By Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook
March 29, 2007
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While the world sees the Arab Summit peace initiative as a serious proposal, for the Palestinian Authority (PA) it is a well-orchestrated PR strategy that has nothing to do with bringing about peace. By proposing conditions it knows Israel can never accept, the PA hopes to renew international political and financial support for itself while isolating Israel as intransigent.
According to the new PA Foreign Minister Ziyad Abu Amr, the goals of the Arab Summit include "lifting from it [the PA] the international blockade." In exchange, he says, "Israel must be put under an international blockade."
A cartoon in today's official PA daily stresses that the goal is to receive foreign money. The words "Arab Summit" are written in the shape of a key to release a Palestinian Authority imprisoned by the financial blockade.
At the heart of the Arab plan are three demands that every Israeli government and the overwhelming majority of Israelis have rejected repeatedly:
- Israel moving from its current borders to the 1949-1967 ceasefire lines
- Israel giving away parts of Jerusalem
- Israel absorbing millions of Arab residents of refugee camps
The Arab world is presenting these demands as a take-it-or-leave-it proposal: "[PA] Information Minister, Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghuthi ... reiterated the Palestinian stance, which opposes any change in the Arab initiative."
By packaging the plan as the first sincere peace offer from the Arab world, the PA hopes the plan will appeal to the international community -- even though PA leaders know full well that Israel cannot accept it.
As part of the strategy to paint Israel into a diplomatic corner, PA leaders are praising this plan as the last and only chance for peace. Even though he knows the plan is a non-starter, for example, PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas called it the "only chance for peace," and said, "I think the Arab initiative is the most precious and important [plan] proposed since 1948 for a solution of the Palestinian problem and the occupation." [Palestine Times, March 28, 2007]
The purpose of this public relations initiative, therefore, is to gain international economic aid and political recognition for the Palestinian Authority government. It also cleverly camouflages the fact that this government is partnered with Hamas, which still presents the destruction of Israel and the genocide of Jews as God's unchanging imperative. According to the PA plan, Europe will accept this deal and Israel will be isolated as the spoiler of peace.
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