MIDEAST: Politics Triumphs Over Reason

• Analysis by Pierre Klochendler (jerusalem)
• Thursday, June 16, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Though the Israeli-Palestinian peace-making and state-building process is integrative, remarkably, none of its two tracks were made conditional on the other. So whilst U.S. President Barack Obama has largely been unsuccessful in reviving the first track, Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad has unperturbedly been busy building the tenets of the future state.

Reasonably, recognition of statehood should provide a warm-hearted welcome to Palestine in the community of nations, all the more so as its institutions are declared 'ready' by EU and U.N. bodies. Except that this drive to correct the wrongs of the past pits itself against the ruthless logic of politics - national and international.

The rationale behind Obama's strong inclination to veto a Security Council resolution that would overrule recognition was laid down in May: 'Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the UN in September won't create an independent state.'

There's a glitch in this sober reminder. After all, how could the staunchest-ever supporter of Palestinian self-determination now become the chief lobbyist against statehood, critics wonder.

Earlier during his presidency, Obama listened to his heart, acted accordingly. He was the first president to focus on Israel's settlement-building as the reason for the failure of peace and state building.

Initially, it worked. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu froze settlement construction, albeit partially and for ten months. The decision was unprecedented in the history of Israel's occupation. One thing's for sure, Netanyahu didn't succumb to his heart's desire but to arm-wrestling politics.

It wasn't until the last weeks of the freeze in September 2010 that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed to direct talks. Abbas, like Netanyahu, appreciated the restiveness of Israeli far-right politics. Both knew, one minute past the expiration of the self-imposed moratorium, the talks would expire. The experiment remained a one-time confidence-building measure.

What further eroded confidence in peace was Obama's decision to veto a Security Council resolution condemning settlement-building. With a Republican majority in the Congress, there was no way the President could persuade Netanyahu to reinstate a freeze. Realpolitik replaced heart-felt intentions.

The current last-ditch effort at renewing negotiations isn't so much aimed at making peace as to mitigate the detrimental impact that another veto would have on the credibility of the U.S. as honest broker.

Netanyahu learned a thing or two from his relationship with Obama. It's when he stands firm as ardent nationalist against Israel's closest ally that his popularity soars at home. Three surveys conducted after his White House meeting showed support for his resolute 'No' that talks resume 'on the basis of the 1967 borders'.

The freeze-for-talks recipe failed, much like land-for-peace. The new magic formula replaces the two-state solution with 'two-states-for-two-peoples'. Or, as Obama put it with regard to the Israeli side of the equation, 'Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people,' a major pillar of Netanyahu's ideology.

The reasoning goes like this: Hoist the Israeli leader on his 'Jewish state' petard and prod him to accept the 1967 principle, a major pillar of Palestinian ideology. U.S. reason would triumph uber alles — simple? Not so.

The terms couched in diplomatic jargon aren't mere semantics. Palestinians accept the 'two-state-for- two-people' formula, but are only prepared to reiterate acceptance of Israel as the state of the Israeli people, not of the Jewish people. One in five Israeli citizens is a Palestinian.

All that happens as the Palestinian reconciliation agreement signed in Cairo shows premature signs of discord about who will be leading a national unity government. The nationalist Fatah movement wants Fayyad to succeed himself; the Islamist Hamas counters that his successor be from Gaza.

With no end in sight to the four-decade-long occupation, if recognition of statehood is to augur the creation of Palestine, at least the end of the four-year political division between territories which are anyway geographically divided by Israel would seem a reasonable prerequisite.

Except that UN-recognised (and re-united) Palestine would be accountable to conditions set by the international community that Hamas refrains from acts of violence against Israeli civilians, and accepts Israel's right to exist and past agreements.

Besides, for donors to continue funding the nascent state, Fayyad would have to remain at the helm. So, the unity government delay might be most opportune for Abbas.

Politics is all about timing. Abbas's resolve to enter history as the leader who brought unity and statehood to Palestine would increase his popularity, not only in his West Bank heartland.

The Palestinians have until Jul. 15 to petition the UN. With the deadline drawing closer, all sides have begun advocating negotiations — even Abbas who declared this week that his 'first, second and third priorities' were negotiations. Is it a genuine change of heart or double entendre politics?

'We have a dream, Free Palestine!' Banners adorn the streets of Gaza. The year is 1998.

Yasser Arafat, Abbas's predecessor and architect of the Algiers Declaration of statehood (1988), convened the Palestine Liberation Organisation to revoke clauses of its charter which called for Israel's destruction. The abrogation was a peace condition set by no one else than Netanyahu during his first premiership.

The banners conjuring up the Martin Luther King speech were meant to welcome U.S. President Bill Clinton, a key witness.

Thirteen years down the everlasting march towards Palestine, from Clinton to Obama, from Arafat to Abbas, Netanyahu still turns peace-making on its head and forces the Palestinians to hark back to the premises of the conflict, Israel's right to exist vs. their own right to self-determination and freedom.

Were the UNGA to act wholeheartedly on statehood, Netanyahu will make sure that, in reference to the Pascal thought, it's politics, not the heart, that has its reasons of which reason knows nothing of, and that the Free Palestine dream remains a forlorn dream for the time being.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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