Washington’s attempts to shepherd Israelis and Palestinians into a so-called framework deal — yet another road map towards ending their conflict — appear to be running out of road.
Almost nine months of intense diplomacy, led by John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, may have hit a wall last week. Given the way he and his boss, President Barack Obama, have managed this affair, it is surprising this has not happened sooner.
The ostensible new roadblock concerns prisoners. Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, came back to the negotiating table even though Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, refused yet again to freeze colony building, thus allowing Israel to continue eating up the shrinking territory over which the Palestinians are negotiating to eventually build their state.
Abbas, seen by admirers as a moderate and by critics as a quisling, has abjured radical siren calls for resistance in favour of a negotiated solution. He has nothing to show his people. He looks weak and discredited.
To offset this, Israel was persuaded to release 104 Palestinian long-term prisoners. The Netanyahu government’s refusal to hand over the last batch on the due date precipitated the current crisis. In retaliation, Abbas last week signed articles of accession to 15 multilateral treaties, investing Palestine with some of the international attributes of a state — which he had promised the US to defer while negotiations continued.
The prisoners in question were supposed to have been released 20 years ago as part of the Oslo accords, at the high water mark for hopes that these two peoples could close a peace deal. They were not.
To get Netanyahu to do so now, it seems Washington is prepared to release Jonathan Pollard, jailed for life for selling US military secrets to its Israeli ally, a case Netanyahu has championed. This kind of reaction — and it is reactive — fits a pattern of the US consistently over-rewarding a recalcitrant ally, as well as being snubbed by Israel for its pains.
In 2009, for example, it was Obama who blinked when Netanyahu simply refused to halt colonisation of Palestinian land. Instead, in 2010, the US president offered Israel the Jordan Valley — a big chunk of the occupied West Bank that is not his to give — in return for a short pause in colonies building. Netanyahu, in any event, refused.
Future could be bleak
It is not just that Washington is behaving more like a crooked lawyer than an honest broker, bullying the weaker Palestinian party into keeping talks going while Israel continues to colonise illegally occupied territory.
The Israeli tail is being allowed to wag the US dog. Netanyahu cannot be losing much sleep over reports that Obama is returning to the talks to back up Kerry. It is hard to see what difference this can make while the US concentrates on process rather than substance.
Far from pushing Israel to roll back the occupation enough to enable Palestinians to build a viable state on the occupied West Bank and Gaza, with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital, it looks as though the US is planning to hand Israel almost all the colony blocs, about three-quarters of occupied East Jerusalem, and the Jordan Valley.
In addition, the Palestinians are being pressed to recognise Israel as a Jewish state — rather than, as they have long since done, recognise the state of Israel and its right to exist. Agreement to that could compromise a negotiated deal on the future of nearly 5 million Palestinian refugees, prejudice the position of that fifth of the population of Israel proper that is Palestinian by origin, as well as require Palestinians to repudiate their history.
Why any US official dreamt all this might work is a puzzle. It seeks compromise not between Israel and the Palestinians but between factions of Israel’s irredentist right — which means the end of a two-state solution.
Unless the US is prepared to push for a real compromise, and a real state of Palestine, Israel’s future could be bleak. Kerry himself, but also Israeli and European leaders, have warned that failure will chip away at Israel’s hard-won legitimacy, opening the door to an international boycott movement that is already gathering force - a much greater threat to Israel than the Palestinians could ever muster.
Financial Times
