On August 20, the Obama Administration announced that it will reconvene under its auspices direct Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations beginning on September 2.
While a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace is in everyone's interest, there are profound reasons to be skeptical about the likelihood of success for the following reasons (not necessarily listed in order of importance):
1. No more photo-ops, please. There is a desperate need for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East. Negotiations can be a key to that. But the last thing Palestinians and Israelis need are phony negotiations. They only breed disillusionment, resentment, and cynicism about the possibility of Israeli-Palestinian peace based on human rights and justice. So rather than enter into negotiations for the sake of negotiations, the Obama Administration should exert real political pressure on Israel by cutting off military aid to once and for all get it to commit to dismantling its regime of occupation and apartheid against Palestinians, and make clear that the framework for all negotiations will be based on international law, human rights, and UN resolutions. As long as it fails to do so, U.S. civil society must keep up the pressure through campaigns of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) to change these dynamics and by joining up with the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
2. The United States is not evenhanded. For decades, the United States has arrogated the role of convening Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. To convince the world that it is suitable to play this role, the United States declares that it is evenhanded, when it in fact arms Israel to the teeth and is aware that Israel will employ these U.S. weapons to conduct its human rights abuses of and apartheid policies toward Palestinians. Under international law, an outside party that provides weapons to a party in an armed conflict violates laws of neutrality. The United States is scheduled to provide Israel with $30 billion in weapons from 2009-2018 (part and parcel of a broader strategy to further militarize the region with an additional $60 billion in weapons sales to Gulf States). The United States cannot credibly broker Israeli-Palestinian peace while bankrolling Israel's military machine and simultaneously ignoring Israel's human rights violations.
3. Israeli colonization of Palestinian land continues. In one of its most abject policy failures, the Obama Administration has contented itself with resuming direct negotiations without securing an Israeli freeze on the colonization of Palestinian land, despite spending an initial nine months trying to do so. Israeli colonization of Palestinian land, including the expansion of settlements, the eviction of Palestinians from their homes, the building of the Apartheid Wall, continues apace. Previous failed rounds of negotiations have demonstrated that Israel utilizes negotiations as a fig leaf to actually increase its pace of colonization of Palestinian land, and there is every reason to believe that it will continue to do so. Meanwhile, Israel's ongoing colonization of Palestinian land creates difficult-to-reverse "facts on the ground" that only make a two-state solution--purportedly the end game of the negotiations--less achievable.
4. Negotiations supersede accountability. The Obama Administration, building on decades of previous U.S. efforts to shield Israel from accountability, has worked actively to scuttle international attempts to hold Israel accountable for its previous violations of international law and human rights, and its commission of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. Both after the Goldstone Report and Israel's attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, the United States used its leverage at the United Nations to prevent Israel from being held accountable, arguing that accountability undermines prospects for peace negotiations. On the contrary, for peace negotiations to be successful, Israel must be held accountable for its actions and shown that it will pay a price for its illegal policies. Otherwise, it has no reason to alter its behavior.
5. No terms of reference. In his August 20 press briefing, Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell confirmed that the United States is not insisting on any guiding principles for the negotiations, or "terms of references" in diplomatic parlance, and that these terms will be worked out by the parties themselves. In other words, Israel will be free to marshal its overwhelming power to refuse to negotiate on the basis of human rights, international law, and UN resolutions, the only viable basis for a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace. Instead, Israel--backed by the United States--will negotiate based on its own exclusive terms of reference, namely what is in Israel's "security interests." As in previous failed rounds of negotiations, Palestinian rights will not enter into the conversation.
6. No timeline. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton believes that negotiations "could" be concluded within a year. Of course, successful Israeli-Palestinian negotiations could be wrapped up within in a year. In contrast to "peace process industry" pundits, there is nothing intrinsically complex or complicated about resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if Israel were to negotiate in good faith by declaring an end to its policies of occupation and apartheid against Palestinians. After all, South Africa concluded negotiations to end apartheid within a few months once the decision had been made to transition to democracy. However, Israel has given no indication whatsoever that it is prepared to alter its policies toward Palestinians, setting the stage for prolonged and fruitless negotiations.
7. Can a leopard change its spots? A recently-leaked video from 2001 shows current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrogantly bragging that "I actually stopped the Oslo Accord [shorthand for the failed 1993-2000 Israeli-Palestinian "peace process']." (The Institute for Middle East Understanding has provided a useful translation and transcript of the video here.) His current Foreign Minister, Avigdor Leiberman, lives in an illegal Israeli colony built on stolen Palestinian land and has openly declared his support for ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. With this negotiating team in place, how can Palestinians expect even a bare modicum of fairness and justice to emerge from these negotiations?
8. Increased U.S. military aid to and cooperation with Israel make it less likely to negotiate in good faith. In July, Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro told the Brookings Institution that "I'm proud to say that as a result of this commitment [to Israel's security], our security relationship with Israel is broader, deeper, and more intense than ever before." Indeed, it is. President Obama has requested record-breaking levels of military aid to Israel, and stepped up joint U.S.-Israeli military projects, such as the missile defense system "Iron Dome." This increased level of military aid only makes Israel more reliant on military might in its attempt to subdue Palestinians into submission, and less likely to negotiate with them fairly as equals.
9. All the parties are not at the negotiating table. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell, who previously brokered a peace agreement in Northern Ireland, when discussing its success often referred to the necessity of having all the parties to the conflict around the negotiating table. What held true though for negotiations in Northern Ireland, apparently doesn't apply to Israel/Palestine since Hamas, which currently governs the Israeli-occupied and -besieged Gaza Strip and legitimately won the 2006 legislative elections held at the behest of the United States, was not invited to participate in the negotiations. If, by some long-shot, an agreement were to emerge from these negotiations, it is difficult to see how it would be implemented without having Hamas as part of the discussions.
10. Negotiations help Israel mitigate its growing international isolation. Last, but certainly not least, images of Israeli and Palestinian political leaders negotiating presents the world with a false sense of normalcy and allows Israel the opportunity to state that it is making a legitimate effort to achieve peace. With Israel as the party pressing for direct negotiations, it is quite transparent that its desire for these talks has more to do with easing its growing international isolation and defusing the energy from the international movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS), rather than with genuinely negotiating a just and lasting peace. This point brings the analysis full circle: advocates for changing U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality should not be lulled into complacency by the resumption of negotiations, but need to keep up the pressure with campaigns of BDS to change the dynamics that will eventually lead to the possibility of a just and lasting peace.
Sign a petition to the Obama Administration, which states that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations must be based on human rights, international law, and UN resolutions to be successful by clicking here.
Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition of more than 325 organizations working to change U.S. policy to support human rights, international law, and equality.
Obama does like to set deadlines: Iraq pullout, Afghanistan pullout, and according to his Secretary of State (and likely Vice-President in 2012 election cycle) Hillary Clinton – one year to settle final status issues
israel has always been intransigent and is even worse than usual now with that dangerous Lieberman as Foreign Minister there and Netanyahu has never wanted anything other than to build more settlements and steal more Palestinian land
Only if Obama/Clinton and US military leadership are ready to finally chain the helldog israel to a tree and actually control that rogue state will any real progress be made
The fact that BYahoo has been so determined to see this talks take place is all the proof necessary to know that they mean no good for the Palestinians.
…previous U.S. efforts to shield Israel from accountability…
Why don’t you specify the arguments within the U.S. on the Israeli relationship?
1989 NINETY-FOUR SENATORS SIGN LETTER OF ENDORSEMENT SENATE SUPPORT FOR SHAMIR INITIATIVE SEEN AS REPRIMAND TO BAKER
…. and so on….
Here’s a quick rundown about how these “negotiations” will work:
1) Israel will come to the table trumpeting about how they come “without preconditions.” They will demand that a mandated presence of the IDF in a Palestinian state, that all Israeli settlers must be allowed to keep the land they’ve stolen, and that Israel must retain full control of natural resources, particularly water — must of which Israel must pump in from outside the Green Line at this point.
2) Shortly after the talks, Israel will resume building new settlements at increased rates. There will be much arm-twisting of Palestinians that they’d better agree to what’s being offered now “because it is the best deal you’re ever going to get (again).”
3) The PA will come to their senses and abandon Rahm Emmanuel and Benjamin Netanyahu’s dog and pony show. Israel and her supporters will lament how “the Palestinians never pass up an opportunity to pass up an opportunity.” A couple more thousand Palestinians lose everything they own to Israeli-US dual citizenship real estate tycoons.
1. Israelis and Palestinians will meet.
2. Palestinians will attempt to negotiate “better wheels”.
3. Israelis will plead destabilization due to “generation to generation” fear-scarring.
4. Palestinians will look puzzled.
5. Israelis will cry out “Why do you hate all Jews?!”
6. Palestinians will look bewildered.
7. Americans will provide weapons to Israelis for pre-emptive self-defence.
8. Palestinians will look defeated.
9. Israelis will chant “Allahu ak…”, oops, I mean, they will chant “Remember the Holocaust!”
10. Obama will say something very slick.
Have you ever considered standing in for Rachel Maddow when she’s on vacation?
>> Have you ever considered standing in for Rachel Maddow when she’s on vacation?
Does it pay well? :-D
Israel will not be willing to concede anything, not even continued land expropriation and new settlements, and the US will not use the threat of decreasing its economic and military aid to Israel in order to encourage Israel to concede something. There is no reason for the Palestinians to bother going, except to continue broadcasting the heinous crimes Israel commits against them.
Perhaps one of the best expose of this process by Henry Siegman:
“The Middle East peace process may well be the most spectacular deception in modern diplomatic history. Since the failed Camp David summit of 2000, and actually well before it, Israel’s interest in a peace process – other than for the purpose of obtaining Palestinian and international acceptance of the status quo – has been a fiction that has served primarily to provide cover for its systematic confiscation of Palestinian land and an occupation whose goal, according to the former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon, is ‘to sear deep into the consciousness of Palestinians that they are a defeated people’. In his reluctant embrace of the Oslo Accords, and his distaste for the settlers, Yitzhak Rabin may have been the exception to this, but even he did not entertain a return of Palestinian territory beyond the so-called Allon Plan, which allowed Israel to retain the Jordan Valley and other parts of the West Bank.
Anyone familiar with Israel’s relentless confiscations of Palestinian territory – based on a plan devised, overseen and implemented by Ariel Sharon – knows that the objective of its settlement enterprise in the West Bank has been largely achieved. Gaza, the evacuation of whose settlements was so naively hailed by the international community as the heroic achievement of a man newly committed to an honourable peace with the Palestinians, was intended to serve as the first in a series of Palestinian bantustans. Gaza’s situation shows us what these bantustans will look like if their residents do not behave as Israel wants.
Israel’s disingenuous commitment to a peace process and a two-state solution is precisely what has made possible its open-ended occupation and dismemberment of Palestinian territory. And the Quartet – with the EU, the UN secretary general and Russia obediently following Washington’s lead – has collaborated with and provided cover for this deception by accepting Israel’s claim that it has been unable to find a deserving Palestinian peace partner.
Just one year after the 1967 war, Moshe Dayan, a former IDF chief of staff who at the time was minister of defence, described his plan for the future as ‘the current reality in the territories’. ‘The plan,’ he said, ‘is being implemented in actual fact. What exists today must remain as a permanent arrangement in the West Bank.’ Ten years later, at a conference in Tel Aviv, Dayan said: ‘The question is not “What is the solution?” but “How do we live without a solution?”‘ Geoffrey Aronson, who has monitored the settlement enterprise from its beginnings, summarises the situation as follows:
Living without a solution, then as now, was understood by Israel as the key to maximising the benefits of conquest while minimising the burdens and dangers of retreat or formal annexation. This commitment to the status quo, however, disguised a programme of expansion that generations of Israeli leaders supported as enabling, through Israeli settlement, the dynamic transformation of the territories and the expansion of effective Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan River.”
THE GREAT MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS
Its ok to be skeptical about the prospects of success of a particular discussion, and still enthusiastically pursue it.
That is the same test for Netanyahu. There are “ten reasons for skepticism on the talks” more loudly presented in Israel.
One of the advantages of skepticism (a healthy “prove it” attitude) is that it is a functional state of mind, an approach that SEEKS out flaws in pragmatic efforts. Many confuse and misuse the term “skepticism”, when they mean “cynicism”.
Cynicism starts with the same conclusion “I don’t think it will be easy” or possible even, but with skepticism, there is willingness to see it differently. With cynicism there is actually some investment in the talks failing.
If of 80 issues with some primary disagreement remaining (who knows how many there actually are), the talks result in reconciliation of 10 that actually do move the ultimate reconciliation forward, that is success, NOT failure of the talks.
You speak of successes in BDS in which an organization with another 1000 constituents tentatively sign on to boycott. If that is relative success, then reconciliation incrementally, issue by issue, important issue by important issue, is success.
Especially if they are genuinely consented, unlike the results of BDS which are consented only by a stacked room of the politically converted.
There is no possibility of a meaningful Palestinian state, as Israel has made very sure. Therefore the only viable peace talks which will deliver justice and full human rights to the indigenous people of Israel and Palestine is a binational state which will deliver peace, security and justice for all of its equal citizens. Israel offers only a ghetto for Palestinians, over which it will have total control, as it does now, where Palestinians will not have any rights other than the feeble ones Israel will occasionally grant them. Hebron is the future, where a tiny handful of Jews are allowed to dictate the lives of all of the inhabitants of a Palestinian city, with the help of an occupying army full of indifferent, sadistic teenagers.
“All the parties are not at the negotiating table”
Surely he means “not all the parties are at the negotiating table”, since clearly some of the parties are at the table.
Actually, I think the original sentiment is correct. It’s not like any meaningful negotiating is actually going to take place, here.
Maybe you are right. No-one is at the table with any intent to solve anything, so we might as well say than none of the parties are at the table.
Follow the money. To be a neutral sponsor of peace talks, the US would need to provide the same level of economic and military aid to both Israel and the Palestinians — or (better) no aid to either.
At best, the US is offering to Abbas and his successors the same deal as the Murabak family in Egypt got — to become corrupt, US-subsidized, billionaire dictators-for-life.
As the riposte went to the woman who agreed to spend the night for $500,000, but was outraged when the offer was slashed to $50, ‘We’ve already established what you are — now it’s just a question of price.’
The real sucker at the table is Uncle Sam, who still thinks he’s rich, despite being insolvent to the tune of over $100 trillion. Don’t sell out for Monopoly money — demand payment in bags of gold!
“can a leopard change its spots” good one. Will just pretend for now as the illegal settlements keep expanding, Palestinian homes are still bulldozed etc. Netanyahu will nod his head and then do as they please.
Josh Ruebner the hypocrit should look at Palestinian leaders statements and you will see its the Arabs who want ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Pal Media Watch shows this.