Palestinian parliamentary speaker Aziz Dweik was detained by soldiers at a checkpoint in Jabaa, between Ramallah and Jerusalem. (AFP File photo)
There’s lots brewing behind the scenes in the lead up to the January 26th Quartet deadline for borders and security proposals. So let’s catch up.
First off, the elected head of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Dr. Aziz Dweik was arrested for no apparent reason on Thursday evening. Some call it a kidnapping. This is big news and Hamas is enraged and Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat is demanding his release.
AFP:
Gaza’s Hamas prime minister on Friday called on Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to end all dialogue with Israel after troops arrested parliamentary speaker Aziz Dweik.
The parliamentary speaker, who is a member of the Islamist Hamas movement, was arrested by Israeli troops late on Thursday, sparking a furious response from Gaza’s Hamas rulers as well as from Abbas’s Fatah movement.
“The response to the arrest of Dr Aziz Dweik should be to end these failed and absurd negotiations,” said Haniya, referring to a round of informal Israeli-Palestinian talks in Jordan aimed at finding ways to jump-start the stalled peace process.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat presented Israeli envoy Issac Molho with a letter demanding that Israel release the speaker of the Palestinian parliament who was ….. arrested by Israel a few days ago, in addition to 23 Palestinian MPs, held by Israel.
Now back up a few days.
In the NYT, Ethan Bronner and Fares Akram reported that Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya hosted officials from Fatah at his home in Gaza on Jan. 14th and gave permission for “the Central Elections Commission to operate in Gaza to prepare for Palestinian elections scheduled for as early as May.”
Khaled Meshaal and President Abbas Cairo 12. 21, 2011. (Reuters)
This is a big deal, and Israel doesn’t like it. Following on the heels of two reconciliation meetings between Hamas Leader Khaled Meshaal and President Abbas in Cairo on November 24th and December 21st, the Hamas PM’s meeting with Fatah officials in Gaza could have huge repercussions. It reaffirms a commitment to end the division between Hamas and Fatah and hold elections in May 2012, after which both parties have agreed to establish a unity government.
Abbas has been on a tour of Europe, meeting with heads of state, while Palestinian negotiators were back in Jordan dickering around in another do-nothing meeting with Israeli negotiators chaperoned by representatives of King Abdullah (filling in the Mubarak Israel-supporter vacuum).
(COURTESY OF THE GOVERNMENT OF JORDAN)
The Washington Post reported Jordan’s Abdullah sees a glimmer of hope and “baby steps”. To give you a sense of the ramped up media hype surrounding these ‘negotiation’ meetings– Haaretz reported ‘Israel realizes need to revive Mideast peace talks immediately‘ as well as ‘Netanyahu: I’m ready to get into my car and go to Ramallah for talks‘ (“but Abu Mazen isn’t ready”). While The Jerusalem Post led with King Abdullah being “cautiously optimistic.” It repeated the “baby steps” lingo.
Everyone knows these meetings are going nowhere and are only taking place to stave off Abbas from continuing the Palestinian bid for statehood at the UN. The next meeting in Amman is scheduled one day before the deadline, January 25th.
Even the NYT is frank about the disappointment:
By all accounts, however, the meetings have produced little, and the Palestinian Authority says it will decide at the end of the month whether to continue. Officials of the so-called quartet of Middle East peacemakers — the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations — have urged Israel to make gestures toward the Palestinians to keep them at the talks. Among the suggestions are prisoner releases, West Bank land control transfer and the reopening of Palestinian offices in East Jerusalem.
It is unclear if the Israelis are considering any of them, however.
I really hope Palestinians don’t decide to derail their ambitions to seek recognition of statehood to the UN for this pony show. I am sure Israel would like nothing better than to drive a big wedge between Hamas and Fatah.
Will arresting Palestinian Parliamentary speaker Dr. Aziz Dweik serve that purpose? Let’s hope not. We’ll know soon enough as we count down to January 26th.
Here’s how the settler source “israeli uncensored news” covered Aziz Dweik’s arrest:
This time, IDF showed no creativity in thinking up reasons for his detention: he was nabbed simply for association with a terrorist organization. Which of course he is, being a Hamas official.
Dweik was very active in Hebron area were Fatah enjoys very limited authority, and Israel arrested him as a favor to the Fatah which, in light of reconciliation efforts with Hamas, cannot arrest its leaders.
” I really hope the Palestinians don’t decide to derail their ambitions to seek recognition of statehood to the UN for this pony show” I agree Annie, continuing the UN bid and separate progress at the ICC have nothing to do with negotiations with Israel,Although the US/ Israel would disagree, as far as the Palestinians are concerned it is their right to apply for UN membership through the General Assembly and all its agencies and to persue justice through the ICC, nothing should delay those objectives. If the Israelis want to talk then they should stop settlement building immediately, the Quartet should insist they do, it should not have to be pointed out to the Quartet that settlement building is a grave war crime,and that it is unreasonable of the Quartet to turn a blind eye to such an injustice.
Settlers say: “Israel arrested him as a favor to the Fatah which, in light of reconciliation efforts with Hamas, cannot arrest its leaders.” That means that the settlers deny that he was arrested by Israel for being a Hams-nik, and of course if he has not been arrested until today, after many years being available for arrest, then that by itself is a mighty slim reason for doing it a few days before a supposed restart of negs. So maybe, this time, settlers got it right? If so, pity the Palestinians with a head of PLO like that depicted in this theory.
Since it is 100% predictable that Israeli will do something to sabotage any peace process, it is absurd to blame Israel for this “set back”. The responsibility lies entirely with Abbas — he is a lickspittle puppet whose only goal in life is to keep foreign money flowing into his accounts. If he was interested in justice for the Palestinians he would not have entered into these sham negotiations in the first place.
kershner @nyt: “2 Palestinian Legislators Are Arrested in East Jerusalem Protest”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/world/middleeast/israeli-police-arrest-2-protesting-palestinian-legislators.html?_r=1
Israel is trying to scuttle the peace talks BEFORE Jan 26th, the day the Quartent mandated for their border proposal. Israel/Netanyahu will do anything to avoid making an actual border statement. It is therefore a good idea for Abbas to continue the charade talks even in the face of Israel’s intransigence and dishonesty. This will not only put Palestine in a very comfortable position for their UN initiative; but, more importantly, will expose in the most explicit way the truth about Israel’s intentions. This would be a major international ‘coup’ for the Palestinians and will certainly notch-up BDS in a big way.