It’s been a quiet two days here in Jerusalem — at least for the Mead team. For the last two days I’ve had to cancel all meetings and visits due to a vicious stomach bug that has kept me close, very close, to my hotel room. For most of that time I’ve been too miserable to do much more than watch the seemingly non-stop television coverage of the negotiations over the new coalition government in the UK. Fortunately Nick Mead has been a faithful and loyal nephew, bringing me pills from the outside world and placing bottles of water by my bed from time to time.
From time to time I’ve been able to rouse myself out of dumb animal misery long enough to reflect on what I’ve learned here. In particular I’ve come to feel much more deeply just how difficult the Palestinian situation is. I’m not just talking about checkpoints and limits on travel and development, though these are real. I’m thinking of the situation of the Palestinian Authority and its negotiators.
They are not just caught between the demands of hard line Palestinians and the logic and emotions of the Palestinian national movement on the one hand and the very limited concessions they can hope to extract from the Israelis on the other. Increasingly, they are caught up in a new round of great power rivalry.
Virtually all of the Palestinian leaders I’ve heard from in the last week have alluded to Iran’s new role as a Middle East spoiler. Iran’s grand strategy seems to involve establishing itself as the most radical and uncompromising force in the Middle East against Israel, and using the credibility and popularity that comes from this stance to further its bid to be recognized as the leader of Islam against the West and all its works. By backing Hezbollah and supplying it with, apparently, tens of thousands of new rockets in defiance of the UN resolution ending the last war in Lebanon, Iran is able to maintain pressure on Israel’s northern border. More dangerously, from point of view of the Palestinian Authority, Iran has emerged both as a bank roller and arms supplier to Hamas — and, because of its links to Syria where Hamas’ international leadership is based, it is able to exert serious influence if not control over Hamas’ political line.
For Iran, this is a stunning triumph and a valuable connection. Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, the most prestigious and respected form of Sunni Islamist organization and protest. Close relations between Iran and Hamas give Iran new legitimacy in the Sunni world and tell Iranians that their strategy is working.
For Palestinians, one of their greatest weaknesses has always been the degree to which outside powers have been able to manipulate Palestinian politics and play one faction off against another. Arafat’s greatest accomplishment in some ways was to impose more unity on the Palestinian movement than either his predecessors or his successors.
Today, the very reasonable and moderate leaders of the Palestinian Authority are once again exposed to the factionalism and destructive meddling of outside forces. With Hamas ruling Gaza, and a strong opposition to Fatah in the West Bank, it is hard and perhaps impossible for the Palestinian Authority to exercise the core function of a state: to control the use of violence within its frontiers.
To put this another way, it is far from clear that the Palestinian Authority can deliver what Israel wants most out of peace: security. And if Israel can’t be reasonably sure that a peace treaty will bring security, it isn’t going to make big concessions for a peace it may not regard as very valuable.
Since Iran and Syria (which had a long history of backing violent Palestinian rejectionists even before it established its current close relationship with Iran) are bitterly opposed to anything that would reduce tensions, they are going to do pretty much whatever they can to strengthen Hamas in its rejectionist course. Any Palestinian movement, journalist or other influential actor willing to fight the treaty can count on support from the patrons of resistance.
The Palestinians I heard from this week did not have very convincing answers to questions about how they would manage this challenge. They spoke of holding a referendum in the West Bank and Gaza and among the Palestinians scattered in other countries (chiefly Jordan, Lebanon and Syria). They felt that there would be such moral pressure that Hamas and its allies could not resist demands for a referendum, and that the overwhelming support that such a referendum would show for peace would force the other groups to accept the results.
It is hard for me to believe that Syria and Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon would go along with this plan, or that Hamas would be so easily intimidated. The chances that this process would bring about a comprehensive settlement between Palestinians and Israelis seem remote. I don’t think negotiations with Abbas and Erekat can produce that kind of peace.
It seems far more likely that what is really on offer is something smaller: peace with a demilitarized West Bank. A Palestinian government confined to the West Bank could improve the situation of both Israelis and Palestinians. Over time, it is possible that Hamas could be induced to extend the peace to Gaza; in the meantime, the significant progress in building security forces for the Palestinian Authority could consolidate the power of a new (though not necessarily very democratic or transparent) order on the West Bank.
This could be a good deal for Israelis. No matter how things evolve in the Middle East, it seems that the conflict with the Palestinians won’t be ended with one big agreement. It will look more like the conflict with the IRA; every time one IRA group accepted peace, a new and more hard line (but smaller and less dangerous) faction seceded to carry on the struggle. Getting the West Bank and Fatah out of the war-making business would be an important step forward if the goal is to drive resistance toward the Palestinian margin.
My sense is that the Israelis, including the present government, see this opportunity. The question, as always, is whether they are willing to meet the essential needs of the Palestinian negotiators trying to hammer out the deal on their side. The trouble is that on some of the contentious issues (Jerusalem and settlements in particular) the Israelis would have to pay the same price to get a deal with the West Bank that they would have to pay to get a comprehensive settlement with the entire Palestinian people. Are they willing (or able) to uproot 100,000 plus settlers and divide Jerusalem for the sake of a peace that leaves many core Israeli concerns unmet?
I’m not the first person to leave Jerusalem with more questions than answers. That may not be a bad thing. There’s the story of an impatient student who went to his rabbi in frustration saying, “Rabbi, why is it that whenever I ask you a question, you never give me an answer — you just ask another question?”
“And what’s wrong with a question?” the rabbi replied.
I hope you get well.
This is a somewhat disappointing piece, imo. While you do capture some of the big problems of the current situation nicely, you inore or overstate some other things.
1. You overstate the moderation of PA. While Abbas, Abu Allah, Fayad and Dahlan can be very reasonable and moderate in private, they are not so in public, and what’s even more important, they have liited support in Fatah while its top brass is filled with hardliners who do have support (case in point, Abbas couldn’t even get a quorum to support entering indirect negotiations with the Israelis).
2. You mention Arafat as somebody who managed to “unite” the palsestinians. Forget about the fact that Hamas was still very active in defiance of Arafat (or with his implicit consent). Arafat had also nurtured the very nature of Palestinian politcs (the gang rule) that had brough us here.
3. Some of the PA’s predicament as you describe it is a direct result of “rifing the tiger” strategy it had employed for years with regards to Israel. It had nurtured the incitement culture and had an active hnd in active prmotion of the radicallization of the populace (who then turned to Hamas when PA didn’t deliver). Now, it finds it difficult to get off the tiger without being devoured. It risks being violently overthrown if it makes even the smallest concession to the Israelis, because the radicals have a significant support.
4. You write about Israeli possible unwillingness to make the concession for peace only with the WB. Well, there is another side here. If the Israelis would have been sufficiently sure that such a peae wouldn’t subsequently abrogated if another faction gains power in the WB, then the concessions might not be a problem. Otherwise, they would be making concessions without getting the key part in return — the end of conflict.
5. Additionally to the previous article. There are oter things Israel needs to get from the agreement. Are the Palestinians ready to relinquish the right of return? Are they prepared for the division of Jerusalem you envisage? I don’t see any indication that these two core problems had changed since Arafat in Camp David.
My sincere hopes that your bug is destroyed by charcoal and ginger.
I look forward to your next posts on ‘Peace in the Middle East’, perhaps with some idea of how Salaam Fayyad’s very public failure toblock Israel’s admission into the OECD will now affect Fayyad’s credibility with Fatah and the Palestinians of the West Bank.
As to Iran? Perhaps one needs to look at Iran from post-election Iraq, Egypt, Saudia Arabia and Afghanistan, instead of from inside Israel looking at Iran’s proxies in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza. Has not Nasrallah’s Hezbollah effectively become the key power broker in lebanon’s government? Michael Young posed a different prism in the Lebanon Star about America’s role in “The end for America in the Middle East?”
Before anyone jumps to final staus of Jerusalem, the first question, as always, is who among the Palestinians will ever acknowledge the existence of Israel as a Jewish State within ANY borders?
It really is diplomatic theatre
Dang, I have that same bug! Your blog is infected.
Anyway, you were right when you wrote: “it is far from clear that the Palestinian Authority can deliver what Israel wants most out of peace: security.”
That was Arafat’s problem too. If he had signed Clinton’s final offer on Oslo he would have been strung up by his own people. Clinton begged him to say what it would take. Arafat’s last word was “More.” (This is according to some of the memoirs of the guys who were there.)
What “more” meant was spelled out by a small group of junior Palestinian negotiators meeting with some Americans and Israeli’s on the final day of discussions. They suggested that, in addition to everything else that had been agreed to, a figure of $500 billion in compensation (I read this myself in either Haretz or Jerusalem Post at the time.) Of course the Americans and Israelis just laughed. Europe wasn’t even at the table.
It is time we in the West gave Islamic civilization a little more credit (and attention) than we have in the past. Look up “Blood money” in the Koran. The concept of compensation, in other words, as a way of ending inter-tribal disputes. And then think about your own sense of honor and self-dignity if you were in their shoes.
Hell, while you are at it ponder the golden rule and re-read the middle chapters of Genesis that describe how Abraham behaved when he came into that land, both at Bersheba and after the war of five against four (or was it three?)
Of course the situation now is more complicated. This is advanced international ethics, not ethics 101. Solid geometry instead of plane — or maybe even geometry in four dimensions! But the basic principles of justice are exactly the same, and we have had several additional thousands of years of historical experience in which to learn how to apply them.
Go ask the rabbis. Ask the mullahs. Especially ask the mullahs! And maybe pick up a copy of Grotius (or for a shorter version my own “The Torah and the West Bank,” put out by the Jewish Publication Society back in the day).
First, get well soon.
Second, I do not agree that the leaders of the PA are “very reasonable and moderate.” Why not? Because they utterly deny the right of Jews to a single inch of Israel. They deny even the Jews’ historical connection to Israel. In short, they have done NOTHING to prepare the ground for peace. They have raised a generation in incitement and the closures forced by their terrorism prevent young Palestinians and Israelis from meeting each other peacefully. Instead, they choose to run shows like the following on PATV in order to inculcate a “non-negotiable” mindset:
“The message that all of Israel is stolen “Palestinian” land was repeated twice in the last week on official Palestinian Authority television.
In the most recent episode of the weekly program We Are Returning, this denial of Israel’s right to exist led to a concrete demand. The PA TV narrator called for Jews to leave Israel and go to Europe and Ethiopia – “your original homeland.”
PA TV also added a visual message of non-recognition of Israel. The camera focused on a drawing of a map that included all of Israel, but showed Israel erased and covered entirely by the Palestinian flag.
PA TV is owned by the Palestinian Authority, and is the responsibility of the office of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.”
http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=2229
As commentator Dimitry just noted, the PA has been ‘hoist on its own petard’ now that the Palestinian ‘tiger’ of incitement they made such good use of riding has come under Iranian management. They, and all the Sunni Arab regimes with them.
Iran – come on. If Israel agreed to a border close to the green line with 1-for-1 land swaps and the other well known outlines of an agreement that could work, the PA would agree to it today. And what does that hurt Iran anyway? They could still fund Hamas and Hezbollah.
“the leader of Islam against the West” – This is a fantasy for bin Laden; it is meaningless in the real world. And just how do you suppose a Shi’ite country could fulfill this imagined role anyway? By giving money to Hamas?!? No way. Who are Hamas’ other state backers besides Syria? Nobody. And Saddam Hussein gave plenty of money to martyrs, it got him nowhere.
“Close relations between Iran and Hamas give Iran new legitimacy in the Sunni world and tell Iranians that their strategy is working.” Even if the relationship was like blood brothers, it would do nothing of the sort. The average Sunni thinks Shia are apostates and deserve death. Iran will never have legitimacy among Sunni.
Nadine, produce one statement of Abbas or Fayad saying “they utterly deny the right of Jews to a single inch of Israel. They deny even the Jews’ historical connection to Israel.”
Can’t do it? Didn’t think so. Read up on Fayad instead.
This video gets your ire? Are you serious?
“Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s successor who is now chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee and is running for the Palestinian presidency, supports Arafat’s theories on Jerusalem. Speaking to the Israeli-Arab weekly, Kul Al Arab on August 25, 2000, he stated, “Anyone who wants to forget the past cannot come and claim that the temple is situated beneath the Haram. They demand that we forget what happened 50 years ago to the refugees – and I speak as a living, breathing refugee – while at the same time they claim that 2,000 years ago they had a temple. I challenge the claim that this is so.” (Mahmoud Abbas)
http://www.nysun.com/foreign/rights-of-jews-to-jerusalem-are-denied/5953/
Norwegian Shooter, stop lying. It is the official propaganda line of the PA and Fatah that Jews have no history in Israel; there never was a Jewish Temple; there never was Jewish country; the events of the Bible all happened someplace else. It goes hand in hand with Holocaust denial, which Mahmoud Abbas also denied in his dissertation. It’s not new. Arafat tried it out on Bill Clinton at Camp David (according to Clinton), and Clinton told him not to insult his intelligence.
There are hundreds of statements to this effect, a dozen of which are quoted in The Sun article linked. By now, Palestinians can get in big trouble for just admitting that a Jewish Temple once stood on the Haram. Sari Nusseibeh had to go into hiding briefly for admitting it, and he is a very prominent man.
There is an on-going propaganda campaign being churned out on (government-controlled) PA TV and other media:
“In the most recent episode of the weekly program We Are Returning, this denial of Israel’s right to exist led to a concrete demand. The PA TV narrator called for Jews to leave Israel and go to Europe and Ethiopia – “your original homeland.”
You can watch the clip here: http://www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com/israelinews/editorial/just-a-thought/656-pa-to-israelis-go-to-europe-and-ethiopia.html
I found these clips in five minutes of Googling. There are hundreds of others out there. I repeat, this is the official PA line, all their spokesmen say it, especially when speaking in ARABIC.
Of course, PA spokesmen do not say such things in ENGLISH to the New York Times, which perhaps is your only source of information. If so, I apologize for saying you were lying. But in that case, you are terribly ill-informed and should educate yourself before commenting again.
Nadine, that quote doesn’t fit the bill. For one thing, it doesn’t address “a single inch of Israel. They deny even the Jews’ historical connection to Israel.”
Rather, Abbas is saying that Israelis can’t have it both ways: denying Arabs in current Israel were driven from their homes in 1948 while remembering the second Temple. If they want to remember the second Temple, then remember 1948 too, he is saying. The last sentence sounds bad, but he is making a rhetorical point. He is demanding Israelis remember 1948 if they demand that he is to remember the second Temple.
I watched the clip, and even linked to it. It is really rather harmless. Call it propaganda if you want, but it means exactly nothing in scope of the conflict.
I asked you to produce proof of your claim. Until you do, it is you who should refrain from commenting again.
Nadine, still nothing, eh? Well, I just found something about how Bibi thinks about Palestinians, from Peter Beinart’s NYRB piece:
“In his 1993 book, A Place among the Nations, Netanyahu not only rejects the idea of a Palestinian state, he denies that there is such a thing as a Palestinian. In fact, he repeatedly equates the Palestinian bid for statehood with Nazism. An Israel that withdraws from the West Bank, he has declared, would be a “ghetto-state” with “Auschwitz borders.” And the effort “to gouge Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] out of Israel” resembles Hitler’s bid to wrench the German-speaking “Sudeten district” from Czechoslovakia in 1938. It is unfair, Netanyahu insists, to ask Israel to concede more territory since it has already made vast, gut-wrenching concessions. What kind of concessions? It has abandoned its claim to Jordan, which by rights should be part of the Jewish state.”