Netanyahu must spell out his idea for a peace deal

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu erroneously believes that his ongoing, self-defeating threats will cripple the Palestinian leadership from seeking additional gains in their bid to win international recognition through the powerful United Nations and its various organisations.

Since Israel’s significant expansion, as a result of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war that led to its occupation of 78 per cent of the former British mandate over the Holy Land, the Israeli leadership, particularly Netanyahu, have not come up with any reasonable peaceful solution to the decades-long conflict that actually started in 1948.

In turn, 22 Arab governments more than a decade ago had come up with the so-called Arab Peace Initiative and the current Palestinian leadership has repeatedly underlined that the projected Palestinian state would include only the West Bank, which is now occupied by some 500 Israeli colonists, the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied Arab East Jerusalem. (Under the 1948 UN Partition Plan, the projected Palestinian state was allotted only 45 per cent of the British mandate).

Netanyahu’s continued foot-dragging in this respect indicates that western nations — including the US under President Barack Obama, a firm supporter of Israel — have been turning a blind eye towards the Zionist regime. But Nehemia Shtrasler of the Israeli liberal newspaper Haaretz hit the nail on the head when she wrote that Netanyahu believes that “Israel doesn’t need a peace agreement in order to grow and thrive”. In other words, she added, Netanyahu “plans to ‘manage’ the conflict, not solve it”, warning that “the problem is that managing the conflict is a more expensive policy that will necessarily lead to an economic collapse”. Shtrasler added: “Another economic cost of Netanyahu’s policy of torpedoing negotiations is our deteriorating international standing.”

What is also contributing to the Israeli prime minister’s woes is his mistaken belief that he can get away with any step he takes — thanks to his American defenders, official or unofficial. For example, more than 10 days ago, he gave preliminary approval for the construction of 243 colony homes on occupied West Bank land that Israel annexed to occupied Jerusalem and it has advanced plans for 270 more colony homes in the same area. The land in question, explained the New York Times, was “annexed to [occupied] Jerusalem in a move never recognised internationally”.

What has been appalling this week has been a column by Dennis B. Ross, now a counsellor at the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, after he served as US chief negotiator for Arab-Israeli issues from 1993 to 2001.

The column, titled ‘Stop giving Palestinians a pass’, which appeared last Monday in the New York Times, was severely criticised by other prominent American writers on the Middle East, including Peter Beinart, Phil Weiss and Donald Johnson.

Aaron David Miller, a former US State Department official who had worked for years with Ross, concluded in a book that Ross “had an inherent tendency to see the world of Arab-Israeli politics first from Israel’s vantage point rather than that of the Palestinians”. Another former senior State Department official who had requested anonymity had said “Ross’s bad habit is preconsultation with the Israelis”.

To cite but one criticism, Beinart, writing in Haaretz, noted that in one of Ross’s points — titled ‘The Palestinians are never held responsible’ — he urges in his New York Times column that ‘It’s time to stop giving the Palestinians a pass,’ which “implies that they’ve been getting one so far”.

“Really?” Beinart responded, recalling that “in 2007, the United States halted direct aid to the Palestinian [National] Authority after Hamas ... won legislative elections. In 2001, Congress cut $200 million (Dh735.6 million) in aid after the Palestinian [National] Authority sought statehood recognition at the United Nations. Last summer, the House Appropriations Committees passed legislation cutting assistance to the Palestinian [National] Authority by the amount the Palestinian [National] Authority paid the families of prisoners in Israeli jails. And now that the Palestinians are applying to join the International Criminal Court, Congress is considering cutting off aid again.”

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Beinart concludes, “is tired of relying on the benevolence of Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama. He’s doing it the Zionist way. Were Dennis Ross in his place, I suspect he would too.”

The best thing Netanyahu can do to change the ugly political atmosphere in the Middle East at present is to spell out clearly his ideas about a Palestinian-Israeli settlement just like the Arabs and Palestinians have done. Primarily, he must publicly identify Israel’s borders in order to avoid a dead end.

George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He can be contacted at ghishmeh@gulfnews.com