The UN is a member of the stupidly-named ‘Quartet’ for the Middle East peace process, along with the US, Russia, and the EU. Alvaro de Soto, whose title was (really) “Under-Secretary-General, United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative of the Secretary-General to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority, Envoy to the Quartet” has written an End of Mission Report after two years of service.
The de Soto report
June 13th, 2007Diplomacy and war
June 12th, 2007The secret communications between Israel and Syria seem to have produced public results:
“Syria is prepared to renew talks based upon the land for peace principle, without preconditions, to bring about stability and security in the region,” [Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmad] Arnous said.
The Syrian diplomat, who made the statement following a Damascus meeting with Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni, also said that Syria was determined to regain the Golan.
“President Assad is perfectly straightforward regarding Syria’s aspirations to renew negotiations based on the rubrics of the Madrid Conference,” he said. — Jerusalem Post
The Madrid Conference took place in 1991, and affirmed the principle of talks between Israel and Syria with a view to trading the Golan for a peace treaty. Talks under this framework continued during the 1990’s, ultimately failing to reach a resolution because of disagreements about precise borders and security arrangements.
Diplomacy is war by other means, to turn von Clausewitz’s famous remark around, and make no mistake: this particular diplomacy is closely tied up with war and the possibility of war.
Israel’s position will no doubt be the same as it has always been: “sign a real peace treaty that includes recognition and full normalization of relations, and you can have the Golan”.
Syria’s position, as I imagine it, will be “Hizbullah has 20,000 rockets and stronger defenses than they did when they beat you in 2006; we have more and better missiles which can strike anywhere in Israel as well as vastly improved antitank and antiaircraft weapons. Give us the Golan”.
Of course they will probably try to say it more diplomatically, since this is after all diplomacy.
There’s no substitute for motivation
June 12th, 2007Fatah may be finished in Gaza:
Hamas launched a full-scale attack Tuesday afternoon against Fatah security bases and positions in Gaza, and succeeded in taking over a number of them, Israel Radio reported.
Hamas-affiliated television said that the organization overtook the entire northern section of the Gaza Strip. After airing the report, the station was attacked by PA security forces and forced to play pro-Fatah songs…
Less then an hour after the attack, Abbas called for an immediate cease-fire…
Also on Tuesday afternoon, Fatah announced that within several hours, the faction would decide whether to stay in the unity government with Hamas, or leave the Palestinian Authority government altogether, Israel Radio reported.
The announcement coincided with a Hamas attack on the National Security headquarters in Gaza, an incident which followed a recent threat of such action by the extremist Islamic faction. National Security is one of the armed forces affiliated with Fatah.
Hamas also announced that Fatah must evacuate all buildings used by Military Intelligence, the Revolutionary Guard, National Security and Preventive Security. — Jerusalem Post
Hamas has consistently beaten Fatah militarily. There’s no substitute for motivation, even large amounts of American aid — just look at Iraq (or, historically, Vietnam).
If Fatah leaves the government, there will be no way for the EU or the US to fund Palestinian terrorism without admitting that they are funding Palestinian terrorism. Personally, I’d like to see the fig leaf stripped away, especially since Fatah is also a terrorist organization.
The US will do its best to keep Fatah in the government. We’ll soon find out if this is possible, and how much it will cost.
Update [1936 PDT]: Fatah has really gotten its clock cleaned in Gaza. Welcome to Hamastan!
Update [2110 PDT]: 37 are dead in two days of fighting. Hamas has captured large amounts of US-supplied weapons and ammunition from Fatah, as everyone knew would happen. I hope that the idiotic idea of intervening on behalf of Fatah does not get any play in Israel — and that the US does not try to push Israel in this direction.
Palestinian idealism
June 11th, 2007Ami Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh’s peace plan (as summarized by Bradley Burston, original here):
The borders of the new state would be based on 1967 lines, with a territorial exchange allowing for Israel to annex major settlement blocs and an equal amount of area to be granted Palestine from areas now within Israel proper. No settlers would remain within Palestine.
The Palestinian state would be demilitarized, under agreements in which the international community would guarantee its security.
Regarding the right of return, “Palestinians refugees will return only to the State of Palestine; Jews will return only to the State of Israel.” In addition, Israel, Palestine, and the international community would set up a fund to compensate Palestinian refugees for their suffering.
As for Jerusalem, the Palestinians would have sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods, and Israel over Jewish neighborhoods. Neither side would have sovereignty over holy sites. Israel would act as guardian of the Western wall, Palestine as guardian of the Noble Sanctuary mosque compound.
I don’t want to talk about the justice or fairness of the plan. Just a couple of guesses about how such a plan would be received by Israelis and Palestinians:
My first guess is that if they were convinced that security guarantees would be effective (a very big ‘if’), the majority of Israelis would accept such a plan.
My other guess is that no imaginable Palestinian leadership would accept it.
Historically, since the 1937 Peel Commission and through the 2000 Clinton/Barak proposal, Israelis have been prepared to accept partition, even when it would be objectively disadvantageous, on the grounds that it would bring peace. Israelis who think that the entire Land of Israel should be in Jewish hands for religious reasons are a minority.
Most Arabs have always opposed partition. It has always seemed to them — even before the founding of the state — that the entire land belonged to them, indeed, that any land held by Jews was in some sense stolen (even if it was purchased). Compensation has never been considered an acceptable substitute for possession.
There is a fundamental asymmetry in the thinking of Israelis and Palestinians. Israelis are mostly pragmatic and most of them are more interested in peace than land. Indeed, opposition to withdrawal from the territories is overwhelmingly based on security considerations.
Palestinians are not pragmatic, they are idealistic. They are prepared to undergo great hardship in order to obtain what they think is theirs, and they are uncompromising. Even this proposal, signed by the moderate Nusseibeh — and if there ever was a moderate Palestinian, it’s Nusseibeh — has to take Palestinian idealism into account.
I’m referring, of course, to the statement at the end of the first paragraph: No settlers will remain in Palestine. Although one presumes that both sides envisage that Arabs will continue to live in Israel, the idealistic Palestinians require that Palestine must be completely Judenrein.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Ayalon, Nusseibeh
Whose side are they on?
June 11th, 2007It would be crude to ask Arab Knesset members “whose side are you on?”, but sometimes one feels that it’s appropriate.
Arab MKs were infuriated Monday morning by the appearance of Reform Party of Syria leader Farid Ghadry at the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee [FADC].
“Ghadry decided to act against his people and his country, and chose to be a mercenary for Americans,” Hadash Chairman Muhammad Barakei argued.
“He came to act as a wretched servant for the belligerent agenda and the extreme right wing. Scum is bad, but American scum of this kind is much worse,” Barakei added.
MK Ahmed Tibi (UAL) stopped Ghadry in the Kneseet corridor and accosted him in Arabic: “Aren’t you ashamed? You should be ashamed, coming here as a cheap pawn of [Likud Chairman Binyamin] Netanyahu. — Jerusalem Post
So what outrage did Ghadry commit to deserve this?
Ghadry clearly stated on Sunday that he still believed that the Golan Heights belonged to Syria and he planned to make a point of it during the FADC meeting.
Ghadry told an audience at the Harry Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University that Israel should refrain from making peace with Syria’s current dictatorship until its leadership becomes a democracy.
“Syria will become democratic, have patience … Peace with a non-democratic Syria … is perilous and short-sighted.”
I might add that returning the Golan Heights to a Syria which is not only non-democratic, but engaged in a huge military buildup — as well as sponsoring and supplying Hezbollah in its own war preparations — would be foolhardy in the extreme. One doesn’t need to be a member of the “extreme right-wing” to see this!
Like former MK Azmi Bishara, who fled the country following accusations of espionage on behalf of Syria during the Lebanon war, his colleagues apparently feel that their interests lie closer to those of Syria than Israel.
