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Olmert and Abbas may find less to agree about this time around (Flash90)
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| By Israel Insider staff November 16, 2007 |
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| Is the wedding off? (Cartoon suppled by Ellen Horowitz) |
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With less than ten days and counting till the planning gathering in Annapolis, invitations have yet to be sent, not a jot of the planned "joint declaration" has been written, and various parties are hinting that they may not show up if invited.
The joke is going around in Israel that while in a wedding invitations are sent a couple of months in advance, invitations to a funeral are sent -- if they are sent at all -- at the last moment.
Unless there is a sudden reversal, the conference -- if it takes place at all -- is likely to turn out to be one of three things: an occasion for multinational Israel-bashing that attempts to reverse its birth, an occasion for diplomats to mouth meaningless truisms, or a trigger for the next round of fighting between Israel and the Palestinians or even the wider Islamic world. Or all three.
Ehud Yaari, perhaps the senior and most respected Arab Affairs analyst in Israel, writes today that PA chieftain Mahmoud Abbas "finds himself engaged in long hours of explaining to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the land mines on the way to a permanent settlement" while "the Egyptians have already advised finding a suitable pretext to postpone the parley indefinitely." He adds that "it is becoming clear to all parties to the negotiations that there is no chance of agreement on a declaration that will herald even a hint of a breakthrough. If Abu Mazen compromises, he will be assailed by both Hamas and much of Fatah. If a vague statement is issued, everyone will say yet again that he has nothing to offer to his people."
Yaari continues: "The Palestinians are fuming at Rice for having trapped them in a corner and have begun to try and get out of it by renewing the talk about a 'third step' in the Oslo process that was never implemented. What this means is an attempt to get more territory on the West Bank from Israel without having to reach any substantive agreement."
Israel, for its part, also appears in search of a low-cost way out. PM Ehud Olmert has said that he expects it to be a one-day ceremonial affair, with each party giving a speech and then going home, without negotiations or agreements. Of late, Olmert and many of the ministers of his government have been indicating that without Palestinian recognition of Israel as the State of the Jewish People, there will be no recognition of a Palestinian State."
Israeli military intelligence has weighed in by saying that the chances for a positive outcome in Annapolis are "virtually nil." Defense officials are urging the government not to make any concessions -- such as prisoner releases -- to Abbas before the planned conference, to conditions any gestures on Palestinian cooperation and good behavior at the summit. Nevertheless, the Olmert cabinet is expected to hold on Monday an expected vote on the additional release of 400 Palestinian prisoners. The Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency, warns that if Israel makes no gestures, the territories could explode in violence even before the conference.
Some media have already conceded that disaster is inevitable. The UK's left-leaning Guardian writes today: "As the United States-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, approaches, the key question is what follows when it fails. Fiasco is looming, so what do the Palestinians do next?"
Shmuel Sandler, an Israeli analyst of the conflict, says that the political weakness of both Olmert and Abbas predetermines failure, because neither leader can carry out commitments not back by their citizens and anathema to political opponents: "From this point-of-view, the political weakness of Mahmoud Abbas and Olmert predefines the future fiasco of the Near East conference in Annapolis," he says.
Rice is likely to bear the fruits of failure, some of which can be traced to her emotional involvement in the events, reportedly driven by her distorted historical analogy that the terrorist struggle to displace Israel can be compared to the American civil rights movement.
Senior Mideast analyst Yossi Alpher writes that, after making the rounds of Washington think-tanks, there was "a consistent assessment that, in pressing the case for the conference, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was out of her depth." She should have recognized that the local leaders can't pull off a deal. "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas lacks authority--the latest news of a Fateh assassination plot against PM Ehud Olmert last June in Jericho simply drives home the point -- and Olmert's coalition threatens to come apart the closer he comes to Annapolis. There is nothing new here: Abbas has constantly failed to translate his good intentions into a working government, while Olmert brings to Annapolis a dowry of failed strategic judgments, criminal investigations, Winograd commission condemnations and a coalition structured for survival, not peace."
Alpher wonders: "Why don't Bush and Rice perceive this and save themselves the embarrassment? Presumably because their own understanding of Middle East dynamics since 9/11 is so poor. Their energies would be far better applied to backing, encouraging and directing Quartet envoy Tony Blair in his task of building those very Palestinian security, economic and governance institutions that have failed hitherto and whose efficient functioning is a necessary prerequisite to any successful effort at creating a viable Palestinian state. In the long term, that would enhance Arab and Israeli trust in their policies far more than the Annapolis conference, which should be postponed."
The answer, perhaps, is that Bush is already a lame duck as much as the Israeli and Palestinian leaders he wishes to force into an embrace. Mortally weakened by Iraq, he has been persuaded by Rice and the State Department, by James Baker and his own father, to embark on a diplomatic adventure that would sacrifice Israel's security and sovereignty for the interests of the oil-rich Saudis and an internationalization of the Mideast conflict, with US and NATO forces using Israel as an entry point and forward base for protecting Western interests from Iranian-backed forces in the region.
It would appear that this grand strategy, which initially had the support of the Israelis and Palestinians, is beginning to unravel, as both begin to perceive potential traps from which neither may be able to escape. For the Israelis, the American plan means giving up sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, and the Holy Basin, and abandoning most if not all of Judea and Samaria to a weak and irresponsible regime, likely to give way to Hamas and resurgent terrorism directed at Israel's heartland and coastal plain.
For that portion of the Palestinians represented by Abbas, it means concessions of principle and actions on the ground that will be difficult or impossible to achieve, but in either case will weaken them critically in the coming power struggle with Hamas and the Islamists.
The question thus arises: can the Americans just call the whole thing off? Doing so would be a setback for American prestige, but it still might turn out to be the lesser of two evils relative to the outcome if Annapolis takes place and fails miserably. |
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