Palestine:
The First Imperative
By
Roni Ben Efrat
22 November,
2007
Challenge Magazine
Marking
the third anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death, Fatah's big show of
power on the streets of Gaza (November 12, 2007) drew an extremely violent
reaction from Hamas. Its security forces killed seven demonstrators
and wounded sixty or more. It was the first major Fatah rally since
the Hamas coup in June of this year. With about 200,000 participants,
it took many by surprise: who would have thought that there were still
so many Fatah adherents in Gaza? What brought them into the streets,
no doubt, was the image of Arafat, symbol of the lost and longed-for
Palestinian consensus. But no one imagined that Hamas would react so
hysterically. The disproportionate response shows the pressure it is
under.
Part of that
pressure stems from the Annapolis Conference, set for November 26. Hamas
will be a present absentee. Absent in the flesh, it will be strongly
present as an obstacle.
The idea
for the conference began as an American attempt to blur the debacle
in Iraq by presenting a show of progress on the Israeli-Palestinian
front. Such a conference would have been impossible before the schism
between Fatah and Hamas. The split freed President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu
Mazen) from any need to please the Islamists. The unbinding, however,
cost him authority. Gaza is lost. In the West Bank he remains a weak
reed. The disconnection from Hamas is now the first great impediment
for him or anyone seeking to end the conflict.
The feet
of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, which originally warmed to the
American initiative, have since cooled down. The conference has shrunk,
in his vocabulary, to a mini-meeting. All the parties will trudge to
Annapolis merely to hear a declaration that is supposed to jumpstart
negotiations. The document should express, says Olmert, the parties'
mutual desire for peace. It should mention the core issues—permanent
borders, Jerusalem, security measures, the refugees and water—but
without demanding commitments for their resolution.
Apart from
the rejectionism of Hamas, two further obstacles impede progress.
First there
is the attitude of the participants. During Camp David in July 2000,
we recall, the Arab world remained chilly, refusing to give Arafat the
green light to go ahead and sign. Even Egypt and Saudi Arabia—staunch
American allies—held back. In the subsequent vacuum, the second
Intifada broke out, resulting in a weaker PA, a stronger Hamas, and
Israel's disastrous unilateral disengagement from Gaza.
Today, once
again, the Arab world is chilly. As of this writing (November 15, 2007),
not a single Arab country has expressed support for the conference.
As long as Arab doubts persist, Abbas cannot commit to anything substantial.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are holding back. They have no confidence in
"general understandings." Indeed, Saudi Arabia some years
ago put forth a highly regarded peace proposal of its own, which got
no response from Israel or America.
Furthermore,
in heading to Annapolis without Hamas, Abbas signals his acceptance
of the schism. But despite their support for Fatah, the moderate Arab
states do not want to make so radical a cut.
In contrast
to the muffled silence of Egypt and the Saudis, Syria is quite clear:
it will be willing to participate if the Golan Heights are mentioned
as an issue to be negotiated in the current diplomatic process. Syria
has even canceled a parallel counter-conference planned by the hard-line
Palestinian organizations. However, as said, if Annapolis fails to receive
broad Arab support, Abbas will not be able to negotiate. He needs Arab
wind in his sails.
Another obstacle
is the Israeli precondition, accepted by America, that the first stage
of the Road Map must be fulfilled before Israel withdraws from the West
Bank and a Palestinian state is established. In that first stage, Israel
is required to stop construction in the settlements and to dismantle
the many small outposts that have arisen in recent years. Where the
settlements are concerned, Israel got a release from US President George
W. Bush in April 2004, allowing it to broaden the larger blocs in accordance
with natural increase. These blocs include Maaleh Adumim, Gush Etzion,
the Jerusalem envelope and Ariel.
As for the
Palestinians, the Road Map requires that they disarm the militias and
combat terrorism. Absurdly, the same PA that Israel pulverized, starting
with Operation "Defensive Shield" (2002), is supposed to rise
somehow from its ashes and succeed where Israel failed.
What's more,
it is Israel that bears responsibility, in many respects, for the rift
between Gaza and the West Bank. It is directly responsible, because
it withdrew from Gaza unilaterally, instead of ensuring the status of
the PA by reaching a negotiated pullout. It is indirectly responsible,
because—fourteen years ago—it designed the Oslo Accords
in a manner that transformed the PA into an Israeli security organization.
Instead of offering peace with self-respect and independence, Israel
viewed peace as a tactic for maintaining indirect rule. In the 1990's,
while Israelis thrived and the population of the settlements doubled,
Palestinians got poorer. Lacking the conditions for true statehood,
the co-opted leaders chose to feather their nests. The Palestinian people,
fed up, rose against the Oslo Accords and ultimately against Fatah.
Their choice of Hamas in 2005 was less an adoption of that party's religious
agenda than a means of punishing Fatah.
And now,
instead of learning the lesson, Israel loads ever more impossible demands
on the back of a man who represents, at best, only half the Palestinian
people. Hamas, ruling Gaza, does not want to be a partner to Israel,
while the man who is its partner can barely control what remains.
A peace process
demands reconciliation and consensus. The Palestinian people was close
to reconciliation with Israel in 1993, although the latter blew the
chance by its take on the Oslo Accords. Today, largely because of Israel's
actions, the Palestinian people is divided and exhausted. Truth resides
with neither of the clashing sides: not with Abbas, who gambles on a
fruitless alliance with America and Israel, nor with Hamas, which offers
nothing but fundamentalism.
A new path
is needed. The first imperative must be to the stronger: Israel must
cease to exploit Palestinian weakness, as it has in the past, in order
to wring concessions. That is a necessary condition for the process
that then must follow: the building of a Palestinian economy and the
renewal of independent Palestinian institutions.
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