Secretary of State John Kerry took an unprecedented step for any US administration in directly blaming Israel for the near failure of the eight-month-long Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations sponsored by the Obama administration.
In an appearance before the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Kerry attributed this virtual disastrous ending to Israel’s decision to build 700 new apartments for illegal Jewish colonists in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem where Palestinians hope to establish their capital. His second point was Israel’s refusal to release the last batch of Palestinian prisoners as promised under an agreement sponsored by the US.
Obviously, and regrettably to appear even-handed, Kerry criticised the Palestinian National Authority for applying to join 15 international agencies, a move seen intended to win over unilateral international recognition of Palestinian statehood. But the secretary of state ought to have been cognisant of the fact that this Palestinian action was in response to Israel’s failure to live up to its commitment to release the imprisoned Palestinians, most of whom have been behind bars for more than two decades.
What the Palestinian leadership has not done, despite the fact that most Palestinians would want them to do, is to apply to other international conventions including the International Criminal Court (ICC). Had they done that Tel Aviv could then be sued for alleged war crimes committed after the Israeli occupation in 1967 of the West Bank and East Jerusalem where more than a half million illegal Israel colonists are present there.
Kerry had said if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas opted to join these UN agencies “he’s automatically in them tomorrow”. If Palestinians went down this path, he added, they could “make life miserable for Israel”.
But Abbas promised that he is still willing to pursue the negotiations which are scheduled to end on April 29, unless there is an agreement to proceed beyond this deadline, a much anticipated step.
What Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is up to nowadays is anyone’s guess. Nehemia Shtrasler, a columnist with the liberal Israeli daily Haaretz writes: “His goal is to stay in the [occupied Palestinian] territories forever. All the rest is tactics. On one occasion, he endorses the two-state solution in a speech at Bar-Ilan University; on another, he freezes construction; on another, he sits down for talks, and on yet another, he blows those talks up. All means are fair to buy time, ‘because time is on our side.’ Every day that passes means gaining one more home and one more tree, one more road and one more family, and the more [colonists] there are, the harder it will be to evacuate them. After all, at one time, there was no ‘consensus’ about keeping the [colony] blocs. Now there is. Tomorrow there will also be a consensus that ‘there is no partner,’ and we will all join the Likud party,” which Netanyahu runs.”
She continued: “So he had no problem going back to the negotiating table. That is part of the tactics: sitting down, talking, discussing and exchanging opinions ad infinitum. It is good for lowering the internal pressure, and the external pressure as well.”
What seems to be a more logical step for the Israelis at present is to call for new elections since the current government has many right-wing political parties that seem unwilling to compromise. On the other side of the coin, a growing number of Palestinians are preferring a one-state solution since the Israelis are still usurping more Palestinian territory whereby their projected state is nowadays less than one-fifth of Palestine in 1948.
Furthermore, Abbas seems concerned that there may be serious financial problems in the likely turbulent days ahead with both Israel and even the United States. He was scheduled to report yesterday to an emergency Arab League session in Cairo, urging unanimous Arab political and financial support for fear that Israel may not yield an estimated $100 million (Dh367.3 million) a month it collects in customs and tax revenues, and the United States may withhold its $450 million in financial aid.
However, the deputy secretary-general of the Arab League, Ahmad Bin Helli, said in a statement before the meeting that “we still believe the US role could help push the negotiations forward, which at the end could advance to a just peace based on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as a capital, as well as finding solutions to substantial issues, including the [Palestinian] refugees, prisoners, water, borders and the final-status issues”.
If the days ahead are not promising, there is no doubt that the Palestinians will push ahead for UN membership in the very near future.
George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com
