A different approach
An interim agreement is a more realistic goal than a comprehensive peace deal.
By Ari Shavit Tags: Israel news Middle East peaceWhat do the following people have in common: Barack Obama, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Mahmoud Abbas, Hosni Mubarak, King Abdullah of Jordan, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Nicolas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, David Cameron, Silvio Berlusconi, Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao and Ban Ki-moon? An approach. Despite all the differences and contrasts among these notables, common to all is the commitment to try to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict via a comprehensive and immediate agreement. Full peace, final peace, peace now.
The founding father of the approach is Yossi Beilin. Right after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, that prolific and brilliant statesman realized that the agreement he had just produced would lead to a dead end. He therefore quickly opened a direct channel with Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), and at the end of two years of talks put together the Beilin-Abu Mazen Document. For some five years, that document was the oracle of the Israeli peace community. It was perceived as final proof that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement was within reach. But when Ehud Barak went to Camp David in the summer of 2000, it turned out that it was not such an oracle. The Palestinians are not prepared to share the country peacefully.
Beilin was not deterred. He quickly opened negotiations with a group of Palestinian leaders and in 2003 spawned the Geneva Initiative. For five years that was the oracle of the international peace community. It was perceived as a kind of final proof that the failure of Camp David was coincidental and that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement was within reach. But when Ehud Olmert went to Annapolis in 2007-2008, it turned out to be nowhere near an oracle. Although the Geneva Initiative people were the ones to renew the diplomatic process, they could not get Abu Mazen to sign the peace agreement he had been promising since 1993. Once again it was proven that the Palestinians do not want to share the country peacefully.
And yet, despite its resounding failures, the approach is still with us. It still guides U.S. policy and dominates international discourse. The approach requires a number of Middle Eastern leaders to act based on a fundamentally flawed plan. At this very moment the approach is convening a useless peace conference in Washington.
We can understand Abbas. He is probably the last refugee to head the Palestinian national movement. For hundreds of years his family and mine lived in the same city: Safed. The possibility that a son of Safed would give up Safed is close to nil. The idea that a Palestinian refugee would give up the Palestinian refugees' right of return is unfounded.
Abu Mazen is a positive individual who opposes terror, but he has no interest in ending the conflict or the ability to do so. As Yitzhak Shamir went to the Madrid Conference, so Abu Mazen is willing to go to any useless conference that does not demand that he pay a real price for the political assets he has amassed.
We cannot understand the others: Obama, Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Netanyahu, Olmert, Barak, Livni, Mubarak, Abdullah, Abdullah, Sarkozy, Merkel, Cameron, Berlusconi, Putin, Hu and Ban. Have they learned nothing and forgotten nothing? Do they not know that even Beilin has wised up? Are they really ready to let political correctness blind them?
The only way to prevent the collapse of the process that is opening in Washington today is to quickly replace the failed approach with a realistic political one. Perhaps a Palestinian state with temporary borders, perhaps a partial evacuation of settlements, perhaps some other creative solution. But one thing is clear: Only if Obama, Netanyahu and Abbas forge some sort of interim agreement soon will peace come closer and an avalanche be prevented.
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The current Israeli PM used the interim Oslo agreement to massively establish more facts on the ground and no the failure of Camp David was the proposal of a farcially unbalanced proposal by Israel. The later more balanced proposal was refused by both. It can be assured that any interim agreement would allow the Palestinians limited territory with some claim that it would be expanded in the future. This of course would allow the the Israelis to gontinue their land grab unabated. I hope I will stand amazed and a fair and balanced agreement is found. Amazed because the Israeli government position opn peace is a quiesent Palestinians wile the greater Irsrael is acheived with facts onthe ground.
Avoiding peace has been profitable for Israel. The entire settlement enterprise came about by avoiding peace. Sporadic attacks from the Palestinians have turned into a regular source of income from America and others. They gave Israel leverage and options that would not have been available otherwise. Peace would end all this and face Israel with settlement evacuations, civil unrest, and increased violence from Palestinian militants. Why would Israel make such a choice? There seem to be a lot of people who believe that Israel really wants peace. Why would they? As a final note, the attacks from Palestinian militants will never stop completely. peace or no peace.
An Interim solution will never work unless it has a specific timeframe to arrive to the permanent status. Otherwise, Israel will just continue occupation claiming that the time is not ripe yet to implement the permanent one. This is precisely what Israel wants, to avoid relinquishing its control over the West Bank, and keep placing "realities on the ground". Ultimately, the world will realize that Israel never wanted to give up Judea and Samaria, and will be forced to annex it, along with its millions of Arab inhabitants, who will be granted Israeli citizenship.
Ari Shavit makes a case for continuing the belligerent occupation of Palestinian land. As he has explained in meticulous detail, we have heard such plans for years. Previous attempts to gain a peace have all failed precisely because they did not deal with this, the primary issue. Instead, we have had interim agreements such as he proposes now, all of whjich have simply prolonged the occupation. There will be no peace until Israel faces up to the basic fact that she has no rights East of the Green Line - except those achieved at the point of a gun.
Dr Izzeldin Abuelaish, who lost three daughters and a niece when the Israeli army shelled his family home on 16 January 2009, said in a recent interview about his book "I Shall Not Hate" : that "Everything is possible in life, even peace." (The Guardian weekly 20.08.10) People on both sides have been living in limbo far too long - when the idea of the Common Market, the forerunner of the European Union, was first discussed, it was branded as totally irrealistic.
This might be made to work if the temp borders are right on the green line, and after 10 years will be adjusted to permanently negotiated borders. That way Israel might have some incentive to negotiate in good faith and the settlers will have 10 years to make good on the back rent due. They will also get used to being disarmed in the presence of PA police forces and being searched as they go through the checkpoints. Maybe this idea can be made to work.
Oslo was an interim accord, and it was a dead-end. You admit it. So why suggest that an interim accord is what the two sides should attempt this time? Why is it any less a recipe for failure than it was at Oslo? Barak Obama and ALL THE OTHERS insist upon a final peace agreement precisely because there is universal concensus that Yet Another Interim Agreement will be the final death of this process. We have been there, done that. Try. Something. New.
YES for a final and permanent peace, but a great NOOOOOOOOOOOOO for an interim peace agreements. Interm agreement with israelis means only imposed israeli settelment.
oslo was an interim agreement and it led no where. if abbas cannot give up safed, or the "right of return," then he is not a leader. leadership requires self sacrifice and compromise. jews are very lucky that they had leaders like ben gurion who understood that they could not have all they wanted. if abbas cannot be a ben gurion, then we all have to wait for the next palestinian leader, the one who wants to make real peace.
An entity cannot declare independence whilst any of it's territories are under the control of another entity. .... It's precisely why the declaration of the independent republic of Israel, "within frontiers approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its Resolution of November 29, 1947", came into effect " at one minute after six o’clock on the evening of 14 May 1948, Washington time." ... http://talknic.wordpress.com/myths-mis-conceptions-propaganda/#look
Obama is naive, and can't get cured from narrow-minded political correctness. He pushes Hamburgers down Putin's throat, and likewise, wants to push a final, unrealistic, cartoon-like final peace agreement down the throat of Netanyahu and Abbas. If Abbas won't give up his birth town, and the settlers won't give up their homes next to our patriarchs and matriarchs tombs, then another generation of suffering, tears and blood will end the dream of peace for good. Sometimes, American naiveté, because it is so corny and stupid, achieves what nobody else can. Coke, Disney and Hamburers conquered the world, despite all protests. Peace is another brutally tasteless, equalizing product; insensitive and vulgar. But that is exactly what sometimes is needed to conquer the unthinkable. I wouldn't bet Obama will fail, and Abbas and Netanyahu won't ever be seduiced into fast-food glory.
The narrow-minded politicers are the israeli leaders . Those jews who prefer to live near their patriarch are not prevented from doing that , but the palestinian arabs who are determined to live in their villages along the mrditerranian coast must be not forbidden of having this right . Tears and blood will end the zionists dream of conquering the arabs
from the day of the birth of islam, arabs and subsequent muslims had waged wars of conquest. to this day, muslims cannot live in peace, even among themselves. israel will survive all of your attempts to annihilate her and her people.