- As reported by the International Herald Tribune, on February
15 the leading political factions in Palestine, Fatah and Hamas, reached
an agreement to form a national unity government and to end the increasingly
bloody infighting between extremists of the two groups. Under the deal,
brokered at Mecca by Saudi Arabia, the parties agreed to stop conflict
between their respective militants, and to form a new Palestinian unity
government consisting of nine Hamas ministers, six Fatah ministers and
five others for independent groups. This means that Hamas would lead formation
of a new unity government. The principal wrinkle in this otherwise successful
meeting was that the parties agreed only to "respect" past agreements.
They did not agree to adhere to those agreements, and they did not agree
to "recognize" Israel as the Middle East peace Roadmap Quartet
(the US, European Union, Russian, and the UN), and of course the Israelis,
insist.
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- In a Jerusalem meeting early this week with Prime Minister
Olmert and President Abbas, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made no
real attempt to cope with the Fatah/Hamas agreement to "respect"
past agreements. Rather she simply declared that she expected "to
have conversations that are at a pace to allow real discussion and not
to try to drive some outcome" Translated into ordinary English, she
meant the new talks would be wheel spinning at best. According to Reuters,
a Fatah representative reporting on the meetings with Rice was even more
pessimistic, saying: "We hoped the meeting could revive peace talks
in a serious manner, but the Israelis will do whatever they can to make
it fail."
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- If these reports are accurate, and, from a Palestinian
viewpoint, or that of a serious seeker after Middle East peace, they have
the ring of bitter truth about them, the United States has once again bowed
to Israeli wishes. In so doing, it has put America's real interests in
this situation at best on hold, if not truly in jeopardy. Why? To answer
with Occam's Razor, the Israel Lobby and his Christian Right supporters
have George W. Bush where it really hurts, and the interests of the great
majority of Americans, or for that matter the great majority of Israelis
do not come into it.
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- The most incredible aspect of the situation is the staying
power of the Palestinians. For six decades the Palestinian people have
been subjected to endless human rights violations and injustices. Starting
with the 1947-48 ethnic cleansing by the Zionists under David Ben Gurion,
over five hundred villages and a dozen towns were literally emptied of
Palestinians who were simply killed, imprisoned or driven away. With this,
the Israelis started on the illegal, war criminal path they have pursued
ever since, the goal being to take all of Palestine from its people. That
is still the Zionist goal, whatever many peace-seeking Israelis may think
about it, and that is why no negotiation with the Palestinians has ever
led anywhere, why no Israeli leadership to date has been prepared to fix
the boundaries of Israel, why Israeli settlements keep creeping across
the spaces of any would-be Palestinian state, and why all Israeli peace
proposals so far have put any substantive deals on the hard core issues
(e.g., Jerusalem, right of return, compensation for destroyed and confiscated
properties, boundaries) somewhere out in the future. The simple truth
is that the longer such decisions can be delayed, the more of Palestine
the Israelis will control, and the less land will remain for any Palestinian
state. Contemplating all of that, the Palestinian people hang on.
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- "Recognition" in these circumstances would
require that the Palestinian people accept everything that has happened
to them in the past six decades and to forego any recourse whatsoever.
As couched by the Israelis and supported by the United States with the
Quartet, "recognition" says that all the players accept the present
situation as a legal fait accompli. But for accepting it, the Palestinians
get nothing. To get "recognition", the Israelis make no promises
(a) to stop their occupation of all of Palestine that is left or cease
military harassment of all its people, (b) to recognize the rights of the
Palestinian people in any sense, (c) to do anything to compensate the Palestinian
people for six decades of Israeli induced hardship and attrition, (d) to
stop creeping expansion, (e) to stop hogging the country's precious water
resources, or (f) to release the 10-11,000 Palestinian prisoners the Israelis
hold for the basic crime of resisting Israeli abuse.
-
- "Recognition" in these circumstances is not
your garden-variety diplomatic acceptance of a state that is (1) behaving
according to law and accepted international norms, (2) staying within its
own fixed borders, (3) respecting the rights and the territories of the
neighbors, and (4) behaving as a respectable state among equals. Viewed
in those terms, from a Palestinian, or perhaps even a reasonable man perspective,
Israel is hard pressed to qualify.
-
- US interests are simply not served, however, by playing
with the Israeli urge to "recognition". Israel exists. It
is making and contributing to a dangerous mess in the neighborhood. It
may be, as some writers have speculated, that the recognition issue is
a proxy for deep-seated Israeli uncertainty and guilt about what it has
done through unremitting ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. It may also
be, as others have speculated, that Israeli actions are driven by an abiding
sense of insecurity that causes it to lash out at any perceived threat.
All of that given, the only real contribution the United States can make
to Israeli security lies with successful brokering of a Middle East peace,
beginning with Palestine.
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- As many have said repeatedly, the United States cannot
accomplish that mission from its present position. A singular defender
of Israel and its interests cannot fulfill the brokerage role. Telling
the Palestinians who their leaders must be to meet an Israeli or an American
index of acceptance is not an effective role. Punishing the Palestinians
for putting greater weight on their wishes for strong leadership than they
put on present comfort is hardly the best shot of a superpower. Leaving
the Palestinians to decide who should lead them, as they define their leadership
needs, is the first step for the United States and for the Quartet. The
second step for the United States as honest broker is to stand back and
take a fair look at the rights and interests of both parties. The third
step is to put equal weight on the achievement of satisfaction for both
sets of interests. The Israelis may squirm in this environment, because
it puts a cap on their lust for living space, but the Palestinians have
not asked for anything that is not rightly theirs.
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- The Mecca agreement of leading Palestinian players created
a unique window of opportunity for an honest broker to step in and work
toward real peace. Middle East peace is far too important to get impaled
on US/Israeli pique with Palestinian refusal to give away anything important
for no visible gain. The job of the honest broker here is to see that the
issues are cast in negotiable terms for both parties. At this moment,
the United States simply is not able to discharge that role. Nothing will
happen until the US role shifts to an honest brokerage that is visible
to everyone. The only two people who can fix this-or take the blame for
failing to fix it-are the President and the Secretary of State. If the
Israel support groups have any sense at all, they will leave President
Bush and Secretary Rice alone to get this done.
-
- **********
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- The writer is the author of the recently published work,
A World Less Safe, now available on Amazon, and he is a regular columnist
on rense.com. He is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer of the US
Department of State whose immediate pre-retirement positions were as Deputy
Director of the State Office of Counter-Terrorism and Emergency Planning,
and as Chairman of the Department of International Studies of the National
War College. He will welcome comment at wecanstopit@charter.net.
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