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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Read This Piece — Israel and Egypt and Palestine, (w. apologies to Mr. Handel)

Read This Piece — Israel and Egypt and Palestine, (w. apologies to Mr. Handel)

by Tom Levenson|  February 13, 20112:38 pm| 17 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs

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I mentioned earlier this week Bernard Avishai’s piece on the almost-nearly-but-not-quite peace deal Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas all but consummated in 2008.

Read the whole thing. Weigh it in light of what Avishai (and others, including your current absolutely non-expert correspondent) think is a last-best-hope raised by the Egyptian political earthquake.

Pay particular attention to this paragraph from the end of the piece:

Olmert and Abbas conveyed the details of what they had achieved to both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell, the Middle East envoy. Condoleezza Rice, Olmert said, prepared a confidential memo for the incoming administration. He could not understand why Obama “did not adopt these achievements as policy.” Abbas told me he is still waiting for an American initiative: “America is the broker; we cannot replace it.” Did he want the understandings he reached with Olmert to become the basis of new American-sponsored talks with Netanyahu? “I demanded this,” he said.

Avishai emphasizes that the missed opportunity of late 2008-early 2009 is still potentially achievable:

Olmert made his offer as a sitting prime minister familiar with the views of the Israeli general staff and military intelligence. Now, with a new regime taking shape in Egypt and serious changes under way in Jordan, Israel will be more dependent on American diplomacy and military support than ever. It is hard to imagine Netanyahu resisting an Obama initiative should the president fully commit to an American package based on these talks and rally the E.U., Russia and the United Nations.

Avishai, who has spoken directly to Abbas (and Olmert, and others) believes that Israel does in fact have a viable partner in this plan:

Abbas, for his part, still leads the P.L.O. and governs the West Bank. Hamas controls Gaza but has committed to honoring any deal Abbas negotiated for the 1967 borders as long as its terms would be submitted to a referendum, which Abbas has solemnly promised to call.

And Olmert at least, speaks as an Israeli with the full range of experience needed to judge, and concludes that this is truly a moment of opportunity:

“There is a danger that the events in Egypt will mislead some to lose hope in peace,” Olmert told me pointedly in an e-mail. “I think the opposite, that there can be another way to challenge the events near us. This is the time to move forward, fast, take my peace initiative with the Palestinians and make a deal. This will be my advice to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Don’t wait. Move, lead and make history. This is the time. There will not be a better one.”

All of which is to say that I will tomorrow morning be calling my  representative and senators and leaving messages at the White House and State Department switchboards to say that I support the rapid resumption of a strong US – led effort to bring the Olmert-Abbas almost-deal to fruition.  Follow suit as your judgment suggests.

__

In the meantime, again, I urge y’all to read what Bernie has to say.

Image:  Corrado Giaquinto, Justice and Peace, 18th c.

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Reader Interactions

17Comments

  1. 1.

    Politically Lost

    February 13, 2011 at 2:51 pm

    I’m vaguely recalling (very vaguely, in the sense that I can’t even think of an appropriate google query) a similar situation from the hand off from the GHWB admin to Clinton. And, that transitions from one admin to the next generally contain within them missed opportunities such as this.

  2. 2.

    Lol

    February 13, 2011 at 2:58 pm

    @1: going after Bin Laden?

  3. 3.

    Politically Lost

    February 13, 2011 at 3:10 pm

    That was Clinton to GWB. No, there was (stretching the
    memory bank) positive possibilities between the entrenched players in the “peace process” and the new admin wanted to reassess etc.

    In essence, there’s always a time lag in a new admin to actually accept what a predecessor was doing in foreign policy or to reject and replace with new policy.

    Of course, Obama is worse than Bush because he continued Bush civil liberties abuses and ignored all the great foreign policy triumphs that Obama refused to capitalize on. /faux troll

  4. 4.

    eli

    February 13, 2011 at 3:14 pm

    Confidence that Bibi has the political room to move, or the inclination to do so, is simply naive. The status quo is preferable to the Israeli Right. They get fear driven support, give nothing up, and prevent evidence of Arab pacifism from taking hold.

  5. 5.

    El Cid

    February 13, 2011 at 3:21 pm

    The “Palestine Papers” cables released to and investigated by the Guardian and Al Jazeera have a particular presentation of the proposed agreements.

    The Palestinian Authority proposed an unprecedented land swap to the Israeli government, offering to annex virtually all of the illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem.
    __
    Not only did the Israeli government offer no concessions in return, but – as The Palestine Papers now reveal – it responded with an even more aggressive land swap: Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert wanted to annex more than 10% of the West Bank (including the major settlements in Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel and elsewhere), in exchange for sparsely-populated farmland along the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
    __
    The Israeli offer is documented in a Palestinian rendition of what’s colloquially called “the napkin map,” a rendering of which is revealed for the first time in The Palestine Papers.
    __
    Olmert met in mid-2008 with Mahmoud Abbas and showed him a map of the proposed swaps. Abbas was not allowed to keep a copy of the map, and so the 73-year-old Palestinian president had to sketch a copy by hand on a napkin.
    __
    Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, described the Olmert-Abbas meeting in an interview with Al Jazeera earlier this year.

    He went with the President Peres and me and… actually sat outside discussing all issues. And then the president came out of that meeting 20 or 30 minutes, and we sat with the two presidents. And the offer wasn’t made at one meeting. This was three or four meetings actually, one showed him a map, Abu Mazen had given him a map, he showed him a map and Abu Mazen had to draw with his own hands.

    These communications reveal that the PA and Abbas were proposing agreements that I seriously doubt would have been accepted by the Palestinian people, outside the “fait accompli” or “facts on the ground” approach.

    Of course, I don’t think that there are signs that any Palestinian independent state likely to ever be agreed upon will be viable as a nation-state.

  6. 6.

    FlipYrWhig

    February 13, 2011 at 3:26 pm

    @Politically Lost: Rwanda or Somalia?

  7. 7.

    Joey Maloney

    February 13, 2011 at 3:32 pm

    @eli: This.

  8. 8.

    NobodySpecial

    February 13, 2011 at 3:33 pm

    It’ll be one state soon enough. Either we’ll be backing someone whose name in Hebrew means ‘Mubarak’ or we’ll be at war with Greater Palestine.

    Two state solution? Dead and gone, only the body twitches.

  9. 9.

    El Cid

    February 13, 2011 at 4:06 pm

    Some related interesting news stories.

    From Al Jazeera, which received and reported on the Palestine Papers along with the Guardian.

    Erekat quits over Palestine Papers
    __
    Chief Palestinian negotiator resigns, saying source of Al Jazeera’s revelations was in his own office.
    __
    Saeb Erekat, the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s chief negotiator, has resigned from his post, after it emerged that the source of the Palestine Papers leak was in his own office.
    __
    The decision was announced on Saturday, at the same time as a Palestinian Authority (PA) official announced that the body would be holding presidential and legislative elections before September this year…
    __
    …Hanan Ashrawi, who is on the PLO’s Executive Committee, told Al Jazeera that the peace talks were in trouble long before the Palestine Papers were released.
    __
    “There has not been a [peace] process. There have been sporadic attempts by the Americans to replace substance and objectives with negotiations, as though that was the end.
    __
    “We said no to that; either you make Israel comply to the freeze and stop all settlements and you articulate the objectives and the terms of reference [of the negotiations] with in a specific time frame, or there is no use of entering into an endless process which Israel exploits in order to create facts on the ground and to annex East Jerusalem,” Ashrawi said.

    Via Ha’aretz, English (as well as Hebrew) language Israeli daily, there’s this:

    Hamas fears Palestinian elections could expose its waning popularity
    __
    Hamas’ concerns about elections mark an erosion of the group’s sweeping victory in elections in January 2006.
    __
    …[T]he secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Abed Rabbo, announced that the PA plans to hold parliamentary and presidential elections before September. But Hamas, which holds power in the Gaza Strip, immediately said it would move to prevent such a vote from taking place in the coastal territory.
    __
    Hamas’ spokesman in Gaza, Fawzi Barhoum, announced that his organization would boycott the elections. “We will not confer legitimacy to these elections, nor will we recognize their results,” Barhoum said.
    __
    Hamas wants the two sides to reconcile before a vote. The Islamic organization fears it could lose its grip on the Gaza Strip in an election as its popularity wanes relative to Fatah and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
    __
    Conflicts between Hamas and Fatah climaxed with Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. Since then, the Palestinian parliament, which has a large Hamas majority, has not convened. The parliament’s term effectively ended in January 2010, so it currently lacks constitutional legitimacy.
    __
    Hamas’ concerns about elections mark an erosion of the group’s sweeping victory in elections in January 2006. Without Hamas’ consent, it is doubtful that elections could be held by September; it would be impossible to hold a ballot in the Gaza Strip.
    __
    In addition, Hamas and other political groups are likely to claim that since they did not take part in the elections, the vote does not reflect the political reality and is therefore illegitimate.

    Pretty much any time you read the Western press on the Middle East, it’s assumed that Arab and Muslim support for more fundamentalist Islam will remain steady or increase.

    Hamas really did support a ceasefire with Israel, which the Israeli authorities broke in an attack. Thus the broken ceasefire was the precedent for leveling Gaza and slaughtering civilians.

    Dissatisfaction by Gazans on Hamas’ leadership is much more about Hamas’ running of Gaza, and having to rebuild from rubble and having children and often even pregnant women suffering protein-deficiency malnutrition — they can’t really fish any more — doesn’t ease any political situation.

  10. 10.

    El Cid

    February 13, 2011 at 4:10 pm

    @NobodySpecial: I do think a 2 state solution is likely, just that the Palestinian “state” will consist of dregs left undesired by Israel and divided up into walled mini-communities and with completely controlled import and export.

    Whether or not any local Arab and Muslim (i.e., Turkey) governments usefully oppose such an outcome may depend on what type of government emerges in Egypt.

  11. 11.

    Kolohe

    February 13, 2011 at 4:11 pm

    I support the rapid resumption of a strong US – led effort to bring the Olmert-Abbas almost-deal to fruition.

    So you really want American (& coalition) troops with a US General in charge in a more or less permanent presence on the Jordan River? Because that’s the part of the deal that really stuck out to me.

  12. 12.

    Svensker

    February 13, 2011 at 4:22 pm

    I believe it is hopeless and that it will end badly. The only question is how long before it all goes to complete hell. There is no stomach in the US to force Israel to negotiate in good faith, and there is no desire on Israel’s part to do that at all. Mass expulsion seems to be the way it’s going to go to me — it’s the reaction to that which will be of some interest.

    I really can’t bear to read about it any more. Slow motion genocide and I get to help pay for it. Fucking bastards.

  13. 13.

    PeakVT

    February 13, 2011 at 4:59 pm

    @El Cid: I wouldn’t dignify that outcome with the phrase “two-state solution”. That’s the “one-state-with-associated-bantustans solution”. It would only be temporary, anyway, so even the word “solution” would be inappropriate. (Temporary here being relative to the history of the Levant.)

  14. 14.

    El Cid

    February 13, 2011 at 6:18 pm

    @PeakVT:

    I wouldn’t dignify that outcome with the phrase “two-state solution”. That’s the “one-state-with-associated-bantustans solution”. It would only be temporary, anyway, so even the word “solution” would be inappropriate.

    Given the pathetic nature of so many nation-states over the years, it’s not really a misuse of the term, but it certainly wouldn’t be a respectable use of the term.

    Of course, it only has to exist enough as a “state” to allow the Israeli policymakers to cast off the Palestinians apart from patrolling all their borders and guarding the criss-cross roads Israel will keep in the West Bank.

    And its statehood need only exist insofar as a treaty is signed, formal title is granted, and it’s recognized as an independent nation by the international community and its institutions.

    And then everyone else can declare victory and the end to so many years of conflict and then blame any failures remaining on lack of Palestinian gumption.

    Temporary here being relative to the history of the Levant.

    That’s a pretty tough standard for any nation-state to meet. A few — Rome and so forth.

  15. 15.

    Mike Furlan

    February 13, 2011 at 9:08 pm

    I think this is about right:

    Israel’s options after Mubarak

    http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/20112138488284410.html

  16. 16.

    kindness

    February 13, 2011 at 10:28 pm

    Bibi doesn’t want peace. In fact it’s the last thing the current Israeli government wants. Without a peace deal Israel is free to keep poaching off plots of land in the West Bank. Any peace deal would put a stop to that. Probably even force Israel to give some of the ‘settlements’ over to the Palestinians, or make ’em all live in Palestine instead of Israel. All of which makes me think peace isn’t gonna happen, at least not under the current government.

  17. 17.

    El Cid

    February 13, 2011 at 10:36 pm

    @kindness: Eventually Israeli expansionists will get everything they want. The remainders can go to the Palestinians, for peace of course.

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