Israeli-Palestinian Peace by December 31st?
January 14th, 2008 at 12:23am Mark Noonan
Absolutely impossible, so say a united punditry. And, if you wish, you can pick out of this joint press conference between President Bush and Palestnian President Abbas all you need to “prove” that peace can’t be done - Abbas calls for the barrier wall to be torn down, for Palestinians to move freely and for Jerusalem to be the capital of a Palestinian State. These are three things inconsistent with the survival of the State of Israel - ergo, peace is impossible.
Or is it?
As it turns out, I have a friend who is a Palestinian - a Christian Palestinian, but a Palestinian none the less. Not too long ago, we were discussing the Israel-Palestinian issue and my friend told me something I’d never heard before - from what he understands from friends/relations still living in Palestine, Arafat was ready to make a deal with the Israelis, but was pressed to the Second Intifada by various outside forces; a sort of, “start fighting the Isrealis, or we’ll find someone who will”, with the implicit threat of Arafat dead. Verification? No, I have none - but it always struck me as odd that in 2000 Arafat was offered nearly the whole ball of wax and yet turned down the deal. This was irrational, and I put it down to the irrational behaviour one could expect from a terrorist leader like Arafat. But perhaps I was mistaken…
Things are not always exactly as they seem - as Winston Churchill once put it, dictators ride to and fro on the backs of tigers; whatever might have been the original motivation of any tyrant’s action, by the time it all comes to the end the motivation might be the exact opposite. Certainly, the dream of an Islamist tyrant would be a victorious Islamic army marching to Tel Aviv, slaughtering every Jew it could lay its hands on - but the reality of at least some Islamist tyrants might be a realisation that such a march isn’t going to happen any time soon, and might as well make the best of a poor situation. Perhaps Arafat was just bloody minded - perhaps he was a rat trapped by events; who knows? Abbas might be bloody minded, and he might be a rat trapped by events - but if there is a chance we can work a deal with him and by propping him up de-facto destroy Hamas, then we will have done a good thing for the people of Palestine, the people of Israel and the people of the world.
Abbas will never set up the offices of a Palestinian government in Jerusalem - its just never going to happen. At best, the Israelis might allow an eastern suburb of Jersualem to be incorporated into the city and then ceded to the Palestinians as their “Jerusalem” capital with some sort of quasi-authority over the Temple Mount - but Jerusalem will in all essentials remain the undivided capital of the State of Israel. But in making his statements, he could just be making the expected, pro-forma statement of the Palestinian leadership, meanwhile he’s down to brass tacks off camera and asking how much foreign and military aid he can expect to help him both buy support amongst the Palestinian people, and crush the life out of Hamas (with, perhaps, some selective help from the Israelis in the form of taking out Hamas leadership via airstrikes).
At all events, I’m not sure that President Bush is being unrealistic here - if there is an ounce of sense and courage in Abbas, then peace (at least between Abbas’ people and Israel) is possible. There still might be some fight left in Hamas, but locked into an impoverished enclave, cut off from sources of funding and pounded by Israeli airpower in preparation for Abbas’ troops to return to Gaza, Hamas might feel that Allah ain’t really on their side…
Entry Filed under: Foreign Affairs, President Bush, War on Terror
7 Comments
1. Retired Spook | January 14th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
I said in a comment within the last week or so that there would NEVER, EVER be peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians until one side had crushed the other. I would like nothing better than to be wrong.
2. liberalT | January 14th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
“I’m not sure that President Bush is being unrealistic here”
i would love it it if this were true. However it is so improbable that if Bush manages to someone how bring a lasting peace to the middle east I will withdrawl all my previous comments and conclude that Bush is the genius that Mark thinks he is. Of course it is not enough just to get “a treaty” - there have been many of those in the past but all of them have been so flawed that they quickly fall apart…
3. Joe | January 14th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
From the lack of interest (and comments) to this post, I’m guessing most people agree with Spook. There may never EVER be peace there. Great for W to try, but why wait until there is only a year left to actually make that effort? He has no sway with only a year left in his term. Why not try this at the BEGINNING of his term?
Spook, two agreements in one day! How about that??? :)
4. Mark Noonan | January 14th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
liberalT,
I would hardly expect that - but, you’re right, a mere paper treaty would not be much…but I can think of some things which might eventually bring about peace:
1. Money. Bags of it - and not to the PA government, but directly to the Palestinian people. Might cost a billion or two - but that, honestly, is chump change for us. We’ve got to give the people of the West Bank and Gaza a concrete signal that better times are coming. Yes, this is buying peace in a certain sense - but whatever stops the bombs, right?
2. Inserting American Special Forces into Abbas’ retinue to give him and his associates some assurance that if they make peace, they’ll live to see the ink dry.
3. Taking aside some of Abbas’ best men and carefully training them in special forces warfare in order to drop them on Hamas in Gaza at the right moment.
4. Israel gives up a lot of the West Bank settlements - but not all (gotta give the Israeli nationalists something, right). In return for Israel keeping parts of the West Bank, Palestinians are compensated at least symbolically with some land from Israel proper.
My sense of confidence is built on the fact that if we can keep the leadership of Iraq alive and pacify Anbar, we can pretty much do whatever we set our minds to.
5. js | January 15th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Did you know that there was never any country called Palestine? Did you know that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people?
The ideas that the West Bank and Gaza are occupied Palestinian land, and that the Palestinian people are fighting for their land, have been accepted by most of the governments of the world and by most of the media in the world. But if you read on, you will see that these two claims are the biggest lies ever deliberately perpetrated on humanity.
Check out any map of the Middle East and see for yourself. You will find Palestine listed as a region as it always has been, but definitely not a country. We can locate the Mojave Desert on the map, but we still do not recognize it as our 51st state, let alone a country. Similarly, the region of Siberia is a region not a state. Or the Sahara is a region not a state, etc. Neither is Palestine a state. It never was a country, just a region.
http://www. masada2000 .org/been-had.html
I dont know how you could have a friend that is Palestinian Mark. No such people exist.
6. js | January 15th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I just wonder how Bush and the Arab world will go around the idea that Israel itself, and no other, has total rights and authority to determine the borders of Isreal-vs-Arab states, after Arab states have attacked Israel and declaired thier intent to destroy Israel so many times.
Bush is just being Bush, big plans, but very few ideas here.
7. FmrMarine | January 15th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Check these out.
The second link page down to a down loadable booklet called - the big lie .
get the facts.
http://www.terrorismawareness.org/what-really-happened/
http://www.frontpagemag.com/