RubinReports: PA Prime Minister Sets Forward Palestinian Strategy: Independence, Not Peace

PA Prime Minister Sets Forward Palestinian Strategy: Independence, Not Peace

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By Barry Rubin

A new interview with Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is especially significant because at this precise moment the key question is: Will the PA renew negotiations with Israel either directly or indirectly? Israel has already agreed to talk and made two major concessions at the request of the United States: suspending construction in Jerusalem outside the 1967 borders and agreeing to discuss all issues.

So it is nominally up to Fayyad whether things will move forward or not. President Barack Obama just said that he will come down hard on Israel or the PA if they sabotage talks. Obviously, it is only the PA that is now doing so. Equally obviously, Obama isn't going to criticize or press the PA too hard. So what's going to happen next?

There should be a clear understanding that Fayyad—who was recently named as one of Time Magazine’s most powerful leaders in the world—has no real power. He has no political base, is not a member of the dominant Fatah organization, and has no personal loyalty from the security services.

He’s only in office for one reason: the Western financial donors demand it and the money on which the PA depends wouldn’t come in otherwise. That’s why the Fatah bosses keep him on and for no other reason. Even having the post of prime minister at all was something the donors forced on the PA.

Nice guy? Yes. Relatively moderate? Yes. Powerful? No.

What is Fayyad’s program: that he is just going to announce that Palestine is an independent country in about one year. And what does this mean? A total violation of every agreement made by the PA and its PLO parent in the last 17 years. Instead of independence being the product of a comprehensive peace agreement with Israel, which requires compromises, he wants simply to declare it and then have the world impose that decision on Israel. Fayyad’s euphemism for this was “a healthy unilateralism.”

In general, the Western media never point out this point.

Fayyad's plan isn’t going to happen but it is an understandably attractive strategy for him and the PA. The strategy is to make no concessions; make no commitments; just do it. If Palestine were to become an independent state then it could, for example, allow cross-border attacks on Israel and then demand Arab military and UN diplomatic support if Israel retaliated.

Not to mention the fact that Fayyad and the PA has no control in the Gaza Strip. Fayyad insists that once a state is achieved this problem will magically disappear. He can't or won't even acknowledge that Hamas was the aggressor in seizing the Gaza Strip because he and his colleagues want to make a deal with Hamas. That will never happen either.

Incidentally, I was in the room the last time the Palestinians, in the form of the Palestine National Council, declared independence. It was at their Algiers meeting in 1988 and the goal then was also to get a state without having to negotiate a deal with Israel. It didn’t work that time either.

So what is most important here is that Fayyad cannot actually do very much. For example, he can say, “The absence of security has been our undoing” and he wants to end the "security pluralism” that produced a “state of chaos and militias.”

And what is he going to do about it? Merge the multiple security forces into one or two well-defined agencies? Replace the current leaders? None of this is going to happen because the generals and Fatah bosses won’t let it happen. A year from now the same problem will continue to exist.

So it is with all the basic PA difficulties. Don’t get me wrong. The PA does have some achievements to its credit. It has kept the level of violence low and achieved the minimal cooperation with Israel necessary. The economy has improved, though this is largely due to massive foreign aid. Hamas has been kept at bay. In short, the PA is doing enough to maintain the status quo peacefully and bring some improvements in living standards.

This could break down over night, however, if the PA decides out of alleged “frustration” to relaunch war on Israel. And that decision will not be Fayyad’s to make.

Fayyad says he will build institutions that include better schools, infrastructure, and a court system. Yes, this is what needs to be done. But this is what Yasir Arafat was supposed to start doing in 1994. The Palestinians on the West Bank who were entering school then are now having children and this promise hasn’t been fulfilled.

Setting deadlines in this context is a joke. Here’s an example. In 2000 we were told that a negotiated solution was needed as soon as possible because Arafat could not hold back the alleged tidal wave of pressure demanding a state immediately. So the United States and Israel supported the Camp David summit. It failed because Arafat rejected peace. We were then told the exact opposite by some of the people demanding speed: that having this meeting was a big mistake because Arafat was being rushed and pressured.

Fayyad said in the interview: “Every day we do work consistent with that to create the sense of a state growing. Bad things happen every day but you’re bound to have a lucky bounce and we have to be ready for it.”

What might “a lucky bounce” be? President Barack Obama supporting such a unilateral action? One that would take place without security guarantees for Israel, without bans on inviting in foreign armies, with no limits on armaments, with no agreement on resettling refugees in Palestine. And equally a new state of Palestine which would either allow or not try too hard to stop cross-border raids, and whose official media, schools, and mosques with state-appointed imams would carry out endless incitement for wiping Israel off the map in future?

Fayyad is the best the PA could do in terms of having a prime minister at present. A stable two-state solution would be a good thing but it is not something on which the world’s future depends. And a two-state outcome would only be a step forward if it did create a more stable region and a lasting solution rather than one that would quickly break down in renewed conflict.

In practice, Fayyad might be the man who could help produce a stable status quo as a longer-term transition to a two-state peace, but he cannot deliver some near-instant solution. An “unconditional” declaration of independence is a prelude to disaster. Precisely because Fayyad knows this he won’t launch such a thing, without that “lucky bounce” of misguided Western support.

Pretending otherwise is not going to help anyone, most of all the Palestinians and certainly not U.S. interests.

RubinReports: PA Prime Minister Sets Forward Palestinian Strategy: Independence, Not Peace

RubinReports: Palestinian Leaders Do It Again! Throw Away Opportunity Obama is Giving Them and Poke Him in the Eye

Palestinian Leaders Do It Again! Throw Away Opportunity Obama is Giving Them and Poke Him in the Eye

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By Barry Rubin

With their unerring skill at erring, Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders are throwing away still another opportunity President Barack Obama is giving them. If Obama is the most pro-Palestinian president in history, his counterparts don't seem to appreciate it very much. It is the Palestinian leadership, not Israel, that will ultimately make Obama look like and be a failure in all of his peace process efforts.

Brief history:
--Last spring, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas in his first visit to Washington made it clear he wasn't interested in a negotiated solution but just planned to wait for the West to force Israel to give him everything he wanted.

--In September, Abbas stood nearby as Obama said he wanted serious final negotiations within two months, then refused while Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was ready to talk right away.

--Shortly thereafter, Obama asked Abbas not to push the Goldstone report as a sponsor in the UN. Abbas agreed, then broke his word within 48 hours under internal pressure.

--At the end of last October, Obama's Administration made a deal in which Israel would stop all construction on West Bank settlements though it could continue in east Jerusalem. While Obama hoped this would get talks going, Abbas demanded an end to construction in Jerusalem, too, which he knew Israel would not accept. Indeed, he demanded it precisely because he knew Israel wouldn't accept it.

--Finally, Abbas agreed to indirect talks but was "saved" when suddenly the U.S. government accepted the PA's position on Jerusalem construction. Yet even that has not been enough to make the PA pro-Obama's policy.

Of course, the U.S. criticism of Israel and the crisis following the announcement of some future Jerusalem construction have been the main news. But that's because the Obama Administration is ready (sometimes it seems, eager) to criticize Israel but has not criticized the PA once during its own fifteen months in office.

So it is easy to miss the fact that by their behavior the Palestinian leadership has lost any possible material gain from the administration's attitude.

Now, here we are in the biggest crisis of U.S.-Israel relations in more than a quarter-century, arguably the biggest crisis in a half-century, since the Eisenhower Administration pressured Israel to withdraw from Sinai in 1957. Not only is the administration really angry at Israel, but it is considering a plan--though this might never happen--to try to impose a solution.

So what's the PA stance? To denounce the idea of an imposed solution! Such a plan according to press reports would give them a lot of what they want--1967 borders, a quick state, minimal conditions, all of pre-1967 Jordanian-controlled Jerusalem. Not bad, eh? But the Palestinians would have to make some concessions, like settling refugees in the state of Palestine rather than flooding Israel with Palestinian Arabs in an effort to paralyze and destroy its society.

On the PA's radio, chief negotiator Saib Arikat (choose your transliteration) said--what a delicious Freudian slip this is--that the Palestinians "don't want new ideas." His proposal is that the United States just recognizes Palestine as a state immediately and urges the UN to accept it as such, followed no doubt by huge international pressure for an immediate unconditional Israeli withdrawal from everywhere in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

This isn't going to happen, of course. But once again it signals U.S. officials, if they bothered to look, that they will get no cooperation, not even the tiniest concession, and the barest minimum of kind words from the PA. This also makes clear why a solution is impossible and why it would not solve all U.S. problems in the Middle East.

Because even if--this is just for the sake of explanation--the Obama Administration were to give the Palestinian leadership 99 percent of what it wants, it would still have to force it to concede 1 percent. That would lead to the political settlement being denounced by all Islamists, all militant Arab nationalists, and many Arab governments.

I'm not even sure if the Egyptian and Jordanian media would applaud Obama. Instead, he would be labelled as the man who sold out the Palestinians and receive for his trouble a place of particular ignominy in the region's discourse. I'd best money on being able to collect a considerably large set of clippings denouncing him as worse--more "anti-Muslim" and "anti-Arab"--than George W. Bush! And if you think that isn't likely then, forgive me for saying so, you don't really understand how Middle East politics work.

The United States would not be portrayed as a hero because it created Palestine but a villain because it robbed the Arabs of getting everything. Terrorism against American targets would go up, as it would argued that the Americans had forever destroyed the chance of wiping Israel off the map. Of course, terrorism against any Palestinian leaders who agreed to such terms would also break out. Abbas's knowing this is one of the reasons he will say "no" to everything.

And don't ever forget that little detail: If Palestine is proclaimed a state, presumably Hamas is the legal government of about half of it, despite the fact that it is a terrorist, antisemitic, genocide-seeking client of Iran which won't even accept the agreement that makes Palestine a state. Here's one example of the ridiculous situation that would prevail: If the Hamas government wanted to import long-range missiles from Iran and Israel tried to stop it by intercepting them with its navy, would the UN then be able to accuse Israel of an act of aggression against a sovereign state?

Again, nothing is going to happen, not because of Israel but because the PA will torpedo any U.S. effort to solve the issue no matter how bad the terms seem for Israel. Meanwhile U.S. policymakers will pretend this isn't happening, that the United States isn't constantly being insulted by the PA.

Unless you understand the above, the whole story of the Arab-Israeli and Israel-Palestinian conflict makes no sense.

Question 1: During the four years of the Obama Administration's term in office, will his officials ever publicly criticize the PA for anything it does, including honoring terrorists who killed Americans? Prediction: No it won't.

Question 2: During the four years of the Obama Administration's term in office, will the Palestinians make any material gain due to his being so supportive of them? Prediction: No they won't because the extremist goals and intransigence of their leadership will prevent thus.

RubinReports: Palestinian Leaders Do It Again! Throw Away Opportunity Obama is Giving Them and Poke Him in the Eye

RubinReports: The Palestinian Authority Walks Out of Talks with a Big Smile on Its Face

The Palestinian Authority Walks Out of Talks with a Big Smile on Its Face

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By Barry Rubin

In 1994, Israel asserted, and the PLO accepted, that construction would continue on existing Jewish settlements. For the next 15 years, negotiations were never stopped by that building.

In January 2009, the Palestinian Authority (PA) stopped negotiations because Hamas attacked Israel from the Gaza Strip and Israel defended itself. Of course, Hamas is also the PA’s enemy and the PA would be delighted if Israel destroyed that group. But for public relations’ purposes, the PA had to pretend inter-Palestinian solidarity.

Then came President Barack Obama who demanded a stop to all construction on settlements in 2009. Israel finally complied but announced that it would keep building in east Jerusalem. The United States accepted that arrangement and even highly praised Israel’s policy as a major concession.

But the PA refused to return to negotiations. Why, because the construction offended it? No, because the PA’s radical forces don’t want to make a peace deal because they believe they can win total victory and destroy Israel. The more moderate forces are too weak to make a deal because of Hamas and their own radicals, though they also have some problems with mutual compromise.

In September 2009, Obama announced that within two months there would be full and final peace negotiations in Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “yes”: PA leader Mahmoud Abbas said “no.”

No Western media outlet said that the PA refusal to negotiate for—as of today—about 15 months shows that the PA doesn’t want peace. Yet they had no hesitation about saying that Israel doesn’t want peace (or at least maybe doesn’t) because Israel announced the building of apartments on the basis of a policy it has followed for 16 years, without serious complaint for most of that time.

Abbas seized on the opportunity to declare that he wasn’t going to negotiate. Is he indignant? Upset? Does he feel betrayed? No, he’s delighted to have an excuse to do what he wants to do anyway: Not negotiate with Israel!

Just like the famous scene in the film Casablanca when the police inspector, Renault, who regularly gambles at Rick’s Place decided to shut down the nightclub:

Rick: How can you close me down? On what grounds?
Renault: “I am shocked shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”
The croupier comes out of the gambling room and up to Renault. He hands him a roll of bills. Croupier: “Your winnings, sir.”
Renault: “Oh thank you very much. [He turns to the crowd] Everybody out at once!”

And so he gets to close down talks, keep his winnings, and blame it on Israel. While Abbas and the PA don’t agree with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on much, they do agree on one point: They claim that the West is abandoning Israel so why should they not just wait for it either to be destroyed (in Ahmadinejad’s case) or until the West gives the Palestinians a state on a silver platter with no concessions on their part (Abbas’s case).

Just as Obama killed the chance for negotiations with his demand for a full freeze, he and Vice-President Joe Biden may have done so again for indirect talks. But isn’t it Israel’s fault in the latter case for a stupid bureaucratic case of bad timing? Absolutely, yes. Yet the U.S. handling of the issue turned an annoying problem into an even worse problem for itself.

[Note: U.S. officials are claiming that talks will still take place, saying that reports of Abbas walking out are untrue. I don't believe this but if so I will correct this article accordingly.]

Even those in the West who mistrust or hate Israel, or at least the current government, have created a monumental paradox for themselves. They say (wrongly, I should point out) that Israel (or Netanyahu) doesn’t want to negotiate or make a deal. If so, however, why are they “punishing” Israel by letting negotiations be killed? One of the many knots one gets into if there’s no understanding of Middle East politics and realities.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His new edited books include Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict and Crisis; Guide to Islamist Movements; Conflict and Insurgency in the Middle East; and The Muslim Brotherhood. To read and subscribe to MERIA, GLORIA articles, or to order books. To see or subscribe to his blog, Rubin Reports.

RubinReports: The Palestinian Authority Walks Out of Talks with a Big Smile on Its Face

RubinReports: Watch the Themes, Not the Headlines

Watch the Themes, Not the Headlines

By Barry Rubin

A basic principle is to look at the underlying interests and perceptions of specific governments, not the immediate headlines. Over and over we see stories that prove false in a few days yet probably leave a lasting impression to the contrary on readers.

That thought is prompted by a recent flurry of stories that the Palestinian Authority is about to return to negotiations with Israel. In fact, for reasons I’ve outlined repeatedly in this blog (relating mainly to the radical nature of internal Palestinian politics) that isn’t going to happen for a long time.

Another story we keep hearing is about how Russia or China are about to support real sanctions on Iran. Yet every time an official from those countries makes a statement it is to the contrary. Here’s the latest from Oleg Rozhkov, a high-ranking Foreign Ministry official. And note he is very clear:

"We are not got going to work on sanctions or measures which could lead to the political or economic or financial isolation of this country. What relation to non-proliferation is there in forbidding banking activities with Iran? This is a financial blockade. And oil and gas. These sanctions are aimed only at paralyzing the country and paralyzing the regime."

And that’s a regime with which Russia is quite friendly.

The same ease of seeing phony trend stories can be said about Hamas or Hizballah moderating, Hamas nd the PA reconciling, a great new deal offered by Iran over the nuclear issue, and many other such items.

RubinReports: Watch the Themes, Not the Headlines

RubinReports: Palestinian Prime Minister to Israeli Audience: You Make Concessions, We Don't

Palestinian Prime Minister to Israeli Audience: You Make Concessions, We Don't

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By Barry Rubin

Imagine this. You're prime minister of a regime that isn't yet a state. You are praised in the Western media as a great moderate man of peace. You represent a people who the U.S. president says is in an intolerable situation. You supposedly want a country of your own. Indeed you've announced you will get a state in two years, something conceivable only if your negotiating partner agrees. You're dependent on contributions from Western democratic countries that want you to make a deal. Your rivals have seized almost half the land you want to rule and work tirelessly to overthrow your regime and very possibly to kill you personally.

But here comes a big opportunity.

You are invited by your negotiating partner to its most important meeting of the year. All the other side's top leaders and opinionmakers are listening to you.

And that country's second most powerful leader has just made a very conciliatory speech praising you personally, urging peace, offering concessions, and telling his own people they must be ready to give you a lot.

What do you do?

Make a warm conciliatory, confidence-building speech, showing by substantial offers that you, too, are willing to compromise; stretching out your hand in order to build friendship and ensure you get a country?

Hey, we’re talking about the Palestinians here! And as I say over and over again: anyone who thinks the Palestinian Authority (PA) is going to make peace hasn’t been paying attention to what they say and do.

So here is what PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told the audience at the Herzliya Conference, held at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), following Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s conciliatory speech:

--Israel must immediately start pulling out of the rest of the West Bank, without getting anything in return.

--It must immediately stop all construction on settlements, including apartments now being completed.

--Israel's army should never enter PA-ruled areas. Even if the PA refuses to arrest those who have murdered Israelis or won’t stop planned attacks, Israel's army must do nothing, despite the 1993 agreement between the two sides permitting this. Fayyad said this isn’t necessary because the PA is taking care of these matters. But this makes no sense: when Israel sees that to be true it never orders incursions in the first place.

--Israel should end its blockade of the Gaza Strip, even though the Hamas movement ruling there refuses to make a deal with the PA, openly announces its goal of destroying Israel, and smuggles in as many weapons as possible. Moreover, as soon as it feels secure again, Hamas will launch new attacks on Israel. Fayyad claimed, however, that if Israel did so, the PA could then build government institutions in the Gaza Strip, though it has no control whatsoever there.

--He openly stated that his goal was to mobilize international support and create such a strong state apparatus that the world would pressure Israel to end any presence in the West Bank or east Jerusalem, apparently without the Palestinian side giving anything.

--While Barak said that the “roughness” of the region made it harder to give the Palestinians everything they wanted (for example, the PA could be overthrown by Hamas; subverted by Iran and Syria; unwilling or unable to stop cross-border attacks), Fayyad responded that once Israel left all the West Banks the region would become more stable and peaceful. That’s a rather questionable assertion.

It is true that he ended by saying:

“The Israeli people have a long history, they have pain, they have ambition, and like you, we Palestinians have our own history. Right now we are going through lots of pain and suffering. And we have one key aspiration, and that is once again to be able to live alongside you in peace, harmony and security.”

Yet he addressed none of the points in Israel’s own peace plan: an official end to the conflict if there is an agreement; resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Palestine; an end to incitement (which would be easy to do) to kill Israelis; limits on the militarization of a Palestinian state; or recognition of Israel as a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian Arab Muslim state (the PA constitution says that Islam is the country’s official religion).

This was not an extremist speech or one seeking conflict. Fayyad is probably the most moderate guy in the PA leadership. He was doing about the best he could. But that's the point. He has no base of support, isn’t a member of Fatah, and doesn’t really represent Palestinian thinking. He is in office for one reason only: the Western donors demand it. Fayyad, and arguably the PA leadership as a whole, don’t want a new war with Israel. But Fatah will sponsor one if it thinks such a step is advantageous or needed to out-militant Hamas.

Equally, Fayyad couldn’t go any further than he did because he knows that his Fatah bosses, Palestinian constituents, and Hamas enemies would throw him out if he offered the slightest concession to Israel and demanded any less than everything they want.

We will see how much progress Fayyad makes over the next two years in building strong and stable institutions. Yet it should be understood that what he is doing is not a way to convince Israel that both sides can reach a compromise peace but to persuade the world to force Israel to make compromises without the PA having to do so.

The irony is that it doesn’t matter what Barak says, except to show the world that Israel wants real peace and to encourage Israeli voters to back Labor as a party that balances a strong desire for peace with a smart sense of security for the country.

Barak warned the right-wing in Israel that it would be a mistake to oppose a genuine two-state solution, an outcome that Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu—like Barak--has accepted. But the defense minister also urged the left-wing not to be naïve.

Here's a fascinating example of how the world generally interprets the situation. Read this paragraph from the Washington Post coverage carefully:

"But there was a common thread, too, with each acknowledging an international consensus on the idea of two nations. Barak said that Israel risks becoming `an apartheid state par excellence' if it does not negotiate the terms of Palestinian statehood soon, and Fayyad said the work being done in the West Bank on governance needs to be matched by political progress."


The two statements are supposed to be parallels. Barak says: Israel must get rid of the West Bank for its own good. Fayyad says: progress must be made in negotiations, in the context of a speech in which he asked for a long list of Israeli concessions and offered nothing in exchange. These statemens are not parallel. A parallel statement would be if Fayyad had said something like:

The Palestinians risk becoming permanently mired in violence and backwardness unless they negotiate terms for Israel feeling secure in giving up the territory.

Since 1993 not a single Palestinian leader has ever made a speech to his own people like Barak's, never said that they should have to give up something to get a state, never urged the media and public debate to become more moderate.

Four days before Fayyad's speech, here is the Friday prayer sermon given in Nablus by the imam appointed there by Fayyad and broadcast on the television Fayyad controls:

"The Jews are the enemies of Allah and [Muhammad], the enemies of humanity in general, and of the Palestinians in particular.... Jews will always be Jews. Even if donkeys cease to bray, dogs cease to bark, wolves cease to howl, and snakes cease to bite, the Jews will not cease to be hostile to the Muslims. The Prophet Muhammad said: `Whenever two Jews find themselves alone with a Muslim, they think of killing him.' Oh Muslims, this land, these holy places, and these mosques will only be liberated when we return to the Book of Allah, and when all Muslims are prepared to become mujahideen for the sake of Allah, in support of Palestine, its people, its land, and its holy places."

Note that this is a Palestinian Authority, not a Hamas, cleric. Note, too, that while Fayyad's speech is covered around the world, sermons like these are never quoted in the Western media. This is not to say that the sermon is real and Fayyad's views are fake, it is to say that the sermon is shaping Palestinian politics and public opinion and what Fayyad says is meant to shape Israeli and Western politics and public opinion. Fayyad, a figurehead, is not going to make all this change, and he isn't even going to try. Nor does Fayyad have any control over the ruling party, Fatah, whose leadership is still hardline on goals and negotiations, though not on more immediate issues.

The Israeli audience applauded Fayyad because it does want peace and prefers him to all the worse alternatives, especially Hamas but also those in Fatah. Yet few have any illusions that peace is at hand or that Fayyad is going to deliver it.

RubinReports: Palestinian Prime Minister to Israeli Audience: You Make Concessions, We Don't

RubinReports: Suckered by Hamas and Hizballah: How the Media Interprets Radical Documents as "Proof" of Moderation

Suckered by Hamas and Hizballah: How the Media Interprets Radical Documents as "Proof" of Moderation

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By Barry Rubin

Following my article on the new Fatah Charter (click on the link for a more detailed report and analysis of the charter), JTA published a story positively glowing about Fatah's "moderation," under the title, "New Fatah charter omits language on Israel’s demise." claiming that:

"The charter focuses on democratizing the movement, a reflection of last summer's political struggle between the young guard and the more established leadership. Whereas the Central Committee for years had been an ad hoc collection of acolytes of the leadership, 18 of its 23 members must now be elected by the entire membership."

Well, not exactly. Most important, as I pointed out, the charter clearly and prominently says that the old charter is still in force and nothing in the new one contradicts it. So nothing has changed in fact. All the old language still stands. Why isn't it repeated? Because this document is only about Fatah's internal structure, not its policies or goals. Pretty obvious, right?

Moreover, while the charter has some language that sounds superficially democratic--and will never be implemented--it endorses the old Communist party system of "democratic centralism" and shows how totally the Central Committee rules by choosing most candidates for parliament, cabinet ministers, and large portions of most other Palestinian institutions. Moreover, while 18 members of the Central Committee were "elected," the leadership packed the delegates to ensure that its candidates all won!

And guess what? Precisely the same thing has just happened with Hizballah's new charter. According to AFP: "It's much more moderate and they've dropped their demands for an Islamist state in Lebanon based upon [the Iranian system].

This is despite the fact that the charter states:

"The history of the Arab-Israeli conflict proves that armed struggle and military resistance is the best way of ending the occupation....We categorically reject any compromise with Israel or recognizing its legitimacy." In addition, Hizballah daily publicizes the Islamization of the areas it controls and the organization's loyalty to Tehran.

My favorite example is when a high-ranking Hizballah leader denied the group was originally founded in coordination with the Iranian regime, tossing a big Arabic-language book written by one of the founders at a journalist as proof. In fact, as Lebanon expert Tony Badran pointed out citing the page number, that book confirms the claim. Another example is that Hizballah's spiritual guide is the official representative in Lebanon of Iran's spiritual guide, the actual ruler of the Islamist regime there.

To make the situation more ridiculous, the Fatah charter is available in English and Hizballah has been bragging publicly about the hardline provisions in its own new charter.

It is amazing how easy it is for various radical Arab and Islamist groups to fool Western journalists. It always helps to read a document before describing it as a breakthrough for moderation.

RubinReports: Suckered by Hamas and Hizballah: How the Media Interprets Radical Documents as "Proof" of Moderation

RubinReports: News notes, January 19, 2010

News notes, January 19, 2010

Headline of the Day, from Metro-London: "The world's second Islamic Solidarity Games have been cancelled following a dispute between two rival countries."

The Iranian government cheered the failure of the six-party talks to advocate new sanctions regarding its nuclear weapons' program. The meeting, faced with Chinese and Russian opposition to more sanctions, could only agree that the UN should consider additional sanctions since Iran refuses to make any deal. Another defeat for Obama's Iran's policy and his general emphasis on consensus.

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has come up with an alternative to his refusal to hold talks with Israel. He dangles the bait for the U.S. government: If Washington proposes an imposed settlement giving him everything he wants then he will come to the table. Much of the Western media continues to act as if both sides are refusing to talk while Israel in fact just made it clear it is willing to meet any time and discuss everything.

RubinReports: News notes, January 19, 2010

RubinReports: Why Can't H. Clinton Bring Israel-Palestinian Peace? Look at What B. Clinton Offered which the Palestinians Rejected

Why Can't H. Clinton Bring Israel-Palestinian Peace? Look at What B. Clinton Offered which the Palestinians Rejected

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By Barry Rubin

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave an interview to al-Jazira television, December 10, which reminds us of something exceptionally important for any discussion of the Israel-Palestinian conflict: what her husband offered the Palestinians—the last time a comprehensive deal was proffered—and was turned down almost exactly nine years ago.

How does Clinton explain the lack of a peace agreement? She blames it on George W. Bush:

"I regretted that there was a lull in it after my husband left office because we were poised to make such progress, and if we had been able to get it over the goal line, there would have been a Palestinian state for nearly a decade now.""

When her husband left office there wasn't just a "lull." Bill Clinton had spent two terms working hard to achieve a peace agreement and he failed because the Palestinians rejected every offer he made and then launched a massive terrorist-based war on Israel that lasted five years. The beginning of understanding the issue is to admit that the reason there hasn't been a Palestinian state for nearly a decade is because the Palestinian leadership turned it down.

Until that admission happens, all of this running around is a wasted effort.

Besides, if it is so easy then why has the Obama Administration made zero progress. Not only, of course, has it failed even to get negotiations going--yes, it has been in power for less than a year--but there isn't the slightest shred of evidence to believe that anything is going to change in the rest of its term.

Even al-Jazira’s interviewer noted that regarding the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, "Everything seems to have stalled since January just before President Obama came into office.” This signals not only that the failure is obvious to everyone but also that enough time has passed that the Obama Administration must be judged on its own merits rather than blaming the current situation on its predecessor, which can be a legitimate excuse during the earlier days.

Obviously, for an al-Jazira audience, Clinton is eager to show how supportive she is of a Palestinian state, though one that must come from bilateral negotiations with Israel:

“I have been committed to a two-state solution, a Palestinian state for more than 10 years. I was the first person associated with any American administration who said that the Palestinians deserved and should be given their own state. So I am very committed to both the Palestinian state to fulfill the aspirations of the Palestinian people, and security for the Israelis so that they would be given the guarantee of their own future.”

The word “deserved” here is worth noting. It implies that the Palestinians have earned a state of their own. While one can justify this on the basis of consciousness and conditions, it is ironic to think of such an idea in light of Palestinian political performance in the last sixty years which has consisted all too largely of saying “no” and a rather large element of terrorism.

I’m making this point not to try to score points or cast aspersions but rather to highlight the reason as to why this “deserved” gift has not been bestowed, which might have happened at many points in history beginning with 1948 when the Palestinians themselves turned down the UN plan to give them a state through 2000 when the same thing happened in their rejection of what was called, ironically the Clinton Plan. That was Bill Clinton.

Apparently, it was that plan to which Hillary was referring when her husband called for a Palestinian state for the first time in official U.S. policy. Incidentally, Israel did so as well, something else often forgotten or lied about.

On December 23, 2000, the United States proposed the creation of a “non-militarized” Palestinian state on 95 percent of the West Bank, plus three percent more traded to it by Israel, plus all of the Gaza Strip, with its capital in east Jerusalem. In other words, this would have been equivalent to about 99 percent of the pre-1967 territory then ruled by Egypt and Jordan.

Israel would have annexed small areas including three areas with large populations of Jewish settlers: Gush Etzion, Ma’aleh Adumim, and Ariel. All of east Jerusalem would have become Palestinian--including the al-Aqsa Mosque--except for post-1967 Jewish neighborhoods, the Western Wall, and the Jewish Quarter. Israel would have gotten an existing access road—which is about ten feet wide—to the quarter. There would be an international observer force in the Jordan Valley, along the Palestinian-Jordan border, to see that heavy arms or foreign soldiers were not being smuggled into Palestine.

In addition, though this was not spelled out in the specific proposal, the level of aid and compensation to the Palestinians then being talked about by the United States was at around $21 billion.

On December 28, 2000, the Israeli government approved of the offer with only one condition: that the Palestinians accept it, too. For the record, I supported that plan, too.

Yasir Arafat turned it down.

What was the most important reason he gave for doing so? That he also demanded what Palestinians call “the Right of Return.” That is, he insisted there could be no deal unless all Palestinian refugees who so wished to go and live in Israel. He also rejected the observer force and demanded control of the entire Western Wall, the remnant of the Jewish Temple.

And yet there are those who say that Israel doesn’t want peace and never made the Palestinians a good offer. Many of them might add the claim that the United States had never done so either.

Let’s examine the implications of this proposed solution. If Arafat had accepted the deal, there would now have been a Palestinian state for many years. All those who died or were wounded since then would be whole. Hamas would not have taken over the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians would have roughly $40,000 for each child, woman, and man to spend or misspend.

Why was this offer turned down? Because it would have given up one percent of the land claimed? Because the Palestinians so want the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall? Because they would rather not have a state if they couldn’t have an air force and tanks? Or for some other minor reason of detail?

Is this a credible argument?

Arafat could have expressed his eagerness for the deal but offered something in order to get something else he wanted. Also, in the ordinary way international affairs works, the Palestinians were not bargaining from a position of strength. They could only get everything they wanted by deciding that they’d prefer to fight on for decades and sustain many losses rather than make the tiniest compromise.

But, of course, the real reason was, as explained by Faruq Qaddumi, the PLO and Fatah’s second most powerful man, on November 25, 2000 in the official Palestinian Authority newspaper, al-Hayat al-Jadida: “We are adopting the strategy of the Vietnamese who negotiated and fought the Americans at the same time until [they] defeated them.”

This was a revealing precedent to choose. The Vietnamese revolutionaries had taken control over part of the country and then used it to wage a war that won them the rest. Finally, they maneuvered the United States into an unconditional withdrawal through a campaign combining armed force, international pressure, and domestic dissent. Finally, they violated their agreements to seize the entire country.

As for the Right of Return demand, it was in line with something Qaddumi had said in March 2002: "The Right of Return of the refugees to Haifa and Jaffa is more important than statehood."

No one ever remarks on the absurdity of supposed Palestinian nationalists wanting to export people who could be used to build a strong and stable state of their own. Admitting one or two or three million Palestinians into Israel would, of course, lead to violence, bloodshed, chaos, and the collapse of Israel. That was, after all the intention.

Gaining total victory and destroying Israel was more important than getting a Palestinian state, ending the “occupation” and all the real or alleged terrible suffering of Palestinians we constantly hear about. So it was, so it remains.

And that is why all of Hillary Clinton’s commitment to a Palestinian state will not bring about a diplomatic solution. She wants it, Israel wants it, and the Palestinian leadership doesn’t want it.

Many people will try to make that last paragraph sound ridiculous. It certainly doesn’t seem to accord with common sense, does it? And yet that is what history and the evidence shows. Given that proposition, everything that has happened and is happening makes sense. Without it, even incredible contortions and distortions of fact still cannot account for the facts.

Can anyone honestly examine what the United States and Israel offered the Palestinian Authority nine years ago and not conclude that the narrative blaming Israel--and often the United States--for the continuation of the conflict is nonsense? No. And that's why it isn't talked about very much.

Yet how can there be any discussion of these issues without noting what President Bill Clinton and Israel offered the Palestinians nine years ago, why this offer was rejected, and what it should teach everyone?

Failing to see who is at fault for the persistent failures, which really go back more than thirty years, after all, is the fatal flaw of Western policy on Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. Until this is remedied, no one should be surprised that there won't be any peace and very little progress.

RubinReports: Why Can't H. Clinton Bring Israel-Palestinian Peace? Look at What B. Clinton Offered which the Palestinians Rejected

RubinReports: The Palestinians Tell the World Their Strategy: Why Make Peace with Israel When We Can Get Everything from You Instead?

The Palestinians Tell the World Their Strategy: Why Make Peace with Israel When We Can Get Everything from You Instead?

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By Barry Rubin

If you want to understand what’s really going on in the alleged Israel-Palestinian peace process—beyond the babble that progress is being made, it’s all Israel’s fault, and everyone is working hard on it—here’s what you need to know.

For the present, the Palestinian leadership isn’t interested in pursuing negotiations with Israel because it has a different strategy: get everything it wants from others without making any concessions.

First, the Palestinian Authority (PA) came very close to obtaining a European Union (EU) resolution which made it sound like the Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem is an accomplished fact. The rejection of the Swedish-sponsored proposal by more moderate European states staved this off, along with a U.S. reminder that this kind of issue was supposed to be resolved by a negotiated agreement between the PA and Israel.

Nevertheless, the PA no doubt drew hope—albeit erroneously so--from this experience that with a little more time the EU will back its position completely and give it a state on a silver platter.

The other front is the UN. On December 15, a meeting of the Fatah leadership will discuss and probably endorse a plan to seek UN recognition of their state, with no preconditions.

In the words of one Council member, Munib Masri:

“We will ask the UN Security Council to endorse a two-state solution with east Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, to compensate Palestinian refugees and affirm their right to return to their homeland.”

There is a very interesting phrase at the end of that statement. Masri was referring to the Palestinian demand that all refugees and their descendants can go live in Israel if they want, a formula for massive violence, chaos, and civil war in Israel. Of course, that's precisely what the PA wants--and will never get. The idea is that the "two-state solution" it is thinking about is merely a transitional step toward wiping Israel off the map, the real goal and the reason why there isn't any peace.

By defining Israel as the Palestinian homeland, or at least a part of it, Masri shows the two-state solution is not a serious Palestinian goal. If it were, a West Bank-Gaza Strip-east Jerusalem state would be defined as the homeland.

Of course, he adds:

“If Israel remains steadfast in building settlements, then we will seek a one-state solution that is based on a timetable.”

Masri and others in the PA don't give any credit for Israel's settlement freeze. Like all Israeli concessions, it is pocketed and then denounced as insufficient, certainly not as warranting any reciprocal Palestinian gesture.

What Masri himself represents is the friends-of-Yasir-Arafat faction which still dominates both Fatah and the PA. This is the mainstream of both institutions and the base on which PA leader Mahmoud Abbas depends to stay in power.

The attractiveness of unilateralism is understandable. Why make a deal with Israel that might require recognizing it as a Jewish state, taking a bit less territory on the West Bank or having to swap some pieces of land with Israel, providing Israel with security guarantees, giving up the dream of total victory and Israel's elimination, and accepting limits on your military forces when you can just demand, and possibly get, everything you want from the United States, Europe, the UN, or the international community in general?

This is also an ideal strategy in domestic terms since any concessions are unpopular. If Fatah and the PA want to make up with Hamas, avoiding any concessions is vital. And if they don't want Hamas to make political capital out of their "treasonous moderation" the same point applies.

Of course, that means the conflict will continue, people will die, Palestinians will continue to be (or at least will be perceived as) suffering, and everything can be blamed on Israeli intransigence. There would be no peace and no Palestinian state, but that better suits the PA's current strategy and again would largely be blamed on Israel.

Is it really so hard to understand that this is what is really happening? The PA is not desperately eager for a deal. The construction of apartments is not the roadblock. The PA and Fatah have very good reasons from their standpoint for not wanting to make peace with Israel.

Nevertheless, the illusion is maintained: If only one more concession is made to the Palestinians. If they are only reassured and flattered. If they are only promised east Jerusalem as their capital. If Israel freezes construction on West Bank settlements. And stops finishing up 3000 apartments. And stops any building in Jerusalem. And does this or that action and give such and such a concession then the kingdom of peace will be upon us.

And when this strategy fails over and over again--as it did throughout the 1990s, instead of learning the lesson there will be found one more fault of Israel which explains why things didn't work out.

Of course, this also means that the rest of the world is functioning as enablers--to use the current term for those who help someone maintain a harmful addiction--permitting the continued illusion that there is some solution other than either the status quo or a fair, negotiated deal.

RubinReports: The Palestinians Tell the World Their Strategy: Why Make Peace with Israel When We Can Get Everything from You Instead?

RubinReports: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What’s It Really About and Why Does it Continue?

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What’s It Really About and Why Does it Continue?

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By Barry Rubin

It is always the same theme: Palestinians are the victims of Israel. They want an end to the “occupation,” which in a real sense has not existed for 15 years, and are desperate for a state of their own. Help us! Help us! Help us!

But the funny thing is that it doesn’t turn out that the Palestinian political leaders behave as if they actually believe this stuff. Between 1948 and 1988, the Palestinian leadership explicitly rejected negotiations with Israel, rejected any two-state solution, and openly sought total victory. This was true for two decades after Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Indeed, in 1979, for example, when local Palestinian notables indicated an interest in negotiating with Israel for a state (in the framework of the Egypt-Israel Camp David agreement), PLO leader Yasir Arafat told them they’d be traitors and die if they did any such thing.

In 1988, the PLO said it wanted a state of its own but did so with such double-talk language that it was all too clear this was intended only as a springboard for a second round in which Israel would be destroyed. Then the PLO opened a dialogue with the United States based on its agreement to stop terrorism. Though the United States bent over backwards to ignore terrorist attacks (it’s only a specific member group in the PLO attacking so it doesn’t count, said the State Department), Arafat so blatantly broke his promise that the dialogue was broken off.

Then Arafat supported Saddam Hussein of Iraq in his invasion of Kuwait and the Palestinian leader expressed the hope that Iraq would defeat the United States.

What followed at the PLO’s moment of weakness—Saddam defeated; the angry Kuwaitis and Saudis cut off his money—was an act of what they hoped would be enlightened generosity by Israel and America: now that the PLO was so defeated, they reasoned, it would see that victory was impossible and make peace. The result, the Oslo peace process, proved the Palestinian leadership didn’t want a stable peace with a two-state solution. Arafat repeatedly broke his commitments.

And when the moment of truth came, both at Camp David and in the Clinton plan during 2000, the Palestinian leadership (now the Palestinian Authority, PA) turned down offers of a state. Instead, Arafat launched an armed terrorist assault on Israel that went on for five years until the Palestinians were defeated.

Other than Hamas taking over the Gaza Strip, which cripples the PA’s negotiating capacity, nothing much has happened since then. The Palestinian leadership has not even begun to prepare its people for accepting Israel’s existence and peace. On the contrary, it has become even more extreme, preparing them for endless warfare and a refusal to accept Israel’s existence but rather bring it to an end.

I reluctantly present the above history because it is all too generally forgotten today. Why is reality reversed, with the Palestinians the alleged victim of an Israeli refusal to make peace?

The answer is that if one only looks at a snapshot of the present on the basis of either very little knowledge or a set of stereotypes, that interpretation makes sense. Israel wins; the Palestinians lose. Israel is strong; the Palestinians are weak. Israel is prosperous and the Palestinian economy is a mess.

And so many Westerners reason as follows: No one would voluntarily keep engaging in losing wars, choose poverty and occupation, and not want a state of their own. Therefore, the Palestinians must be forced into this situation by Israel. And the solution is more talks, more Israeli compromises, some clever new proposal about Jerusalem or borders or some other detail.

That makes sense in terms of Western sensibilities and politics but not in terms of Middle Eastern ones. The Palestinian leadership—which is quite well off materially, of course, you should have seen their villas in Tunis and now in the West Bank which are much nicer than your home—doesn’t care about its people. State? They are running things already. Poverty? They aren’t poor. Suffering? Well, they aren't suffering and that others keep suffering is preferable to treason against Islam and giving Arab rights to the whole country, isn’t it?

And besides, material improvement makes people soft (that’s their view of the West). If Palestinians do have a state and higher living standards they will be seduced by materialism and not want to fight on. This kind of thinking is far clearer with Hamas but is also in the saddle with Fatah and the PA.

Even today, with the Palestinians divided into two separate regimes, Israel getting steadily stronger, the main strategy being discussed by Fatah and the PA isn’t compromise but escalation. Thus, Saeb Erakat, one of the most relatively moderate people in the PA leadership (and the only one of the pre-1994, old West Bank notables still in any position of responsibility) said, in effect, that the more Palestinians lose, the more they demand:

“With the continuation of settlement activities, the two-state solution is no longer an option."

Continuation? There have been no new settlements in 15 years or in general—there might be small exceptions—but the territorial expanse of settlements has not increased. Eraket said this after Israel announced it would finish 3000 apartments being built now and then freeze construction. His words do not correspond with reality, now more than ever.

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton responded with logic: "Getting into final status negotiations will allow us to bring an end to settlement activity." True, but indeed there is an even better answer: Getting a Palestinian state would end the “occupation” and remove all the settlements on Palestinian territory.

Yet that was a decision the Palestinians could have made in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, as well as throughout this almost completed decade.

Note the Western thinking—if you want a concession you must compromise to get it—with the Middle Eastern approach—give us what we want or we’ll hold our breath till we turn blue.

Instead, Erakat proposes that the Palestinians "refocus their attention on the one-state solution where Muslims, Christians and Jews can live as equals." No doubt this means “equals” in an Islamic and Arab state, with the Israelis turning over all they’ve created and earned for 60 years to a dictatorship of those who have spent their time in trying to kill them rather than by engaging in productive labor.

This would never happen, of course, unless Israel was either militarily defeated, collapsed from within, was destroyed by international action, or some mixture of the above.

But in fact the Fatah leadership, with a few exceptions, never accepted the two-state solution.

A Western observer would respond that these things are not going to happen and therefore the Palestinian leadership could not possibly believe such nonsense. Well, they do believe it—or at least they partly believe it and know that this is the only permissible public stance in Palestinian society. This view is the basis for their political behavior, a factor viewable on a daily basis and one that they understand completely.

To recall how little progress Palestinians have made in thinking about this issue, remember that what they are talking about now was a program first proposed in 1968 and adapted by the PLO in 1974. After 35 years, they are still in the same place. As for the word “refocus,” Erakat is well aware that this has always been the focus.

A few years ago, Erakat was addressing a visiting Western delegation and told them that the Palestinian program was nonsense and could never succeed. After basically denouncing the real mistakes the Palestinians have made, he looked around nervously and said, “I didn’t say any of that.”

In his more recent interview, Erakat said. "This is the moment of truth for us."

Yes, it is always the moment of truth. The problem is that at the moment of truth you always tell lies.

RubinReports: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What’s It Really About and Why Does it Continue?

RubinReports: The Great “Abbas is Quitting” Farce; Media Deletes Palestinian Intransigence

The Great “Abbas is Quitting” Farce; Media Deletes Palestinian Intransigence

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By Barry Rubin

It’s really funny how the story about Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas supposedly-going-to-call-elections-and-resign story was covered. Everyone in the Middle East knew he wouldn’t resign and he wouldn’t call elections. It was a blatant bid to get something from the Americans and pretend that he was tough. But the Western media reported the story as if it were true.

This technique borrows from Egyptian President (dictator) Gamal Abdel Nasser after he lost the 1967 war. Step 1: Announce your quitting. Step 2: Organize big demonstrations begging you not to quit. Abbas added to this a Step 3: Get Westerners to give you goodies and demand more concessions from Israel so that you'll stay.

So the media played along and took it seriously. In the process we were given the mainstream view of the Israel-Palestinian conflict within the framework of the Commandment: Thou shalt not criticize the Palestinian side. Well, you can knock Hamas but not the PA. In fact, the more one-sided the reporting, the better.

But it wasn’t long before it was clear he’d stay on as the PA’s head and there won’t be any elections.

In covering the story, though, the media generally gave us this narrative: The poor Palestinian leadership is just slathering for peace but Israel won’t give them anything and President Barack Obama won’t help. (Yes, so compelling is the Commandment on not criticizing the Palestinians that people are even willing to criticize Obama instead! Which really tells you something about the intensity of this syndrome(.

For example we got “Abbas says he doesn't want to seek reelection,” by Howard Schneider in the Washington Post:

” Abbas' announcement follows months of failed attempts by the United States to restart direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. A weekend trip to the region by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton accentuated the impasse, as the United States announced it was scaling back its expectations, and Palestinians contended there was a growing pro-Israeli tilt to U.S. policy.”

Now what doesn’t that paragraph tell us? Abbas is the one rejecting negotiations with Israel right now! This is the central problem Obama is facing today.

Yet everything—and I do mean everything—is spun in a pro-PA, anti-Israel manner. Look at this:

“But advisers and analysts said it was possible he was merely venting frustration over a dialogue with the United States and Israel that has undercut him politically without any marked progress toward the creation of a Palestinian state.”

Poor Abbas! The U.S. and Israel are undercutting him and preventing any progress toward a Palestinian state. Might Abbas and the PA bear some responsibility for this situation? Not according to the coverage.

Nor are we even told how they are really undercutting him. Here's how: The United States asked Abbas not to go all demagogic on the Goldstone Report, that collection of unproven Hamas accusations that has become a UN report, and demand that Israel be sanctioned and declared a war criminal state. If you're going to negotiate with Israel, goes the correct logic of the Obama Administration, you can't demonize it.

In addition, this behavior would have had the PA emerge as the leading defender of Hamas, which not only killed Abbas's men but is openly genocidal toward Israel and will never make peace. The underlying PA strategy, of course is this: Why negotiate with Israel when you can get the international community to put such crushing pressure on it as to force Israel to give you everything you want with no concessions on your part.

But this is the kind of analysis we never hear. Instead we get:

“[Abbas’s speech] should "be understood as an urgent scream against the continuing pressure and bending our arms" by the United States and Israel, Abbas aide Yasser Abed Rabbo said….

“After initial optimism that President Obama's election would elevate Palestinian interests, Abbas has been steadily frustrated in his hopes for quick results on issues he regards as central, such as a freeze on the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

“Instead, his political standing has declined, as decisions made in consultation with the United States proved unpopular locally while still failing to produce anticipated Israeli concessions.”

Well you get the idea. But wait a minute! Isn’t this article being published after the U.S. and Israel reached a deal that there would be a free of construction on settlements? So in fact the United States didn’t fail to produce anticipated Israeli concessions. It did produce them.

And since the PA betrayed its promise about Goldstone to Obama within about 48 hours while refusing to engage in negotiations with Israel, it didn’t exactly give the president much chance to produce results.



Goodness, the PA doesn’t need to hire a public relations’ agency, does it?

In other anguished coverage of Abbas’s phony resignation threat, we got the November 7, “Despair rises as Abbas talks of bowing out,” by Steven Gutkin, Associated Press. Despair? Laughter is more like it.

How about this lead:

“By saying he wants to step down as president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas has highlighted a deep Palestinian despair rooted in decades of failed peace initiatives and fruitless violence.

“Neither strategy has yielded a Palestinian state, and Israeli settlements still encroach on lands that would be part of their would-be nation.”

Remember Camp David and the Clinton plan of 2000, which the Palestinians turned down? But we are to believe they keep trying and nothing works for them. You’d never know the peace initiatives failed because the PA vetoed them. The Palestinians rejected a peace which would have had Israel remove all the settlements on its territory. That’s why the settlements are still there!


And of course the PA flubbed it when Israel did remove all the settlements from the Gaza Strip.

And what’s the subtle implication of the PA's policy which the media interpretation usually reinforces? Answer: Israel should remove the settlements and give everything the PA demands now and later on the two sides can negotiate.

The article continues:

“Facing a hawkish Israeli government and an Obama administration reluctant to put muscle behind its demands on Israel, many Palestinians say they see no hope.”

Poor Palestinians! Israel just won’t make peace and Obama won’t help. The key to success is just pressuring Israel's government. Yeah, that’s sure an accurate description of the situation, isn’t it?

Yet what does this tell us? That the relative moderates, the PA and Egypt and Saudi Arabia (see here) are now blaming Obama for not doing enough nice things for them. Publicly, their complaint is that he’s not bashing Israel enough; privately, that he’s not bashing Iran and Syria enough. A good portion of the media is picking up this public theme, implying that Obama is just too darn right-wing on the Middle East.

The radicals are even more outspoken. They don’t care about Obama’s Cairo and Istanbul and UN speeches. No matter what he does, he and America are their enemies.

And so for example, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah has called Obama even more pro-Israel and anti-Muslim than George W. Bush. He’s just trying to stall for time “and gain Arab sympathy," says the Hizballah chieftain, and all "illusions" of his being fair are gone.

Unfortunately, there are still too many illusions left, and they are with American policymakers who let Iran and the Palestinians stall and gain Western sympathy.

RubinReports: The Great “Abbas is Quitting” Farce; Media Deletes Palestinian Intransigence

RubinReports: And Now the Truth Becomes Clear: Hilary Clinton Announces that the Palestinians are the Obstacles to Peace

And Now the Truth Becomes Clear: Hilary Clinton Announces that the Palestinians are the Obstacles to Peace

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By Barry Rubin

Yesterday I discussed the significance of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s praise for Israel’s policy during her trip to Jerusalem, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had offered unprecedented concessions to get peace talks started again.

We don’t know what the plan is though there are hints that Israel agreed to stop all construction on the West Bank once the 3,000 apartment units now being constructed were completed and that this freeze would not apply to construction in east Jerusalem. This is indeed a major concession on Netanyahu’s part and once again puts the lie to the claim that he is inflexible or hard line (though no doubt we will still daily see this in media coverage).

This visit, however, also may be a major turning point in both U.S. policy and public perceptions of the problem regarding the peace process.

At the center of this stands the Number One Paradox of the issue, in some ways of all Middle Eastern politics: Why is it that although the Palestinians complain that they are suffering from a horrible occupation and not having a state of their own they are not in any hurry to make a peace agreement, end the “occupation,” and get a state.

The main answer is that the dominant Palestinian view is still the desire to win a total victory and wipe Israel off the map. The back-up stance is that any peace agreement must not block the continued pursuit of that goal. And the back-up position to that is to reject strong security guarantees, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, an unmilitarized Palestinian state, settlement of Palestinian refugees in Palestine, territorial compromise or exchanges, and indeed any concession whatsoever.

There are two implications of this:

--The Palestinians are at fault for the failure to achieve peace.

--There isn’t going to be any Israel-Palestinian peace in the near- or even medium-term future.

If you understand the preceding 176 words then you understand the issue comprehensively.

The president of the United States has said that he wants talks resumed immediately and believes it possible to make a breakthrough. The Palestinian leadership is thwarting him on both points. In other words, they are responsible for the failure of a major U.S. policy.

Following Clinton’s visit, Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders have restated their refusal even to talk with Israel. They also claim that Netanyahu is refusing to discuss some issues in the talks, though the Israeli prime minister has simply not made such statements. In fact, as the Washington Post reported, November 1:

“The Palestinian position, if anything, appears to have hardened in recent days, leaving Israel to portray itself as the more willing partner.”

Well, Israel is the more willing partner, isn’t it? That’s the point that breaks the apparent paradox of suffering Palestinians yearning for peace but being thwarted by Israeli intransigence.

One point in the Post article, however, is just flat wrong:

“Israel promised to halt settlements under previous international agreements, and Palestinian officials say they want those promises fulfilled.”

In fact, at the time it signed the original peace process agreement—often called the Oslo accord—in 1993, that’s 16 years ago—Israel put forward its interpretation of the agreement. It said that there would be no new Jewish settlements and no geographical expansion of existing settlements. But Israel made it clear that it would continue to build apartments on existing settlements. That position was not challenged by the Palestinians at the time and it has never held up talks before now.

Indeed, another Washington Post article of November 1, this one by Howard Schneider, pointed out—though only indirectly—why things got even worse:

“However, Obama's election raised expectations among Palestinians and throughout the Arab states that the peace process would yield quicker results from an administration willing to openly criticize Israel and, it seemed, elevate Palestinian interests.”

More than that, it was the Obama Administration which called for a total freeze, distances itself from Israel, and took other steps leading the PA and Arab states to believe that by being intransigent they could get Washington to deliver Israel on their own terms. In other words, while everyone is being too polite to say so, the Obama Administration was responsible for the situation deteriorating.

Here's how Netanyahu put it in his joint press conference with Clinton:

"The simple fact is this: We are willing to engage in peace talks immediately without pre-conditions. The other fact is that unfortunately the other side is not. It is asking and piling on pre-conditions that it never put on in the sixteen years that we've had the peace process since the enunciation of the Oslo Accords. There have not been these pre-conditions. It's a change of Palestinian policy...."

Now both Egypt and Jordan have come out in support of the PA position, also setting themselves on a collision course with Washington, that there should be no talks at all until all construction on settlements stops without exception, including anything now being completed and all building in east Jerusalem. There is no chance Israel is going to agree to that; there is no chance the Obama Administration will demand it.

And so we have come to the point where it is becoming clear even to those who have been ruled by wishful thinking that there is not going to be any peace and that the Palestinian-Arab side is responsible for this situation.

It is quite probable--and this is extremely important to understand--that there is nothing the Obama Administration can say or do in order to make them change their mind. After all, this is the ideal position from the standpoint of the PA, Egypt, Jordan, and others. Refuse to support talks, reap benefits by showing their militancy, and be able to blame it on Israel.

After all his efforts and alleged popularity, Obama has absolutely zero credit and no leverage in the Arabic-speaking world.

How is this going to affect Obama Administration policy and thinking?

RubinReports: And Now the Truth Becomes Clear: Hilary Clinton Announces that the Palestinians are the Obstacles to Peace

RubinReports: The Big Freeze: U.S. Policy on Peace Process comes to Dead Halt and Likely to Remain that Way

The Big Freeze: U.S. Policy on Peace Process comes to Dead Halt and Likely to Remain that Way

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By Barry Rubin

If solving the Israel-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflict is the centerpiece of the Obama Administration’s Middle East policy—at times it seems the keystone of the government’s entire policy—there's an obvious problem derailing it.

Here it is. The president of the United States on several occasions and notably in his UN speech and high officials repeatedly have announced that they want and expect there to be quick, final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to resolve all issues and end the conflict.

This event isn't going to happen.

When the president of the United States announces there will be talks soon and has no reason to believe that's true he's making a fool of himself. It is one of the most basic rules of presidential behavior that you don't put the chief executive’s prestige on the line, that you do not let him predict an imminent event, unless you know for darn sure it is going to happen.

Yet when President Barack H. Obama stood before the world's assembled leaders that's precisely what he did. For an administration approaching the end of its first year in office that's dangerous amateurism.

The fly in the ointment here is the PA and this is no minor detail. The PA says repeatedly that it will not even meet formally with Israel until all construction on all Jewish settlements on the West Bank plus east Jerusalem stop completely. Already, however, U.S.-Israel discussions have moved past that point. We don’t know precisely where they stand but clearly the administration isn’t pushing for a total halt and it isn’t pushing all that urgently on the issue.

Therefore, while Israel has succeeded in conciliating the United States, the PA is going to defy the United States. We know that it is serious in doing so because of what has just happened with the Goldstone report in the UN. The administration asked the PA not to take a leading role in pushing the report; the PA complied for about 48 hours and then internal pressure forced it to go back on its word. Most of this pressure was not the spontaneous outrage of the masses but from the hardline elements which dominate the ruling Fatah group as well as in the PA itself.

In short, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas is not going to back down on his demand. He is more afraid of his own colleagues, Hamas’s baiting him as a “moderate” (a compliment perhaps from the West but a deadly insult in Palestinian politics), and his own people than of Obama. Indeed, nobody is afraid of Obama which is one of the main problems with his foreign policy.

Disdaining the use of threats, leverage, and pressure, the Obama administration is not likely to push the PA very hard on this and even if it did Abbas would stand firm. Having extolled the Palestinians as peace-loving martyrs, courting Arab and Muslim opinion, treasuring popularity, the administration won’t get tough. No amount of funding or other goodies is going to move the PA or Abbas either. For Abbas, it is something like the classical choice which can be paraphrased as: Your money or your life?

So there is, and will be, a deadlock, month after month through into 2010. Is there some clever way out? I don’t see one and am willing to bet the administration doesn’t either.

Remember this president said repeatedly--in his Cairo speech, at the UN, almost daily--that he is going to solve the issue; that his predecessor missed easy opportunities to do so; that this is the world's main issue. So what's he going to do other than spin about how hard he's working and how much progress he's making?

In contrast, Abbas has an attractive policy alternative: strike a militant pose, blame America, seek rapprochement with Hamas. In addition, what both the United States and Europe fails to see is that the Palestinians don’t need or want rapid progress on negotiations or even a state except on what would be completely their own terms.

The Palestinians can also afford the luxury of believing—and this is what Western policy has taught them—that Europe and America needs them more than they need the West. Moreover they believe, and again this is what they have been shown, that intransigence on their part actually brings more criticism on Israel. If you believe, rightly or wrongly, that the world is about to condemn Israel as a pariah, war criminal state why make compromises with it?

This is the corner into which the Obama Administration has painted itself. And all that it has left is what might be called the cat strategy. Have you ever seen a cat miss a leap or have an embarrassing fall? It merely licks itself and looks around with an expression saying: I meant to do that. Everything is going according to plan.
But it isn’t.

The newest development is the idea, favored by many in the European Union, of endorsing PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s “plan” for there to be a Palestinian state within two years. Of course, this won’t happen either.

The whole thing is taking on a comic opera air. It reminded me of something. And then I remembered: the classical description of the Arab defeat in the 1948 war and Israel’s creation by Constantine Zurayk, vice-president of the American University of Beirut, in his book The Meaning of the Disaster. He wrote:

“Seven Arab states declare war on Zionism in Palestine, stop impotent before it and turn on their heels. The representatives of the Arabs deliver fiery speeches in the highest international forums, warning what the Arab state and peoples will do if this or that decision be enacted. Declarations fall like bombs from the mouths of officials at the meetings of the Arab League, but when action becomes necessary, the fire is still and quiet and steel and iron are rusted and twisted, quick to bend and disintegrate.”

For the Arab states, the fiery speeches do have a value of their own, cowing rivals and mobilizing the masses to support their local dictator. But when the United States acts like a pitiful, helpless giant—even if it is a nice and friendly, apologetic one—the world shudders and shakes. The evil, with laughter; the good, with tears.

RubinReports: The Big Freeze: U.S. Policy on Peace Process comes to Dead Halt and Likely to Remain that Way