Yesterday Amjad Atallah, Daniel Levy, and Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation held a conference call (audio here) about the direct talks that begin today. There was a lot of experience and wisdom on the call, including from the callers-in, among them Tony Karon, so let me summarize.
The overall thrust of the talk was bleak indeed. The failure of the talks is already being anticipated so the blame game has begun even before the talks have begun, said Levy. The parties to the talks are more limited than they were under George Bush at Annapolis and far less than Madrid in 1991, Atallah said. Few “stakeholders” are there. Of course Hamas is not there. Neither are Syria nor the Arab League. Egypt is here, in the person of Mubarak's son. Democracy in action.
Not even Fatah is fully represented. Abbas won’t be able to get to a deal, Levy said, because of his limited “political carrying capacity.” He is only going under tremendous pressure, and many inside the West Bank are against the talks. Levy: “The leaders at dinner tomorrow night are not blessed with legitimacy in their constituencies, let alone the Arab world.” This can’t be Oslo II, Atallah said. If Abbas emerges from this with greater freedom of movement and economic activity in the West Bank—and no political gains, let alone concessions on territory—then there will be violence in the West Bank that could make the recent murder of four settlers look minor.
Over the conversation was the shadow of violence in the occupied Hebron hills. And so the hopes placed in Obama by the Arab world are about to be dashed, with what result?
Levy has a rapier wit. One of his lines, also in this Huffpo piece, is that George Mitchell keeps asking for 700 days, that is what it took with Northern Ireland, well he is at 600 now. Then he said that if the Unionists in Ireland had insisted as a precondition for negotiation that the nationalists recognize the north as part of a union with Great Britain--
Senator Mitchell would have passed his 7,000th day of trying in Ireland. Yet that is essentially the pre-conditional ask being made of Hamas.
Atallah and Levy are two-state guys. I will get to their hopes in a moment, out of fairness, but the thrust of the conversation was that we might be looking at the funeral of the two-state solution. With fewer adherents than ever. With the Israeli government incapable of making any concession on the colonial expansion that is its political base, and with a half of a half of a political loaf from the Palestinians. How many people still believe in it? And Levy said that if Abbas comes back with incremental gains, there’s a huge risk, “violence far exceeding what is taking place now” in the West Bank.
A caller who had just been in Beirut, I believe Kim Ghattas of BBC, spoke of the real fear there: that this is the very last chance. There is great pessimism that if this administration doesn’t get something off the gorund, no peace negotiations for a very long time. Levy also said that if the Obama administration ends up being seen as Israel’s lawyer, again, there will be grave consequences across the Middle East.
Wise. Now let me get to their own beliefs here. Levy said the way forward was for Obama to get a referendum from the Israeli people, over the head of Netanyahu if necessary-- now was the time for major concessions. Can Bibi’s coalition say yes or no? Or a new coalition say Yes? Well then screw Bibi, can the Israeli public say Yes? The only hope we have is not an imposed solution, but an imposed question, he said: a moment of choice presented to the Israeli people by Obama.
“That Israeli Yes won’t come out on its own. We have to perform a C section ot get it out… Only the Obama administration can do it, with help from others… “ --Levy.
Atallah was asked about Abbas, in the famous analogy an Israeli leader once used, if he is the man who can jump from the window on to the galloping horse of history. “Abbas is on the ledge,” Atallah responded sharply. The man at the window is Obama, Atallah said. “It’s not because he wants to be…” But because of the conditions facing the U.S. in the region, he has no alternative but to forge a peace here, there is no more “muddling through.” Dark horizon.
America is implicated completely. Yesterday at his briefing Robert Gibbs tried to say that there is no linkage between the end of the occupation of Iraq and the end of the occupation of Palestine, but who does not feel that way in the region, that the occupation must end?
Both men were clear about where things go if the talks fail. It will lead to more debate about the one state solution, Levy said. “That’s the trajectory it eventually goes on.” And Atallah: “I agree with Daniel, that’s where it’s headed.”
One state. The right in Israel seems to be working its way toward that understanding, the left in Europe and in Palestine is moving toward that understanding. Something that Roosevelt understood in the last months of his life and that Truman denied may come to pass, the Arab world will be consulted on what it wants for historical Palestine, though 60 years on any solution must integrate the Jewish achievement in Israel, what liberal Zionist Leonard Fein has called "the most important project of the Jewish people in our time." Though I don't share the belief, there must be some respect. Is it realistic? That is why we need leaders. The Palestinian resistance has been largely nonviolent for years, BDS is nonviolent. Celebrate these forces.
Wait before you chant kaddish.
Nothing is known on this. The individuals were articulating long-discussed fears.
We know what can go south, and that is an actual MOTIVATION to work hard to achieve a consented agreement.
If everything was already done, then there would be no need to actually use imagination, courage and persuasion.
I disagree with you in your comment “the Palestinian resistance has been largely nonviolent for years”. (Its neither true literally, nor figuratively. Hamas did shell Israeli civilians before the hudna – two years ago, and after the hudna. Its been largely non-violent for about a year.)
They are willing to mass murder to be at the table. Some claim that there is a distinction between the military wing and the political, analagous to the IRA and Sinn Fein, however, in Ireland, the Sinn Fein asserted that they were ENTIRELY separate organizationally. I don’t think that Hamas can honestly say that.
Witty, you know nothing, maybe. So speak for yourself.
Chaos is on to something here.
Aye.
It’s not right to induge in fantacies about peace in the middle east.
The current ‘talks’ are just too stupid for words. The ‘reality’ is that Abbas was NOT democratically elected by the Palestinian people therefore the ‘chair’ he sits in at the peace talks is bogus. Abbas was chosen by the occupiers and their ‘pals’, not by the Palestinian people. This should tell you everything about the ‘legitimacy’ of these talks.
Yes, Phil, we can ‘celebrate’ the forces of non-violent resistence and BDS, but you really think such forces are a match for the eyeless IDF thugs?
I don’t approve of violence, but I understand the need for unfettered resistance when dealing with an insatiably brutal and thieving occupier.
True, violent resistance hasn’t exactly halted the crimes of the occupier, but it sure as hell has kept the IDF somewhat in check.
BDS and the non-violent protests have not had this effect on the strutting IDF. You can’t deny that.
Evidently, history informs us that violent resitance can be extremely effective. You can’t deny that either.
You and I and millions of others don’t have to like or approve of this, but we gotta recognize and acknowledge that it is just simply so.
Regretably, violent resistance has it’s time and place.
Taxi makes some excellent points here.
I often find myself agreeing with Norman Finkelstein, who has said, that it will take a decisive military loss for Israel to re-think things; Taxi’s comments seem to be in line with this sort of thinking. It is regretable, as Taxi says, that violence would become a necessity to resolve this conflict. But it has become clear that Israel has no intention of dealing with a counterpart that poses no military threat ( to the actual government, citizens be damned; as is the case in the US and elsewhere).
The militarization of Israeli society cannot be overlooked; when the language of the political establishment becomes solely about force, aggression, intimidation and supremacy it is no longer a rational entity that can be “negotiated” with. And, if military occupation leading to expansion is the GOAL, what can intellectual, artistic and other “social” boycotts really acheive?
If Israeli’s are really as frightened for their existence as some would have us believe- let them see their “vaunted” IDF take it on the chin. It is indeed regretable that it would have to be this way, but only a stinging defeat of Israel militarily – where their capacity to wage war is diminished – can create the necessary pretext for real peace.
It does, Taxi, but the Palestinians have tried it and failed. They simply can not bring enough force to bear. Israel has the near-monopoly on force.
When violence is futile, it becomes nothing more than revenge.
David only had a sligshot, potsherd, and he won.
He didn’t think: oh it’s futile, it’s hopeless, I only have a slingshot and I’ll never be able to overcome the bastard Goliath.
Old fairy tales are no match for tanks and fighter-bombers.
What difference does it make that israel has the bigger gun when the surrounding arabs’ weapons by now can slaughter just as many israelis? Be mindful that presently, EVERYONE including Hizbollah has missles capable of reaching Tel Aviv and every other inch of israel. No inequalities here when both sides can practice ‘an eye for an eye’ warfare. Worse than that, arab missiles, as well as iranian missiles, can now reach the Damona: huge headache for the israeli war strategists. Yes israel can intercept attacks etc, but all it takes is for one missile to hit its target at the Damona and you could very conceivably call that moment a ‘game over israel’ moment.
Besides, I don’t remember it being a ‘fairy tale’ when the ‘rag-tag’ Afghani Mujahedeen toppled the fearsome Soviet Union Army/Airforce.
Yes, Roha, winning a war is not determined ONLY by the size of one’s gun or the girth of one’s penis.
‘Egypt is here, in the person of Mubarak’s son. Democracy in action.’
Heh-heh. Not to mention 30 years of US aid in action! Another family of billionaire tyrants, courtesy of the American taxpayer.
Although I wonder how many Americans would even get Phil’s sarcasm. Aren’t all of our client states democracies? Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, the whole lot?
Oh wait, I forgot — Israel is the middle east’s only democracy. That’s what AIPAC told me. And my KongressKlown agrees!
If Abbas is too busy or lacks the political weight needed for such “talks”, perhaps the US could get a stand-in. I hear Ahmad Chalabi is available these days.