For the past forty years, no problem has damaged relations between the United States and the Arab world more than Israel’s harsh occupation of the Palestinian territories. Since the U.S. persistently aided this occupation financially, militarily, and in all votes about it in the United Nations Security Council, Congress and the President hold the keys to any peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. Several presidents tried to reach an agreement but they failed because they did not impose clearly defined consequences upon the two feuding parties.
It is to the credit of President Bush that he called another peace conference to be held in November at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. If he succeeded in getting the governments of Israel and the Palestinian Authority to sign a peace treaty, it would be the greatest diplomatic success of his presidency. Ironically, not only is he a lame duck, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are so weakened by domestic strife that they also are virtually lame ducks.
Regrettably, the alienation between Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank make it unlikely that by mid-November Fatah leader Abbas could effectively speak for the Palestinian leadership, leave alone implement any commitment. Worse yet, the Hamas government may not even be capable of preventing rocket firings from the Gaza territory.
For better or worse, Israel and the U.S. would have a better chance to make progress in negotiations if Hamas were brought to the table, provided its leaders want to be there. The fact that Gaza’s economy and private sector are on the verge of collapse has increasingly embittered the Palestinian masses. Cutting off foreign aid to Gaza and isolating Hamas, has only strengthened its most radical elements.
Negotiations are unlikely to go anywhere if hostile actions continue on the ground. The government of Israel cannot hope to create an atmosphere of mutual trust if it does not stop settlement expansion and improve freedom of movement for Palestinians. Confidence-building measures by both sides are urgently needed as impetus for the negotiations from the very start.
Since Israel’s Arab neighbors are vitally interested in the future of the Palestinian territory, their presence at the table is not only justified, it could also yield Israel much-desired diplomatic and economic benefits. No country in the region has more sophisticated goods and services to export to Arab markets than Israel.
Secretary Rice wants to include Syria in the talks but President Bashar al-Assad warned: “If they don’t talk about the Syrian occupied territory, no, there is no way for Syria to go there.” Most Arabs appear to remain skeptical that American politicians can be even-handed brokers between Israelis and Arabs and not simply reflect the demands of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for an Israel forever controlling their Palestinian neighbors.
All recent U.S. Presidents have proposed that Israel has an unconditional right to exist, that it must give up some of the land that it conquered in the 1967 war, and that the Palestinians end all violence against Israelis. By now, several compromises for peace seem to have emerged as inescapable: Israel and Palestine as sovereign states; Jerusalem as capital for both states; evacuation of all Israeli settlements outside Israel’s borders; and no resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Israel.
“We believe the time is right for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,” said Abbas but Olmert warned against expecting more than a declaration of principles for establishing a Palestinian state.”
Since the two do not even agree on the objective of the conference, chances for success can hardly be considered more than remote.