Commentary Magazine..
20 April '14..
With the deadline approaching for the end of the agreed upon negotiating period between Israel and the Palestinian Authority under Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace initiative, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas continues to raise the stakes in the standoff. Abbas has demonstrated repeatedly that he has no interest in making the sort of symbolic concessions about ending the conflict and recognizing the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn even in return for Palestinian sovereignty and almost all of the territory he has been demanding. But the fact that he has no intention of ever signing a peace deal under almost any conceivable circumstances hasn’t stopped him from continuing to pressure both the U.S. and Israel to ante up more concessions in order to keep him at the negotiating table.
That would mean more releases of terrorist murderers by Israel and settlement freezes with little hope that Abbas will ever reciprocate by abandoning demands for a “right of return” that signify the Palestinians are ready to end their century-long war on Zionism. The latest instance of this effort is the report that Abbas is planning not only to return to the United Nations for a pyrrhic pursuit of international recognition but also is thinking about formally dissolving the PA and ending its security cooperation with Israel. In theory, this would present an enormous challenge to the Israelis. They have no appetite for directly administering the West Bank, which is, contrary to the constant talk about Israeli “occupation,” under the rule of the PA. At the same time, they also benefit from cooperation with Abbas’s large security forces to help keep the peace in the area and stop terrorism.
But in spite of these problems this is a bluff Israel should call. As much as there is good reason to worry about would happen if the PA did disappear, Abbas and his corrupt Fatah administration have far more to lose from such a decision than even the Israelis.
Israel benefits from not having to be involved in the lives of most West Bank Arabs in numerous ways, even though the autonomy granted the PA has not saved the Jewish state from being labeled an oppressive occupier of the region. Just as important is the way cooperation with PA forces has helped made the task of the Israel Defense Forces easier. Yet Abbas knows he is the net winner of this exchange.
First, as ruler of the West Bank, he has dictatorial powers over the economy and the media of the area that have profited his family and that of his Fatah Party in ways that both enrich and empower them. No PA means no revenue and the end of its viselike grip on the area. Anyone who expects the venal Fatah leadership would ever make such a choice has learned nothing from the history of the last 20 years during which their reign of terror and corruption has blighted Palestinian life.
Even more important, security cooperation with Israel is a two-way street. As much as Israel benefits from it, Abbas knows that without the security blanket his relationship with the IDF provides him, his personal safety cannot be assured. Without Israeli protection, can Abbas sleep at night without worrying about a coup from Hamas that would repeat the events of 2006 in which the Islamists seized Gaza from him? No. The dissolution of the PA doesn’t just mean countless headaches and a messy transition for Israel. It means the virtual end of Fatah as the ruler of the West Bank.
Even if Abbas didn’t wind up dead without Israeli protection, an underground Fatah would be forced into a competition with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in which it would effectively be transformed into an entity that not even the Obama administration could recognize. That means the end of the PA push for independence as well as Abbas’s status as the putative president of Palestine (albeit one serving in the 10th year of a four-year term of office).
Israel’s government can and should ignore this latest Palestinian threat. But Americans who are not as besotted with this fool’s errand of a process as Kerry should draw some conclusions from these threats. If Abbas wants peace, he can have it as Israel’s repeated willingness to negotiate a two-state solution has made clear. But if he wants to find new excuses not to talk, he should be ignored.
Link: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/04/20/abbass-latest-bluff-shouldnt-scare-israel/
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