collapse in a few weeks or in two months, but that we will go into a full year of serious negotiations on the core issues in an effort to reach a framework agreement on the way to a peace deal. Any attempt by the Palestinians to circumvent this process by going to international organizations,” he said, “is not realistic, and will not in any way advance a genuine peace process."
He is probably right, but the PA undoubtedly has the potential for putting a cat among the pigeons. Sympathy for the Palestinian cause is widespread. Should they make a unilateral bid for recognition in the UN General Assembly, many governments, possibly including the European Union, would support them, and even recognize their territory as contained within the pre-1967 “border” between Israel and Jordan. Given that scenario, and with Israel still in control of the occupied territories, all the ingredients for a major brouhaha would be in place.
For the fact is that in 1967 there was no recognized international border between the West Bank and Israel. What existed was the 1949 Armistice Line – basically where Israeli and Arab forces found themselves at the formal end of Israel's first battle against the combined Arab armies that surrounded it. Which is why UN Resolution 242 did not call for a full withdrawal from all the territories that Israel captured in the Six Day War; it recognised that the 1949 Armistice lines were no longer to be a reference point for a future peace process. President Lyndon Johnson made this very point in September 1968: "It is clear, however, that a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be secure and there must be recognized borders."
If the Palestinians were to implement the unilateral option the current peace process, and the Oslo process on which it is based, would almost certainly be over. But in fact Israeli, Palestinian and US leaders all say publicly that a negotiated peace deal is much preferred to unilateral action that would almost certainly provoke a sharp response from the other side.
For now, however, Israel is focusing its efforts on putting direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks back on track. Netanyahu's special envoy, Yitzhak Molcho, is currently in Washington working with his American counterparts on the details.
"Peace will only be achieved through direct negotiations," said Netanyahu last Sunday (25 October), "and I hope we will return to this avenue in full force very soon."
The question is whether the intense activity by the US and Israel aimed at putting the talks back on track will yield results before the month allowed by the Arab League has run out. November 8th is not too far away.
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Friday, 22 October 2010
"The Bloodstained Mavi Marmara"
Sefik Dinc is a well-respected photo-journalist, working for the Turkish newspaper, Haberturk. Together with 16 other Turkish journalists, he was on board the Mavi Marmara on its ill-fated voyage last May to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. He not only succeeded in photographing the violent confrontation between the IHH and the Israeli military, but managed to conceal his photographs from the Israeli security forces, and then smuggled them into Turkey.
Subsequently Dinc published his eye-witness account of events on board the Mavi Marmara. His newspaper Haberturk carried his first testimony; later he published an even fuller account in his book "The Bloodstained Mavi Marmara."
In the foreword to his book, Dinc writes: “Let’s face it, the Mavi Marmara crisis was a calculated gamble. People on the street said that Israel would not let the siege be broken. The Turkish government, by not preventing the incident, and the IHH, by insisting on entering Gaza, led to a harsh, non-compromising reaction from Israel, destabilizing the Middle East region again”.
In the last week of September, the United Nations Human Rights Council published a 56-page report on the Mavi Marmara incident. Compiled by a panel of international judges and lawyers, the report accuses Israel of a myriad of violations of international law and war crimes perpetrated against the flotilla. Sefik Dinc’s account flatly contradicts the UNHRC report on major aspects of what they claimed to have occurred.
For example, the UNHRC’s report maintains that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used live ammunition from the helicopters before the soldiers landed, and that the IDF abused the male passengers, as well as sexually insulted the female passengers. Sefik Dinc, however, testifies that the IDF soldiers did not fire from the helicopters or while descending to the ship’s deck. The IDF soldiers started to use their weapons after they were attacked by violent activists using metal rods, and after they discovered that IDF soldiers had been taken below deck.
“The Sikorsky helicopter began to approach the ship,” writes Dinc in his Haberturk article. “Coming over the ship, the helicopter began to descend slowly, and I moved to a place where I’d be better able to take better pictures. When it was about three metres away, commandos began to descend on ropes. The three Israeli commandos who descended via rope to the pilothouse began to brawl with the volunteers waiting here on the ship. In the mêlée, one soldier was almost cast into the sea, but some members of the group were opposed to it. With the Israeli troops disarmed, the sound of the gunfire from the helicopters began to change. The rubber bullets fired by Israeli commandos were now real bullets.”
In other words, he testifies that IDF soldiers did not open fire until after other soldiers were attacked and taken hostage. Dinc’s account is consistent with the testimonies of the Israeli soldiers who boarded the Mavi Marmara. They completely contradict the narrative constructed by the IHH (the Turkish Islamist organisation, Insani Yardim Vakfi) about the flotilla events, which relies on the testimony of activists who were on board and were the basis for the flawed report compiled by the UN Human Rights Council.
Dinc’s photographs and his account match a great deal of other information [see my article: “The flotilla incident – cynical and sinister” of 13 June 2010], according to which IHH operatives had devised a carefully prepared plan aimed at fomenting a violent confrontation with the IDF. The author photographed IHH operatives beating IDF soldiers with iron bars and clubs taken from a secret stash, kidnapping three of them, beating injured IDF soldiers after they were kidnapped, and trying to throw one of them into the sea.
In his book, Dinc says that some of the volunteers on board the Mavi Marmara, during lively discussions about the possibility of Israel attacking the ship, expressed their readiness to die as long as the “siege” was broken. While waiting for the confrontation, some IHH operatives began training for a potential Israeli attack. They were also told that, as soon as the ship entered Israel’s territorial waters, additional guards would be deployed and passengers would be given a warning signal. Each person in charge of passenger security was given a specific location to report to when the alarm sounded.
“By the time the soldiers started boarding the ship,” runs the caption to one of Dinc’s vivid pictures, “the passengers had already completed their preparations. They had put on lifebelts and gas masks and began resisting the Israeli soldiers using the iron bars and wooden clubs they held in their hands.”
Dinc has something to say about those iron bars: “They were made from the railing around the ship.” In short, as part of the IHH’s prearranged plan, metal cutting equipment had been brought on board that could sever the ship’s rails in order to construct weapons. In fact, about a hundred iron bars of different lengths were found on board the Mavi Marmara, made from the ship's iron railing. Also found were 50 improvised clubs, as well as standard-issue clubs brought on the ship and hidden inside rolled-up blankets.
Moreover, there is reason to believe that IHH operatives and their supporters fired live ammunition as soon as the first soldiers descended from the helicopter. One Israeli soldier suffered a knee injury from a non-IDF weapon as soon as he came on board the ship. If IDF forces returned fire using live ammunition, it appears that they did so because their lives were at risk.
It would seem that IHH operatives used three weapons against IDF soldiers that had been taken from the Israelis, and that two of them were thrown into the sea, as were one or two non-IDF weapons. At least one of these was used to fire on the commandos descending from the helicopter. The IHH's version that shots were fired from the helicopters at the Turkish operatives is not borne out by Dinc’s account. No shots were fired from the helicopter.
On 24 September Sefik Dinc was interviewed on Israeli TV by Rafael Sadi, the spokesman for the Organization of Turkish Immigrants in Israel.
Sadi: According to your eyewitness account, IDF soldiers only opened fire when they felt that their own lives or the lives of their fellow soldiers were in danger.
Dinc: As you know, I was on board the ship. I saw with my own eyes that when the soldiers came on helicopters and started landing on the ship, they did not fire. It wasn’t until the soldiers were met with resistance and realized that some of their friends’ lives were in danger that they began using live ammunition.
As for the United Nations Human Rights Council charge that the IDF had abused male passengers, and sexually assaulted female passengers:
Sadi: In your book, you describe cases of humane treatment from IDF soldiers [of the detained ship passengers], such as removing their handcuffs, and even an interesting encounter in Israel with a Jew of Turkish descent who gave you his mobile phone.
Dinc: The soldiers uncuffed some people who were having difficulties, particularly older people, women, and people who did not act aggressively. As for the Israeli policeman, his Turkish was excellent. We spoke, and he said that he had immigrated to Israel from Istanbul. He asked me if I contacted my family and whether I had a telephone to make a call. I told him I didn’t, and then he gave me his own mobile phone so that I could call my family. I thank him again.
Meanwhile, in Israel the Turkel Commission, whose members include Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Lord Trimble, continues its investigation into the events surrounding the Mavi Marmara incident. Its latest move has been to issue an invitation to any Turkish citizens who were on board to travel to Israel and testify. In the light of the evidence that has come to light, and of subsequent eye-witness accounts like those of Sefik Dinc, their final report is unlikely to reflect the conclusions of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Subsequently Dinc published his eye-witness account of events on board the Mavi Marmara. His newspaper Haberturk carried his first testimony; later he published an even fuller account in his book "The Bloodstained Mavi Marmara."
In the foreword to his book, Dinc writes: “Let’s face it, the Mavi Marmara crisis was a calculated gamble. People on the street said that Israel would not let the siege be broken. The Turkish government, by not preventing the incident, and the IHH, by insisting on entering Gaza, led to a harsh, non-compromising reaction from Israel, destabilizing the Middle East region again”.
In the last week of September, the United Nations Human Rights Council published a 56-page report on the Mavi Marmara incident. Compiled by a panel of international judges and lawyers, the report accuses Israel of a myriad of violations of international law and war crimes perpetrated against the flotilla. Sefik Dinc’s account flatly contradicts the UNHRC report on major aspects of what they claimed to have occurred.
For example, the UNHRC’s report maintains that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used live ammunition from the helicopters before the soldiers landed, and that the IDF abused the male passengers, as well as sexually insulted the female passengers. Sefik Dinc, however, testifies that the IDF soldiers did not fire from the helicopters or while descending to the ship’s deck. The IDF soldiers started to use their weapons after they were attacked by violent activists using metal rods, and after they discovered that IDF soldiers had been taken below deck.
“The Sikorsky helicopter began to approach the ship,” writes Dinc in his Haberturk article. “Coming over the ship, the helicopter began to descend slowly, and I moved to a place where I’d be better able to take better pictures. When it was about three metres away, commandos began to descend on ropes. The three Israeli commandos who descended via rope to the pilothouse began to brawl with the volunteers waiting here on the ship. In the mêlée, one soldier was almost cast into the sea, but some members of the group were opposed to it. With the Israeli troops disarmed, the sound of the gunfire from the helicopters began to change. The rubber bullets fired by Israeli commandos were now real bullets.”
In other words, he testifies that IDF soldiers did not open fire until after other soldiers were attacked and taken hostage. Dinc’s account is consistent with the testimonies of the Israeli soldiers who boarded the Mavi Marmara. They completely contradict the narrative constructed by the IHH (the Turkish Islamist organisation, Insani Yardim Vakfi) about the flotilla events, which relies on the testimony of activists who were on board and were the basis for the flawed report compiled by the UN Human Rights Council.
Dinc’s photographs and his account match a great deal of other information [see my article: “The flotilla incident – cynical and sinister” of 13 June 2010], according to which IHH operatives had devised a carefully prepared plan aimed at fomenting a violent confrontation with the IDF. The author photographed IHH operatives beating IDF soldiers with iron bars and clubs taken from a secret stash, kidnapping three of them, beating injured IDF soldiers after they were kidnapped, and trying to throw one of them into the sea.
In his book, Dinc says that some of the volunteers on board the Mavi Marmara, during lively discussions about the possibility of Israel attacking the ship, expressed their readiness to die as long as the “siege” was broken. While waiting for the confrontation, some IHH operatives began training for a potential Israeli attack. They were also told that, as soon as the ship entered Israel’s territorial waters, additional guards would be deployed and passengers would be given a warning signal. Each person in charge of passenger security was given a specific location to report to when the alarm sounded.
“By the time the soldiers started boarding the ship,” runs the caption to one of Dinc’s vivid pictures, “the passengers had already completed their preparations. They had put on lifebelts and gas masks and began resisting the Israeli soldiers using the iron bars and wooden clubs they held in their hands.”
Dinc has something to say about those iron bars: “They were made from the railing around the ship.” In short, as part of the IHH’s prearranged plan, metal cutting equipment had been brought on board that could sever the ship’s rails in order to construct weapons. In fact, about a hundred iron bars of different lengths were found on board the Mavi Marmara, made from the ship's iron railing. Also found were 50 improvised clubs, as well as standard-issue clubs brought on the ship and hidden inside rolled-up blankets.
Moreover, there is reason to believe that IHH operatives and their supporters fired live ammunition as soon as the first soldiers descended from the helicopter. One Israeli soldier suffered a knee injury from a non-IDF weapon as soon as he came on board the ship. If IDF forces returned fire using live ammunition, it appears that they did so because their lives were at risk.
It would seem that IHH operatives used three weapons against IDF soldiers that had been taken from the Israelis, and that two of them were thrown into the sea, as were one or two non-IDF weapons. At least one of these was used to fire on the commandos descending from the helicopter. The IHH's version that shots were fired from the helicopters at the Turkish operatives is not borne out by Dinc’s account. No shots were fired from the helicopter.
On 24 September Sefik Dinc was interviewed on Israeli TV by Rafael Sadi, the spokesman for the Organization of Turkish Immigrants in Israel.
Sadi: According to your eyewitness account, IDF soldiers only opened fire when they felt that their own lives or the lives of their fellow soldiers were in danger.
Dinc: As you know, I was on board the ship. I saw with my own eyes that when the soldiers came on helicopters and started landing on the ship, they did not fire. It wasn’t until the soldiers were met with resistance and realized that some of their friends’ lives were in danger that they began using live ammunition.
As for the United Nations Human Rights Council charge that the IDF had abused male passengers, and sexually assaulted female passengers:
Sadi: In your book, you describe cases of humane treatment from IDF soldiers [of the detained ship passengers], such as removing their handcuffs, and even an interesting encounter in Israel with a Jew of Turkish descent who gave you his mobile phone.
Dinc: The soldiers uncuffed some people who were having difficulties, particularly older people, women, and people who did not act aggressively. As for the Israeli policeman, his Turkish was excellent. We spoke, and he said that he had immigrated to Israel from Istanbul. He asked me if I contacted my family and whether I had a telephone to make a call. I told him I didn’t, and then he gave me his own mobile phone so that I could call my family. I thank him again.
Meanwhile, in Israel the Turkel Commission, whose members include Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Lord Trimble, continues its investigation into the events surrounding the Mavi Marmara incident. Its latest move has been to issue an invitation to any Turkish citizens who were on board to travel to Israel and testify. In the light of the evidence that has come to light, and of subsequent eye-witness accounts like those of Sefik Dinc, their final report is unlikely to reflect the conclusions of the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Saturday, 16 October 2010
What will follow the Hariri verdict?
On Monday, 14 February 2005 Saad Hariri, then 35, saw his father Rafik, the former prime minister of Lebanon, together with 22 other people, blown to pieces by a car bomb. Having attended a parliamentary session in central Beirut, Rafik was apparently heading home along the beachfront in a convoy when the explosion occurred just before midday, in a busy area full of hotels and banks.
Rafik Hariri, who had resigned as prime minister and joined the opposition the previous October, had been hoping to stage a comeback in legislative elections the following May. He had recently added his voice to calls by France and the US, as well as other opposition politicians, for Syrian troops to be withdrawn from Lebanon. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad instantly condemned the attack as a "terrible criminal act".
Lebanese security officials immediately suspected Hezbollah, because Hariri was demanding that the party disband its militia and arrange for its thousands of fighters to join up with Lebanon's conventional armed forces. The bombing also bore all the hallmarks of Imad Mugniyeh, who masterminded the 1980s Beirut lorry bombings and who was himself killed by a car bomb in Damascus in 2008.
On 13 December 2005, the Lebanese government asked the United Nations to establish an international tribunal to identify and try those allegedly responsible for the attack. It took two Security Council resolutions and eighteen months before the special tribunal formally came into being in June 2007. Its mandate: to prosecute persons responsible for the attack resulting in the death of Rafik Hariri and the death or injury of other persons. The tribunal’s jurisdiction could be extended beyond the 14 February 2005 bombing if it finds that other attacks, that occurred in Lebanon between 1 October 2004 and 12 December 2005, are connected. Crimes that occurred after 12 December 2005 can also be eligible for inclusion in the tribunal’s jurisdiction if so decided by the Government of the Lebanese Republic and the United Nations, and with the consent of the Security Council.
None of which at all pleases Syria, Iran or their protégé terrorist organization, Hezbollah, which has in the interim been boosted by an influx of military hardware from both its client states, and has acquired a significant presence in the political establishment of Lebanon. Since 1982, Iran in particular has invested billions in establishing Hezbollah as a political, paramilitary and social powerhouse in the country.
This past week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been visiting Lebanon in general, and Hezbollah in particular. On Tuesday Hezbollah held a mass rally in Beirut. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah welcomed the Iranian leader and called him "strong support for the opposition" – that is, Hezbollah, the opposition to the Lebanese government which is now led by Rafik’s son, Saad. Ahmadinejad addressed the crowd via an interpreter. He dubbed Lebanon a "university for Jihad" – in effect assigning the Lebanese people a role in his policy of constant war with Israel, whether they choose such a role or not.
In a few weeks' time, the United Nations special tribunal investigating Rafik Hariri’s assassination is due to publish its findings. So the next day, (Wednesday 14 October), Nasrallah attempted to stamp out mounting speculation that evidence which linked members of Hezbollah to the murder had been unearthed, speculation fuelled by numerous press reports in Lebanon that cited sources close to the international tribunal investigating the murder. Nasrallah confirmed that the tribunal had questioned 12 individuals connected to the party as "witnesses, not suspects," adding that another six people could be summoned for questioning. He claimed that the allegations were intended to weaken the "resistance," a term used for the party's formidable military apparatus.
"We have been a target for years," he said. "Destroying Hezbollah is a dream. The objective is to distort Hezbollah's image, and pressure and intimidate the party."
Details of the UN tribunal's findings that have been leaked to the Beirut press suggest that, apart from Mugniyeh, the investigators have uncovered evidence that links as many as 50 senior Hezbollah officials to the assassination. This includes intercepts of mobile phone calls made between Hezbollah officials in the days leading up to Hariri's murder.
In an attempt to distance the organisation from the report's conclusions, Nasrallah, who lives in permanent hiding for fear of assassination by Israel, issued a video statement in the summer claiming that those involved with Hariri's assassination were "undisciplined members which the group has no relations with".
Initially, the investigation linked Syria to the assassination, though Damascus has always denied involvement. The shift in the investigation's direction toward Hezbollah does not mean that Syria is off the hook, argue several Western officials and diplomats who have received briefings on aspects of the tribunal's findings.
Which perhaps explains why Syrian President Bashar al-Assad confirmed last week that a Syrian judge has issued arrest warrants for 33 people over providing false testimony to investigators. He denied the warrants were politically motivated. "They're a purely judicial issue," he told Turkey's TRT television.
The Wall Street Journal last week quoted Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem as saying that UN inquiries in Lebanon had been politicized and should be replaced by a purely Lebanese investigation. Hezbollah and its allies have also questioned the credibility of the investigation, accusing it of relying on false testimony and telephone records that Israeli spies could have manipulated. Hezbollah has said it expects to be targeted by the court – a prospect many Lebanese fear could plunge the country into fresh conflict.
As Con Coughlin, distinguished Middle East commentator for the London Daily Telegraph observed, by parading through Shia-dominated southern Lebanon last week, Ahmadinejad was not only demonstrating his loyalty to Tehran's favourite Islamic militia. He was also sending an uncompromising message to Saad Hariri's government to drop the charges against Hezbollah, or face the consequences.
Which perhaps explains why UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said loud and clear last week that the UN tribunal investigating Rafik Hariri’s murder would press ahead despite fears of violence.
"I want to be perfectly clear,” said Ban. “This tribunal is independent, with a clear mandate from the Security Council to uncover the truth and end impunity. I urge all Lebanese and regional parties not to prejudge the outcome, nor to interfere in the tribunal's work. ... It will go on."
Diplomats said the UN chief appeared to be aiming his comments primarily at Hezbollah, which has denounced the UN inquiry, and at neighbouring Syria, which has been increasingly critical of it. Some Lebanese politicians have accused Syria of being behind the assassination, and although Syria has denied involvement, it was forced in April 2005, following an international outcry, to end its three-decade military presence in Lebanon, pulling out some 14,000 troops and an unknown number of intelligence agents.
Fears of violence have intensified since rumours of the impending indictments began to circulate. Pro-Syrian politician Suleiman Franjieh warned last month of sectarian war in Lebanon if the tribunal indicted Hezbollah members.
But Secretary-General Ban rejected suggestions that the United Nations could be held responsible for any flare-up of violence resulting from the court's actions.
"Peace and security and political stability in Lebanon," he said, “should be different from this justice process.”
They should be, indeed. But will they?
Rafik Hariri, who had resigned as prime minister and joined the opposition the previous October, had been hoping to stage a comeback in legislative elections the following May. He had recently added his voice to calls by France and the US, as well as other opposition politicians, for Syrian troops to be withdrawn from Lebanon. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad instantly condemned the attack as a "terrible criminal act".
Lebanese security officials immediately suspected Hezbollah, because Hariri was demanding that the party disband its militia and arrange for its thousands of fighters to join up with Lebanon's conventional armed forces. The bombing also bore all the hallmarks of Imad Mugniyeh, who masterminded the 1980s Beirut lorry bombings and who was himself killed by a car bomb in Damascus in 2008.
On 13 December 2005, the Lebanese government asked the United Nations to establish an international tribunal to identify and try those allegedly responsible for the attack. It took two Security Council resolutions and eighteen months before the special tribunal formally came into being in June 2007. Its mandate: to prosecute persons responsible for the attack resulting in the death of Rafik Hariri and the death or injury of other persons. The tribunal’s jurisdiction could be extended beyond the 14 February 2005 bombing if it finds that other attacks, that occurred in Lebanon between 1 October 2004 and 12 December 2005, are connected. Crimes that occurred after 12 December 2005 can also be eligible for inclusion in the tribunal’s jurisdiction if so decided by the Government of the Lebanese Republic and the United Nations, and with the consent of the Security Council.
None of which at all pleases Syria, Iran or their protégé terrorist organization, Hezbollah, which has in the interim been boosted by an influx of military hardware from both its client states, and has acquired a significant presence in the political establishment of Lebanon. Since 1982, Iran in particular has invested billions in establishing Hezbollah as a political, paramilitary and social powerhouse in the country.
This past week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been visiting Lebanon in general, and Hezbollah in particular. On Tuesday Hezbollah held a mass rally in Beirut. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah welcomed the Iranian leader and called him "strong support for the opposition" – that is, Hezbollah, the opposition to the Lebanese government which is now led by Rafik’s son, Saad. Ahmadinejad addressed the crowd via an interpreter. He dubbed Lebanon a "university for Jihad" – in effect assigning the Lebanese people a role in his policy of constant war with Israel, whether they choose such a role or not.
In a few weeks' time, the United Nations special tribunal investigating Rafik Hariri’s assassination is due to publish its findings. So the next day, (Wednesday 14 October), Nasrallah attempted to stamp out mounting speculation that evidence which linked members of Hezbollah to the murder had been unearthed, speculation fuelled by numerous press reports in Lebanon that cited sources close to the international tribunal investigating the murder. Nasrallah confirmed that the tribunal had questioned 12 individuals connected to the party as "witnesses, not suspects," adding that another six people could be summoned for questioning. He claimed that the allegations were intended to weaken the "resistance," a term used for the party's formidable military apparatus.
"We have been a target for years," he said. "Destroying Hezbollah is a dream. The objective is to distort Hezbollah's image, and pressure and intimidate the party."
Details of the UN tribunal's findings that have been leaked to the Beirut press suggest that, apart from Mugniyeh, the investigators have uncovered evidence that links as many as 50 senior Hezbollah officials to the assassination. This includes intercepts of mobile phone calls made between Hezbollah officials in the days leading up to Hariri's murder.
In an attempt to distance the organisation from the report's conclusions, Nasrallah, who lives in permanent hiding for fear of assassination by Israel, issued a video statement in the summer claiming that those involved with Hariri's assassination were "undisciplined members which the group has no relations with".
Initially, the investigation linked Syria to the assassination, though Damascus has always denied involvement. The shift in the investigation's direction toward Hezbollah does not mean that Syria is off the hook, argue several Western officials and diplomats who have received briefings on aspects of the tribunal's findings.
Which perhaps explains why Syrian President Bashar al-Assad confirmed last week that a Syrian judge has issued arrest warrants for 33 people over providing false testimony to investigators. He denied the warrants were politically motivated. "They're a purely judicial issue," he told Turkey's TRT television.
The Wall Street Journal last week quoted Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem as saying that UN inquiries in Lebanon had been politicized and should be replaced by a purely Lebanese investigation. Hezbollah and its allies have also questioned the credibility of the investigation, accusing it of relying on false testimony and telephone records that Israeli spies could have manipulated. Hezbollah has said it expects to be targeted by the court – a prospect many Lebanese fear could plunge the country into fresh conflict.
As Con Coughlin, distinguished Middle East commentator for the London Daily Telegraph observed, by parading through Shia-dominated southern Lebanon last week, Ahmadinejad was not only demonstrating his loyalty to Tehran's favourite Islamic militia. He was also sending an uncompromising message to Saad Hariri's government to drop the charges against Hezbollah, or face the consequences.
Which perhaps explains why UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said loud and clear last week that the UN tribunal investigating Rafik Hariri’s murder would press ahead despite fears of violence.
"I want to be perfectly clear,” said Ban. “This tribunal is independent, with a clear mandate from the Security Council to uncover the truth and end impunity. I urge all Lebanese and regional parties not to prejudge the outcome, nor to interfere in the tribunal's work. ... It will go on."
Diplomats said the UN chief appeared to be aiming his comments primarily at Hezbollah, which has denounced the UN inquiry, and at neighbouring Syria, which has been increasingly critical of it. Some Lebanese politicians have accused Syria of being behind the assassination, and although Syria has denied involvement, it was forced in April 2005, following an international outcry, to end its three-decade military presence in Lebanon, pulling out some 14,000 troops and an unknown number of intelligence agents.
Fears of violence have intensified since rumours of the impending indictments began to circulate. Pro-Syrian politician Suleiman Franjieh warned last month of sectarian war in Lebanon if the tribunal indicted Hezbollah members.
But Secretary-General Ban rejected suggestions that the United Nations could be held responsible for any flare-up of violence resulting from the court's actions.
"Peace and security and political stability in Lebanon," he said, “should be different from this justice process.”
They should be, indeed. But will they?
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
What is Israel?
“By a set of curious chances,” as W S Gilbert has it in The Mikado, we seem finally to have reached the nitty-gritty of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Setting to one side all the issues that have bedeviled previous attempts at a negotiated settlement, and are undoubtedly of immense importance – like the final status of Jerusalem, or the borders of a new sovereign Palestine, or the West Bank settlements, or the future security of both states in a two-state solution – the vital issue at the very heart of the dispute has finally been revealed. The events of the past two days have demonstrated it to be, quite simply, “What is Israel?”
To the founders of the state, the answer was crystal clear, and they set it out in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence they signed on 14 May 1948 (appended to my last article: “Palestinian sovereignty hangs by a thread.”) Starting with the unequivocal statement: “The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people”, the preamble traces the age-old connection of the Jewish people to the land, describes how the first Zionist Congress in 1897 proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country, and how this right was recognized in the 1917 Balfour Declaration and then re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations, which explicitly endorsed the historic connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, reaffirming the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its national home. Finally the preamble refers to the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations of 29 November 1947, calling for the establishment of an independent Jewish State in the Land of Israel, and requiring the inhabitants of the country to take the steps necessary to put the plan into effect.
“This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their independent State is irrevocable,” runs the preamble. “This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.”
So to the vast majority of Israelis, to most Jews of the diaspora, and indeed to a vast swathe of world opinion, Israel is the sovereign state of the Jewish people.
When Israel declared its independence in 1948, it offered its Arab inhabitants “full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.” The principle of equal rights for all its citizens was subsequently enshrined in Israeli law. In the event it is undoubtedly the case that Arabs and other minorities play a full and active role in the state, including as ministers in the government, justices of the Supreme Court, members of parliament, senior academics, ambassadors, members of the civil service and officers in the military. In practice, in almost all aspects Israel is a secular multi-racial state, where freedom of religion is respected.
However, the Palestinian Authority does not acknowledge Israel to be a Jewish state.
It was thought a few days ago that the stumbling block to resuming direct peace negotiations, as far as PA President Abbas was concerned, was Israel’s refusal to renew the freeze on building in the West Bank settlements. Following what is known to have been intensive pressure by the US administration, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced in a speech at the opening of the Knesset's winter session yesterday (11 October), that he would be prepared temporarily to renew the settlement moratorium on the West Bank, in return for the recognition by the Palestinian Authority of Israel as a Jewish state. Netanyahu said that he had transmitted the message through 'quiet channels' that he was now making public – namely, that Israel was being asked to recognise a Palestinian state as the nation state of the Palestinians, and therefore Israel could expect that the Palestinians would recognise the 'Jewish state.'
The proposal was swiftly rejected. “The Palestinian Authority will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” said senior Palestinian Authority officials. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that Netanyahu’s suggestion could never be accepted, while his colleague Nabil Sha'ath added that the government in Ramallah would not tolerate a partial construction freeze and that the moratorium must also be applied in East Jerusalem. Senior Palestine Liberation Organization official Yasser Abed Rabo accused Netanyahu of using the proposal to weaken the image of US President Barack Obama in the Middle East. Rabo also said Netanyahu was begging to destroy the peace process and had made the offer to distract from deliberations on the core issues.
The US position on the status of Israel, however, is unaltered. “Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton are committed to Israel’s democracy as a Jewish state," said a State Department official.
The EU's position is that “The future states of Palestine and Israel will need to fully guarantee equality to all their citizens: basically, in the case of Israel, this means whether they are Jewish or not,' EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said, ignoring the fact that the principle of equality has been enshrined in the constitution of Israel, and indeed applied, from the start of the state – admittedly with varying degreees of success over the years. She did not add what it would mean in the case of a new Palestinian state, but clearly she is implying that any Jewish citizens of a new sovereign Palestine would need to have their basic rights protected and respected.
Behind the Palestinian’s intransigence on this issue lies the complex matter of the “right of return” of Palestinians to the family homes they occupied before the founding of the state of Israel. The PA fear is that acknowledging Israel as a Jewish state would in some way downgrade the rights of former Palestinian inhabitants. These rights would inevitably form an important element in any final peace accord, but in the event the “right of return” would probably be transmuted into some form of financial compensation, or perhaps some guarantee of development aid for those who cannot return to their previous family residences.
Israel’s fear is that the PA’s determination not to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, especially if allied to a demand for a full “right of return”, would result in a demographic submerging of the essential Jewish character of Israel, and open the way not to a two state solution, but to a unitary state.
Concessions on both sides will clearly be essential if a peace agreement is to be reached. Netanyahu has given way on extending the freeze on construction in the West Bank settlements. Perhaps the time has come for the PA to recognise that their “right of return” issue would not, in practice, be affected by acknowledging that Israel is indeed the sovereign state of the Jewish people.
To the founders of the state, the answer was crystal clear, and they set it out in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence they signed on 14 May 1948 (appended to my last article: “Palestinian sovereignty hangs by a thread.”) Starting with the unequivocal statement: “The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people”, the preamble traces the age-old connection of the Jewish people to the land, describes how the first Zionist Congress in 1897 proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country, and how this right was recognized in the 1917 Balfour Declaration and then re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations, which explicitly endorsed the historic connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel, reaffirming the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its national home. Finally the preamble refers to the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations of 29 November 1947, calling for the establishment of an independent Jewish State in the Land of Israel, and requiring the inhabitants of the country to take the steps necessary to put the plan into effect.
“This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their independent State is irrevocable,” runs the preamble. “This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.”
So to the vast majority of Israelis, to most Jews of the diaspora, and indeed to a vast swathe of world opinion, Israel is the sovereign state of the Jewish people.
When Israel declared its independence in 1948, it offered its Arab inhabitants “full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.” The principle of equal rights for all its citizens was subsequently enshrined in Israeli law. In the event it is undoubtedly the case that Arabs and other minorities play a full and active role in the state, including as ministers in the government, justices of the Supreme Court, members of parliament, senior academics, ambassadors, members of the civil service and officers in the military. In practice, in almost all aspects Israel is a secular multi-racial state, where freedom of religion is respected.
However, the Palestinian Authority does not acknowledge Israel to be a Jewish state.
It was thought a few days ago that the stumbling block to resuming direct peace negotiations, as far as PA President Abbas was concerned, was Israel’s refusal to renew the freeze on building in the West Bank settlements. Following what is known to have been intensive pressure by the US administration, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced in a speech at the opening of the Knesset's winter session yesterday (11 October), that he would be prepared temporarily to renew the settlement moratorium on the West Bank, in return for the recognition by the Palestinian Authority of Israel as a Jewish state. Netanyahu said that he had transmitted the message through 'quiet channels' that he was now making public – namely, that Israel was being asked to recognise a Palestinian state as the nation state of the Palestinians, and therefore Israel could expect that the Palestinians would recognise the 'Jewish state.'
The proposal was swiftly rejected. “The Palestinian Authority will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state,” said senior Palestinian Authority officials. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that Netanyahu’s suggestion could never be accepted, while his colleague Nabil Sha'ath added that the government in Ramallah would not tolerate a partial construction freeze and that the moratorium must also be applied in East Jerusalem. Senior Palestine Liberation Organization official Yasser Abed Rabo accused Netanyahu of using the proposal to weaken the image of US President Barack Obama in the Middle East. Rabo also said Netanyahu was begging to destroy the peace process and had made the offer to distract from deliberations on the core issues.
The US position on the status of Israel, however, is unaltered. “Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton are committed to Israel’s democracy as a Jewish state," said a State Department official.
The EU's position is that “The future states of Palestine and Israel will need to fully guarantee equality to all their citizens: basically, in the case of Israel, this means whether they are Jewish or not,' EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said, ignoring the fact that the principle of equality has been enshrined in the constitution of Israel, and indeed applied, from the start of the state – admittedly with varying degreees of success over the years. She did not add what it would mean in the case of a new Palestinian state, but clearly she is implying that any Jewish citizens of a new sovereign Palestine would need to have their basic rights protected and respected.
Behind the Palestinian’s intransigence on this issue lies the complex matter of the “right of return” of Palestinians to the family homes they occupied before the founding of the state of Israel. The PA fear is that acknowledging Israel as a Jewish state would in some way downgrade the rights of former Palestinian inhabitants. These rights would inevitably form an important element in any final peace accord, but in the event the “right of return” would probably be transmuted into some form of financial compensation, or perhaps some guarantee of development aid for those who cannot return to their previous family residences.
Israel’s fear is that the PA’s determination not to recognise Israel as a Jewish state, especially if allied to a demand for a full “right of return”, would result in a demographic submerging of the essential Jewish character of Israel, and open the way not to a two state solution, but to a unitary state.
Concessions on both sides will clearly be essential if a peace agreement is to be reached. Netanyahu has given way on extending the freeze on construction in the West Bank settlements. Perhaps the time has come for the PA to recognise that their “right of return” issue would not, in practice, be affected by acknowledging that Israel is indeed the sovereign state of the Jewish people.
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Palestinian sovereignty hangs by a thread
A sovereign state of Palestine – the prize is too great to be cast aside in a fit of pique, or recklessly, or without cool hard-headed deliberation. Those must be the sorts of consideration underlying the conclusions of the Arab League last Friday (8 October).
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had arrived in Libya the day before. His intention: to seek Arab League backing to abandon direct peace talks with Israel unless Israel’s temporary freeze on construction in West Bank settlements was renewed. Following its meeting, the League announced that it supported Abbas's decision, but agreed to give the US one month to find a compromise which could save the talks. League representatives added that they were hopeful the US would continue to pressure Israel to agree to a renewal of the construction moratorium. In addition Arab foreign ministers, hoping to head off a collapse of the talks launched by US President Barack Obama just five weeks ago, said they would reconvene in a month to discuss "alternatives" mooted by Abbas.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters that these “alternatives” included asking the United States “to recognize the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders", and studying the possibility of a similar UN recognition through a Security Council resolution.
"I cannot specify all the alternatives that were presented by President Abbas,” said Erekat, “but the president will keep working with the American administration to achieve a full cessation of settlement activities in order to restart talks."
So the League’s statement spelled yet another reprieve for a Middle East peace process that Obama has made a centrepiece of US foreign policy. Washington welcomed it.
"We appreciate the Arab League's statement of support for our efforts to create conditions that will allow direct talks to move forward," said Philip J Crowley, assistant US secretary of state for public affairs. "We will continue to work with the parties, and all our international partners, to advance negotiations toward a two-state solution and encourage the parties to take constructive actions toward that end.”
In the days leading up to the League meeting there had been well-documented reports of a hitherto unprecedented US offer to Israel of a host of assurances, in return for a 60-day extension of the freeze on building in West Bank settlements. According to the reports President Obama pledged that, inter alia, the US would not ask for additional extensions on the partial ban on settlement building; would commit to using the US veto to prevent UN recognition of a unilaterally declared Palestinian state, should the peace talks fail; accept Israel’s security needs as defined by the Netanyahu government (code for a long-term Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley); and sell Israel a second squadron of state-of-the-art stealth F-35 fighters and space cooperation, including access to US satellite early warning systems.
The US offer followed intensive negotiations in Washington between Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and an American team led by veteran Middle East adviser Dennis Ross, with the aim of keeping alive the direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The idea was to include the offer in a letter from President Obama to Netanyahu, in an attempt to persuade him and pro-settlement members of his government to go along with a new temporary freeze. There is some evidence that Netanyahu is in favour of clinching the deal. But it is not up to Netanyahu alone. He needs the approval of his 29-member Cabinet, or at least his 15-member Security Cabinet, and he does not have enough votes yet in those bodies.
As distinguished Middle East commentator, Leslie Susser, points out in a recent article, if Netanyahu were to lose the support of the hard-line right-wing parties that form part of his coalition – Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas, Torah Judaism, Habayit Hayehudi and Likud – the prime minister would have the support of fewer than 40 members of the 120-member Knesset. Netanyahu’s greatest political fear, says Susser, is of a repeat of 1999, when after making concessions to the Palestinians at Wye Plantation, he lost his right-wing political support base and was roundly defeated by Barak in the ensuing election.
So there appears to be a temporary stalemate.
Word has, however, emerged from Israel of the possible basis for some sort of compromise between the prime minister and his main hard-line minister, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. The World Jewish Congress recently reported that Netanyahu has given his backing to a proposal which would require any non-Jew taking Israeli citizenship to swear allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state". The current oath simply reads: “I declare that I will be a loyal citizen to the State of Israel, and I obligate myself to respect its laws.” The proposal has angered Israel's Arab minority, which makes up a fifth of Israel's population. The new law would mainly apply to Palestinians married to Israelis who seek citizenship on the basis of family reunification, to foreign workers, and to a few other special cases.
The Cabinet is expected to back the proposal, and it then goes before the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. The proposed wording of the oath of allegiance is: "I swear that I will be a loyal citizen to the state of Israel, as a Jewish and democratic state, and will uphold its laws." Lieberman’s party made the oath the centrepiece of its campaign in the 2009 election, which eventually led to it becoming the second largest member of the governing coalition after Likud.
Ministers of the Labour Party, who oppose the bill, said that if it went through, they expected a new freeze on settlement building in the West Bank to follow as a quid pro quo.
"I hope that Mr Netanyahu's support is a payoff to Mr Lieberman,” reported an Israeli newspaper, quoting an unnamed minister, “so that the prime minister will be able to extend the freeze without breaking apart his coalition."
Both Netanyahu and Yisrael Beitenu, however, have denied any deal involving an extension of the partial settlement freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
As the BBC website reports, the loyalty oath issue has fragmented the Israeli press. It is likely to become an issue of the most intense controversy within Israel. Whatever the rights and wrongs of attempting to introduce it at present, one underlying aspect is undeniable – the status of Israel as the sovereign state of the Jewish people. On that point, the Preamble to Israel’s Declaration of Independence*, signed on Friday 14 May 1948, is unequivocal.
*Preamble to Israel’s Declaration of Independence
The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world. Exiled from their land, the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and for the restoration in it of their national freedom. Impelled by this historic association, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in masses…
In 1897, at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country. This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave explicit international recognition to the historic connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.
The Nazi holocaust, which engulfed millions of Jews in Europe, was another clear demonstration of the urgency of the re-establishment in the Land of Israel of the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations.
On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a Resolution calling for the establishment of an independent Jewish State in the Land of Israel, and called upon the inhabitants of the country to take such steps as may be necessary on their part to put the plan into effect. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their independent State is irrevocable. This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had arrived in Libya the day before. His intention: to seek Arab League backing to abandon direct peace talks with Israel unless Israel’s temporary freeze on construction in West Bank settlements was renewed. Following its meeting, the League announced that it supported Abbas's decision, but agreed to give the US one month to find a compromise which could save the talks. League representatives added that they were hopeful the US would continue to pressure Israel to agree to a renewal of the construction moratorium. In addition Arab foreign ministers, hoping to head off a collapse of the talks launched by US President Barack Obama just five weeks ago, said they would reconvene in a month to discuss "alternatives" mooted by Abbas.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters that these “alternatives” included asking the United States “to recognize the state of Palestine on the 1967 borders", and studying the possibility of a similar UN recognition through a Security Council resolution.
"I cannot specify all the alternatives that were presented by President Abbas,” said Erekat, “but the president will keep working with the American administration to achieve a full cessation of settlement activities in order to restart talks."
So the League’s statement spelled yet another reprieve for a Middle East peace process that Obama has made a centrepiece of US foreign policy. Washington welcomed it.
"We appreciate the Arab League's statement of support for our efforts to create conditions that will allow direct talks to move forward," said Philip J Crowley, assistant US secretary of state for public affairs. "We will continue to work with the parties, and all our international partners, to advance negotiations toward a two-state solution and encourage the parties to take constructive actions toward that end.”
In the days leading up to the League meeting there had been well-documented reports of a hitherto unprecedented US offer to Israel of a host of assurances, in return for a 60-day extension of the freeze on building in West Bank settlements. According to the reports President Obama pledged that, inter alia, the US would not ask for additional extensions on the partial ban on settlement building; would commit to using the US veto to prevent UN recognition of a unilaterally declared Palestinian state, should the peace talks fail; accept Israel’s security needs as defined by the Netanyahu government (code for a long-term Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley); and sell Israel a second squadron of state-of-the-art stealth F-35 fighters and space cooperation, including access to US satellite early warning systems.
The US offer followed intensive negotiations in Washington between Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and an American team led by veteran Middle East adviser Dennis Ross, with the aim of keeping alive the direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The idea was to include the offer in a letter from President Obama to Netanyahu, in an attempt to persuade him and pro-settlement members of his government to go along with a new temporary freeze. There is some evidence that Netanyahu is in favour of clinching the deal. But it is not up to Netanyahu alone. He needs the approval of his 29-member Cabinet, or at least his 15-member Security Cabinet, and he does not have enough votes yet in those bodies.
As distinguished Middle East commentator, Leslie Susser, points out in a recent article, if Netanyahu were to lose the support of the hard-line right-wing parties that form part of his coalition – Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas, Torah Judaism, Habayit Hayehudi and Likud – the prime minister would have the support of fewer than 40 members of the 120-member Knesset. Netanyahu’s greatest political fear, says Susser, is of a repeat of 1999, when after making concessions to the Palestinians at Wye Plantation, he lost his right-wing political support base and was roundly defeated by Barak in the ensuing election.
So there appears to be a temporary stalemate.
Word has, however, emerged from Israel of the possible basis for some sort of compromise between the prime minister and his main hard-line minister, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu party. The World Jewish Congress recently reported that Netanyahu has given his backing to a proposal which would require any non-Jew taking Israeli citizenship to swear allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state". The current oath simply reads: “I declare that I will be a loyal citizen to the State of Israel, and I obligate myself to respect its laws.” The proposal has angered Israel's Arab minority, which makes up a fifth of Israel's population. The new law would mainly apply to Palestinians married to Israelis who seek citizenship on the basis of family reunification, to foreign workers, and to a few other special cases.
The Cabinet is expected to back the proposal, and it then goes before the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. The proposed wording of the oath of allegiance is: "I swear that I will be a loyal citizen to the state of Israel, as a Jewish and democratic state, and will uphold its laws." Lieberman’s party made the oath the centrepiece of its campaign in the 2009 election, which eventually led to it becoming the second largest member of the governing coalition after Likud.
Ministers of the Labour Party, who oppose the bill, said that if it went through, they expected a new freeze on settlement building in the West Bank to follow as a quid pro quo.
"I hope that Mr Netanyahu's support is a payoff to Mr Lieberman,” reported an Israeli newspaper, quoting an unnamed minister, “so that the prime minister will be able to extend the freeze without breaking apart his coalition."
Both Netanyahu and Yisrael Beitenu, however, have denied any deal involving an extension of the partial settlement freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
As the BBC website reports, the loyalty oath issue has fragmented the Israeli press. It is likely to become an issue of the most intense controversy within Israel. Whatever the rights and wrongs of attempting to introduce it at present, one underlying aspect is undeniable – the status of Israel as the sovereign state of the Jewish people. On that point, the Preamble to Israel’s Declaration of Independence*, signed on Friday 14 May 1948, is unequivocal.
*Preamble to Israel’s Declaration of Independence
The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world. Exiled from their land, the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and for the restoration in it of their national freedom. Impelled by this historic association, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in masses…
In 1897, at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country. This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave explicit international recognition to the historic connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.
The Nazi holocaust, which engulfed millions of Jews in Europe, was another clear demonstration of the urgency of the re-establishment in the Land of Israel of the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations.
On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a Resolution calling for the establishment of an independent Jewish State in the Land of Israel, and called upon the inhabitants of the country to take such steps as may be necessary on their part to put the plan into effect. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their independent State is irrevocable. This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.
Sunday, 3 October 2010
Peace process: a tussle between practicality and principle
The Israeli-Palestinian peace process appears to be wallowing in a sort of doldrums. The following wind seems to have dropped, the ship to have become becalmed. Appearances are, however, deceptive. Activity below decks is more than frantic – it’s frenetic.
The reason? A tug-of-war between the practicalities governing the public stance adopted by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the principles that are apparently governing the position of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Netanyahu is juggling a genuine desire to maintain his commitment to the peace process with the political necessity of retaining his majority in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. "We want the talks to continue,” he said recently, “and I want this. We have a mission of peace." But when the 10-month moratorium on construction in the West Bank settlements ran its course on 26 August, his right-wing supporters within the government were adamant that the freeze must end, and it was more than his premiership was worth to accede to world-wide requests to extend it.
For his part, Abbas and those who speak for him have appeared equally adamant that a cessation of settlement building was a sine qua non for continuing the face-to-face negotiations. After a meeting in Ramallah last week, Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Palestinian Liberation Organization official, reading from a statement, said: "The leadership confirms that the resumption of talks requires tangible steps, the first of them a freeze on settlements. The Palestinian leadership holds Israel responsible for obstructing the negotiations.” Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for President Abbas said: “There will be no negotiations in the shadow of continued settlement."
Sterling efforts over the past few days by US Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, to achieve some sort of compromise appear unavailing, so far. He spent last Friday (1 October) mediating between the sides in a last-ditch bid to avert a crisis. At the centre of the US-led diplomatic activity has been an intensive effort to secure Israel's support for a sixty-day moratorium extension. According to senior US officials, the administration's efforts culminated in a draft letter negotiated with Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak and chief Israeli peace negotiator Yitzhak Molcho, and ultimately sent from President Obama's desk to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
The very existence of this letter, to say nothing of its controversial content, is befogged in mystery. Despite the apparent evidence to the contrary, last Thursday (30 September) the White House and a State Department official denied that President Obama had sent Israel a draft letter in which he offered security guarantees — including a continued Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley after the creation of a Palestinian state, if Israel in exchange re-instituted the moratorium on new settlement construction for a 60-day period.
Netanyahu’s office had no comment on the issue of the letter, first reported by David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Following the official US denial about the letter, and in view of the short period of time before the next scheduled meeting of the Arab League (then 4 October, but subsequently extended to the 6th), David Makovsky took the unusual step of publishing a full and detailed account of the letter and its contents on the website of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"At its core,” he wrote, “the draft letter offers a string of assurances to Israel in return for a two-month moratorium extension. More specifically, US officials indicate that the document makes commitments on issues ranging from current peace and security matters to future weapons deliveries in the event that peace-related security arrangements are reached."
Makovksy said that early indications were that Netanyahu liked the “inducements” offered by Washington, but was not inclined to accept it, either because he was playing a game of brinkmanship regarding the terms, or to preserve his credibility. Makovksy asserts that Netanyahu has put forward three arguments defending his unwillingness to extend the moratorium.
“First, he says the original US idea to halt settlement activity in 2009 required reciprocal actions from Arab states, which were not forthcoming. Second, the Palestinians did not initially deem the moratorium as significant, wasting nine out of the moratorium's ten months by not opening direct talks. In Netanyahu's view, why would a matter originally deemed insignificant become suddenly indispensable? Finally, he argues that the focus on settlements is excessive, since the parties will be dealing with the far larger issue of reaching the contours of an overall territorial solution within the next year. Beyond these arguments, it is also clear that Netanyahu fears losing elements of his coalition over the moratorium issue.”
Whatever the underlying reasons, the fact remains that the flurry of diplomatic activity is intense in the days leading up to 6 October, the day the Arab League is scheduled to meet in order to discuss Mahmoud Abbas’s next step.
There are hopeful signs that some sort of compromise might indeed be possible between Netanyahu’s practical problems and Abbas’s principled position. Despite the apparent impasse, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said yesterday (Saturday, 2 October) that he retained hope of a compromise within the coming week to allow the month-old talks to continue, while in remarks published on Friday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit issued surprising criticism of the Palestinian position of making talks contingent on the settlement building restrictions, saying the sides should concentrate on drawing the borders of a Palestinian state. And despite all the stirring of the pot by President Ahmadinejad of Iran, President Bashar Assad of Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, nothing so far said by Abbas or his officials has absolutely and completely ruled out a continuation of the direct talks (“The talks are only aimed at supporting Obama’s position inside the US,”Assad said yesterday, Saturday 2 October, during a one-day trip to Tehran.) Meeting Jewish-American leaders in New York recently, Abbas hinted that he would be willing to accept an American compromise even if it includes the continuation of limited settlement construction. Abbas had previously suggested that he will not insist on an official announcement on the renewal of the freeze, but will require a de facto curb of construction on the ground.
And that is probably precisely what Netanyahu can deliver. For several practical and political reasons a construction boom in the West Bank is unlikely. First, Defence Minister and Israel Labour leader Ehud Barak holds the power to block the approval process and prevent new construction from taking place, since any new West Bank building requires the approval of the Defence Ministry. Secondly, construction capacity has been limited by the Palestinian Authority's campaign to prevent Palestinians from working in the settlements. West Bank settlements have traditionally depended on Palestinian labour to carry out construction projects, and in their absence, building will slow significantly. In the third place, private investments in West Bank construction have declined in recent months due to the uncertainty about the future. Finally, in a statement last week, Housing Minister Eli Attais of the right-wing Shas party admitted that despite his support for the settlements, the events marking the end of the freeze were merely symbolic. "The real test is whether Defence Minister Barak will sign the building permits or not," he said.
Which more or less confirms the de facto continuation of the restraint policy even without official decisions passed in the cabinet.
Whether this will be enough to bridge the gap between the parties, or whether some additional US initiative is in the offing, the next few days will certainly reveal.
The reason? A tug-of-war between the practicalities governing the public stance adopted by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the principles that are apparently governing the position of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Netanyahu is juggling a genuine desire to maintain his commitment to the peace process with the political necessity of retaining his majority in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. "We want the talks to continue,” he said recently, “and I want this. We have a mission of peace." But when the 10-month moratorium on construction in the West Bank settlements ran its course on 26 August, his right-wing supporters within the government were adamant that the freeze must end, and it was more than his premiership was worth to accede to world-wide requests to extend it.
For his part, Abbas and those who speak for him have appeared equally adamant that a cessation of settlement building was a sine qua non for continuing the face-to-face negotiations. After a meeting in Ramallah last week, Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Palestinian Liberation Organization official, reading from a statement, said: "The leadership confirms that the resumption of talks requires tangible steps, the first of them a freeze on settlements. The Palestinian leadership holds Israel responsible for obstructing the negotiations.” Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for President Abbas said: “There will be no negotiations in the shadow of continued settlement."
Sterling efforts over the past few days by US Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, to achieve some sort of compromise appear unavailing, so far. He spent last Friday (1 October) mediating between the sides in a last-ditch bid to avert a crisis. At the centre of the US-led diplomatic activity has been an intensive effort to secure Israel's support for a sixty-day moratorium extension. According to senior US officials, the administration's efforts culminated in a draft letter negotiated with Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak and chief Israeli peace negotiator Yitzhak Molcho, and ultimately sent from President Obama's desk to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
The very existence of this letter, to say nothing of its controversial content, is befogged in mystery. Despite the apparent evidence to the contrary, last Thursday (30 September) the White House and a State Department official denied that President Obama had sent Israel a draft letter in which he offered security guarantees — including a continued Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley after the creation of a Palestinian state, if Israel in exchange re-instituted the moratorium on new settlement construction for a 60-day period.
Netanyahu’s office had no comment on the issue of the letter, first reported by David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Following the official US denial about the letter, and in view of the short period of time before the next scheduled meeting of the Arab League (then 4 October, but subsequently extended to the 6th), David Makovsky took the unusual step of publishing a full and detailed account of the letter and its contents on the website of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"At its core,” he wrote, “the draft letter offers a string of assurances to Israel in return for a two-month moratorium extension. More specifically, US officials indicate that the document makes commitments on issues ranging from current peace and security matters to future weapons deliveries in the event that peace-related security arrangements are reached."
Makovksy said that early indications were that Netanyahu liked the “inducements” offered by Washington, but was not inclined to accept it, either because he was playing a game of brinkmanship regarding the terms, or to preserve his credibility. Makovksy asserts that Netanyahu has put forward three arguments defending his unwillingness to extend the moratorium.
“First, he says the original US idea to halt settlement activity in 2009 required reciprocal actions from Arab states, which were not forthcoming. Second, the Palestinians did not initially deem the moratorium as significant, wasting nine out of the moratorium's ten months by not opening direct talks. In Netanyahu's view, why would a matter originally deemed insignificant become suddenly indispensable? Finally, he argues that the focus on settlements is excessive, since the parties will be dealing with the far larger issue of reaching the contours of an overall territorial solution within the next year. Beyond these arguments, it is also clear that Netanyahu fears losing elements of his coalition over the moratorium issue.”
Whatever the underlying reasons, the fact remains that the flurry of diplomatic activity is intense in the days leading up to 6 October, the day the Arab League is scheduled to meet in order to discuss Mahmoud Abbas’s next step.
There are hopeful signs that some sort of compromise might indeed be possible between Netanyahu’s practical problems and Abbas’s principled position. Despite the apparent impasse, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said yesterday (Saturday, 2 October) that he retained hope of a compromise within the coming week to allow the month-old talks to continue, while in remarks published on Friday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit issued surprising criticism of the Palestinian position of making talks contingent on the settlement building restrictions, saying the sides should concentrate on drawing the borders of a Palestinian state. And despite all the stirring of the pot by President Ahmadinejad of Iran, President Bashar Assad of Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah, nothing so far said by Abbas or his officials has absolutely and completely ruled out a continuation of the direct talks (“The talks are only aimed at supporting Obama’s position inside the US,”Assad said yesterday, Saturday 2 October, during a one-day trip to Tehran.) Meeting Jewish-American leaders in New York recently, Abbas hinted that he would be willing to accept an American compromise even if it includes the continuation of limited settlement construction. Abbas had previously suggested that he will not insist on an official announcement on the renewal of the freeze, but will require a de facto curb of construction on the ground.
And that is probably precisely what Netanyahu can deliver. For several practical and political reasons a construction boom in the West Bank is unlikely. First, Defence Minister and Israel Labour leader Ehud Barak holds the power to block the approval process and prevent new construction from taking place, since any new West Bank building requires the approval of the Defence Ministry. Secondly, construction capacity has been limited by the Palestinian Authority's campaign to prevent Palestinians from working in the settlements. West Bank settlements have traditionally depended on Palestinian labour to carry out construction projects, and in their absence, building will slow significantly. In the third place, private investments in West Bank construction have declined in recent months due to the uncertainty about the future. Finally, in a statement last week, Housing Minister Eli Attais of the right-wing Shas party admitted that despite his support for the settlements, the events marking the end of the freeze were merely symbolic. "The real test is whether Defence Minister Barak will sign the building permits or not," he said.
Which more or less confirms the de facto continuation of the restraint policy even without official decisions passed in the cabinet.
Whether this will be enough to bridge the gap between the parties, or whether some additional US initiative is in the offing, the next few days will certainly reveal.
Thursday, 30 September 2010
September reviewed
Peace process on a roller coaster
Hopes reasonably high at the start of the month; fears definitely to the fore at the end – that about sums up the emotional roller coaster provided by September 2010 to anyone genuinely concerned about the peace process in the Middle East.
Mind you, as T S Eliot remarks somewhere (Murder in the Cathedral, perhaps) “the end is in the beginning.” Everyone who attended the launch in Washington on 26 August of direct face-to-face talks between Israel and the Palestinians was well aware of two skeletons lurking in the cupboard.
The first was the undeniable fact that Hamas, the de facto governing authority in the Gaza Strip – a quintessential component of any future sovereign Palestine – was not present, and was actively engaged in a militant terrorist campaign directed against the peace effort. In that case, one might reasonably ask, what would be the value of any agreement reached between those involved in the negotiations? Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would be speaking only for West Bank Palestinians – unless, of course, the calculation was that success in the negotiations would change the political landscape so dramatically that Gazans would positively demand to be part of a new sovereign Palestine.
The second skeleton rattling its bones was the looming date of 26 September – the day on which the 10-month freeze on construction in the West Bank, instituted by Prime Minister Netanyahu in November 2009 in response to President Obama’s urging – formally came to an end. Netanyahu’s fragile coalition government rested on the support of hard-line right-wing parties like Yisrael Beteinu, strongly supportive of the settler movement and strongly opposed to any extension of the moratorium. It was more than his premiership was worth to maintain the ban on construction in the West Bank, but he engaged in intensive diplomatic activity ahead of the 26th in an effort to ameliorate the effect of the end of the freeze.
Partially successful at least he must have been, for come the evening of the 26th, and with it symbolic earth-moving and balloon-releasing activities in various West Bank settlements, lo and behold PA President Mahmoud Abbas declares that he will not immediately turn his back on the peace process, but is content to wait a week or so in order to consult with the Arab League on 4 October. His decision on his next move will follow that.
Israel's decision not to extend the 10-month settlement building freeze was met with worldwide criticism. US State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley said the US was ‘disappointed' by the Israeli decision not to extend the construction moratorium, British Foreign Secretary William Hague, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also expressed concern over the decision.
Of course, should a peace agreement be concluded and then endorsed by the Israeli population in a referendum, as Netanyahu has indicated would occur, the smaller and remoter settlements would simply have to be evacuated and handed over to the new Palestinian state – just as 21 such settlements were, when Israel left the Gaza strip in 2005. So in a sense the more homes the settlers construct, the more the new Palestinian state will have to inherit. This argument, one fears, whatever its validity, is probably too sophisticated to appeal to the Arab man or woman in the street.
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell arrived in the region on the 28th in order to discuss the position. Netanyahu had already had a meeting with Quartet envoy Tony Blair, and planned to meet Mitchell on the 29th to discuss a US compromise proposal aimed at keeping both sides at the negotiating table. The US proposal, it is reported, offers US guarantees over core issues in the negotiations such as refugees, security arrangement and the status of Israel as a Jewish state.
Meanwhile on the 28th, to stir the pot a little and make life more difficult for the prime minister, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman addressed the UN General Assembly. Lieberman, leader of the right-wing nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, said that negotiations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should aim at reaching an interim peace agreement and not a final status accord. Peace, he opined, would require population and territorial exchanges, and could only be possible after a number of decades.
The extent of Netanyahu’s difficulties in maintaining the integrity of his government is illustrated by the speed with which his office distanced him from Lieberman's remarks – in itself, in many advanced democratic countries, grounds for requiring an errant minister’s resignation, or his dismissal. However, Israel is well accustomed to errant, not to say maverick, ministers, and no-one was much surprised by the swiftly released statement revealing that Lieberman's speech was not coordinated with the prime minister. If a cabinet minister in the UK stood before the General Assembly of the United Nations and made a speech which had not been cleared with the prime minister, and which was totally at odds with government policy, he would be out of office before you could say “Jack Robinson.” In Israel, because the voting system inevitably results in fragile coalition administrations, ministers feel free to act as loose cannons for long periods of time.
So the best that the prime minister could do, if he wanted to avoid a major political crisis, was to issue a stern and public rebuke. ‘Netanyahu is the one handling the negotiations on Israel's behalf,' said the statement from the prime minister's office. ‘The various issues surrounding a peace agreement will be discussed and decided only at the negotiating table, and nowhere else.’
Commenting on Lieberman's speech, the US State Department spokesperson, PJ Crowley, added that Netanyahu had remarked to US officials that – to say the least – he had to deal with difficult politics and diverse opinions. ‘This is perhaps a manifestation of that,' remarked Crowley.
Finally, Crowley seems the bearer of news indicating that the roller coaster may perhaps be about to start climbing upwards again. He announced on the 27th that Syrian foreign minister Walid Muallem is 'very interested' in pursuing peace talks with Israel. ‘There was a pledge,’ Crowley told reporters, following talks between Muallem and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in New York. ‘that we would develop some ideas going forward on developing that.'
The meeting between Clinton and Muallem is the first since Clinton took office. Crowley said that during their discussions Clinton expressed her concern over ties between Damascus and Hezbollah, and warned her counterpart explicitly that Syria should resist actions that could undermine stability in either Lebanon or Iraq. Their meeting followed up the recent visit to Syria by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, when he had discussions with President Bashar al-Assad. Crowley noted that, in line with the US policy of working for a comprehensive peace in the region, Washington is looking to open a new channel of dialogue between Syria and Israel, without obstructing current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
A possible glimmer of hope in the uncertain gloom.
Hopes reasonably high at the start of the month; fears definitely to the fore at the end – that about sums up the emotional roller coaster provided by September 2010 to anyone genuinely concerned about the peace process in the Middle East.
Mind you, as T S Eliot remarks somewhere (Murder in the Cathedral, perhaps) “the end is in the beginning.” Everyone who attended the launch in Washington on 26 August of direct face-to-face talks between Israel and the Palestinians was well aware of two skeletons lurking in the cupboard.
The first was the undeniable fact that Hamas, the de facto governing authority in the Gaza Strip – a quintessential component of any future sovereign Palestine – was not present, and was actively engaged in a militant terrorist campaign directed against the peace effort. In that case, one might reasonably ask, what would be the value of any agreement reached between those involved in the negotiations? Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would be speaking only for West Bank Palestinians – unless, of course, the calculation was that success in the negotiations would change the political landscape so dramatically that Gazans would positively demand to be part of a new sovereign Palestine.
The second skeleton rattling its bones was the looming date of 26 September – the day on which the 10-month freeze on construction in the West Bank, instituted by Prime Minister Netanyahu in November 2009 in response to President Obama’s urging – formally came to an end. Netanyahu’s fragile coalition government rested on the support of hard-line right-wing parties like Yisrael Beteinu, strongly supportive of the settler movement and strongly opposed to any extension of the moratorium. It was more than his premiership was worth to maintain the ban on construction in the West Bank, but he engaged in intensive diplomatic activity ahead of the 26th in an effort to ameliorate the effect of the end of the freeze.
Partially successful at least he must have been, for come the evening of the 26th, and with it symbolic earth-moving and balloon-releasing activities in various West Bank settlements, lo and behold PA President Mahmoud Abbas declares that he will not immediately turn his back on the peace process, but is content to wait a week or so in order to consult with the Arab League on 4 October. His decision on his next move will follow that.
Israel's decision not to extend the 10-month settlement building freeze was met with worldwide criticism. US State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley said the US was ‘disappointed' by the Israeli decision not to extend the construction moratorium, British Foreign Secretary William Hague, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also expressed concern over the decision.
Of course, should a peace agreement be concluded and then endorsed by the Israeli population in a referendum, as Netanyahu has indicated would occur, the smaller and remoter settlements would simply have to be evacuated and handed over to the new Palestinian state – just as 21 such settlements were, when Israel left the Gaza strip in 2005. So in a sense the more homes the settlers construct, the more the new Palestinian state will have to inherit. This argument, one fears, whatever its validity, is probably too sophisticated to appeal to the Arab man or woman in the street.
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell arrived in the region on the 28th in order to discuss the position. Netanyahu had already had a meeting with Quartet envoy Tony Blair, and planned to meet Mitchell on the 29th to discuss a US compromise proposal aimed at keeping both sides at the negotiating table. The US proposal, it is reported, offers US guarantees over core issues in the negotiations such as refugees, security arrangement and the status of Israel as a Jewish state.
Meanwhile on the 28th, to stir the pot a little and make life more difficult for the prime minister, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman addressed the UN General Assembly. Lieberman, leader of the right-wing nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, said that negotiations in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should aim at reaching an interim peace agreement and not a final status accord. Peace, he opined, would require population and territorial exchanges, and could only be possible after a number of decades.
The extent of Netanyahu’s difficulties in maintaining the integrity of his government is illustrated by the speed with which his office distanced him from Lieberman's remarks – in itself, in many advanced democratic countries, grounds for requiring an errant minister’s resignation, or his dismissal. However, Israel is well accustomed to errant, not to say maverick, ministers, and no-one was much surprised by the swiftly released statement revealing that Lieberman's speech was not coordinated with the prime minister. If a cabinet minister in the UK stood before the General Assembly of the United Nations and made a speech which had not been cleared with the prime minister, and which was totally at odds with government policy, he would be out of office before you could say “Jack Robinson.” In Israel, because the voting system inevitably results in fragile coalition administrations, ministers feel free to act as loose cannons for long periods of time.
So the best that the prime minister could do, if he wanted to avoid a major political crisis, was to issue a stern and public rebuke. ‘Netanyahu is the one handling the negotiations on Israel's behalf,' said the statement from the prime minister's office. ‘The various issues surrounding a peace agreement will be discussed and decided only at the negotiating table, and nowhere else.’
Commenting on Lieberman's speech, the US State Department spokesperson, PJ Crowley, added that Netanyahu had remarked to US officials that – to say the least – he had to deal with difficult politics and diverse opinions. ‘This is perhaps a manifestation of that,' remarked Crowley.
Finally, Crowley seems the bearer of news indicating that the roller coaster may perhaps be about to start climbing upwards again. He announced on the 27th that Syrian foreign minister Walid Muallem is 'very interested' in pursuing peace talks with Israel. ‘There was a pledge,’ Crowley told reporters, following talks between Muallem and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in New York. ‘that we would develop some ideas going forward on developing that.'
The meeting between Clinton and Muallem is the first since Clinton took office. Crowley said that during their discussions Clinton expressed her concern over ties between Damascus and Hezbollah, and warned her counterpart explicitly that Syria should resist actions that could undermine stability in either Lebanon or Iraq. Their meeting followed up the recent visit to Syria by US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, when he had discussions with President Bashar al-Assad. Crowley noted that, in line with the US policy of working for a comprehensive peace in the region, Washington is looking to open a new channel of dialogue between Syria and Israel, without obstructing current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
A possible glimmer of hope in the uncertain gloom.
Monday, 27 September 2010
Building on the West Bank – who wins, who loses?
Well, September the 26th – the day on which the 10-month moratorium on construction in the West Bank settlements formally ended – has come and gone, and where do matters stand?
First and foremost, the fragile peace process has not collapsed like a house of cards. Though there is absolutely no guarantee that this may not eventually happen, the fact that PA President Mahmoud Abbas has not stormed out of the negotiations, as his earlier remarks seemed to suggest that he would if the freeze were not formally extended, is in itself a hopeful sign.
And then, on the Israeli side, Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be frantically signalling a conciliatory message while clearly constrained by political necessities from actually speaking it. ‘I say to President Abbas,” he announced, as the last minutes of the moratorium ticked away, ‘for the sake of both our peoples, let us focus on what is truly important – accelerated, sincere and continuous talks to reach a historic framework agreement within a year.' The unspoken message being: ‘In order to keep my fragile coalition government intact, I have had to let the freeze run its natural course. But take my word for it, I am dedicated making a success of the peace process, and there will be ways and means of restricting building on the West Bank which I could not possibly talk about in present circumstances.’
But perhaps there is an unspoken message on the Palestinian side, as well. Perhaps the more sophisticated Palestinian advisors see the ending of the building freeze in quite a different light from the public posture adopted so far by Abbas. Look at it this way, they might say. Following a peace accord, certain of the larger West Bank settlement blocs, such as Gush Etzion, Pisgat Ze'ev and Modi'in Ilit, will almost certainly remain in Israeli hands. So whether building recommences in those areas or not is of little practical concern to the Palestinian cause, given the final shape of things.
And they might take the argument one stage further. It is generally accepted – they might argue – that, in the event of a final agreement, a range of smaller Israeli settlements will have to be evacuated and handed over to the new sovereign Palestine, just as no less than 21 settlements were evacuated when Israel withdrew from Gaza (to say nothing of four in the West Bank as the same time: Kadim, Ganim, Homesh, and Sa-Nur). Yes, there is going to be an almighty row inside Israel when, or if, that day arrives, just as there was in August 2005. But if it does, we now know that it will only have arrived following a referendum of the entire Israeli population, which will have voted in favour of whatever agreement has emerged from the final negotiations.
Given the indubitably democratic nature of the Israeli state, therefore, it can be taken for granted that a fair number of West Bank settlements would indeed be evacuated and handed over to the Palestinian Authority to be incorporated into the new Palestine. If that is indeed a realistic appraisal – assuming a peace accord acceptable to the Israeli people – then why should the Palestinians object all that vigorously to new building in these settlements? The more new homes the settlers construct, the better the hand-over deal when it comes.
For example, building is expected to begin tomorrow (Tuesday) at a number of sites including Shavei Shomron, Adam, Oranit, Sha'arei Tikva, Yakir, Revava, Kokhav Hashahar, Kedumim and Karmei Tzur. A cornerstone is to be laid for a new neighbourhood in the southern West Bank settlement of Beit Hagai, with construction set to start soon. In addition, after this week's Sukkot holiday, the Yesha Council of settlements and local West Bank councils are expected to begin pressuring Netanyahu to approving new construction. If these – or any of them – are indeed to be handed over as part of a final peace deal, who would be the losers, and who the winners?
Such thinking may be a shade too sophisticated for the Arab man-in-the-street, but it may not be for Mahmoud Abbas or the foreign ministers of the Arab League. Abbas, in an interview published yesterday (Sunday the 26th) in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, indicated that he would not immediately leave the talks with the expiration of the moratorium, and seemed content to let the Arab League decide the issue, requesting an urgent meeting of the Arab League on October 4. The Arab League, of course, is the body that gave Abbas the green light last month to enter direct talks with Israel, even though the Netanyahu government refused to declare an end to all settlement construction as Abbas had demanded.
Sending the issue to the Arab League, according to one school of thought in Jerusalem, is a graceful way for Abbas to remain in the negotiations despite an end to the moratorium, enabling him to say – perhaps – that this is the will of the Arab League.
A hand-over is not, of course, the only possible scenario following a peace agreement. Just as Israel has always included millions of Arabs among its population, so the final deal might encompass the idea of the new Palestine incorporating Jewish settlers who chose to remain in their homes. For many settlers, it is living in the Biblical land of Israel that is their life’s purpose and fulfilment. The sovereign authority controlling it is not their major concern. A compromise might involve such settlers retaining their Israeli citizenship, or possibly enjoying dual citizenship, while Israel’s Arab population might benefit from a parallel arrangement.
Given a genuine desire for peace, and a modicum of good will among the principals negotiating it, anything is possible.
First and foremost, the fragile peace process has not collapsed like a house of cards. Though there is absolutely no guarantee that this may not eventually happen, the fact that PA President Mahmoud Abbas has not stormed out of the negotiations, as his earlier remarks seemed to suggest that he would if the freeze were not formally extended, is in itself a hopeful sign.
And then, on the Israeli side, Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be frantically signalling a conciliatory message while clearly constrained by political necessities from actually speaking it. ‘I say to President Abbas,” he announced, as the last minutes of the moratorium ticked away, ‘for the sake of both our peoples, let us focus on what is truly important – accelerated, sincere and continuous talks to reach a historic framework agreement within a year.' The unspoken message being: ‘In order to keep my fragile coalition government intact, I have had to let the freeze run its natural course. But take my word for it, I am dedicated making a success of the peace process, and there will be ways and means of restricting building on the West Bank which I could not possibly talk about in present circumstances.’
But perhaps there is an unspoken message on the Palestinian side, as well. Perhaps the more sophisticated Palestinian advisors see the ending of the building freeze in quite a different light from the public posture adopted so far by Abbas. Look at it this way, they might say. Following a peace accord, certain of the larger West Bank settlement blocs, such as Gush Etzion, Pisgat Ze'ev and Modi'in Ilit, will almost certainly remain in Israeli hands. So whether building recommences in those areas or not is of little practical concern to the Palestinian cause, given the final shape of things.
And they might take the argument one stage further. It is generally accepted – they might argue – that, in the event of a final agreement, a range of smaller Israeli settlements will have to be evacuated and handed over to the new sovereign Palestine, just as no less than 21 settlements were evacuated when Israel withdrew from Gaza (to say nothing of four in the West Bank as the same time: Kadim, Ganim, Homesh, and Sa-Nur). Yes, there is going to be an almighty row inside Israel when, or if, that day arrives, just as there was in August 2005. But if it does, we now know that it will only have arrived following a referendum of the entire Israeli population, which will have voted in favour of whatever agreement has emerged from the final negotiations.
Given the indubitably democratic nature of the Israeli state, therefore, it can be taken for granted that a fair number of West Bank settlements would indeed be evacuated and handed over to the Palestinian Authority to be incorporated into the new Palestine. If that is indeed a realistic appraisal – assuming a peace accord acceptable to the Israeli people – then why should the Palestinians object all that vigorously to new building in these settlements? The more new homes the settlers construct, the better the hand-over deal when it comes.
For example, building is expected to begin tomorrow (Tuesday) at a number of sites including Shavei Shomron, Adam, Oranit, Sha'arei Tikva, Yakir, Revava, Kokhav Hashahar, Kedumim and Karmei Tzur. A cornerstone is to be laid for a new neighbourhood in the southern West Bank settlement of Beit Hagai, with construction set to start soon. In addition, after this week's Sukkot holiday, the Yesha Council of settlements and local West Bank councils are expected to begin pressuring Netanyahu to approving new construction. If these – or any of them – are indeed to be handed over as part of a final peace deal, who would be the losers, and who the winners?
Such thinking may be a shade too sophisticated for the Arab man-in-the-street, but it may not be for Mahmoud Abbas or the foreign ministers of the Arab League. Abbas, in an interview published yesterday (Sunday the 26th) in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, indicated that he would not immediately leave the talks with the expiration of the moratorium, and seemed content to let the Arab League decide the issue, requesting an urgent meeting of the Arab League on October 4. The Arab League, of course, is the body that gave Abbas the green light last month to enter direct talks with Israel, even though the Netanyahu government refused to declare an end to all settlement construction as Abbas had demanded.
Sending the issue to the Arab League, according to one school of thought in Jerusalem, is a graceful way for Abbas to remain in the negotiations despite an end to the moratorium, enabling him to say – perhaps – that this is the will of the Arab League.
A hand-over is not, of course, the only possible scenario following a peace agreement. Just as Israel has always included millions of Arabs among its population, so the final deal might encompass the idea of the new Palestine incorporating Jewish settlers who chose to remain in their homes. For many settlers, it is living in the Biblical land of Israel that is their life’s purpose and fulfilment. The sovereign authority controlling it is not their major concern. A compromise might involve such settlers retaining their Israeli citizenship, or possibly enjoying dual citizenship, while Israel’s Arab population might benefit from a parallel arrangement.
Given a genuine desire for peace, and a modicum of good will among the principals negotiating it, anything is possible.
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
Israelis and Palestinians face a common enemy
Peace rejectionists are to be found everywhere, many of them with wildly divergent agendas, though sharing the common aim of rubbishing and, if possible, derailing the current peace initiative. They abound in the Arab world, in Israel’s right-wing political parties, and under a variety of guises in many countries. The Iranian regime, for example, is a prime advocate of rejection, and a main sponsor of terrorist activity aimed at undermining the peace process.
Assuming that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, entered the peace process in a sincere attempt to reach an accommodation within the next twelve months – an assumption laughed to scorn by the rejectionists – the fact is that the obstacles in their separate paths bear more than a passing similarity. Their individual problems parallel each other – and sometimes overlap. For example, in the current political situation, with the West Bank and Gaza under separate rule, Hamas terrorism is as much a political attack on the Palestinian Authority as it is an armed attack on Israel. While Israeli and Palestinian officials continue their discussions as part of the peace process, both know that opposing the radical rejectionists is a common concern.
On each occasion that a substantive move towards peace emerges in the Middle East, the rejectionist pattern is all too wearisome and familiar. This time was no exception. Even before the present round of peace talks had started, terrorist activity increased substantially. On the evening of August 31, as Israeli and Palestinian leaders were gathering in Washington DC to launch the latest round of peace talks, four Israeli settlers were killed on a road southeast of Kiryat Arba, close to Hebron. This was the first fatal terrorist attack on Israeli civilians in nearly a year. In the following two days, two further shooting incidents were recorded, in the area of Rimonim and near Ofra, both in the northern West Bank. Two Israeli civilians were wounded. The military wing of Hamas, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for all three incidents, calling them the ‘path of Ramadan' attacks and promising more.
But speaking the day after the shooting attack outside Kiryat Arba, and on the day peace talks opened in Washington, Netanyahu pledged, ‘I will not let the terrorists block our path to peace.' As – much to the chagrin of the rejectionists – those engaged in the peace process simply refused to allow it to be derailed, nevertheless the first three weeks of September saw four Israelis killed in three shooting incidents, and some 20 rockets landing on southern Israel. Since the beginning of September, there has also been a marked increase in rocket attacks on southern Israel from the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip. In the first eight months of 2010, the average number of rockets landing in Israel from Gaza was close to eight a month. Nineteen missiles have landed in Israel already this month. The highest daily tally in nearly two years was recorded on September 15th, with nine missiles hitting Israel.
The difference this time is that the Palestinian Authority has displayed determination in tracking down the terrorists in the West Bank; Israel has also continued counter-terrorism activities, responding to the violence with targeted operations against Hamas militants and installations, but the response has been measured. Greater PA security capacity, and increasing cooperation between them and Israeli security forces, has led to the arrest of most Hamas operatives in the West Bank. Briefing the Israeli cabinet last week, Security Agency (Shin Bet) head Yuval Disking said that cooperation between the IDF and the PA security apparatus is better now than at any point in the last 16 years. He described the PA as demonstrating a great deal of ‘motivation' and ‘determination' in preventing attacks, including arresting hundreds of Hamas activists. Israel also enjoys the cooperation of Egypt, which sees Hamas as a threat to its own interests. A top Hamas official was arrested in Cairo in the past few days.
Hamas is unlikely to cease in its efforts to destabilise the situation, but their attempts to activate sleeper cells or to infiltrate new operatives into the West Bank will take time, while Israel's anti-terrorism and intelligence apparatus remains in place to foil such efforts. Incidentally, Israeli intelligence believes Hamas have developed the capability to fire rockets that could reach Tel Aviv. But even the more hard-line elements within Hamas will be wary of an escalation that would provoke major Israeli reprisals.
The Palestinian Authority’s opposition to the terrorists seems genuinely determined. On 7 September PA security forces announced they had detained the terrorists who carried out the attacks on Israel in early September. In response, Hamas called the detentions a ‘national betrayal' and threatened that ‘the weapons that reached the heart of the occupier can reach you as well.' Hamas leader Khaled Mashal denounced PA President Mahmoud Abbas as ‘a zero'.
The PA's focus on the diplomatic process was also behind an angry exchange with Iranian President Ahmadinejad. In a clear attack on the PA, Ahmedinejad said that, ‘the fate of the Palestinians will be determined by the resistance of the nation and [its] citizens.' In response Palestinian spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh attacked Ahmadinejad, claiming that ‘the man who does not represent the Iranian people... who faked the elections, oppresses the Iranian people and stole the regime would do better not to talk about Palestine.'
Israel’s rejectionists are grouped around the West Bank settlement building issue. For some time the forthcoming expiry of the building freeze seemed to pose the first direct challenge to the negotiations, since settlers and their supporters seemed determined to start new constructions the very instant the moratorium came to an end. Then, last week, a review found that the building moratorium is due to expire not on September 26, as previously thought, but September 30. Then, an agreement began to take shape on the settlement construction freeze, based on an "unspoken understanding" that security authorities will not sign new building permits, but the government will not issue a formal resolution extending the freeze. A source close to PA President Mahmoud Abbas is reported as saying that from the PA's perspective, what mattered was not Israel's declarations but the moratorium's implementation on the ground.
Assuming that the two principals indeed succeed in overcoming these challenges and out-facing the rejectionists, what other obstacles might obstruct their quest for a peace agreement?
To achieve a genuine breakthrough, Prime Minister Netanyahu may have to risk the collapse of his present coalition and division within his own Likud party. He may have to re-constitute his government, possibly allying himself with the Kadima party. However, Netanyahu seems to be increasingly persuaded that, notwithstanding the costs, a conflict-ending agreement is perhaps the only way to achieve the security that Israel acutely needs, as well as the legitimate borders it also requires in the eyes of the world. His dilemma is not just political or ideological. It turns on whether the genuine risks and compromises associated for Israel with an agreement are outweighed by the risks associated with failing to reach one.
For President Abbas, the calculations are no less complex. The decisions necessary to reach an agreement, and the challenge to the Palestinian ethos that this would entail, are daunting for any Palestinian leader. The constant challenge from Hamas, the unrest within Fatah ranks as they jostle for position, and the lack of full-hearted support from regional states will weigh heavily on Abbas. And yet, Abbas also knows that without success at the negotiating table Fatah has little to offer as an alternative to Hamas. Abbas will face real difficulties with a largely hard-line diaspora and increasing challenges to his political legitimacy. Unless tackled, these challenges may weaken his capacity to close a deal, much less implement one. However, he has already demonstrated a willingness to confront violence, confound his critics and champion a two-state solution.
And so, with a variety of problems to face and overcome, and the chance to make common cause on at least one of them – the principals set out on their hazardous voyage to discover whether peace between Israelis and Palestinians is indeed possible.
Assuming that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, entered the peace process in a sincere attempt to reach an accommodation within the next twelve months – an assumption laughed to scorn by the rejectionists – the fact is that the obstacles in their separate paths bear more than a passing similarity. Their individual problems parallel each other – and sometimes overlap. For example, in the current political situation, with the West Bank and Gaza under separate rule, Hamas terrorism is as much a political attack on the Palestinian Authority as it is an armed attack on Israel. While Israeli and Palestinian officials continue their discussions as part of the peace process, both know that opposing the radical rejectionists is a common concern.
On each occasion that a substantive move towards peace emerges in the Middle East, the rejectionist pattern is all too wearisome and familiar. This time was no exception. Even before the present round of peace talks had started, terrorist activity increased substantially. On the evening of August 31, as Israeli and Palestinian leaders were gathering in Washington DC to launch the latest round of peace talks, four Israeli settlers were killed on a road southeast of Kiryat Arba, close to Hebron. This was the first fatal terrorist attack on Israeli civilians in nearly a year. In the following two days, two further shooting incidents were recorded, in the area of Rimonim and near Ofra, both in the northern West Bank. Two Israeli civilians were wounded. The military wing of Hamas, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, claimed responsibility for all three incidents, calling them the ‘path of Ramadan' attacks and promising more.
But speaking the day after the shooting attack outside Kiryat Arba, and on the day peace talks opened in Washington, Netanyahu pledged, ‘I will not let the terrorists block our path to peace.' As – much to the chagrin of the rejectionists – those engaged in the peace process simply refused to allow it to be derailed, nevertheless the first three weeks of September saw four Israelis killed in three shooting incidents, and some 20 rockets landing on southern Israel. Since the beginning of September, there has also been a marked increase in rocket attacks on southern Israel from the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip. In the first eight months of 2010, the average number of rockets landing in Israel from Gaza was close to eight a month. Nineteen missiles have landed in Israel already this month. The highest daily tally in nearly two years was recorded on September 15th, with nine missiles hitting Israel.
The difference this time is that the Palestinian Authority has displayed determination in tracking down the terrorists in the West Bank; Israel has also continued counter-terrorism activities, responding to the violence with targeted operations against Hamas militants and installations, but the response has been measured. Greater PA security capacity, and increasing cooperation between them and Israeli security forces, has led to the arrest of most Hamas operatives in the West Bank. Briefing the Israeli cabinet last week, Security Agency (Shin Bet) head Yuval Disking said that cooperation between the IDF and the PA security apparatus is better now than at any point in the last 16 years. He described the PA as demonstrating a great deal of ‘motivation' and ‘determination' in preventing attacks, including arresting hundreds of Hamas activists. Israel also enjoys the cooperation of Egypt, which sees Hamas as a threat to its own interests. A top Hamas official was arrested in Cairo in the past few days.
Hamas is unlikely to cease in its efforts to destabilise the situation, but their attempts to activate sleeper cells or to infiltrate new operatives into the West Bank will take time, while Israel's anti-terrorism and intelligence apparatus remains in place to foil such efforts. Incidentally, Israeli intelligence believes Hamas have developed the capability to fire rockets that could reach Tel Aviv. But even the more hard-line elements within Hamas will be wary of an escalation that would provoke major Israeli reprisals.
The Palestinian Authority’s opposition to the terrorists seems genuinely determined. On 7 September PA security forces announced they had detained the terrorists who carried out the attacks on Israel in early September. In response, Hamas called the detentions a ‘national betrayal' and threatened that ‘the weapons that reached the heart of the occupier can reach you as well.' Hamas leader Khaled Mashal denounced PA President Mahmoud Abbas as ‘a zero'.
The PA's focus on the diplomatic process was also behind an angry exchange with Iranian President Ahmadinejad. In a clear attack on the PA, Ahmedinejad said that, ‘the fate of the Palestinians will be determined by the resistance of the nation and [its] citizens.' In response Palestinian spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh attacked Ahmadinejad, claiming that ‘the man who does not represent the Iranian people... who faked the elections, oppresses the Iranian people and stole the regime would do better not to talk about Palestine.'
Israel’s rejectionists are grouped around the West Bank settlement building issue. For some time the forthcoming expiry of the building freeze seemed to pose the first direct challenge to the negotiations, since settlers and their supporters seemed determined to start new constructions the very instant the moratorium came to an end. Then, last week, a review found that the building moratorium is due to expire not on September 26, as previously thought, but September 30. Then, an agreement began to take shape on the settlement construction freeze, based on an "unspoken understanding" that security authorities will not sign new building permits, but the government will not issue a formal resolution extending the freeze. A source close to PA President Mahmoud Abbas is reported as saying that from the PA's perspective, what mattered was not Israel's declarations but the moratorium's implementation on the ground.
Assuming that the two principals indeed succeed in overcoming these challenges and out-facing the rejectionists, what other obstacles might obstruct their quest for a peace agreement?
To achieve a genuine breakthrough, Prime Minister Netanyahu may have to risk the collapse of his present coalition and division within his own Likud party. He may have to re-constitute his government, possibly allying himself with the Kadima party. However, Netanyahu seems to be increasingly persuaded that, notwithstanding the costs, a conflict-ending agreement is perhaps the only way to achieve the security that Israel acutely needs, as well as the legitimate borders it also requires in the eyes of the world. His dilemma is not just political or ideological. It turns on whether the genuine risks and compromises associated for Israel with an agreement are outweighed by the risks associated with failing to reach one.
For President Abbas, the calculations are no less complex. The decisions necessary to reach an agreement, and the challenge to the Palestinian ethos that this would entail, are daunting for any Palestinian leader. The constant challenge from Hamas, the unrest within Fatah ranks as they jostle for position, and the lack of full-hearted support from regional states will weigh heavily on Abbas. And yet, Abbas also knows that without success at the negotiating table Fatah has little to offer as an alternative to Hamas. Abbas will face real difficulties with a largely hard-line diaspora and increasing challenges to his political legitimacy. Unless tackled, these challenges may weaken his capacity to close a deal, much less implement one. However, he has already demonstrated a willingness to confront violence, confound his critics and champion a two-state solution.
And so, with a variety of problems to face and overcome, and the chance to make common cause on at least one of them – the principals set out on their hazardous voyage to discover whether peace between Israelis and Palestinians is indeed possible.
Thursday, 16 September 2010
US launch of Friends of Israel Initiative
Speech by José María Aznar, Chairman, former President of Spain, 14 September 2010
I'm here tonight to present to you a work in progress, the Friends of Israel Initiative* - an idea I have been promoting with the help of some friends, some of them here tonight, like:
Former President of Peru, Alejandro Toledo;
British historian, Andrew Roberts;
French entrepreneur, Robert Agostinelli;
Former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton;
Spanish former industry minister, Carlos Bustelo.
And others who couldn't make it tonight, such as:
Professor George Weigel;
Peace Nobel prize-winner Lord Trimble;
Lord Weidenfeld;
Former president of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera;
Fiamma Nerestein, representative in the Italian parliament; and
champion of human rights and democracy former Czech President Vaclav Havel, the latest member of our growing Board.
They all answered my initial call, last May, because all shared with me the sense of urgency to do something about the growing trend of deligitimisation of Israel.
Our first meeting took place in Paris the very same day Israeli troops stopped the Flotilla heading to Gaza. Very timely, as you can tell.
Our second event took place in calmer waters, in late July, in London.
And now, we are here in Washington D.C.
Why? Very simple: We believe in the West, in the values all we share, in the ties that bind free societies and distinguish our democracies from those governments who have yet to give way to the rights of their people and the arc of history. And, we know – better than many – that the West has been shaped, led and defended by America.
As a European, I don't have any problem saying that America has been a force for good in the World, protecting peace, promoting liberty and human dignity, and expanding prosperity. Furthermore, America has been the best ally of Israel, and it should remain so. And America's role as the leader of the free world, as the spark of hope for a better life for countless souls the world over should be a source of pride for all Americans. It certainly serves as an inspiration to us.
Many of us came from Europe. Most of us are not Jewish. And I am sure that many of you may be wondering what it is that we seek, and why we believe it so vital to stand up and be counted on this issue.
Hence, our interest to explain here what we want and why.
We defend Israel because we believe it is the best strategy in current times to defend the West.
When we started putting this Initiative in motion, the whole world was condemning Israel for reasons I don't need to elaborate, since you know them better than I do.
Now, the atmosphere has changed a little since direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians have resumed and the peace process is moving ahead. Despite all the difficulties the negotiations may experience, I think we all should recognize the value, the prospects, and the hopes they represent. I am sure that Israel wants peace, and I know that all true friends of Israel want to see her achieve that dream of peace and security.
But as we made clear in our first statement, there are problems in the region greater than just an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Problems that will not go away even if a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is eventually reached.
While Israel has made peace with Egypt and Jordan, and her economy has strengthened in recent years, now - not decades ago - Israel is facing increasing dangers. She has been forced to defend her people from Hezbollah in the North and thousands of Hamas rockets in the South. And. perhaps most worryingly, Israel is increasingly threatened by the scenario of a nuclear Iran – something the world must certainly act urgently to prevent.
On top of that, Israel is under a new kind of attack. Not conventional war as in 1948, ‘56, ‘67 or ‘73. Not terrorism as we saw in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. But a new kind of attack – an attack on Israel’s legitimacy, on her right to exist. A "soft war", where many of its adversaries are employing legal tricks, multinational bodies, and an army of dubious NGO's to present internationally Israel as an illegitimate state, as a barbarian state, a state that should be isolated and converted into a pariah state.
We think this is intolerable. It is unjust, morally wrong, and a strategic risk – not only for Israel and its people, but for all of us. Israel is an integral part of the West, and the weaker it is, the weaker the entire West will be perceived to be.
Even if we want to turn away from the traumas of 9/11, we simply do not have the luxury to choose our enemies. As Senators Baker, Dole, Daschle and Mitchell made clear in their latest report, published 5 days ago. by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the threat to our way of life from radical Islamists is real, and it has not yet been eliminated.
Let me be clear. We don't want in any case to defend any particular Israeli government or any particular set of policies or any particular party. Israel's institutions are mature enough to defend their choices. We want to stand up for the right of Israel to exist. Judeo-Christian values form the roots of our civilization. Delegitimising Israel undermines our identity, warps our values and put at risk what we are and who we are.
So, dear friends, it is not only the threat that if Israel goes down – which, make no mistake, many of its enemies would like to see happen – we all go down. It is that letting Israel be demonized will lead to the deligitimisation of our own cherished values. If Israel were to disappear by the force of its enemies, I sincerely doubt the West could remain as we know it.
So, I conclude: Is it craziness for a group, as I said before, of mostly Europeans and non-Jews, to say: Enough. Stop this non-sense of making Israel responsible for all the problems in the region, if not beyond? Enough of the short sightedness which refuses to see Israel as a corner stone of our Western civilization?
We do believe that far from it, it is vital. For America, for the West, for Israel. And for our children and grandchildren and the world they will inherit. Because there is still right and wrong in this complicated world. And if we allow those fundamentals to be blurred and eroded and confused, we will all be dangerously adrift.
Defending Israel today means strengthening the West, standing up for our values, and their right to exist as a normal country, a fellow democracy and a celebrated ally in our great western alliance.
I hope that you will share our vision, and will help us in bringing reason and decency back to the discussion concerning Israel.
*See my blog "The Friends of Israel Initiative", posted on 27 July 2010
I'm here tonight to present to you a work in progress, the Friends of Israel Initiative* - an idea I have been promoting with the help of some friends, some of them here tonight, like:
Former President of Peru, Alejandro Toledo;
British historian, Andrew Roberts;
French entrepreneur, Robert Agostinelli;
Former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton;
Spanish former industry minister, Carlos Bustelo.
And others who couldn't make it tonight, such as:
Professor George Weigel;
Peace Nobel prize-winner Lord Trimble;
Lord Weidenfeld;
Former president of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera;
Fiamma Nerestein, representative in the Italian parliament; and
champion of human rights and democracy former Czech President Vaclav Havel, the latest member of our growing Board.
They all answered my initial call, last May, because all shared with me the sense of urgency to do something about the growing trend of deligitimisation of Israel.
Our first meeting took place in Paris the very same day Israeli troops stopped the Flotilla heading to Gaza. Very timely, as you can tell.
Our second event took place in calmer waters, in late July, in London.
And now, we are here in Washington D.C.
Why? Very simple: We believe in the West, in the values all we share, in the ties that bind free societies and distinguish our democracies from those governments who have yet to give way to the rights of their people and the arc of history. And, we know – better than many – that the West has been shaped, led and defended by America.
As a European, I don't have any problem saying that America has been a force for good in the World, protecting peace, promoting liberty and human dignity, and expanding prosperity. Furthermore, America has been the best ally of Israel, and it should remain so. And America's role as the leader of the free world, as the spark of hope for a better life for countless souls the world over should be a source of pride for all Americans. It certainly serves as an inspiration to us.
Many of us came from Europe. Most of us are not Jewish. And I am sure that many of you may be wondering what it is that we seek, and why we believe it so vital to stand up and be counted on this issue.
Hence, our interest to explain here what we want and why.
We defend Israel because we believe it is the best strategy in current times to defend the West.
When we started putting this Initiative in motion, the whole world was condemning Israel for reasons I don't need to elaborate, since you know them better than I do.
Now, the atmosphere has changed a little since direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians have resumed and the peace process is moving ahead. Despite all the difficulties the negotiations may experience, I think we all should recognize the value, the prospects, and the hopes they represent. I am sure that Israel wants peace, and I know that all true friends of Israel want to see her achieve that dream of peace and security.
But as we made clear in our first statement, there are problems in the region greater than just an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Problems that will not go away even if a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is eventually reached.
While Israel has made peace with Egypt and Jordan, and her economy has strengthened in recent years, now - not decades ago - Israel is facing increasing dangers. She has been forced to defend her people from Hezbollah in the North and thousands of Hamas rockets in the South. And. perhaps most worryingly, Israel is increasingly threatened by the scenario of a nuclear Iran – something the world must certainly act urgently to prevent.
On top of that, Israel is under a new kind of attack. Not conventional war as in 1948, ‘56, ‘67 or ‘73. Not terrorism as we saw in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. But a new kind of attack – an attack on Israel’s legitimacy, on her right to exist. A "soft war", where many of its adversaries are employing legal tricks, multinational bodies, and an army of dubious NGO's to present internationally Israel as an illegitimate state, as a barbarian state, a state that should be isolated and converted into a pariah state.
We think this is intolerable. It is unjust, morally wrong, and a strategic risk – not only for Israel and its people, but for all of us. Israel is an integral part of the West, and the weaker it is, the weaker the entire West will be perceived to be.
Even if we want to turn away from the traumas of 9/11, we simply do not have the luxury to choose our enemies. As Senators Baker, Dole, Daschle and Mitchell made clear in their latest report, published 5 days ago. by the Bipartisan Policy Center, the threat to our way of life from radical Islamists is real, and it has not yet been eliminated.
Let me be clear. We don't want in any case to defend any particular Israeli government or any particular set of policies or any particular party. Israel's institutions are mature enough to defend their choices. We want to stand up for the right of Israel to exist. Judeo-Christian values form the roots of our civilization. Delegitimising Israel undermines our identity, warps our values and put at risk what we are and who we are.
So, dear friends, it is not only the threat that if Israel goes down – which, make no mistake, many of its enemies would like to see happen – we all go down. It is that letting Israel be demonized will lead to the deligitimisation of our own cherished values. If Israel were to disappear by the force of its enemies, I sincerely doubt the West could remain as we know it.
So, I conclude: Is it craziness for a group, as I said before, of mostly Europeans and non-Jews, to say: Enough. Stop this non-sense of making Israel responsible for all the problems in the region, if not beyond? Enough of the short sightedness which refuses to see Israel as a corner stone of our Western civilization?
We do believe that far from it, it is vital. For America, for the West, for Israel. And for our children and grandchildren and the world they will inherit. Because there is still right and wrong in this complicated world. And if we allow those fundamentals to be blurred and eroded and confused, we will all be dangerously adrift.
Defending Israel today means strengthening the West, standing up for our values, and their right to exist as a normal country, a fellow democracy and a celebrated ally in our great western alliance.
I hope that you will share our vision, and will help us in bringing reason and decency back to the discussion concerning Israel.
*See my blog "The Friends of Israel Initiative", posted on 27 July 2010
Saturday, 11 September 2010
For Palestine, sovereignty; for Israel, security; for Iran, concern
Ever since the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks were launched on 2 September, speculation has been rife among media commentators about the “real” intentions of both main parties. According to the distinguished Middle East journalist, Aluf Benn, the limited aims of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu are sovereignty for a new state of Palestine, and security for Israel. He dismisses as window dressing the broader objectives Netanyahu offers for public consumption – namely, “an end to the conflict” – since this simply is not within the gift of either of the principals, Netanyahu or PA President Mahmoud Abbas, to deliver.
In order to achieve the security Netanyahu seeks, Benn urges him above all to aim for the essentially practical outcome of secure and recognised borders both for Israel and – by extension – for a new sovereign Palestine.
“Any agreement that is not hermetically sealed,” writes Benn, “and leaves openings for fights over control and land will merely lead to another confrontation. That's what happened with the demilitarized areas in the north before the Six-Day War, and it's what is happening today in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Netanyahu has to achieve the best arrangement possible and then stop there.”
This starkly realistic analysis is only, perhaps, to be expected from Benn, who did his military service in a Military Police unit during the Lebanon conflict. His time in the Israel Defense Forces left him with the conviction that, “even those who dream of a permanent settlement and a Palestinian state and want to see the settlements gone, prefer to tie on the cuffs than be cuffed.” His experiences, unpleasant as they often were for both the police and their prisoners, did not, he asserts, “transform us into law-breaking criminals, it only taught us that it's best to be on the stronger side.”
Benn believes that in his latest meetings with President Obama, Netanyahu has sidetracked the Iranian threat. “Netanyahu is now concentrating on the Palestinian track,” writes Benn. “Over a year ago, he devoted almost all his first meeting with US President Barack Obama to the Iranian threat. The Palestinians were mentioned merely in passing. In their two most recent meetings, the agenda was turned upside down, according to American sources. Most of the time was devoted to the diplomatic process with the Palestinians and Iran was pushed to the side."
Anshel Pfeffer, widely published commentator on the Middle East, and deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post for the past six years, reaches a similar conclusion about Netanyahu’s main aim – namely security – but (perhaps shaped by Pfeffer’s north of England upbringing), sees matters from a quite different perspective.
He is convinced that Israeli officials who returned from the Washington summit have “shed their outer layer of cynicism.” Pfeffer quotes a “veteran observer” as saying: "Bibi has changed. It's hard to explain, but it's there. For the first time it seemed as if he wanted to sit with the Palestinians and reach a deal, not just because the Americans were forcing him."
Pfeffer concludes that something has changed also on the Palestinian side. “They didn't rush to criticise Mr Netanyahu as they have in the past,” he writes. “Senior members of Mr Abbas's entourage even denied disparaging comments that appeared in their name in Arab newspapers.”
On the main issue – namely Netanyahu’s real objective – Pfeffer is at one with Benn. Security for Israel is his aim. The difference is that Pfeffer perceives that Netanyahu’s focus for achieving it is Iran. He believes that the clue lies in Netanyahu’s speech in Washington. He quotes the passage in full:
"We left Lebanon, and we got terror. We left Gaza, and we got terror once again. We want to ensure that territory we will concede will not be turned into a third Iranian-sponsored terror enclave aimed at the heart of Israel - and may I add, also aimed at every one of us sitting on this stage."
And that is not only Netanyahu’s view. On 9 September the prestitigous Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published a well-documented report detailing concerns in Kuwait and the Gulf over the threat currently posed by Iran to them.
Recently, it reports, “more and more voices in the Kuwaiti press and public describe Iran as a threat to the security and stability of the Gulf states.” This it ascribes to “events, reports, assessments, and rumors regarding hostile Iranian activity in the Gulf.” Among these it lists: the discovery of a money laundering operation in Bahrain connected to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC); the arrest of 250 operatives in Bahrain suspected of membership in terror cells, and reports that similar cells exist in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia; the uncovering of an Iranian espionage network in Kuwait; reports about Iranian plans to occupy the Gulf states and to assassinate senior military commanders and media figures in the Middle East, especially in the Gulf and in Lebanon; and assessments that Iran's influence in the region will grow in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. “The sense of threat generated by all these factors,” concludes the report, “is compounded by the advances in Iran's nuclear program.”
As a result, the Institute reports, columnists and public figures in Kuwait are united in their assessment that Iran intends to take over the Gulf states, and are speculating about the nature of this takeover, how it might be implemented, and ways to address the threat.
Iranian-Israeli political analyst, Meir Javedanfar, believes that Iran is seriously worried not only by the possibility of a military strike by Israel, but also by the Israeli government’s ability to justify it. As Javedanfar sees it, if Israel had a consensus of world opinion on its side, this would severely curtail Iran’s ability to justify its own retaliation. So far, Israel has succeeded in achieving quite the reverse in terms of world opinion given the Gaza flotilla episode and the settlement building problem, but should the peace talks actually make progress, “alarm bells are going to ring in Tehran,” he writes.
“The state of Israel has its defence forces to ensure its security,” says Javedanfar. “It should not forget that it also has the diplomatic option of significantly hurting the regime in Tehran.”
In order to achieve the security Netanyahu seeks, Benn urges him above all to aim for the essentially practical outcome of secure and recognised borders both for Israel and – by extension – for a new sovereign Palestine.
“Any agreement that is not hermetically sealed,” writes Benn, “and leaves openings for fights over control and land will merely lead to another confrontation. That's what happened with the demilitarized areas in the north before the Six-Day War, and it's what is happening today in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Netanyahu has to achieve the best arrangement possible and then stop there.”
This starkly realistic analysis is only, perhaps, to be expected from Benn, who did his military service in a Military Police unit during the Lebanon conflict. His time in the Israel Defense Forces left him with the conviction that, “even those who dream of a permanent settlement and a Palestinian state and want to see the settlements gone, prefer to tie on the cuffs than be cuffed.” His experiences, unpleasant as they often were for both the police and their prisoners, did not, he asserts, “transform us into law-breaking criminals, it only taught us that it's best to be on the stronger side.”
Benn believes that in his latest meetings with President Obama, Netanyahu has sidetracked the Iranian threat. “Netanyahu is now concentrating on the Palestinian track,” writes Benn. “Over a year ago, he devoted almost all his first meeting with US President Barack Obama to the Iranian threat. The Palestinians were mentioned merely in passing. In their two most recent meetings, the agenda was turned upside down, according to American sources. Most of the time was devoted to the diplomatic process with the Palestinians and Iran was pushed to the side."
Anshel Pfeffer, widely published commentator on the Middle East, and deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post for the past six years, reaches a similar conclusion about Netanyahu’s main aim – namely security – but (perhaps shaped by Pfeffer’s north of England upbringing), sees matters from a quite different perspective.
He is convinced that Israeli officials who returned from the Washington summit have “shed their outer layer of cynicism.” Pfeffer quotes a “veteran observer” as saying: "Bibi has changed. It's hard to explain, but it's there. For the first time it seemed as if he wanted to sit with the Palestinians and reach a deal, not just because the Americans were forcing him."
Pfeffer concludes that something has changed also on the Palestinian side. “They didn't rush to criticise Mr Netanyahu as they have in the past,” he writes. “Senior members of Mr Abbas's entourage even denied disparaging comments that appeared in their name in Arab newspapers.”
On the main issue – namely Netanyahu’s real objective – Pfeffer is at one with Benn. Security for Israel is his aim. The difference is that Pfeffer perceives that Netanyahu’s focus for achieving it is Iran. He believes that the clue lies in Netanyahu’s speech in Washington. He quotes the passage in full:
"We left Lebanon, and we got terror. We left Gaza, and we got terror once again. We want to ensure that territory we will concede will not be turned into a third Iranian-sponsored terror enclave aimed at the heart of Israel - and may I add, also aimed at every one of us sitting on this stage."
And that is not only Netanyahu’s view. On 9 September the prestitigous Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) published a well-documented report detailing concerns in Kuwait and the Gulf over the threat currently posed by Iran to them.
Recently, it reports, “more and more voices in the Kuwaiti press and public describe Iran as a threat to the security and stability of the Gulf states.” This it ascribes to “events, reports, assessments, and rumors regarding hostile Iranian activity in the Gulf.” Among these it lists: the discovery of a money laundering operation in Bahrain connected to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC); the arrest of 250 operatives in Bahrain suspected of membership in terror cells, and reports that similar cells exist in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia; the uncovering of an Iranian espionage network in Kuwait; reports about Iranian plans to occupy the Gulf states and to assassinate senior military commanders and media figures in the Middle East, especially in the Gulf and in Lebanon; and assessments that Iran's influence in the region will grow in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. “The sense of threat generated by all these factors,” concludes the report, “is compounded by the advances in Iran's nuclear program.”
As a result, the Institute reports, columnists and public figures in Kuwait are united in their assessment that Iran intends to take over the Gulf states, and are speculating about the nature of this takeover, how it might be implemented, and ways to address the threat.
Iranian-Israeli political analyst, Meir Javedanfar, believes that Iran is seriously worried not only by the possibility of a military strike by Israel, but also by the Israeli government’s ability to justify it. As Javedanfar sees it, if Israel had a consensus of world opinion on its side, this would severely curtail Iran’s ability to justify its own retaliation. So far, Israel has succeeded in achieving quite the reverse in terms of world opinion given the Gaza flotilla episode and the settlement building problem, but should the peace talks actually make progress, “alarm bells are going to ring in Tehran,” he writes.
“The state of Israel has its defence forces to ensure its security,” says Javedanfar. “It should not forget that it also has the diplomatic option of significantly hurting the regime in Tehran.”
Saturday, 4 September 2010
If not now – when?
In the few days since the re-launch of direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, the media has been overflowing with the direst of dire predictions about the inevitability of their failure. None other than His Excellency the Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ron Prosor, has drawn a convincing comparison between these prophets of doom and the two Muppet Show characters, Statler and Waldorf. Up there they sit, these two thoroughly disagreeable old men, in the balcony box in the Muppet Theater, heckling every aspect of the show and flinging insults right, left and centre, at the players.
Of course the obstacles to achieving the ambitious objective of an accord between the Israelis and the Palestinians within twelve months are formidable – and I am certain that no-one realises the fact more than the two principals: Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Neither of them are fools, and yet both have signed up to this new peace initiative, and to its achievement in the space of a year.
"We understand the suspicion and scepticism that so many feel, born out of years of conflict and frustrated hopes," said US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, at the opening ceremony, "but by being here today you each have taken an important step toward freeing your peoples from the shackles of a history we cannot change."
George Mitchell, President Obama’s Middle East envoy, who joined the negotiations, said that at this first meeting the two leaders decided to begin putting together a framework agreement on all major issues – including borders, Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and security – that will "establish the fundamental compromises necessary" to flesh out a comprehensive peace deal.
In declaring that he believed a deal was possible within the twelve-month timeframe, Abbas said: "We're not starting from scratch, because we had many rounds of negotiations between the PLO and the Israeli government." Netanyahu said: "Together we can lead our people to a historic future that can put an end to claims and to conflict. This will not be easy. A true peace, a lasting peace, will be achieved only with mutual and painful concessions from both sides … from my side and,” he said, addressing Abbas direct, “from your side."
Mitchell announced that Netanyahu and Abbas had agreed to meet again in a fortnight in the Middle East, and every two weeks after that. Hillary Clinton and Mitchell will attend the first of those meetings on 14 September in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
To be realistic – indeed sceptical – about the initative and its likely success is entirely understandable, but whatever one’s reservations about the process, the motives of those participating, and the formidable problems that lie in the way of achieving a positive outcome, it cannot be denied that this was a hopeful beginning. The parties met under the auspices of the only feasible mediating power, they shook hands, they each pledged themselves to addressing the issues in a serious and positive spirit, they agreed the objective being sought and the period within which it might be achieved.
Equally serious, however, is the determination of Hamas and its fellow extreme Islamist partners to derail this new initative with a wave of terror. Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the Hamas military wing has said: "We declare that the actions of resistance have gone into a new and advanced stage of co-operation in the field at the highest levels in preparation for more effective attacks against the enemy.” Ubaida was referring to a meeting last week between Hamas and 12 other militant Palestinian groups in Gaza to plan this new terror campaign.
This threatened upsurge in indiscrimate violence represents a sea change from past such efforts, horrific though they have often been. Hamas has claimed responsibility for two shooting attacks against Israeli cars in the West Bank last week. Last Tuesday, they slaughtered four people, one of them a pregnant woman. Later a Hamas spokesman designated the incident an “heroic attack.” A spokesman for the group's military wing said that no options had been ruled out, and that suicide bombings could be used to target Israel. The objective? To torpedo the new drive for peace.
In the past, however strained their explanation, Hamas and other Islamist groups, have almost invariably justified their terrorist attacks by referring to some previous counter-terrorist action by Israel, and claiming that their attack was a legitimate response. Not this time. Now the threat is quite simply to disrupt the peace process, and by whatever means. In short, they offer no justification for what was done last week, and what is threatened for the future, except their determination to undermine, disrupt and destroy any chance of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and to scupper the prospect of an independent sovereign state of Palestine. Their stance is simple nihilism.
Of course, their campaign is directed quite as much against the Palestinian Authority and its Fatah President, Mahmoud Abbas, as against Israel itself. The fact that the two latest attacks were carried out in the West Bank was an implied declaration that the Hamas writ runs outside Gaza just as surely as it does inside – and that, in the final analysis, Hamas seeks to dominate the entire Palestinian people, not merely those in the Gaza Strip whose governance it seized in a bloody coup in June 2007.
This, it goes without saying, is fully understood by the PA – which explains the immediate security crackdown by Abbas's security forces across the West Bank. Hundreds of Hamas activists were arrested, and two suspects linked to the second attack, in which two Israelis were wounded, have been arrested. Israeli security forces, too, have been placed on a high level of alert and have set up new checkpoints on roads in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, Israel’s arch-enemy, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, has been unable to resist giving the extremist pot an extra stir. During a pro-Palestinian rally in Tehran he declared: "The nations of the region are able to eliminate the Zionist regime from the face of the earth," adding that “its life has come to an end". He joins Hamas in asserting that Mahmoud Abbas has no authority to participate in peace talks on behalf of Palestinians.
One might well riposte: “If not the elected President of the Palestinian Authority, then who?”
Long, slow and painful has been the journey to the present situation, where Netanyahu and Abbas can actually meet in Washington, under the auspices of the President of the United States, and in the presence of President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan, and do so in a positive spirit, declaring their determination to try to reach a final accord. Taking all this into account, one might indeed also ask: “And if not now – when?”
Of course the obstacles to achieving the ambitious objective of an accord between the Israelis and the Palestinians within twelve months are formidable – and I am certain that no-one realises the fact more than the two principals: Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Neither of them are fools, and yet both have signed up to this new peace initiative, and to its achievement in the space of a year.
"We understand the suspicion and scepticism that so many feel, born out of years of conflict and frustrated hopes," said US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, at the opening ceremony, "but by being here today you each have taken an important step toward freeing your peoples from the shackles of a history we cannot change."
George Mitchell, President Obama’s Middle East envoy, who joined the negotiations, said that at this first meeting the two leaders decided to begin putting together a framework agreement on all major issues – including borders, Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and security – that will "establish the fundamental compromises necessary" to flesh out a comprehensive peace deal.
In declaring that he believed a deal was possible within the twelve-month timeframe, Abbas said: "We're not starting from scratch, because we had many rounds of negotiations between the PLO and the Israeli government." Netanyahu said: "Together we can lead our people to a historic future that can put an end to claims and to conflict. This will not be easy. A true peace, a lasting peace, will be achieved only with mutual and painful concessions from both sides … from my side and,” he said, addressing Abbas direct, “from your side."
Mitchell announced that Netanyahu and Abbas had agreed to meet again in a fortnight in the Middle East, and every two weeks after that. Hillary Clinton and Mitchell will attend the first of those meetings on 14 September in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
To be realistic – indeed sceptical – about the initative and its likely success is entirely understandable, but whatever one’s reservations about the process, the motives of those participating, and the formidable problems that lie in the way of achieving a positive outcome, it cannot be denied that this was a hopeful beginning. The parties met under the auspices of the only feasible mediating power, they shook hands, they each pledged themselves to addressing the issues in a serious and positive spirit, they agreed the objective being sought and the period within which it might be achieved.
Equally serious, however, is the determination of Hamas and its fellow extreme Islamist partners to derail this new initative with a wave of terror. Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the Hamas military wing has said: "We declare that the actions of resistance have gone into a new and advanced stage of co-operation in the field at the highest levels in preparation for more effective attacks against the enemy.” Ubaida was referring to a meeting last week between Hamas and 12 other militant Palestinian groups in Gaza to plan this new terror campaign.
This threatened upsurge in indiscrimate violence represents a sea change from past such efforts, horrific though they have often been. Hamas has claimed responsibility for two shooting attacks against Israeli cars in the West Bank last week. Last Tuesday, they slaughtered four people, one of them a pregnant woman. Later a Hamas spokesman designated the incident an “heroic attack.” A spokesman for the group's military wing said that no options had been ruled out, and that suicide bombings could be used to target Israel. The objective? To torpedo the new drive for peace.
In the past, however strained their explanation, Hamas and other Islamist groups, have almost invariably justified their terrorist attacks by referring to some previous counter-terrorist action by Israel, and claiming that their attack was a legitimate response. Not this time. Now the threat is quite simply to disrupt the peace process, and by whatever means. In short, they offer no justification for what was done last week, and what is threatened for the future, except their determination to undermine, disrupt and destroy any chance of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and to scupper the prospect of an independent sovereign state of Palestine. Their stance is simple nihilism.
Of course, their campaign is directed quite as much against the Palestinian Authority and its Fatah President, Mahmoud Abbas, as against Israel itself. The fact that the two latest attacks were carried out in the West Bank was an implied declaration that the Hamas writ runs outside Gaza just as surely as it does inside – and that, in the final analysis, Hamas seeks to dominate the entire Palestinian people, not merely those in the Gaza Strip whose governance it seized in a bloody coup in June 2007.
This, it goes without saying, is fully understood by the PA – which explains the immediate security crackdown by Abbas's security forces across the West Bank. Hundreds of Hamas activists were arrested, and two suspects linked to the second attack, in which two Israelis were wounded, have been arrested. Israeli security forces, too, have been placed on a high level of alert and have set up new checkpoints on roads in the West Bank.
Meanwhile, Israel’s arch-enemy, Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, has been unable to resist giving the extremist pot an extra stir. During a pro-Palestinian rally in Tehran he declared: "The nations of the region are able to eliminate the Zionist regime from the face of the earth," adding that “its life has come to an end". He joins Hamas in asserting that Mahmoud Abbas has no authority to participate in peace talks on behalf of Palestinians.
One might well riposte: “If not the elected President of the Palestinian Authority, then who?”
Long, slow and painful has been the journey to the present situation, where Netanyahu and Abbas can actually meet in Washington, under the auspices of the President of the United States, and in the presence of President Mubarak of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan, and do so in a positive spirit, declaring their determination to try to reach a final accord. Taking all this into account, one might indeed also ask: “And if not now – when?”
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