Abu Mazen caught in his own delusions
'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President The PA hopes the Obama administration will be in a position to force Israel into announcing a new moratorium on settlement building in exchange for continuing proximity talks. The PA seeks to use this moratorium as a pretext to justify the continuing proximity talks to its people, and hence, to counter the most recent political gain by Hamas resulting from the flotilla raid and the following relative relaxation of Gaza's blockade. The crisis the PA has to deal with in this respect is the Netanyahu administration and its plans for peace with the PA.I would say that the last week shows that there isn't going to be any more 'settlement freeze' unless Abu Mazen comes to the table for direct talks - and even then there might not be one.
Apparently, Netanyahu aims at settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on an "extended model of Oslo arrangement;" that is to say, a disarmed "nominal mini state," with a self-ruling government - functionally speaking - wider Palestinian territories, including probably some parts of East Jerusalem, with Israel keeping control over all aspects of sovereignty. To implement this scenario, Netanyahu seems in urgent need to legitimatize continued settlement building and, at the same time, to recruit international support for the plan. The only umbrella serving this scenario, it seems, is a peace process with no clear terms and references and one that is guided by the power balance principle, with the Obama administration only mediating negotiations without exercising pressure on his government.
Against this backdrop, one might analyze the Israeli government's continued demand to move from proximity talks to direct talks as soon as possible, and the PA's continued rejection. Apparently, the PA is concerned about falling victim to the power balance principles of direct talks, and thus, tends to pressure for more involvement from the Obama administration in peace talks (e.g., the PA supports proximity talks more than direct talks at this stage). The last few months, however, showed that the US is powerless in terms of forcing the Israeli government into offering any significant concessions to the PA, as a means to bring about a real breakthrough in peace talks. The PA, as it seems, cannot count on the US as a strong mediator that is able to bring changes in the Israeli position.
Meanwhile, Abu Mazen is being pressed by Hamas on the other side. Having never prepared his 'people' for compromise of any kind, Abu Mazen's Fatah isn't a whole lot different than Hamas, except that it's more corrupt.
It's kind of hard to justify your rule under those circumstances, isn't it?
Read the whole thing.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:56 AM
1 Comments:
One needs to be reminded Abu Bluff has no popular mandate to make any kind of lasting deal with Israel. There have been no free elections in the PA since his constitutional term of office expired a year ago. Israel should simply declare it will talk directly only to a freely elected new PA government and thus throw the ball back into Abu Bluff's court. He can get a mandate from his own people to make peace with Israel or resign. Its high time to bring his bluff to an end.
Heh
Post a Comment
<< Home