Obama's Talk with Mahmoud Abbas: A Recital of U.S. Policy

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
11 May '10

The White House released what it calls a "Readout of the President’s Call with President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority" which summarizes President Barack Obama's telephone conversation with Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas. Let's analyze it.

"The President congratulated President Abbas on the start of Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks."

The U.S. government wants to encourage continued talks and to ensure that nothing should interfere with them continuing. These talks are the administration's main (sole?) "achievement" in foreign policy and woe to he--unless "he" is on the Palestinian side--who jeopardized their continuation.

"He reiterated his strong support for the establishment of an independent, viable Palestinian state living in peace and security with Israel."

Today, in honor of Yom Yerushalayim, a very special video - Jerusalem Day: Reflections by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel

This is the basic stance of U.S. presidents going back at least to the Oslo agreements of 17 years ago: the Palestinians get a state, Israel gets security, both get peace. In many ways, the Obama Administration has not changed the framework of U.S. policy as it was under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. It is the atmospherics that are done quite differently, and often counterproductively.

"The President and President Abbas discussed the need for both parties to negotiate seriously and in good faith, and to move from proximity talks to direct negotiations as soon as possible in order to reach an agreement on permanent status issues."

So the U.S. goal is to get the talks going directly--which is possible--and to obtain a full peace agreement--which isn't. The key question is how much will the Obama administration push in that direction. Will it be satisfied to let the indirect talks go on for many months? I tend to think that the White House isn't going to go all-out for a final-status agreement it knows isn't going to happen. But the effort to make these two transitions--indirect to direct, general talks to negotiations--is going to be the centerpiece of U.S. policy on this issue during the rest of this term.

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The Purpose of the Proximity Talks

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
11 May '10


The newly launched Israeli-Palestinian “proximity talks” have two remarkable features. One is the consensus, even among doves, that the talks have no chance of success. The other is the consensus that the onus for their success rests entirely on Israel.

Regarding the first, here are two of many examples: David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, once an enthusiastic peace-processor, warned last month that “whenever it is all-or-nothing in the Middle East, it is nothing. We should not set ourselves up for failure.” Avi Issacharoff, who covers Palestinian affairs for left-wing Haaretz, published an analysis whose title says it all: “Indirect Mideast peace talks – a highway to failure.”

Today, in honor of Yom Yerushalayim, a very special video - Jerusalem Day: Reflections by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel

Regarding the second, even Barack Obama’s media cheerleader-in-chief, Roger Cohen of the New York Times, noticed the embarrassing imbalance: “Israel will refrain from provocations of the Ramat Shlomo kind (those planned 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem) and will promise to get substantive, on borders above all. Palestinians will promise to, well, show up.”

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The mess of our making

Arlene Kushner
Israel Opinion/Ynet
11 May '10

In honor of Yom Yerushalayim, a very special video - Jerusalem Day: Reflections by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel

The picture is not pretty with regard to the “proximity talks,” and there is cause only for pessimism. We must ask ourselves how we got into this situation — which evolved over decades, with various Israeli governments having made some disastrous mistakes — and how we find our way out.

The first mistake was in 1967, when we acquired control of Judea, Samaria and Gaza and did not annex these areas (although ultimately we placed eastern Jerusalem and the Golan under civil law). The Arabs in Judea and Samaria expected to be sent packing. After all, that is what Jordan did to us in 1949, when they made the areas they acquired Judenrein. But, no, big sports that we were, we said, stay...

Then jump to 1993, when we made the next disastrous mistake in signing on to Oslo, which committed us to negotiating a final status for the Palestinian Arabs living in Judea and Samaria, and Gaza. Actually this was one long series of disastrous mistakes, melded together.

What we did was to concede, in theory, some notion of the right of the Palestinian Arabs to live on part of our land - or to claim part as theirs. We had embraced the "land for peace" concept, which turned out to be a farce.

Incredibly - because they were thought to be the ones who had ultimate influence and could wage peace - the terrorists of the PLO were brought by the Rabin government from Tunis to Jericho and Gaza, and ultimately Ramallah. But “peace” was not their agenda.

As interaction via Oslo progressed, we cut the Arabs slack repeatedly: not actually holding them to their commit¬ments, but sailing along as if they had honored them. The issue of incitement, which is front page news these days, serves as example.

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Fake “Peace” for Israel

P. David Hornik
Frontpagemag.com
11 May '10

In honor of Yom Yerushalayim, a very special video - Jerusalem Day: Reflections by Rabbi Yisrael Ariel


The Israeli-Palestinian “proximity talks” were ostensibly launched this week. U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell is expected to shuttle between Jerusalem and Ramallah, seeking to find a path to “direct” talks whose purported aim would be peace. To say all this is a triumph of hope over experience is a severe understatement.

Many have pointed out why even the “indirect” or proximity talks bear no positive potential, and there is no need to belabor these matters. If Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas couldn’t reach an agreement with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert—who, at least as far as the PA is concerned, bought totally into the “peace” ideology—how would he reach one with current prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who doesn’t? And what about the fact that the Palestinian Arabs between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea are now bifurcated into distinct entities—the Fatah-run PA and Hamas-led Gaza—that are at loggerheads, with Hamas officially shunned by the U.S. as a terrorist organization?

There’s also the matter of the supposedly more moderate PA’s ongoing “incitement”—or, more accurately, its inculcation of a terror-cult centering on the mass murder of Israeli Jews, as heavily documented by Palestinian Media Watch and others. Seemingly the notion of a peace partner for Israel and the notion of an anti-Israeli terror cult are mutually exclusive. The U.S. State Department has praised Abbas for saying he “will work against incitement of any sort” and Netanyahu for purportedly calling off construction for Jews in a Jerusalem neighborhood. As usual, the moral equivalency between terror and building homes is repugnant, and the chances that Abbas could negate seventeen years of PA hate-indoctrination in a few months, even if he tried to, nil.

If, then, the talks are likely to lead nowhere, are they simply unimportant? Unfortunately not—because they sustain the fiction of the PA’s legitimacy despite its murderous ideology, and the fiction of Israel’s supposed need to reduce itself to the death-trap 1967 borders.

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Middle East Peace Talks: What Changed in the Last Two Years?

Jonathan Tobin
Contentions/Commentary
10 May '10

The announcement that the so-called “proximity” talks started up today is, as Noah wrote earlier today, a “victory” of some sort for President Obama because the existence of such talks allows the president to pretend that he is advancing the cause of peace.

However, American friends of Israel might well note the difference between the current negotiations and the last round of (unsuccessful) talks held between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority in 2008. Like the current talks, those negotiations were also strongly backed by the United States, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seemed to sincerely believe that the process started in Annapolis in the fall of 2007 had a reasonable chance of success. The Palestinians proved her wrong. At that time, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered the PA a state in Gaza, the West Bank, and part of Jerusalem and even agreed, to the dismay of most Israelis, to take back some Palestinian refugees into Israel as well as to share sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem. But the answer from the moderate Mahmoud Abbas and his likeable Prime Minister Salam Fayyad was no different from that given to Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton by Yasser Arafat when they offered a similar package in 2000 and 2001: no!

But then, at least, the parties were speaking directly to each other. Not passing messages to each other via intermediaries as bored middle-school students do. And as much as the United States made it very clear to the Israelis that America wanted them to make even more concessions to the Arabs than ever before (a wish that was readily granted by Olmert), the United States did not offer the Palestinians a veto over the existence of the talks. Neither did it take a stand on a critical final-status issue that prejudiced Israel’s negotiating position in such a way as to render any discussions on the matter largely moot.

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The Time for Talk is Over

Daniel Friedman
Sultan Knish
10 May '10

The hard and fast rule is that if the terrorists can't manage to kill you with their bombs, they'll kill you at the negotiating table. If they can't even win the dirtiest war that their most perverse leaders can conceive of, they can still talk you out of a country by promising to make peace once you meet all their demands. And once they realize that they can get more by changing out of their khakis and into a nice Armani suit, and shifting the regularly scheduled bombings to days when the negotiations aren't in session-- then the real killing begins.

And so now right on schedule, the Obama Administration is feverishly looking for ways to get the Israelis and the Fatah terrorists back to the negotiating table to create a Palestinian state. This is the sort of thing that was breaking news back in 1991. Today it's a sad and sick farce being perpetuated not in the name of peace, but in the name of appeasement. The Israeli left has staked its political fortunes on destroying the country. The European left has rediscovered the joys of openly hating Jews. The American left has discovered that with a cultural Muslim at the top, sticking the knife into one of America's closest allies just got a lot easier.

Peace is of course a good thing. Which is why you usually don't have to negotiate it. Most people naturally live at peace with each other. But when you have to spend the better part of a century negotiating peace, clearly one side isn't all that enthusiastic about peace. For the better part of the 20th century and the crumbs of the 21st , Israel's various representatives, pre and post state have been doing their best to negotiate peace. Yet oddly enough, each time war resulted. Today Israel holds a fraction of the land remaining from the Palestine Mandate, but its friendly neighborhood Muslims chorus that it's still too much. If only they had a few more miles here and there. And Jerusalem and the strategic high ground of the Golan Heights, then maybe there would be peace. Maybe. Double maybe.

Israel's critics insist that a Jewish state in the Arab Muslim Middle East is a mistake. Which it of course it is from the Muslim point of view, which insists that there can be no infidel states in the region. But isn't that a working definition of Apartheid? The critics wail over the fate of Hamas blockaded Gaza, but not over that of Islamic blockaded Israel. Not even when the combined Arab Muslim powers of the Middle East did their best to try and push the Jewish refugees from Islam and the Holocaust into the sea.

But since they didn't succeed, as a result the conflict was prolonged. Which is a fancy way of saying, "Those Damned Jews Are Still Around." In 1948, quite a lot were hoping that the matter would be settled once and for all. They were hoping that again in 1967. They were crossing their fingers for it in 1973. Their frustration has reached a boiling point in 2010. And it's not hard to see why. They've armed terrorists and placed them inside Israel's borders. They've encouraged the terrorists to run wild, to kill and bomb. And they made sure to restrain Israel from responding. They've orchestrated phony negotiations in which Israel has turned over land and gotten bodies back in return. And yet still Israel lives.

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Thoughts on the Start of Israeli-Palestinian "Proximity Talks"

Daniel Pipes
10 May '10
Cross-posted from
National Review Online

U.S.Middle East Special Envoy George Mitchell issued a statement confirming that the first round of "proximity talks" began yesterday between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. Here follow some reflections on what Mitchell calls "serious and wide-ranging" discussions and I call a counterproductive but important development:

Counterproductive because not only will these talks fail to achieve any of Mitchell's three goals – "to enable the parties to move to direct negotiations," that "will result in a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," and lead to "a comprehensive peace in the Middle East" – but they render a resolution of the conflict more difficult and more distant.

Important because the "peace process" will drive everything else, even the Iranian nuclear bomb buildup, to the sidelines and it has major implications for everyone involved.

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Observation: Defining “Trust Undermining” Palestinian Action

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
09 May '10

“As both parties know, if either takes significant actions during the proximity talks that we judge would seriously undermine trust, we will respond to hold them accountable and ensure that negotiations continue.”

Statement on Special Envoy George Mitchell's Trip
The State Department
Washington, DC
May 9, 2010
www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/05/141637.htm

What constitutes Palestinian serious "trust undermining?

Just the amorphous "incitement"?

Well, what confidence can Israel have of Palestinian intentions when they continue taking a leading role in:

1. Efforts to keep Israel out of various international bodies such as the OECD.

2. Initiatives to condemn Israel in various international forums.

3. Promoting various economic sanctions against Israel.

4. Supporting and encouraging the harassment of Israeli official on campuses around the world.

And here’s one that the United States itself is guilty in aiding, abetting and encouraging: the absolutely stunning and appalling official Palestinian demand that every Palestinian held by Israel for terror activities – regardless of what they did (e.g. no matter how heinous the crime) or when they did it (including a minute ago) should be set free. That’s “set free”. Not handed over to the PA justice system. Set free. Period.

And the list goes on.

Question: Will the United States consider any of the above “trust undermining” or will President Obama’s and Secretary of State Clinton’s determination to give the Palestinians a passing grade come what may cause them to ignore all of this?

Better question: Will Prime Minister Netanyahu’s team limit its complaints regarding Palestinian behavior to Palestinian incitement and essentially give the Palestinians a free pass for everything else that they do that undermines trust?

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The road to nowhere

Michael Freund
Fundamentally Freund/JPost
05 May '10

On the eve of the anticipated start of so-called proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians, there is a discernible lack of enthusiasm.

The fanfare that usually accompanies the relaunch of Middle East negotiations has been replaced by an atmosphere of apathy, as it seems clear to just about everyone – outside the White House, that is – that little will come of the impending round.

Speaking to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday, Brig.-Gen. Yossi Baidatz, head of IDF Intelligence’s Research Division, said that even before the talks commence, the Palestinians are “already preparing the ground for the failure” of the process.

And dovish Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor was no less gloomy, telling The Jerusalem Post yesterday that the talks “won’t yield results” because the Palestinians are not willing to take “tough decisions.”

Indeed, it says a lot about the state of the peace process that the only tangible outcome certain to emerge is an inevitable boost in US envoy George Mitchell’s frequent-flyer account. This, of course, is entirely the fault of the Palestinians, who have repeatedly rejected the various gestures made by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu over the past 12 months.

Basking in the glow of unprecedented American pressure on the Jewish state, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is in no rush to make progress in difficult bargaining with Israel. He has every reason to wait, knowing full well that when the negotiations stall, the weight of international pressure will come down hard on the decision-makers in Jerusalem and not Ramallah.

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Arabs allow indirect talks

Soccer Dad
02 May '10

In Arabs Back Indirect Talks Between Palestinians - NYTimes.com, Michael Slackman reports:

Arab ministers gathered late Saturday at the offices of the Arab League here at the request of the Palestinian leadership, which sought regional support before agreeing, again, to enter into indirect talks.

But while the Palestinians and the Arab ministers agreed to endorse jump-starting peace talks that have been stalled for more than a year, they did not give ground on the issue of settlements.

We keep hearing how important the issue of Palestine is to the Arab world. The collection of unelected kings and despots who rule these countries are touchingly concerned about the self determination of the Palestinians. Yet if it's so important, why do the Palestinians require "regional support" to participate in "indirect" negotiations with Israel?

This reminds me of a 27 year old observation by Daniel Pipes:

Recognizing the critical role of Arab help has several implications for Middle East politics. First, it means that the PLO has very little of the political power so often ascribed to it. The PLO may appear to shape the policy of most Arab states, but in fact it reflects their wishes. It brings up the rear, echoing and rephrasing the weighted average of Arab sentiments. This suggests that it will moderate only when its Arab patrons want it to; so long as the Arab consensus needs it to reject Israel, the PLO must do so. Aspiring peacemakers in the Middle East must therefore not make settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute contingent on PLO concurrence, for this is to give a veto to the organization least prone to compromise.

If the Palestinian Authority require support (or perhaps permission) to negotiate however gingerly with Israel, maybe it isn't quite so independent as advertised.

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How About a Proximity Speech?

Rick Richman
Contentions/Commentary
25 April '10

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — currently in the 64th month of his 48-month term; unable since 2007 to set foot in half his putative state; rejecting in 2008 an offer of a state from the most pliant prime minister in Israeli history; unwilling throughout 2009 to consider negotiations without a pre-negotiation concession he knew no Israeli government could accept; currently considering a proposal for “proximity talks” (better described as nearby non-talks) to obviate the need to talk to Israelis — will be coming to the White House. He will probably get a better reception than Gordon Brown, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Dalai Lama.

Yesterday Abbas gave a speech that undoubtedly previews the message he will bring:

“Mr. President (Barack Obama) and members of the American administration, since you believe in this (an independent Palestinian state), it is your duty to take steps toward a solution and to impose this solution,” Abbas said in a speech. …

“We’ve asked them (the Obama administration) more than once: ‘Impose a solution’,” Abbas said.

Jerusalem Post editor in chief David Horovitz has a more modest suggestion, writing that Abbas should give a speech comparable to the “two-state” address Netanyahu made last year — one that would indicate a Palestinian acceptance of a Jewish state:

Let Abbas speak in Arabic, to his own people — with his leadership colleagues on hand to publicly support and applaud him — and let him tell them that the Jews, too, have historic rights to Palestine. …

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Abbas Gets a White House Visit

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
25 April '10

Fox News reports:

President Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy wrapped up his latest diplomatic mission Sunday without getting the Palestinians to agree to indirect peace talks with Israel, but there were signs the impasse could be broken soon.George Mitchell said he would return to the region next week, signaling he is making progress.

Palestinian officials said President Mahmoud Abbas plans to consult with Arab countries at the end of the week and could soon be heading to the White House for talks with Obama. Abbas needs to decide whether to engage with Israel, with Mitchell as a go-between, even though Israel has rejected his demands to freeze new construction for Jews in east Jerusalem, the Palestinians’ hoped-for capital.

A senior Palestinian official said Abbas was inclined to agree to the talks, in large part because of personal appeals in recent days from Obama, Mitchell and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing internal Palestinian deliberations.

Wait. Abbas is meeting with Obama at the White House after the multiple snubs to Netanyahu? Yup. And it’s not hard to figure out why. The Obami are rewarding intransigence and bribing Abbas not to embarrass George Mitchell and crew by wrecking the proximity talks. Fox notes that the Obami hve been “trying to coax Abbas back to the table”:

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Peace Plan No. 6

Rick Richman
Contentions/Commentary
08 April '10

Asked about the Washington Post story in which it was reported that the administration is considering its own Middle East peace plan, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley issued a non-denial/denial yesterday, in which the operative words were “at this point”:

I would steer you away from the idea that we are — we’re going to try to, at this point, impose a particular view on the parties … our focus right now is getting them into the proximity talks, into negotiations, and then we’ll see what happens after that. [Emphasis added]

The “peace process” has not suffered from an insufficient number of plans. In the past decade, we have had five of them: (1) the Israeli two-state plan presented at Camp David in July 2000 — rejected by the Palestinians; (2) the Clinton Parameters presented in December 2000 — rejected by the Palestinians; (3) the 2003 Roadmap, calling for the dismantlement of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups as Phase I — ignored by the Palestinians; (4) the 2005 Gaza disengagement, giving the Palestinians a Judenrein Gaza to start their state — which produced a rocket war on Israeli civilians; and (5) the 2007-08 Annapolis Process, a plan for year-long final-status negotiations resulting in still another Israeli offer of a state — rejected by the Palestinians.

Even a casual observer can spot the problem here, and it is not the absence of a plan.