jerusalem | U.S.-Israel tension over President Barack Obama’s endorsement of Israel’s pre-1967 borders is obscuring a flip side of the Middle East coin: The recent speeches by Obama contained difficult challenges for the Palestinians, as well.
Speaking at the AIPAC policy conference May 22, Obama reiterated his request that the Palestinians drop their plans to appeal for recognition at the United Nations this fall, and — as he did in another Mideast speech May 19 — raised tough questions about an emerging Palestinian unity government that is to include the militant group Hamas.
He also called on Palestinians to recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland, essentially requiring them to accept that most refugees will be denied the “right of return” to what is now Israel.
Nabil Shaath, an aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said Palestinians “will escalate our diplomatic efforts to get the [U.N.] recognition of the Palestinian state.” He said negotiations with Israel have become pointless after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Obama’s call to base peace talks on the pre-1967 boundaries.
Abbas did not immediately sound off on the statehood plan, but he did defend his new unity government with Hamas, saying Obama does not understand the accord.
“There is a wrong understanding of the government, that it is a power-sharing government between Fatah and Hamas,” Abbas said. He said the two sides were working to form “a technocratic government.”
Jordan’s King Abdullah II, whom Abbas met with May 21, “affirmed” the Hamas-Fatah agreement, according to a palace statement, saying it represents a “positive step” toward uniting the Palestinian people and enabling them to regain their “legitimate rights to establish a state.”
Abbas aide Saeb Erekat insisted the world must embrace the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation, meant to end the split that has left rival governments in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Palestinians claim both areas, along with east Jerusalem, for their future state, and Erekat said there can be no independence without reconciliation.
In his May 19 speech, Obama did not explicitly mention Palestinian refugees, another explosive issue in the conflict. But by saying a final peace deal must recognize “Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people,” he appeared to back the Israeli position.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians either fled or were expelled during the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948. Today, the surviving refugees, with their descendants, number several million people.
The Palestinians claim they have the right to return to their family’s lost properties. Israel rejects the principle, saying it would mean the end of the country as a Jewish democracy. Israeli leaders say the refugees should be entitled to compensation and resettled in a future Palestinian state to be established next to Israel, or absorbed where they now live.
The issue is so central to Palestinian policy and society that no Palestinian leader can be seen as abandoning the rights of the refugees, particularly at a time when peace efforts are at a standstill and so many other difficult issues, such as borders and the final status of Jerusalem, remain unresolved.
Shaath said recognition of Israel as a Jewish state would not only sell out the refugees, but potentially could open the door to Israel expelling its roughly 1.5 million Arab citizens. That idea has never been seriously raised in Israel.
He said the Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist, without any reference to national character, should be sufficient.
“We recognize Israel as a state,” he said. “It’s a recognition of a state to a state.”
Obama warned in his May 19 speech that “symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won’t create an independent [Palestinian] state.”
And referring to Hamas in his May 22 address to AIPAC, Obama stated: “No country can be expected to negotiate with a terrorist organization sworn to its destruction … We will hold the Palestinians accountable for their actions and their rhetoric.”
On May 25, Abbas dismissed the outline of a peace deal that Netanyahu presented to Congress a day earlier, reportedly saying it was filled with “falsehoods and distortions.”
“He did not say anything we can build on positively,” Abbas reportedly told leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organiz-ation and Fatah.
Abbas said that unless the Israeli prime minister softens his stance before September, he will be setting his sights on U.N. recognition of a Palestinian state.
However, Palestinian officials did say this week that they would ask the U.N. Security Council and the Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., the U.N., Europe and Russia — to call for renewed negotiations based on Obama’s border proposals, with a September deadline for a deal.
In his speech to Congress, Netanyahu said Abbas must tear up his reconciliation deal with Hamas before any negotiations can begin. Abbas has said that he, not Hamas, would determine Palestinian negotiating positions.
Abbas has refused in the past to negotiate with Netanyahu unless the Israeli leader freezes settlement construction in the territories. Netanyahu has declined to do so, at most slowing construction in some areas for 10 months last year.
Dale Gavlak and Karin Laub of the Associated Press contributed to this report.