Love of the Land: RE: Abbas Still Says No

RE: Abbas Still Says No

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
16 December 09

The new preconditions for negotiations that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas posed this week are, as Jonathan noted, equivalent to refusing to negotiate until there’s nothing left to negotiate about. If talks cannot even start until the PA is granted every inch of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, that doesn’t leave much to discuss. I also agree that Abbas’s reluctance to talk stems partly from the knowledge that his own public would reject any deal Israel could actually sign.

However, another factor is at play here: refusing to talk has consistently proved a very successful Palestinian tactic. As chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Al-Dustour in June: “At first they told us we would run hospitals and schools, later they were willing to give us 66 percent, at Camp David they reached 90 percent and today they have reached 100 percent. Why then should we hurry?”

Erekat is correct: the offer Ehud Olmert made Abbas last year — to which Abbas never even responded until after Olmert left office, then finally rejected via the media — indeed gave the PA the territorial equivalent of 100 percent (with swaps).

What is noteworthy, however, is that these ever growing Israeli concessions occurred without a single parallel Palestinian concession. In 16 years, Palestinian positions haven’t budged. The PA still insists on resettling 4.7 million descendants of refugees in Israel; it still won’t recognize Israel as a Jewish state; it even rejects a 6 percent territorial swap for the settlement blocs.

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Love of the Land: RE: Abbas Still Says No

Love of the Land: More Detail on Olmert's Offer

More Detail on Olmert's Offer

SNAPSHOTS: A CAMERA blog
08 December 09

First there was Mahmoud Abbas's acknowledgment that Ehud Olmert offered him a state (and more). Then came Olmert's more-detailed description of the offer. And still, as with Ehud Barak's earlier peace offer, Olmert's rebuffed attempt to make peace with the Palestinians is all-to-often ignored by those casting Israel as being responsible for the conflict because the Palestinians don't have a state.

Now, a Channel 2 (Israel) report cited in the Jerusalem Post purports to give the most detailed description yet of Olmert's offer, making it harder than ever to ignore the responsibility of Palestinian leaders for the continued statelessness of their people:

During Olmert's tenure, then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni offered to establish a Palestinian state on 92.7 percent of the territories conquered in the Six Day War. The map presented to Palestinian negotiators did not include the Jordan Valley as part of the State of Israel. The settlement of Ariel would remain part of Israel, but the stretch of land ensuring its contiguity with the rest of the country would be very narrow, Channel 10 reported.

In return for 7.3% that Israel would annex, it would offer the Palestinians 3% in land swaps.

According to a Channel 10 analyst, there were already decisions on what land would be swapped in return to retaining settlement blocs. Israel would cede 100 square kilometers near the Gaza Strip, 13 in the Tirat Zvi area, 10 near Nataf, half a square kilometer near Mevo Beitar, 7.4 near Lachish, 3.2 near Sumeria, 42 near Yatir and 151 in the Judean Desert.

The Palestinians, according to the report, have for the first time ever presented the Israeli team with their own maps. The Palestinians were willing forego only 1.9% of the Judea and Samaria territories, but they were willing to accept that Gush Etziyon, Modi'in and several other settlement remain in Israeli hands.

In Jerusalem, the Palestinians were willing to accept the neighborhoods of Ramot, Ramot Alon, Ramat Shlomo, Pisgat Ze'ev, Neve Ya'akov, Ma'alot Dafna, French Hill and Gilo, the southern neighborhood which has recently become a sticking point not with the Palestinians but with the United States after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced that Israel would build several hundred new housing units there.

However, according to the report, the Palestinians themselves have agreed to forego areas where they now demand Israel implement a complete halt to construction.

Olmert reportedly offered the PA an even more generous offer than Livni, offering that Israel annex only 6.5% and swap 5.8% of lands, so the Palestinian state would constitute 99.3$ of the 1967 territories.

He additionally offered that five Arab states would be involved in governing Jerusalem, which would be divided based on its demographics.

The Palestinians rejected the offer.

Love of the Land: More Detail on Olmert's Offer