If the Palestinian-Israeli peace process were a basketball game, both sides would be called for stalling. There’s a lot of trash talk going on but no serious conversation. But it isn’t a basketball game; it’s a blame game. Neither side seems seriously interested in returning to the peace table; they’re just going through the motions to impress their fans.
It’s a lot like last week’s budget battle in Washington; the real issue wasn’t what’s best for the country but who gets blamed when it all goes south.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says he won’t talk with the Israeli prime minister until Benjamin Netanyahu freezes all construction, including in Jerusalem, and agrees that the 1949 armistice lines will be the basis for negotiating borders.
“You kill, we build” became Netanyahu’s mantra after last month’s brutal murders of a settler family. Moreover, he won’t agree to the 1949 lines as reference point because that would cost him his best bargaining chip.
Both leaders are bluffing and both know it, but neither is interested in calling the other out.
Abbas’ real strategy isn’t to coax Bibi to the table but to bypass him entirely by going to the United Nations General Assembly in September to seek formal recognition and full membership for the state of Palestine. He has the votes in a lopsided General Assembly but he knows that strategy risks fatally damaging a negotiated agreement — the only solution Israel is likely to recognize.
To foil Abbas’ plan, Netanyahu is coming to Washington next month to speak to the annual AIPAC policy conference and he may also address the Congress. Both will give him friendlier receptions than he can expect at the U.N. or even the Knesset, where support for vigorous Israeli pursuit of peace appears greater than on Capitol Hill. That’s why he is expected to unveil his peace initiative here, where he won’t get hammered from the right for even raising the subject or from the left for being too timid.
Ha’aretz columnist Ari Shavit said Israel needs “a preemptive diplomatic strike” to head off international recognition of the Palestinian state.
Facing growing pressure at home and abroad to prove he is serious about wanting peace, Netanyahu has told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he is preparing his own peace initiative. President Shimon Peres played advance man when he lunched at the White House last week to assure President Barack Obama that Netanyahu is serious this time.
As Netanyahu works on his speech, reports out of the prime minister’s circle and other Jerusalem sources
suggest some likely elements.
There will be the usual rhetoric: “Nobody wants peace more than I do, and I’m ready to sit down and talk unconditionally, but I can’t when the other side refuses, demands all the concessions in advance, does nothing about incitement and can’t decide who’s in charge, the moderates or the terrorists. And don’t forget the whole Arab world is in turmoil, and that requires caution and not hasty decisions, and Iran still wants to wipe us off the map. We can’t make peace with a bifurcated Palestinian movement, but Fatah-Hamas reconciliation will kill any chances for peace.”
Details will be sparse. Look for a limited transfer of territory to the P.A., redeployment of troops from large parts of the West Bank, greater responsibility for P.A. security forces, a long-term IDF presence in the Jordan Valley, removal of some illegal outposts but no settlements, recognition of a provisional Palestinian state with limited sovereignty and interim borders and final status to be discussed after an extended period of adjustment.
And it will be promptly rejected by the Palestinians and most everyone else as too little, too late. And Netanyahu knows it.
Bibi’s strongest card is Abbas’ refusal to accept his offer of immediate, unconditional talks, but the Palestinian leader can shrug that off because he has seen Israel’s international standing plummet on Netanyahu’s watch, and Bibi can’t blame that on Obama, Iran, the Arabs, jihadists or European anti-Semites.
It is no secret that many world leaders seriously question whether Netanyahu is serious about making peace. He must change their minds if he expects them to reject Palestinian unilateral moves at the United Nations in September. Obama has already declared his strong opposition to Abbas taking the U.N. route, but will he want to stand alone?
Moreover, Netanyahu calculates Obama is preoccupied with two-and-a-half wars abroad, a bigger budget battle at home and a tough election coming up, so he won’t have time or inclination to make any dramatic moves on the peace front much before 2013.
He may be overconfident.
“Time is not on Israel’s side,” warned former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk. “This would be a good time for the Israeli leadership to take the initiative.”
ADL National Director Abe Foxman agreed: “Ninety percent of American Jews would want the prime minister to take some kind of initiative.”
In other words, stop stalling. It’s time for a full-court press.
Douglas M. Bloomfield is the president of Bloomfield Associates Inc., a Washington, D.C., lobbying and consulting firm. He spent nine years as the legislative director and chief lobbyist for AIPAC.