To Find the Right Peace Initiative

Robert Kaplan, from the Center for a New American Security, wrote last week regarding “…what is transpiring in parts of the Middle East, as central authority dissolves. The issue is not democracy, but the threat of anarchy.” Under such circumstances, a responsible Israeli leadership definitely doesn’t have to rush to give away its assets (or its bargaining chips) only in order to appease those who demand “initiatives” of it immediately!

What’s amazing is what people experienced in negotiations fail to realize: the limit of one party’s concessions is almost always the starting point for the other party’s additional demands. On the Arab side, this has already become a routine: every time Israel offers more far-reaching proposals — their position becomes more extreme. In the meantime, the Palestinians refuse to negotiate in any case, and for their own reasons: they are expecting the U.N., the Europeans (and perhaps, the U.S. too) to give them what they want without the need for trade-offs on their part — and if not, this may create internal pressure in Israel to accede to the demands, like from the new “peace initiative” people.

What drives the majority of those standing behind the initiative is the fear that if Israel does not hurry to make peace with the Palestinians — even at the price of almost completely giving up on the most of its security and political positions — it’s going to find itself in isolation. To their credit, it should be said that contrary to previous “initiatives,” at least there is no opening for the “right of return” of “refugees” in their strategy. On the other hand, vital issues like the demilitarization of the Palestinian state, the prevention of military agreements with other countries, the control over air space, the necessity of Israeli rule in the Jordan valley and so on are left unaddressed. The Hamas governance in Gaza is not mentioned either, and apparently, there is no entertaining of the almost certain outcome that should the propositions of the “peace initiative” people be accepted, in the future we’re going to find right in front of us the Iranian patron himself.

The very reference to the Green Line as a border means that leaving big settlement blocks in Israel’s hands will be considered a Palestinian surrender and not as something beyond debate. The statement that the Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem would come under Palestinian sovereignty — means, among other things, that the way to Hadassah [Medical Center], the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus and the Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives, will be supervised by the Palestinians. By the way, the 2002 Arab Peace Plan, which the members of the “peace initiative” group want Israel to adopt, is not at all a peace plan but rather a dictate to Israel in the style of “obey to the letter.”

One of the group’s spokespersons rationalized his eagerness with the argument that Saudi Arabia won’t do business with Israel as long as the latter doesn’t strike a happy medium with the Palestinians. But as it turned out, again, as seen in the conversation of King Abdullah with the American Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Saudi elite is concerned about Iran, the revolt of the large Shiite minority in Saudi Arabia itself and about the weakening of the government in Jordan. The Palestinian cause is not on the list of the issues it is preoccupied with. Also, the rebels and demonstrators in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria are not particularly bothered by the Palestinian matter. “That could change in the future, if and when the above seize power,” they warn. Indeed, that could happen. But will memos and arrangements made now with Abu Mazen and/or with the current rulers, for part of whom their political chairs are quivering, be of any value then?

The prime minister labors on the preparation of concrete schemes and ideas that President Obama, via President Peres, and German Chancellor Merkel, heard first-hand from Netanyahu himself, have already received preliminary details about. Private and delusional “peace initiatives” are certainly not the way to promote Israeli interests — including peace.