Israel Palestine: Peacemaking is hard between unequal adversaries

( in Palm Beach Post)

Ghassan Michel Rubeiz

April 18, 20014

West Palm Beach

 

Nine months of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have failed. Each side took steps away from diplomacy. Israel reneged on the release of Palestinian prisoners.  The PA unilaterally applied to join UN agencies.  Israel announced plans to expand settlements in the occupied territories.  Palestinians refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish State. Israel suspended the reimbursement of Palestinian tax money to the PA. Palestinians feel betrayed.

Even in Israel the occupation policy is criticized. An April 15 Haaretz editorial offers sobering words : The Defense Minister’s green light to appropriate land in the West Bank places him in the extreme right and shatters Israelis’ hopes for resolving the conflict with the Palestinians. http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.585694

As Washington will probably rescue the talks without changing  strategy the prospects for a comprehensive settlement in the near future are slim. The underlying cause of diplomatic failure is not shortage of time or broken promises; the root cause is power asymmetry between the protagonists. Israel has never been as strong, prosperous and diplomatically indulged. In contrast, the Palestinians have never been as demoralized, stressed and divided. Unchallenged power permits Israel to dictate peace, and there is so much abuse Palestinians can take.

Steps toward peace have been taken in the past but only when Israel felt the threat of collective Arab action. The 1979 Camp David Accord was negotiated in the aftermath of the 1973 war, the only war in which Arab’s collective power seriously endangered Israel. Washington’s military support of Israel enabled Tel-Aviv to win this war. But Egyptians and Syrians then shocked Israel by launching a surprise attack which cost lives and sobered generals on both sides.

Similarly, the 1993 Oslo framework for peace between Israel and the PLO was negotiated after the first Intifada ( awakening in Arabic) . In 1987 the West Bank and Gaza erupted in a peaceful revolt against the Israeli occupation.  The Oslo Accord was followed by a peace treaty between Israel and Jordan in 1994. The intifada was well received in the Arab world and the wider international community. Israel took notice of the emergence of an empowered Palestinian national movement. The Oslo plan was facilitated by European mediation, but Israel paid attention to peace when it witness impressive Palestinian self determination. The Oslo agreement was derailed by unfortunate events; the Jordan treaty has survived.

Fast forward two decades, the landscape of power in the region is different today. The Arab states are overwhelmed with domestic problems. The Arab Spring has marginalized the Palestinian question and morphed into fratricide between the secular and the religious.

And in Israel the trend is the reverse: the rise of God politics and the ascendance of settlers.   Supported by the military, six hundred thousand tough-minded Israelis now live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The settlers are anti Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Islamic.

Hyper nationalism fuels power consciousness in peace negotiations. For a fundamentalist- of any religion- compromise is equivalent to betrayal.

The Palestinians are forced to seek peace through international diplomacy. They should not be blamed for joining the United Nations to advance their cause for statehood. What else can they do when their top leaders are not serving them, their occupier denies the occupation, their region is in turmoil and Washington is constantly pressured by the pro- Israel lobby?

By joining the UN the Palestinians might strengthen a peaceful strategy for achieving their national independence. A growing international movement against Israel’s occupation is slowly taking roots in Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and elsewhere.

In their New York Times Sunday Review (April 11)essay Are Iran and Israel trading Places?, Abbas Milani and Israel Waismel-Manor highlight the significance of changing world sentiments toward the occupation: From academic boycotts to calls for divestment on American university campuses to the unwillingness of more and more European financial institutions to invest in or partner with Israeli companies and banks that operate in the West Bank, the “B.D.S.” movement ( Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) is gaining momentum.  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/opinion/sunday/are-iran-and-israel-trading-places.html?_r=0

At some point in the future world opinion will bring Israel back to the peace table; if only Palestinians could adamantly stick to peaceful resistance.

When the two parties reach a degree of parity in status peace will come. Today, the occupied is desperate to end the occupation but the occupier is eager to expand it.