by Dore Gold
The rumor that the
Palestinian leadership systematically spread over the last few months
was that immediately after the U.N. General Assembly upgraded the
Palestinian delegation to the U.N., Mahmoud Abbas would renew
negotiations with Israel without any of the famous pre-conditions he has
set since 2009: prior Israeli agreement to the 1967 lines as the basis
of negotiations and a settlement freeze including construction in Jewish
neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Since these preconditions were never placed
before any previous Israeli government, from Rabin to Olmert, there was
a basis for questioning what were Abbas's true motives in demanding
them. By saying that they would be removed, Palestinian representatives
could argue that the U.N. initiative was not seeking to wreck
negotiations but rather to get them back on track.
This argument was
particularly important to make with the European states like Germany,
who were planning to oppose the Palestinians at the U.N., but were
persuaded at that last minute to abstain. To secure their support for
the upgrade resolution at the U.N., Abbas went public with this argument
during November. After a meeting with Arab League foreign ministers in
Cairo on November 12, Abbas himself said on the record: "if it is
possible to start peace talks the following day then we are ready for
that." He was quoted by a reporter for Reuters News Agency. Later, Time
Magazine reported on Nov. 28, a day before the General Assembly
convened, that Abbas "promised to return to talks immediately after the
U.N. vote."
It should have come as
no surprise that after the vote on Nov. 29, Abbas did not budge on his
famous pre-conditions. He even used the U.N. resolution as future terms
of reference that Israel must agree to if negotiations are ever to be
resumed. There are many possible explanations for his behavior. After
repeated rounds of negotiations with Israeli leaders over the last two
decades, he may simply have lost faith in ever reaching an agreement
with Israel. He knew the Palestinians' demands and was familiar with the
limits of what Israel could concede. In fact, back in 2009, he revealed
to Jackson Diehl of The Washington Post that he turned down Ehud
Olmert's final proposal because the gaps were still too wide to conclude
a peace treaty.
Looking at internal
Palestinian politics, real negotiations with Israel in any case would
also require Palestinian concessions. Yet since 2006, Hamas has become a
growing force in Palestinian political life. With the demise of the
regime of President Hosni Mubarak, in particular, Hamas' advantages over
Mahmoud Abbas have grown, further diminishing his room for maneuver.
Indeed, after coming under attack from Hamas leader, Ismail Hanniyeh,
the Palestinian Authority quickly backtracked from Abbas' interview on
Channel 2 with Udi Segal, which was being interpreted in Israel as
though he had compromised the Palestinian demand for a "right of
return," by saying that he personally would not go back to live in
Safed. In short, the last thing that Mahmoud Abbas needs at this point
are real negotiations with Israel.
Looking at the way
Israel and the Palestinians have acted over the last decade and a half
it is clear that they have each been driven by two very different kinds
of diplomatic logic. On the one hand, Israelis from the main political
parties have been consumed with how to make negotiations work. They have
tried to understand what the Palestinians need to reach an agreement
and have frequently made concessions up front before sitting down with
the other side. They used language as a confidence-building measure with
the other side.
Thus when the
Palestinians declared that they must obtain a full withdrawal from the
West Bank to the 1967 lines, unfortunately, there have been a number of
Israeli politicians who thought they should offer the equivalent
territory, so that the Palestinians obtain the same amount of land
regardless of where the final border is located. This kind of diplomatic
flexibility was also used to prove a politician bona fide as a
peacemaker with the Israeli public and with international elites.
However, by following
this kind of thinking, long-standing Israeli diplomatic positions have
been badly eroded and international expectations raised about the extent
to which Israeli will concede. This approach involved ignoring U.N.
resolutions, like U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, that supported
Israel's territorial claims as well as past U.S. guarantees that Israel
would not have to withdraw to the 1967 lines.
On the other hand, the
Palestinians were driven by an entirely different political logic. They
did not feel that they had to prove to anyone the sincerity of their
commitment to peacemaking. They did not have to take into account
Israeli positions, thus while formal Israeli positions over the last
decade and a half moved significantly, the Palestinians did not move one
inch.
Moreover, Abbas felt
confident enough to adopt a unilateralist strategy already in early 2009
while Olmert was still in power. In January, his minister of justice
turned to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to get its prosecutor
to already designate the Palestinian Authority as a state, which would
allow the ICC to have jurisdiction in cases of Palestinian claims
against Israeli officers. Undoubtedly, he already had his eyes on the
U.N. doing the same.
Abbas also understood
that part of the unilateralist strategy involved a long-term effort to
win increasing Western backing for the positions he was advancing. That
is why he never gave up on using the U.N. to adopt hostile resolutions
against Israel, even during the height of the peace process in the
1990s. His advisers specifically say that Abbas put in a reference to
the 1967 lines in the recent U.N. General Assembly resolution because of
this "war of ideas" he was conducting. It was important to them to
counter the Israeli claim that the territories are disputed.
Abbas' war of ideas
also involved elements of delegitimization of Israel, especially
statements that denied the Jewish historical connection to Jerusalem and
the State of Israel. An official Palestinian Authority book published
this year insisted that the word "colonialist" be used when describing
Israel, otherwise "the Zionist endeavor" will be turned from a "racist"
project into "an endeavor for self-definition and independence for the
Jewish people." For the Palestinian side, words were not used as
"confidence-building measures" but as instruments to be employed for
political warfare.
Thus at every
opportunity, Palestinian spokesmen hammered this point. Just recently,
Nabil Shaath wrote an opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph against the
Balfour Declaration, ninety-five years after it was issued, arguing:
"Balfour, on behalf of Britain, promised Palestine — over which Britain
had no legal right — to a people who did not even live there." The
Palestinians, he concluded, were a "victim of British colonialism." In
his twisted analysis, that was the context for the birth of Israel.
Shaath was not trying to reach out to the Israeli side to make peace,
but rather to fully discredit its national rights.
Currently, Israel's
problem is that it is being forced to suddenly change its diplomacy
after years of talking about how to make negotiations work. If in the
past there has been an Israeli reluctance to spell out explicitly what
Israel's territorial requirements for its security are, that will now
have to change.
After all, how can
Israel suddenly annex those areas in the future if Abbas decides to
formally declare a state in an effort to alter the legal status of the
West Bank right up to the 1967 lines? The Palestinian upgrade initiative
at the U.N. did not go that far and did not alter the situation on the
ground so far. But what if Abbas goes further down this path? What was
thought to be helpful in the context of negotiations actually negates
Israeli interests in a unilateralist scenario, which the Palestinians
appear to have decided to adopt.
Moreover, Israel cannot
wage an international struggle against a withdrawal to the 1967 lines,
unless it explains why that would be a disaster for Israel's future.
Finally, as seen this week, it is hard to get international acquiescence
to Israeli construction over the Green Line, even if it is confined to
the settlement blocs, unless it is made clear repeatedly that there are
parts of the West Bank from which Israel will not withdraw.
Dore Gold
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=3020
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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