Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas’ frustration over his failure to achieve any progress in Middle East peace talks with US President Bush reflects the growing perception that an end-of-year Arab-Israeli peace accord is a long shot at best. Five months have passed since Bush announced his pet project of reaching an agreement before the end of 2008, which coincides with the end of his tenure in office. Five months is a long time for nothing to have happened, considering that only eight months are left, and especially considering that the issue being tackled is 60 years’ accumulation of problems. How on earth will a deal acceptable to both parties materialize in such a short period of time and without a strong foundation to build on is anybody’s guess, including Bush himself.
Although Abbas urged the Bush administration to exert meaningful pressure on Israel in order to ensure the drafting of a final status agreement before the end of 2008, and asked Bush to push for a detailed draft agreement that would lead to a permanent settlement of the conflict as well as the creation of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, what he got instead was Bush’s hope to find a definition of a Palestinian state, when it was believed it had been defined many years ago a state on the June 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the capital. A new meaning will apparently be a state of much lesser size.
Bush has also failed to force Israel to implement key clauses of the Quartet-sponsored road map, from removing hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank to freezing Jewish settlement expansion. Israel has kept the vast bulk of its physical barriers in the West Bank and only a few roadblocks of secondary significance have been removed. Israel has embarked on a fresh spate of settlement expansion in the West Bank, especially in East Jerusalem, right before the eyes of the Bush administration which refuses to exert pressure on the Israeli government to halt settlement expansion on occupied Arab land. In such weakened circumstances, what is likely to be issued is a declaration of principles which would be meaningless in the absence of agreement on issues such as Jerusalem, the settlements and refugees.
But neither Abbas, Ehud Olmert nor Bush is in a position to take far-reaching steps toward a peace agreement. Abbas is under tremendous pressure from Palestinian public opinion, not to mention Hamas, to reach a dignified peace agreement or quit. The ultraorthodox Shas Party has threatened to leave the Olmert government if the subject of Jerusalem is even broached by the Palestinians. It is vehemently opposed to ending the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem as well as allowing a significant number of Palestinian refugees to be repatriated back to their former villages in what is now Israel.
The Palestinian people cannot continue to watch this game of make-believe for much longer. If the leaders concerned think that a peace agreement is not possible, they should have the courage to tell the people the truth.
