Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced today that an agreement has been reached to resume negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. If this story sounds familiar to you, it is probably because this has been tried before. There have been attempts by past administrations at peace including President Bill Clinton’s Oslo Accords. Ironically the players are not all that different this time around. Various leaders have much to gain and much to lose from these talks.
Binyamin Netanyahu
The Israeli Prime Minister has been down this road before. During the 90’s, when then President Bill Clinton was attempting to grind out a peace deal, Netanyahu would not succumb to pressure from the United States government. This caused friction between himself and the Clinton Administration. President Clinton actually ended up undermining Netanyahu politically, as some suspect that President Obama would like to do now.
Things have changed since the Oslo Accords, after having been cheated in the “land for peace” strategy, Israelis have given power to the Likud and other right wing parties. This growing nationalistic and Zionistic sentiment is actually what helped to sweep Netanyahu’s Likud into office over the more moderate Kadima and the liberal Labour parties. Even if Netanyahu were as pliant as President Obama would like him to be, Netanyahu’s majority coalition in the Knesset would likely fall apart if he were to make unacceptable concessions. Netanyahu is astute enough to understand that making such concessions to attain international recognition that will never come, will result in a backlash at home, while gaining nothing internationally.
Mahmoud Abbas
As the leader of a dysfunctional Palestinian Authority, Abbas has much to lose and little to gain from these talks. Reports are that the Palestinians wanted and received the one year timetable for the negotiations so as to avoid open ended talks with Israel. The Fatah leader is already hated by his Hamas rivals, and while he puts on a nice show for the Western world. He often endorses war with Israel when speaking exclusively to regional Islamic leaders. If he comes to a peace agreement then he will be labeled a traitor by Hamas, who will claim that he does not speak for the Palestinian people. If he does what he has done in the past, then Hamas will continue to capitalize on his weakness.
Abbas could be looking to gain some concessions out of Israel in an attempt to improve his political fortunes within the Palestinian Authority. Which brings one to wonder if the Obama Administration has made any promises to Abbas ahead of the talks.
President Obama and Hillary Clinton
The Obama Administration is simply attempting to do what other administrations in the past have failed to do. During the Bush Administration, many Jews in Israel were turned off by the aggressive push that President Bush made to have Israel give concessions. The thinking seemed to be that if only Israel would give just a little more land then everything would be solved.
President Obama has weakened relations from the beginning with his speech in Cairo, in which he suggested that the Palestinians were being oppressed. His insinuation, however, was not directed at Hamas and Fatah, the true oppressors; but at Israel. He also treated Netanyahu with scorn during the Prime Minister’s earlier visit to Washington. These factors have caused the Israeli public to be distrustful of President Obama, and they are not about to put pressure on their leadership to make concessions so that Obama can leave his mark on international affairs.
***
We have heard the promises of peace before and time and again the promises have not been realized. The problem continues to be that the politicians are attempting to inject a political solution into a spiritual issue. Nationalities play a part in the greater Middle East drama, however, nationality and ethnicity are not as relevant as the religious views of the various groups involved. The Jews hold to the truth that they are given the land by covenant with God transferred to Issac and his son Jacob (Israel). The Muslims claim that the traditionally recognized accounts in the Torah have been distorted and that their god, Allah has granted them the land through Ishmael.
One reason that that the international community has been unable to bridge the peace gap is because they cannot comprehend a religious conflict. When religion ceases to be the tool and instead becomes the prime motivator the majority of diplomats are often unable to cope. When one looks at these talks, the realities are the same.
