THE PEACE PROCESS THAT ISN'T and maybe never was

One dictionary definition of progress is, "a systematic series of actions directed to some end." If that is a reasonable approximation of the meaning, then we do not have a viable "peace process" in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian confrontation. First, there is certainly no systematic series of actions. For now there doesn't even seem to be any action in terms of just holding meetings. Second, it is not clear that there is some agreed upon end.

Starting with the second point. It had seemed that the end goal was establishment of an independent Palestinian state carved out of territory occupied by Israel since the l967 war, territory referred to as the West Bank and Gaza. That is the goal which the United States, the driving force behind the so-called "peace process", and the Palestinian Authority (PA) headed by Mahmoud Abbas have in mind. That was also presumed to be the objective the Israeli government has in mind. But is no longer clear that an independent Palestine is an objective shared by all of the important players within the Israel's governing coalition. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems to be okay with such an end goal, but there are important elements among the extreme right wing members of his coalition who think that creation of such a state is something that might happen in the indeterminate future, but in the near term some other Israeli-Palestinian solution might be in order. Perhaps the granting of greater political and economic autonomy and loosened travel and work restrictions but not establishment of a fully independent Palestinian state.

Concerning the first point on the absence of action. Start with the players. The most evident missing player is Hamas, which by elections in 2006, gained control of the Gaza strip. To both Israel and the United States Hamas is a terrorist organization and, as such, is blocked from being a participant in any negotiations. Hamas itself opposes the negotiations--period. Hamas, which receives significant support from Iran and Syria, is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. The frequency with which rockets are launched from Gaza into Israel gives credence to the terrorist label, although Hamas has shown some ability to control the intensity of rocket attacks with periodic cease fire arrangements. Thus Abbas, in any talks that may go on, does not speak for Hamas-controlled Gaza and has to proceed carefully or be accused by Hamas of selling out to Israel. So the exclusion of Hamas from any peace process leaves out a crucial player on the Palestinian side of the equation.

But unless something happens soon on resuming talks, the absence of Hamas and opposition to an independent Palestine from the extreme right in Israel won't really matter. Even the shakey talks that had begun are stalled. After considerable efforts by the Obama administration to breathe new life into the peace process, a "summit" meeting was held in Washington in early September. That meeting ended with what seemed to be a commitment by Abbas and Netanyahu to pursue further meetings toward a settlement. Perhaps "settlement" is the wrong choice of words. It is over the issue of Israel's building housing settlements on West Bank territory potentially to be within a Palestinian state that the talks have floundered. The Washington meeting came only after the Netanyahu government put a temporary halt to continuing construction of settlements. That temporary half ended on September 26 and Israel has, to this point, refused to extend the temporary ban. With that refusal, the talks collapsed.

What is frustrating for Obama and the State Department negotiators is that they have made security and arms offers to Israel in exchange for another temporary halt in settlement construction. Meanwhile, Netanyahu, under pressure from the extreme right, has cleared the way for over 500 new units on the West Bank. In short, the settlement issue, as stated in a previous post, has become the fundamental issue blocking any progress in the peace process. If the United States has to make major commitments to even restart negotiations, what will we have to do when the talks, if resumed, get to the really difficult issues. Among these are drawing the exact borderlines of a new state, settling the status of East Jerusalem which the Palestinians would like as their capital, and Palestinian demands about the right of return of the hundreds of thousands of refugees created by the original partitioning of Palestine and the resultant 1948 Arab-Israeli war. There are an estimated one million refugees in the Gaza Strip alone. So we have promised a lot already asking for very little in return, and even what we have offered does not seem, at this point, to have nudged the two sides toward even another round of talks.

Netanyahu has indicated that his government and Washington are trying to work out something so the talks can resume. Meanwhile, Abbas is talking about going directly to the United Nations to get it to declare the existence of an independent Palestine, a move that the United States would not want. It would lead to a U.S. veto in the Security Council and further reinforce the charge that the United States has an unalterable, firm bias against the Arab/Islamic world. So right now this country is being played by both the Israelis and the Palestinians to see how much they can get out of us rather than sit down and see what they can get out of each other.