Israel and Palestine: The talk about talking

1. The Campaign for American Leadership in the Middle East (CALME) is calling upon President Bush to make an extra effort to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a press conference today, former Defense Secretary Bill Cohen asked that Bush will include this unequivocal message in his State of the Union address tomorrow. Other important figures who signed on with CALME include former secretaries of State (Albright, Christopher, Eagleburger), Defense (Perry), Diplomats (Indyk, Ross, Malley), rabbis and many other luminaries.

But what exactly do they want? That's something so vaguely defined as to make it hard to understand. Does "more involvement" is really a code word for "more pressure on Israel"? More help to Abbas (as Cohen hinted)? Is it an effort to improve America?s image in the region?

Like the "talk to Syria" camp, and the "talk to Iran" camp ? the "spend more time on Palestine" camp has a good slogan but not as convincing plan. Both Israel's and Palestine's leaders are in no position to make real concessions and to reach a real compromise (assuming such compromise is at all possible). The negotiations initiated by Rice can be a very good thing, as long as one keeps his hopes down. Those who can't do, talk, and those who can't even talk, talk about talking.

2. Former Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn, appearing with Cohen today, declared the recent visit by Condoleezza Rice to the region an "enormous success." This can only reflect either lack of knowledge or really low expectations. Rice's road trip was not a failure or a disappointment, but one needs to engage in more than creative imagination to describe it the way Congresswoman Dunn did.

And Cohen was also somewhat too optimistic. He said that America is "the only" one who can serve as a mediator in this peace talks. But how successful was America so far in the region, and does President Bush really want to spend the last two years he has in power in the same way Clinton was spending his last months in office? Cohen reminded his listeners that the "platform" for peace was already laid out in the various plans of the past (the Clinton parameters, the Saudi plan etc). That's another common diversion from reality. As if all has been agreed and just technical reasons prevented Israel and Palestine from getting to the Promised Land. The truth is exactly the opposite: those "platforms" didn?t help because it is not bad planning or lack of ideas that prevented peace ? but rather the absence of will.


3. I know some of you will not take my word for it (especially the lovely couple who send me a note yesterday saying that I'm "an uneducated, bigoted, racist, stupid, idiot"), so let me borrow from the more sane, balanced, knowledgeable and authoritative colleague of mine, Aluf Benn, Haaretz' diplomatic correspondent. Here's what he wrote last Friday about Rice's trip: It is difficult to assume that she expects to return from these journeys with an agreement for ending the conflict and setting up a Palestinian state in the territories. It is not necessary to listen to secret intelligence reports in order to understand that Israel and the Palestinian Authority are like two sports teams that are playing even though the outcome is already clear, waiting for the leadership to be settled. Olmert and Abbas do not have authority today, or political power, to make daring decisions that will break through the political impasse. At most they can prepare the background for some future process.

4. One of the more annoying arguments about the peace process is the one relaying on polls as to prove that "most of the Israelis and most of the Palestinians want peace." Cohen used this line yesterday, but was hardly the first one to do so.

Especially annoying is this argument when you hear it from American administration officials. Both Israel and Palestine had elections and will have more in the future. That's the only way with which to determine what the people want. If this administration has decided that pools are a reliable enough tool to dictate policy - let them start somewhere else: most Americans want the US military out of Iraq.