Rolling the stone shut

Yesterday I participated in a day trip to Jerusalem organised by our local Judaism study circle. Under the expert guidance of eminent archeologist Gaby Barkai, we visited a number of ancient burial caves.
The tour focussed on trends, customs and changing Jewish burial practices.
Spending the whole day in and around cave-crypts examining sarcophagi and ossuaries was almost as cheerless as Israel’s present predicament.
The similarity doesn’t end here. A Hebrew expression which translates as "rolling the stone shut" means to close finally and permanently with no room for optimism, aptly describes the current situation regarding the peace process. . It stems from the use of a large round stone to seal and open the entrance to ancient burial caves.
When Prime Minister Netanyahu and his entourage flew to Washington this week his hundred minute meeting with President Obama yielded little more than empty rhetoric. As expected, Netanyahu's address to the United Jewish Communities General Assembly, which preceded his meeting in the White House, went well. The meeting with the President was less impressive, and despite efforts by the Prime Minister’s bureau to describe the meeting in positive terms the brief tête-à-tête was low-profile without the customary press conference or even a photo-opportunity.
On the way home Netanyahu received a warmer reception when he met President Sarkozy in Paris.
Gauging public opinion in Israel is speculative, more guesswork than anything else. Public opinion polls indicate trends at a particular time. Furthermore the public is fickle by nature, so the results of yesterday’s poll are often old news. By and large the news media are more interested in shaping the nation’s views than evaluating what the public thinks.
“Taxi drivers” asserts a knowledgeable friend,” are the most reliable public mood-meters.” Since I rarely commute by cab I’m left with the opinion makers who insist they know what the public is thinking.
I’ll hazard a guess and say that the public is weary of all the incessant wheeling and dealing over a peace process which more than ever before appears to be more unattainable “ more distant than a fading star.”
“Let’s face it” said Z at our breakfast table parliament “some problems have no solution.” I’ve mentioned the “parliament” on a number of occasions. It is probably the most opinionated, unqualified forum of know-alls in the Middle East. Since I’m one of them I feel free to malign this august body. We meet every morning at breakfast in the factory and manage to mete out judgment on everything from football teams to heads of state.
“You’re wrong,” responded Z2 (I refer to the parliamentarians by initial letters to protect their identities) “it takes longer to find a solution, maybe centuries.”
“Both Israeli and the Palestinian leaders appear to be satisfied with an impasse.” Claims Israeli economist Sever Plocker. To support this statement he quotes from Thomas L. Friedman’s article published this week in the New York Times
“Regional and global leaders are uninterested in peace and are not pursuing peace. They are chasing ‘peace kites’ and are interested in the mirage of a ‘peace process.’ An empty process that is maintained through inertia..”
Further on Friedman maintains,“The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has become a bad play. It is obvious that all the parties are just acting out the same old scenes, with the same old tired clichés – and that no one believes any of it anymore.”
His conclusion is quite devastating .
“If the status quo is this tolerable for the parties, then I say, let them enjoy it. I just don’t want to subsidize it or anesthetize it anymore. We need to fix America. If and when they get serious, they’ll find us. And when they do, we should put a detailed U.S. plan for a two-state solution, with borders, on the table. Let’s fight about something big.”
It’s reasonable to suppose that Tom Friedman is echoing what President Obama thinks but won’t say in public
Plocker follows on from Friedman and claims there’s no point in holding negotiations for the sake of negotiations. We are heading nowhere. “The leaders are scared to lead and the people who voted for them have become used to living their lives in limbo, waiting for a miracle, for someone to apply pressure, for next year, for the next prime minister, for the next president, or for the next elections. The ‘process,’ which marked its sixteenth anniversary in September, was created to that end. “
“Let’s take our time, say foot-dragging fans on both sides. We shouldn’t rush, they explain earnestly; we must not force an end to this. There’s a time and a place for everything. We can’t finish off the conflict in a hurry (that is, within 16 years.) “
“The Israelis are hoping that with the passage of time, the force of habit will win out. The Palestinians are hoping that with the passage of time, the force of demography will win out. And this requires time, much more time, until the solution will present itself.”
Veteran Israeli politician Moshe Arens blames the Palestinians for the impasse and predicts that nothing will happen “till they get their act together.”
Last week Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced he may not stand for re-election next January. The announcement barely aroused a ripple of comment from both politicians and political observers.
A few months ago the Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad presented the international community with a detailed plan for building up Palestinian Authority institutions and set a timetable of up to two years for its implementation. Senior Israeli officials said Fayyad's plan initially met with positive reaction in Jerusalem for its emphasis on institution-building and making security services more efficient.
However, some Israeli officials claim that alongside the clauses reported in the media - which are similar to elements of Netanyahu's call for "economic peace" between Israel and the Palestinians - Fayyad's plan also contains a classified, unreleased portion stipulating a unilateral declaration of independence.
The plan specifies that at the end of a designated period for bolstering national institutions the PA, in conjunction with the Arab League, would file a "claim of sovereignty" to the UN Security Council and General Assembly over the borders of June 4, 1967.
Of course this unilateral declaration of independence wont be endorsed by the present Israeli government.
In a recent interview he gave to the Christian Science Monitor Salam Fayyad said "If we don't do anything, people will criticize us, and if we come up with something that's proactive, we'll also have critics. Is this realistic? We'll never know unless we try."
It seems Fayyad is faced with the Sisyphean task of getting his plan rolling. Unless he wins the support of the Arab states he will find the rolling all uphill.
In the meantime the “peace process” appears to be safely buried behind a huge rolling stone.


Have a good weekend


Beni 13th of |November, 2009.
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