On Palestine and Barrack Obama

Ira Sharkansky
Shark Blog
29 January '10

Here is something that President Obama and his advisers should consider before spending any more of their time nudging Israeli and Palestinian leaders to negotiate a peace.

The details are not entirely clear, but reinforce the larger story of corruption in high places of the Palestine Authority, the lack of popular confidence in the Authority among Palestinians, and the likelihood that Hamas would take over the West Bank if Mahmoud Abbas and his people were not propped up by Israel, Jordan, and the United States.

The article resembles what I heard from a lecturer at a Palestinian university who visited me at the Hebrew University. The lecturer's biography featured numerous consulting activities with Palestinian companies and public authorities that had been financed by European and North American governments. When I probed the details and asked if any of the consulting had produced improvements in administration, the answer was negative. My visitor confirmed my impression that a great deal of foreign aid given to Palestine does nothing but provide employment for a few Palestinians. The article in the Jerusalem Post indicates that a fair amount of the aid ends up in the overseas bank accounts of Palestinian officials. It is more public relations for the donors than anything that helps to develop the Authority. "Is the Authority a serious entity?" I asked my visitor. The answer again was negative.

Other news includes revelations from ranking Palestinians of what they claim Ehud Olmert offered close to the end of his service as prime minister, and what the Palestinians rejected. The acceptance of one thousand refugees from 1948 was not enough to justify a response. Neither was what Olmert offered with respect to transferring neighborhoods of Jerusalem to Palestine, and other territorial swaps. The Palestinians were not willing to accept Israel's control of Maale Adumim, a suburb of Jerusalem where 30,000 Jews have made their homes.

We cannot be sure about the above details, insofar as disinformation is as much a part of Israel-Palestine relationships as it is of other political feelers that may be preparing the road for serious negotiations, or preparing the way to avoid negotiations. However, they fit the image of an Authority that is more comic opera, or Greek tragedy, than serious entity.

The best guess is that Palestinians are willing to turn the clock back to 1967, 1948, or 1947--depending on who is talking--but not to engage in their share of concessions in order to end the dispute.

So what should Israel do? And what should be the posture of the Obama administration?

Nothing is the answer appropriate to both questions.

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