The Palestinian leadership said Saturday that four-week-old direct talks with Israel should be suspended as long as Jewish settlement housing was being built in the West Bank. It called on the international community to pressure Israel to stop the construction.
A statement issued after a meeting of about 35 Palestinian leaders ”” the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the central committee of the main Fatah movement and a handful of others ”” held at the compound of the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that Israel was responsible for the deadlock.
“The leadership confirms that the resumption of talks requires tangible steps, the first of them a freeze on settlements,” Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior P.L.O. official said after the three-hour meeting. “The Palestinian leadership holds Israel responsible for obstructing the negotiations.”
I’ll believe both sides are serious about peace when they sit down and eat together for a meal. Until that happens, nothing serious will come of it all. That’s just the way it is in Middle Eastern culture.
I still don’t understand. Why is the building on the West Bank so essential to Isreal? Why is this game worth the candle? Larry
Until a majority of Israeli voters disagree that the State of Israel MUST be a Jewish state, Israel’s policies toward the indigenous non-Jewish peoples who have since 1948 been displaced by Israeli expansion and Jewish re-settlement, and also towards the countries that surround Israel, will continue to offend and provoke all of them. As for the West Bank, Israel’s “natural” eastern border (as it was also considered in scriptural Jewish history) includes the entire Jordan River valley. To Israelis, the West Bank is about their national integrity and security.
Henry Greville is right about the security concern. It has been difficult enough for the Israelis to stop missiles being lobbed from Gaza and Lebanon. They sure do not want to see them being lobbed from Ramallah. However, I want to add some other factors:
1) The phrase ‘West Bank’ misleads many people who assume it is territory way beyond the old Green Line that used to partition the Holy Land before the Six Day War. In fact, it includes areas close to Jerusalem that are now de facto suburbs of Jerusalem. These areas were part of the territory under Jordanian control until the Six Day War and since then Israel has been busily building Jewish suburbs around Jerusalem. One of the biggest is the satellite city of Ariel. It would be a gesture of realism for the Palestinians to accept tacitly that this territory is gone. Israel has succeeded with ‘facts on the ground’.
2) There is as much dispute over water. The Sea of Galilee has been drained of water to a level that even Israel admits is dangerous, with knock-on effects down the chain in the Jordan and the Dead Sea. It would be a gesture of honesty for the Israelis to admit that they are watering golf courses and lawns while Palestinian towns often have their water supply cut off, and to make a new and more equitable plan for water sharing. Water is supremely strategic in the Middle East and this will need regional co-operation, including Syria.
4) Similarly Israel needs to give building permits for Palestinian homes in Jerusalem. It is scandalous that ‘illegal’ Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem are demolished while endless new homes are built for Jewish settlers.
5) There is vigorous discussion within Israel itself about those parts of the West Bank settled by Israel. In the last month many of Israel’s best-known singers and musicians have announced their refusal to take engagements in the newly-built Ariel Performing Arts Center. We forget sometimes how open and honest a society Israel is. There is nothing like it in the Middle East.
6) The Palestinians have a long history of refusing to settle for half a cake and ending up with nothing. Each time the cake gets smaller. Nationhood is within their grasp if only they could compromise. Sadly, Abba Eban’s dictum remains true: that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
7) Finally all this relates to the West Bank, shorn of its previous Gazan appendage. There seems to be no answer regarding what to do about Gaza now floating in a sea of misery and under Hamas control following, it has to be said, democratic elections. But given the history of Hamas it seems inconceivable that the people of Gaza will ever be free to vote differently in the future. ie Hamas will make sure that any opposition is crushed.
If the left bank is a Natural Israeli boundary, why are the Palestinians so adamant? That is, if the Palestinians grant the “natural border” wold that change Is.-Pales. relations? Would the Palestinians gain thereby? Is there no compromise – no you scratch my back and I will scratch yours – between the west bank and, say, divided rule in Jerusalem – the last being , it wold seem to me – a logical necessity. Or will a significant concession by one party NOT be met by anything except intransigence?
Larry
Terry’s remarks in number 4 elucidate important issues in the Israeli/Palestinian issue in a very neutral manner which is usually quite lacking when discussing the Middle East.
To me the most serious obstacles are listed in his number 6 & 7. Memories are short. It would be wise to remember that had Arafat accepted the 1997 accord, the Palestians theoretically would now be celebrating their 13th year of independence.
The question then is why did he refuse to agree and then return home to launch an “Intifada” that has killed thousands of Palestinians, hundreds of Israelis and has reduced the Palestinian “state” to abject poverty.
My guess, is that, like Mahmoud Abbas has found out after Arafat, is that any agreement reached with the Israelis will be rejected by the radical elements at work among the Palestinians. Gaza is not under the Palestinian Authority’s control and that is half of what would make up a Palestinian State.
Also, the “government” in Gaza refuses to recognize Israel, which was the prime condition Israel originally set to begin the talks around 2 decades ago.
It appears that the PA cannot govern their own people, which means they have very serious problems that have nothing directly to do with Israel.
Bill, thank you for your comments. May I apologise for the bizarre sequential error in my numbering? And may I also correct one factual error in your entry? The intifada started 10 years before 1997 and in fact took Arafat and the PLO by surprise. Initially the Intifada was a response by ordinary people using stones and tyres rather than weapons and bombs. On Arafat’s failure, however, I can only agree. The big breakthrough had happened, and all it needed was statesmen rather than politicians. Alas, Arafat turned out to be the most venal kind of politician, and an Israeli fanatic murdered Rabin. If only there had been a Palestinian Mandela, and Rabin had lived to lead his country into a new era.