A YEAR FOR ELECTIONS, NOT MIDEAST PEACE
Elliott Abrams
Wall Street Journal, January 12, 2012
Last week Israelis and Palestinians held talks for the first time since September 2010. Back then, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met at the White House, under bright lights and with great expectations, along with Jordanian King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. In a matter of weeks the talks failed—and Mr. Mubarak didn’t last much longer himself. What to expect this time?
For starters, note that these talks—hosted in Amman by the Jordanian government—aren’t even “negotiations.” The Palestinians made clear that these were only discussions of whether negotiations are possible. The most one can hope for is that these exploratory talks extend for several more months or lead at some point to a Netanyahu-Abbas session. This is kicking the can down the road, to be sure, but that is a reasonably accurate way of describing the “peace process” anyway.
Whatever the hopes in Washington or European capitals, Israelis and Palestinians don’t expect a breakthrough. Instead, they’re focused on three elections: America’s, the definite one; the Palestinian Authority’s, scheduled for May 4; and Israel’s, which Mr. Netanyahu may call later this year.
For Mr. Netanyahu, the question is whether the re-election of Barack Obama would harm his own chances. The ability to get along with Washington is a key asset in Israeli politics, and Israelis would worry about four more years of U.S.-Israeli tension. It is universally understood that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Obama don’t get along. That might lead the Israeli prime minister to try for elections in the fall, before our own—though a decision on whether to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites could also affect that timing.
In any event, no major concessions to the Palestinians are now in the cards. Why should Mr. Netanyahu risk destroying his coalition in a possible election year, when previous Israeli offers—especially in 2000 and 2008—were refused, and when he believes the White House doesn’t have his back? And why take such risks when Mr. Abbas seems on the verge of inviting Hamas into the Palestine Liberation Organization, which would bring negotiations to a screeching halt anyway? So for 2012, Mr. Netanyahu will maneuver with the Palestinians, calculate the timing of his own elections, hope a new face wins in Washington—and make one big decision: whether to hit Iran.
For Mr. Abbas, the possible Israeli elections are of little interest. He must have scant hope they will produce a more conciliatory government, for the right looks far stronger than the left. He knows the rise of Islamist parties in the “Arab Spring” has made most Israelis even more worried about any concessions that might affect their security.
Mr. Abbas, who turns 77 in March, doesn’t really want Palestinian elections in 2012, but his options are poor. His United Nations efforts are now dead, for he has failed in the Security Council and backed off after his “victory” of gaining membership in UNESCO served only to bankrupt that organization when the U.S. ended its funding. He cannot find serious negotiations with Israel terribly appealing, for he knows that Hamas and other groups would quickly call every compromise an act of treason. So instead of turning back to the Israelis or the U.N., he is negotiating with Hamas…knowing full well that any agreement may lead to elections that Hamas might win. Logic suggests he will happily see the deal with Hamas break down (as the “Mecca Agreement” between Fatah and Hamas did in 2007) so he can postpone the May 4 elections yet again.
A year of on-again, off-again negotiations with Hamas and with the Israelis must seem far more attractive to Mr. Abbas than elections that could boot him from office and, if Hamas wins, leave as his legacy another disastrous defeat of his Fatah party by Islamist forces. Better to delay, hang on, and see if perhaps the Israelis’ fears are right—that a re-elected President Obama emerges as the champion of the Palestinian cause.
And what of Mr. Obama in this election year? He’ll spend 2012 trumpeting his “unshakable” commitment to Israeli security but wondering if Mr. Netanyahu will actually hit Iran during the presidential campaign. If so, the electorate is likely to think that a tough and justifiable move, and Mr. Obama would be forced to back it and help Israel cope with the consequences. It might even help the president get re-elected if he ends up using force to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and Israel safe.
But both recent two-term presidents, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, dove into Middle East peacemaking in their second terms. That cheers up Mr. Abbas and gives Mr. Netanyahu nightmares. If Mr. Obama loses to a Republican, by contrast, Israelis and Palestinians will sit back in 2013 and wait for some sense of direction from Washington.
Thus the 2012 “peace process” won’t revolve around any negotiating table in Amman. That’s why when Americans pass through the Middle East, they’re never asked “Will there be a peace deal this year?” Instead the questions are “Who will win?” “What will Obama do in a second term?” and, without fail, “What are you going to do about Iran?”
(Elliot Abrams handled Middle East affairs
at the National Security Council from 2001 to 2009.)
PORTRAIT OF PALESTINIAN DEMOCRACY—2012
Rick Richman
Contentions, January 12, 2012
If anything, the portrait of Palestinian democracy is worse than last year. This week, Mahmoud Abbas began the eighth year of his four-year term of office, still unable to set foot in half his quasi-state [Abbas is not permitted to visit Hamas-ruled Gaza—Ed.], now in its fifth year in the hands of the terrorist group he promised to dismantle, with whom he is currently reconciling (for the third time).
He rules by decree, because there is no functioning legislature. He cancelled local elections in his own half-state again [West Bank], ignoring the order of the Palestinian “High Court.” Both halves of the putative state are one-party police states. Last May, elections were promised for this May, in an effort to persuade the UN that Palestinians were ready for a state; the elections will not likely occur unless Fatah and Hamas can agree beforehand on who will win what. Abbas is periodically dragged to talk to Israel, but he lacks a mandate to make the concessions necessary for a state, much less the ability to implement them. He cannot make the minimal promise required for a two-state solution—that a Palestinian state will recognize a Jewish one.
In Statecraft, published in the first part of 2008, Dennis Ross described Abbas as someone who “acted as if avoiding decisions rather than making them was his objective” and whose strength was “not his decision-making instinct.” Later that year, Abbas received an offer of a state on land equivalent to the entire West Bank (after swaps) and Gaza, with a safe-passage corridor between them, and a capital in Jerusalem—and walked away. The memoirs of both George Bush and Condoleezza Rice make it clear his decision was a considered one.
When you get three offers of a state in less than ten years, and turn all three down (the modern equivalent of the “Three Nos”), the problem is deeper than what Abbas disingenuously describes as the “Long Overdue Palestinian State.” It does not relate to the specifics of the offers, or to an alleged deficiency in decision-making instincts. The problem is an inherent inability to recognize a Jewish state, or defensible borders, or an end-of-claims agreement—and the inherent instability of a society that still lacks even the minimal institutions necessary for a democratic state.
KIDS FLUENT IN THE LANGUAGE OF HATE
Richard Chesnoff
NY Daily News, January 1, 2012
If there were an Oscar given for doublespeak, the Palestinian political leadership would win it, hands down. Speaking in English, French or any other non-Islamic language, pols from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas down loudly proclaim the need for two states to peacefully share the Holy Land—one Palestinian and one Israeli. They then go on to condemn violence and call for an end to anything that promotes hatred between “good neighbors.”
The problem is when they preach in Arabic to their own public—most notably its school-age population—the same Palestinian leaders switch to a very different message, one that loudly glorifies terrorists, demonizes Israelis and Jews and totally rejects Israel’s right to exist.
Don’t believe me? Pick up “Deception: Betraying the Peace Process,” a new study by Israeli academics Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, heads of a Jerusalem watchdog group called Palestinian Media Watch. Launched last month at a luncheon hosted by Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel and veteran civil libertarian Bob Bernstein, “Deception” carefully analyzes a full year’s worth of cultural, educational and general media clippings and resources in which the Palestinian Authority is seen systematically promoting messages of hate—not the need for negotiations with its neighbor. Indeed, says co-author Marcus, “their purpose is to undermine the peace process with Israel.”
Take the Holy Land maps the Palestinian Authority prints for distribution among Palestinians. Not one shows anything called “State of Israel”—even within the UN’s 1948 borders, let alone the 1967 lines the Palestinians now claim they want. Every inch of land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea is “Palestine.” On top of that, school children are steadily taught in school and on “educational” television that Israeli cities like Jaffa (part of Tel Aviv), Haifa, Ashkelon, Beersheba, Ashdod, Tiberias, etc. are all “Palestinian.” The long Jewish connection to Holy Land history is generally ignored or denied. Even President Abbas managed to “forget” it when he spoke in October before the General Assembly. Highlighting the Christian and Muslim ties to the Holy Land, Abbas completely omitted the Jewish ones that preceded them by centuries.
Palestinian terrorists…are systematically honored as “brave martyrs.” One such “martyr,” 19-year-old Dalal Mughrabi, a young woman who in 1978 helped murder one American and 37 Israelis—13 of them children—is the lauded subject of a pop song regularly played on Palestinian Authority television. And in 2011, all five teams competing in a table tennis tournament for Palestinian youth were named after terrorist leaders—including Abu Iyad, who planned the murder of 11 Israelis at the Munich Olympics in 1972.
Then there’s the Palestinian Authority-funded monthly educational magazine for children, Zayzafuna. Much of Zayzafuna’s content is positive and educational. But when it comes to portraying Israel and Jews, Zayzafuna changes its tone. It suddenly glorifies Holy War against Israel and praises martyrdom. One horrific example: a recent essay submitted by a teenage girl in which she dreams she meets several historic personalities, including Adolf Hitler. In her dreams, she asks the Fuhrer if he is “the one who killed the Jews?” Hitler responds: “Yes. I killed them so you would all know that they are a nation which spreads destruction all over the world.”
We’ve feared for years that the current generation of Palestinians is unprepared to make peace with Israel. We now have strong and depressing evidence that the next generation may not be ready either.
TO THE VICTOR BELONG THE SPOILS?
Alex Ryvchin
Jerusalem Magazine, January 8, 2012
Throughout history, nations and political entities which have waged war and lost have faced disastrous consequences. The loss of political legitimacy, enforced demilitarization and war guilt are imposed to punish the belligerent for the destruction they have wrought. Not only is this morally right, it is essential to suppress man’s endless appetite for destruction and love for settling old scores. The Palestinians have stood on the wrong side of history from World War II to the Gaza War of 2008-2009. Yet they are the only people to have avoided such consequences. Today, they enjoy equal standing with Israel in post-war negotiations, command the sympathies of the international community and have shed the guilt of their failed wars, successfully projecting themselves as refugees and victims of events entirely of their own making.
While the role of the Palestinians in the cycle of war and terrorism since 1948 is well known, the role of the Palestinian Arabs in World War II is less so. Led by the belief that ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and seizing the chance to import the Holocaust to Palestine to advance Arab nationalist aspirations, then-head of Palestine’s Supreme Muslim Council Haj Amin Al-Husseini was an important Axis ally and materially aided the destruction of the European Jews. Not only did Al-Husseini recruit Muslim soldiers to serve in the Waffen-SS and fight the Russians on the Eastern Front, his personal intervention and relationship with Holocaust war criminal Adolf Eichmann ensured that thousands of Hungarian Jewish children who were to be allowed to flee the clutches of the Nazis were re-routed and dispatched to the gas chambers of Poland.
Al-Husseini is still revered as a Palestinian hero and, at the time of his actions, enjoyed the wide support of both the political elite and the public. He should have suffered the same fate as his fellow Nazi collaborators—a war crimes trial or being left to ceremoniously dangle in a town square. The Palestinian national movement should have gone the same way as the other chauvinistic nationalist movements which threw their lot in with the Nazis. Instead, Al-Husseini set the trend for future Arab action vis-à-vis the Jews and Israel—incredible brutality and collaboration with murderous regimes without a shred of guilt, popular opposition or impact on their national aspirations.
Indeed, the Camp David negotiations of 2000 demonstrated how little damage the Palestinians’ wars and alliances had done to the credibility of their cause, or even their bargaining position. Bizarrely, it was Israel who made the extraordinary concessions and it was the vanquished Palestinians, who had backed the Nazis and repeatedly unleashed war and lost, who were free to reject a fair settlement and walk away without comment or counter-offer and resume war.
Israel continues to wait for the emergence of a genuine peace partner with which to negotiate a final settlement; one willing to accept the legitimacy of the Jewish State and able to speak on behalf of all Palestinians. Yet, with the failure of bilateralism, Israel’s military victories in defensive wars give it a moral right (and indeed a duty) to unilaterally set its borders so as to prevent further harm befalling its people.…
Instead, Israel has followed a doctrine of appeasement, hoping that recognition of Palestinian national aspirations will be greeted with a reciprocal recognition of a Jewish state. But this policy has come to naught.… Israeli appeasement has also meant that while the Palestinian claim to some part of historic Palestine is common ground, the Jewish claim to the land is in dispute, meaning that the Palestinian position, in spite of their successive military aggression and defeat, is comparatively stronger.
Giving the Palestinians parity of negotiating status has a further effect. By treating the belligerent as its equal, Israel has tacitly erased the Palestinian culpability for waging war and terror. If the parties enjoy equality in negotiations post-war, it follows that they must have been equally guilty for the war—a fallacy borne of Israel’s elevation of the Palestinians from warmongers to peace partners, from belligerent to deserving.
Time and time again, the Palestinians have stood with tyrants and with aggressors. Yet, remarkably, the cause of Palestinian nationalism has not suffered. Today, the Palestinians occupy the unprecedented position of equal standing in negotiations with the state they tried and failed to destroy. Perversely, it is the Palestinians who have taken the road of unilateralism and seek to impose a settlement on the people of Israel, who have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Allied powers in both World Wars and survived three wars of annihilation. Perhaps worst of all, this most twisted of outcomes has been fueled by the Israeli policy of appeasement, and a reluctance to throw off the shackles of misguided world opinion and take the unilateral steps necessary to preserve the future of Israel as the secure and viable home of the Jewish people.
