Israel Matzav

Abu Mazen to boycott Washington conference?

Take this with a grain of salt, because I have not seen it confirmed anyplace else, but DEBKAfile is reporting that 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen is telling anyone who will listen that he does not plan to attend President Bush's 'peace conference' in November.

The Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas has said to everyone in sight that he will not attend the Washington peace conference the White House is promoting for November unless he is assured of progress on core issues and on Palestinian statehood. Otherwise, he says, the event is futile.

He tried explaining this to US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice when she visited Ramallah last week. He told her that no consensus had ensued from his meetings with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert on a single issue; he would therefore absent himself from the conference. But, he said, she “misunderstood” his meaning.

Our Middle East and Washington sources disclose that, to make sure the US government understood that no Palestinian official, including prime minister Salam Fayyad, would be there, Abbas sent two secret emissaries to Washington and Paris. They reported that there is not the slightest chance of a prior Israeli-Palestinian consensus on any core issue in the next two months. Therefore, the Palestinian seats at the conference would be vacant.

Abbas insisted in the message to the two governments that he was not playing games to extort last-minute concessions from Israel. He simply wanted more time for the serious negotiating track he had opened up with Olmert to continue uninterrupted.

The Israeli prime minister is fully aware of Abbas’ position, but has made no comment.

He too is not keen on the conference, but is leaving it to the Palestinians to upset the Bush administration’s the applecart.

It also suits Olmert’ image at home to look tough on security (the Sept. 6 air attack over Syria), while pleasing the doves by appearing to work toward forging a historic breakthrough in the conflict with the Palestinians. From time to time, one issue or another is officially said to be referred to joint Israel-Palestinian experts committees after the two leaders reached agreement in principle. In fact, according to DEBKAfile’s defense sources, no progress has been attained on any issue at all.

...

Even so, Abbas is standing by his refusal to attend, and without him, there is no conference. US officials told DEBKAfile that the Palestinian leader believes he can get away with his rebuff without paying a price. They say Washington can hardly cut off aid to his Ramallah-based government on the West Bank, for fear of strengthening Hamas and the hard-line Palestinian groups backed by Damascus and Iran.

Embarrassingly, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak said Sunday night he had no notion of the conference agenda. He said the French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner had also shrugged when asked if he knew anything about it. Without an agreed agenda, said Mubarak, there was no point in calling the conference because it was preprogrammed for failure.

Give Abu Mazen credit - he figured out that the entire 'conference' is a fraud and that there is no way any real agreement can be reached in this short a time period. Especially when he is dealing with a government that is even more unpopular and whose position is even more tenuous than his own. Maybe next he can figure out that 'peace' can only be made based on milestones and not on timetables. But by the time he figures that out, he probably won't be the President of the 'Palestinian Authority' any more. Hopefully, Olmert won't be Prime Minister of Israel by then either.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:55 PM