Another Middle East exercise in futility

By Isaac Yetiv, PhD

LA JOLLA, California– After six trips to the Middle-East, Secretary of State Kerry, using the “carrot” for the Palestinians and the ” stick” to the Israelis, finally convinced them to come to Washington to “talk” about “reviving the peace process” that had been boycotted by Mahmoud Abbas for four and a half years. He could do so only after he acquiesced to Abbas’ demands that the talks would be based on the pre-67 borders — a demand that Obama himself had rejected before but which, in a phone conversation with PM Netanyahu,  he insisted on its acceptance–and that Israel would release 350 Palestinian prisoners, many of them who had murdered children.

This is a repeat performance, the same exercise in futility, dangerous futility, so dear to the occupant of the traditionally pro-Arab State Department. Dangerous because it is doomed to failure which will be followed by violence as it happened, for example, in 2000 when Arafat refused to sign on President Clinton ‘s and PM Barak’s generous offer of peace, and ordered instead the “second intifada” that has killed 1,000 Jews and many more Palestinian Arabs.

Never has Einstein’s judicious remark resonated so true: ” Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Already, Hamas has declared that “Abbas has no right to negotiate with Israel because he does not represent the Palestinian people.” And that is true: Abbas can hardly represent the West Bank after his “troops” fled the battlefield in disgrace during the intra-Palestinian mini-war out of which emerged Hamastan in Gaza whose charter declares the destruction of Israel as its objective.

Sadly, this did not prevent Secretary Kerry from repeating that used, abused,and false mantra that “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the root of instability in the Middle-East.” He forgot Hamas’ spoiler power, the 100,000 civilians killed in the Syrian civil war, the two revolutions in Egypt that ended in a military coup and put the country at the brink of a civil war, and the ominous nuclear weaponization of radical-islamist Iran.

It is precisely to cover the failure of US foreign policy to prevent, or even mitigate, these huge problems that Kerry turned to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because here, one of the parties , Israel, is our only friend and ally in the Middle-East that can be easily pressured and squeezed to make dangerous concessions for the sake of an elusive peace. An optimistic Israeli cabinet minister is less sanguine about the outcome of the “negotiations: “We are not looking for a happy marriage with the Palestinians, he said, but for a fair divorce.” Mazel Tov !

Rumors circulate in Jerusalem that Abbas will only show up in Washington ” to talk about talking” and then leave, angry and disappointed at not getting what he wants, including the return of the refugees to Israel and other assorted demands. He will  assign to Kerry the task of delivering Israel on a silver platter. I dare say that Abbas knows that nothing will come out of it but that it will give him the excuse of unleashing the third intifada or, if that proves too much for him–he is not Arafat–, to revert to the blackmail of going back to the UN, that hotbed of Israel’s haters, and resume his unilateral proclamations of statehood and anti-Israel agitation that had led him nowhere in the past.

Many  Israelis blame Netanyahu for re-playing the dangerous game of futility , maybe freeing dangerous prisoners and making other concessions as “confidence-building gestures,” which will erode its bargaining position when the next U.S. Secretary of State  tries his hand at “reviving the peace process.” But others appreciate the difficult position of the P.M. who must yield to the unbearable pressure, accompanied with vague promises and subtle threats, from the only friend left in a hostile world.

Deplorably, not an enviable situation.

The “peace process” saw many “processors” and special envoys, and conferences at Camp David, Taba, Madrid, Annapolis. Various programs and methodologies have been tried (Quartet,  Road Map,  Land –for-Peace, Two-state solution etc.), and all came to naught. The Israel-Palestine peace is now a Don Quixotic dream of dilettante politicians impervious to the dictates of REALITY.

Arafat himself, after Camp David in 2000, rejected President Clinton’s and P.M Barak’s very generous offer, and said that,if he signed, he will be drinking coffee with Yitzhak Rabin (meaning “assassinated.”) Barak and Clinton “improved on the deal” in Taba : still NYET. Olmert , later, practically sold out with new concessions: same rejection by Abbas. Sharon cleaned Gaza of Jews, civilian and military : this only led to Gazastan and to thousands of rockets against Israel.

*
*
Yetiv is a freelance writer and lecturer based in La Jolla, California.  He may be contacted via isaac.yetiv@sdjewishworld.com