Israeli intransigence is the only hope
While Palestinian negotiators are weak and prone to sign any peace
deal, Israel's current leaders look set to reject every solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, writes Ghada Karmi*
Al-Ahram: 2 - 8 September 2010
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875I
ssue No. 1014
Opinion
------------------------------------------------------------------------
What an irony that the Palestinians' archenemy, Israel, should also
be their saviour. There is a real danger that the Israeli-Palestinian peace
talks could yield a botched deal that falls far short of the requirements of
international law or elemental justice, and sets back the cause of Palestine
for decades if not forever.
Fortunately, this will not happen as long as Israel's obduracy can be relied
on to save the Palestinians from such a dreadful outcome.
Time and again, when Israel was thrown a lifeline by its Arab
neighbours that could have ensured its legitimacy and security, its folly
and greed lost it those opportunities. But, since those same opportunities
came at great cost to Palestinian rights, Israel's obduracy had the perverse
effect of safeguarding them. All peace proposals after 1967 were based on
maintaining Israel as a regional power and forcing the Palestinians to
settle for less than they were entitled to. They were repeatedly offered
paltry settlements that in effect legitimised Israel's hold on a majority of
their land and undermined their right of return. Had Israel agreed, the
Palestinian cause would have been lost long ago.
But it never happened. Israel foiled each proposal and, though
robbing the Palestinians of ever more land and resources, the basics of the
Palestinian case remained intact. When in the 1979 Camp David negotiations
Egypt sought to give the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza a basis for
a future independent state, Israel refused. As it also spurned a succession
of Arab peace proposals, most recently the Saudi plan of 2002, offering
Israel peace and recognition in return for a Palestinian state. And when, in
the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestine Liberation Organisation finally
capitulated and accepted Israel's occupation of Palestine's remnants so long
as it would end and enable the establishment of an independent state on this
morsel, Israel responded by taking more land.
Decades of Israeli rejection and the realties of Israel's power with
unstinting Western support finally persuaded the Palestinian leadership to
settle for what it could in this hostile environment. The Palestinians' just
and legal demands have been downgraded beyond recognition. Where once,
Palestinians fought against their dispossession and the theft of their land,
and for their right to reparation and return, today's browbeaten leadership
has settled for a set of aspirations that bear little relation to rights or
justice. It is this defeated leadership, reportedly under US pressure to
attend or have Palestinian Authority funding withdrawn, which will take part
in the upcoming peace talks in Washington.
The aim of the talks is a two-state settlement that will supposedly
end the conflict. The parameters are familiar from past (and failed) peace
proposals, and are grossly unfair to the Palestinians. Historic Palestine
will be partitioned roughly along the 1967 lines into a Jewish state on 78
per cent of the land plus an undefined area of the West Bank also to become
Israeli, and a Palestinian state on whatever remains, less than 20 per cent.
How much of East Jerusalem will go to the Palestinians has not been
determined, and there will be no return of refugees to Israel. Israel's
prime minister has set conditions before the talks. Israel will keep the
Jordan Valley, Jerusalem will remain Israel's undivided capital, and the
Palestinian state must be unarmed and its borders and airspace under
surveillance. And nothing will happen unless the Palestinians first
recognise Israel as Jewish and guarantee its security.
Despite these statements, indications are that Israel is not serious
about a peace deal. Its moratorium on settlement building, which in any case
excluded East Jerusalem, will end 27 September, after which it will resume
with vigour. Israeli commentators are sceptical about Netanyahu's
intentions. Moty Cristal, an Israeli past prime ministerial advisor,
believes that Netanyahu "is buying time, looking for ways to stay away from
action on the ground". No reasonable outcome can be expected from this
situation. Nonetheless, President Obama, with mid-term elections looming,
lacking a foreign policy success, and focused on Iran, is determined to see
a result.
How will this happen within the constraints of a strong Israel that
cannot be pressured and a weak, unrepresentative Palestinian leadership that
excludes Gaza and Hamas? And since Israel's position rejects all the main
Palestinian requirements -- land, Jerusalem, refugees -- progress, if any,
can only be made by demanding more concessions from the weaker Palestinian
side. This will mean less land available for the putative state, making it
unviable. Hence Jordan and Egypt's presence at the talks to work out a deal
that provides an extension for the West Bank into Jordan, and Gaza into
Egypt. No other permutation is possible, within these parameters. Israel
will lose very little, but even this may be too much for its "Greater
Israel" proponents.
If this scenario, or some version of it, were to happen, and the
Palestinian side, powerless and weary, were somehow to be bamboozled into
agreeing, it would destroy the Palestinian cause and wreak untold havoc
within Palestinian ranks. The fear of such an outcome haunts many
Palestinians, who neither trust nor respect the Palestinian negotiators, and
think they might sign away Palestinians rights. This may be unfair, but they
may be reassured that if there is any possibility of a peace deal emerging
from Washington, the Israeli side, if not theirs, will never let it happen.
* The writer is author of Married to Another Man: Israel's dilemma
in Palestine .
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