'Palestinian' chief negotiatorbottle washer Saeb Erekat told the Associated Press on Monday that the 'negotiations' are over on April 29. No extensions.
Erekat added that the possibility of continuing the talks past the
April deadline did not come up in Abbas’s meetings with Obama or
Secretary of State John Kerry.
"The negotiations are up on April 29," he said, according to AP. "You don't need negotiations any more. You need decisions."
Look at the bright side: No more negotiations = no more concessions.
Israel grants an extra 5,000 'Palestinian' work permits, Erekat threatens to leave talks
'Palestinian' chief negotiatorbottle washer Saeb Erekat has responded to Israel's unilaterally granting permits for another 5,000 'Palestinians' to work in the fastest growing economy in the Middle East by threatening to walk away from the 'negotiations.'
The cabinet on Sunday approved permits enabling another 5,000
Palestinians to work inside the Green Line despite anger at the
Palestinian Authority’s economic warfare against Israel.
Defense
Minister Moshe Ya’alon brought the proposal to substantially add to the
estimated 35,000 Palestinian workers already working legally inside the
Green Line. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Tzipi
Livni, who is heading the negotiations with the PA, both supported the
move.
One cabinet source said, however, that because of annoyance at the
Palestinians for spurring the Europeans on regarding their guidelines
sanctioning Israeli entities beyond the pre-1967 lines, wording in the
resolution saying it was done “within the framework of the negotiations
with the Palestinians and as part of a willingness to assist the
Palestinian economy” was taken out.
“While we take a step that
will help the Palestinian economy, they continue to call for a total
boycott of settlement goods and industry – something that hurts them
since they are employed in that industry – and are behind the calls in
Europe for stiffer economic sanctions against settlements,” the source
said.
Removing the conciliatory language was meant to send a
signal of displeasure to the Palestinians, the source added. Asked
whether shelving the resolution entirely would not have sent a much
stronger message, the source said, “We are not there yet,” and that it
was in Israel’s interest to help the Palestinian economy.
...
Meanwhile, chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat on Sunday once again
threatened to pull out of the talks because of continued building in the
West Bank and east Jerusalem. He was quoted as saying that the
negotiations could not continue while there was construction in the
settlements.
In a document released by the PLO Negotiations
Department, Erekat said that he relayed the Palestinian position
regarding the settlements to the US administration, Russia, European
Union, United Nations and other countries.
Erekat said that the
Israeli argument that the settlement blocs would be part of Israel in a
permanent deal was an “excuse uglier than the sin, because this means
dictates and not negotiations.”
One of the reasons the PA agreed
to return to negotiations was a written pledge that the terms of
reference for a final settlement would be based on a two-state solution
on the pre-1967 lines with a slight and agreed swap of land.
Erekat did not say who gave the PA the written pledge.
A senior aide to 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen is claiming that the 'Palestinians' have not yet agreed to sit down with the Israelis, and that they are awaiting 'clarifications' from US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Palestinians have not yet agreed to resume talks with Israel, await US clarifications - @MahmoudAbbas aide Abed Rabbo to Voice of Palestine
— Dan Williams (@DanWilliams) July 21, 2013
Interior Minister Gideon Saar, who may not know a whole lot more about what was agreed than I do, is claiming that Israel did not agree to negotiations based on the 1967 borders1949 armistice lines, nor did it agree to a 'settlement freeze.'
But the 'Palestinians' are claiming that they received a written commitment from Kerry to negotiations based on the 1949 armistice lines. Of course, Saar's claim and the 'Palestinian' claim are not contradictory.
Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to resume peace talks with Israel only
after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry gave him a letter guaranteeing
that the basis of the negotiations will be Israel's pre-1967 borders,
two senior Palestinian officials told the Associated Press on Saturday.
A Western official, however, later denied that the '67 lines would be the basis of negotiations.
The Palestinian officials, both of whom are
close to the Palestinian leader and privy to internal discussions, said
the U.S. letter also stipulated that both sides are to refrain from
taking any steps that would jeopardize the outcome of the talks. Israel
is not to issue new tenders for Jewish settlements in the West Bank,
while the Palestinians are not to pursue diplomatic action against
Israel at any international organizations, the officials said on
condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the
media.
The talks with Kerry were about to collapse,
and the letter came as a lifeline in the last-minute bargaining," one of
the Palestinian officials said.
But other PA officials were not so sure Abbas had received such a written guarantee.
"Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
is going to resume negotiations based on verbal promises. He has no
guarantees that a Palestinian state will be formed on the basis of the
1967 borders, that there will be a settlement freeze or that our
prisoners will be released," a senior official in Ramallah told Israel
Hayom on Saturday.
Arab media outlets meanwhile quoted an
official in the Palestinian Authority president's inner circle, who said
the return to peace talks was made possible only thanks to a plan,
delineated in a personal letter from Kerry to Abbas, which had Abbas and
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu make significant concessions
regarding their preconditions, without having to announce them publicly.
Some reports even quoted senior Palestinian officials as saying that
the letter contained a guarantee from Kerry that the peace talks will be
based on the 1967 lines, something which Jerusalem has denied.
A senior Palestinian source also told i24News
that Kerry threatened to suspend aid unless the Palestinians agreed to
renewed talks with Israel.
And then there are the terrorists being held in Israeli prisons. Israeli media is reporting that 85 'Palestinians' will be released starting in 4-6 weeks. That includes all of the 'Palestinian' terrorists being held in Israeli prisons since before the 1993 Oslo Accords (the 119 number you hear bandied about includes Israeli Arabs and common criminals). These are people with lots of blood on their hands, most of whom are serving multiple life sentences.
Livni and Molcho met secretly with Kerry this morning
Anyone want to try a caption for the photo?
Haaretz's Barak Ravid tweets that Justice Minister and chief negotiator Tzipi Livni, and attorney Itzhak Molcho, the Prime Minister's special envoy, met secretly on Monday morning in Jordan with US Secretary of State John FN Kerry, amid frantic efforts to renew 'peace talks.'
In a more detailed report in Hebrew, Ravid reports that the meeting started at 8:30 this morning and lasted for several hours. Its goal was to 'bridge the gaps' between Israel and the 'Palestinians.' The meeting was followed by a meeting between Kerry and 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen in the latter's Amman home.
Israel rejects Kerry proposal for resuming talks with 'Palestinians'
Israel has rejected a proposal put forward by US Secretary of State John FN Kerry for resuming talks with the 'Palestinians.'
A senior Israeli official, who was involved in the talks Kerry held
in Jerusalem, said that Israel opposes Kerry's proposal to resume
negotiations on the basis of discussing border and security issues
alone.
Kerry
has approached the Israeli-Palestinian issue with much enthusiasm, and
is pressuring both sides to implement confidence-building measures and
agree on a draft outline for resumption of talks. However, after his
second visit to the region this week, it seems that the Secretary of
State did not correctly assess just how frozen the standstill over the
peace process is, and how rigid both sides' positions are. This is what
Kerry was referring to when he left Israel saying that he himself, and
the two sides, have a lot of homework to do.
A
senior Israeli official, who asked to remain anonymous due to the
sensitivity of the subject, expressed considerable skepticism regarding
Kerry's steps, and made cynical, slightly scornful comments regarding
his attitude. "Kerry believes that he can bring about the solution, the
treaty and the salvation," he said. "He thinks that the conflict is
primarily over territory…and that is wrong."
That sounds just like Obama four years ago... except that Obama is Kerry's boss and if that's what Kerry is putting forward, it's likely that Obama still believes that too.
[I]t seems that at this stage the most serious disagreement is between
the U.S. and Israel. It appears that despite U.S. President Barack
Obama's successful recent visit, the dialogue between Israel and the
U.S. over the Palestinian question is regressing back to the differences
that emerged in 2009.
During
his discussions in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Kerry made it
clear that in the event negotiations would be renewed, they would
initially need to deal with a discussion over Israel's security
requirements, in parallel with a discussion regarding the borders of the
future Palestinian state.
Kerry
also requested Israel to direct a series of confidence-building
measures at the Palestinians, among them the release of prisoners and
the transferal of weapons to Palestinian security forces in order to
create a suitable atmosphere for the renewal of talks.
And giving the 'Palestinians' mosre weapons with which to attack Israelis and repress their own people would create a 'suitable atmosphere'... precisely how?
The senior official noted that in talks with Kerry on Monday and
Tuesday of this week, Israel expressed its opposition to such a draft
outline. "There is a dispute over the framework of the process and over
how it will be conducted," the official said. "Israel opposes placing
the issues of borders and security at the preliminary stage of
negotiations, and we said this to Kerry. On this issue, there is full
consent among all the ministers dealing with the Palestinian subject,
including Tzipi Livni."
For
its part, Israel demands that if negotiations are to be resumed they
will need to address, in parallel, all core issues of the final
settlement – including the issue of recognition of Israel as a Jewish
state , and a solution to the refugee problem. "If the discussion
commences with talks about borders and security, Israel will only give,
and will get almost nothing in return," the senior official said. "When
we get to the issues where the Palestinians will need to give something
up - like the right of return - we won’t have any bargaining chips
left."
Often with 'peace talks' it's two steps forward and one step back. With the Obama administration, it appears to be one step forward and two steps back.
'Palestinian' prisoner death hoax kills two more 'Palestinians'
On Tuesday, a 'Palestinian' terrorist who was serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison died of esophageal cancer. Although this terrorist was a member of Hamas, the 'Palestinian Authority' immediately accused Israel of causing the terrorist's death, and has continued to do so even in the face of Israeli (with a 'Palestinian' forensic expert present) and 'Palestinian' autopsies that concluded that 63-year old Maissara Abu Hamdiyeh - a heavy smoker - died of esophageal cancer. On Wednesday, 4,500 more 'Palestinian' terrorists who are imprisoned in Israeli jails refused their lunches in protest, and 'Palestinians' took to the streets to support them. Two 'Palestinian' teenagers in the city of Tulkarm lost their lives in the ensuing riots.
Hamdiyeh was hailed as a martyr and a hero, and violence immediately broke out in the West Bank Tuesday and continued Wednesday.
According
to the IDF, Palestinians attacked a guard station near Tulkarm in the
West Bank village of Anabda late Wednesday night and threw Molotov
cocktails at it. Soldiers responded with live fire. The IDF confirmed
both deaths.
The soldiers targeted by the firebombing felt their lives to be at risk before using live fire, a senior defense source told The Jerusalem Post.
The remains of seven Molotov cocktails were found at the scene.
According
to Sarit Michaeli of B’Tselem three Palestinian teenagers had gone to
attack the guard towers, and were able to get fairly close to it, when
the IDF shot at them.
Amer Nassar, 17, was immediately identified
as one of the victims, and his photograph was quickly circulated on
Twitter and Facebook, along with a video of mourners marching his body
through the streets.
A second teen was wounded, but the third teen
was initially missing, according to Michael. His body was found only
hours later near the guard tower, Michaeli said. She identified him as
Nagi Biblisi, 18.
Hamdiyeh was also a bomb maker and taught others to make bombs.
In a
bid to prove to Palestinians that it is taking the issue seriously, the PA
leadership has set up a ministry for prisoners affairs headed by Issa Qaraqi,
who in the past few years has been waging a relentless campaign against Israel
on the issue of the prisoners.
Qaraqi has consistently accused Israel of
mistreating and torturing Palestinian prisoners.
He has also accused
Israel of conducting experiments on some prisoners and denying them proper
medical care, as well as stealing their organs.
When Palestinian prisoner
Arafat Jaradat died in Israeli custody earlier this year, Qaraqi and other PA
officials were quick to blame Israel.
They claimed that Jaradat died as a
result of torture – a charge that has been strongly denied by Israel.
On
Tuesday, following the death of prisoner Maissara Abu Hamdiyeh due to terminal
cancer, Qaraqi and many PA officials again rushed to issue strong condemnations
against Israel.
This time they claimed that Abu Hamdiyeh had been denied
medical treatment – a claim that, again, has been rejected by Israel – and
demanded a special commission of inquiry.
The strong attacks on Israel
are primarily aimed at showing the Palestinian public that the PA leadership
does care about the prisoners.
But these attacks are also intensifying
tensions between Israel and the Palestinians and paving the way for
violence.
By making serious allegations against Israel, the PA is further
radicalizing Palestinians and even driving some of them into the open arms of
Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
When and if the PA leadership decides to resume
peace talks with Israel, Abbas and his representatives will be denounced by many
enraged Palestinians as traitors and collaborators.
Under such
circumstances, it’s hard to see how Abbas would be able to return to the
negotiating table, even if Israel were to freeze construction in the
settlements, because the Palestinians would demand that Abbas first fulfill his
promise of seeking the release of all prisoners.
But then, 'negotiations' aren't really what Abu Bluff wants anyway, because 'negotiations' could awaken some in the 'international community to the fact that the 'Palestinians' will not settle with Israel on any terms.
An Israeli diplomatic source said on Sunday that the 'peace talks' with the 'Palestinians' are off for now, as Israel waits to see whether Hamas and Fatah form a unity government. Israel will not talk to a government that includes Hamas.
Reading - for the first time that I can recall - a detailed account of the talks with Fatah, I have to wonder why we would talk to a government that includes Fatah either.
The Palestinians spelled out their territorial demands to Israel: 98.1 percent of the West Bank, something that would mean that the large settlement blocs would not remain under Israeli control, according to the source.
The PA presented Israel with their documents – one dealing with territory, and another with security – at the first meeting on January 4. According to the source, the Palestinian security document did not deal with Israel’s security demands, but rather discussed how the Palestinians envisioned their own internal security in their state.
The source termed the Palestinian positions – both on security and territory – as “nonstarters.”
Israel did not provide the Palestinians with a territorial counter-offer, beyond saying that it was guided by the following principle: Most of the Jews currently living in Judea and Samaria would come under Israeli control, while most of the Palestinians there would end up in a Palestinian state. Another guiding principle that Israel presented was: the issue of Jerusalem should be left to the end and dealt with separately because it is so complicated.
At the second of the four meetings, Israel asked the Palestinians 19 questions regarding the Palestinian positions, including what – in their thinking – was to happen to the Jews living in the West Bank, and whether they would be uprooted or become citizens of a future Palestinians state. Another question was what would happen if Fatah and Hamas sign an agreement.
The Palestinians did not answer the first question, and regarding the second, said the PA would create a strong democracy, the source said.
As to Jerusalem’s demand that Israel retain a presence in the Jordan Valley, the Palestinians, according to the source, said they would not allow an Israeli presence anywhere.
The source added that while the idea of the talks in Jordan was to generate a positive dynamic and create confidence, the positions put forth by the Palestinians “harmed confidence,” and that no Israeli government could “accept them.”
But 'everyone knows' what the 'solution' is, don't they?
How the 'Palestinians' wiggled out of a peace agreement
JPost does a good job of putting together Condoleeza Rice's memoirs and the 'Palestine papers' to present a pretty clear picture of how the 'Palestinians' managed to avoid reaching a 'peace agreement' with Ehud K. Olmert. Recall that Rice described what Olmert offered in a private dinner between the two of them. Here's what happened next.
Rice recalled her incredulity: “Am I really hearing this? I wondered. Is the Israeli prime minister saying that he’ll divide Jerusalem and put an international body in charge of the Holy sites? Concentrate. Write this down. No, don’t write it down. What if it leaks? It can’t leak; it’s just the two of us.”
Rice said that she visited Abbas in Ramallah the next day. “I sketched out the details of Olmert’s proposal and told him how the prime minister wanted to proceed. Abbas started negotiating immediately. “I can’t tell four million Palestinians that only 5,000 of them can go home,” he said.”
While Rice is silent on the ensuing breakdown of talks – missing pieces are actually supplied by the Palestine Papers – documents memorializing 10 years of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations that were stolen from Saeb Erekat’s office and posted on al-Jazeera’s website last January.
Although Palestinian negotiators spoke publicly about compromise on refugees, privately they spoke of the “right of return” as a matter of individual choice that would have to be extended to each of over seven million people and with Palestinians retaining the open-ended right to try to negotiate additional “returns” beyond any number initially agreed upon in a peace treaty.
Abbas was simply unprepared to accept any offer that did not allow for the “right of return.”
Rice recounted how on September 16, 2008 Olmert presented Abbas with a groundbreaking offer for a two-state solution including a map outlining the territory of a Palestinian state. Rice confirmed reports that Olmert insisted that Abbas sign then and there, but that Abbas “demurred, wanting to consult his experts before signing.”
Olmert, Rice said, refused to give Abbas the map – a fact that the Palestinians have said proves that Olmert’s offer was not serious.
But the Palestine Papers indicate that on September 16, the Palestinians drew-up a map that seems to outline with great specificity the offer made by Olmert, in spite of the fact that they complained he would not give them a copy of the map.
Abbas asked for a meeting the next day with his advisers present.
The meeting the next day was never held – Rice did not say why, but Olmert has since said that he received a call from Saeb Erekat requesting that the meeting be postponed.
The US administration seems to have been unaware that in preparation for the September 16 meeting the PA was trying to generate escape plans from reaching a binding agreement with Olmert, while at the same time avoiding being blamed for not reaching a final status agreement.
“SE [PA Negotiator Saeb Erekat] thinks there are three ways [Abbas] could respond: (1) Give [Olmert] our Framework Agreement on Permanent Status, (2) Issue general communique about Annapolis progress, (3) Simply say no to the offer,” one September 9, 2008 memo from Hala Rasheed read.
“He wants us to think up other ways to respond. Whatever we propose, he wants to make sure that: (a) we are not blamed, (b) [negotiations] are uninterrupted, and (c) no submission is made that we cannot retract.”
A memo to other NSU members dated September 16 from Wassim Khazmo, a communications adviser on the PA negotiating team, revealed that Palestinians intended to treat the September 16 meeting as “ceremonial” rather than directed toward advancing negotiations and possibly reaching a peace agreement.
“In order to avoid the blame game, the President today is going with a positive attitude, where he will ask more questions from Olmert on his offer, and he will tell him that the Palestinians will respond later,” Khazmo wrote.
Khazmo was particularly concerned that Abbas avoid what he described as “Olmert’s media stunts.”
The key word here is “final.” The Palestinians are quite prepared to sign interim agreements, like Oslo. Framework agreements, like Annapolis. Cease-fires, like the 1949 armistice. Anything but a final deal. Anything but a final peace. Anything but a treaty that ends the conflict once and for all — while leaving a Jewish state still standing.
After all, why did Abbas go to the United Nations last week? For nearly half a century, the United States has pursued a Middle East settlement on the basis of the formula of land for peace. Land for peace produced the Israel-Egypt peace of 1979 and the Israel-Jordan peace of 1994. Israel has offered the Palestinians land for peace three times since. And been refused every time.
Why? For exactly the same reason Abbas went to the United Nations last week: to get land without peace. Sovereignty with no reciprocal recognition of a Jewish state. Statehood without negotiations. An independent Palestine in a continued state of war with Israel.
...
Israel is prepared to give up land, but never again without peace. A final peace. Which is exactly what every Palestinian leader from Haj Amin al-Husseini to Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas has refused to accept. Which is why, regardless of who is governing Israel, there has never been peace. Territorial disputes are solvable; existential conflicts are not.
This conflict is existential. That's what the World refuses to get. Instead, they are preparing a recipe for war to continue in perpetuity.
Former Mossad director: No chance of final deal with 'Palestinians'
Former Mossad director Ephraim HaLevy, who in the past has advocated talking to Hamas, has concluded that there is no chance of Israel reaching a final solution with the 'Palestinians,' and therefore he believes that Israel should try to reach an interim deal.
The chances of realizing an ultimate peace treaty are low, said Halevy, who underscored that even if such a treaty were to be signed, it would take years to implement, and that regime changes on both sides of the divide, as well as in Europe and the United States, would mean that the people who signed the agreement would not be the ones to implement it, as a result of which the agreement would take on a different character and might even be stalled.
Another option was a dual border, which is essentially a political and security border. There was a moderate probability of realizing that option, but Halevy doubted that the weak and divided PA was capable of being a partner to such a process.
Yet another option was a Palestinian state within interim borders, and a special arrangement for Jerusalem. Here again, the probability of realization was characterized as moderate.
“If there is an interim border, the exact delineation will in future be of less gravity to both sides,” said Halevy.
The final option was no borders, on the path to a bi-national state – an option he said was possible, but not desirable to either side.
The team concluded that in this instance, the probability of realization was moderate-to-high, because Israeli governance was weak, and the government had little desire to advance toward an agreement. The PA, it said, is weak and undivided and unable to reach an agreement under the threat of Hamas; and Hamas, which is moderate to powerful, could resort to terrorism to torpedo any agreement.
There is powerful support on the part of both the Israeli and the Palestinian public for two states for two peoples, said Halevy, but there is also distrust on both sides, and settler opposition to evacuation is sufficiently powerful to stymie any agreement.
Halevy did not have a high opinion of the influence of the superpowers, which he said were “strong on statements but weak on power.”
Given the existing circumstances, the best option, according to Halevy, is one of interim borders. It is the most feasible, and would be most acceptable if a commitment were put in writing that this was not the final word, he said. His team believes that the penalty that each side would pay for no solution is so high that any other solution would be preferable.
An interim deal would be suicidal on Israel's part for four reasons. First, because even if the 'Palestinians' agreed to it (a highly unlikely event that HaLevy wishes away in his calculations), they would insist on it having a termination date. Then what? Whenever the interim deal terminates we would be where we are today diplomatically but in a much worse position security-wise.
Second, the 'Palestinians' may not even wait for the deal to terminate to attack us. They may conclude that the borders are sufficiently advantageous to them, and they may succeed in importing enough weapons (just how are we going to stop that in Judea and Samaria, whose terrain is much less hospitable to 'security arrangements' than Gaza's) to decide that the time has come to attack. Or even if they don't go for all-out war, all it would take is an occasional rocket falling on Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or the airport to make life here completely chaotic. Anyone who thinks we're really going to go to war with the 'Palestinians' over a rocket that does anything less than down a loaded commercial jet needs to look at what has happened in Gaza since 2005 despite all the promises that if Hamas shot rockets at us the IDF would go right back in, be unrestrained, etc.
Third, HaLevy assumes that majorities both in Israel and among the 'Palestinians' want a 'two-state solution.' That's incorrect on both sides. Israelis want it until you get down to the nitty gritty of what we would have to give up. The 'Palestinians' don't even go that far. Survey after survey of the 'Palestinians' shows that a 'Palestinian state in the West Bank based on the 1967 borders with agreed changes' (the standard way that 'everyone knows' we're going to resolve the conflict) is not the end of the game for them. They would continue the conflict in a bid to destroy the Jewish state. Under those circumstances, an 'interim solution' would be even more dangerous than a 'permanent' one.
Fourth, the 'Palestinians' will never agree to an interim deal anyway, because they know that an interim deal would be a permanent deal for all the same reasons that HaLevy says a permanent deal is impossible.
And this is without even getting into the elephant in the room named Hamas, and what to do about Gaza and its control of Gaza.
The 'interim solution' is no solution - not even on an interim basis.
'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud AbbasAbu Mazen has told that 'Palestinian' WAFA news service that all he wants is to push Israel back to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines with no security arrangements.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud 'Abbas has said that the Palestinians refuse to accept less than a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, alongside Israel, but also are not demanding any more than that and do not want to be a replacement for Israel.
He explained that if in 1948 then-U.S. President Harry Truman replaced the term "Jewish state" with "the State of Israel" in the U.S.'s document of recognition, there was no reason that the Palestinians would agree to recognize it as a Jewish state – but that Israel was free to appeal to the U.N. and to call itself whatever it wished.
Why should Israel trust a pathological liar's claims as to what he 'wants'? Even if we could trust him, what happens once Abu Bluff is gone? What could go wrong?
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met with Bahraini King Isa Bin Salman Al-Khalifa and told him that "Israeli obstruction of the renewal of peace talks is unacceptable," a senior Bahraini official said.
According to the official, Mubarak told the Bahraini king that contacts have been made between the Palestinian Authority and the US, and that the two agreed that the negotiations must be resumed to secure Palestinians rights.
Can someone please explain to me how a party that has continually called for negotiations without preconditions could possibly be 'obstructing negotiations'?
Surprise: J Street's 'new strategy' is exactly what Obama's doing
I had a great opening line for this post which was very much in the spirit of the current controversy regarding airline security in the US, but I decided it was a bit too graphic. I'll tell you that it involved cavity searches and leave the rest to your imagination.
J Street, the pro-Obama lobby that masquerades as pro-Israel, has come out with a 'new strategy' to get 'negotiations' between Israel and the 'Palestinians' moving. I'm sure you'll all be shocked - just shocked - to hear that it's exactly what the Obama administration is planning to do anyway. If Israel is foolish enough to play along.
To address persistent stagnation in Israeli-Palestinians negotiations, J Street is putting forth a new policy proposal urging President Obama to adopt a bolder, more assertive strategy to resolve the conflict.
The pro-Israel, pro-peace movement is asking the administration not to pin its strategy on obtaining a 90-day extension of the partial settlement moratorium alone, but instead to focus on moving the parties towards a permanent agreement on borders and security. Should the sides fail to reach such an agreement in a short, set period of time, J Street suggests that President Obama be prepared to put forward his own proposal and to create a clear moment of choice for both parties on central final status issues.
Of course, this leaves the potentially explosive issues of the Temple Mount and the 'refugees' to the end, with Israel giving up most of its bargaining cards and not getting an 'end of conflict' clause in return. What could go wrong?
Some selling job. Prime Minister Netanyahu is now explaining to his cabinet that the 'second' freeze to which he wants them to agree will be worse than the first.
The second Judea and Samaria building freeze pushed by the United States will be stricter than the first, in that it will include a ban on completing construction projects that are already underway, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu revealed Sunday.
Netanyahu unveiled details of the potential second freeze in a meeting with Likud MKs. He said the ban on finishing projects is “the only major downside in this deal.”
The prime minister told the MKs that he plans to ask U.S. officials for three things in exchange for the freeze: a promise not to demand a third construction freeze, an American veto on any Palestinian Authority attempt to declare statehood unilaterally, and a commitment not to pressure Israel to sign a deal with the PA within 90 days.
Israel will compensate Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria who suffer financial losses due to the freeze, Netanyahu said.
I don't know what a 'commitment not to pressure Israel' means but I doubt we will get it in any meaningful way. I also doubt that Obama will give an open-ended commitment to veto any PA attempt to declare statehood unilaterally.
Meanwhile the Arabs keep creating facts on the ground and no one asks them to stop. What could go wrong?
But even if the new freeze is implemented, virtually no analyst believes an agreement on borders is possible in 90 days.
Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator and now a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, said there is "not a hope whatsoever" that the two sides can agree on a border within 90 days if left to their own devices. He said that the only way to make real progress is for the Obama administration to offer its own formula for the border, thus forcing a "yes or no" moment for the Israeli government.
"Ninety days seems pretty short," said Nathan J. Diament of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. The compromises will be very difficult, he said, and there is little trust or confidence between the two sides. "Negotiations don't have a self-sustaining momentum, no matter how determined George Mitchell is," he said, referring to President Obama's peace envoy.
Part of the problem is that Israel's main bargaining chip is land, and it would be required now to give up land without knowing precisely what it would get in return. Palestinians have been willing to consider swaps, getting land in exchange for giving up settlements on claimed Palestinian territory, but have insisted on 100 percent of the total square miles held before the 1967 Six-Day War.
...
"The question is whether Netanyahu and his coalition . . . are willing to sign an agreement that will effectively return Israel to the 1967 borders," Israeli political commentator Nahum Barnea wrote Monday in Israel's mass-circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth. "Are they willing to do this even before the question of the right of return and the question of Jerusalem have been discussed? If so, we can tip our hats to them. They are brave people, who are not reluctant to change their opinion completely, people who have seen the light. Otherwise, they are risking a bitter quarrel with the U.S. administration. They are selling our birthright for a mess of pottage."
The "right of return" is the Palestinian's main trump card - giving up their right to return to homes in Israel. Deferring the issue of Jerusalem, which Palestinians also want to claim as their capital, until after the 90-day period is also problematic, analysts said. Striking a deal on borders without tackling Jerusalem would mean that Israeli building in areas now claimed by Palestinians, such as East Jerusalem, would continue to be a source of tension.
And here's a quote from the Christian Science Monitor (the link at the Daily Alert is incorrect).
Uzi Dayan, a former deputy chief of staff of the army, says a preliminary agreement on territorial concessions risks conceding Israel’s territorial “strategic depth” before reaching a full agreement. “It’s like having a negotiation, and saying, ‘First, give all your money, and then let’s talk about the other issues.”’
I've actually heard of negotiations like that. I would not want to be involved in them.
'Fierce moral urgency,' even if it were true (which it is most definitely not) does not ensure an agreement. Obama's 90-day 'settlement freeze' extension is a dangerous gambit that will not bring peace. He'd be better off announcing that he will not demand any more 'settlement freezes' from Israel, and that the 'Palestinians' can decide whether they will come to the table without preconditions. That would be a better solution than compounding his initial mistake out of the box.
Will the 'Palestinians' miss the opportunity to miss an opportunity?
Israel's longtime ambassador to the United Nations, Abba Eban, is known to have quipped that the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. If the Israeli government approves the package that Prime Minister Netanyahu brought home from Washington on Friday, it will (God forbid) be a huge opportunity for the 'Palestinians.' But will they miss it? We've already seen a report of them asking for their own package. Here's a better indication that they really might take the opportunity to miss the opportunity (and make Netanyahu look like a genius for calling their bluff).
The Arab League is waiting to see if the Obama administration will offer it further inducements to entice the Palestinian Authority into direct talks, but it likely will reject direct talks with Israel based on the ”Clinton freeze,” an official said Monday.
“If the news is true about there being a settlement freeze that excludes Jerusalem and that takes the criticism off Israel, I cannot imagine that would be acceptable to the Palestinian side or the Arab side,” Hesham Youssef, an official with the office of the secretary general of the Arab League, told the German press agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
...
The Palestinian Authority and the Arab League have said the freeze must include all areas of Jerusalem that it demands as part of a PA state, including the Temple Mount and adjacent Western Wall, all of the Old City, and "neighborhoods in northern and eastern Jerusalem where 300,000 Jews live.
Like the Palestinian Authority, the Arab League has not rejected the proposal, but is rather holding out for additional offers, such as compensation, guarantees on its desired borders and its demand that five million foreign Arabs can move to Israel, on the basis of claims that they or their parents and grandparents lived in the country - known as the "right of return." The demand is part of the Saudi 2002 Initiative and has been regarded by almost every Israeli political leader as being aimed at eliminating Israel as a Jewish state.
Palestinian sources told London based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper that the Palestinian leadership was waiting for a commitment and aid package from the United States, in return for resuming direct negotiations with Israel.
The sources suggested the United States will commit to signing a peace agreement within one year, demarcation of the Palestinian state within three months, and a solution for the refugee problem, as well as a financial aid package.
Maybe they want $3 billion too. In a Swiss bank account.....
Remember that second squadron of F-35's, the 'gift' from the United States that was so attractive to the IDF that Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to go along with a 'settlement freeze' extension? I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear that they come with a little condition attached.
Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau has thrown cold water on comments by Defense Mnister Ehud Barak celebrating the U.S. “present” of 20 advanced fighter jets to Israel in exchange for implementing an additronal freeze. Landau clarified that the jets are not guaranteed to Israel and noted that they depend on reaching a final agreement with PA which most Israelis do not believe is possible.
Landau also reminded Barak that, during the retreat from Lebanon he ordered when he was Prime Minister ,he promised Israelis that the U.S. would give Israel $800 million in return for making the move. “Whatever happened to the money they promised us then?,” asked Landau.
Hmmm.
In other words, the only way we MIGHT have a chance of seeing these planes is reaching an agreement with the 'Palestinians' - which is VERY unlikely. And if we do reach an agreement with the 'Palestinians' - which is likely to be on their terms - we may not be around long enough to see those planes roll off the assembly line.
I don't know how many of you have sat in seven-hour meetings, but I have sat in several of them. The length of the meeting does not always dictate success or failure. And Thursday's meeting between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary of State Clinton is looking more and more like a failure.
Josh Rogin reports that the reason the meeting ran so long is that they weren't discussing a 'settlement freeze.' According to Rogin, they were talking about final borders.
"If there in fact is progress in the next several months, I'm confident people will look back at this meeting between Secretary Clinton and Prime Minister Netanyahu as the foundation of the progress. It was that important," former Congressman Robert Wexler, now the president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, told The Cable.
Wexler said that President Obama had long been asking both the Israelis and the Palestinians for clarity on the territories they envisioned being part of their future states. The recent meeting, he said, could be an important step in that direction -- at least in clarifying Israel's position.
"I am hopeful that yesterday's meeting was the beginning of clarity in terms of Israel's visions about her own borders -- where does Israel want Israel's borders to be," said Wexler. "Because ultimately, we can't help our close friend until they share with us their own vision."
The meeting was the highest level interaction between the U.S. and Israeli governments since the last round of direct talks in September. Wexler said that while the two leaders didn't sit down with a map and draw lines around particular neighborhoods, the administration's switch to a focus on borders as a means of getting at the settlements problem was clear. "It's the only rational, sane way to proceed," he said. "Talking about borders and territories will by definition minimize the impact of the settlement issue."
Wexler said that by virtue of the fact that the meeting was seven hours, it's reasonable to assume that significant progress was made. "I think we're very close to creating that magic formula that satisfies both the Israelis and the Palestinians to come back to the table."
Not necessarily. I've been in seven-hour meetings that ended with the parties blowing up the deal. Have a look at this picture of Clinton and Netanyahu, which was likely taken after the meeting (based on how disheveled they look).
Do they look happy? They look awfully tense to me. Netanyahu looks a little smug and Clinton looks like she needs a drink.
Let me add now that if the discussion was about borders, no one in Israel has reported it. Do Bob Wexler and Josh Rogin know something that no one in Israel does?
The 'Palestinians' would be happy to discuss borders, reports Rogin.
"The conventional wisdom is that if we deal with the issue of the borders then we will be able, by default, to deal with the issue of settlements -- and if you can define the borders of the two states and agree on these borders, then each party can build in its own territory without being contested by the other party," Areikat told The Cable. "This is what everybody is aiming at.... Now whether the Americans are going to succeed in convincing the Israelis to do it, we have to wait and see."
Of course, the two sides disagree over the order of events even when discussing the border issue.
"The Palestinian position is that we need to agree on the borders, then we will discuss in parallel the security arrangements. The Israelis are saying no, we need to define first what the security arrangements are to project what the final borders will be," Areikat explained.
And Rogin claims that the US has offered Israel a package of incentives to reach agreement on borders.
In what appears to be a recognition of the Israeli position, Clinton and her team apparently spent a good deal of their time with the Netanyahu team spelling out a long list of additional security guarantees the Obama administration is offering to Israel.
Well, yes, incentives have been offered, but they're being reported here as being in exchange for another three months of 'settlement freeze,' now not including Jerusalem, and aside from an impressive dollar number for fighter jets that has left people here in shock, no one I've heard has been very impressed by the incentives. But I'll come back to them.
I'm going to bring this post to a close before it gets really out of hand in terms of length. But before I do, I want to bring you the 'Palestinian' reaction to Netanyahu's meeting with Clinton. They are not pleased.
A PA official said that the US consul general briefed Abbas on the results of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s talks in the US last week.
The official claimed that the Americans failed again in convincing Netanyahu to agree to a full cessation of settlement construction in return for the resumption of the peace talks.
Chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat announced over the weekend that the Palestinians may ask the US to recognize a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines if the Americans fail to pressure Israel to stop the construction in one month.
“If the US can’t oblige Israel to stop the settlements during this month, we will ask the US to recognize a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, including East Jerusalem,” Erekat said.
He pointed out that 107 countries have recognized the Palestinian state and that the Palestinians have official embassies in dozens of countries. “Unfortunately, the US still hasn’t recognized us,” he said. “Also, there are 21 EU states that haven’t recognized us although we have representative offices there.”
Erekat said it was “unjust” to hold both Israel and the Palestinians responsible for the suspension of the peace talks. “The Israeli government is responsible for the collapse of the negotiations because of its practices and construction in the settlements, especially during Netanyahu’s visit to Washington,” he said. “Why aren’t they holding the Israeli government responsible as they promised to do when they said that they would hold the party responsible for the collapse of the talks responsible?”
Similar comments from Abu Mazen and Fayyad are also noted.
Netanyahu is actually trying to sell the American incentives to the cabinet, but it's doubtful whether he can do that, and it's even more doubtful that the 'Palestinians' will accept what Clinton required of Netanyahu as sufficient even if Netanyahu succeeds in selling it to the cabinet. Maybe....
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
