by Daniel Pipes
If low-level diplomats, not prime ministers, negotiate with Abbas and the assorted other villains and self-styled Palestinian leaders, the world would be constantly reminded not of a sham parallel but of the vast moral and power gulf dividing the two sides.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to visit Jerusalem but not Ramallah has prompted much comment.
The expectation of
equal treatment goes back to the Oslo Accords' signing in September
1993, when Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, representing his
government, shook hands with Yasser Arafat, the much-despised chairman
of the Palestine Liberation Organization, on the White House lawn. No
one found that strange or inappropriate then, but things look different
nearly a quarter-century later.
As the elected head of a
democratic and sovereign government, Rabin never should have consented
to Arafat, the henchman of an unofficial, dictatorial, murderous
organization, being given equal status with himself.
Rather, he should have
stayed aloof. Appearing together created a dysfunctional illusion of
equivalence that over subsequent decades has became assumed, ingrained
and unquestioned. This false equivalence has became even more inaccurate
with time, as Israel has gone from one success to another and the
Palestinian Authority has brought on a reign of ever-deeper anarchy,
dependency, and repression.
It's not just that
Israel stands among the world leaders in science, technology, the
humanities, the arts, military power and intelligence capabilities, not
just that its economy is 25 times larger than the Palestinian one;
Israel is a land where the rule of law applies to all (at one point
until recently, a former president and a former prime minister were
simultaneously sitting in prison) and individual rights are not just
promised but delivered. Meanwhile, the head of the Palestinian
Authority, presently in the 12th year of his four-year term, has been
unable to prevent both creeping anarchy in the West Bank and a rogue
group from taking over in Gaza, half of his putative domain.
Some would defend
Rabin's self-imposed humiliation by arguing that he sought to strengthen
Arafat and the PLO through pomp and pageantry. If this was indeed the
plan, it backfired spectacularly. Rather than use the prestige of the
Oslo signing ceremony to build a constituency that accepts the Jewish
state and end the Palestinians' conflict with it, Arafat exploited his
heightened standing to develop new resources to reject Zionism and
attack Israel. Palestinian embassies popped up worldwide to delegitimize
Israel, and Palestinians killed more Israelis in the five years after
the Oslo signing than in the 15 years before it. In other words, Rabin
recklessly put faith in a historic and barbaric enemy changing not just
tactics but goals. Israel has paid a heavy price for this error.
Rather than the prime
minister, the Israeli standing with Arafat on the White House lawn
should have been a mere second secretary from the Israeli Embassy in
Norway. That would have delivered the necessary signal about Arafat's
place in the diplomatic hierarchy. To be sure, that would have meant no
Nobel Peace Prize for Rabin, but in retrospect, would it not have been
better to skip celebrating so exuberantly a flawed, doomed, and
destructive agreement?
For good measure, the
signing ceremony should have taken place in modest Oslo, not grand
Washington, the hometown of the world's only superpower.
Had this precedent been
set in 1993, today's false parity between Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas would not
exist and the true imbalance of the Palestinian-Israeli relationship
might be more clearly seen. If low-level diplomats, not prime ministers,
negotiate with Abbas and the assorted other villains and self-styled
Palestinian leaders, the world would be constantly reminded not of a
sham parallel but of the vast moral and power gulf dividing the two
sides.
Is it too late? Can
Netanyahu or a future Israeli prime minister escape the indignity of
having to meet as equals with the leader of a gangster enterprise?
No, it's not too late.
Netanyahu could eloquently explain that he will meet his legitimate
counterparts, but he will leave it to functionaries in the Foreign
Ministry to handle whoever the Palestinian Authority throws up.
Imagine the benefits of
such a step: Israel would gain in stature while the fetid nature of the
PA would be exposed. American presidents would lose interest in the
"ultimate deal." Other assorted would-be mediators and do-gooders would
have a much harder time trying to revive a quarter-century of botched
negotiations.
I suggest Israeli prime ministers leave "peace-processing" with Palestinian hooligans to low-ranking staff.
Daniel Pipes is president of the Middle East Forum. Twitter @DanielPipes.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=19363
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