Posted By Lara Friedman Friday, July 30, 2010 - 10:12 AM Share
Yesterday's decision by the Arab League to endorse direct
Israeli-Palestinian talks -- an endorsement that apparently is not, as some have
reported, conditioned on additional concrete assurances from the Obama administration -- increases the chances that President Abbas will at last test
the resolve of his counterpart regarding direct Israeli-Palestinian talks.
No, the counterpart I am referring to is not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
of Israel,
but President Barack Obama.
The Obama administration is pressuring Abbas to take a huge leap of faith and
enter direct talks despite pervasive doubts about Netanyahu's commitment to
negotiating peace. And the Obama administration has pressured the Arab
League to put its kosher stamp on such talks to make it harder for Abbas to
keep saying "no".
When Abbas and his Arab allies have asked President Obama for reassurances that
the talks won't end badly, President Obama is reportedly telling them,
including in a recent letter: trust me, I'll deliver Bibi.
Given these conditions, if Abbas agrees to talks -- as I believe he must -- he
should in the same breath throw down the gauntlet to Obama, making clear that
direct talks will be as much a test of US intentions and resolve as they are of
Israel's and the Palestinians'. He should make the case, publicly, that
he is trusting the US
to live up to its assurances. He should make explicit his expectation
that the US will not just sit by, impotently, if Israel engages in behavior that
is inimical to serious, productive, good-faith negotiations -- not unless the US
wants to be responsible for wasting what may be the last, best opportunity for
peace.
Abbas has good reasons to be worried about direct talks.
There is every reason to believe that Netanyahu is less interested in an
agreement and more interested in protracted negotiations that serve his
political interests, both domestically and internationally. One need only
look at the recently-surfaced video of Netanyahu talking to a group of West
Bank settlers in 2001 -- in which Netanyahu brags that he knows how to
manipulate the US and that he personally derailed Oslo -- to understand this
concern. Moreover, there is the fact that Netanyahu has assembled the most
right-wing coalition in Israel's
history -- including people like Benny Begin and Eli Yishai, both of whom are
dead-set against the kinds of steps Israel would have to take to get a
peace agreement.
Netanyahu's handling of proximity talks only strengthens concern that direct
negotiations won't be serious. By all accounts the Palestinians came to
proximity talks with a serious, professional negotiating team, with position
papers, and with concrete proposals regarding final status issues. Netanyahu, on the other hand, has yet to name a negotiating team. His representatives to the talks, rather than talking final-status
issues, have reportedly wasted everyone's time focusing on what Israel
can't do, instead of exploring what it can.
Abbas also has good reason to worry that once talks start his limits will be
tested with developments that will seriously embarrass him and further erode
his credibility. Abbas surely remembers Netanyahu's decision,
immediately after signing the Hebron Agreement, to approve construction of the
new Jerusalem settlement of Har Homa. And Abbas surely remembers that despite
the slap-in-the-face this decision represented to the US-backed peace process, Washington turned out to
be powerless to stop it.
And finally, and perhaps most importantly, Abbas would be a fool not to fear
that if direct talks fall apart, he will be blamed, regardless of the
circumstances. He cannot help but recall the experience at Camp David, where the Palestinians did not want to go
into direct talks and were quietly assured by the White House that whatever
happened, they would not be blamed. And when Camp
David collapsed, of course, they were. And Abbas cannot fail
to notice that some of the same players who blamed the Palestinians after Camp David's collapse, in a failed effort to help
then-Prime Minister Barak stave off an electoral defeat, are once again
involved in formulating White House policy.
Many are suggesting today that Abbas should agree to direct talks to call
Netanyahu's bluff, but if the day arrives when Netanyahu's game-playing and
provocations are turning direct talks into a farce, it will be the actions and
statements of the United States, not Abbas, that will determine whether
Netanyahu gets away with it. Given past experience, Abbas has good reason
to worry that on that day, rather than getting tough with Netanyahu, the Obama administration will pressure him to remain in talks, even at the loss of the
last shred of Abbas' personal credibility. Abbas has good reason to fear that,
should there be some act so egregious -- like approval of Jerusalem mayor Barkat's plan to "re-develop"
Silwan into a settlers' paradise at the expense of the Palestinian residents --
that he is compelled to suspend the talks, it will be Abbas, not Netanyahu, who
will end up being blamed for killing the peace process.
So let's be clear: Abbas' reluctance to say "yes" to direct talks is
understandable.
Yet despite all these reservations, the time has come for Abbas to stop saying "no"
and say "yes". The Arab League's decision to
support direct talks -- despite not getting additional concrete assurances from Washington -- will make
this a little easier for him to do.
But when he says "yes", it should be a smart "yes" -- one accompanied by an
unequivocal and unapologetic message that Washington must bear its fair share of
responsibility for the success or failure of the entire endeavor; a
message that if the Obama administration wants direct talks it will get them,
but their success or failure will depend in large part on the President's
readiness to live up to his assurances and not permit Prime Minister Netanyahu
to transform the talks into a diplomatic charade and a political exercise in
futility.
If the Palestinian leadership really wanted independent, they would be desperate to make decisions WITHOUT CONSULTING THE ARAB LEAGUE.
The fact that Abbas can't even have a bowel movement without approval from the Arab League just shows how worthless the Palestinians truly are. They are just Arabs, an invented people who will always be stateless, to be used as an eternal wedge against Israel.
Arab nations still have gotten over their fetish to destroy Israel. They failed conventional - now they'll go the diplomatic route.
Israel needs a real peace partner who actually wants peace. A sadat figure, not cronies like Fayed and Abbas which answer to the EU and AL, not the Palestinian people.
But this will never happen because the leftists in control will never move on from the settlement issue and put pressure on the Palestinians.
I'm very surprised that President Obama is taking a big gamble on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict just months away from congressional elections. Getting Mahmoud Abbas to the table is a great political victory in the short-term- especially when proximity talks were such a waste of time. But what happens if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu starts his old tricks again, thereby pressuring Abbas to terminate the negotiations to save a portion of his credibility? It would spell the end of a Democratically controlled U.S. Congress, and it would perhaps ruin Obama's foreign policy record a short two years before his reelection bid.
You know the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in bad shape when everyone- Netanyahu, Abbas, the Arab League, AIPAC, Republicans- are getting ready for the latest round of talks to fail.
The fact of the matter is that everyone's hands are pretty much tied. For political reasons, Netanyahu cannot satisfy the demands of the Palestinians shattering his own governing coalition and ruining his career. Mahmoud Abbas cannot blindly cave-in to U.S. demands without looking like an American stooge who is out of touch with the Palestinian population. And President Obama cannot afford to take a tough line with Israel without feeling the heat from AIPAC and the Republican Party back home.
With those types of conditions, how on earth are direct negotiations going to succeed? Without different players in the game and a different leadership on both sides, the answer is that they won't.
Please tell me of this old tricks. The only tricks I see is Obama breaking his campaign promise (united Jerusalem) and epic donations of the terrorist state of Gaza.
He is an armchair general, period. AIPAC is LIBERAL, not conservative. And it overwhelmingly supports Obama.
Can't pull the lobby card. Obama is the POTUS, the most powerful leader on this Earth. He is not some passive victim to a sinister lobby.
"Nevertheless, Walt is not pushing any conspiracy theory, he's shinning an unwelcome light on a powerful lobby. The NRA also has a "stranglehold" on Congress, but they can't charge their opponents with anti-Semitism. "
It seems accusing someone of antisemitism is more impolite than actually being antisemitic.
Simply substituting "Jew" for "Zionist" and Israel for "lobby" does not change the MESSAGE.
The Left is so detached from reality that they consider themselves immune from antisemitism. Even though Walt's book is nothing less than leftist scare tactics posing as "realism" - lumping every major israel group as part of some mythical lobby designed to take over america and control congress.
This isn't simply antisemitism, it is intellectual dishonesty. Numerous academics including Kramer and Dershowitz have destroyed the book without ever pulling the antisemitic card.
If Walt wants to be taken seriously he can't hide behind buzzwords and propaganda.
You want to debate? You better be open to accusations of antisemitism. It can't be any less dishonest than writing any group that expresses solidarity with Israel as part of an "Israel lobby."
What better way to play the victim by accusing muscular zionists of trying to silence you with cries of antisemitism?
Slamming AIPAC as neo-conservative is one of the dumbest mistakes Walt has made - confirming the thesis that he does not know what the fuck he is talking about.
AIPAC is hardcore and 100% leftist. Dershowitz is also a liberal (not right-wing, as Walt describes in his book).
Walt has been trying to split the Israel/Palestinian conflict between right and leftist spheres, but the reality is Israel enjoys bipartisan support. Support for Israel outnumbers support for Palestinians by a factor of 4. Now, you can blame the Israel lobby - or you can blame the Palestinians, for detonating their children and torching embassies.
The only thing Walt fanboys can respond to is empty charges of antisemitism, because like the Arab tribes they consider themselves victim to Israel's existence.
Is well and alive, especially in people who dismiss it as a smelly red herring. The nouveau anti-semitism masquerades as the deligitimization of Israel and everything she does.
Stop with the strawmans. Nobody is accusing Walt of antisemitism, but charges of antisemitism are serious and cannot be rebuffed with gaming semantics and victimhood.
Guess what troll? Antisemitism is alive and well, and most of it is in the form of demonization of Israel.
Trivilizing the holocaust, parroting Islamist propaganda, false analogies to Nazi Germany...eh, all antisemitism.
Zionist conspiracy? Antisemitic. Jews control America? Antisemitic.
Call a spade a spade. Muslim states have spent billions trying to fool the world with this bogus anti-zionist propaganda. Sovet Union designed it to justify their persecution of Jews. Of course, in the Soviet Union antisemitism didn't exist, it was "anti-zionism." But still, Jews were still sent to the gulags, couldn't own property, persecuted in communist universities and not allowed to leave their own country to Israel (refusniks).
This piece goes around in circles, undermining itself. You say that Abbas should give a"smart" yes with explicit caveats etc, but you've already pointed out hat he has no power over the Obama administration's ultimate decision on whether or not to force Netanyahu's hand, or blame Abbas for the almost inevitable eventual collapse of the talk. He can be as explicit as he wants in his demands, it won't make any difference.
"George H. Bush attempted to force the Israeli to the Peace Table in Madrid and ended up losing the election for a second term. No one comprehended that lesson more than his son, George W. Bush, who allowed the Israelis to run his foreign policy. George W. Bush lied to the Arabs about creating a Palestinian State for eight consecutive years and gave them the finger before leaving the White House."
You almost had me till you pulled the zionist lobby card.
Bush 1 was a classic Arabist looking to satisfy our Arab allies.
Since when is it any of our business to meddle in Israel/Palestine's affairs, eh?
The way the Arabist make demands you think they won 5 consecutive conflicts. They are not victims to a belligerent israel. THEY REJECTED PEACE FROM THE GET-GO, they LOST NUMEROUS WARS, now they depend on LEFTIST SCUM to justify their backwardness.
when i see americans lobby for israel enemies i wonder if they are true to america. maybe it's about time you GTFO out of america and move to victim arab states, if they are so righteous?????
Your low-rent scribbling cheapens this place. BTW, you have nothing true to tell in the first place. Muslims took over Jewish land and not vice versa. I won't write a long comment on the matter at hand. It's pointless. Last but not least, like many in your "community", you're long on bluster and short on delivery.
"You are the land thief who, most likely, left Brooklyn or Warsaw to steal the land from Palestinian farmer.
BTW, the last war that was won by Israel was in 1967; that is 43 years ago. Remember how 3000 Hezbollah fighters kicked your but and pushed you out of Lebanon in the year 2000. And Hezbollah kicked your but again in 2006.
And you have the ball to lecture Americans not to meddle in the Israeli internal affair. Well, why don’t you ask AIPAC to stop bribing our Congress on behalf of Israel?"
Funny you should say American - maybe you should by back to Europe and give your house back to the 12,000,000 natives you slaughtered.
You know those Native americans - life expectancy 50, living in abject poverty.
Meanwhile, Palestinians live to be 75 (higher than Egypt) and are more literate than every Islamic nation except Jordan (70% Palestinian).
And BTW, my family isn't from Poland - my family is Syrian and they were cleansed from their home in Damascus and sent packing to Israel.
My family lived in refugee camps for 5 years in Tel Aviv before getting a housing permit.
I love how the Pro-Palestinians decry the birth of Israel but they have no problems with the birth and British design of Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar...Make up your minds, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And no-one was complaining when the Ottomans took over the middle east. What about them? You're ok with them "stealing your land" because they are Muslim? What a bunch of B.S. coming out of these Pro-palestinian hypocrites.
The Ottoman Turks did not shoot and kill the Palestinian civilians to make them and then create illegal Jew only settlements on top of Palestinian villages.
The Ottoman Turks did not create Israel Donkey Force (IDF) like military check points to harass the Palestinian civilians.
The Ottoman Turks did not build Jew Apartheid Walls to divide Palestine into 20 different Banutustans.
If you are verbally and mentally challenged then look at this map here to open your eyes, this picuture is worth a 1000 Bantustans:
YOU MUST BE PROUD OF YOUR CRIMINAL HISTORY, STEIN.
“My family lived in refugee camps for 5 years in Tel Aviv before getting a housing permit”
Hey Stein,
“Stein” doesn’t sound like Syrian name, but it makes no difference whether you came to Israel from Brooklyn or from Syria. The question is: Do you know the name of the original Palestinian owner of the land in Tel Aviv, where you built your house?
In his book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, the Israel Historian, Ilan Pappe, documents that out of the 61,000 Palestinian Arabs who used to call Haifa home in 1947, only 3,566 Palestinians were allowed to stay after the creation of Israel in 1948. The rest were terrorized and driven out of their homes by the Jewish terror groups. Vacant Arab homes and properties were looted by the Zionist immigrants that just came from Europe. "
A) Tel Aviv was a JEWISH CITY founded BY JEWS. You do know Palestine was a swamp for about 5 centuries right?
No Arabs were displaced from Tel Aviv. And my real name isn't Avner Stein - I made it up, Avner (from the film munich) and stein because it's easier to pronounce than Halabieh.
You didn't respond to my post - where I diligently pointed out that YOU as an AMERICAN live on a country solely predicated on the exploitation and genocide of its indigenous population. Are you questioning Israel's legitimacy because 7 decades ~600k Arabs were displaced/expelled in a war they started?
Well well american - you didn't expell anyone. You just slaughtered them. Barack Obama was born in a settlement. You guys were seizing land well into the 1920s.
Meanwhile, 80% of Israel's population lives on land that was PURCHASED by the ZIONISTS before Israel's independence.
Funny how you ignore that TWICE as many Jews than Arabs were expelled - and yet you don't see us waging a revenge-based warfare to get our land back. A land 4x the same of Israel, assets in the billions. How many Arab settlers now live in Jewish homes?
Why has the UN recognized the Palestinian "refugees" but not the Jewish ones - the majority of Israel's Jewish population are Jewish refugees.
If Abbas were to hold the Obama Administration responsible should Netanyahu, who, in all likelihood, will turn the talks into a political travesty, he would still be blamed. The administration has failed to standup to Bibi. In fact, it did little more than gripe when BIbi reneged on the settlement moratorium adding insult to injury when the announcement was made during VP Biden's visit. And the administration defended Israel's self-defense excuse after the IDF's attack on the Turkish ship. BIbi's calculus has tested and proved his theorem: the US is a push over. And this administration seems prepared to roll over whenever he shouts and acts up inappropriately. Why we continue to acquiesce to Israel's petulance and all the impediments and roadblocks it puts up before, during and after any "peace talks" is the biggest bluff of all.
This is a unique opportunity to hear the renowned Israeli historian and author, Ilan Pappe speak about his recent book where he lays out the past, present, and offers suggestions for the future, of Israeli/Palestinian relations
See excellent videos here and learn a thing or two:
The Ottoman Turks did not shoot and kill the Palestinian civilians to make them and then create illegal Jew only settlements on top of Palestinian villages.
The Ottoman Turks did not create Israel Donkey Force (IDF) like military check points to harass the Palestinian civilians.
The Ottoman Turks did not build Jew Apartheid Walls to divide Palestine into 20 different Banutustans.
If you are verbally and mentally challenged then look at this map here to open your eyes, this picuture is worth a 1000 Bantustans:
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