Cycle of Excuses
Steve Erlanger writes for The New York Times about the difficulties of forging a Palestinian unity government with which one could negotiate:
“This is a moment of very tough choices, with no dominant approach with obvious advantages,” said Gidi Grinstein, president of the Reut Institute, a policy research group in Tel Aviv. “Obama is being pushed to go for a Palestinian national unity government, negotiations and a comprehensive settlement. But it would be a mistake to push the two-state solution toward a moment of truth when it is in a moment of weakness, and when there is both a civil war and a deep constitutional crisis on the Palestinian side.”
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and even some in Israel favor a national unity government that would enable the Palestinian Authority to be seen as at least notionally in charge of the rebuilding in Gaza. But even if the antipathies between Hamas and Fatah, which controls the West Bank, could be overcome, a deal would almost certainly entail early elections that Fatah might very well lose.
The Gaza war has been bad for Fatah, and its popularity is plunging. Hamas is feeling victorious after surviving the Israeli pounding and is unlikely to allow Fatah to restore its presence, even for an election, in an angry Gaza.
This is a pretty neat trick. Israel launches a war in Gaza that’s allegedly supposed to weaken Hamas. Then Israel declares victory, even though the war has in fact strengthened Hamas and weakened Fatah. Then thanks to Fatah’s weakened position, it’s impossible to forge a unity government. But absent a unity government, it’s unreasonable for Israel to negotiate—Q.E.D.! It puts one in a mind of the time when it was impossible with Israel to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority because it was run by a corrupt and incompetent Fatah. No negotiations until political reform! Then when the elections were held, it turned out that the opposition—Hamas—won. And then Israel couldn’t negotiate with Hamas!
Taken in isolation, each of these positions has a patina of reasonableness but the overall pattern is of a government that’s much more interested in finding reasons to forever-forestall negotiations—expanding settlements all the while—than in finding a route to peace.
37 Responses to “Cycle of Excuses”
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January 22nd, 2009 at 10:25 am
Bingo. Please, please submit an op-ed to the Times, Mr. Yglesias.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:27 am
P.S.: And make it clear that you are Jewish in the main text, otherwise you know what will be said about you…
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:37 am
This is really strange, it’s almost as if there are militarists in Israel & Palestine who seek to put off any chance of final status negotiations and seek any situation which will serve to excuse another delay from that. Odd, it is.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:37 am
Not “couldn’t” negotiate; wouldn’t negotiate
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
Truly, it is amazing. It’s as if the Palestinians can never create a government that has any credibility, because they have no resources and no control over their borders, airspace, electricity, etc. I wonder how that situation came to be. If only the Palestinians didn’t have such poor leadership development programs, Israel would surely just peace all over them.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:50 am
Divide and conquer has always been the Israeli approach.
It’s always the same story. The Palestinians, who don’t have a state, are required to achieve the coherence, bureaucratic rationality and unity of purpose and power that characterizes a state before the world can deign to give them a state.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:57 am
I think it’s possible to agree with everyone on this issue, and I do. The Israeli expectation of a stable, “legitimate” unity government is impossible to achieve in large part because of Israeli policies. But their demand for a negotiating partner that’s not dominated by people who will only be satisfied with Israel’s destruction is legitimate–while many Israeli politicians seek Palestine’s destruction, they generally don’t run the government.
I’m increasingly interested in some far-out solution, such as putting a binational Israel-Palestine fully into the EU, where issues of ethnic-religious rights, mobility, sovereignty, and development are either addressed fully or rendered irrelevant.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:16 am
Like that would make a difference.
Don’t forget that a unity government would, by definition, include Hamas, so it’s quite likely that Israel would refuse to negotiate with them anyway.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:17 am
I really don’t get why people can’t see this more clearly; Israel doesn’t want anything to do with a peace process because a peaceful solution is bad for their present interests. Long story short, Israel wants to maintain control of the Jordan headwaters. To do that requires control of the West Bank and Golan Heights, which Israel currently has. But any kind of settlement is going to involve Israel relinquishing control of both. That’s much more worrisome to the Israeli government than rockets lobbed out of Gaza.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:17 am
But their demand for a negotiating partner that’s not dominated by people who will only be satisfied with Israel’s destruction is legitimate–while many Israeli politicians seek Palestine’s destruction, they generally don’t run the government.
Rich in PA, I think the long-running focus on a negotiating partner for the Israelis is somewhat misguided. Israel’s chief issue is, or ought to be, with the entire international community, which is duty-bound to uphold Palestinian rights under international law, and to enforce existing UN Security Council resolutions. This shouldn’t be a negotiation. And no process of negotiation between a wealthy, well-connected and nuclear-armed state and a poor, weak and stateless people is ever likely to produce a sustainable solution. Power being what it is, the weaker party can only get hosed in bilateral negotiations.
The international community should get its act together to do something it should have done decades ago: declare a border to the State of Israel it partially created and recognized in 1947. Once that is done, and we have a definitive international statement on what is Israel, and what is not Israel, we can then get to work on the process of state formation for the Palestinians on the territory that is not-Israel. That will be a challenging job. But the job of defining the territory on which that process will take place needn’t wait on the perpetually struggling parties “negotiating” that outcome.
The international community has allowed itself to be jerked around too long in the matter of Palestine v. Israel. It’s time for us to draw ourselves up, dust off the old internationalist formal wear, take a shot of the old UN moxie, and reassert the dignity, power and legal prerogatives of the global body of nations.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:19 am
Should have said “partially created and recognized in 1947 and 1948.”
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:34 am
Maybe we should let the US Military sort it all out.
With the Brief: “Speak Not to Us of Laws –we carry Swords.
Er.. M16s actually.”
That’s a nice $3 Billion+? a year annuity you have there, Tzipi.
Be a shame if something happened to it.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Re Don Williams
Maybe we should let the US Military sort it all out.
Like the US Military has sorted it out so successfully in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That’s a nice $3 Billion+? a year annuity you have there, Tzipi.
Be a shame if something happened to it
Since Ms. Livni is going to be a backbencher after the upcoming elections, her opinion on the subject is irrelevant.
Re Dan Kervick
I hate to break it to numbnuts Kervick but the State of Israel has internationally recognized borders with Egypt, Lebanon (secept for Sheba Farms), and Jordan. The borders not yet finalized are between Israel and Syria and Israel and the PA. It’s rather hard to define a border between Israel and the PA because the latter considers that there is no border between them.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Under that solution, they’d still hate each other and see each other as permanent adversaries. Israel would still be a prosperous Disneyland and Palestine would still be a dump–and still divided between the West Bank and Gaza, of course. That’s part of why I am thinking more about the ultimate “internationalization” as summarized in my comment above. It has the big advantage of flat-out bribery: who in the Middle East wouldn’t rather be a full-fledged European?
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:12 pm
This is the reason why our uncritical support of Israel has actually wound up hurting Israel: they assume they can do literally anything and they’ll have our support. Unfortunately, I don’t think this reading is incorrect. I’m not sure why politicians feel they can’t condemn shit like this Gaza invasion but still be pro-Israel–didn’t we just get rid of this kind of thinking with Dubya? Just kidding.
Ultimately, our relationship with Israel is kinda like letting your friend drive home drunk instead of taking away his keys because you’re his “friend”. There was a time–let’s say before the First Lebanon War–when Israel had strong leadership and almost always did fight justified wars. But now Israel is led by the likes of Barak, Livni and Netanyahu (almost enough to make you wish Olmert was staying on) and they do shit like Lebanon and Gaza about every other year now. Ultimately, it’s not going to matter much to Israel if they have us in their corner while the rest of the world reviles their human rights record.
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:25 pm
I recently started rereading Catch 22, I see Israel has been at it a little longer though.
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I’m interested in what responsibility, if any, Matthew thinks the Palestinians have for putting forward some entity with the responsibility for, and authority to, negotiate a peace treaty?
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
It almost appears that Israel has given up on a two state solution. Could it be that the blockage and destruction of Gaza was to drive out the Palestinians? Settlements continue to be built in the West Bank. Palestinian parties in Israel are being prevented from participating the the electoral process. As long as there is no unified Palestinian partner to negotiate with, Israel has an excuse not to negotiate. And, their actions seem to be enhancing the stature of Hamas, not diminishing it. If the trend continues, there is little hope for a negotiated settlement. Maybe Israel recognizes this. It seems to be concentrating on maintaining its ties with the US and its subsidies from them. Under these circumstances, who needs peace?
January 22nd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Hi Matt,
I think your commentary overlooks a few key facts.
For starters, billions of dollars in aid were sent directly to Fatah, with the explicit goal of boosting the Palestinian Authority as an effective, reliable government that could outperform Hamas in addressing the dire humanitarian needs of the Palestinians. Fatah failed miserably, and used the money to line its own pockets–the weakness of Fatah is a self-inflicted wound. If it can’t gain the support of its own people, and it can’t withstand the shock of every crisis, then why not turn to other members of the Palestinian polity who reject both the rejectionism of Hamas and the incompetence of Fatah?
Also, keep in mind that the Bush administration decided Hamas could participate in Palestinian elections even though it had not disarmed its militias, in contrast to rules set for elections in Afghanistan and Northern Ireland. The result? The Bush administration not only paved the way for Hamas’s electoral victory, but effectively allowed armed militias to hold sway in Gaza after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal.
Also, I hear time and again that Hamas is the democratically-elected government of Gaza. So, doesn’t that mean Hamas should be held accountable for its actions as an elected government? Why did Hamas spend money on buying and building rockets–which have no military value–instead of using those funds to better the lives of Palestinians?
Lastly, what evidence is there for the meme that Hamas is “more popular than ever”? I keep reading reports that Palestinians are angry that Hamas incited a conflict, with no plan for what they would do next, or how they would advance the cause of Palestinian nationalism.
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:36 pm
David overlooks a few facts.
The US spent their money to Fatah to build up an armed militia that could take down Hamas. Except Hamas was better at that game.
And the obvious reason why Hamas spent its money on military hardware is because it still has to bring attention to the plight of the Palestinians – and only those rockets have done so. And it still has to defend itself against Israeli assaults.
Israel has never desired a two state solution in its entire history. It has gone to great lengths to insure that one can never come into existence. It’s sole desire is to crush the Palestinians will to resist then drive them out into Jordan and elsewhere. Anybody who thinks differently is painfully naive.
January 22nd, 2009 at 8:39 pm
David, I think a key problem here is that everybody’s commentary overlooks a few key facts.
It is quite true that Fatah failed, but Fatah’s problems were not just corruption and incompetence, but also involved Israeli tanks and missiles dropping onto key bits of Palestinian infrastructure and personnel on occasion. Does anyone still recall a minor fracas involving the siege of Yasser Arafat at Ramallah?
The present nostalgia for Fatah as a negotiating partner for Israel does seem a bit surprising considering the history between the two.
I don’t know about Afghanistan, but my memory of the Northern Ireland peace process is that the IRA did in fact not disarm and yet negotiations went ahead anyway.
The Bush administration not only permitted Hamas to run in the elections on the expectation that they would lose, but after Hamas won Bush then fomented a bitter civil war between Fatah and Hamas. Which alone you would think would put the kibosh on talk of Palestinian unity for the foreseeable future.
As for Hamas buying rockets instead of (metaphorical) bread for Palestinians, I would suggest that while ever the Israeli blockade of Gaza was preventing the delivery of bread, rockets may have seemed a reasonable option to people in an unreasonable position. Of course as we have seen you should never fire rockets at people who have bigger and better rockets than you do.
As to how to advance the cause of Palestinian nationalism? I suspect that there are two options, either that the present situation continues unto the nth generation, or that a mutually unsatisfactory solution will be imposed from the outside. Of course the latter would require some true grit from some very brave future US President.
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Are Israel’s duties as an occupying force ever going to be an issue? There is no reason to talk as if there is any kind of parity here. Why should Israel be expected to negotiate fairly when they don’t live up to any of their obligations?
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:45 am
That’s one case where Bush fooled me. I knew Bush was a liar, so I ignored his initial statements of support for Palestinian democracy. But the elections were scheduled, I said to myself, “it looks like this is one of the few cases where Bush actually means what he says.”
And when Hamas won, I said to myself, “Wow, Bush not only meant what he said about democracy, he has pulled it off. The Palestinians, for the first time, have a genuine multi-party democracy. Furthermore, the way the election played out supports Bush’s contention that democracy is good for peace. Hamas didn’t win by promising death to Israel. It won by promising to reduce corruption and to meet the needs of the Palestinian people.”
But a few hours later, I learned that I had, yet again, overestimated the Bush administration. It turned out that what Bush had in mind was a one party democracy, where the voters never kick anyone out of office no matter how corrupt or incompetent the office holder is.
January 24th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
You all have it wrong. The purpose of negotiating is to arrive at a mutually acceptable compromise that each side will stand behind. If one side (Hamas) has clearly said it will accept no compromise on the final goal of the extermination of Israel, what is there to negotiate about? If one side, (the P.A.) does not represent its people, what is the value of a signed piece of paper. The land exchanged for that signiature will be gone. The paper will be too rough for use in the bathroom. And if, as someone suggested, the world just got together, and drew lines on a map, delineating Israeli-Palestinian borders, what will happen when the Palestinians start lobbing rockets again over that world-defined border? THINK!!!people.
January 25th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
This is seriosuly one of the most tragic things that have ever happend to this world, its in the top 10, Israeli forces killed children and women, hamas, still untouch nor weakend nor effected. The war was to damage palestine even more. the palestinian people cant force any goverment when they are being killed everyday, reguardless of gaza, palestinians are killed every day by israeli forces. this occupation is not a occupation it is israeli simply damaging the palestinian people over and over again, sence thier first attacks in the 1940s untill now the israeli people have shown to hate and dislike any palestinian resident. This war is not about hamas or any issues that are govermentaly its simple that the jewish nation “israel” is reciving 100% support from america and thinks it can do what ever it wants. it has killed millions of palestinians in the past 60 years, when will this stop? when Israeli pathatic goverment is put to a stop and is chagered for genoside and chaged for all the horrible war crimes they have done.
January 25th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Thier will be no peace, this war is not something small this war has been going on for ages we all know this, the only thing that could stop this is simple, one side has to win, and i think its very clear that side is America, yes this great and at the same time scary country that we live in, America gives billions a year to the israeli nation over seas, so while we struggle to build the dallar and make it stronger we are here supporting the israeli nations wishs to murder and kill, thier will be no peace untill this issue is solved from the starting point, if america did not jump in and favor israel from the beging this war would have ended a long time ago.
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