The controversial Palestinian request for UN membership is the culmination of three competing strategies pursued by the US, Israel, and the Palestinians over the last three years.
The curtain opened in early 2009 with two new governments: a right-wing coalition in Israel and a more diplomacy-oriented administration in the United States. In the background were two huge developments in previous months: First, in September 2008 former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a dramatic offer to provide the Palestinians with a state the size of the pre-1967 West Bank, a Jerusalem divided with a capital for Israel and a Palestinian state, and a return of Palestinian refugees to a Palestinian state with a small number of Palestinians allowed to return to Israel.
Although no Prime Minister since 1967 has made this generous an offer, Abu Mazen did not accept the plan, but did not reject it either. To Olmert's great consternation, he remained silent. Second, in the weeks prior to President Obama's inauguration, Israel initiated a brief war whose objective was to end the missile attacks on its territory from nearby Gaza.
The fledgling Obama administration basically chose to ignore both of these developments and pursue peace talks, appointing a Mideast envoy -- former Senator George Mitchell, and moving to press both sides to enter negotiations quickly, pressing the new Netanyahu government to freeze settlements totally as part of the new approach. Less known at the time, the new American administration also initiated the most substantial program of security assistance to Israel in history.
No request was off the table, and we now know that even the bunker-busting bombs that could facilitate an attack on Iran that former President Bush had turned down, were provided as well.
This policy of diplomatic challenge to Israel combined with secret assistance did not work because neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians cooperated. Abu Mazen had a choice: he could go along with the President, enter negotiations, and assume that since Obama's vision of a final settlement was closer to Olmert than Netanyahu, the Mitchell-led talks would lead to strong backing by the US for most of his positions, except on refugees. The alternative was to reject the Obama approach by raising endless obstacles, and meanwhile pursuing a policy of isolating and de-legitimizing Israel, climaxing in the bid for UN membership without any of the outstanding issues settled with Israel. Abu Mazen chose the latter.
The ensuing Palestinian strategy saved the new Israeli government from a diplomatic trap, but served to accelerate its isolation. Given his right-wing coalition, Netanyahu could claim he wanted negotiations without pre-conditions, and then do nothing but wait and meanwhile resist most of Obama's entreaties. Occasionally, Netanyahu did make concessions, such as accepting a two state solution -- a first for a Likud Prime Minister, the 10 month moratorium on West Bank construction from 2009-10, the reduction in roadblocks on the West Bank, and hints that he would accept Obama's formula of pre-1967 borders and mutually agreed swaps, after his May 2011 campaign against it in Washington. Otherwise, Netanyahu pocketed Obama's security cooperation, and stood still. His government offered no creative formulas to break the stalemate, no new ideas, nothing. Even when the Obama administration offered a reasonable formula to break the logjam with the Turks, or at least test Ankara's seriousness about cooling down the conflict, the Israeli government refused. And it reacted to the Arab Spring with caution, even fear, but no diplomatic initiative.
The Obama strategy comprised two levels with both the Israelis and Palestinians: For the latter there was severe disagreement privately, but a seeming acquiescence publicly in Palestinian stalling tactics. With the Israelis it was the reverse: intense cooperation and largesse privately on security issues, but repeated spats publicly on diplomatic matters. Both the Israelis and Palestinians undercut Obama at every turn, and the status quo could not last. It burst in New York.
First, the Obama administration did finally rebel at Abu Mazen's tendency to undermine every Obama initiative. Refusal to cease and desist in the UN initiative, which the Obama team genuinely believes was counter-productive and puts the US in a no-win diplomatic cul-de-sac, was the last straw.
Second, Obama's saving of six security officials trapped at the beleaguered Israeli embassy by personal pressure on the interim Egyptian government forced Israelis from Netanyahu on down to acknowledge publicly how helpful the President had been.
Third, domestic American politics finally intervened. Abandoning his fear of confronting the Arab world publicly despite his frustration with Palestinian strategy, Obama swung to the Israeli side in the kind of warm and reassuring speech Israel's American advocates had begged for, and at the UN General Assembly no less.
But Obama's swing toward Israel was accompanied by the Quartet's statement in favor of follow-up meetings and an agenda replete with an international conference in Moscow to reach a peace deal by the end of 2012. Abu Mazen's initial reaction: rejection of the approach.
So we are back to where we started, except that the Obama administration is now publicly as frustrated with Palestinian diplomacy as it is with the Netanyahu government's failure to produce any initiative of its own. And the UN drama will continue.
Over the next several months the key question will be whether the Israelis or the Palestinians change course, and their assessment of American domestic politics will be critical. Will the Palestinians be so intent on going it alone that they are prepared to risk the ascension to power of a Republican President whose policies are similar to the current right-wing coalition in Israel? Will the Netanyahu coalition prefer the comforting words of such a President, who may not have the funds or the will to match his/her comforting public statements with the kind of intense and expensive security assistance Obama has provided and will undoubtedly continue to provide as the implications of the Arab Spring unfold? Will either be satisfied with a Republican President who will be beholden to the Tea Party and others who want more isolation and less foreign aid?
The poor strategies of the parties remain the real obstacle to progress. Both the Israelis and Palestinians are pursuing self-defeating policies that will continue to cause tensions in the
region, with the US, and the international community. Unless one or both of them change their approach, Obama will continue to appear weak as he tries to get both sides to alter course with some pressure and more carrots. Progressively as the US elections near, both Israelis and Palestinians will have to decide whether they want Obama to look stronger with some achievement or risk a very different American administration. Their destinies depend on the gambles they both make.
This article was originally published by JewishJournal.com.
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1. Author acknowledges Obama overtures to Netanyahu like military aid which even neocon fav. Bush Jr denied etc and what did he get in return? His VP insulted with settlement building announcement at the time when he was visiting Israel
2. Netanyahu address to USA congress where he gets infamous 30 plus standing ovations (congress selling their soul to aipac is different discussion) and what was the tone of his speech? Obama is anti Israel etc
The speech was nothing but slap on Obama admin thanks to Netanyahu republican pals
3. Olmert plan? Openly described as zero credibility plan as Olmert ship was sinking, he could have never got it approved
4. What was the immediate result after Netanyahu big speech at UN? More settlement building announcement
Now tell me what part was played wrongly by Abbas? How can you negotiate with a party which is acting like a high school bully tormenting a smaller kid?
Is Freenation stating that Abbas is a *kid*? Or, that Palestinians are not adults?
Now Freenation should tell us why with a Palestinian State, Palestinian Refugees should return to ...Israel, why Abbas will NEVER ACCEPT The Jewish State, which has existed since 194, but especially how doubling the population of Israel almost could be accomodated without adequate housing, without employment, and on a diminished acreage, for starters.
We can *discuss* plans, theories, *reasons*, politics, ad infinitem, but ultimately this is about real people, and real lives and solutions, jobs, food, housing, schools, passports, etc. I have never imagined that being of one nation requires that you have domicile in another nation, and since Palestinian Refugees will not only not be allowed to enter Palestine, but will not get passports, would they be allowed to leave, travel, emigrate, anything normal people do? These Palestinians, then, residing in a, for them, foreign country, Israel, would they fall under Palestinian government or under the Israeli government.
It's not about peace or security, it's all about delay and stonewalling to milk a cash cow (USA) as far as it goes before accepting the inevitable, which is no force on planet can wish millions of Palestinians to disappear from their place of birth, presently two state solution is on table and as time passes by then it will be a one state solution by default, time is on Palestinian side!
"A Pew global opinion poll from 2008 showed that hatred of Jews is effectively universal in the Arab world and overwhelming in non-Arab Muslim states. In Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon, between 95 and 97 percent of respondents expressed hatred of Jews. In Indonesia, Turkey and Pakistan between twothirds and three-quarters of respondents expressed hatred of Jews."
Palestine's only recourse is the U.N. bid for state hood. Its between Palestine, and a growing number of Arab nations against the U.S. and Israel. I count two strategies. An oppresser using the time available to procure property illegally, and a victim waiting for justice.
http://warincontext.org/2011/09/21/new-york-times-discovers-netanyahu-has-friends-in-congress/
Of course propaganda aside, there were in fact 800 fighters killed and given the density of the area and the embedded fighters within the population - deliberately I might add - the death toll of some 600 although tragic was extremely low.
None would have been necessary had Hamas not fired almost ten thousand rockets into Israel. How many countries would have waited years of daily rocket and mortar fire before invading to stop it? None.
Any other country would have turned Gaza into a lunar landscape as the Russians did to the city of Grozny in Chechnya
Obama's Cairo speach misled them to think, for a brief while, that the US might actual try to be a neutral mediator and force for peace, but the continued use of Dennis Ross, and the UNGC veto of a few months ago (amoung other acts), should have demonstrated to the Palestinians, for once and for all, that no matter what lip service an American president pays to equality and a just peace, the US government will never be anythng more than a shill for the interests of the Israeli government.
1/ the beautiful "offer" of Olmert is not really an offer actually because Olmert said the same month that he would resign. So, it was never an official proposal from the government of Israel, just a speech from a politician (and not the most honest on Earth).
2/ What you describe as the choice of Abbas was not really a choice. Should I remind you who is the israelian foreign minister? Avigdor Liberman (and n°2 of the government). To say that you can negociate with a government with Lieberman in it is a joke.
3/ Can you stop with the "both sides are wrong, we should seek the center"? It's what you hear all the time about every single issue in american newsmedia... No, sometimes, one side is right and the other is wrong. It's as simple as that.
And you're wrong. Had Abbas accepted Olmert's offer, then there'd be a peace treaty and a Palestinian state.
Hah!
Had Abbas accepted Olmert's offer:
(1) Israel would have not honored the deal, as elections were occurring and a far-right government was formed;
(2) Abbas would have been assasinated by his own people for agreeing the permanent second-class status and a series of bantustans, rather than a soverign Palestinian state; and,
(3) The Palestinian populace, both in the Occupied Territories and the Diaspora, would have (rightly) rejected the terms of the deal as unjust, and a third rebellion might have broken out.
Most countries don't even want a Palestinian State especially the Arab countries.
They don't want the issue to end - certainly not with Jews still there.
Your all delusional but with Hamas there, nothing will change nor should it until that gets sorted out in some way.
Of course if the ICJ and the ICC, to which Israel is not a member and thus there's no jusridiction, the only way to take back the territories of East/West Jerusalem would be full scale war.
Oh, and with Israeli leaders hiding out from ICC war crimes arrest warrants, and the ICJ having ruled the Israeli actions ('Settlements', 'annexation', and the Seige) illegal, the propaganda that is used to convince Americans otherwise is going to start slipping, and, as always, isolation, followed, if necessary, by international armed intervention (as was done in stopping Serbia in its efforts to do to Kosovo what Israel is doing to Palestine) becomes extremely persuasive.
(just one example: mentioning a '10 month moratorium on West Bank construction' without mentioning that 9 months of construction (year to year totals of completed units) occured in those 10 months)
Like two wolves and a lamb voting on what's for supper.
and 50+ oiled Muslim states who totally back Abbas
Of course, that the majority of the support for Palestinian statehood is coming from non-Muslim states (even if you call states with only 1/4 of the population being Muslim a 'Muslim state') is so toxic to the PR that keeps the broad middle of the American public in line on this issue that you pretty much have to push the line at every chance you get.