Coming to Washington on the heels of a thorny, sour visit by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas seemed determined today to show that he and his Palestinian Authority are not a problem but a part of the solution.
Abbas briefed a small group of Middle East policy shapers at a Washington area hotel. Attending were analysts at Washington think tanks, a couple of representatives of Arab-American groups and representatives of three pro-Israel organizations, including Americans for Peace Now.
At his meeting with President Obama tomorrow, Abbas will submit a Palestinian proposal for relaunching peace negotiations, he said. The proposal is based on the internationally sponsored Road Map and on the Arab League's Peace Initiative, he said. It attempts to "merge" the two and activate them. Abbas said that he shared his proposal with some dozen Arab governments, including Syria's government, and all were supportive. The proposal seems to echo President Obama's wish to engage Arab governments to support efforts to generate progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Abbas said he does not have pre-conditions for negotiations with the Netanyahu government, but noted that there is little to talk about if Netanyahu refuses to accept the two-state vision and to stop West Bank settlement activity. "What will we negotiate on," he asked. After all, Israel and the PA already cooperate on security and on economic matters. Abbas emphasized that even in the absence of political negotiations, he is determined to continue the PA's security cooperation with Israel in the West Bank, which he said is successful and serves both Israel's interests and the Palestinians'.
On the Hamas-Fatah dialogue, Abbas said that his proposal to Hamas is the formation of a national unity government of individuals who will comply with the international Quartet's conditions. The government as government will not have to comply, neither will Hamas as a movement, but all individual members of the cabinet will, he said. Hamas, according to the Palestinian president, is not willing to commit to such a formula.
Abbas said that he is determined to convene the Fatah general conference in Bethlehem this summer, despite the objections of many Fatah members in the diaspora to holding the conference under Israeli occupation. The meeting is supposed to introduce important reforms.
Abbas said that in negotiations with Israel, he has no intention to demand the right of return for all five million Palestinian refugees. He said he knows that this is a non-starter, that he will be accused of trying to demolish the state of Israel. "We don't want to destroy the state of Israel," he said. The refugee problem will be resolved through negotiations, he said. He pointed out that in his talks with former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, there was agreement in principle on the way in which the problem would be resolved, but the two were in disagreement about the details.
Abbas's aides handed out photocopies of the ads they published several months ago in the Israeli press with a Hebrew translation of the Arab League's Peace Initiative. Tomorrow, he said, the Washington Post will run a similar ad in English. "It is a precious initiative," he said.
APN representatives in recent weeks met with Prime Minister Netanyahu, with special Middle East envoy George Mitchell, and are in ongoing close contact with senior Mideast policy makers at the National Security Council, at the State Department and at other branches of the Obama administration. APN is also in close contact with members of Congress and their staffers who handle U.S. Mideast policy.
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I strongly support the Peace Now positions on all Israeli/Palestinian issues. Thomas C. Hubka
Could someone explain to me why everybody ignores the only already existing detailed and just peace proposal, i.e. the Geneva agreement ? (the only reason I see is that politicians hate successful agreements they cannot take credit for personally)
Peter,
You are right to point to the Geneva Initiative. It's a tremendous contribution to a peaceful future for Israel.
I remember escorting Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo to a series of meetings in Washington just after they made their work public. One of their major talking points was that the Geneva Initiative showed the parameters of a final status agreement, but that there was no reason why it had to be the only formula. The effort, now, has to be to get Israel and the PLO to a place where they can reach a similar agreement.
I am in full support of the "Roadmap to Peace" initiative. I hope our president does not offer Natanyahu a Carte Blanche to do as he wishes. Israel's survival depends on peace with the Palestinians and surrounding Arab states. Now is the time to act. At the same time, The United States must recognize Israel's precarious security position espacially with Iran, Hamas and Hisbolah, and needs to assure Israel that it would come to Israel's defense should Israel need it. Stop new settlement. Accept a two-states solution.
Did Abbas and the PA publish the ads for the peace initiative in the Palestinian press as well?
If no, then why not?
Regarding the now 4-5 million families and descendants of the 3/4ths of the 1948 Arab population driven out of their homes in '48-49 and '67, shouldn't the same proportion of them be allowed to return to their former homes as the proportion of Israeli "settlers" who are allowed to remain in occupied East Jerusalem and West Bank?
At what point will you give-away-the-store dreamers here realize that the majority of the Palestinian population still wants to destroy Israel and continues to support violent attacks. Hamas still won't cut a deal -- any deal. So all of this talk about what Israel should do...and how Israel has not done enough...and what Bibi must now give up.....is the argument in reverse. When the Palestinians finally realize that they will not remove Israel and Jews from the Mid-east by force and will agree to live in the same neighborhood and give up the dream of violent jihad...only then will the details of a settlement come to fruition. Until that time....groups like APN and J Street only serve to help the Islamic fundementalist position -- be it unintentional.
Natanyahu is between a rock and a hard place. If he chooses to move on peace, his coalition will fail; if he chooses to equivocate and really concede to the demands of his right wing partners, Israel will become a pariah among the nations of the world. Israeli politicians almost always choose to stay in power at any cost. Natanyahu can do that in two ways. Dance with the partners he brought to the dance, or, taking Israel's best interest to heart, pursue peace with both vigor and care, let his current partners depart in their rage and form a new government with Kadima and Labor. The numbers are there. He could emerge as hero and patriot. Let us hope.
The Roadmap has things backwards. It provides for recognition of the Palestinian state at the end...of an endless process. Israel will find many ways to drag out the process so that it never comes to an end. We need to start off with the Palestinian state. Only then can the final status be negotiated between equals, between two states, one of which is illegally occupied by the other.
I recently read that Abbas indignantly denied that he never said that Israel has a right to exist.
I would appreciate further information on this. Was I misinformed?
My own position is that any meaningful peace would result in two independent states, each of which would have the right to determine who can live in it, that each recognizes the legitimacy of the other, that Isreal removes all settlements outside its territory, and that the Palestinian state stops teaching hatred of Israel and Jews, and eaqch side will be held responsible for any attacks on the other.
I am in favor of a one state solution with equal rights for all. It seems impossible to divide Israel and The Occupied Territories so that everyone walks away from negotiations satisfied. With the two state solution the issue of Jerusalem seems impossible to resolve unless it is deemed an internationally governed territory.
APN,
please respond in detail to the points made in comments numbers 5, 7 and 10.
Thanks
The only way to make Israelis live in Israel (where they belong) and not in Palestine, is to comply with our foreign assistance act of 1961 which denies foreign aid to any government with gross violations of human rights. Just look in the B'Tselem website under Beatings and Abuse, then Testimonies, and see that the abuse suffered by Palestinians at the hands of the IDF and settlers is horrific. Israel should not get any tax- payer money until it vacates the settlements and ends it occupation.
we agree in two state solution , it is the only way to have peace in the middle east and in the world that what we are standing for
Both parts have their resons to support their point of view. Israel has not right to establish any settlement in Cisjordania but, assuming that not all the settlement will be removed. What is the solution that the ANP proposes?
Two states living in peace! Human rights for everyone!
The origin of the problem is that the victors of WWII, especially UK and US punished the palestinians for the sins of the Germans. It would have been politically impossible, but a "fair" solution, would have been to give the Jews land in Germany, and perhaps Poland
but British Prime Minister Balfour had promised Palestine as a homeland for Jews, not thinking,I believe, that this would mean displacing the Arab inhabitants, whose ancesters had lived their for close to 2000 years.
Pre WWII there was some friction between Arabs and Jews, but Jewish settlements were on land freely purchased from Palestinians. Some Palestinians, and others, saw the Jewish immigrants as potential investors in industries that would revitalize the Middle East. But, after the events in Germany, Jewish leaders wanted a secure Jewish state and millions of Arab Palestinians have lived as refugees for close to a century.
I don't know if there is a "solution", but some "public compassion" by Israeli leaders would be appropriate.
Recognition by Arab leaders that they lost the war to elininate Israel and must accept Israel's existence would allow Israel to become an economic power house in the region.
Historically, most states and frontiers have been established by force. Arabs must accept this.
Hi
Is there a posibility that Jewish setelment will live PA teritory?
Why the PA don't delite the law that sentence deth penelty to every person how sale prolerty to a jew?
Martin,
How will you know when that position has been reached by the Arabs unless you test them? If you go by the rhetoric of the fringe you'll never reach a settlement. In Northern Ireland there are still a few dozen republicans who still support armed struggle and don't recognize the existence of Northern Ireland, but they have no popular support.
Jewish settlements in the West Bank have made a Palestinian Country impossible. Let's be real and acknowledge that Palestinians who live in Israel should have equal civil rights, i.e. should be able to travel freely without any checkpoints in the West Bank etc. Sorry - that's the reality - the creation of the Jewish state of Israel devastated and punished the Palestinians already living there. Israelis should acknowldge that in the same way that Americans acknowledged the evil of slavery and the the denial of civil rights to African Americans. One state with diverse faiths and equality and justice for all. If Israel balks at that then it is clear that Israel is practicing apartheid in the West Bank and should be boycotted and shunned the same way South Africa was. Maybe the UN should take over Jerusalem and make this holy city of 3 world religions a heritage city so that the fighting over it can stop once and for all.
It hurts me that the police makers and many who support them in Israel see only their own humanity and treat the Palestinians as the other, the way Jews have often been treated in our history. We are not the only victims of history. The Palestinians are now the victims of the world's reaction the the Holocaust, and it is time we identify with the wrongness of all victimization,and see that we too are in some ways victimizers. We need to protect ourselves, but to broaden the protection tent beyond ourselves. Israel is gradually eroded its moral integrity.
In response to Marita Mayer's post (No. 19) I would quote what William Quandt, a leading historian on U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East, said on January 16, 2008 about the views of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an interview he had with the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Quandt said the following:
"Olmert is kind of intriguing because he's clearly changed his position. He's said things since Annapolis [in November 2007] that would almost make you think he's trying to get Israeli public opinion ready for some fairly major changes. He said "If we miss this chance, it's the end of Israel, as a Jewish state." That's a pretty strong statement. Some people thought it was excessively so. Then, to my astonishment, he said "If we go along with the current path without a peace agreement, the rest of the world is going to see us as an apartheid state." A lot of eyebrows were raised in Israel precisely for that. Those are fairly strong statements in the Israeli context. He's saying "We've got to start thinking long and hard about how we end the conflict with the Palestinians, end the occupation, and significantly pull back to the 1967-modified borders." I give him credit for taking on the concept, which he formerly couldn't, that giving up most of the West Bank is the price Israel has to pay to remain a Jewish state.
"What he hasn't yet been willing to do is say where Jerusalem fits in that. He just lost [Yisrael Beiteinu], a coalition partner today, which has only eleven votes in the Knesset [Israeli parliament]. But Shas, another coalition partner, says if he even mentions Jerusalem, they are going to leave. At that point his cabinet no longer has a majority. He has sixty-seven votes in the Knesset now, but that's premised on him not tackling the Jerusalem issue."
The full text of William Quandt's comments can be seen at the following link:
http://www.cfr.org/publication/15282/quandt.html
In case some people didn't see it, Ori responded to many of these comments at http://peacenowconversation.org/?p=190