J Street: Israel, Palestinians have stared into abyss

By Alan Elsner

J StreetWASHINGTON, D.C. –As we head into the Passover holiday, the peace initiative launched last summer by Secretary of State John Kerry to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians hangs in a curious limbo – certainly not dead but definitely not bursting with life either.

With an April 29 deadline to agree to extend the talks looming, the past couple of weeks have seen unhelpful steps that have brought the negotiations close to a breakdown. Yet the parties have also refused to disengage and US peace envoy Martin Indyk has convened several marathon sessions to try to find a way past this crisis.

Also, we should note that the various tit-for-tat steps the parties have taken, including Israel’s decision not to release 26 Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian application to join 15 international treaties and Israel’s diversion of some of the Palestinian tax receipts it collects have all been relatively minor and measured. Even Secretary Kerry’s “poof” moment — the ill-timed announcement that Israel will build 700 new housing units in a neighborhood of East Jerusalem across the Green Line, was not a deal breaker in and of itself.

It appears that neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis want the negotiations to collapse and the latest media reports suggest they may find a way to allow them to continue. Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas know that serious negative consequences await them if the negotiations fail. For Israel, these include growing international isolation, boycotts, trade restrictions for goods manufactured in the occupied territories and mounting diplomatic pressure coupled with possible international legal action against it.

For the Palestinians, there is the likelihood of an economic crisis as tax receipts are withheld and US aid is cancelled, growing popular unrest and discontent as public sector salaries go unpaid, a possible meltdown of the Palestinian Authority, continued Israeli settlement in the West Bank and the prospect of harsher occupation measures.

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The upcoming holiday gives both sides an opportunity to cool down and reflect. Having peered into the abyss, they should both now step back and rededicate themselves to the only just solution that exists to end this crisis, namely a two-state solution with Israel and Palestine living side-by-side as good neighbors, each expressing their national self-determination in their own state.

Secretary Kerry should also refocus – as indeed he has begun to. In the past month, the talks have been about process and not on core issues. If the parties decide to extend the negotiations, the United States should insist that they return to a serious discussion of the core issues – borders, security, refugees, settlements, Jerusalem, mutual recognition and an end to claims. One way of encouraging them to do so, as has been suggested by six veterans of US foreign policy, including former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, would be for the United States to publish its position on the core issues. This idea is worthy of serious consideration.

Just talking for the sake of talking is not good enough and will only postpone the moment of reckoning. Abbas and Netanyahu need to acknowledge that the crisis of the past two weeks has eroded public confidence on both sides, which was never high to begin with, that they are serious about making peace. They need to restore confidence by recommitting to negotiations, not to stave off the disaster that awaits if the talks fail, but with a positive determination to do everything within their power to reach an agreement. They should stop the cycle of tit-for-tat actions that, if it continues, will destroy the negotiations; they should step away from the blame game which ultimately helps no one and they should stop denigrating each other and casting aspersions on the other side’s intentions.

It’s often said that whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. This might be true about these talks. It may be that having looked closely at the consequences of failure, the two sides have realized they have no choice but to talk – and not just to talk for the sake of talking but to make the tough decisions necessary to make peace. J Street urges them to do so knowing that this is the profound wish of the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians as well as American Jews. Our organization, our members and our community stands ready to rally behind them if they summon the courage to take these decisions.

As we say at the conclusion of the Passover Seder, “Next year in Jerusalem.” And let it be a city representing the peaceful meeting point between Israel and the new state of Palestine, a dual capital of two nations committed to living in peace.

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Elsner is vice president for communications of J Street  … San Diego Jewish World seeks sponsorships to be placed, as this notice is,  just below articles that appear on our site.  To inquire, call editor Donald H. Harrison at (619) 265-0808 or contact him via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com

1 thought on “J Street: Israel, Palestinians have stared into abyss”

  1. This is another proof of the delusional perception of the conflict by J Street. Some of its advice is good, but it should be directed 130% at Mahmud Abbas and the Palestinians instead of insisting that both sides are equally to blame for the failure of the now moribund peace process. For a healthy dose of reality, read this: http://jcpa.org/article/crisis-peace-talks/. The failure was planned by the Palestinians from day one, and J Street is not helping anybody, least of all the Palestinians themselves, by pretending that there was no ill will on their part. As time goes by and the inflexible Palestinian attitude remains what it has always been (we get 100% of what we want, and you, Israel, get nothing), J Street is looking more and more like the silly out-of-touch dreamers that they are. As a result, instead of becoming as they want to believe the “new” true representatives of the Jewish American community, they are seen more and more as irrelevant fools that only a few other fools are listening to.

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