Another Palestine peace process collapses

A US deadline for peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians passed on Tuesday without an agreement being reached.

Why was April 29 significant?

The effort by John Kerry, the US secretary of state, to get Israelis and Palestinians to peace talks set a deadline of nine months, which expired on Tuesday. In reality, however, the Israelis suspended talks last week over the agreement signed between the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the leadership of the Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza. The aim of the accord between the rival Palestinian factions was to produce a national unity government and new elections.

Kerry’s original aim was a deal that would set borders for a two-state solution. That was downgraded to the target of reaching a “framework agreement”. Yet even that was not achievable. Recent weeks had seen protracted haggling over the terms for an extension to the talks. These included proposals for the US to release the jailed American-Jewish spy Jonathan Pollard as a sweetener to encourage the Israelis to release a group of long-term Palestinian prisoners in their jails, whose fate had become a stumbling block.

For his part, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’ conditions for an extension were the release of the prisoners, a freeze on colony building by the Israelis and a commitment that the first three months of any talks would be spent discussing the final borders of a Palestinian state.

Who is to blame?

Kerry has blamed both sides, most recently last Friday in private comments made in Washington when he suggested that a change of the leadership either in Israel or Palestine could provide the impetus for a breakthrough.

The talks, however, foundered on the failure of a deal made nine months ago under which the Palestinians suspended moves to join international bodies and treaties steps towards recognition of Palestine as a de facto state in exchange for the release of four groups of long-term prisoners held in Israeli jails. Those prisoners, 14 of them Palestinian citizens of Israel, had all been in Israeli jails since before the 1993 Oslo Accord. Before the release of the fourth group, the Israelis asked the Palestinian side to agree to an extension of talks.

Both sides blame the other for bad faith in the negotiations. Following the Israeli refusal to release the final group of prisoners, Abbas responded by reinstating his suspended bid to apply to join a series of international bodies. Last week he initiated reconciliation talks with Hamas, which triggered Israeli suspension of the talks.

On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has had to contend with rightwing coalition partners, including a faction of his own Likud party, who have threatened to force a crisis over the talks. Abbas has also faced political problems. Another area of friction as figures released by Peace Now underlined on Tuesday has been the continuing surge in Israeli colony activity in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. There have been plans or tenders for 13,851 new housing units during the nine months of the talks that, Palestinians argue demonstrated the lack of willingness on the Israeli side to reach a deal.

Does this mean there will be another intifada?

Although there have been warnings, not least from Kerry, that failure risked a return to violence, the consensus appears to be against a third intifada, or uprising, unless triggered by a specific event, perhaps over the contentious issue of Jewish visitation rights and prayer on the Haram Al Sharif in occupied Jerusalem. Abbas has repeatedly insisted that resistance to Israeli occupation should be non-violent in recognition that the militarised Second Intifada, including a campaign of suicide bombings, was counterproductive.

What happens next?

On the Palestinian side, the next steps appear already mapped out with the next group of international bodies at which Abbas will seek recognition being identified and further efforts to create a technocratic national unity government supported by Hamas within a month or so. The composition of that government, and the degree of Hamas’ involvement, will be closely watched by the US, EU and Western governments that give financial support to the PA, not least because Hamas does not recognise the right of Israel to exist. Abbas has told Kerry that any new government would respect previous commitments made by the PLO, but that interpretation is likely to be challenged by both the Israelis and supporters in the US Congress.

Following Abbas’ renewed efforts to seek international recognition, the Israelis have threatened the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) with punitive sanctions that are likely to be widened. One target that has been mooted is the tax and customs revenues that the Israelis collect on the PNA’s behalf. Because the PNA owes money for electricity supply to the Israelis that may be deducted.

Other members of Netanyahu’s cabinet have suggested the Israelis should act unilaterally to impose their own borders and annex large parts of the West Bank, among them the economy minister, Naftali Bennett, the hawkish, hi-tech tycoon and head of the nationalist “Jewish Home” party, which has always opposed negotiations with the Palestinians.

The civil defence minister, Gilad Erdan, a member of the powerful security cabinet and close to Netanyahu, told Army Radio on Sunday he would recommend that “preparations begin to annex Area C lands, those places in which, in any event, a Jewish population lives,” referring to the area of the West Bank which is under full Israeli security control. Despite the threat, however, most observers believe a wholesale annexation would be unlikely because of the almost certain international fallout for the Israelis.

Finally, Kerry has made abundantly clear his own deep frustration with the peace process, not least in his reported remarks, later retracted warning that the Israelis risked becoming an “apartheid state” without a negotiated two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. Kerry later apologised for the comment, but with Ukraine and other issues demanding attention, he is almost certain to withdraw, in the short-term at least, which would suggest little prospect of any meaningful moves in the months ahead.

— The Guardian News & Media Ltd