Weekly Commentary: PA PM Abbas and Pres. Peres don't respect Israeli democracy

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
27 August 09

What do PA PM Mahmoud Abbas and Israel President Shimon Peres have in common?

This week Mahmoud Abbas declared that "If Israel fulfills its commitments in line with the Road Map plan, we will be prepared to resume the talks from the point where they ended under the previous government of Ehud Olmert."

Akiva Eldar also revealed this week that President Peres presented to U.S. envoy George Mitchell as well as senior Palestinian officials and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak his own plan to create a sovereign Palestinian state before an agreement is reached over crucial final status issues.

So what do they have in common?

Neither apparently recognizes or appreciates that Israel is a democracy. As a democracy we have periodic elections in which the electorate is given the opportunity to express its will at the ballot box.

And when, as was the case in the last recent elections, an opposition party ends up leading the ruling coalition, this is indicative that the nation has expressed its desire for a change in policies.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered Abbas almost everything but the kitchen sink. But it wasn't enough for Abbas so the talks failed. When the head of the PA asserts that Prime Minister Netanyahu must agree to the concessions Olmert offered, he is really saying that the Israeli voters should be denied their right to impact policy at the ballot box.

And when President Shimon Peres goes over the heads of the democratically elected Government of Israel to propose his own plan to world leaders he is also essentially saying that he has absolutely no respect for the democratic process. Unfortunately, it appears that none of the other international actors has indicated that this behaviour is in any way unacceptable.

Now here is the irony: Their silence doesn't promote the "peace process" - it hurts it because it discourages Palestinian flexibility at the negotiating table.

The message to PA PM Mahmoud Abbas and the rest of the Palestinian negotiating team should be "given the Israeli democratic process, there is no guaranty that the deal you can cut in the future will be as generous as the one you can cut today."

That's a message that promotes progress in negotiations.
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