by Aaron David Miller
From "Foreign Policy"
On October 18, 1991, against long odds and in front of an incredulous press
corps, U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Soviet Foreign
Minister Boris Pankin announced that Arabs and Israelis were being invited
to attend a peace conference in Madrid.
Standing in the back of the hall at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem that
day, I marveled at what America had accomplished. In 18 months, roughly the
time it took Henry Kissinger to negotiate three Arab-Israeli disengagement
agreements and Jimmy Carter to broker an Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the
United States had fought a short, successful war -- the best kind -- and
pushed Iraq's Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. And America was now
well-positioned to bring Arabs and Israelis across the diplomatic finish
line.
Or so I thought.
Baker, who lowballed everything, was characteristically cautious. "Boys," he
told a few of us aides in his suite after the news conference, "if you want
to get off the train, now might be a good time because it could all be
downhill from here." But I wasn't listening. America had used its power to
make war, and now, perhaps, it could use that power to make peace. I'd
become a believer.
I'm not anymore.
Etymologists tell us that the word "religion" may come from the Latin root
religare, meaning to adhere or bind. It's a wonderful derivation. In both
its secular and religious manifestations, faith is alluring and seductive
precisely because it's driven by propositions that bind or adhere the
believer to a compelling set of ideas that satisfy rationally or
spiritually, but always obligate.
So Why Have We Failed?
Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians who've tried and failed to make peace
answer three crucial questions.
And so it has been and remains with America's commitment to Arab-Israeli
peacemaking over the past 40 years, and certainly since the October 1973 war
gave birth to serious U.S. diplomacy and the phrase "peace process" (the
honor of authorship likely goes to a brilliant veteran State Department
Middle East hand, Harold Saunders, who saw the term appropriated by
Kissinger early in his shuttles). Since then, the U.S. approach has come to
rest on an almost unbreakable triangle of assumptions -- articles of faith,
really.
By the 1990s, these tenets made up a sort of peace-process religion,
a reverential logic chain that compelled most U.S. presidents to involve
themselves seriously in the Arab-Israeli issue. Barack Obama is the latest
convert, and by all accounts he too became a zealous believer, vowing within
days of his inauguration "to actively and aggressively seek a lasting peace
between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as Israel and its Arab
neighbors."
Like all religions, the peace process has developed a dogmatic creed, with
immutable first principles. Over the last two decades, I wrote them hundreds
of times to my bosses in the upper echelons of the State Department and the
White House; they were a catechism we all could recite by heart. First,
pursuit of a comprehensive peace was a core, if not the core, U.S. interest
in the region, and achieving it offered the only sure way to protect U.S.
interests; second, peace could be achieved, but only through a serious
negotiating process based on trading land for peace; and third, only America
could help the Arabs and Israelis bring that peace to fruition.
As befitting a religious doctrine, there was little nuance. And while not
everyone became a convert (Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush willfully
pursued other Middle East priorities, though each would succumb at one
point, if only with initiatives that reflected, to their critics, varying
degrees of too little, too late), the exceptions have mostly proved the
rule. The iron triangle that drove Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter,
George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and now Barack Obama to accord the
Arab-Israeli issue such high priority has turned out to be both durable and
bipartisan. Embraced by the high priests of the national security temple,
including State Department veterans like myself, intelligence analysts, and
most U.S. foreign-policy mandarins outside government, these tenets endured
and prospered even while the realities on which they were based had begun to
change. If this wasn't the definition of real faith, one wonders what was.
That Obama, burdened by two wars elsewhere and the most severe economic
crisis since the Great Depression, came out louder, harder, and faster on
the Arab-Israeli issue than any of his predecessors was a remarkable
testament to just how enduring that faith had become -- a faith he very
publicly proclaimed while personally presiding over the announcement of
George Mitchell as his Middle East envoy in an orchestrated ceremony at the
State Department two days after his swearing-in.
At first, it seemed that Obama, the poster president for America's
engagement with the world, had found a cause uniquely suited to his view of
diplomacy, one whose importance had been heightened by his predecessor's
neglect of the issue and the Arab and Muslim attachment to it. Even before
the Gaza war exploded three weeks prior to his inauguration, Obama had been
bombarded by experts sagely urging a renewed focus on Middle East peace as a
way to regain American prestige and credibility after the trauma of the Bush
years. The new president soon hit the Arab media running as a kind of
empathizer-in-chief, ratcheting up expectations even as Israelis
increasingly found him tone-deaf to their needs.
Obama surrounded himself with key figures, such as chief of staff Rahm
Emanuel and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who believed deeply in the
peace religion. He named as his chief peacemaker Mitchell, a man with real
stature and negotiating experience; and his national security advisor is
James L. Jones, himself a former Middle East envoy who made the stunning
pronouncement last year: "If there was one problem that I would recommend to
the president" to solve, "this would be it."
All these veteran leaders were not only believers, but had extra reason to
encourage a tougher line toward Israel; they had seen the Benjamin Netanyahu
movie before and were determined not to let their chance at Middle East
peace end the same way. In his first turn as prime minister in the 1990s,
the brash hard-liner Netanyahu had driven Bill Clinton crazy. (I remember
being briefed on their first meeting in 1996, after which the president
growled: "Who's the fucking superpower here?")
Confronted with Netanyahu again, Obama and his team needed no encouragement to talk tough on the
growing Israeli settlements in the West Bank, an issue that experts inside
and outside government were clamoring for Obama to raise as the first step
in his renewed push for peace.
At the time, it looked to be a magical convergence of leader and moment: The
Arab-Israeli issue seemed perfectly suited to Obama's transformational
objectives and his transactional style. If Obama wanted to begin "remaking
America," why not try to remake the troubled politics of peace, too? After
all, this was the engagement president, who believed deeply in the power of
negotiations.
Obama was not alone in his belief, of course. The peace-process creed has
endured so long because to a large degree it has made sense and accorded
with U.S. interests. The question is, does it still? Does the old thinking
about peacemaking apply to new realities? Is the Arab-Israeli conflict still
the core issue? And after two decades of inflated hopes followed by violence
and terror, and now by directionless stagnation, can we still believe that
negotiations will deliver?
Sadly, the answers to these questions seem to be all too obvious these days.
And Obama's first 15 months as a disciple of the old creed tells you why. In
2009, the president pushed the Israelis, the Arabs, and the Palestinians to
get negotiations going and was rebuffed by all three. He later told Time
magazine ruefully that "we overestimated our ability to persuade." In March
of this year, provoked by the Netanyahu government's incomprehensible
announcement of new housing units in East Jerusalem smack in the middle of
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel, Obama pushed the Israelis
again, harder this time, though it seems without much of a strategy to put
the crisis to good use.
Obama is clearly determined not to take no for an answer. Fresh from his
victory on health care, he's King of the World again and in no mood to let
the King of Israel frustrate his plans. This willfulness is impressive, and
it makes it even more imperative now that he's engaged in the faith to give
that old-time religion a fresh look, based not just on what's possible but
on what's probable. We don't have the right to abandon hope, but we do have
the responsibility to let go of, or at least temper, our illusions.
I can't tell you how many times in the past 20 years, as an intelligence
analyst, policy planner, and negotiator, I wrote memos to Very Important
People arguing the centrality of the Arab-Israeli issue and why the United
States needed to fix it. Long before I arrived at the State Department in
1978, my predecessors had made all the same arguments. An unresolved
Arab-Israeli conflict would trigger ruinous war, increase Soviet influence,
weaken Arab moderates, strengthen Arab radicals, jeopardize access to Middle
East oil, and generally undermine U.S. influence from Rabat to Karachi.
From the 1940s through the 1980s, the power with which the Palestinian issue
resonated in the Arab world did take a toll on American prestige and
influence.
Still, even back then the hand-wringing and dire predictions in
my Cassandra-like memos were overstated. I once warned ominously -- and
incorrectly -- that we'd have nonstop Palestinian terrorist attacks in the
United States if we didn't move on the issue. During those same years, the
United States managed to advance all of its core interests in the Middle
East: It contained the Soviets; strengthened ties to Israel and such key
Arab states as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia; maintained access to Arab
oil; and yes, even emerged in the years after the October 1973 war as the
key broker in Arab-Israeli peacemaking.
Today, I couldn't write those same memos or anything like them with a clear
conscience or a straight face. Although many experts' beliefs haven't
changed, the region has, and dramatically, becoming nastier and more
complex. U.S. priorities and interests, too, have changed. The notion that
there's a single or simple fix to protecting those interests, let alone that
Arab-Israeli peace would, like some magic potion, bullet, or elixir, make it
all better, is just flat wrong. In a broken, angry region with so many
problems -- from stagnant, inequitable economies to extractive and
authoritarian governments that abuse human rights and deny rule of law, to a
popular culture mired in conspiracy and denial -- it stretches the bounds of
credulity to the breaking point to argue that settling the Arab-Israeli
conflict is the most critical issue, or that its resolution would somehow
guarantee Middle East stability.
The unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict is still a big problem for America and
its friends: It stokes a white-hot anger toward the United States, has
already demonstrated the danger of confrontation and war (see Lebanon, 2006;
Gaza, 2008), and confronts Israel with a demographic nightmare. But three
other issues, at least, have emerged to compete for center stage, and they
might prove far more telling about the fate of U.S. influence, power, and
security than the ongoing story of what I've come to call the
much-too-promised land.
First, there are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where tens of thousands
of Americans are in harm's way and are likely to be for some time to come.
Add to the mix the dangerous situation in Pakistan, and you see volatility,
threat, and consequences that go well beyond Palestine. Second, though U.S.
foreign policy can't be held hostage to the war on terror (or whatever it's
now called), the 9/11 attacks were a fundamental turning point for an
America that had always felt secure within its borders. And finally there's
Iran, whose nuclear aspirations are clearly a more urgent U.S. priority than
Palestine. Should sanctions and/or diplomacy fail, the default position --
military action by Israel or even the United States -- can't be ruled out,
with galactic consequences for the region and the world. In any event, it's
hard to imagine Netanyahu making any big decisions on the peace process
until there's much more clarity on what he and most Israelis regard as the
existential threat of an Iran with a bomb.
As Obama surely reckoned, moving fast on Arab-Israeli peacemaking would help
the United States deal with these issues. But that linkage wasn't compelling
when Bush used it to suggest that victory in Iraq would make the
Arab-Israeli conflict easier to resolve; it's not compelling now as an exit
strategy from Iraq either, as if engaging in Arab-Israeli diplomacy will
make the potential mess we could leave behind in Iraq easier for the Arabs
to swallow.
Nor can the Arab-Israeli issue be used effectively to mobilize
Arabs against Iran, because the United States could never do enough
diplomatically (or soon enough) to have it make much of a difference.
Finally, linking the United States' willingness to help the Israelis with
Iran to their willingness to make concessions on Jerusalem and borders isn't
much of a policy either. If anything, it risks the United States losing its
leverage with Israel on the Iranian issue and raising the odds that Israel
would act alone.
Surely the United States can do more than one thing at once, the
foreign-policy equivalent of walking and chewing gum at the same time. But
America must also do multiple things well. Obama can't have an inch-deep and
mile-wide approach in which he commits to everything without a cruel and
unforgiving assessment of what's really possible and what's not. Nor can the
United States afford another high-profile failure based on what a brilliant
and committed Clinton told us shortly before we went to Camp David: "Guys,
trying and failing is a lot better than not trying at all." This is an
appropriate slogan for a high school football team; it's not a substitute
for a well-thought-out strategy for the world's greatest power. Obama
already has made a commitment to the American people to end two wars, keep
them safe from attack at home, and stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear
weapon, not to mention tackling the challenges of a severe recession and
growing deficit.
Governing is about choosing; it's about setting priorities, managing your
politics, thinking strategically, picking your spots, and looking for
genuine opportunities that can be exploited -- not tilting at windmills. And
these days, Arab-Israeli peacemaking is a pretty big windmill.
Even if you could make the case for the centrality of the Arab-Israeli
conflict, could you make peace?
Americans are optimists. Our idealism, pragmatism, and belief in the primacy
of the individual convince us that the world can be made a better place.
Unlike many countries that grapple with existential questions of political
identity and physical survival, Americans today don't live on the knife's
edge or hold (whatever our Puritan or Calvinist beginnings) a dark
deterministic view of human nature.
All this drives our conviction that talking is better than shooting. Rodney
King-like, we believe that if people would only sit down and discuss their
differences rationally and compromise, a way might be found to accommodate
conflicting views. After all, America is the big tent under which so many
religious, political, and ethnic groups have managed to coexist, remarkably
amicably. Perhaps this spirit is best embodied by Obama's Mideast envoy
George Mitchell, who once told me that any conflict created by human beings
could be resolved by them. Mitchell is truly convinced that solutions can be
found and that serious diplomacy is what you do until that time comes. But
he ended his first foray into Arab-Israeli diplomacy with three emphatic
no's: from Israel on a comprehensive settlement freeze, from Saudi Arabia on
partial normalization, and from the Palestinians on returning to
negotiations.
Much of our earlier experience in the tough world of Arab-Israeli
peacemaking seemed to bear out Mitchell's initial conviction. In the time
from the 1973 war to 1991, two Republican secretaries of state (Kissinger
and Baker) and one Democratic president (Carter) succeeded in hammering out
a series of Arab-Israeli agreements that established America's reputation as
an effective, even honest, broker -- seeming to validate the simple
proposition that negotiations can work.
If there was anyone who represented the faith in that proposition, it was
me. I recall giving a talk in Jerusalem in the fall of 1998, after Clinton
had brokered the Wye River accords (never implemented), in which I argued
that Arab-Israeli negotiations and the move toward peace were now
irreversible. That remark, one of the great howlers of the decade, prompted
a note from Efraim Halevy, then Israel's deputy Mossad chief, rightly
questioning my logic, and though Halevy was too polite to say it in his
note, my judgment as well. Still I believed.
And I continued to do so, all the way through the 1990s, the only decade in
the last half of the 20th century in which there was no major Arab-Israeli
war. Instead, this was the decade of the Madrid conference, the Oslo
accords, the Israel-Jordan peace treaty, regional accords on economic
issues, and a historic bid in the final year of the Clinton administration
to negotiate peace agreements between Israel, Syria, and the Palestinians.
But for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the Arab,
Palestinian, Israeli (and American) unwillingness to recognize what price
each side would have to pay to achieve those agreements, the decade ended
badly, leaving the pursuit of peace bloody, battered, and broken. Perhaps
the most serious casualty was the loss of hope that negotiations could
actually get the Arabs and Israelis what they wanted.
And that has been the story line ever since: more process than peace.
Looking ahead, that process looks much, much tougher -- and peace more and
more elusive -- for three reasons.
First, Arab-Israeli peacemaking is politically risky and life-threatening.
Consider the murders of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin. At Camp David, I heard Palestinian leader Yasir
Arafat say at least three times, "You Americans will not walk behind my
coffin." Leaders take risks only when prospects of pain and gain compel them
to do so. Today's Middle East leaders -- Israel's Netanyahu, Syria's Bashar
al-Assad, and Palestine's Mahmoud Abbas -- aren't suicidal. It was
Netanyahu, after all, who once told me: "You live in Chevy Chase. Don't play
with our future."
Second, big decisions require strong leaders -- think Jordan's King Hussein
or Israel's Menachem Begin -- because the issues on the table cut to the
core of their political and religious identity and physical survival. This
requires leaders with the legitimacy, authority, and command of their
politics to make a deal stick. But the current crop are more prisoners of
their constituencies than masters of them: Netanyahu presides over a divided
coalition and a country without consensus on what price Israel will pay for
agreements with Palestinians and Syria; Abbas is part of a broken
Palestinian national movement and shares control over Palestine's guns,
authority, and legitimacy with Hamas. It's hard to see how either can
marshal the will and authority to make big decisions.
Third, even with strong leaders, you still need a project that doesn't
exceed the carrying capacity of either side. In the past, U.S. diplomacy
succeeded because the post-1973-war disengagement agreements, a separate
Egypt-Israel accord, and a three-day peace conference at Madrid aligned with
each side's capabilities. Today, issues such as Jerusalem (as a capital of
two states), borders (based on June 1967 lines), and refugees (rights,
return, and compensation) present gigantic political and security challenges
for Arabs and Israelis. One accord will be hard enough. The prospect of
negotiating a comprehensive peace; concluding three agreements between
Israel and the Palestinians, between Israel and Syria, and between Israel
and Lebanon; dismantling settlements in the Golan Heights and West Bank; and
withdrawing to borders based on June 1967 lines seems even more fantastical.
Bottom line: Negotiations can work, but both Arabs and Israelis (and
American leaders) need to be willing and able to pay the price. And they are
not.
Under these circumstances, the refrain from many quarters is that America
must save the day. If the Arabs and Israelis are too weak or recalcitrant,
then the United States must support and/or push them to make the deal.
Such forceful U.S. diplomacy succeeded in the past. Indeed, it's a stunning
paradox that with the exception of the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty,
every other successful accord came not out of direct negotiations, but as a
result of U.S. mediation. The Oslo accords, often touted as the miracle
produced by direct talks between Israelis and Palestinians, proved to be a
spectacular failure. All that's missing now, the argument goes, is the
absence of American will.
I understand the logic of this view, and having spent more than 20 years in
frustrating talks with the Arabs and Israelis, I can also see how it can be
emotionally satisfying. But because I know a thing or two about failure and
don't want to see the United States fail (yet again), I simply don't buy the
argument. If I genuinely believed America could impose and deliver a
solution through tough forceful diplomacy, I'd be more sympathetic -- but I
don't. And here's why:
Ownership: Larry Summers, Obama's chief economic advisor, said it best: In
the history of the world, no one ever washed a rental car. We care only
about what we own. Unless the Arabs and Israelis want political agreements
and peace and can invest enough in them to give them a chance to succeed, we
certainly can't. The broader Middle East is littered with the remains of
great powers that wrongly believed they could impose their will on small
tribes. Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran... need I continue? Small tribes will always
be meaner, tougher, and longer-winded than U.S. diplomats because it's their
neighborhood and their survival; they will always have a greater stake in
the outcome of their struggle than the great power thousands of miles away
with many other things to do. You want to see failure? Take a whack at
trying to force Israelis and Palestinians to accept an American solution on
Jerusalem.
The negotiator's mystique: It's gone, at least for now. When Americans
succeeded in Arab-Israeli diplomacy, it was because they were respected,
admired, even feared. U.S. power and influence were taken seriously. Today,
much of the magic is gone: We are overextended, diminished, bogged down.
Again Summers: Can the world's biggest borrower continue to be the world's
greatest power? Our friends worry about our reliability; our adversaries,
including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, believe they can outwait and
outmaneuver us. Nor does there appear much cost or consequence to saying no
to the superpower. After Obama and Mitchell's fruitless first year, I worry
that the mediator's mystique of a Kissinger or a Baker, or the willfulness
and driving force of a Carter, won't return easily.
Domestic politics: The pro-Israel community in the United States has a
powerful voice, primarily in influencing congressional sentiment and
initiatives (assistance to Israel in particular), but it does not have a
veto over U.S. foreign policy.
Lobbies lobby; that's the American way, for better or worse.
Presidents are supposed to lead. And when they do, with a
real strategy that's in America's national interests, they trump domestic
politics. Still, domestic politics constrain, particularly when a president
is perceived to be weak or otherwise occupied. This president has been
battered of late, and his party is likely to face significant losses in the
2010 midterm elections. Should there be a serious chance for a breakthrough
in the peace process, he'll go for it. But is it smart to risk trying to
manufacture one? The last thing Obama needs now is an ongoing fight with the
Israelis and their supporters, or worse, a major foreign-policy failure.
U.S.-Israeli relations: America is Israel's best friend and must continue to
be.
Shared values are at the core of the relationship, and our intimacy with
Israel gives us leverage and credibility in peacemaking when we use it
correctly. But this special relationship with the Israelis, which can serve
U.S. interests, has become an exclusive one that does not. We've lost the
capacity to be independent of Israel, to be honest with it when it does
things we don't like, to impose accountability, and to adopt positions in a
negotiation that might depart from Israel's. It's tough to be a credible
mediator with such handicaps.
Fighting with Israel is an occupational reality. It's part of the mediator's
job description. Every U.S. president or secretary of state who succeeded
(and some who didn't) had dust-ups, some serious, with Israel. (Remember how
Bush 41 and Baker used housing loan guarantees?
In 1991, the United States denied Israel billions in credit to borrow at reduced interest rates because
of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's determination to build settlements.) But
the fight must produce something of value -- like the Madrid conference --
that not only makes the United States look good but significantly advances
the negotiations. In short, we need a strategy that stands a chance of
working. Otherwise, why would any U.S. president want to hammer a close ally
with a strong domestic constituency?
And this was the problem with Obama's tough talk to Israel on settlements.
Not only was the goal he laid out -- a settlements freeze including natural
growth -- unattainable, but it wasn't part of a broader strategy whose
dividends would have made the fight worthwhile. Going after the Israelis
piecemeal on settlements to please the Arabs or to make ourselves feel
better won't work unless we have a way of achieving a breakthrough. That a
tough-talking Obama ended up backing down last year when Netanyahu said no
to a comprehensive freeze tells you why.
And that remains the president's challenge after the Biden brouhaha over
housing units in East Jerusalem. In the spring of 2010 we're nowhere near a
breakthough, and yet we're in the middle of a major rift with the Israelis.
Unless we achieve a big concession, we will be perceived to have backed down
again. And even if the president manages to extract something on Jerusalem,
the chances that Netanyahu will be able to make a far greater move on a core
issue, such as borders, will be much reduced. Unless the president is trying
to get rid of Netanyahu (and produce a new coalition), he'll have no choice
but to find a way to cooperate with him.
Now Obama faces a conundrum. A brilliant, empathetic president, with a
Nobel Peace Prize to boot, has embraced the iron triangle and made America
the focal point of action and responsibility for the Arab-Israeli issue at a
time when the country may be least able to do much about it.
Trying to compensate for the absence of urgency, will, and leadership among
Arabs and Israelis by inserting your own has always been a tough assignment.
The painful truth is that faith in America's capacity to fix the
Arab-Israeli issue has always been overrated. It's certainly no coincidence
that every breakthrough from the Egypt-Israel treaty to the Oslo accords to
the Israel-Jordan peace agreement came initially as a consequence of secret
meetings about which the United States was the last to know. Only then, once
there was local ownership or some regional crisis that the United States
could exploit, were we able to move things forward.
Right now, America has neither the opportunity nor frankly the balls to do
truly big things on Arab-Israeli peacemaking. Fortuna might still rescue the
president. The mullahcracy in Tehran might implode. The Syrians and Israelis
might reach out to one another secretly, or perhaps a violent confrontation
will flare up to break the impasse.
But without a tectonic plate shifting somewhere, it's going to be tough to
re-create the good old days when bold and heroic Arab and Israeli leaders
strode the stage of history, together with Americans, willing and able to do
serious peacemaking.
I remember attending Rabin's funeral in 1995 in Jerusalem and trying to
convince myself that America must and could save the peace process that had
been so badly undermined by his assassination. I'm not a declinist. I still
believe in the power of American diplomacy when it's tough, smart, and fair.
But the enthusiasm, fervor, and passion have given way to a much more sober
view of what's possible. Failure can do that.
The believers need to re-examine their faith, especially at a moment when
America is so stretched and overextended. The United States needs to do what
it can, including working with Israelis and Palestinians on negotiating core
final-status issues (particularly on borders, where the gaps are narrowest),
helping Palestinians develop their institutions, getting the Israelis to
assist by allowing Palestinians to breathe economically and expand their
authority, and keeping Gaza calm, even as it tries to relieve the
desperation and sense of siege through economic assistance.
But America should also be aware of what it cannot do, as much as what it can.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who probably didn't know much about the Middle East,
said it best: "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, then in
half the creeds."
And maybe, if that leads to more realistic thinking when it comes to America's view of Arab-Israeli peacemaking, that's not such a bad thing.
Aaron David Miller served as an advisor on the Middle East to Republican and
Democratic secretaries of state. He is currently a public policy scholar at
the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the author of The
Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace.
See the original article in Foreign Policy
See more on this at Israel Behind the News
Showing posts with label Salam Fayyad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Salam Fayyad. Show all posts
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
The Philadelphia Bulletin: Palestinian Authority Incitement Becomes an Issue
by David Bedein
Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed the Israeli Knesset Parliament Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last week that, for the first time since the inception of the negotiation process with the P.L.O. in 1993, the Israeli government has announced an official policy to monitor virulent incitement from official media outlets of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.).
Mr. Netanyahu has appointed the former head of Military Intelligence’s research department as government coordinator for incitement in the P.A. “We will set parameters by which to measure the level of incitement,” Mr. Netanyahu told the committee. “People must know exactly what is happening on this issue because, for a peace agreement, education toward peace and acceptance of Israel are needed.”
An “incitement index” will be produced by monitoring broadcasts in the official P.A. media, statements and actions by senior P.A. officials and textbooks, according to senior Israeli government officials. All of these will be examined for incitement, encouraging an atmosphere of violence and/or manifestations of anti-Semitism. The Israeli government was particularly outraged by the P.A.’s plan to hold a ceremony on Wednesday to name a square in Ramallah in honor of the late Mrs. Dalal al-Mughrabi, one of the Palestinian terrorists who landed a small dingy on a beach in Israel, murdered an American photographer, Gail Rubin, the niece of the late U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff, and then commandeered a passenger bus where they proceeded to murder 37 Israeli citizens. After pressure was brought to bear from both the Israeli and American governments, the ceremony was canceled.
The Bulletin has learned that Vice President Biden, now on an official visit to the Middle East, made a direct request that the P.A. cancel the ceremony that honors a terrorist.
Meanwhile, recent examples of Incitement from official channels of the Palestinian Authority include:
February 26, 2010: P.A. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad stated that the Al-Ibrahimi mosque site in Hebron [the Machpelah] is “an inseparable part of Palestinian lands occupied in 1967, as is the Gaza strip and eastern Jerusalem.”
According to NAM News Network:
“After performing Friday prayers (which were held at the Al-Ibrahimi mosque) Fayyad said that the Palestinian people stand together in facing the Israeli decision to list Al-Ibrahimi mosque and Rachel Tomb (sic) - a mosque - both on Palestinian land, as Israeli UNESCO (sic) heritage sites.
“He stressed that Israel by this, breaches international law, having no claim over the land, which the Palestinians have full rights to.”
He further warned of an increased risk of violence as a result of the Israeli government decision on the sites, adding “we are all united against the decision of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and against the terror of the settlers.”
Several sources reported that Mr. Fayyad accused Israel of having “annexed” the site.
February 23, 2010: P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas referred to the decision of the Netanyahu government to add the Machpelah in Hebron and Kever Rachel outside of Bethlehem to the list of national Heritage sites as a “severe provocation” that could lead to a “war of religions” and possibly a new intifada.
See this report at Israel Behind the News
Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed the Israeli Knesset Parliament Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last week that, for the first time since the inception of the negotiation process with the P.L.O. in 1993, the Israeli government has announced an official policy to monitor virulent incitement from official media outlets of the Palestinian Authority (P.A.).
Mr. Netanyahu has appointed the former head of Military Intelligence’s research department as government coordinator for incitement in the P.A. “We will set parameters by which to measure the level of incitement,” Mr. Netanyahu told the committee. “People must know exactly what is happening on this issue because, for a peace agreement, education toward peace and acceptance of Israel are needed.”
An “incitement index” will be produced by monitoring broadcasts in the official P.A. media, statements and actions by senior P.A. officials and textbooks, according to senior Israeli government officials. All of these will be examined for incitement, encouraging an atmosphere of violence and/or manifestations of anti-Semitism. The Israeli government was particularly outraged by the P.A.’s plan to hold a ceremony on Wednesday to name a square in Ramallah in honor of the late Mrs. Dalal al-Mughrabi, one of the Palestinian terrorists who landed a small dingy on a beach in Israel, murdered an American photographer, Gail Rubin, the niece of the late U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff, and then commandeered a passenger bus where they proceeded to murder 37 Israeli citizens. After pressure was brought to bear from both the Israeli and American governments, the ceremony was canceled.
The Bulletin has learned that Vice President Biden, now on an official visit to the Middle East, made a direct request that the P.A. cancel the ceremony that honors a terrorist.
Meanwhile, recent examples of Incitement from official channels of the Palestinian Authority include:
February 26, 2010: P.A. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad stated that the Al-Ibrahimi mosque site in Hebron [the Machpelah] is “an inseparable part of Palestinian lands occupied in 1967, as is the Gaza strip and eastern Jerusalem.”
According to NAM News Network:
“After performing Friday prayers (which were held at the Al-Ibrahimi mosque) Fayyad said that the Palestinian people stand together in facing the Israeli decision to list Al-Ibrahimi mosque and Rachel Tomb (sic) - a mosque - both on Palestinian land, as Israeli UNESCO (sic) heritage sites.
“He stressed that Israel by this, breaches international law, having no claim over the land, which the Palestinians have full rights to.”
He further warned of an increased risk of violence as a result of the Israeli government decision on the sites, adding “we are all united against the decision of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and against the terror of the settlers.”
Several sources reported that Mr. Fayyad accused Israel of having “annexed” the site.
February 23, 2010: P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas referred to the decision of the Netanyahu government to add the Machpelah in Hebron and Kever Rachel outside of Bethlehem to the list of national Heritage sites as a “severe provocation” that could lead to a “war of religions” and possibly a new intifada.
See this report at Israel Behind the News
Friday, March 5, 2010
Special Report: THE INCITEMENT REPORT - Incitement by the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA, January-February 2010
by The Center for Near East Policy Research
“The Palestinian Authority is once again trying to divert attention from its problems
at home, and the best way to do this is [by] escalating tensions with Israel - the
Palestinian Authority’s policy since its inception after signing the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993.
“To distract attention from charges of financial corruption and embarrassing sexual
scandals, the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank has stepped up its anti-Israel
rhetoric. Allegations of ‘ethnic cleansing,’ ‘destruction and desecration of Islamic
religious sites,’ ‘apartheid,’ ‘racism,’ ‘land theft’ and ‘conducting medical experiments on Palestinian prisoners’ are directed every day toward Israel by Abbas and his top officials and spokesmen.
“These charges are often backed up by threats to launch a ‘third intifada’ or to resume suicide bombings against Israel.
“Given Abbas’s growing predicament, the likelihood of a new wave of violence in the
West Bank or the Gaza Strip seems to be more realistic than ever.”1
On February 26, 2010, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad stated that the Al-Ibrahimi
mosque site in Hebron [the Machpelah] is “an inseparable part of Palestinian lands
occupied in 1967, as is the Gaza strip and eastern Jerusalem.”2
According to NAM News Network:
He further warned of an increased risk of violence as a result of the Israeli government decision on the sites, adding "we are all united against the decision of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and against the terror of the settlers.”5
Several sources reported that Fayyad accused Israel of having “annexed” the site.
On February 23, 2010, PA President Mahmoud Abbas referred to the decision of the
Netanyahu government to add the Machpelah in Hebron and Kever Rachel outside of
Bethlehem to the list of national Heritage sites as a “severe provocation” that could
lead to a “war of religions” and possibly a new intifada.7
The Palestinian Authority daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, reported on February 20, 2010,
that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad praised the popular resistance in the
village of Bil'in at a rally marking six years of struggle against the separation fence.8
See the full report at Israel Behind the News
“The Palestinian Authority is once again trying to divert attention from its problems
at home, and the best way to do this is [by] escalating tensions with Israel - the
Palestinian Authority’s policy since its inception after signing the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993.
“To distract attention from charges of financial corruption and embarrassing sexual
scandals, the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank has stepped up its anti-Israel
rhetoric. Allegations of ‘ethnic cleansing,’ ‘destruction and desecration of Islamic
religious sites,’ ‘apartheid,’ ‘racism,’ ‘land theft’ and ‘conducting medical experiments on Palestinian prisoners’ are directed every day toward Israel by Abbas and his top officials and spokesmen.
“These charges are often backed up by threats to launch a ‘third intifada’ or to resume suicide bombings against Israel.
“Given Abbas’s growing predicament, the likelihood of a new wave of violence in the
West Bank or the Gaza Strip seems to be more realistic than ever.”1
On February 26, 2010, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad stated that the Al-Ibrahimi
mosque site in Hebron [the Machpelah] is “an inseparable part of Palestinian lands
occupied in 1967, as is the Gaza strip and eastern Jerusalem.”2
According to NAM News Network:
“After performing Friday prayers (which were held at the Al-Ibrahmi mosque3),
Fayyad said that the Palestinian people stand together in facing the Israeli
decision to list Al-Ibrahimi mosque and Rachel Tomb (sic) – a mosque – both on
Palestinian land, as Israeli UNESCO (sic) heritage sites.
“He stressed that Israel by this, breaches international law, having no claim over
the land, which the Palestinians have full rights to.”4
He further warned of an increased risk of violence as a result of the Israeli government decision on the sites, adding "we are all united against the decision of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and against the terror of the settlers.”5
Several sources reported that Fayyad accused Israel of having “annexed” the site.
On February 23, 2010, PA President Mahmoud Abbas referred to the decision of the
Netanyahu government to add the Machpelah in Hebron and Kever Rachel outside of
Bethlehem to the list of national Heritage sites as a “severe provocation” that could
lead to a “war of religions” and possibly a new intifada.7
The Palestinian Authority daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, reported on February 20, 2010,
that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad praised the popular resistance in the
village of Bil'in at a rally marking six years of struggle against the separation fence.8
See the full report at Israel Behind the News
Monday, February 8, 2010
Palestine's 'economic miracle' : Immense amount of international donations inflate Palestinians' disposable income
by Avi Trengo, Economics Correspondent
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has been crowned as "the Palestinian Ben-Gurion at the recent Herzliya Conference. However, there is a great gap between the achievements attributed to him and his abilities in practice.
Fayyad is credited with changing the corrupt PA apparatus, but even in the financial realm where his expertise lies, his abilities are mostly manifested through the drafting of impressive documents as well as fundraising.
Meanwhile, the absurdity inherent in his statements regarding "Palestinian independence within two years" is clear to anyone familiar with the Palestinian economy. Fayyad is a former World Bank official, but even on the financial front his deeds are far from the image he has nurtured.
The Palestinian economy is the only place in the world where the per capita GDP is less than half the disposable income per capita. This is the result of three factors:
1. The Palestinians barely produce anything. Most of their GDP comes from government expenditures by the PA itself.
2. The Palestinians receive immense sums donated by the world.
3. Tax collection is almost unheard of, aside from the taxes collected (for Fayyad) by the Israeli government, which provides the PA with NIS 450 million (roughly $120 million) monthly; this comprises about 40% of the PA's budget.
The result is clear: Low GDP, but high disposable income. Indeed, it's an economic miracle.
Meanwhile, the situation is even more extreme in the Gaza Strip, where the PA spends 57% of its budget. Fayyad hands over salaries and allowances to 150,000 people, yet tens of thousands of them don't work, while others receive two salaries: One from Fayyad and another from Hamas. This is why the only industries active in Gaza are imports through smuggling tunnels and real estate - the surplus of cash in Gaza's banks prompts them to offer mortgages, and this results in a rise in real estate prices.
The former finance minister in Fayyad's government expressed it vividly in an interview with Le Monde: He said the Europeans are unaware that their money funds Hamas. Hamas doesn't know what to do with all the money in its pockets so it buys real estate. As result, the price of upscale beachfront real estate in Gaza increased by 300%. The money from the EU and from the taxes collected by Israel ultimately reaches Hamas, he said.
When Hamas took power, Fayyad was supposed to ensure (in line with the international community's demand) that the salaries he hands over do not reach Hamas hands. He indeed proceeded to remove 20,000 people form the list of salary earners, but two months later added more than 10,000 of them to the list of recipients of government allowances.
By doing so, Fayyad showed that he too is familiar with the Palestinian concept of the "revolving door." However, this is not his only economic failure.
Palestinian PM’s dubious schemes show he’s nothing like Israel’s founding father
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3845482,00.html
On the security front, Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad counts on the IDF and Shin Bet. Despite his claims that the IDF should not be operating "in the Palestinian state's territory," he knows that he has no control on the ground, neither in the Gaza Strip which he dreams of reuniting with the West Bank, nor in his own backyard in Judea and Samaria.
If Fayyad is indeed interested and capable of reuniting Gaza and the West Bank, when and how does he intend to do so? Will he be leading a Palestinian army that will deploy in Rafah and move north until it retakes Gaza City from the hands of Hamas? Obviously not. He is in fact creating the conditions for boosting Hamas, so that the IDF will ultimately have to enter Gaza, retake it while paying a heavy diplomatic price, and then end the "occupation" and hand it over to Fayyad, without him having to do a thing.
And back to the economic front: About two years ago, the World Bank demanded that Fayyad not only cut down PA salaries (no results thus far) but also that he minimize the second-highest PA budget clause: Payments aimed at covering electricity and water bills which PA residents refuse to pay (the accumulated electricity debt of Gaza residents stands at $2.7 billion.) This clause, which constitutes about 8% of the PA's budget, is hidden by Fayyad under the heading “Net Lending.”
Fayyad seemingly charges local authorities for the electricity provided to their residents by Israel, yet immediately “loans” them the money. As such, they appear as a local authority debt to the Palestinian Treasury. Two years ago, he attempted to force PA residents to present proof of payment on their electricity bills before receiving government allowances. The PA’s “public service sector” immediately embarked on a warning strike, and Fayyad got the hint and has refrained from demanding that the bills be paid.
A few months ago, Fayyad came up with an original solution: As he hands over immense sums for the salaries of tens of thousands of security officials in Gaza, who no longer work since Hamas took power there, he raised their salaries by 4% and even got EU funding for this. However, at the same time he deducted a similar sum from these salaries for “electricity bills.”
Everyone was pleased until Hamas authorities found out about it. They viewed it as financially detrimental to their government, and in response stopped handing over to the Palestinian fuel authority the sums of money collected from Gaza residents who do pay for electricity. This was the reason for the latest fuel crisis in the PA.
In conclusion: Ben-Gurion, who was a man of real work and pioneering spirit would be turning in his grave had he heard that Fayyad - a man who excels in dubious schemes and in drafting impressive donation requests that include words like “transparency,” “responsibility,” and “economic stability” - has been crowned as his successor in the 21st Century.
View the original article at Yediot Ahronot
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has been crowned as "the Palestinian Ben-Gurion at the recent Herzliya Conference. However, there is a great gap between the achievements attributed to him and his abilities in practice.
Fayyad is credited with changing the corrupt PA apparatus, but even in the financial realm where his expertise lies, his abilities are mostly manifested through the drafting of impressive documents as well as fundraising.
Meanwhile, the absurdity inherent in his statements regarding "Palestinian independence within two years" is clear to anyone familiar with the Palestinian economy. Fayyad is a former World Bank official, but even on the financial front his deeds are far from the image he has nurtured.
The Palestinian economy is the only place in the world where the per capita GDP is less than half the disposable income per capita. This is the result of three factors:
1. The Palestinians barely produce anything. Most of their GDP comes from government expenditures by the PA itself.
2. The Palestinians receive immense sums donated by the world.
3. Tax collection is almost unheard of, aside from the taxes collected (for Fayyad) by the Israeli government, which provides the PA with NIS 450 million (roughly $120 million) monthly; this comprises about 40% of the PA's budget.
The result is clear: Low GDP, but high disposable income. Indeed, it's an economic miracle.
Meanwhile, the situation is even more extreme in the Gaza Strip, where the PA spends 57% of its budget. Fayyad hands over salaries and allowances to 150,000 people, yet tens of thousands of them don't work, while others receive two salaries: One from Fayyad and another from Hamas. This is why the only industries active in Gaza are imports through smuggling tunnels and real estate - the surplus of cash in Gaza's banks prompts them to offer mortgages, and this results in a rise in real estate prices.
The former finance minister in Fayyad's government expressed it vividly in an interview with Le Monde: He said the Europeans are unaware that their money funds Hamas. Hamas doesn't know what to do with all the money in its pockets so it buys real estate. As result, the price of upscale beachfront real estate in Gaza increased by 300%. The money from the EU and from the taxes collected by Israel ultimately reaches Hamas, he said.
When Hamas took power, Fayyad was supposed to ensure (in line with the international community's demand) that the salaries he hands over do not reach Hamas hands. He indeed proceeded to remove 20,000 people form the list of salary earners, but two months later added more than 10,000 of them to the list of recipients of government allowances.
By doing so, Fayyad showed that he too is familiar with the Palestinian concept of the "revolving door." However, this is not his only economic failure.
Palestinian PM’s dubious schemes show he’s nothing like Israel’s founding father
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3845482,00.html
On the security front, Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad counts on the IDF and Shin Bet. Despite his claims that the IDF should not be operating "in the Palestinian state's territory," he knows that he has no control on the ground, neither in the Gaza Strip which he dreams of reuniting with the West Bank, nor in his own backyard in Judea and Samaria.
If Fayyad is indeed interested and capable of reuniting Gaza and the West Bank, when and how does he intend to do so? Will he be leading a Palestinian army that will deploy in Rafah and move north until it retakes Gaza City from the hands of Hamas? Obviously not. He is in fact creating the conditions for boosting Hamas, so that the IDF will ultimately have to enter Gaza, retake it while paying a heavy diplomatic price, and then end the "occupation" and hand it over to Fayyad, without him having to do a thing.
And back to the economic front: About two years ago, the World Bank demanded that Fayyad not only cut down PA salaries (no results thus far) but also that he minimize the second-highest PA budget clause: Payments aimed at covering electricity and water bills which PA residents refuse to pay (the accumulated electricity debt of Gaza residents stands at $2.7 billion.) This clause, which constitutes about 8% of the PA's budget, is hidden by Fayyad under the heading “Net Lending.”
Fayyad seemingly charges local authorities for the electricity provided to their residents by Israel, yet immediately “loans” them the money. As such, they appear as a local authority debt to the Palestinian Treasury. Two years ago, he attempted to force PA residents to present proof of payment on their electricity bills before receiving government allowances. The PA’s “public service sector” immediately embarked on a warning strike, and Fayyad got the hint and has refrained from demanding that the bills be paid.
A few months ago, Fayyad came up with an original solution: As he hands over immense sums for the salaries of tens of thousands of security officials in Gaza, who no longer work since Hamas took power there, he raised their salaries by 4% and even got EU funding for this. However, at the same time he deducted a similar sum from these salaries for “electricity bills.”
Everyone was pleased until Hamas authorities found out about it. They viewed it as financially detrimental to their government, and in response stopped handing over to the Palestinian fuel authority the sums of money collected from Gaza residents who do pay for electricity. This was the reason for the latest fuel crisis in the PA.
In conclusion: Ben-Gurion, who was a man of real work and pioneering spirit would be turning in his grave had he heard that Fayyad - a man who excels in dubious schemes and in drafting impressive donation requests that include words like “transparency,” “responsibility,” and “economic stability” - has been crowned as his successor in the 21st Century.
View the original article at Yediot Ahronot
Sunday, February 7, 2010
FAYYAD TO ISRAELI AUDIENCE; YOU MAKE CONCESSIONS - WE WON'T
by Barry Rubin
Imagine this. You're prime minister of a regime that isn't yet a state. You are praised in the Western media as a great moderate man of peace. You represent a people who the U.S. president says is in an intolerable situation. You supposedly want a country of your own. Indeed you've announced you will get a state in two years, something conceivable only if your negotiating partner agrees. You're dependent on contributions from Western democratic countries that want you to make a deal. Your rivals have seized almost half the land you want to rule and work tirelessly to overthrow your regime and very possibly to kill you personally.
But here comes a big opportunity.
You are invited by your negotiating partner to its most important meeting of the year. All the other side's top leaders and opinionmakers are listening to you.
And that country's second most powerful leader has just made a very conciliatory speech praising you personally, urging peace, offering concessions, and telling his own people they must be ready to give you a lot.
What do you do?
Make a warm conciliatory, confidence-building speech, showing by substantial offers that you, too, are willing to compromise; stretching out your hand in order to build friendship and ensure you get a country?
Hey, we're talking about the Palestinians here! And as I say over and over again: anyone who thinks the Palestinian Authority (PA) is going to make peace hasn't been paying attention to what they say and do.
So here is what PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told the audience at the Herzliya Conference, held at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), following Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak's conciliatory speech:
--Israel must immediately start pulling out of the rest of the West Bank, without getting anything in return.
--It must immediately stop all construction on settlements, including apartments now being completed.
--Israel's army should never enter PA-ruled areas. Even if the PA refuses to arrest those who have murdered Israelis or won't stop planned attacks, Israel's army must do nothing, despite the 1993 agreement between the two sides permitting this. Fayyad said this isn't necessary because the PA is taking care of these matters. But this makes no sense: when Israel sees that to be true it never orders incursions in the first place.
--Israel should end its blockade of the Gaza Strip, even though the Hamas movement ruling there refuses to make a deal with the PA, openly announces its goal of destroying Israel, and smuggles in as many weapons as possible. Moreover, as soon as it feels secure again, Hamas will launch new attacks on Israel. Fayyad claimed, however, that if Israel did so, the PA could then build government institutions in the Gaza Strip, though it has no control whatsoever there.
--He openly stated that his goal was to mobilize international support and create such a strong state apparatus that the world would pressure Israel to end any presence in the West Bank or east Jerusalem, apparently without the Palestinian side giving anything.
--While Barak said that the "roughness" of the region made it harder to give the Palestinians everything they wanted (for example, the PA could be overthrown by Hamas; subverted by Iran and Syria; unwilling or unable to stop cross-border attacks), Fayyad responded that once Israel left all of the West Bank the region would become more stable and peaceful. That's a rather questionable assertion.
It is true that he ended by saying:
"The Israeli people have a long history, they have pain, they have ambition, and like you, we Palestinians have our own history. Right now we are going through lots of pain and suffering. And we have one key aspiration, and that is once again to be able to live alongside you in peace, harmony and security."
Yet he addressed none of the points in Israel's own peace plan: an official end to the conflict if there is an agreement; resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Palestine; an end to incitement (which would be easy to do) to kill Israelis; limits on the militarization of a Palestinian state; or recognition of Israel as a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian Arab Muslim state (the PA constitution says that Islam is the country's official religion).
This was not an extremist speech or one seeking conflict. Fayyad is probably the most moderate guy in the PA leadership. He was doing about the best he could. But that's the point. He has no base of support, isn't a member of Fatah, and doesn't really represent Palestinian thinking. He is in office for one reason only: the Western donors demand it. Fayyad, and arguably the PA leadership as a whole, don't want a new war with Israel. But Fatah will sponsor one if it thinks such a step is advantageous or needed to out-militant Hamas.
Equally, Fayyad couldn't go any further than he did because he knows that his Fatah bosses, Palestinian constituents, and Hamas enemies would throw him out if he offered the slightest concession to Israel and demanded any less than everything they want.
We will see how much progress Fayyad makes over the next two years in building strong and stable institutions. Yet it should be understood that what he is doing is not a way to convince Israel that both sides can reach a compromise peace but to persuade the world to force Israel to make compromises without the PA having to do so.
The irony is that it doesn't matter what Barak says, except to show the world that Israel wants real peace and to encourage Israeli voters to back Labor as a party that balances a strong desire for peace with a smart sense of security for the country.
Barak warned the right-wing in Israel that it would be a mistake to oppose a genuine two-state solution, an outcome that Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu-like Barak--has accepted. But the defense minister also urged the left-wing not to be naïve.
Here's a fascinating example of how the world generally interprets the situation. Read this paragraph from the Washington Post coverage carefully:
"But there was a common thread, too, with each acknowledging an international consensus on the idea of two nations. Barak said that Israel risks becoming 'an apartheid state par excellence' if it does not negotiate the terms of Palestinian statehood soon, and Fayyad said the work being done in the West Bank on governance needs to be matched by political progress."
The two statements are supposed to be parallel. Barak says: Israel must get rid of the West Bank for its own good. Fayyad says: progress must be made in negotiations, in the context of a speech in which he asked for a long list of Israeli concessions and offered nothing in exchange. These statemens are not parallel. A parallel statement would be if Fayyad had said something like:
The Palestinians risk becoming permanently mired in violence and backwardness unless they negotiate terms for Israel feeling secure in giving up the territory.
Since 1993 not a single Palestinian leader has ever made a speech to his own people like Barak's, never said that they should have to give up something to get a state, never urged the media and public debate to become more moderate.
Four days before Fayyad's speech, here is the Friday prayer sermon given in Nablus by the imam appointed there by Fayyad and broadcast on the television Fayyad controls:
"The Jews are the enemies of Allah and [Muhammad], the enemies of humanity in general, and of the Palestinians in particular.... Jews will always be Jews. Even if donkeys cease to bray, dogs cease to bark, wolves cease to howl, and snakes cease to bite, the Jews will not cease to be hostile to the Muslims. The Prophet Muhammad said: 'Whenever two Jews find themselves alone with a Muslim, they think of killing him.' Oh Muslims, this land, these holy places, and these mosques will only be liberated when we return to the Book of Allah, and when all Muslims are prepared to become mujahideen for the sake of Allah, in support of Palestine, its people, its land, and its holy places."
How can this be reconciled with Fayyad's claim that the sole aspiration is "to live alongside you in peace, harmony and security"?
Note that this is a Palestinian Authority, not a Hamas, cleric speaking. Note, too, that while Fayyad's speech is covered around the world, sermons like these are never quoted in the Western media. This is not to say that the sermon is real and Fayyad's views are fake, it is to say that the sermon is meant to shape Palestinian politics and public opinion and what Fayyad says is meant to shape Israeli and Western politics and public opinion. Fayyad, a figurehead, is not going to make anything change and he isn't even going to try. Nor does Fayyad have any control over the ruling party, Fatah, whose leadership is still hardline on goals and negotiations, though not on more immediate issues.
The Israeli audience applauded Fayyad because it does want peace and prefers him to all the worse alternatives, especially Hamas but also those in Fatah. Yet few have any illusions that peace is at hand or that Fayyad is going to deliver it.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to GLORIA Center.
See the original article at the GLORIA Center.
Imagine this. You're prime minister of a regime that isn't yet a state. You are praised in the Western media as a great moderate man of peace. You represent a people who the U.S. president says is in an intolerable situation. You supposedly want a country of your own. Indeed you've announced you will get a state in two years, something conceivable only if your negotiating partner agrees. You're dependent on contributions from Western democratic countries that want you to make a deal. Your rivals have seized almost half the land you want to rule and work tirelessly to overthrow your regime and very possibly to kill you personally.
But here comes a big opportunity.
You are invited by your negotiating partner to its most important meeting of the year. All the other side's top leaders and opinionmakers are listening to you.
And that country's second most powerful leader has just made a very conciliatory speech praising you personally, urging peace, offering concessions, and telling his own people they must be ready to give you a lot.
What do you do?
Make a warm conciliatory, confidence-building speech, showing by substantial offers that you, too, are willing to compromise; stretching out your hand in order to build friendship and ensure you get a country?
Hey, we're talking about the Palestinians here! And as I say over and over again: anyone who thinks the Palestinian Authority (PA) is going to make peace hasn't been paying attention to what they say and do.
So here is what PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told the audience at the Herzliya Conference, held at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), following Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak's conciliatory speech:
--Israel must immediately start pulling out of the rest of the West Bank, without getting anything in return.
--It must immediately stop all construction on settlements, including apartments now being completed.
--Israel's army should never enter PA-ruled areas. Even if the PA refuses to arrest those who have murdered Israelis or won't stop planned attacks, Israel's army must do nothing, despite the 1993 agreement between the two sides permitting this. Fayyad said this isn't necessary because the PA is taking care of these matters. But this makes no sense: when Israel sees that to be true it never orders incursions in the first place.
--Israel should end its blockade of the Gaza Strip, even though the Hamas movement ruling there refuses to make a deal with the PA, openly announces its goal of destroying Israel, and smuggles in as many weapons as possible. Moreover, as soon as it feels secure again, Hamas will launch new attacks on Israel. Fayyad claimed, however, that if Israel did so, the PA could then build government institutions in the Gaza Strip, though it has no control whatsoever there.
--He openly stated that his goal was to mobilize international support and create such a strong state apparatus that the world would pressure Israel to end any presence in the West Bank or east Jerusalem, apparently without the Palestinian side giving anything.
--While Barak said that the "roughness" of the region made it harder to give the Palestinians everything they wanted (for example, the PA could be overthrown by Hamas; subverted by Iran and Syria; unwilling or unable to stop cross-border attacks), Fayyad responded that once Israel left all of the West Bank the region would become more stable and peaceful. That's a rather questionable assertion.
It is true that he ended by saying:
"The Israeli people have a long history, they have pain, they have ambition, and like you, we Palestinians have our own history. Right now we are going through lots of pain and suffering. And we have one key aspiration, and that is once again to be able to live alongside you in peace, harmony and security."
Yet he addressed none of the points in Israel's own peace plan: an official end to the conflict if there is an agreement; resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Palestine; an end to incitement (which would be easy to do) to kill Israelis; limits on the militarization of a Palestinian state; or recognition of Israel as a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian Arab Muslim state (the PA constitution says that Islam is the country's official religion).
This was not an extremist speech or one seeking conflict. Fayyad is probably the most moderate guy in the PA leadership. He was doing about the best he could. But that's the point. He has no base of support, isn't a member of Fatah, and doesn't really represent Palestinian thinking. He is in office for one reason only: the Western donors demand it. Fayyad, and arguably the PA leadership as a whole, don't want a new war with Israel. But Fatah will sponsor one if it thinks such a step is advantageous or needed to out-militant Hamas.
Equally, Fayyad couldn't go any further than he did because he knows that his Fatah bosses, Palestinian constituents, and Hamas enemies would throw him out if he offered the slightest concession to Israel and demanded any less than everything they want.
We will see how much progress Fayyad makes over the next two years in building strong and stable institutions. Yet it should be understood that what he is doing is not a way to convince Israel that both sides can reach a compromise peace but to persuade the world to force Israel to make compromises without the PA having to do so.
The irony is that it doesn't matter what Barak says, except to show the world that Israel wants real peace and to encourage Israeli voters to back Labor as a party that balances a strong desire for peace with a smart sense of security for the country.
Barak warned the right-wing in Israel that it would be a mistake to oppose a genuine two-state solution, an outcome that Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu-like Barak--has accepted. But the defense minister also urged the left-wing not to be naïve.
Here's a fascinating example of how the world generally interprets the situation. Read this paragraph from the Washington Post coverage carefully:
"But there was a common thread, too, with each acknowledging an international consensus on the idea of two nations. Barak said that Israel risks becoming 'an apartheid state par excellence' if it does not negotiate the terms of Palestinian statehood soon, and Fayyad said the work being done in the West Bank on governance needs to be matched by political progress."
The two statements are supposed to be parallel. Barak says: Israel must get rid of the West Bank for its own good. Fayyad says: progress must be made in negotiations, in the context of a speech in which he asked for a long list of Israeli concessions and offered nothing in exchange. These statemens are not parallel. A parallel statement would be if Fayyad had said something like:
The Palestinians risk becoming permanently mired in violence and backwardness unless they negotiate terms for Israel feeling secure in giving up the territory.
Since 1993 not a single Palestinian leader has ever made a speech to his own people like Barak's, never said that they should have to give up something to get a state, never urged the media and public debate to become more moderate.
Four days before Fayyad's speech, here is the Friday prayer sermon given in Nablus by the imam appointed there by Fayyad and broadcast on the television Fayyad controls:
"The Jews are the enemies of Allah and [Muhammad], the enemies of humanity in general, and of the Palestinians in particular.... Jews will always be Jews. Even if donkeys cease to bray, dogs cease to bark, wolves cease to howl, and snakes cease to bite, the Jews will not cease to be hostile to the Muslims. The Prophet Muhammad said: 'Whenever two Jews find themselves alone with a Muslim, they think of killing him.' Oh Muslims, this land, these holy places, and these mosques will only be liberated when we return to the Book of Allah, and when all Muslims are prepared to become mujahideen for the sake of Allah, in support of Palestine, its people, its land, and its holy places."
How can this be reconciled with Fayyad's claim that the sole aspiration is "to live alongside you in peace, harmony and security"?
Note that this is a Palestinian Authority, not a Hamas, cleric speaking. Note, too, that while Fayyad's speech is covered around the world, sermons like these are never quoted in the Western media. This is not to say that the sermon is real and Fayyad's views are fake, it is to say that the sermon is meant to shape Palestinian politics and public opinion and what Fayyad says is meant to shape Israeli and Western politics and public opinion. Fayyad, a figurehead, is not going to make anything change and he isn't even going to try. Nor does Fayyad have any control over the ruling party, Fatah, whose leadership is still hardline on goals and negotiations, though not on more immediate issues.
The Israeli audience applauded Fayyad because it does want peace and prefers him to all the worse alternatives, especially Hamas but also those in Fatah. Yet few have any illusions that peace is at hand or that Fayyad is going to deliver it.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books, go to GLORIA Center.
See the original article at the GLORIA Center.
Israeli Intelligence Think Tank Hosts Palestinian leader: Issues Ultimatum to Israel
by David Bedein
On Tuesday, February 2, Palestinian Authority leader Salman Fayyad made an unprecedented appearance at the annual “Herzlia conference” of the leading lights of Israeli intelligence, and used the occasion to issue an ultimatum to Israel, in which Fayyad, appointed as the Prime Minister of the PA by Machmud Abbas, declared that he would a Palestinian state within two years.
Fayyad said: “We have shown that we are serious in our intention to establish a state. We will do everything possible to be ready for this within two years”.
Fayyad’s theme was that “a failure to establish a state within two years could create severe disappointment on the Palestinian street”. Fayyad clarified that the international community also expects to see a solution within this time span, and that the Palestinian demand is to create a situation in which the world applies pressure on Israel.
Fayyad laced his presentation with statements of recent PLO history that had nothing to do with reality. Fayyad declared that the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the patron of the Palestinian Authority, had recognized Israel at the PLO’s conference in 1988 and in the wake of the Oslo Accord in 1993.
What Fayyad failed to mention was that at the PLO conference in 1988, which convened in Algiers, he refused to recognize Israel, while the media and many wishful thinking diplomats quoted a memo from Palestinian sources BEFORE the Algiers conference which assessed that the PLO was “expected to cancel the PLO covenant and recognize Israel”, a decision which never occurred.
The 1993 myth of PLO recognition is even more interesting.
The Oslo “Declaration of Principles” mutual recognition peace accords were indeed signed by the PLO’s Machmud Abbas and Yassir Arafat together with Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993.
Yet the Israeli Knesset Parliament ratified the Oslo Accords on September 25, 1993 - while the PLO would not ratify the accords when the PLO executive convened in Tunis on October 6, 1993 and the PLO’s Palestinian National Council convened in Gaza on April 24, 1996 to cancel the PLO Covenant which calls for Israel’s destruction and simply refused to do so and has never cancelled the PLO Covenant.
Fayyad also addressed security issues, demanding that Israel stop military incursions in areas governed by the Palestinian Authority, which have continued since Israel reestablished its presence in Palestinian cities and villages and refugee camps since April, 2002, greatly reducing terror attacks from Palestinian areas, after Palestinian terrorists had infiltrated Israel and murdered more than 1,000 people in Israel between 1993 and 2002.
During 2009, with Israeli military presence firmly entrenched in Palestinian areas, five Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorist infiltrators, as opposed the tens of Israelis per month who were murdered by terrorist infiltrators at the beginning of the decade.
However, Fayyad was firm in his demand that Israel must withdraw its military presence from all Palestinian areas: “The meaning of an end to the occupation is Palestinian presence, and not Israeli presence, in this area. We have proven ourselves from a security standpoint. Dealing with the security situation is not in Israel’s interests, it is also in the Palestinians’ interests”, including Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Fayyad went on to say that “ In all the agreements and understandings, nothing has ever been said to contradict the fact that East Jerusalem is an inseparable part of the Palestinian state...You are building exactly in the places where the Palestinian state is supposed to be established”
Along with this, Fayyad issued a further demand, to remove the “siege from the Gaza Strip”, without any call for the Palestinian Hamas regime that rules Gaza to cease and desist from hostile activity against Israel, saying that “ Removing it will contribute to a positive dynamic in advance of achieving internal Palestinian unity”. Fayyad added that if the Palestinian Authority were given a chance, it could rehabilitate Gaza very quickly. Fayyad forgot to mention that there is no chance that the PA will ever rule Gaza, where Hamas’s Gaza government remains unchallenged.
In terms of Fayyad’s call to remove Israeli military presence from Palestinian areas, Fayyad conveniently forgot to mention to the rank and file of Israeli intelligence that armed Israeli military intelligence forces protect his home and family in the Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Beit Hanina, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and that Israeli security guards often accompany Fayyad during his travels.
How would Fayyad react to the removal of Israeli military protection from his home and family?
On Tuesday, February 2, Palestinian Authority leader Salman Fayyad made an unprecedented appearance at the annual “Herzlia conference” of the leading lights of Israeli intelligence, and used the occasion to issue an ultimatum to Israel, in which Fayyad, appointed as the Prime Minister of the PA by Machmud Abbas, declared that he would a Palestinian state within two years.
Fayyad said: “We have shown that we are serious in our intention to establish a state. We will do everything possible to be ready for this within two years”.
Fayyad’s theme was that “a failure to establish a state within two years could create severe disappointment on the Palestinian street”. Fayyad clarified that the international community also expects to see a solution within this time span, and that the Palestinian demand is to create a situation in which the world applies pressure on Israel.
Fayyad laced his presentation with statements of recent PLO history that had nothing to do with reality. Fayyad declared that the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the patron of the Palestinian Authority, had recognized Israel at the PLO’s conference in 1988 and in the wake of the Oslo Accord in 1993.
What Fayyad failed to mention was that at the PLO conference in 1988, which convened in Algiers, he refused to recognize Israel, while the media and many wishful thinking diplomats quoted a memo from Palestinian sources BEFORE the Algiers conference which assessed that the PLO was “expected to cancel the PLO covenant and recognize Israel”, a decision which never occurred.
The 1993 myth of PLO recognition is even more interesting.
The Oslo “Declaration of Principles” mutual recognition peace accords were indeed signed by the PLO’s Machmud Abbas and Yassir Arafat together with Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993.
Yet the Israeli Knesset Parliament ratified the Oslo Accords on September 25, 1993 - while the PLO would not ratify the accords when the PLO executive convened in Tunis on October 6, 1993 and the PLO’s Palestinian National Council convened in Gaza on April 24, 1996 to cancel the PLO Covenant which calls for Israel’s destruction and simply refused to do so and has never cancelled the PLO Covenant.
Fayyad also addressed security issues, demanding that Israel stop military incursions in areas governed by the Palestinian Authority, which have continued since Israel reestablished its presence in Palestinian cities and villages and refugee camps since April, 2002, greatly reducing terror attacks from Palestinian areas, after Palestinian terrorists had infiltrated Israel and murdered more than 1,000 people in Israel between 1993 and 2002.
During 2009, with Israeli military presence firmly entrenched in Palestinian areas, five Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorist infiltrators, as opposed the tens of Israelis per month who were murdered by terrorist infiltrators at the beginning of the decade.
However, Fayyad was firm in his demand that Israel must withdraw its military presence from all Palestinian areas: “The meaning of an end to the occupation is Palestinian presence, and not Israeli presence, in this area. We have proven ourselves from a security standpoint. Dealing with the security situation is not in Israel’s interests, it is also in the Palestinians’ interests”, including Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem. Fayyad went on to say that “ In all the agreements and understandings, nothing has ever been said to contradict the fact that East Jerusalem is an inseparable part of the Palestinian state...You are building exactly in the places where the Palestinian state is supposed to be established”
Along with this, Fayyad issued a further demand, to remove the “siege from the Gaza Strip”, without any call for the Palestinian Hamas regime that rules Gaza to cease and desist from hostile activity against Israel, saying that “ Removing it will contribute to a positive dynamic in advance of achieving internal Palestinian unity”. Fayyad added that if the Palestinian Authority were given a chance, it could rehabilitate Gaza very quickly. Fayyad forgot to mention that there is no chance that the PA will ever rule Gaza, where Hamas’s Gaza government remains unchallenged.
In terms of Fayyad’s call to remove Israeli military presence from Palestinian areas, Fayyad conveniently forgot to mention to the rank and file of Israeli intelligence that armed Israeli military intelligence forces protect his home and family in the Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Beit Hanina, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and that Israeli security guards often accompany Fayyad during his travels.
How would Fayyad react to the removal of Israeli military protection from his home and family?
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Special Report: THE INCITEMENT REPORT, Volume 1, Issue 1: Incitement by the Palestinian Authority
THE INCITEMENT REPORT
VOL. I, ISSUE I
Incitement by the Palestinian Authority
November 2009 - January 2010
PUBLISHED BY:
THE CENTER FOR NEAR EAST POLICY RESEARCH
BEIT AGRON INTERNATIONAL PRESS CENTER
37 HILLEL STREET
JERUSALEM 94581 ISRAEL
TEL. 02 6236368
CtrForNearEastPolicyResearch@gmail.com
www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com
_____________________________________________
q Al-Ayyam (PA), November 12, 2009, reported:#
“Mahmoud Abbas…spoke in favor of armed resistance at a rally marking the fifth anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death: ‘We will continue [Arafat's] long and exhausting struggle [that was] fraught with blood, sweat, and tears. The road [we are traveling] today is anchored in a noble heritage of struggle that we built with brave hands, an enlightened mind, and a national thinking [rooted in] long experience. We combined armed struggle with political activity. Our guns were not the guns of highway robbers. They were political guns [promoting] a noble goal.’
q According to El-Shourouq (Tunisia), November 15, 2009:#
Fatah Central Committee member Nabil Sha'ath said in an interview: "Today we have the right to return to the armed struggle in order to restore our rights. For 18 years we tried to negotiate, but Israel has continued its aggression, destruction, massacres and [construction of] settlements. Today we have the right to turn back to the alternative [routes]... If negotiations fail, we will turn to armed struggle. This is our right, as I have said... International law stipulates that, when an occupying [force] takes one's land and harms one's honor, one has the right to resort to armed struggle."
q Hafez Al-Barghouthi, editor of the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, wrote on November 15, 2009:#
"[We] must bring things to the point of no return: either [we obtain] a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the June 4, 1967 borders, or the flood will descend...
"The Palestinian people will not allow its tragedy to repeat itself without a reaction. If it must choose between a quick death and a slow one, it will choose the short road and set the land on fire everywhere...
"We owe nothing to anyone. On the contrary, it is others who owe us a huge debt. If the roads to peace are blocked by settlements and international conspiracies, we will turn ourselves into paragons of sacrifice... When we no longer have anything to lose, it will be [the Israelis] who will lose..."
q On December 24, 2009, three members of Al-Aksa Brigades killed Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai in a drive-by shooting in Samaria and fled. Two days later, the IDF had tracked them to their homes, in the Nablus area . Two refused to come out of their homes and surrender; a third came out using his wife as a shield and was thought to be armed. They were all shot dead.
By December 27, the Palestinian Authority leadership and PA-controlled media had begun to refer to the three as shahids – holy martyrs:#
PA President Mahmoud Abbas sent a personal emissary – Secretary General of the President’s Bureau, Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim – to the homes of their families. He carried letters from Abbas that conveyed condolences and informed the families of his decision to name them “Shahids of the Palestinian Revolution” (PA TV)
Said Al-Rahim: "Without doubt, what the occupation authorities have carried out is a wild and barbaric act and a deliberate, malicious assassination in cold blood."
PA TV featured a poster of the three terrorists, expressing condolences from Abbas. The text on the poster read:
"With honor and admiration to those who are more honored than all of us.
"The Palestine Liberation Organization, Fatah, accompanies to their wedding [of martyrs with virgins in Paradise]:
“The Martyr, Commander, Hero: Rassan Abu Serah
”The Martyr, Commander, Hero: Ra'ed Al Aschregi
”The Martyr, Commander, Hero: Anan Sobh
The Director General of the Presidency expresses condolences to the Nablus Martyrs - in the name of the President [Abbas].”
Additionally, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad personally visited the homes of the families of these men and conveyed condolences.
It should be noted that there was denial of what the three men had done. There was no claim that “innocent” men had been mistakenly killed by the IDF.
Maan News Agency on December 26 referred to the activity of these men, “which led to the death of the settler in a shooting operation."
q Dalal Mughrabi was a young female terrorist who led a party of 11other terrorists down from Lebanon into northern Israel, via the Mediterranean, in 1978. They first killed wildlife photographer Gail Rubin on the beach and then hijacked a bus. When the bus was stopped at a roadblock, and a gun battle ensued, she blew it up. In all 37 civilians, including 10 children, were killed and 71 wounded. This attack, which became known as the Coastal Road Massacre, is one of the worst in Israel’s history. Mughrabi herself was killed in the gun battle.
On December 29, 2009, PA President Mahmoud Abbas honored Mughabri’s memory on the occasion of her 50th birthday. PA dignitaries and a children’s marching band were present for the ceremony.#
A very large banner was displayed at the ceremony. It had Mughrabi’s picture on it. The text read:
"Under the auspices of President Mahmoud Abbas
The Political and National Education Authority Ceremony on the anniversary of the birth of the bride of the cosmos The Shahida (Holy Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi."
Two PA TV broadcasts noted the ceremony.
Additionally, the governor of Ramallah announced the naming of Dalal Mughrabi Square.
While on December 30, 2009, PA spokesman Jamal Nazal, writing in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, referred to her as “the heroine of Palestine’s heroines.”
q Wafa Idris, the first female Palestinian suicide bomber, detonated a bomb in the center of Jerusalem in January 2002 that killed one and injured over 100.
During the first week of January 2010, she was honored as a Shahida (Holy Martyr) in a Fatah promotional video broadcast on PA TV.#
q On January 11, 2010, the following appeared in the PA paper Al-Ayyam:#
Headline: "The occupation accuses the Palestinian leadership of incitement because of Dalal Mughrabi Square -Minister of Culture: Honoring the Shahids is the least we can do, and resistance to the occupation is a legitimate right"
"The occupation government [the Israeli government] has reiterated its familiar tune of accusing the [Palestinian] National Authority of incitement within Palestinian culture. The Israeli Prime Minister... claims that the Palestinian leadership is encouraging terror in its culture.
”Netanyahu claims that the proof, which he presented to the members of his government, is the naming of a square in the region of Ramallah and El-Bireh after the Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi. ...
”Netanyahu is reported as saying: 'Anyone who supports naming [the square] after Dalal Mughrabi, who was responsible for the murder of dozens of Israelis, is encouraging terror and pushing peace further off...'
”Netanyahu was referring to the operation of self-sacrifice led by Mughrabi in 1978, the ‘Coast Operation’ within Israel, which led to the deaths of 36 Israelis. Netanyahu accused the [Palestinian] National Authority of incitement in schools and in cultural activities in general.
”Minister of Culture Siham Barghouti said, in response to the Israeli claims, that 'It is our right to preserve and maintain [the memory] of our fighters who sacrificed their lives for our sake and for the sake of the Palestinian cause.'
”She added: 'Honoring them in this way [by naming public places after them] is the least we can give them, and this is our right, especially since we believe that resistance, in the shadow of the ongoing occupation, is a legitimate right, and we are proud and we pride ourselves on our heritage of struggle, which has been realized by our Shahids and fighters throughout history.'
q Al-Quds, Jerusalem, January 21, 2010, reported:#
“The concluding statement of Fatah's Revolutionary Council meeting said that there was a need to step up the popular resistance and to expand it to all Palestinian areas harmed by the settlements and by the separation fence.”
q On Friday, January 29, 2010, a sermon was broadcast on PA-controlled TV that said in part:
“The Jews, the enemies of Allah and of His Messenger, the enemies of Allah and of His Messenger! Enemies of humanity in general, and of Palestinians in particular - they wage war against us using all kinds of crimes, and as you see - even the mosques are not spared their racism...
"Oh Muslims! The Jews are the Jews. The Jews are the Jews. Even if donkeys would cease to bray, dogs cease to bark, wolves cease to howl and snakes to bite, the Jews would not cease to harbor hatred towards Muslims. The Prophet said that if two Jews would be alone with a Muslim, they would think only of killing him. Oh Muslims! This land will be liberated, these holy places and these mosques will be liberated, only by means of a return to the Koran and when all Muslims will be willing to be Jihad Fighters for the sake of Allah and for the sake of supporting Palestine, the Palestinian people, the Palestinian land, and the holy places in Palestine. The Prophet says: 'You shall fight the Jews and kill them…’”#
Incitement by UNRWA
January 2010
Karen AbuZayd has retired as Commissioner-General of UNRWA and has been succeeded by Filippo Grandi, who had been AbuZayd’s lieutenant.
Providing insight into the issue of UNRWA incitement we have Mr. Grandi’s inaugural letter to the UNRWA staff, dated January 26, 2010. It appeared on the UNRWA website.#
Mr. Grandi’s letter includes the following:
“I need not tell you how difficult this period is for the Palestinian people. We are all painfully aware of the counterproductive policies collectively punishing the people of the Gaza Strip; conscious decisions that have caused untold suffering and a dramatic deterioration in the lives of the population, in contravention of international law. One of my key priorities will be to continue to advocate strongly on behalf of the 1.5 million Gazans, and to do so not only until the end of the blockade and the occupation, but also until a just and lasting solution to the plight of the refugees is achieved.
“Despite some recent economic improvements for some, the lives of most Palestinians in the West Bank continue to be made almost impossible by obstacles, walls, movement limitations and other restrictions, and by the expanding threat of settler violence. For those residing in East Jerusalem, as I do, it is cause for daily anguish to watch the situation deteriorate rapidly under our very eyes, especially the ruthless evictions of Palestinians from their homes. UNRWA will continue to stand with the affected families and all of those in need of our protection and will tirelessly lend our voice to their calls for justice.”
There are several seriously tendentious statements – and, in fact, outright misrep resenta tions – included here. But this material is problematic for reasons beyond this: UNRWA’S mandate is purely humanitarian. Grandi is assuming a political stance that is absolutely beyond his purview. How does UNRWA come to “stand with affected families” who have been evicted in eastern Jerusalem?
View the full document at Israel Behind the News
VOL. I, ISSUE I
Incitement by the Palestinian Authority
November 2009 - January 2010
THE CENTER FOR NEAR EAST POLICY RESEARCH
BEIT AGRON INTERNATIONAL PRESS CENTER
37 HILLEL STREET
JERUSALEM 94581 ISRAEL
TEL. 02 6236368
CtrForNearEastPolicyResearch@gmail.com
www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com
_____________________________________________
q Al-Ayyam (PA), November 12, 2009, reported:#
“Mahmoud Abbas…spoke in favor of armed resistance at a rally marking the fifth anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death: ‘We will continue [Arafat's] long and exhausting struggle [that was] fraught with blood, sweat, and tears. The road [we are traveling] today is anchored in a noble heritage of struggle that we built with brave hands, an enlightened mind, and a national thinking [rooted in] long experience. We combined armed struggle with political activity. Our guns were not the guns of highway robbers. They were political guns [promoting] a noble goal.’
q According to El-Shourouq (Tunisia), November 15, 2009:#
Fatah Central Committee member Nabil Sha'ath said in an interview: "Today we have the right to return to the armed struggle in order to restore our rights. For 18 years we tried to negotiate, but Israel has continued its aggression, destruction, massacres and [construction of] settlements. Today we have the right to turn back to the alternative [routes]... If negotiations fail, we will turn to armed struggle. This is our right, as I have said... International law stipulates that, when an occupying [force] takes one's land and harms one's honor, one has the right to resort to armed struggle."
q Hafez Al-Barghouthi, editor of the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, wrote on November 15, 2009:#
"[We] must bring things to the point of no return: either [we obtain] a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the June 4, 1967 borders, or the flood will descend...
"The Palestinian people will not allow its tragedy to repeat itself without a reaction. If it must choose between a quick death and a slow one, it will choose the short road and set the land on fire everywhere...
"We owe nothing to anyone. On the contrary, it is others who owe us a huge debt. If the roads to peace are blocked by settlements and international conspiracies, we will turn ourselves into paragons of sacrifice... When we no longer have anything to lose, it will be [the Israelis] who will lose..."
q On December 24, 2009, three members of Al-Aksa Brigades killed Rabbi Meir Avshalom Chai in a drive-by shooting in Samaria and fled. Two days later, the IDF had tracked them to their homes, in the Nablus area . Two refused to come out of their homes and surrender; a third came out using his wife as a shield and was thought to be armed. They were all shot dead.
By December 27, the Palestinian Authority leadership and PA-controlled media had begun to refer to the three as shahids – holy martyrs:#
PA President Mahmoud Abbas sent a personal emissary – Secretary General of the President’s Bureau, Tayeb Abd Al-Rahim – to the homes of their families. He carried letters from Abbas that conveyed condolences and informed the families of his decision to name them “Shahids of the Palestinian Revolution” (PA TV)
Said Al-Rahim: "Without doubt, what the occupation authorities have carried out is a wild and barbaric act and a deliberate, malicious assassination in cold blood."
PA TV featured a poster of the three terrorists, expressing condolences from Abbas. The text on the poster read:
"With honor and admiration to those who are more honored than all of us.
"The Palestine Liberation Organization, Fatah, accompanies to their wedding [of martyrs with virgins in Paradise]:
“The Martyr, Commander, Hero: Rassan Abu Serah
”The Martyr, Commander, Hero: Ra'ed Al Aschregi
”The Martyr, Commander, Hero: Anan Sobh
The Director General of the Presidency expresses condolences to the Nablus Martyrs - in the name of the President [Abbas].”
Additionally, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad personally visited the homes of the families of these men and conveyed condolences.
It should be noted that there was denial of what the three men had done. There was no claim that “innocent” men had been mistakenly killed by the IDF.
Maan News Agency on December 26 referred to the activity of these men, “which led to the death of the settler in a shooting operation."
q Dalal Mughrabi was a young female terrorist who led a party of 11other terrorists down from Lebanon into northern Israel, via the Mediterranean, in 1978. They first killed wildlife photographer Gail Rubin on the beach and then hijacked a bus. When the bus was stopped at a roadblock, and a gun battle ensued, she blew it up. In all 37 civilians, including 10 children, were killed and 71 wounded. This attack, which became known as the Coastal Road Massacre, is one of the worst in Israel’s history. Mughrabi herself was killed in the gun battle.
On December 29, 2009, PA President Mahmoud Abbas honored Mughabri’s memory on the occasion of her 50th birthday. PA dignitaries and a children’s marching band were present for the ceremony.#
A very large banner was displayed at the ceremony. It had Mughrabi’s picture on it. The text read:
"Under the auspices of President Mahmoud Abbas
The Political and National Education Authority Ceremony on the anniversary of the birth of the bride of the cosmos The Shahida (Holy Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi."
Two PA TV broadcasts noted the ceremony.
Additionally, the governor of Ramallah announced the naming of Dalal Mughrabi Square.
While on December 30, 2009, PA spokesman Jamal Nazal, writing in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, referred to her as “the heroine of Palestine’s heroines.”
q Wafa Idris, the first female Palestinian suicide bomber, detonated a bomb in the center of Jerusalem in January 2002 that killed one and injured over 100.
During the first week of January 2010, she was honored as a Shahida (Holy Martyr) in a Fatah promotional video broadcast on PA TV.#
q On January 11, 2010, the following appeared in the PA paper Al-Ayyam:#
Headline: "The occupation accuses the Palestinian leadership of incitement because of Dalal Mughrabi Square -Minister of Culture: Honoring the Shahids is the least we can do, and resistance to the occupation is a legitimate right"
"The occupation government [the Israeli government] has reiterated its familiar tune of accusing the [Palestinian] National Authority of incitement within Palestinian culture. The Israeli Prime Minister... claims that the Palestinian leadership is encouraging terror in its culture.
”Netanyahu claims that the proof, which he presented to the members of his government, is the naming of a square in the region of Ramallah and El-Bireh after the Shahida (Martyr) Dalal Mughrabi. ...
”Netanyahu is reported as saying: 'Anyone who supports naming [the square] after Dalal Mughrabi, who was responsible for the murder of dozens of Israelis, is encouraging terror and pushing peace further off...'
”Netanyahu was referring to the operation of self-sacrifice led by Mughrabi in 1978, the ‘Coast Operation’ within Israel, which led to the deaths of 36 Israelis. Netanyahu accused the [Palestinian] National Authority of incitement in schools and in cultural activities in general.
”Minister of Culture Siham Barghouti said, in response to the Israeli claims, that 'It is our right to preserve and maintain [the memory] of our fighters who sacrificed their lives for our sake and for the sake of the Palestinian cause.'
”She added: 'Honoring them in this way [by naming public places after them] is the least we can give them, and this is our right, especially since we believe that resistance, in the shadow of the ongoing occupation, is a legitimate right, and we are proud and we pride ourselves on our heritage of struggle, which has been realized by our Shahids and fighters throughout history.'
q Al-Quds, Jerusalem, January 21, 2010, reported:#
“The concluding statement of Fatah's Revolutionary Council meeting said that there was a need to step up the popular resistance and to expand it to all Palestinian areas harmed by the settlements and by the separation fence.”
q On Friday, January 29, 2010, a sermon was broadcast on PA-controlled TV that said in part:
“The Jews, the enemies of Allah and of His Messenger, the enemies of Allah and of His Messenger! Enemies of humanity in general, and of Palestinians in particular - they wage war against us using all kinds of crimes, and as you see - even the mosques are not spared their racism...
"Oh Muslims! The Jews are the Jews. The Jews are the Jews. Even if donkeys would cease to bray, dogs cease to bark, wolves cease to howl and snakes to bite, the Jews would not cease to harbor hatred towards Muslims. The Prophet said that if two Jews would be alone with a Muslim, they would think only of killing him. Oh Muslims! This land will be liberated, these holy places and these mosques will be liberated, only by means of a return to the Koran and when all Muslims will be willing to be Jihad Fighters for the sake of Allah and for the sake of supporting Palestine, the Palestinian people, the Palestinian land, and the holy places in Palestine. The Prophet says: 'You shall fight the Jews and kill them…’”#
Incitement by UNRWA
January 2010
Karen AbuZayd has retired as Commissioner-General of UNRWA and has been succeeded by Filippo Grandi, who had been AbuZayd’s lieutenant.
Providing insight into the issue of UNRWA incitement we have Mr. Grandi’s inaugural letter to the UNRWA staff, dated January 26, 2010. It appeared on the UNRWA website.#
Mr. Grandi’s letter includes the following:
“I need not tell you how difficult this period is for the Palestinian people. We are all painfully aware of the counterproductive policies collectively punishing the people of the Gaza Strip; conscious decisions that have caused untold suffering and a dramatic deterioration in the lives of the population, in contravention of international law. One of my key priorities will be to continue to advocate strongly on behalf of the 1.5 million Gazans, and to do so not only until the end of the blockade and the occupation, but also until a just and lasting solution to the plight of the refugees is achieved.
“Despite some recent economic improvements for some, the lives of most Palestinians in the West Bank continue to be made almost impossible by obstacles, walls, movement limitations and other restrictions, and by the expanding threat of settler violence. For those residing in East Jerusalem, as I do, it is cause for daily anguish to watch the situation deteriorate rapidly under our very eyes, especially the ruthless evictions of Palestinians from their homes. UNRWA will continue to stand with the affected families and all of those in need of our protection and will tirelessly lend our voice to their calls for justice.”
There are several seriously tendentious statements – and, in fact, outright misrep resenta tions – included here. But this material is problematic for reasons beyond this: UNRWA’S mandate is purely humanitarian. Grandi is assuming a political stance that is absolutely beyond his purview. How does UNRWA come to “stand with affected families” who have been evicted in eastern Jerusalem?
View the full document at Israel Behind the News
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Training the Palestinian Security Forces for What?
by Jonathan Rosenblum, Director of Jewish Media Resources
On Thursday afternoon December 24, Rabbi Meir Chai, a 45-year-old religious school teacher, was shot and killed as he left the Shomron settlement of Shavei Shomron, in which he lived with his wife and seven children. Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade claimed responsibility almost immediately, and promised “more quality operations from us.... “
Two days later, on Shabbos, Israeli forces blockaded Nablus and surrounded the homes where the three Al-Aqsa Brigade members who plotted the attack lived. None of the three surrendered in response to a demand from the IDF forces that they do so, and each was subsequently killed in gun battles with Israeli forces.
The response of the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian media to the murder of Rabbi Chai and to Israel’s subsequent killing of his murderers raises again troubling questions about the Palestinian security services forces currently being trained by American and European experts.
Since 2005, the Untied States and EU have spent hundreds of millions of dollars training thousands of members of the various Palestinian security forces on the assumption that those forces will constitute one of the key institutions of the Palestinian state in the making. Those forces have been trained both in the basic police work and tasked with anti-terrorist efforts (at least in the minds of the trainers), on the assumption that a reduction in anti-Israel terror is a key component in winning Israeli agreement to the creation of a Palestinian state.
The results so far do not justify the investment nor give much cause to hope that the Palestinians are any closer to creating a stable political entity capable of living in peace with Israel. In The Case for Democracy, Natan Sharansky argued that only a democratic Palestinian state, in which citizens are capable of freely proclaiming their views in the marketplace, offers any hope of long-term peace with Israel. The creation of a trained police force would not have been self-evidently the first item on the agenda in creating the basics of a civil society capable of evolving into a democratic state. Nor has the record of the Palestinian security forces provided much cause for optimism on this score. Palestinian human rights groups have raised constant complaints against the various security forces for arbitrary arrests, brutality, and shakedown operations.
Nor has the training proved successful in creating a national identity that supercedes various other identities. Almost all members of the security forces are simultaneously members of Fatah, the revolutionary Palestinian organization from which most of the current leaders of the Palestinian Authority were drawn, and profess loyalty to Fatah. In addition, American trainers are not sufficiently sensitive to the importance of clan loyalties in Palestinian society.
The latter may have played a key role in the total failure of the American and European-trained forces to prevent a Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, even though those forces enjoyed a vast numerical advantage over the Hamas forces. Many Palestinian Authority fighters simply deserted or joined with Hamas fighters. Low levels of loyalty and esprit de corps have also characterized the Palestinian Authority forces in confrontation with Palestinian gunmen on the West Bank since 2007. Palestinian Security forces proved incapable of evicting Fatah gunmen from the casbah. They proved similarly ineffective in operations against an Islamic Jihad group in the Kabatya refugee camp. And in a mock drill, fake “Hamas” operatives attacked a PA prison and freed all the prisoners after the Palestinian security forces fled the scene.
Most important from Israel’s point of view, the American-trained forces have proven to be indifferent as an anti-terrorist force. As Maj.-General Yaakov Amidror, the former head of the IDF Staff and Command College and former head of the IDF Research and Assessment Division, points out, police work may have legitimacy in Palestinian society, anti-terrorist activities do not. Israel continues to carry out 70-80% of the anti-terrorist actions in the West Bank. To the extent that the Palestinian Authority security forces have conducted such operations, it has been almost entirely out of a desire to prevent a repeat of Hamas’s takeover of the Gaza Strip in the West Bank, not out of any desire to protect Israel from terror attacks.
Indeed it would be impossible to expect Palestinian security forces to show any commitment to anti-terror action when the Palestinian Authority leadership continues to glorify terrorism. After the murder of Rabbi Chai, approximately 100 meters from the site of a recently removed security checkpoint, the Palestinian Authority issued no condemnation of his murder, even after the Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade claimed responsibility. Palestinian media described Anan Subbah as the mastermind of the murder of Rabbi Chai, after the former was killed by IDF security forces. And yet Palestinian Authority President Abbas sent personal condolences to “the holy martyrs of the Palestinian revolution,” and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salem Fayyad personally visited the families of the slain terrorists. Meanwhile the official Palestinian media denounced their deaths as “murder in cold blood” and an “assassination.”
The proclamation of Rabbi Chai’s murderers as “military commanders, brave heroes and fighters,” was of a piece with the Palestinian Authority’s consistent glorification of terrorists. In late December, Abbas sponsored a celebration of the 50th birthday of Dalal Mughrabi, the mastermind of the 1979 Coastal Road Massacre, in which 37 Jews were killed. The official proclamation described her as the “bride of the cosmos,” and the Palestinian Authority daily proclaimed her “the heroine of the Palestinian heroines.”
Two high schools, numerous sports competitions, a new computer center, a Palestinian summer camp and a town square have been named after Mughrabi to date. A one-hour Palestinian television special recently celebrated the 1979 attack. In a similar vein, the Palestinian Authority just issued a musical video celebrating Wafa Indris, the first Palestinian female suicide bomber.
But while the U.S.-trained Palestinian security forces have proven largely ineffective against Palestinian terrorists of various stripes, they do threaten Israel. Twice before have CIA-trained Palestinian security forces, with whom there was a façade of cooperation with Israel, turned their guns on Israelis - the first time during the Tunnel Riots of 1996 and the second time at the outset of the Second Intifada called by Yasir Arafat after the 2000 Camp David summit. The fear is that those being trained under the supervision of U.S. General Keith Dayton may prove more effective than their predecessors. Dayton has himself stated that U.S. training has lifted Palestinian expectations of receiving their state within two years, and he raised the spectre of the Palestinian security forces turning their guns on Israel if those expectations are not met.
There is evidence that those U.S.-trained security forces include members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade responsible for the murder of Rabbi Chai. PA Prime Minister Fayyad, the great “Palestinian moderate” in Western eyes, has previously offered shelter to Brigade members in the compounds of the Palestinian security forces and paid their salaries out of PA coffers. Dan Diker, one of Israel’s most respected political analysts, writes that senior Al-Aqsa Brigade commanders have been assigned senior positions in the PA security forces, such as Aba Jabbal, the senior Palestinian Authority officer in Nablus. The mastermind of the murder of Rabbi Chai’s murder, Anan Subbuh, was found with two M-16s in his possession, even though as part of a U.S.-brokered amnesty agreement, he had foresworn any future possession of such arms.
Senior members of the Israeli defense establishment point out that the Palestinian security forces are not only receiving training from the United States and Europe, but high quality equipment. For instance, advanced surveillance equipment capable of monitoring military communications networks, intelligence networks, and cellular phones has been employed against Israeli targets. Abu Yousuf, a senior officer in Abbas’s Force 17 Presidential Guard, told the New York Sun (August 21 2007), “I do not think the operations of the Palestinian resistance [a code word for terrorism] would have been so successful and would have killed more than one thousand Israelis since 2000... without these [American] trainings.”
After the IDF eliminated the three terrorists who murdered Rabbi Chai, the United States demanded public clarifications from Israel of what had taken place. No similar clarifications were sought from the PA after Rabbi Chai’s murder and the PA’s failure to condemn it.
Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice-president of Agudath Israel of America, wrote to Secretary of State Clinton, of Mr. Abbas’s failure to disassociate himself and the Palestinian Authority from Rabbi Chai’s murder, “There is something deeply wrong here.” When the recipients of half a billion dollars in aid under the 2010 foreign aid budget law “are linked to terrorists, and even have words of praise for terrorists, it is only logical to question the wisdom, not to mention the moral rectitude of our aid,” he continued.
Indeed.
Jonathan Rosenblum is the director of Jewish Media Resources, a leading media organization dedicated to furthering an understanding of Torah Judaism. Jewish Media Resources works with foreign journalists stationed in Israel and with local journalists by providing access to leading figures within the Orthodox Jewish community in Israel, and with information and insights about the community. Jonathan also serves as an English-language spokesman for the Orthodox Jewish community with foreign journalists.
View the Post at israelbehindthenews.com
Sunday, January 17, 2010
The Palestinians' Unilateral "Kosovo Strategy": Implications for the PA and Israel
The Palestinians' Unilateral "Kosovo Strategy": Implications for the PA and Israel
Published January 2010
The Jerusalem Viewpoints series is published by the Institute for Contemporary Affairs, founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation.
No. 575 January-February 2010
Mahmoud Abbas' new precondition that the international community recognize the 1967 lines in the West Bank as the new Palestinian border bolsters the assessment that the Palestinians have largely abandoned a negotiated settlement and instead are actively pursuing a unilateral approach to statehood.
Senior Palestinian officials note that Palestinian unilateralism is modeled after Kosovo's February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia. European and U.S. support for Kosovo's unilateral declaration has led the Palestinian leadership to determine that geopolitical conditions are ripe to seek international endorsement of its unilateral statehood bid, despite the fact that leading international jurists have suggested that the cases of Kosovo and the Palestinian Authority are historically and legally different.
The Palestinians are legally bound to negotiate a bilateral solution with Israel. Unilateral Palestinian threats to declare statehood have been rebuffed thus far by the European powers and the United States.
The Palestinian "Kosovo strategy" includes a campaign of delegitimization of Israel, seeking to isolate Israel as a pariah state, while driving a wedge between Israel and the United States. The unilateral Palestinian bid for sovereignty will also likely turn the Palestinians into the leading petitioner against the State of Israel at the International Criminal Court. Although the PA is not a state and therefore should have no legal standing before the court, the petition it submitted to the court after the Gaza war was not rejected by the ICC.
Finally, a unilateral Palestinian quest for the 1947 lines may well continue even if the 1967 lines are endorsed by the United Nations. The PLO's 1988 declaration of independence was based on UN General Assembly Resolution 181, which recognizes the 1947 partition plan for Palestine, not the 1967 lines, as the basis for the borders of Israel and an Arab state.
Have the Palestinians Abandoned a Negotiated Settlement?
Washington's intensive shuttle diplomacy as well as Arab pressure may convince Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table with Israel. However, Abbas' new precondition that the international community recognize the 1967 lines in the West Bank as the new Palestinian border bolsters the assessment that the Palestinians have largely abandoned a negotiated settlement and instead are actively pursuing a unilateral approach to statehood.1
Senior Palestinian officials have also noted that Palestinian unilateralism is modeled after Kosovo's February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia.2 European and U.S. support for Kosovo's unilateral declaration, plus Palestinian confidence in its own international case, appear to have led the Palestinian leadership to determine that geopolitical conditions are ripe to seek international endorsement of its unilateral statehood bid, with the 1967 lines as its future borders.3
This assertive Palestinian shift to unilateralism has also been bolstered by a changing balance of power between the Palestinian Authority that was established at Oslo, and its "parent," the Palestine Liberation Organization, which has embraced a unilateral approach to statehood since its 1988 unilateral declaration of independence but has not operationalized it. On December 15-16, 2009, the PLO Central Council convened in Ramallah where it unilaterally assumed the PA's legislative authority, resolved to extend Abbas' term indefinitely, and even voted to replace the PA Legislative Council that had been established as part of the internationally-sanctioned Oslo peace accords.4
The PLO Central Council meeting and its far-reaching resolutions provide another illustration of unilateral intentions that are rooted in former PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat's 1988 PLO statehood declaration. However, despite Palestinian determination and a largely sympathetic international community, it's unlikely that the Palestinian "Kosovo strategy" will end the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead, it may signal the final unraveling of the Middle East peace process.
Palestinians Invoke Kosovo's Unilateral Statehood Model
Since February 2008, when the Albanian Muslim majority government in Kosovo unilaterally declared independence and secession from Christian Serbia, winning U.S. and European support, the Palestinian leadership has publicly invoked Kosovo as a model for a prospective Palestinian state. Yasser Abed Rabbo, senior advisor to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, told Agence France Presse immediately following the Kosovo declaration, "Our people have the right to proclaim independence even before Kosovo. And we ask for the backing of the United States and the European Union for our independence."5
In late 2008, the collapse of the Annapolis peace negotiations between Abbas and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who, as Abbas acknowledged publicly, had made unprecedented concessions,6further motivated the Palestinians to embrace a unilateral approach to statehood as a default option. Abed Rabo confirmed at the time that, "we have another option. Kosovo is not better than Palestine."7
The Palestinians strengthened their bid for unilaterally-declared statehood in late 2009 and into 2010 while lobbying Europe, South America, and the UN for support, and simultaneously setting unprecedented preconditions for restarting negotiations with Israel.8 In November 2009, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat threatened to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines, arguing that "the EU recognized the state" of Kosovo before other official channels supported its claim for independence. However, U.S. and European opposition to the move would force Erekat to deny his intentions. Instead, he insisted that the Palestinian Authority merely sought UN Security Council endorsement of a Palestinian state, which also mirrors Kosovo's quest for a UN Security Council resolution proposing independence.9
Two leading international jurists have suggested that the cases of Kosovo and the Palestinian Authority are historically and legally different.10 However, from a Palestinian point of view, it seems that legal and historical context are less important than the sympathetic political perceptions that can be created in the international community by promoting what appear to be some external similarities.11 The Palestinians liken themselves to Kosovo's profile in the West as a besieged, indigenous population seeking freedom and independence from its brutal Serbian sovereign overlord, which in the Palestinian analogy is the State of Israel's "occupation" of the disputed West Bank.12
True, both Palestinians and Muslim Kosovars enjoy international support for their respective bids for independence.13 Both have established internationally-sanctioned, self-governing authorities, receive European security backing and UN financial support, and work with UN-appointed special envoys, while each has penned a constitution. However, Kosovo enjoys a NATO security presence, which Palestinian negotiators have failed to introduce into the West Bank despite several attempts to do so in past peace negotiations with Israel.14
Another point of similarity between Kosovars and the Palestinians involves territory. The Kosovo model did not require a territorial compromise on the part of the Albanian Muslim Kosavar government to take into account areas where concentrations of Serbian Christian population remained.15 Similarly, the Palestinian leadership has been reluctant to compromise with Israel over Israeli population centers and vital security requirements in the West Bank.
Politically, many in the Palestinian leadership assess that adopting a unilateral "Kosovo strategy" and seeking international legitimacy to impose the 1967 borders on Israel is their best option, which, in their view, would automatically solve the issues of Jewish settlements and the status of Jerusalem without having to negotiate with Israel, while leaving the refugee issue to be decided according to the "agreed-upon solution" specified in the Arab peace initiative.16
Israel as the Palestinians' "Serbian" War Criminal
Palestinian efforts to delegitimize Israel in the international community play a key role in their unilateral quest for independence. Mindful of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who was indicted by the Hague-based International War Crimes Tribunal for the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, the Palestinian leadership has aggressively pursued a diplomatic intifada against Israel as a tool of "resistance" to criminalize and isolate the Jewish state in international circles, while simultaneously "leveraging up" the PA's case for statehood.17 For example, Palestinian leaders have for years charged Israel with being an "illegal occupier" of Palestinian lands, and of building an "apartheid wall" - Israel's security fence - in the West Bank. The Palestinian leadership has also promoted internationally its denial of any historical Jewish connection to Jerusalem.18
In January 2009, following the Gaza war with Hamas, Palestinian Justice Minster Ali Khashan petitioned the International Criminal Court to charge Israel with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.19Israel's Foreign Ministry noted that the PA was also a driving force behind the establishment of the Goldstone mission by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), and led the campaign in the HRC and the UN General Assembly to implement its conclusions.20 Pro-Palestinian groups have filed scores of war crimes petitions in London and in other European courts, using the Rome Statute and laws of universal jurisdiction to seek the arrest of senior Israeli leaders.21
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has also advanced the notion of a "popular intifada" and has overseen the organization of committees for non-violent popular resistance against Israel that are expressed in the weekly, high-profile, Palestinian-led protests at Bil'in, Maasara, Ni'ilin, and more recently in Sheikh Jarah in Jerusalem.22 In December 2009, Fayyad characterized PA diplomacy as launching an "international intifada against Israel."23
The Influence of Fayyad's Unilateral Statehood Plan
The Palestinian leadership's numerous references to Kosovo's unilateral statehood quest, in the context of public threats by Abbas and Erekat in November 2009 to unilaterally declare Palestinian statehood, must be seen against the backdrop of the August 2009 publication of Prime Minister Fayyad's unilateral two-year statehood plan.
Western policymakers and observers have embraced the Fayyad plan as a positive development - a unilateral, "bottom up," state-building plan whose main goal is to build the infrastructure for eventual Palestinian independence.24 Some Israeli officials and legal experts have also praised aspects of the plan. However, its firm two-year deadline, and its massive state-building projects slated for Area C of the West Bank - which is under full Israeli control and includes the strategically vital Jordan Valley and its protective 3,000-foot hilltops overlooking Israel's main airport and cities - renders the plan more of a pretext to unilaterally declare statehood.25 In fact, Fayyad has provided clear indications that after two years, the establishment of a de facto Palestinian state will occur with or without Israel's agreement.26
In January 2010, Fayyad said, "Our people are determined to expunge all the distorted definitions described as Areas A, B, and C," and that "Palestinian markets should burn products coming out of Jewish settlements."27 This would seem to suggest that Fayyad advocates sidelining the principle of a negotiated agreement that was enshrined and agreed upon in the Oslo accords, even to the point of resisting such previous agreements on the ground.
Favorable Geopolitical Conditions for the Palestinians
The Palestinian leadership did not adopt the unilateral "Kosovo strategy" ex nihilo. Leading members of the European Union encouraged the Palestinians to move in this direction. PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat credited former EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana with engineering the idea.28 In July 2009, Solana told a British forum that after a fixed deadline, the UN Security Council should unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines.29 Palestinian unilateralism also received a boost in early December 2009 when Sweden, in the final thirty days of its rotating EU presidency, proposed that EU foreign ministers back its draft proposal recognizing east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, thus implying EU acceptance of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood.30
The EU Foreign Policy Council partly softened its final statement days later. However, as former UN ambassador Dore Gold notes, the final EU statement still retained the proposal that envisioned Jerusalem as the future capital of two states. Additionally, the statement said that the EU "would not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders including with regard to Jerusalem," thereby enshrining the 1967 lines - a key Palestinian demand - as a previous political border.31 Palestinian unilateralism has also drawn encouragement from the United Nations itself. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has reportedly issued expressions of support for such moves, according to former PA security chief Mohammed Dahlan and Saeb Erekat in a November 14, 2009, interview with the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam.32
U.S. Policy
The Palestinians' roller-coaster relationship with the United States over the past two years has ended up giving the Palestinians' "Kosovo strategy" a push forward. In 2008 the Bush administration had rejected the Palestinian comparison between Kosovo and the Palestinian Authority, encouraging the PA to continue to pursue the Annapolis process.33 However, the Palestinian Authority rejected Washington's opposition, despite Palestinian participation at Annapolis. Abbas' spokesman, Yasser Abed Rabo, noted, "Our people have the right to proclaim independence as the people of Kosovo did. We were occupied long before the Kosovo problem emerged."34
Since then, Palestinian disappointment with the Obama administration's policy reversal on an Israeli settlement freeze as a precondition to negotiations has fueled the unilateral Palestinian statehood bid. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's praise of Israel's settlement moratorium and her calls for an unconditional resumption of peace talks convinced Palestinians that the United States would not "deliver" Israel.35 Abbas was also worried about Secretary Clinton's statement noted in the Arabic press during her visit to Qatar that negotiations are about "give and take." He inferred that Clinton meant removing the principle of the 1967 borders from the table - which the Palestinians took as a hint that the Obama administration may have been reviving President Bush's 2004 presidential letter to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that provided U.S. presidential backing for Israeli settlement blocs and denied the right of return to Palestinian refugees. Abbas contrasted Clinton's latest statements with her much tougher statements on Israeli settlements in May 2009, when she said, "Not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions."36
Former PA Minister Ziad Abu Ziad assessed that "the Palestinian leadership had thought that Obama had become more Palestinian than the Palestinians, that he would stop settlements, remove them, and establish a Palestinian state."37 Rather, U.S. pressure on Abbas to return to negotiations with Israel without preconditions has appeared to weaken Abbas both among the political echelons of Fatah and on the Palestinian street,38 and has severely compromised his ability to negotiate with Israel. Additionally, the terms of reference which Clinton had used in January 2010, to try to reconcile Israeli demands for secure and recognized boundaries with Palestinian demands for a state on the 1967 lines, seem to justify Abbas' concerns.
Despite Palestinian disenchantment with Washington, there are signs that the Obama administration position supports the Palestinian demand for a state along the 1967 lines and a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem,39 which are central objectives of the Palestinian "Kosovo strategy." According to one assessment, Obama may have even supplied the Palestinians with a letter of guarantee to that effect.40While the U.S. is publicly committed to the principle of a negotiated solution between the sides, it has grown impatient with the bilateral process. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel reportedly expressed deep frustration with both the PA and Israel, which supports the Palestinian sense that they are on the right track in pursuing a unilateral "Kosovo" option.
Internal Palestinian Considerations
The Palestinians' "Kosovo strategy" has also been bolstered by a shift in the balance of power from the internationally-sanctioned Palestinian Authority to its parent organization, the Palestine Liberation Organization. Abbas' refusal to stand for re-election and the PA's failure to hold new parliamentary elections has led to a governmental deadlock. Hamas' nominal control of the PLC since its 2006 electoral victory, as well as its rule in Gaza and its refusal to reconcile with Fatah or to cooperate in holding elections for the PA in January 2010, is another major source of the PA's paralysis. Abbas also fears a Hamas takeover of the West Bank.41
At the PLO Council's mid-December meeting, it unilaterally assumed the PA parliament's legislative authority and extended Abbas' leadership indefinitely, recognizing Abbas as Chairman of the PLO, as opposed to Chairman of the PA. By definition, the PLO move sidelined Hamas' majority control in the PA parliament.42 Despite the PLO Council's decision to delay the official replacement of the PA parliament, the meeting unilaterally restored the PLO's power in Palestinian parliamentary politics that had characterized the period under Arafat's rule.43
Should the PLO implement its recent resolution, collapse the PA, and rule the West Bank, it will create a vacuum of international legal legitimacy, as the PA was recognized by the Oslo agreements as an interim governing body. Therefore, this latest internal move will likely accelerate PLO decision-making regarding a unilateral declaration of statehood. The case has a precedent: in 1999, it was precisely this consideration that caused the Palestinian leadership to consider unilaterally declaring a Palestinian state as Oslo's five-year interim period was about to expire.
Re-energizing International Support for the PLO's 1988 Statehood Declaration
The PLO Council meeting also illustrated a strategic shift from the bilateral negotiations with Israel of the past 17 years. The PLO Council reenergized the Palestinian National Council's 1988 declaration of independence in Algiers, which had been endorsed by 104 countries and resulted in UN recognition of the PLO's proclamation.44 Beginning in 1989, this brought the UN to refer to the PLO as "Palestine," but without formal statehood status in view of firm U.S. and European opposition to the PLO declaration, since the PLO did not satisfy the basic criteria for statehood under international law.45
The PLO's unilateral statehood declaration was never shelved even during the Oslo years, despite the signed agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel affirming a negotiated solution based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which also governed all subsequent peace initiatives including the Quartet-sanctioned Roadmap and the Annapolis process.46 In fact, Arafat and other senior PLO and PA representatives had repeatedly asserted their right to declare statehood unilaterally during the Oslo period without prior coordination or agreement with Israel, and even threatened to make such a declaration on several occasions, including at the United Nations in 2000.47
That explains the far-reaching significance of the PLO Central Council's sudden reemergence as the Palestinian legislative authority. It established a new pretext to cancel previously signed agreements, both with respect to the exchange of letters with the PLO in September 1993 at the White House and to the 1995 interim agreement with the Palestinian Authority. A reinvigorated PLO strategy now seeks UN Security Council endorsement of the 1988 PLO declaration of statehood in an effort to impose the 1949 armistice lines (the 1967 borders) on Israel - which Abbas and other senior Palestinian leaders publicly sought in November 2009.48 On January 8, 2010, Abbas reiterated this threat if the United States failed to impose Palestinian preconditions on Israel as part of Washington's efforts to jump-start peace talks.49 Waleed al-Awad of the former communist Peoples Party noted that the goal of the PLO Central Council meeting was to "place an international siege on Israel."50
Prospects for Palestinian Success
The Palestinian gambit for pursuing a "Kosovo strategy" is anything but certain. The Palestinians are legally bound to negotiate a bilateral solution with Israel. Unilateral Palestinian threats to declare statehood have been rebuffed thus far by the European powers and the United States. However, the Palestinians believe that under fluid political conditions and growing U.S. impatience over getting the parties to return to the negotiating table, support for Palestinian unilateralism is possible and necessary for success. Foreign Minister Riyadh al-Malki told the London-based Asharq Alawsatthat the main goal of Palestinian diplomacy is winning U.S. support, so that when the Arab countries jointly appeal to the UN Security Council, the Obama administration will not veto a resolution that will finally affirm the pre-1967 lines as the borders of a Palestinian state.51
There is also a wide gap between Palestinian aspirations for unilateral statehood and their poor performance on the ground. Palestinian governance has been marked by several failures. The PA has not delivered reforms to its constituency. Government corruption and unemployment are still major issues. The PA failed to hold the promised 2010 elections, which resulted in the PLO Central Council resolution to replace the PA Legislative Council. But that decision has also been tabled for the interim. Meanwhile, the split between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank may prove to be irreconcilable.
The Palestinian leadership's rush to act already as a de facto state has not succeeded, even in the basic administrative tasks of issuing passports and currency.52 In December 2009, Maan, a leading Palestinian news organization, raised doubts as to the effectiveness of the PLO's "Kosovo strategy" and questioned the wisdom of turning the international arena into a confrontation line between the Palestinians and Israelis. It emphasized that unilateral "success will benefit the Palestinians, while failure will inflict political catastrophe."53
Implications for Israel
The Palestinian "Kosovo strategy" contains several major implications for Israel. First, the Palestinian delegitimization of Israel in the interim poses a strategic threat. The Palestinian state-building process has succeeded in painting Israel as a pariah state, while the hidden foreign policy agenda of the PA and PLO leaderships is to drive a wedge between Israel and the United States. Although unlikely, if the Palestinians win international endorsement of sovereignty along the 1967 lines, Israel will become persona non grata anywhere east of the "green line," including in many central neighborhoods within its own capital city, Jerusalem, that have been developed since the 1967 war.
The unilateral Palestinian bid for sovereignty will also likely turn the Palestinians into the leading petitioner against the State of Israel at the International Criminal Court. An early indication of what can be expected if the PA's "Kosovo strategy" comes to fruition may be seen in the petition submitted to the court by the PA after the Gaza war. Although the PA is not a state and therefore should have no legal standing before the court, its petition was not rejected by the ICC.
Finally, the unilateral Palestinian quest for the 1947 lines may well continue even if the 1967 lines are endorsed by the United Nations. The PLO's 1988 declaration of independence was based on UN General Assembly Resolution 181, which recognizes the 1947 partition plan for Palestine, not the 1967 lines, as the basis for the borders of Israel and an Arab state.
This threat is not theoretical. In 1999, former Palestinian UN Ambassador Nasser al-Kidwa, today a senior Palestinian official and a major proponent of UN endorsement of a unilaterally-declared Palestinian state, submitted a letter on behalf of the PLO asserting that Resolution 181 and its corresponding 1947 partition plan are accepted by the PLO and cannot be annulled, as they provide the legal basis for the existence of both Jewish and Arab states in Mandatory Palestine.54 Since then, Resolution 181 has been invoked by other Palestinian leaders. In view of the PLO's intention to replace the PA as the legitimate legal authority to carry out the Palestinians' Kosovo model, the implications of unilateral Palestinian action are far-reaching.
Dan Diker is Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where he is also a senior foreign policy analyst. He is also an Adjunct Fellow of the Hudson Institute in Washington.
* * *
Notes
1. Khaled Abu Toameh and Herb Keinon, "Recognition of ‘67 Border Before Talks," Jerusalem Post, December 15, 2009. Abbas announced at the PLO Central Council meeting on December 15, 2009, that the Palestinians will not resume peace talks with Israel unless the international community recognized the "1967 borders" as the boundaries of a Palestinian state. Abbas' latest precondition, as well as the complete Palestinian rejection of all Israeli concessions and gestures since the failed Annapolis peace process - including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recognition of a demilitarized Palestinian state, a virtually complete settlement moratorium in the West Bank, and the granting of amnesty to hundreds of members of Palestinian terror groups - illustrates a Palestinian refusal to negotiate with Israel. See "The Palestinian Refusal to Negotiate Peace," Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, January 4, 2010, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/About+the+Ministry/Behind+the+Headlines/Palestinian_refusal_negotiate_peace-Jan_2009.
2. "Erekat: It's Time to Recognize a Palestinian State," Ma'an News, November 17, 2009. See also, "Palestinians Should Follow Kosovo Example: Negotiator," Agence France Press, February 20, 2008, http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iS_5y-7raxAQIhNgJDtMOIhadGrg.
3. "Palestinians Unveil Two-Year Development Plan for Statehood," Ha'aretz, November 15, 2009.
4. http://www.mofa-gov.ps/ar/index.php?p=main&id=22. The PLO Central Council also voted to delay implementing the replacement of the Oslo-sanctioned Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), extending the PLC's role in the interim until elections can be called "at the earliest possible date."
5. Yaakov Katz, "Taking a Cue from Kosovo," Jerusalem Post, September, 3, 2009.
6. Abbas acknowledged to the Washington Post 's Jackson Diehl after the failure of Annapolis that Olmert's offer of 97 percent of the West Bank and the recognition of the right of return (that included the return of 100,000 refugees - DD) was more generous to the Palestinians than the offers of either George Bush or Bill Clinton, and yet Abbas said: "The gaps were wide." See Jackson Diehl, "Abbas' Waiting Game,"Washington Post, May 29, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/28/AR2009052803614.html.
7. Ali Abunimah, "Kosovo and the Question of Palestine," Electronic Intifada, February 25, 2008.
8. "Erekat Unimpressed with New U.S. Attitude," January 9, 2009, Jerusalem Post,http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1262339435514 & pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull.
9. Tova Lazeroff and Herb Keinon, "Erekat Denies PA Unilateralism Plans," Jerusalem Post, November 18, 2009, http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258489190816&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter. In the Kosovo case, UN Security Council Resolution 1244, passed in 1999, established Kosovo as a UN Protectorate. However, similar to the Palestinian case, Kosovo has not yet won a UNSC resolution for independence, since the Security Council has been unable to agree on a resolution backing supervised independence. See International Crisis Group Analysis, http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3225&l=1.
10. Separate conversations with international law experts Professor Ruth Lapidot and Professor Irwin Cotler, former Justice Minister of Canada, in Jerusalem, December 21, 2009.
11. Kosovo - a province of Serbia - has been under international trusteeship since NATO's armed intervention in 1999. UN Security Council Resolution 1244 provided international sanction for UN trusteeship. For Serbs, Kosovo is an ancestral homeland and the site of many important Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries. They insist that the area remain under Serbian sovereignty. The current state of limbo, tension, and sporadic violence between Kosovo's Albanian majority, which is mostly Muslim, and the Serbian minority, which is mostly Orthodox Christian, has mobilized international support away from the notion of a multi-ethnic society there and ratcheted up support for Kosovo's break from Serbia.
12. Clearly, the legal analogy does not work. Kosovar independence, currently being considered by the International Court of Justice, requires the consent of Serbia, the sovereign power, notwithstanding exceptional cases of brutality that would obviate agreement of the sovereign. Ironically perhaps, legally, the Palestinians must also receive Israel's agreement in any final status arrangement over final borders, as enshrined in UN Security Council Resolution 242, and as agreed upon at Oslo and in the 2002 Roadmap.
13. The Kosovo case was referred by the UN General Assembly to the International Court of Justice on October 8, 2008, for an advisory opinion as to the legality of Kosovo's unilateral declaration. The ICJ opinion is still pending. See http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/141/14797.pdf.
14. http://reut-institute.org/en/Publication.aspx?PublicationId=3679.
15. A map of Kosovo reveals that its ethnic composition leaves the minority Serb population contained in the provinces in Kosovo's north, leaving the majority of the land to the Muslim Kosovar majority without the risk of geographical interlocking or overlapping communities.
16. The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative referred to the issue of refugees thus: "Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194." http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/mar/28/israel7.
17. Dan Diker, "Why Israel Must Now Move from Concession-Based Diplomacy to Rights-Based Diplomacy," Jerusalem Viewpoints #554, June-July 2007,http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp ? DRIT=2&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=253&PID=0&IID=1607&TTL= Why_Israel_Must_Now_Move_from_Concessions-Based_Diplomacy_to_Rights-Based_Diplomacy. See also "Palestinian Refusal to Negotiate Peace."
18. See examples of Palestinian leadership denials of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in Dore Gold, The Fight for Jerusalem (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2007), pp. 10-11.
19. John Quigly, "The Palestine Declaration to the International Criminal Court: The Statehood Issue,"Rutgers Law Record, vol. 35, (Spring 2009), http://www.lawrecord.com/files/35-rutgers-l-rec-1.pdf.
20. "Palestinian Refusal to Negotiate Peace." Daniel Reisner, former head of the Israel Defense Forces' International Law Department, pointed out in interviews on January 6, 2010, on Army Radio and Channel 10 that Fayyad's government successfully appealed to the International Criminal Court without having the status of a sovereign state. Surprisingly, Reisner noted, the court did not dismiss the appeal, which underscores the vigorous efforts of PA Foreign Minister Riyadh al-Malki to upgrade the status of the PA to a sovereign state, which would in turn leverage up the number and effectiveness of Palestinian petitions to the ICC against the Israeli government and military officials.
21. In late 2009, Defense Minister Ehud Barak narrowly escaped arrest while on an official visit to London, while Israeli opposition leader and former foreign minister Tzippi Livni cancelled a planned visit to London, fearing arrest. http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/international/Israeli_Military_Delegation_Cancels _Britain_Trip_Fearing_Possible_War_Crime_Charges_25944716.
22. On March 22, 2009, Fayyad convened in his bureau the committees of the "popular intifada," as opposed to the military one. These committees were charged with organizing public activities against the security barrier and the settlements. Fayyad told them: "This example of resistance received respect, appreciation and support worldwide." Al-Hayat al-Jadeeda, March 22 2009. See also Dan Diker and Pinhas Inbari, "Is the Palestinian Authority Stable Enough for Peace Talks? Assessing the Resignation and Return of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad," Jerusalem Issue Brief, vol. 9, no. 3, June 16, 2009,http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp ? DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=442&PID=0&IID=3007. For a typical anti-Israel protest website, see http://www.awalls.org/.
23. http://www.aawsat.com/details.asp?section=4&article=548758&issueno=11341.
24. U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, visiting Ramallah in November 2009, said, "I know some people concerned that this is unilateral, but it seems to me that it is unilateral in the healthy sense of self-development." See "Fayyad, PA Getting Ready for Statehood," Jerusalem Post, November 15, 2009. See also Dan Diker and Pinhas Inbari, "Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's Two-Year Path to Palestinian Statehood: Implications for the Palestinian Authority and Israel," Jerusalem Issue Brief, vol. 9, no. 11, October 2, 2009,http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID =442&PID=0&IID=3096.
25. Alan Baker, "A Paradox of Peacemaking: How Fayyad's Unilateral Statehood Plan Undermines the Legal Foundations of Israeli-Palestinian Diplomacy," Jerusalem Viewpoints, no. 574, November-December, 2009,http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID =1&TMID=111&FID=443&PID=0&IID=3185.
26. Diker and Inbari, "Fayyad's Two-Year Path."
27. http://www.maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=252188.
28. "Erekat: PA May Declare State via UN," Ynet News, November 14, 2009, http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3804948,00.html.
29. Assaf Uni, Jack Khoury, and Yanir Yagna, "EU Chief Urges UN to Set Unilateral Timetable for Palestinian Statehood," Ha'aretz, July 13, 2009.
30. Barak Ravid, "EU Draft Document on Division of Jerusalem," Ha'aretz, December 2, 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1131988.html.
31. Dore Gold, "Europe Seeks to Divide Jerusalem," Jerusalem Issue Brief, vol. 9, no. 14, December 10, 2009.
32. Baker, "A Paradox of Peace Making."
33. "Washington Rejects Palestinian Kosovo Comparison," AFP, February, 20, 2008.
34. Ibid.
35. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1124825.html.
36. Isabel Kershner, "Israeli Settlement Growth Must Stop, Clinton Says," New York Times, May 28, 2009.
37. Khaled Abu Toameh, "Palestinians and Obama, End of a Honeymoon," Hudson Institute New York, November 24, 2009.
38. Khaled Abu Toameh, "Why Is Abbas Stonewalling?" Jerusalem Post, December 24, 2009.
39. "Obama Tells Abbas Committed to PA State," Ynet News, October 23, 2009. Following Obama's phone call to Abbas, his spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeinah, said, "It was a very important conversation for the future of the peace process and the region." As the Palestinians' sole priority has been to win U.S. and international endorsement for the 1967 lines, the PA's uncharacteristically positive reaction to Obama after Washington's reversal of its former precondition of a total Israeli settlement freeze strongly suggests an Obama commitment on the central Palestinian demand.
40. Amidst the growing tensions between the U.S. and Israel over Israeli construction in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar wrote, "The Obama administration has recently begun discussing how to appease Abbas. For example, by giving him letters spelling out U.S. support for a final status arrangement based on the 1967 borders and reaffirming Washington's position that Jerusalem is divided into eastern and western parts." See Akiva, Eldar, "Will Netanyahu's Behavior Push Obama into Abbas' Arms?" Ha'aretz, November 19, 2009.
41. Abbas reportedly revealed to a Kuwaiti newspaper that he had "verified information that Hamas was planning to take over the West Bank. Khaled Abu Toameh, "Can Hamas Be Stopped from Seizing the West Bank," Hudson Institute New York, January 5, 2010, http://www.hudsonny.org/2010/01/can-hamas-be-stopped-from-seizing-west-bank.php.
42. While many Hamas PLC lawmakers remain in Israeli custody, the Palestinian leadership wanted to remove Hamas from even formal majority control of the Palestinian Authority's Legislative Council.
43. Salim Zanoun, Chairman of the PLO's National Council, noted that the Palestinian Authority was the legal child of the PLO and the Central Council which the PNC established in 1994. The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs further explained the proposed but yet to be implemented PLO takeover of the PA Parliament, saying: "The PA's duty is only to provide services to the Palestinians." Hence, the PLO and not the PA is the only legal body empowered to declare a state, http://www.mofa-gov.ps/ar/index.php?p=main&id=22. Ironically, perhaps, the PLO Council did not uproot the PA and endorsed the continued functioning of the Palestinian Authority's legislative council, in order to enjoy the ongoing receipt of billions of dollars in international donor contributions. The PA received $3 billion in 2008, according to French estimates, while the December 2007 Paris donors' conference pledged over $7 billion in aid to the PA over the years 2008-2010. See Dan Diker and Khaled Abu Toameh, "Can the Palestinian Authority's Fatah Forces Retake Gaza?" Jerusalem Viewpoints, no. 569, January-February 2009, http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=443&PID=0&IID=2842.
44. While not recognizing Palestine as a state, 104 countries recognized the 1988 Palestine Liberation Organization's Declaration of Independence. See John Quigly, "The Palestine Declaration to the International Criminal Court." See also Palestinian National Council, Declaration of Independence, November 15, 1988, UN Doc. A/43/827, S/20278, Annex III, November 18, 1988, reprinted in 27 I.L.M. 1668 (1988). The August 2009 publication of PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's "Two-Year Plan to Palestinian Statehood" is seen by most Western and many Israeli observers as a unilateral state-building plan in its initial phases, but not necessarily one in which Fayyad or the PA will unilaterally declare a Palestinian state in 2011, thereby maintaining the framework of a negotiated solution.
45. Tal Becker, "International Recognition of a Unilaterally Declared Palestinian State, Legal and Policy Dilemmas," Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, http://www.jcpa.org/art/becker1.htm.
46. Baker, "A Paradox of Peacemaking."
47. Becker, "International Recognition of a Unilaterally Declared Palestinian State."
48. "Erekat: It's Time to Recognize a Palestinian State," Ma'an News. See also "Abbas: Only Solution Is to Declare Palestinian State," Ha'aretz, November 25, 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1128786.html.
49. Hilary Leila Krieger, "Jerusalem Rejects 2-Year Peace Deadline," Jerusalem Post, January 8, 2010.
50. Maan News (Arabic), December 12, 2009, http://www.maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=245977.
51. http://www.aawsat.com/details.asp?section=4&article=548758&issueno=11341.
52. For example, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyadh al-Malki signed a state-to-state agreement with Francewhich is an upgrade of the PA's political status on the declarative level, but the Palestinians had to backtrack from practical decisions expressing unilateral statehood, such as issuing a Palestinian currency or issuing Palestinian passports. The Lebanese daily al-Akhbar reported that one of the main purposes of Abbas' visit to Beirut was to deal with the rejection of issuing passports to the Palestinian refugees inLebanon, as they believed passports would cost them the right of return. Abbas, according to the report, accepted the claim and rescinded the issuing of passports.
53. http://www.maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=245885.
54. See the letter submitted by PLO Ambassador Nasser al-Kidwa to the General Assembly, http://www.jcpa.org/art/jid-apx.htm#plo181.
Published January 2010
The Jerusalem Viewpoints series is published by the Institute for Contemporary Affairs, founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation.
No. 575 January-February 2010
Mahmoud Abbas' new precondition that the international community recognize the 1967 lines in the West Bank as the new Palestinian border bolsters the assessment that the Palestinians have largely abandoned a negotiated settlement and instead are actively pursuing a unilateral approach to statehood.
Senior Palestinian officials note that Palestinian unilateralism is modeled after Kosovo's February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia. European and U.S. support for Kosovo's unilateral declaration has led the Palestinian leadership to determine that geopolitical conditions are ripe to seek international endorsement of its unilateral statehood bid, despite the fact that leading international jurists have suggested that the cases of Kosovo and the Palestinian Authority are historically and legally different.
The Palestinians are legally bound to negotiate a bilateral solution with Israel. Unilateral Palestinian threats to declare statehood have been rebuffed thus far by the European powers and the United States.
The Palestinian "Kosovo strategy" includes a campaign of delegitimization of Israel, seeking to isolate Israel as a pariah state, while driving a wedge between Israel and the United States. The unilateral Palestinian bid for sovereignty will also likely turn the Palestinians into the leading petitioner against the State of Israel at the International Criminal Court. Although the PA is not a state and therefore should have no legal standing before the court, the petition it submitted to the court after the Gaza war was not rejected by the ICC.
Finally, a unilateral Palestinian quest for the 1947 lines may well continue even if the 1967 lines are endorsed by the United Nations. The PLO's 1988 declaration of independence was based on UN General Assembly Resolution 181, which recognizes the 1947 partition plan for Palestine, not the 1967 lines, as the basis for the borders of Israel and an Arab state.
Have the Palestinians Abandoned a Negotiated Settlement?
Washington's intensive shuttle diplomacy as well as Arab pressure may convince Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table with Israel. However, Abbas' new precondition that the international community recognize the 1967 lines in the West Bank as the new Palestinian border bolsters the assessment that the Palestinians have largely abandoned a negotiated settlement and instead are actively pursuing a unilateral approach to statehood.1
Senior Palestinian officials have also noted that Palestinian unilateralism is modeled after Kosovo's February 2008 unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia.2 European and U.S. support for Kosovo's unilateral declaration, plus Palestinian confidence in its own international case, appear to have led the Palestinian leadership to determine that geopolitical conditions are ripe to seek international endorsement of its unilateral statehood bid, with the 1967 lines as its future borders.3
This assertive Palestinian shift to unilateralism has also been bolstered by a changing balance of power between the Palestinian Authority that was established at Oslo, and its "parent," the Palestine Liberation Organization, which has embraced a unilateral approach to statehood since its 1988 unilateral declaration of independence but has not operationalized it. On December 15-16, 2009, the PLO Central Council convened in Ramallah where it unilaterally assumed the PA's legislative authority, resolved to extend Abbas' term indefinitely, and even voted to replace the PA Legislative Council that had been established as part of the internationally-sanctioned Oslo peace accords.4
The PLO Central Council meeting and its far-reaching resolutions provide another illustration of unilateral intentions that are rooted in former PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat's 1988 PLO statehood declaration. However, despite Palestinian determination and a largely sympathetic international community, it's unlikely that the Palestinian "Kosovo strategy" will end the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead, it may signal the final unraveling of the Middle East peace process.
Palestinians Invoke Kosovo's Unilateral Statehood Model
Since February 2008, when the Albanian Muslim majority government in Kosovo unilaterally declared independence and secession from Christian Serbia, winning U.S. and European support, the Palestinian leadership has publicly invoked Kosovo as a model for a prospective Palestinian state. Yasser Abed Rabbo, senior advisor to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, told Agence France Presse immediately following the Kosovo declaration, "Our people have the right to proclaim independence even before Kosovo. And we ask for the backing of the United States and the European Union for our independence."5
In late 2008, the collapse of the Annapolis peace negotiations between Abbas and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who, as Abbas acknowledged publicly, had made unprecedented concessions,6further motivated the Palestinians to embrace a unilateral approach to statehood as a default option. Abed Rabo confirmed at the time that, "we have another option. Kosovo is not better than Palestine."7
The Palestinians strengthened their bid for unilaterally-declared statehood in late 2009 and into 2010 while lobbying Europe, South America, and the UN for support, and simultaneously setting unprecedented preconditions for restarting negotiations with Israel.8 In November 2009, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat threatened to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines, arguing that "the EU recognized the state" of Kosovo before other official channels supported its claim for independence. However, U.S. and European opposition to the move would force Erekat to deny his intentions. Instead, he insisted that the Palestinian Authority merely sought UN Security Council endorsement of a Palestinian state, which also mirrors Kosovo's quest for a UN Security Council resolution proposing independence.9
Two leading international jurists have suggested that the cases of Kosovo and the Palestinian Authority are historically and legally different.10 However, from a Palestinian point of view, it seems that legal and historical context are less important than the sympathetic political perceptions that can be created in the international community by promoting what appear to be some external similarities.11 The Palestinians liken themselves to Kosovo's profile in the West as a besieged, indigenous population seeking freedom and independence from its brutal Serbian sovereign overlord, which in the Palestinian analogy is the State of Israel's "occupation" of the disputed West Bank.12
True, both Palestinians and Muslim Kosovars enjoy international support for their respective bids for independence.13 Both have established internationally-sanctioned, self-governing authorities, receive European security backing and UN financial support, and work with UN-appointed special envoys, while each has penned a constitution. However, Kosovo enjoys a NATO security presence, which Palestinian negotiators have failed to introduce into the West Bank despite several attempts to do so in past peace negotiations with Israel.14
Another point of similarity between Kosovars and the Palestinians involves territory. The Kosovo model did not require a territorial compromise on the part of the Albanian Muslim Kosavar government to take into account areas where concentrations of Serbian Christian population remained.15 Similarly, the Palestinian leadership has been reluctant to compromise with Israel over Israeli population centers and vital security requirements in the West Bank.
Politically, many in the Palestinian leadership assess that adopting a unilateral "Kosovo strategy" and seeking international legitimacy to impose the 1967 borders on Israel is their best option, which, in their view, would automatically solve the issues of Jewish settlements and the status of Jerusalem without having to negotiate with Israel, while leaving the refugee issue to be decided according to the "agreed-upon solution" specified in the Arab peace initiative.16
Israel as the Palestinians' "Serbian" War Criminal
Palestinian efforts to delegitimize Israel in the international community play a key role in their unilateral quest for independence. Mindful of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who was indicted by the Hague-based International War Crimes Tribunal for the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, the Palestinian leadership has aggressively pursued a diplomatic intifada against Israel as a tool of "resistance" to criminalize and isolate the Jewish state in international circles, while simultaneously "leveraging up" the PA's case for statehood.17 For example, Palestinian leaders have for years charged Israel with being an "illegal occupier" of Palestinian lands, and of building an "apartheid wall" - Israel's security fence - in the West Bank. The Palestinian leadership has also promoted internationally its denial of any historical Jewish connection to Jerusalem.18
In January 2009, following the Gaza war with Hamas, Palestinian Justice Minster Ali Khashan petitioned the International Criminal Court to charge Israel with genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.19Israel's Foreign Ministry noted that the PA was also a driving force behind the establishment of the Goldstone mission by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), and led the campaign in the HRC and the UN General Assembly to implement its conclusions.20 Pro-Palestinian groups have filed scores of war crimes petitions in London and in other European courts, using the Rome Statute and laws of universal jurisdiction to seek the arrest of senior Israeli leaders.21
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has also advanced the notion of a "popular intifada" and has overseen the organization of committees for non-violent popular resistance against Israel that are expressed in the weekly, high-profile, Palestinian-led protests at Bil'in, Maasara, Ni'ilin, and more recently in Sheikh Jarah in Jerusalem.22 In December 2009, Fayyad characterized PA diplomacy as launching an "international intifada against Israel."23
The Influence of Fayyad's Unilateral Statehood Plan
The Palestinian leadership's numerous references to Kosovo's unilateral statehood quest, in the context of public threats by Abbas and Erekat in November 2009 to unilaterally declare Palestinian statehood, must be seen against the backdrop of the August 2009 publication of Prime Minister Fayyad's unilateral two-year statehood plan.
Western policymakers and observers have embraced the Fayyad plan as a positive development - a unilateral, "bottom up," state-building plan whose main goal is to build the infrastructure for eventual Palestinian independence.24 Some Israeli officials and legal experts have also praised aspects of the plan. However, its firm two-year deadline, and its massive state-building projects slated for Area C of the West Bank - which is under full Israeli control and includes the strategically vital Jordan Valley and its protective 3,000-foot hilltops overlooking Israel's main airport and cities - renders the plan more of a pretext to unilaterally declare statehood.25 In fact, Fayyad has provided clear indications that after two years, the establishment of a de facto Palestinian state will occur with or without Israel's agreement.26
In January 2010, Fayyad said, "Our people are determined to expunge all the distorted definitions described as Areas A, B, and C," and that "Palestinian markets should burn products coming out of Jewish settlements."27 This would seem to suggest that Fayyad advocates sidelining the principle of a negotiated agreement that was enshrined and agreed upon in the Oslo accords, even to the point of resisting such previous agreements on the ground.
Favorable Geopolitical Conditions for the Palestinians
The Palestinian leadership did not adopt the unilateral "Kosovo strategy" ex nihilo. Leading members of the European Union encouraged the Palestinians to move in this direction. PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat credited former EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana with engineering the idea.28 In July 2009, Solana told a British forum that after a fixed deadline, the UN Security Council should unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state along the 1967 lines.29 Palestinian unilateralism also received a boost in early December 2009 when Sweden, in the final thirty days of its rotating EU presidency, proposed that EU foreign ministers back its draft proposal recognizing east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, thus implying EU acceptance of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood.30
The EU Foreign Policy Council partly softened its final statement days later. However, as former UN ambassador Dore Gold notes, the final EU statement still retained the proposal that envisioned Jerusalem as the future capital of two states. Additionally, the statement said that the EU "would not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders including with regard to Jerusalem," thereby enshrining the 1967 lines - a key Palestinian demand - as a previous political border.31 Palestinian unilateralism has also drawn encouragement from the United Nations itself. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has reportedly issued expressions of support for such moves, according to former PA security chief Mohammed Dahlan and Saeb Erekat in a November 14, 2009, interview with the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam.32
U.S. Policy
The Palestinians' roller-coaster relationship with the United States over the past two years has ended up giving the Palestinians' "Kosovo strategy" a push forward. In 2008 the Bush administration had rejected the Palestinian comparison between Kosovo and the Palestinian Authority, encouraging the PA to continue to pursue the Annapolis process.33 However, the Palestinian Authority rejected Washington's opposition, despite Palestinian participation at Annapolis. Abbas' spokesman, Yasser Abed Rabo, noted, "Our people have the right to proclaim independence as the people of Kosovo did. We were occupied long before the Kosovo problem emerged."34
Since then, Palestinian disappointment with the Obama administration's policy reversal on an Israeli settlement freeze as a precondition to negotiations has fueled the unilateral Palestinian statehood bid. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's praise of Israel's settlement moratorium and her calls for an unconditional resumption of peace talks convinced Palestinians that the United States would not "deliver" Israel.35 Abbas was also worried about Secretary Clinton's statement noted in the Arabic press during her visit to Qatar that negotiations are about "give and take." He inferred that Clinton meant removing the principle of the 1967 borders from the table - which the Palestinians took as a hint that the Obama administration may have been reviving President Bush's 2004 presidential letter to former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that provided U.S. presidential backing for Israeli settlement blocs and denied the right of return to Palestinian refugees. Abbas contrasted Clinton's latest statements with her much tougher statements on Israeli settlements in May 2009, when she said, "Not some settlements, not outposts, not natural growth exceptions."36
Former PA Minister Ziad Abu Ziad assessed that "the Palestinian leadership had thought that Obama had become more Palestinian than the Palestinians, that he would stop settlements, remove them, and establish a Palestinian state."37 Rather, U.S. pressure on Abbas to return to negotiations with Israel without preconditions has appeared to weaken Abbas both among the political echelons of Fatah and on the Palestinian street,38 and has severely compromised his ability to negotiate with Israel. Additionally, the terms of reference which Clinton had used in January 2010, to try to reconcile Israeli demands for secure and recognized boundaries with Palestinian demands for a state on the 1967 lines, seem to justify Abbas' concerns.
Despite Palestinian disenchantment with Washington, there are signs that the Obama administration position supports the Palestinian demand for a state along the 1967 lines and a Palestinian capital in east Jerusalem,39 which are central objectives of the Palestinian "Kosovo strategy." According to one assessment, Obama may have even supplied the Palestinians with a letter of guarantee to that effect.40While the U.S. is publicly committed to the principle of a negotiated solution between the sides, it has grown impatient with the bilateral process. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel reportedly expressed deep frustration with both the PA and Israel, which supports the Palestinian sense that they are on the right track in pursuing a unilateral "Kosovo" option.
Internal Palestinian Considerations
The Palestinians' "Kosovo strategy" has also been bolstered by a shift in the balance of power from the internationally-sanctioned Palestinian Authority to its parent organization, the Palestine Liberation Organization. Abbas' refusal to stand for re-election and the PA's failure to hold new parliamentary elections has led to a governmental deadlock. Hamas' nominal control of the PLC since its 2006 electoral victory, as well as its rule in Gaza and its refusal to reconcile with Fatah or to cooperate in holding elections for the PA in January 2010, is another major source of the PA's paralysis. Abbas also fears a Hamas takeover of the West Bank.41
At the PLO Council's mid-December meeting, it unilaterally assumed the PA parliament's legislative authority and extended Abbas' leadership indefinitely, recognizing Abbas as Chairman of the PLO, as opposed to Chairman of the PA. By definition, the PLO move sidelined Hamas' majority control in the PA parliament.42 Despite the PLO Council's decision to delay the official replacement of the PA parliament, the meeting unilaterally restored the PLO's power in Palestinian parliamentary politics that had characterized the period under Arafat's rule.43
Should the PLO implement its recent resolution, collapse the PA, and rule the West Bank, it will create a vacuum of international legal legitimacy, as the PA was recognized by the Oslo agreements as an interim governing body. Therefore, this latest internal move will likely accelerate PLO decision-making regarding a unilateral declaration of statehood. The case has a precedent: in 1999, it was precisely this consideration that caused the Palestinian leadership to consider unilaterally declaring a Palestinian state as Oslo's five-year interim period was about to expire.
Re-energizing International Support for the PLO's 1988 Statehood Declaration
The PLO Council meeting also illustrated a strategic shift from the bilateral negotiations with Israel of the past 17 years. The PLO Council reenergized the Palestinian National Council's 1988 declaration of independence in Algiers, which had been endorsed by 104 countries and resulted in UN recognition of the PLO's proclamation.44 Beginning in 1989, this brought the UN to refer to the PLO as "Palestine," but without formal statehood status in view of firm U.S. and European opposition to the PLO declaration, since the PLO did not satisfy the basic criteria for statehood under international law.45
The PLO's unilateral statehood declaration was never shelved even during the Oslo years, despite the signed agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel affirming a negotiated solution based on UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which also governed all subsequent peace initiatives including the Quartet-sanctioned Roadmap and the Annapolis process.46 In fact, Arafat and other senior PLO and PA representatives had repeatedly asserted their right to declare statehood unilaterally during the Oslo period without prior coordination or agreement with Israel, and even threatened to make such a declaration on several occasions, including at the United Nations in 2000.47
That explains the far-reaching significance of the PLO Central Council's sudden reemergence as the Palestinian legislative authority. It established a new pretext to cancel previously signed agreements, both with respect to the exchange of letters with the PLO in September 1993 at the White House and to the 1995 interim agreement with the Palestinian Authority. A reinvigorated PLO strategy now seeks UN Security Council endorsement of the 1988 PLO declaration of statehood in an effort to impose the 1949 armistice lines (the 1967 borders) on Israel - which Abbas and other senior Palestinian leaders publicly sought in November 2009.48 On January 8, 2010, Abbas reiterated this threat if the United States failed to impose Palestinian preconditions on Israel as part of Washington's efforts to jump-start peace talks.49 Waleed al-Awad of the former communist Peoples Party noted that the goal of the PLO Central Council meeting was to "place an international siege on Israel."50
Prospects for Palestinian Success
The Palestinian gambit for pursuing a "Kosovo strategy" is anything but certain. The Palestinians are legally bound to negotiate a bilateral solution with Israel. Unilateral Palestinian threats to declare statehood have been rebuffed thus far by the European powers and the United States. However, the Palestinians believe that under fluid political conditions and growing U.S. impatience over getting the parties to return to the negotiating table, support for Palestinian unilateralism is possible and necessary for success. Foreign Minister Riyadh al-Malki told the London-based Asharq Alawsatthat the main goal of Palestinian diplomacy is winning U.S. support, so that when the Arab countries jointly appeal to the UN Security Council, the Obama administration will not veto a resolution that will finally affirm the pre-1967 lines as the borders of a Palestinian state.51
There is also a wide gap between Palestinian aspirations for unilateral statehood and their poor performance on the ground. Palestinian governance has been marked by several failures. The PA has not delivered reforms to its constituency. Government corruption and unemployment are still major issues. The PA failed to hold the promised 2010 elections, which resulted in the PLO Central Council resolution to replace the PA Legislative Council. But that decision has also been tabled for the interim. Meanwhile, the split between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank may prove to be irreconcilable.
The Palestinian leadership's rush to act already as a de facto state has not succeeded, even in the basic administrative tasks of issuing passports and currency.52 In December 2009, Maan, a leading Palestinian news organization, raised doubts as to the effectiveness of the PLO's "Kosovo strategy" and questioned the wisdom of turning the international arena into a confrontation line between the Palestinians and Israelis. It emphasized that unilateral "success will benefit the Palestinians, while failure will inflict political catastrophe."53
Implications for Israel
The Palestinian "Kosovo strategy" contains several major implications for Israel. First, the Palestinian delegitimization of Israel in the interim poses a strategic threat. The Palestinian state-building process has succeeded in painting Israel as a pariah state, while the hidden foreign policy agenda of the PA and PLO leaderships is to drive a wedge between Israel and the United States. Although unlikely, if the Palestinians win international endorsement of sovereignty along the 1967 lines, Israel will become persona non grata anywhere east of the "green line," including in many central neighborhoods within its own capital city, Jerusalem, that have been developed since the 1967 war.
The unilateral Palestinian bid for sovereignty will also likely turn the Palestinians into the leading petitioner against the State of Israel at the International Criminal Court. An early indication of what can be expected if the PA's "Kosovo strategy" comes to fruition may be seen in the petition submitted to the court by the PA after the Gaza war. Although the PA is not a state and therefore should have no legal standing before the court, its petition was not rejected by the ICC.
Finally, the unilateral Palestinian quest for the 1947 lines may well continue even if the 1967 lines are endorsed by the United Nations. The PLO's 1988 declaration of independence was based on UN General Assembly Resolution 181, which recognizes the 1947 partition plan for Palestine, not the 1967 lines, as the basis for the borders of Israel and an Arab state.
This threat is not theoretical. In 1999, former Palestinian UN Ambassador Nasser al-Kidwa, today a senior Palestinian official and a major proponent of UN endorsement of a unilaterally-declared Palestinian state, submitted a letter on behalf of the PLO asserting that Resolution 181 and its corresponding 1947 partition plan are accepted by the PLO and cannot be annulled, as they provide the legal basis for the existence of both Jewish and Arab states in Mandatory Palestine.54 Since then, Resolution 181 has been invoked by other Palestinian leaders. In view of the PLO's intention to replace the PA as the legitimate legal authority to carry out the Palestinians' Kosovo model, the implications of unilateral Palestinian action are far-reaching.
Dan Diker is Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where he is also a senior foreign policy analyst. He is also an Adjunct Fellow of the Hudson Institute in Washington.
* * *
Notes
1. Khaled Abu Toameh and Herb Keinon, "Recognition of ‘67 Border Before Talks," Jerusalem Post, December 15, 2009. Abbas announced at the PLO Central Council meeting on December 15, 2009, that the Palestinians will not resume peace talks with Israel unless the international community recognized the "1967 borders" as the boundaries of a Palestinian state. Abbas' latest precondition, as well as the complete Palestinian rejection of all Israeli concessions and gestures since the failed Annapolis peace process - including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's recognition of a demilitarized Palestinian state, a virtually complete settlement moratorium in the West Bank, and the granting of amnesty to hundreds of members of Palestinian terror groups - illustrates a Palestinian refusal to negotiate with Israel. See "The Palestinian Refusal to Negotiate Peace," Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, January 4, 2010, http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/About+the+Ministry/Behind+the+Headlines/Palestinian_refusal_negotiate_peace-Jan_2009.
2. "Erekat: It's Time to Recognize a Palestinian State," Ma'an News, November 17, 2009. See also, "Palestinians Should Follow Kosovo Example: Negotiator," Agence France Press, February 20, 2008, http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iS_5y-7raxAQIhNgJDtMOIhadGrg.
3. "Palestinians Unveil Two-Year Development Plan for Statehood," Ha'aretz, November 15, 2009.
4. http://www.mofa-gov.ps/ar/index.php?p=main&id=22. The PLO Central Council also voted to delay implementing the replacement of the Oslo-sanctioned Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), extending the PLC's role in the interim until elections can be called "at the earliest possible date."
5. Yaakov Katz, "Taking a Cue from Kosovo," Jerusalem Post, September, 3, 2009.
6. Abbas acknowledged to the Washington Post 's Jackson Diehl after the failure of Annapolis that Olmert's offer of 97 percent of the West Bank and the recognition of the right of return (that included the return of 100,000 refugees - DD) was more generous to the Palestinians than the offers of either George Bush or Bill Clinton, and yet Abbas said: "The gaps were wide." See Jackson Diehl, "Abbas' Waiting Game,"Washington Post, May 29, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/28/AR2009052803614.html.
7. Ali Abunimah, "Kosovo and the Question of Palestine," Electronic Intifada, February 25, 2008.
8. "Erekat Unimpressed with New U.S. Attitude," January 9, 2009, Jerusalem Post,http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1262339435514 & pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull.
9. Tova Lazeroff and Herb Keinon, "Erekat Denies PA Unilateralism Plans," Jerusalem Post, November 18, 2009, http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1258489190816&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter. In the Kosovo case, UN Security Council Resolution 1244, passed in 1999, established Kosovo as a UN Protectorate. However, similar to the Palestinian case, Kosovo has not yet won a UNSC resolution for independence, since the Security Council has been unable to agree on a resolution backing supervised independence. See International Crisis Group Analysis, http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3225&l=1.
10. Separate conversations with international law experts Professor Ruth Lapidot and Professor Irwin Cotler, former Justice Minister of Canada, in Jerusalem, December 21, 2009.
11. Kosovo - a province of Serbia - has been under international trusteeship since NATO's armed intervention in 1999. UN Security Council Resolution 1244 provided international sanction for UN trusteeship. For Serbs, Kosovo is an ancestral homeland and the site of many important Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries. They insist that the area remain under Serbian sovereignty. The current state of limbo, tension, and sporadic violence between Kosovo's Albanian majority, which is mostly Muslim, and the Serbian minority, which is mostly Orthodox Christian, has mobilized international support away from the notion of a multi-ethnic society there and ratcheted up support for Kosovo's break from Serbia.
12. Clearly, the legal analogy does not work. Kosovar independence, currently being considered by the International Court of Justice, requires the consent of Serbia, the sovereign power, notwithstanding exceptional cases of brutality that would obviate agreement of the sovereign. Ironically perhaps, legally, the Palestinians must also receive Israel's agreement in any final status arrangement over final borders, as enshrined in UN Security Council Resolution 242, and as agreed upon at Oslo and in the 2002 Roadmap.
13. The Kosovo case was referred by the UN General Assembly to the International Court of Justice on October 8, 2008, for an advisory opinion as to the legality of Kosovo's unilateral declaration. The ICJ opinion is still pending. See http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/141/14797.pdf.
14. http://reut-institute.org/en/Publication.aspx?PublicationId=3679.
15. A map of Kosovo reveals that its ethnic composition leaves the minority Serb population contained in the provinces in Kosovo's north, leaving the majority of the land to the Muslim Kosovar majority without the risk of geographical interlocking or overlapping communities.
16. The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative referred to the issue of refugees thus: "Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194." http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/mar/28/israel7.
17. Dan Diker, "Why Israel Must Now Move from Concession-Based Diplomacy to Rights-Based Diplomacy," Jerusalem Viewpoints #554, June-July 2007,http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp ? DRIT=2&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=253&PID=0&IID=1607&TTL= Why_Israel_Must_Now_Move_from_Concessions-Based_Diplomacy_to_Rights-Based_Diplomacy. See also "Palestinian Refusal to Negotiate Peace."
18. See examples of Palestinian leadership denials of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in Dore Gold, The Fight for Jerusalem (Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2007), pp. 10-11.
19. John Quigly, "The Palestine Declaration to the International Criminal Court: The Statehood Issue,"Rutgers Law Record, vol. 35, (Spring 2009), http://www.lawrecord.com/files/35-rutgers-l-rec-1.pdf.
20. "Palestinian Refusal to Negotiate Peace." Daniel Reisner, former head of the Israel Defense Forces' International Law Department, pointed out in interviews on January 6, 2010, on Army Radio and Channel 10 that Fayyad's government successfully appealed to the International Criminal Court without having the status of a sovereign state. Surprisingly, Reisner noted, the court did not dismiss the appeal, which underscores the vigorous efforts of PA Foreign Minister Riyadh al-Malki to upgrade the status of the PA to a sovereign state, which would in turn leverage up the number and effectiveness of Palestinian petitions to the ICC against the Israeli government and military officials.
21. In late 2009, Defense Minister Ehud Barak narrowly escaped arrest while on an official visit to London, while Israeli opposition leader and former foreign minister Tzippi Livni cancelled a planned visit to London, fearing arrest. http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/international/Israeli_Military_Delegation_Cancels _Britain_Trip_Fearing_Possible_War_Crime_Charges_25944716.
22. On March 22, 2009, Fayyad convened in his bureau the committees of the "popular intifada," as opposed to the military one. These committees were charged with organizing public activities against the security barrier and the settlements. Fayyad told them: "This example of resistance received respect, appreciation and support worldwide." Al-Hayat al-Jadeeda, March 22 2009. See also Dan Diker and Pinhas Inbari, "Is the Palestinian Authority Stable Enough for Peace Talks? Assessing the Resignation and Return of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad," Jerusalem Issue Brief, vol. 9, no. 3, June 16, 2009,http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp ? DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=442&PID=0&IID=3007. For a typical anti-Israel protest website, see http://www.awalls.org/.
23. http://www.aawsat.com/details.asp?section=4&article=548758&issueno=11341.
24. U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman, visiting Ramallah in November 2009, said, "I know some people concerned that this is unilateral, but it seems to me that it is unilateral in the healthy sense of self-development." See "Fayyad, PA Getting Ready for Statehood," Jerusalem Post, November 15, 2009. See also Dan Diker and Pinhas Inbari, "Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's Two-Year Path to Palestinian Statehood: Implications for the Palestinian Authority and Israel," Jerusalem Issue Brief, vol. 9, no. 11, October 2, 2009,http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID =442&PID=0&IID=3096.
25. Alan Baker, "A Paradox of Peacemaking: How Fayyad's Unilateral Statehood Plan Undermines the Legal Foundations of Israeli-Palestinian Diplomacy," Jerusalem Viewpoints, no. 574, November-December, 2009,http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID =1&TMID=111&FID=443&PID=0&IID=3185.
26. Diker and Inbari, "Fayyad's Two-Year Path."
27. http://www.maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=252188.
28. "Erekat: PA May Declare State via UN," Ynet News, November 14, 2009, http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3804948,00.html.
29. Assaf Uni, Jack Khoury, and Yanir Yagna, "EU Chief Urges UN to Set Unilateral Timetable for Palestinian Statehood," Ha'aretz, July 13, 2009.
30. Barak Ravid, "EU Draft Document on Division of Jerusalem," Ha'aretz, December 2, 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1131988.html.
31. Dore Gold, "Europe Seeks to Divide Jerusalem," Jerusalem Issue Brief, vol. 9, no. 14, December 10, 2009.
32. Baker, "A Paradox of Peace Making."
33. "Washington Rejects Palestinian Kosovo Comparison," AFP, February, 20, 2008.
34. Ibid.
35. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1124825.html.
36. Isabel Kershner, "Israeli Settlement Growth Must Stop, Clinton Says," New York Times, May 28, 2009.
37. Khaled Abu Toameh, "Palestinians and Obama, End of a Honeymoon," Hudson Institute New York, November 24, 2009.
38. Khaled Abu Toameh, "Why Is Abbas Stonewalling?" Jerusalem Post, December 24, 2009.
39. "Obama Tells Abbas Committed to PA State," Ynet News, October 23, 2009. Following Obama's phone call to Abbas, his spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeinah, said, "It was a very important conversation for the future of the peace process and the region." As the Palestinians' sole priority has been to win U.S. and international endorsement for the 1967 lines, the PA's uncharacteristically positive reaction to Obama after Washington's reversal of its former precondition of a total Israeli settlement freeze strongly suggests an Obama commitment on the central Palestinian demand.
40. Amidst the growing tensions between the U.S. and Israel over Israeli construction in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar wrote, "The Obama administration has recently begun discussing how to appease Abbas. For example, by giving him letters spelling out U.S. support for a final status arrangement based on the 1967 borders and reaffirming Washington's position that Jerusalem is divided into eastern and western parts." See Akiva, Eldar, "Will Netanyahu's Behavior Push Obama into Abbas' Arms?" Ha'aretz, November 19, 2009.
41. Abbas reportedly revealed to a Kuwaiti newspaper that he had "verified information that Hamas was planning to take over the West Bank. Khaled Abu Toameh, "Can Hamas Be Stopped from Seizing the West Bank," Hudson Institute New York, January 5, 2010, http://www.hudsonny.org/2010/01/can-hamas-be-stopped-from-seizing-west-bank.php.
42. While many Hamas PLC lawmakers remain in Israeli custody, the Palestinian leadership wanted to remove Hamas from even formal majority control of the Palestinian Authority's Legislative Council.
43. Salim Zanoun, Chairman of the PLO's National Council, noted that the Palestinian Authority was the legal child of the PLO and the Central Council which the PNC established in 1994. The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs further explained the proposed but yet to be implemented PLO takeover of the PA Parliament, saying: "The PA's duty is only to provide services to the Palestinians." Hence, the PLO and not the PA is the only legal body empowered to declare a state, http://www.mofa-gov.ps/ar/index.php?p=main&id=22. Ironically, perhaps, the PLO Council did not uproot the PA and endorsed the continued functioning of the Palestinian Authority's legislative council, in order to enjoy the ongoing receipt of billions of dollars in international donor contributions. The PA received $3 billion in 2008, according to French estimates, while the December 2007 Paris donors' conference pledged over $7 billion in aid to the PA over the years 2008-2010. See Dan Diker and Khaled Abu Toameh, "Can the Palestinian Authority's Fatah Forces Retake Gaza?" Jerusalem Viewpoints, no. 569, January-February 2009, http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=443&PID=0&IID=2842.
44. While not recognizing Palestine as a state, 104 countries recognized the 1988 Palestine Liberation Organization's Declaration of Independence. See John Quigly, "The Palestine Declaration to the International Criminal Court." See also Palestinian National Council, Declaration of Independence, November 15, 1988, UN Doc. A/43/827, S/20278, Annex III, November 18, 1988, reprinted in 27 I.L.M. 1668 (1988). The August 2009 publication of PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's "Two-Year Plan to Palestinian Statehood" is seen by most Western and many Israeli observers as a unilateral state-building plan in its initial phases, but not necessarily one in which Fayyad or the PA will unilaterally declare a Palestinian state in 2011, thereby maintaining the framework of a negotiated solution.
45. Tal Becker, "International Recognition of a Unilaterally Declared Palestinian State, Legal and Policy Dilemmas," Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, http://www.jcpa.org/art/becker1.htm.
46. Baker, "A Paradox of Peacemaking."
47. Becker, "International Recognition of a Unilaterally Declared Palestinian State."
48. "Erekat: It's Time to Recognize a Palestinian State," Ma'an News. See also "Abbas: Only Solution Is to Declare Palestinian State," Ha'aretz, November 25, 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1128786.html.
49. Hilary Leila Krieger, "Jerusalem Rejects 2-Year Peace Deadline," Jerusalem Post, January 8, 2010.
50. Maan News (Arabic), December 12, 2009, http://www.maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=245977.
51. http://www.aawsat.com/details.asp?section=4&article=548758&issueno=11341.
52. For example, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyadh al-Malki signed a state-to-state agreement with Francewhich is an upgrade of the PA's political status on the declarative level, but the Palestinians had to backtrack from practical decisions expressing unilateral statehood, such as issuing a Palestinian currency or issuing Palestinian passports. The Lebanese daily al-Akhbar reported that one of the main purposes of Abbas' visit to Beirut was to deal with the rejection of issuing passports to the Palestinian refugees inLebanon, as they believed passports would cost them the right of return. Abbas, according to the report, accepted the claim and rescinded the issuing of passports.
53. http://www.maannews.net/arb/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=245885.
54. See the letter submitted by PLO Ambassador Nasser al-Kidwa to the General Assembly, http://www.jcpa.org/art/jid-apx.htm#plo181.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
