It is unclear how Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert can bridge their differences and jump-start talks before US President Bush’s visit to Israel and the occupied territories next month. In the afterglow of the high-profile Annapolis peace conference, Palestinian and Israeli leaders were supposed to try, in the coming year, to resolve issues that have defied solutions for decades. However, no sooner had Annapolis ended than Israel decided it was time to expand the Har Homa Jewish settlement. That was bad enough — but apparently not bad enough for Israel which has now announced it is examining plans for an even newer settlement in East Jerusalem. The new one is Atarot, whose proposed construction of 10,000 flats will make it the largest Jewish housing project. Under the 2003 road map peace plan, Israel committed to freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank but it has never honored that commitment and, now, seems intent on maintaining its 100 percent record of non-compliance.
Like numerous prior peace conferences and initiatives, the Annapolis meeting, despite its initial fanfare and euphoria, carries little promise for genuine peace in Palestine. And as always, the reason will be Israel’s adamant refusal to make things work. The settlement issue, among so many others, is just one example of Israel’s determination not to move to peace. And if things don’t work out, it means that the voices not in favor of a peaceful resolution of the conflict will feel vindicated and further empowered.
There are indeed many powers who wish the upcoming peace negotiations ill. They are helped by weakness at the top: a Palestinian president who controls only half his territory and struggles to impose order in what he does control, and an Israeli leader weakened by his inconclusive 2006 war in Lebanon, and who has done little to confront domestic hawks intent on expanding West Bank settlements and torpedoing any progress to peace. But Abbas and Olmert seem to want to provide some momentum before Bush’s expected arrival on Jan. 9.
That will not be easy; at no time in the dispute has it been, but particularly in view of what transpired in the year just past. 2007 was not an ordinary year for Palestinians. It witnessed a short-lived government of national unity followed by a mini-civil war between Fatah and Hamas, which ended in Hamas taking over the coastal strip of Gaza and, in retaliation, Fatah establishing its own separate authority in the West Bank. Hamas’ takeover of Gaza paradoxically opened the door to peace talks between the Palestinian leadership now in charge of the West Bank and Israel. However, the split made Palestinian unity a sham and left Hamas and Gaza internationally and financially boycotted.
It is into this setting of low expectations and high frustrations that Bush enters Middle East diplomacy up close and personally for the first time. He would like to offset his difficulties in Iraq by making some progress in Palestine. He is more likely, however, to find he is unable to accomplish anything in either place.
