Cautious optimism about the Israel-PA talks

From The Australian, September 3, 2010, by Colin Rubenstein, executive director of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council:

YESTERDAY in Washington, President Barack Obama formally launched the resumption of direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians   ...International expectations for the talks are low because there appear to be a number of factors that make peace breakthroughs seem unlikely. Yet other factors offer room for cautious optimism for modest progress.

On the negative side, Abbas was essentially dragged to the table under pressure - despite a previous 18 years of near continuous Israeli-Palestinian direct engagement...

Abbas's ability to make a final deal stick is also in doubt. He certainly cannot claim to make commitments on behalf of the Palestinians of Gaza... But even in the West Bank, Abbas's ability to bring the population with him is unclear. First, his original term in office expired last year, and thanks to the split with Hamas, no new elections have been held.

...anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incitement in Palestinian media and schoolbooks remains a constant problem.  ...the incessant encouragement of hero-worship for Palestinian "martyrs" who committed terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, do not encourage support for peacemaking.

...Meanwhile, according to polls, the Israeli public overwhelmingly wants a negotiated, peaceful resolution of the conflict that ends in two viable states -and this is now the publicly stated position of all Israel's three major parties.

On the Palestinian side, there are also positive factors.  ...the past few years have seen the West Bank flourishing economically. Hopefully, it has been demonstrated to Palestinians that when they pursue peace with Israel, their economy, freedom of movement and wellbeing improve dramatically...

Admittedly, it is hard to envisage a deal on all the elements of what a final peace would require - especially Jerusalem, refugees, and recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. On the other hand, some sort of incremental agreement on West Bank borders and security arrangements looks plausible, according to most experts.

Thus the key to a more optimistic outlook on the renewed talks is for the parties and Washington to take advantage of the positives. The talks cannot be an all-or-nothing effort to reach a final deal - they must break the problem up into "bite-size pieces". For instance, there are certainly synergies between Netanyahu's ideas about building peace "from the bottom up", Fayyad's efforts at state-building and the call in the 2003 roadmap for peace for a transitional stage involving a "Palestinian state with provisional borders".

Despite the obstacles, there is a great deal that can be discussed positively - if the talks are approached with balanced perceptions of regional realities, realism, good will and creativity.

Fayyad: Murder "runs counter to Palestinian interests"

PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is quoted "condemning" the terrorist murder in Hebron, which killed four civilians including a pregnant woman, and left 10 children orphaned, as follows:

"What happened tonight in Hebron was timed to coincide with the PLO's decision to engage in negotiations to end the occupation and achieve freedom and independence for our people ...We condemn this operation, which runs counter to Palestinian interests and against efforts of Palestinian leadership to mobilize international support for the rights of our people ...Our people know through extensive experience what serves practical and higher national interests..."

Any MORAL issues here Fayyad???????????

When the West Bankers Arrive in Washington…

From BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 113, September 1, 2010, by Hillel Frisch, Associate Professor of Political Science at Bar-Ilan University and Senior Research Associate at the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Substantive progress in the peace process is hardly what Mahmoud Abbas is seeking to achieve in Washington. While he wishes to maintain an appearance of movement in the negotiations, he cannot yet afford to lose the Israeli army presence in the West Bank as the threat of a Hamas takeover there still looms. While all of the major political actors involved concur on this point, the pretense of peace talks is essential to keeping the Arab world at bay.

When Abbas arrives in Washington, he and his retinue will be focused on exclusively three issues – making sure that the settlement freeze continues, that aid which covers over 70 per cent of the Palestinian Authority budget will continue to flow into its coffers, and that there will be sufficient "momentum" in the peace process to placate the "Arab street." Any meaningful progress towards peace is simply beyond these West Bankers’ hopes or capabilities. Oddly enough, this very low threshold of expectations is supported by the only states that matter to the West Bankers – the United States, Egypt (and far less importantly, the other moderate Arab states) and of course Israel. The fanfare of appearances in Washington, then, is calculated to make up for the absence of substance.

Substantive progress in negotiating peace is hardly what Abbas and the West Bankers want, let alone feel they can get. The real reason for their reticence in making such progress since 2007 is related to the danger Hamas poses to the West Bank leadership. Though the number of West Bankers arrested by Israeli forces declined from 8,000 in 2006 to 5,000 in 2009, their sheer numbers still indicate that Hamas, and to a much lesser extent, Islamic Jihad, remain a substantial threat to Abbas, and that the threat of a Hamas takeover in Judea and Samaria has yet to dissipate.

Dealing with this threat entails good security cooperation between Abbas and Israeli security forces – an arrangement in which Israel deals with the Hamas terrorist infrastructure by night while Abbas’ security forces harass Hamas terrorists Israel releases by day – as well as the dismantling of social infrastructure that Hamas has created painstakingly over the years.

Abbas is essentially using the IDF to gain the kind of political and security foothold Arab leaders recognize as being essential to the art of ruling. He is also assuming the role of the traditional Arab ruler – controlling all the funds, avoiding elections (which will only be held if the outcome is a foregone conclusion), reducing the regime’s party to an arm of the executive, allowing no opposition, and making sure that his picture appears daily on the front page of the media. Only such a ruler qualifies as a member of the quintessential Arab leaders’ club.

...a Hamas takeover in the West Bank must be averted at all costs. This means, then, that no substantial progress in the peace talks can be made before such a danger is dealt with.

At the same time, the Iranian and Islamist threat to the “Western” alliance requires ...the impression of movement in the negotiations between Abbas and Netanyahu. This is necessary in order to placate the “Arab street” – to prevent it from threatening the moderate governments or feeding the ranks of the radicals – and to create the kind of political environment that would allow the United States and Israel to deal with the far more imminent Iranian nuclear threat.

Israel must not be diverted from pursuing its national interests by the “Arab street” argument. The Arab states, including Yemen and even the major political forces in Iraq, will fight to the death to maintain their privilege to rule....

 ...While it is true that bolstering the Arab state system is the bulwark against both the Iranian and Islamist threat, Israel must challenge the idea that this is predicated on the creation of a Palestinian state. No matter how adept Abbas becomes at ruling the West Bank, he is incapable of bringing the Gazans into the peace process. If ever a peace treaty were signed between Israel and Abbas, we can be assured that Hamas will launch Qassam rockets to make sure that the conflict is not terminated.

Four Murdered in Arab Terror Attack

From IsraelNationalNews.com, 31 August 2010, by Gil Ronen, Hillel Fendel and Elad Benari:

Palestinian terrorists murdered four Jewish civilians in a shooting attack at the Bani Naim junction just south of Hevron Tuesday evening. Emergency service paramedics could do nothing to save the victims whose bodies were riddled with bullets.

The terrorists had reportedly made sure their victims were dead by shooting them from close range after the initial fusillade, as terrorists have done in prior attacks on unarmed civilians and children. The victims are a husband and wife, parents of six, and two passengers. Their names were cleared for publication Tuesday night by local police:

• Yitzhak and Talya Imes
• Kochava Even Chaim
• Avishai Shindler

...Yitzhak and Talya Imes were the parents of six children ...Talya Imes was nine months pregnant when she was killed by the terrorists.
Kochava Even Chaim was a teacher in Efrat. She left behind her husband and an 8 year-old daughter. Her husband,one of the first Zaka first aid volunteers to arrive at the scene, discovered suddenly that his wife was among the victims.
Avishai Shindler had only recently moved to [the area] with his wife.
...Hamas took "credit" for the terror attack, while PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad condemned the attack and said that it is against Arab interests. [any other reason to condemn the murder, Fayyad??? - SL]
Fayyad added that the PA will act to prevent additional acts of terror, however he did not explain how it would do so in the future any better than it has up to now.
... The terror attack is typical of Arab "resistance" attacks that intentionally target civilian victims.
A survey carried out by a PA organization in early August found that among the Arab public in the Palestinian Authority,

• over 55% view violence as either essential or desirable,
• nearly 31% see it as either acceptable or tolerable, and
• only 13.7% say it is unacceptable.

The attack was probably timed to coincide with and affect the direct talks between Israel and the PA in Washington, D.C., that are to begin Thursday. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said upon landing in Washington that the talks would proceed as planned, despite the murders, evoking memories of PM Yitschak Rabin's term "sacrifices for peace" for the post Oslo accord terror attacks, which cost tens of Israelis their lives....