PA official: Peace process dead

[Scurrilous]

Senior official close to Abbas says given expected Israeli government, no serious progress can be made toward agreement on two-state solution

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3677059,00.html

<snip>

"Israel's impending new government indicates that the peace process "has died," a senior Palestinian Authority official told Ynet on Tuesday.

"Given the government that is going to lead Israel, it's clear that there won't be any serious process and that, at the most, it will be a process for appearances' sake only that is intended to quiet the international community and primarily to let the Palestinians know that the option of peace still exists," he said.

According to the official, the Palestinians understand that the Oslo process no longer exists. Those close to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas don't think there is any way to salvage it.

"People are thinking of how to prevent the PA from humiliating itself in a process that is not serious and will not bring peace. More and more voices are saying that the Palestinian Authority and Abbas must strike preemptively and dismantle the Palestinian Authority," he said.

The official added that Abbas' advisors, including those who truly believe in peace and in the diplomatic process, understand that this process is over and there is no chance of a political agreement in the near future that will result in a Palestinian state."

[IndianaGreen]

1. Amen!

Let's say publicly what has been obvious for quite a few years.

The loudest evidence the peace process is dead are the sounds of the construction equipment at a myriad of new and expanded settlements in Occupied Palestine.

[azurnoir]

2. The PA should "hold on" and hope for a change

in the Israeli government? What change? And this part "given the government that is going to lead Israel" the description sounds more like the government(s) that has been leading Israel since Rabin's death

Given the government that is going to lead Israel, it's clear that there won't be any serious process and that, at the most, it will be a process for appearances' sake only that is intended to quiet the international community and primarily to let the Palestinians know that the option of peace still exists," he said.

The best that can be hoped for here is that the rightist government will stop the mealy mouth nodding and smiling that has enabled this charade "peace process" to go on for years

[IndianaGreen]

3. Hope for change? Like what? Jesus Second Coming?

There is no Second Coming. End the charade now!

[oberliner]

4. And replace it with what?

If its a charade, what's the reality?

[IndianaGreen]

13. The reality is a one-state solution

This is what has been happening for 41 years in the occupied territories, endless settlement expansion and construction on confiscated Palestinian lands.

If the shoe were on the other foot, Arabs would probably want their own version of a one-state solution, at the expense of the Israeli Jews.

There is a third one-state solution, a binacional state. One state for two peoples, each having full rights and privileges of citizenship in a secular federal republic.

[ZeinElNour]

20. one state solution

this is the only viable solution...

but before that, i am afraid they are going to go for the three state solution... more blood and hatred before people come to their senses!

[ProgressiveMuslim]

5. News flash: The peace process was never alive! At least under Bibi, the coffin will be nailed shut

in public.

[Mosby]

6. It's a process

clearly some progress has been made, the two sides have managed to sign off on several agreements as you know, including one by Bibi giving the Palestinians control of Hebron and parts of the WB.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

7. It's a "process" all right. A "process" designed to obfuscate and delay.

The Great Middle East Peace Process Scam
Henry Siegman
When Ehud Olmert and George W. Bush met at the White House in June, they concluded that Hamas’s violent ousting of Fatah from Gaza – which brought down the Palestinian national unity government brokered by the Saudis in Mecca in March – had presented the world with a new ‘window of opportunity’.<*> (Never has a failed peace process enjoyed so many windows of opportunity.) Hamas’s isolation in Gaza, Olmert and Bush agreed, would allow them to grant generous concessions to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, giving him the credibility he needed with the Palestinian people in order to prevail over Hamas.

Both Bush and Olmert have spoken endlessly of their commitment to a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but it is their determination to bring down Hamas rather than to build up a Palestinian state that animates their new-found enthusiasm for making Abbas look good. That is why their expectation that Hamas will be defeated is illusory. Palestinian moderates will never prevail over those considered extremists, since what defines moderation for Olmert is Palestinian acquiescence in Israel’s dismemberment of Palestinian territory. In the end, what Olmert and his government are prepared to offer Palestinians will be rejected by Abbas no less than by Hamas, and will only confirm to Palestinians the futility of Abbas’s moderation and justify its rejection by Hamas. Equally illusory are Bush’s expectations of what will be achieved by the conference he recently announced would be held in the autumn (it has now been downgraded to a ‘meeting’). In his view, all previous peace initiatives have failed largely, if not exclusively, because Palestinians were not ready for a state of their own. The meeting will therefore focus narrowly on Palestinian institution-building and reform, under the tutelage of Tony Blair, the Quartet’s newly appointed envoy.

In fact, all previous peace initiatives have got nowhere for a reason that neither Bush nor the EU has had the political courage to acknowledge. That reason is the consensus reached long ago by Israel’s decision-making elites that Israel will never allow the emergence of a Palestinian state which denies it effective military and economic control of the West Bank. To be sure, Israel would allow – indeed, it would insist on – the creation of a number of isolated enclaves that Palestinians could call a state, but only in order to prevent the creation of a binational state in which Palestinians would be the majority.

The Middle East peace process may well be the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history. Since the failed Camp David summit of 2000, and actually well before it, Israel’s interest in a peace process – other than for the purpose of obtaining Palestinian and international acceptance of the status quo – has been a fiction that has served primarily to provide cover for its systematic confiscation of Palestinian land and an occupation whose goal, according to the former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon, is ‘to sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people’. In his reluctant embrace of the Oslo Accords, and his distaste for the settlers, Yitzhak Rabin may have been the exception to this, but even he did not entertain a return of Palestinian territory beyond the so-called Allon Plan, which allowed Israel to retain the Jordan Valley and other parts of the West Bank.

Anyone familiar with Israel’s relentless confiscations of Palestinian territory – based on a plan devised, overseen and implemented by Ariel Sharon – knows that the objective of its settlement enterprise in the West Bank has been largely achieved. Gaza, the evacuation of whose settlements was so naively hailed by the international community as the heroic achievement of a man newly committed to an honourable peace with the Palestinians, was intended to serve as the first in a series of Palestinian bantustans. Gaza’s situation shows us what these bantustans will look like if their residents do not behave as Israel wants.

Israel’s disingenuous commitment to a peace process and a two-state solution is precisely what has made possible its open-ended occupation and dismemberment of Palestinian territory. And the Quartet – with the EU, the UN secretary general and Russia obediently following Washington’s lead – has collaborated with and provided cover for this deception by accepting Israel’s claim that it has been unable to find a deserving Palestinian peace partner.

read on...
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n16/sieg01_.html

[oberliner]

8. Your preference is what?

In lieu of this "scam" what are you hoping to see the Israeli government do?

[ProgressiveMuslim]

10. We all know what has to happen TODAY for 2 states.

'67 borders
refugee settlement/compensation/repatriation/
East Jerusalem as capital of Palestine
release political prisoners

Have I missed anything?

The gov't of Israel clearly wants to maintain the status quo. Consequently, worldwide sanctions, boycotts and divestment are happening, and hopefully, will grow, such that continuting the status quo becomes to painful for the nation of Israel.

[IndianaGreen]

14. And relocate Sharon's Wall, aka Separation Wall, to the pre-1967 demarcation line

The people that hail Sharon's wall as a security success, cannot claim that relocating it to pre-1967 borders would pose a threat to Israel.

[shira]

15. you mean 2 warring states?

as soon as Israel ends settlements and occupation, releases prisoners, comes to a refugee agreement, and lifts the siege on both the West Bank and Gaza, what makes you think the PA will not choose to drop kassams, grads, and katyushas on Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Ben Gurion Airport - thereby creating a humanitarian crisis unlike anything seen since 1948?

[IDFbunny]

27. Still unacceptable to the palestinians

That still leaves Jews in occupied Palestine with♦ '48 borders.

[Mosby]

9. that Ya'alon quote is made up

There are no other good options other than 2 states.

Both sides need to do a better job preparing their citizens for that outcome.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

11. Read the entire article, and then tell me if you dispute it.

Of course 2 states was the best solution. Who is arguing that?

But Israel's course for these past 15 years has rendered it IMPOSSIBLE.

[Shaktimaan]

16. it was always impossible...

it never really mattered what Israel did or didn't do. It still doesn't.

Ultimately the Palestinians must build a functioning society and government before any semblance of peace or an actual autonomous state could come to fruition. I mean, if anything is putting the cart before the horse it is the idea of the Palestinians actually receiving a state of their own when they haven't really seemed to be able to handle governing anything in the most limited capacity without immense graft, corruption, infrastructural meltdown on a truly astounding level and (and,and,and) even a fucking CIVIL WAR. For God's sake, no one gives anyone a state... people have to build their own state. And as far as obstacles to building a state go, the Palestinians have far, far fewer than many (if not most) other states out there.

Sure, blame Israel... it doesn't matter. Rather than blaming Israel though, you guys should really try emulating Israel. Or America. Or someone... anyone successful. Or you can just continue doing what you've been doing this entire time. Look on the bright side. It's a good thing that the Palestinians never actually ended up with autonomy over their own sovereign state because of what would have ended up happening there. This way, there can still be hope for a possibly bright future instead of regret over a failed past.

Actually, no matter what happened you would probably just tell yourselves that it was all Israel's fault. And if Israel had never existed it would have to have been the Ottoman's fault. Or the British. Or the Mamlukes I guess. Meanwhile, Arafat gets the Nobel Peace Prize...

OK, THAT was probably Israel's fault.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

17. Build a functioning society? Under brutal military occupation?

Quit the games, Shakti. That is ridiculous beyond words.

Has any country built a "functioning society" under those conditions? with 5 gazillion checkpoints, a destroyed economy ... your post really makes me feel sick.

[Shaktimaan]

18. Of course. I already named two nations who built successful states...

during severe foreign occupations, while fighting wars of independence and overcoming countless obstacles that blocked their paths. Nothing about the conditions that Israel or America faced were any less significant than those which the Palestinians have struggled with for decades now.

My point is that unless the Palestinians are able to overcome the differences that are keeping their factions from successfully uniting behind a common cause, they stand no chance of actually building a functioning state. There is nothing unusual about the nature of the issues that have riven Palestinians into two camps, nor the obstacles that lie between them and a sovereign state. There is certainly nothing "impossible" about the project. If a ruined economy or checkpoints were enough to stifle the nascent governments and independence movements that have existed throughout history, then our world would look very different today.

Palestine has to have a serious internal conversation if it hopes to progress. It has to decide what it really wants to be for itself. It may appear silly, but it seems to me that Palestine has never done much to clearly define what being Palestinian really means, (or should mean, perhaps), outside of its relationship with Israel. Is there any kind of concensus on what it even is that Palestine really wants, exactly? Because it seems to me that a lot of ambiguity exists on this point, even among Palestinians themselves. Especially among Palestinians, actually. Both in their words and in their actions.

I'll give you an example. What would you consider the more important goal to most Palestinians: living in a free, well-functioning, peaceful state in Palestine where people can have a good life... or realizing their national aspirations of self-determination by way of a fully sovereign Palestinian state?

I am not suggesting that the two are mutually exclusive, I am just asking what the key motivational force is. Zionism's founders, for instance, primarily sought a solution to the anti-semitism they faced in Europe. Self-determination, and thus Israel, became a means to that specific end.

So what would you say the Palestinians' primary goal is? What do you think it is that they really want?

[ZeinElNour]

19. no one gives anyone independence

yes. you are right no one gives anyone a state - no one gives anyone independence. statehood and independence are usually snatched (mostly by force) like the US and Israel. have you ever been to Gaza or the West Bank? I can safely assume that you haven't even read reports on the situation on the ground there and what the Israelis have been doing (not news stories - but actual reports UN-ICG...)?

it is good to see that some people are arguing that occupation is actually good for the Palestinians. this removes layers of facades and rhetoric that is a complete waste of time.

so please do not tell us that you are actually concerned about the Palestinian people, especially if you don't know by now what the Palestinians want!

[ProgressiveMuslim]

21. Which 2 countries are they? Please name them again?

Israel and America?

If those are your 2 that is a nonsensical comparison.

I would agree that it is imperative that Palestine begin building institutions of state while pursuing freedom. That is why it is imperative to scrap the absurd Oslo agreement and the corrupt PA.

[FarrenH]

25. That is a ridiculous demand on its face

The current configuration of the West Bank, broken up as it is, cannot be a viable state. Over and above this an oppressed and colonized people have no obligation to meet arbitrary conditions of economic success in order to achieve self-determination. International humanitarian law is clear on this. There are no conditions for self-determination. It is considered a right without conditions.

[shira]

26. no it's not - Fayyad is calling for a defacto state within 2 years

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x284691

this goes to show that the PA could have decided to invest its billions the last 16 years on building state institutions instead of going to war.

they'd probably have accepted the Barak 2000 offer if this had begun 16 years ago.

[azurnoir]

12. So in 1997 an agreement was signed

yup that's progress alright

[Taitertots]

22. The Palestinians have ended it before it has begun

And people are complaining about Israel.

[Violet_Crumble]

23. Why are you kicking threads from months and months ago?

That's just really weird....

[Taitertots]

24. It was on my first page