The way forward

Some people can't start the day without a caffeine booster. No matter whether it's percolated, machine extracted or simply "instant," that habitual morning kick-start is part of the daily routine. Facing that first waking hour without a coffee lift-off is inconceivable,

At times of strife when coffee was unavailable or too expensive people turned to roasted chicory as a substitute. In fact it's still used in some coffee blends. I'm told that roasted acorns, yams and a variety of grains have been used as coffee substitutes. It seems that even the deception was better than the perceived coffee deprivation.

For the purpose of this week's letter I've chosen to liken coffee to peace.

If it's unattainable now we could make do with a substitute.

A concerned almost despairing lead article published last week in The Economist summed up the Israeli-Palestinian impasse as follows:

"Never say never, when it comes to the prospect of peace in the Middle East. Yet even the most straw-clutching of optimists must wonder whether the Israelis and Palestinians will ever agree to live side by side in two secure and sovereign states." Furthermore when the U.S. administration announced that the latest direct talks, stalled since September, would not resume, Israelis and Palestinians almost sighed with relief.

The paper's damage assessment reads like an insurance report-

"It is a blow all around. For Barack Obama it is a bitter failure. When he came into office, he was hopeful that he could orchestrate a peace treaty before the end of his first term. For the Palestinians the prospect of a real state now looks bleaker than ever. Among the Israelis the feeling is more mixed. Hawks, perhaps a majority, think fortress Israel is pretty strong just now and that concessions are therefore unnecessary. Doves think the Jewish state will never be safe unless the Palestinians have the satisfaction of a state of their own. For outsiders, who have been striving for decades to put those twin states in place, there is no obvious plan B, no easy way out of the impasse.

Already voices in Israeli and American circles, especially Republican ones, are holding Mr Obama primarily responsible for what has gone wrong. It is widely argued that he was foolish, even reckless, to make the talks contingent on a freeze of building or expanding Jewish settlements on the West Bank, the heartland of any future Palestinian state. That is unfair. Mr Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, were right to put down a marker. Any peace deal will require the removal of settlements from a future Palestinian state. Each new building therefore makes it harder for that deal to be done. Besides, the settlements are plainly illegal under international law. The Palestinians and Americans were right to insist that, as a minimal token of intent, Israel must stop expanding or building them if talks are to progress. By refusing to do so, the main blame for the impasse rests with Binyamin Netanyahu."

The German conservative paper - Die Welt disagrees:

"It was a tactical mistake to present the settlement issue as the main problem in the conflict. From the beginning it was unrealistic to believe that the right-wing coalition in Israel would agree to a moratorium in the long term. … It became clear to the Americans that a 90-day construction freeze would not do much to change the basic problems.... Neither Netanyahu nor Abbas have given the impression that they are serious about peace."…..

Quoting Ron Pundak, an Israeli political scientist who helped hatch the Oslo peace accords of 1993 The Christian Science Monitor also criticises President Obama "The choice of engaging on settlements was a mistake. The focus should not be the process [of peace talks] but the substance,''

Ron Pundak says the focus on procedure over the final issues was an effort by US Peace Envoy George Mitchell to reapply his playbook from the peace process in Northern Ireland to the Middle East.

"He put the [Northern Ireland] process on a slow pressure cooker to bring the sides together. He tried to repeat the experience, which didn't work,'' says Pundak, who believes the US needs to publish its own peace principles and convene new negotiations.

Die Welt emphasises another aspect of our ongoing conflict:

"In recent years it has become fashionable to declare (the Middle East conflict) as the mother of all crises in the Muslim world. However the WikiLeaks dispatches have revealed this to be a huge exaggeration. The Arab states are not worried about Palestine but about the Iranian threat …

It would be better if the Palestinian conflict could be ended. However, if the peace partners are not prepared to do this, then there are more important problems that the US should be devoting its energies to."

In a piece he wrote for the New York Times a very disgruntled Tom Friedman came to a similar conclusion:

" At a time of nearly 10 percent unemployment in America, we have the Israelis and the Palestinians sitting over there with their arms folded, waiting for more U.S. assurances or money to persuade them to do what is manifestly in their own interest: negotiate a two-state deal. Shame on them, and shame on us. You can’t want peace more than the parties themselves, and that is exactly where America is today. The people running Israel and Palestine have other priorities. It is time we left them alone to pursue them — and to live with the consequences. "

BBC Middle East bureau editor Paul Danahar observing the same scene wondered if we can afford to be complacent. "Is time running out for peace?" he asked

It seems the BBC has an inexhaustible stock of observers, analysts, officials and local politicians who prefer to remain nameless when they are interviewed.

I'm sure they exist and their anonymity should be respected. Danahar quotes "a senior Israeli politician.": "At the end of the day, the choice is between this coalition[government] and peace. Not the 'peace process'. They can live with the peace process, they like the peace process."

"The Palestinians too want Netanyahu to dump the right-wingers and offer the centrist party, Kadima, a role in the government."

However Netanyahu prefers the present intractable coalition government. It's easier to govern with a bevy of dissimilar junior partners than having to share power with a much larger Kadima party.

In summing up the peace process Danahar makes it easy to understand why we are so apathetic. "The peace process has been going on now since October 1991, nearly 20 years.

The issues are not new, the likely look of a final deal is not new, not even the people that are discussing the issues are new.

The peace process has been going a long time

They all know each other, greet like old friends, crack jokes. Then sit down and argue. "

Another German newspaper quoted by Der Spiegel the center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"Obama had his chance in the Middle East and it is hardly likely he will be given another one during the remaining two years of his term.... The Israelis know now that they have nothing to fear from him…. The Palestinians on the other hand have learnt that they cannot trust him.... Now, an escalation can be expected. This conflict cannot simply be frozen, it requires constant new movement."

It's tempting to argue that the new movement will be another "Intifada."

At the present time it doesn't seem likely that there will be an Intifada-like outbreak of violence. The Palestinian economy is doing well. Another flare-up will achieve little and be mainly counterproductive. Furthermore, the much maligned security fence containing a large part of Judea and Samaria/ West Bank provides effective protection against would be suicide bombers.

The Palestinians are now left with grave doubts that the US will ever be able to broker a final peace settlement if it cannot even persuade Israel to temporarily freeze settlements. There are indications that they could now push ahead with their Plan B, a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state.

In fact Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas approached a number of countries hoping to garner support for such a unilateral declaration.

Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay responded positively and it's likely that other countries will follow suit.

Not all Palestinian leaders agree that it's wise to appeal for recognition at this stage.

In an interview given to Israel TV Channel 2, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said, "The Palestinian people are not interested in another unilateral declaration of statehood. We want a state of Palestine, not a unilateral declaration of statehood," Fayyad explained that he did not see how a unilateral declaration of statehood would assist the Palestinian cause.
A 1988 declaration of statehood has now garnered the recognition of more than 100 countries worldwide, many of which maintain embassies and representative offices in PA territory, though the UN itself stopped short of upgrading the observer status first granted to the PLO in 1975.
The Palestinian situation is compounded by its territorial division. The Gaza Strip functions as a separate entity. At present there's no sign of a rapprochement between the two Palestinian territories. As a result, there is no unified Palestinian Authority that can claim to constitute a viable, independent government capable of ruling the entire Palestinian people. As for a West Bank entity without Gaza, its borders have not been defined – there were no “1967 borders,” just the armistice lines of 1949 – and the status of east Jerusalem and of the settlement blocs have not been resolved.

Referring to this matter a lead article in the Jerusalem Post pointed out that, "Palestinian entitlement to the West Bank, as detailed in UN Security Council resolution 242, is contingent upon a negotiated agreement with Israel."
At this juncture it's pertinent to mention that many, if not most of the settlers in Judea ,Samaria and their supporters consider the Palestinian Entity irrelevant, a title without a territory. They believe that Judea, Samaria and maybe Gaza too are part of the God-given birthright of the Jewish people.

They claim this irrevocable deed is not negotiable in any future trade-off with the Palestinians. I can't estimate the numerical strength of this sector. It has been suggested that some of them are more inclined to agree to a compromise

If and when the Palestinian leaders manage to dispense with preconditions for negotiations with Israel and an Israeli government makes a concerted effort to reach a mutually agreed compromise, both sides will have to confront their intractable sectors. The Palestinian Authority will have to find a way of accommodating Hamas- Gaza and the Israeli government will need to persuade the settlers and their supporters to agree to a territorial compromise.
US negotiator George Mitchell will probable restart the shuttle between Jerusalem and Ramallah without achieving much.

"The international community would do well to encourage Israel and Palestine to establish a secret ongoing back channel between them," advises Michael Herzog in an article he published in the Daily Telegraph. Herzog is not exactly a neutral observer. A retired IDF Brigadier General he is presently a Senior Visiting Fellow at BICOM (a pro-Israel British lobby group)

and an International Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has participated in all of Israel's negotiations with the Palestinians and Arabs since 1993.

"Back channel diplomacy," says Herzog, "is a well established tool in international relations, regularly employed by governments and leaders. By its very nature, it is conducted under the radar screen, away from the public eye. This allows for open, informal and deniable communications on sensitive issues. It can bypass or supplement existing official front channels and generate an open dialogue between parties, in which they explore ideas and express views at variance with their declared policies.

Israeli leaders have always used back channels to communicate with counterparts, most importantly in unfriendly or rival political entities, or in states with whom Israel did not have diplomatic relations. These back channels have facilitated dialogue at various times with the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and others.

Credible back channels proved especially effective in the case of Israeli – Arab peace negotiations. In fact, they helped conclude all of Israel's peace agreements, with Egypt, Jordan and the PLO. In the case of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the core issues separating the parties are so sensitive ideologically and domestically, that sometimes the very discussion of any of them could become a problem. For example, during the Annapolis process in 2007-8, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert was faced with an ultimatum by the biggest Orthodox party, Shas, to avoid negotiations on the issue of Jerusalem or risk the toppling of his coalition. A back channel could help overcome such obstacles and off-set preconditions designed to satisfy domestic public opinion.

Secret unofficial negotiations paved the way to the Oslo Accords, and all subsequent Israeli-Palestinian agreements. In 1998, for example, approximately 90 percent of the Wye River Agreement was concluded in many months of secret negotiations, before convening the Wye Summit and finalisng the deal. In contrast, the unsuccessful Camp David Summit in 2000 was convened before then existing back channels could significantly narrow the gaps between the parties. The results are well known to all of us.

In the current Israeli-Palestinian peace process some secret meetings have taken place, but no ongoing channel was established to discuss the core issues. This is due to a total lack of trust between the leaderships; the ensuing Palestinian desire to turn from direct, bilateral talks to indirect ones, where the U.S. will play an active role; and the fact that some of the back channel negotiators designated by one party are not trusted by the other.

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process is at a critical moment of "make or break." For a "make", the parties will have to engage directly on all core issues. Notwithstanding American-led proximity talks, the best way for them to do so - perhaps the only way - is through a back channel.

While suggestions are being flown like test balloons I might as well mention Martin Indyk's proposal to find a way out of the Middle Eastern morass.

Indyk a former US ambassador to Israel who is currently the director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, and convener of the Saban Forum, outlined his proposal in The Financial Times - "To jump-start new negotiations, why not have Israel declare that it recognises the Arab state of Palestine, with equal rights for all its citizens, and have the PLO declare that it recognises the Jewish state of Israel, with equal rights for all its citizens? Both could then announce they are entering into state-to-state negotiations to define the border between them. The Arab states could welcome Israel’s recognition of the Arab state of Palestine and take their own steps of recognition of the Jewish state of Israel. These dramatic steps could turbo-charge the negotiations by giving each side something fundamental that they both demand – mutual recognition of their national aspirations.

Finally, the parties should commit to reaching an agreement on borders by September 2011 so that the state of Palestine can be seated when the UN General Assembly next meets.

Have a good weekend

Beni 16^th of December, 2010.