For Abbas, Good News and Bad News

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary..
26 June '13..

There’s both good news and bad news for Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas. The good news is that Secretary of State John Kerry is heading back to the Middle East determined to pursue what virtually no one else believes is an opportunity to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians. This is good for Abbas because it gives him a chance to play the reluctant prima donna who needs to be bribed to return to peace talks. Even if he never sits down at the table or, as is even more likely, doesn’t stay long if he ever does, Abbas will be able to extract concessions from Israel in order to satisfy Kerry’s hubristic desire to attempt a feat that better men and women than he failed to accomplish.

The bad news? It’s that Secretary of State John Kerry is headed back to the Middle East determined to pursue what virtually no one else believes is an opportunity to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Kerry’s insistence on paying more than the usual lip service to peace negotiations puts Abbas in exactly the position that he has been striving to avoid since fleeing the table after former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered him virtually everything he wanted including statehood and a share of Jerusalem. Abbas doesn’t want to act in a manner that would place the blame for the lack of peace where it belongs (on himself). But he also can’t afford to be trapped into a process that will allow his Hamas and Islamic Jihad rivals to portray him as being willing to accept the legitimacy of Israel. So while Kerry may think he’s being very clever in wheedling concessions out of Netanyahu in order to get Abbas to talk, it is just as likely that, as has happened often in the past, the attempt to push the Palestinians into an agreement will probably do more to create instability than it will bring the region closer to peace.

As Haaretz notes, Abbas is trying to thread the needle when it comes to balancing his desire to avoid being made to appear the obstacle to peace with his equally ardent desire to avoid negotiating with Israel. Thus, he may be softening some of the preconditions he has sought to obtain in advance of talks that would deliver Israeli concessions without the Palestinians giving anything in return. But, as the Israelis already know, the last thing Abbas is likely to do is to keep talking even if he does agree to sit down with Kerry and Netanyahu.

A Palestinian Democracy Portrait - 2013

Rick Richman..
Commentary/Contentions..
16 January '13..

Today Mahmoud Abbas begins the ninth year of his four-year term, having originally taken office on January 15, 2005, after a quickie election held a few weeks after Yasir Arafat died in the ninth year of his own four-year term. As Daled Amos notes, “it’s nice work if you can get it.”

Palestinian democracy has been a bit of a disappointment: each of the peace-partner presidents were offered a state on virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza, with a capital in Jerusalem, and each of them walked away. Each time, the Palestinian public not only did not protest their president’s rejection of “the long overdue Palestinian state”; they did not even demand another presidential election when the presidential terms expired. Like his predecessor, Abbas will end up serving as president longer after his term expired than when he was legally in office.

Rubin: 200 Words - How Obama Destroyed Any "Peace Process" And Sabotaged Himself in the Middle East

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
08 June '11

http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2011/06/200-words-how-obama-destroyed-peace.html

1. Obama demands freeze on all Israeli construction in existing settlements, undoing 16 years of U.S. and Palestinian Authority (PA) acceptance of that policy. PA makes that its basic demand and won't talk. No sanctions by Obama against PA. No talks.

2. Israel calls bluff and freezes; PA won't talk. Obama demands freeze extended to Jerusalem. Israel complies. PA still won't talk. Freeze expires and PA won't talk unless new freeze. No sanctions by Obama against PA. No talks

3. Obama calls for 1967 borders with swaps. His plan: Israel turns over the entire West Bank, then they talk about the swaps! PA makes that their basic demand and won't talk. (You can fill in the next two sentences).

4. PA makes merger deal with Hamas, antisemitic, anti-American, terrorist group that advocates genocide; expels Christians from the Gaza Strip; teaches children to be suicide bombers; rejects the peace process; and is client of Iran, Syria, and Muslim Brotherhood. (You can fill in the next two sentences).

5. PA forces Obama to veto unilateral independence demand at the UN making US "more unpopular" in Arab and Muslim world, destroying what has been just about his highest foreign policy priority. (You can fill in the next two sentences).

This article is published on PajamasMedia.


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Palestinians To Israel: Instead Of A Peace Summit, How About We "Escalate Our Struggle" Instead?

Omri
Mere Rhetoric
03 January '10

The awesome thing is that the two statements came out on the exact same day, a nicelypointed illustration of the differences between Israel and its partner in peace. Netanyahu proposed a reinvigorated peace summit in Egypt, and promptly got his answer:

The secular Fatah movement led by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Thursday vowed to step up its struggle against the Israeli occupation with demonstrations and diplomacy. "Our programme emphasises the importance of a two-track approach, with the first being the escalation of the popular struggle to resist occupation," the movement said in a statement. The group said it would model the struggle on the weekly demonstrations in two West Bank towns, Bilin and Nilin, where residents hurl rocks and protest against the expansion of Israel's controversial separation barrier. Fatah, which marks the 45th anniversary of the start of its armed struggle on Friday, also vowed to "increase movement on the international level to pursue Israel, to isolate it and to force it to answer to international law."

The really elegant part is how they bundled together (a) threats of Palestinian violence and (b) international efforts to delegitimize Israeli self-defense in the face of Palestinian violence ("to isolate it and to force it to answer to international law"). Only Israel's Arab enemies could be soconfidently brazen about crowing that they'll attack Israeli civilians and then whine about Israeli retaliation.

(Read full post)

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