Summit negotiating teams: A study of opposites
By Avi Issacharoff and Barak Ravid Tags: Ehud Olmert Mahmoud Abbas Middle East peaceThe gap that has emerged in the approaches of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to the joint document being prepared for the Annapolis summit is in part also being reflected in the make-up of the negotiating teams. Indeed, it seems that the two groups are almost complete opposites.
While Abbas sent five politicians, each with their own agendas, Israel sent a team of senior civil servants.
The Israeli team is headed by the chief of staff of the Prime Minister's Office, Yoram Turbowicz. It also includes:
* Shalom Turgeman, who has been a diplomatic adviser to the prime minister since March 2003, speaks Arabic and served in Israel's embassy in Amman.
* Aharon Abramovitch, director general of the Foreign Ministry and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's representative at the negotiations. He has served as director general at the Justice Ministry, and led negotiations with the settlers during the disengagement.
* The head of the security-political task force at the Defense Ministry, Amos Gilad, who represents Defense Minister Ehud Barak at the negotiations. He is considered the most experienced member of the negotiations team, who once headed the research division at Military Intelligence. The Palestinians view him as the hawk in the group - or worse.
A handicap for the Israeli team is their lack of experience in long negotiations with the Palestinians, with all the administrative and structural problems that such a historical vacuum creates. On the other hand, all four are not bound by the formulas of the past and are likely to offer new approaches to the talks.
Moreover, the four have been working as a cohesive group for some time and are known as the "Turbo group."
On the Palestinian side, the team is headed by an old fox, Ahmed Qureia, who had served as prime minister under Yasser Arafat and has been involved in secret negotiations with the Israelis on a number of occasions. In Israel his appointment is viewed as an attempt by the PA to undermine the talks; the Palestinians regard this as proof that Abbas is taking these talks very seriously.
Qureia is close to another experienced negotiator on the team, Yasser Abed Rabbo, while Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator on behalf of the PLO, is not known to have smooth relations with either of them.
Akram Haniyeh, the editor of the Al-Ayam daily, is also one of Qureia's good friends.
The fifth man, Sa'adi al-Krutch, was appointed in part because he is originally from the Gaza Strip, but mostly because Prime Minister Salam Fayad does not want to be part of the talks.
Fayad was insulted when Abbas decided to include Qureia to the Palestinian delegation that recently participated in the UN General Assembly, and only allowed him to meet with the representatives of the donor nations. He knows that while he is well respected in Washington, in Ramallah he is an outsider. He also believes that the summit will fail.
Why Facebook Connect?
Comment on Haaretz.com articles with your Facebook login, and share your thoughts on your own wall.
- Latest
- Most Viewed
- Most Rated
- Open all
That's why he's willing to divide Jerusalem!The sin of sins!Besides,the idol in the temple by the Anti-Christ etc.HO,HO,HO!
...the relevance of Haniyeh is merely that he is Qureia's friend (when really he is particularly close to Erekat, and his real relevance is that as a Fatah member expelled from the OPT in 1987, he became a leading liason between the PLO in exile and the PLO inside the territories, a bridging role he has played ever since); and you can't even spell Sa'adi al-Krunz's name correctly. This is reminiscent of the way Haaretz (and others) reported at the time of Camp David in 2000. It reduces the talks to personalities, presents the Israeli personalities as positive and cohesive, but the Palestinians as inherently dysfunctional, so the failure of the talks is implicitly blamed in advance on the PLO, never the Israelis who are always negotiating in good faith, and whose negotiating positions are always reasonable. This is very unprofessional. It is more the approach you would expect from People magazine than from a serious newspaper.
We have short portraits of the Israelis, giving brief professional background and the upbeat conclusion that their inexperience is actually a plus. In contrast, we don't learn anything at all about the considerable relevant experience each of the Palestinians brings to the table. Just a few negative snippets: Fayad's sulking and won't be in the talks (but he's the PM, he wasn't expected to appointed as a negotiator), Qureia makes things difficult for the Israelis (yet he can't be that difficult for them to get on with, as he was their primary interlocutor in the Oslo agreement); possibly Erekat doesn't have smooth relations with Qureia and Rabbo (actually he is close to Rabbo, and all three have worked effectively together in every PLO negotiation and every PA govt between 1996 and 2003); we learn nothing about Rabbo (it's not relevant that he was the Palestinians lead in the Geneva talks?); ...(cont)
to give another oral "national security assessment", completely at odds with the work of his own department? ie Barak's summit saboteur?
the talks are a joke but Mazen is the biggest joke of all. He has no power to deliver anything. Israel knows it. Hamas knows it. The world knows it! The talks are simply playing to the international community and both sides know that nothing will come of them. - Mike
Not long ago it seemed that Abbas had been bought and paid for. He had become an Israeli stooge and a cats paw against Hamas and he received much public support from the Israeli government. Now, all of a sudden he has become an independent thinker and a hard line Palestinian strategist? Actually, the change is only skin deep. The reason for the change is that Israel needs Abbas to show some credibility as a Palestinian negotiator in order for the results of the summit to be accepted. Israel will still dictate the terms to Abbas, but it will be done in a back room. In public, Abbas will be strong and demanding of Israel. The reality is that Abbas's credibility is been permanently reset to zero and the Israeli monkeyshines are a waste of everybodys time.