Morning clouds

The cloud bank above the horizon looked ominous. In another clime it would spell rain, but here and at this time of the year it was bound to dissipate without issue. However, the red glow below the clouds, the harbinger of approaching dawn left no room for speculation or doubt, the sun would rise!

Although I’d noticed the clouds and sunrise my mind was elsewhere yesterday morning when I walked past the field and headed for the path by the new citrus grove.

It was just before dawn and this morning like every morning the path I had taken for my constitutional walk followed the same familiar route. My thoughts however had veered off at a tangent. Our prime minister had just returned from Washington and everyone from all-seeing analysts to run-of-the-mill concerned citizens is asking the same question. Has Bibi changed?

On Sunday Channel 10 TV political correspondent Ravid Drucker exhumed old video footage showing Binyamin Netanyahu proclaiming there was no Palestinian partner for peace. These clips placed in juxtaposition to the prime minister facing Mahmoud Abbas in Washington this week declaring, " President Abbas you are my partner for peace," seem to indicate that maybe there is a change.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman hurried to dispel any illusions.

Speaking at a conference of his ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, Lieberman said a complete peace agreement that included an end to the conflict and Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state was unattainable, even with significant concessions and territorial compromise.
Peace was impossible, "not next year and not for the next generation", Lieberman said.

"In order to achieve a practical agreement we must think of new solutions to old problems, " said Netanyahu. "I am willing to reach a compromise with our neighbours, while protecting our security interests," … "In the past, Israel has proved itself willing to make concessions for peace. However, this time it is crucial to learn from our mistakes and think creatively."

Veteran peace activist and former foreign minister Yossi Beilin is probably the most unlikely person to concur with Avigdor Lieberman. Yet Dr. Beilin thinks a complete peace settlement now is beyond our reach. Despite all the positive proclamations he thinks Prime Minister Netanyahu is nowhere near attaining a peace agreement along the lines of the Clinton parameters or the Geneva Initiative.. Beilin doubts if Netanyahu is prepared to make the compromises required for a peace accord.” Likewise I’m not sure he's prepared for an interim agreement, but to me it seems more practical than futile talks about security, the environment, water and the Jewish character of the State of Israel. That's why I propose trying to reach an interim agreement now.

Der Spiegel correspondent Juliane von Mittelstaedt doesn’t think Netanyahu has changed, “It's the world around him that has changed. And since he is a pragmatic type, his right-leaning, religious-nationalistic government is the most peace-loving one since the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Notwithstanding the heated rhetoric of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu's government shows restraint in its use of the military. It has reduced the number of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank and, in doing so, breathed new life into the Palestinian economy.

Indeed, Netanyahu is the first Israeli prime minister who -- despite massive protests from the right -- has succeeded in openly pushing through a halt to settlement construction at a time when no parallel negotiations were being conducted with the Palestinians. It might very well be that Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert spoke out more enthusiastically in support of peace, but the fact is that they never put a stop to settlement construction.”

Ms. von Mittelstaedt omitted to mention that in bringing about a relaxation of the checkpoints and roadblocks as well as implementing the construction freeze Netanyahu’s “peace-loving” government didn’t exactly act of its own volition, free will and on its own initiative. Still she constrains her enthusiasm a bit and correctly observes, “Nevertheless, Netanyahu is still Netanyahu, and no one can be sure what kind of Palestinian state he really envisions when he talks of a two-state solution. He wants peace and security for Israel -- he's not interested in anything more. Would he support the division of Jerusalem and the clearing of dozens of settlements? It seems hard to imagine.”

Christian Science Monitor correspondent Joshua Mitnick reporting from Ramallah tries to assess how Palestinians view this latest round of peace talks.

Mitnick refers to a recent poll conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Public Opinion, which claims that only one in three Palestinians support the current negotiations. He says, “Though the 17-year-old peace process has yielded trappings of self-rule amid Israel's military occupation, Palestinians have largely lost hope that summits such as last week's Washington summit can deliver on their ultimate goal of Palestinian statehood.

While a majority oppose the armed uprising Hamas has been calling for, pervasive apathy and distrust here highlight the more intangible barriers that Israeli and Palestinian leaders alike must overcome – in addition to final status issues such as Jerusalem, borders, and refugees.”

The Jerusalem Post’s deputy managing editor Caroline Glick is not happy with the new Netanyahu. She quotes a recent public opinion poll referred to by Raviv Drucker in his report for TV Channel 10. According to the opinion poll, conducted by Channel 10 and not by one of the professional polling bodies, two thirds of the respondents(Israelis) didn’t think Mahmoud Abbas was serious about making peace with Israel.

Glick admits that Drucker thinks the results may have been influenced by the Palestinian terror attack that occurred just before the opening of the Washington talks. However, she explains, “Drucker implied that the public is driven by its emotions. But what the results actually show is that the public is driven by reason.”

Gauging public opinion is not an exact science. Opinion polls at the best are one day events. The next day the fickle public will change its mind much as it changes its socks and underwear.

Taxi drivers are said to be reliable weathervanes regarding the national mood. For some reason none of the pollsters use them.

Caroline Glick concludes, “The most distressing aspect of Netanyahu’s enthusiastic participation in a process the Israeli public rationally opposes is that it is him doing it. With Netanyahu now joining the ranks of those who attack Israel’s defenders as enemies of peace and claim that defending the country is antithetical to peace, who is left to defend us? “

Middle East affaires analyst Adel Al Toraifi reviewing the failed efforts to reach a peace accord for the London based Saudi owned newspaper Asharq Alawsat made an unusually frank observation, “The Palestinians were wrong to miss the opportunity to establish the state promised by the Clinton plan, but the Palestinians’ biggest error was their failure for sixty years to build state institutions that could make the Palestinian state a reality today.”

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is well aware of this failing. He knows that under the British Mandate the Jewish population developed its own “state-in-the-making institutions.” On Monday Fayyad speaking at a press conference in Ramallah presented the second phase of his plan to create institutions for a Palestinian state within one year.
He said that his government was planning to create a reality on the ground that would be hard to ignore.
According to the new plan the Palestinian government would focus on imposing law and order, increasing accountability and combating corruption.
“In the second year of its plan, the government is seeking to stress national preparedness for the establishment of the State of Palestine,” Fayyad said.

A number of Israeli journalists, notable among them Akiva Eldar argue that the talks will lead nowhere unless both sides are prepared to “give and take” more than they have done so far. Netanyahu has a long way to go before he reaches the point where his predecessor Ehud Olmert made his final offer to Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinian Authority president needs to move beyond that same point to bridge the gap between the sides. Eldar says, “ President Barack Obama must spend his remaining political capital so that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can submit to Netanyahu and Abbas a document resembling the one her husband presented to Arafat and Ehud Barak a decade ago.”

Like many observers Eldar identifies a relatively new alignment. “It's clear already that the renewal of negotiations has intensified the conflict between Iran and centrist Arab leaders. The verbal blows that Tehran and its allies in Beirut and Gaza are trading with Cairo and Ramallah emphasise the link between the peace process and the Iranian front.”

Eldar believes this is Netanyahu’s chance to bring Iran into his equation: land for security. “Netanyahu constantly declares that it is Iran that poses an existential threat to Israel. If he is willing to concede part of the homeland at the risk of his father's reproach (historian Professor Benzion Netanyahu), why not go for broke? Why settle for security arrangements with a nascent demilitarised Palestinian state when you could wrest concessions to protect Israel from Iran?”

Columnist Aluf Benn (Haaretz) also mentions the Iranian equation, “In the end, the talks are less about Israel and a future Palestinian state, and more about hammering out an Arab-Israeli axis to counter Teheran that could, in a worst-case scenario, support Israeli military action against Iran. Netanyahu knows very well that, in the end, everyone -- both Israelis and Palestinians -- will lose if they can't reach a solution. At a time when American support is crumbling, Netanyahu ‘fears Israel's growing international isolation,’ “

Marwan Muasher a former Jordanian foreign minister who later served as Jordan’s first ambassador to Israel, is a firm advocate of a regional approach. However his proposal is more of a recycled version of the Arab Peace Initiative.

He outlined his thoughts in an article entitled “Only a regional approach can bring Middle East peace,” that appeared this week in the Financial Times.

Muasher claims, “A bilateral peace deal is no longer attractive to either side. Israel would find it difficult to stomach the painful concessions necessary to win peace with only some Palestinians –Gaza, run by Hamas isn’t involved – while the Palestinians need cover from the wider Arab world to sell tough choices to their own people.

Finally, and worst of all, a two-state solution will no longer work. Despite serious efforts to build a Palestinian state, this option effectively disappeared as Israeli settlers spread throughout the West Bank.

Given this trio of deficiencies, the bilateral approach alone should be abandoned. Instead, a comprehensive accord between Israel and all Arab countries should be pursued. This could build on the terms laid out in the Arab Peace Initiative, adopted during an Arab League meeting in Beirut in 2002. This offered Israel both normalised relations with the Arab world and security guarantees, in exchange for agreements over borders and the problem of refugees. A further strength of the plan was that it offered regional cover for both sides.

Such a move would change the entire approach to negotiations. Instead of relying on preassure to cajole Israelis and Palestinians to act, a regional initiative allows both sides to find a settlement that serves their national interests. It also obliges Arabs to be responsible for pressing Hamas and Hezbollah. The US could still be responsible for collecting the so-called “end-game” deposits. These hypothetical pledges from all parties could be deposited with Washington, and committed to only if others are willing to do the same. Saudi Arabia, Syria, the Palestinians, and Israel will need to concede contentious points to get what they ultimately want.

Citing his governing coalition, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, is likely to resist a regional agreement. But the Israeli public will find it hard to turn down. It offers peace with the entire Arab world, resolves the issues of Hamas and Hezbollah, and rids Iran of any excuse to repeat its heated rhetoric against Israel. It can also solve the refugee matter while avoiding a major influx of Palestinians. In other words, it tackles all of the average Israeli’s concerns.

While it ought to be difficult for other parties to say no to a regional deal capable of solving these long-term issues, there is clearly still the potential for failure. But not acting carries greater risk. Although a two-state solution is increasingly unlikely, the alternative – a one-state solution, where the growing population of Palestinians demand to become full citizens of Israel – is much more widely problematic for both sides.

The conditions for bilateral settlement do not currently exist. Renewed talks between Israelis and Palestinians are unlikely to change this, no matter how much the Obama administration hopes they might. Delaying difficult decisions today in hope of better opportunities tomorrow will only make it harder to end the conflict. But a regional solution is both possible and desirable as a way forward. “

Columnist Thomas Friedman personally encouraged King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to make an initiative before the 2002 Beirut summit and has been a vocal supporter since. Shortly before the Beirut Declaration was to be readopted by the Arab League in 2007, he wrote in The New York Times that: “What the moribund Israeli-Palestinian talks need most today is an emotional breakthrough. Another Arab declaration, just reaffirming the Abdullah initiative, won’t cut it. If King Abdullah wants to lead – and he has the integrity and credibility to do so – he needs to fly from Riyadh to Jerusalem and deliver the offer personally to the Israeli people.”

About the same time the Israeli Consul General in New York commented as follows:

"Look, the Saudi idea has a lot of positive elements in it, which is why we have never dismissed it at face value.... Quite the contrary, we said we will endorse and enter a dialogue with the Saudis or anyone else -- indeed in the entire Arab world -- if they are serious on the normalisation issue. The thing is, that life in the Middle East has taught us to be extremely sceptical and extremely wary of these kind of declarations until they are actually delivered in the Arabic language."

In May last year, Al-Quds al-Arabi, the London-based Arabic language daily, reported that in response to a request from President Barack Obama the Arab League is currently in the process of revising the initiative in an effort to encourage Israel to agree to it. The new revisions include a demilitarisation of the future Palestinian state as well as a forfeiture of the Palestinian right of return to Israel proper. According to the revisions, a portion of the refugees would be relocated to the future Palestinian state, and the rest would be naturalized in other Arab countries.

If there truly is a revised version of the Arab Peace Initiative this is the opportune time to present it.

In the meantime Israelis and Palestinians weary of hearing the same well-worn platitudes go about their daily business clinging to more tangible things.

The men in suits will meet and meet again to discuss plans that will probably dissipate like the morning clouds.

Beni 9^th of September, 2010.