In my opinion - Under the present Israeli administration they have done everything possible to avoid negotiationg with the Palestinian Authority.
Israel clearly has to be brought to the table.
State of Confusion - By Ephraim Sneh | Foreign Policy
The Israel-Hamas war has refocused international attention on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and increased the stakes surrounding U.S. President Barack Obama's handling of the Palestinian bid for recognition at the United Nations as a non-member state. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas intends to submit that bid on November 29th -- the 65th anniversary of the U.N. resolution to partition the territory of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.
Add to these factors Abbas's remarkable interview on Israeli television earlier this month. "We will not go back to terrorism and violence," he said. "We will only operate through diplomacy and through peaceful means." Abbas then made a surprising concession on the refugee issue that has long plagued Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, noting that while he is a refugee from Safed, he would like to visit but not live there. "Palestine for me is the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital," he explained. "The West Bank and Gaza is Palestine. Everything else is Israel." Just days before this interview, in Ramallah, Abbas confirmed to a small group of former Israeli generals, including me, that he will ask the Israeli prime minister to restart direct peace negotiations immediately after U.N. recognition.
If, however, the U.S. Congress follows through with its threat to cut financial support to the Palestinian Authority as part of a series of punitive measures for Abbas's campaign at the United Nations, it would be a shot not in the foot but in the liver -- Israel's. If the PA collapses economically and Palestinian security forces have to stop their operations because of budget constraints, the struggle against terror in the West Bank will suffer dramatically. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will then have to increase their presence in the West Bank at the expense of other areas in the region, generating more unnecessary friction with the population in the territory. The fruitful cooperation between the IDF and Palestinian security forces -- trained and organized by Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton's team -- will collapse, reversing the most impressive American achievement on the ground in recent years. The near-total cessation of terrorist activity in the West Bank in the last four years is a result of this cooperation. Without it, more Israelis will be killed. And Israel's friends in Congress must remember this.
For 20 years, Abbas led the Palestinian camp that strongly opposed terrorism and favored a negotiated agreement with Israel as the only way to secure an independent state. He did it courageously, against Yasir Arafat and against the Iran-backed Islamist opposition, Hamas. But the events of the last few years have frustrated Abbas's policy.
After the Palestinian leader agreed with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on the principles of a final-status agreement -- including the thorny issues of Jerusalem and refugees -- Olmert was forced to resign in the face of corruption accusations (he was later acquitted). After Benjamin Netanyahu succeeded Olmert, he froze settlement expansion in the West Bank for 10 months and accepted the principle of a two-state solution. But the conditions he imposed on the resumption of negotiations made these talk impossible. These conditions, like recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, were never imposed on any Arab country that negotiated with Israel, including Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
Abbas's statehood bid can be a game-changer if the American and Israeli governments respond prudently. Or it can be another missed opportunity -- and a potentially disastrous one at that -- if they respond punitively to a remarkable Palestinian achievement at the U.N. General Assembly. Each stakeholder in this conflict will have to decide very soon on which side of history they stand.
Israel clearly has to be brought to the table.
State of Confusion - By Ephraim Sneh | Foreign Policy
The Israel-Hamas war has refocused international attention on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and increased the stakes surrounding U.S. President Barack Obama's handling of the Palestinian bid for recognition at the United Nations as a non-member state. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas intends to submit that bid on November 29th -- the 65th anniversary of the U.N. resolution to partition the territory of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.
Add to these factors Abbas's remarkable interview on Israeli television earlier this month. "We will not go back to terrorism and violence," he said. "We will only operate through diplomacy and through peaceful means." Abbas then made a surprising concession on the refugee issue that has long plagued Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, noting that while he is a refugee from Safed, he would like to visit but not live there. "Palestine for me is the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital," he explained. "The West Bank and Gaza is Palestine. Everything else is Israel." Just days before this interview, in Ramallah, Abbas confirmed to a small group of former Israeli generals, including me, that he will ask the Israeli prime minister to restart direct peace negotiations immediately after U.N. recognition.
If, however, the U.S. Congress follows through with its threat to cut financial support to the Palestinian Authority as part of a series of punitive measures for Abbas's campaign at the United Nations, it would be a shot not in the foot but in the liver -- Israel's. If the PA collapses economically and Palestinian security forces have to stop their operations because of budget constraints, the struggle against terror in the West Bank will suffer dramatically. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will then have to increase their presence in the West Bank at the expense of other areas in the region, generating more unnecessary friction with the population in the territory. The fruitful cooperation between the IDF and Palestinian security forces -- trained and organized by Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton's team -- will collapse, reversing the most impressive American achievement on the ground in recent years. The near-total cessation of terrorist activity in the West Bank in the last four years is a result of this cooperation. Without it, more Israelis will be killed. And Israel's friends in Congress must remember this.
For 20 years, Abbas led the Palestinian camp that strongly opposed terrorism and favored a negotiated agreement with Israel as the only way to secure an independent state. He did it courageously, against Yasir Arafat and against the Iran-backed Islamist opposition, Hamas. But the events of the last few years have frustrated Abbas's policy.
After the Palestinian leader agreed with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on the principles of a final-status agreement -- including the thorny issues of Jerusalem and refugees -- Olmert was forced to resign in the face of corruption accusations (he was later acquitted). After Benjamin Netanyahu succeeded Olmert, he froze settlement expansion in the West Bank for 10 months and accepted the principle of a two-state solution. But the conditions he imposed on the resumption of negotiations made these talk impossible. These conditions, like recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, were never imposed on any Arab country that negotiated with Israel, including Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.
Abbas's statehood bid can be a game-changer if the American and Israeli governments respond prudently. Or it can be another missed opportunity -- and a potentially disastrous one at that -- if they respond punitively to a remarkable Palestinian achievement at the U.N. General Assembly. Each stakeholder in this conflict will have to decide very soon on which side of history they stand.
