By Ira Sharkansky
JERUSALEM–Here we go again. Maybe.
The stage is set for the beginning of indirect talks between Israel and the abbreviated Palestine National Authority (West Bank without Gaza). The Arab League has provided its endorsement. Palestinian leaders carried that decision on the basis of “assurances” received from the Americans. They are warning that the building of one new apartment for Jews in East Jerusalem or the destruction of one Arab’s apartment can derail the process. The Arab League is insisting on its authority to monitor the talks, and to judge their progress before agreeing to a shift from indirect to direct talks.
Like other things we are hearing about these negotiations, the appropriate posture is, “Who knows?”
Israelis are participating in the doublespeak. The Prime Minister asserts there has been no concession with respect to building in Jerusalem, but the working people who actually do the planning and issue the permits indicate that things haven’t been moving. The Prime Minister may have given assurances to Americans that he will cool things, but the Interior Minister (SHAS) has ordered his underlings to do their work.
It’s way too early to celebrate a breakthrough, or to decide that essential Israeli or Palestinian interests will be preserved, bargained away, or compromised for the sake of peace.
The big picture includes these ingredients:
Palestinians at the top of their heap in the West Bank appear to be the most pragmatic and least inclined to violence that we have ever seen. Below them, however, are religious extremists and nationalist ideologues inclined to upset any hint of sacrificing their wildest dreams. Those people control Gaza, are well represented in the West Bank population, and can make trouble via their allies in Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.
The American President is more concerned than any of his predecessors. He continues to push despite the problems that he recognizes. He, and people claiming to speak for him, mention even greater involvement if the parties do not show signs of progress according to an American timetable.
As we saw in the health reform he wrung from Congress, President Obama gives higher priority to reaching an achievement than to the quality of its details. Israeli pessimists may be reading the headlines and hoping that reports of an old romance will turn into something real and embarrassing, that Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, or Irish finance, problems in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia, or oil in the Gulf of Mexico will cause the White House to invest less energy in Israel-Palestine. Yet the President’s energy seems as expansive as his rhetoric. It is best to assume his continued involvement.
The Israeli government may be the most conservative with respect to issues of Palestine since the 1980s, and perhaps before then. Its composition features a Prime Minister who seems genetically right wing, major partners from the assertive segment of right wing Russian immigrants and religious parties holding the sensitive positions of Foreign Minister and Interior Minister, along with a Defense Minister from the right side of the Labor Party. Their power reflects the virtual disappearance of the Israeli left, which itself comes from frustration with Palestinian violence and rejectionism.
The violence that began in 2000, and that which came out of Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal, as well as the bluster of Hizbollah and the madness of Iran may cause Israel to dig in its heels against whatever may be the readiness of Palestinian moderates and the passions of the American White House.
Against this, however, we should remember that it was Menachem Begin, an iconic father of the Israeli right, who agreed to the complete withdrawal from the Sinai for the sake of agreement with Egypt.
It ain’t over until it’s over.
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Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University