Hasan Afif El-Hasan: What if
the Negotiations Fail?
By Hasan Afif El-Hasan
Special to PalestineChronicle.com
As much as the Palestinian people wished the Annapolis
conference to succeed in ending the nightmare of the Israeli
occupation, it was a big disappointment for them and
embarrassment for the Arab leaders who promoted it especially
the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas. The meeting turned
out to be more about rhetoric, recycled slogans and promises,
and nothing on specifics that may promise a breakthrough in
the quest for peace. The only outcome of the conference was an
agreement that the Palestinians and Israelis start
implementing the defunct 2003 “Roadmap” peace plan, and the US
would be the arbiter and the judge of both sides compliance to
its requirements.
For few weeks before the conference, Abbas had been insisting
that he would not attend the conference unless Israel froze
the settlement activities, stopped building the separation
wall and removed checkpoints and roadblocks Israel operates in
the West Bank. He wanted a pre-conference joint document to
address future borders, Jerusalem and the fate of the
refugees. Arab states leaders talked about the need for having
the UN resolutions and the Arab peace initiative as the basis
for the conference and the negotiations that would follow. And
the Syrians were adamant about their position that they would
not attend unless the occupied Golan Heights issue was on the
agenda. Then Abbas had second thought and started talking
about the historic opportunity that should not be missed, and
the Arab League foreign ministers decided to attend the
meeting although all signs suggest the meeting would not
produce any tangible results for the Palestinians.
Bush opening address to the conference did not even reach the
low level of expectations while most of those who showed up to
hear him and the Palestinians who watched him on the
television had doubts about his sincerity. The key to any
future peace process is the degree to which the US is prepared
to intervene and bridge gaps when disagreements arise. But
Bush declared his government would not play that role. He
expects the two parties to negotiate and conclude a peace
treaty on their own without interference by the US. They need
to resolve all outstanding issues, including core issues, the
borders, settlements, Jerusalem, the water resources and the
refugees. Considering the stubbornness of Israel and the
imbalance of power in its favor, the prospects of concluding
an agreement short of complete surrender by the Palestinians
is hard to reach without external pressure. Months of
negotiations prior to the conference could not produce even a
joint declaration.
They say negotiations are wars, but with different means. In
any negotiations, each party employs its powers to extract
concessions from the opposing party. Left alone, Israel as an
occupier has all the powers including keeping the status quo
that served its expansion policies well. The Palestinians have
nothing other than their rights that are enshrined in
humanitarian, morality, international laws and several UN
resolutions. But unfortunately since the predominance of what
has been known as “the peace process” that started in Oslo
sixteen years ago, the legal principles have been marginalized
by the US, the defender of Israel and the self-appointed
catalyst and the peace-broker between the two parties. Thus
the Palestinian people have lost the legal framework that
defines their rights. The Palestinian negotiators suffer from
another self-inflicted fatal weakness. They are not supported
by a big sector of their constituency. The big demonstrations
in the West Bank, Abbas power base, and Gaza against Annapolis
conference put Abbas on notice that he was not authorized to
make concessions on the main issues including Jerusalem.
President Bush asked the Palestinian negotiators in his speech
to dismantle the infrastructure of the Islamic organizations,
something they have been already trying to do in the West Bank
in cooperation with the Israeli military machine. He referred
to the Palestinians only as moderates and extremists rather
than victims under occupation seeking their rights to
determine their future. The so called “extremists” according
to the US are those organizations that resist American and
Israeli policies. Bush pledged the US support to the security
of Israel as a Jewish state for all the Jewish people but the
only thing he pledged for the Palestinians was helping
establish democratic and free institutions. A Jewish state
means no right of return for the refugees and the possibility
of expelling the Israeli Arabs so that Israel retains Jewish
majority. Bush further pledged that the US would not pressure
any of the two sides, meaning he would not pressure Israel to
make any concession.
Israel, the strong party, left alone, will impose rather than
negotiate. Its policy has been to use its military power to
grab the occupied lands and violate the human rights of a
conquered people. The US had sided with Israel on the core
issues. President Bush had already supported Israel on the
refugees and the settlement issues. He asked the Arab states
delegates to normalize relations with Israel and recognize it
as Jewish state.
Bush was portrayed as a peace maker just by talking about
peace, but the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was the
actual winner because he received unearned praise from Abbas
when he described him as a man who wanted peace even while his
military occupies what is left of Palestine. Ma’ariv newspaper
declared that Olmert was the winner in Annapolis and peace was
the big loser. His performance in the conference had good
impression on his partners in his government. He made no
concessions and kept his shaky coalition intact. Two parties
in his five-party government oppose giving up West Bank
territory or control over any part of Jerusalem.
If Olmert has any desire for peace it would be on his own
terms. The separation wall is being built and 1.4 million
Palestinians in Gaza are denied access to the outside world
and starved to death under a draconian blockade. Olmert has
11,000 Palestinians in his jails, but he asked his audience in
the conference to grief with him the three Israeli soldiers
that have been captured by the Palestinians and the Lebanese.
He wanted peace according to his interpretation to 242 and 338
UN Resolutions and the 2004 Bush letter to then Prime Minister
Sharon.
The Israeli and US position is that Resolution 242 does not
call for Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied lands. They
maintain that according to the Resolution Israel effectively
can keep usable territory and resources of the occupied lands
but may not want to administer the population centers, so
these should be assigned to the Palestinian Authority to rule.
Bush pledged in writing that the US would support in the final
peace agreement the annexation of the large settlement blocks
to Israel and no right of return for the refugees.
Hours after the conclusion of the Annapolis meeting, Olmert
told the news media that Israel is not bound to carry out any
agreement before the Palestinians crack down on the Islamic
organizations and dismantle their infrastructure in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip as specified in the “Road map”. He added
that the holy site (Temple Mount) in Jerusalem is excluded
from any negotiations and Israel was not bound by any
timetable for reaching a final settlement. This is contrary to
the agreement reached in Annapolis that set the end of 2008
for the parties to forge a peace treaty and create a
Palestinian state. Olmert nullified the only explicit
achievement reached in the conference. His three preconditions
confirm the perception that Israel will not honor its
commitment to a peaceful solution. In the meantime the Israeli
military continues killing and arresting Palestinians on daily
basis and expand settlements and expropriate land. Only one
week after the conference, the Israeli government put out
tenders to build 300 new houses in the Jerusalem-area
settlement of Har Homa.
Two days after the conference was concluded, the US presented
a resolution to the UN Security Council for nonbinding
endorsement of the Middle East peace talks agreed in
Annapolis. The resolution was withdrawn immediately after
Israel objected to it despite its passive language and its
benefits for backing the Annapolis accords with the power of
international law. The US draft said the council "endorses the
programme of action for negotiations and implementation of
outstanding obligations … agreed upon by the Israeli and
Palestinian leadership at Annapolis, Maryland on November 27,
2007". The Foreign Minister of Israel, Tzipi Livni, said her
government considered the relaunch of the peace process to be
solely a matter between Israel and the Palestinians and even
the Arab States should not interfere.
Most likely nothing will be achieved by the negotiations that
will follow the conference. The question is what will happen
when (not if) the negotiations fail to produce an agreement or
an agreement will be reached but, like many others before, it
will not be implemented. Such a failure will sweep away any
justification for Abbas political platform that rests on the
US and Israel’s goodwill to produce a just settlement for his
people.
Then, the honorable course of action for Abbas and his
governing elites is to apologize to the Palestinians, declare
failure and resign, but such action will not happen because of
two reasons. First, relinquishing power, even if there is no
real power, by resigning from office is not a tradition in the
Arab countries. Some Palestinians will urge Abbas to resign
but many others, whose personal fortunes are dependent on
keeping him in office, will council him otherwise, and he
certainly will not resign. If the corrupt and incompetent
architects of Oslo fiasco never surrendered power when the
Palestinian People in the occupied land rejected them in the
last legislation elections, they will never give up the spoils
of power and resign if they fail to negotiate a just peace for
the Palestinians.
Second and most important, Israel and the US will never
abandon their man, Abbas, and his team because they will not
find better Palestinians to serve their interests. Abbas is
needed to continue the fight against the Palestinian
resistance that may threaten Israel’s security and he is the
most likely to eventually accept peace on Israel’s terms. The
Palestinian Authority under Abbas and Fayyad including its
security apparatus has become an agency of Israel and the US,
suppressing the right of resistance against occupation.
Given the tax money which Israel collects on behalf of the
Palestinians and some financial and material aid from the US,
Abbas can deliver the West Bank elite beneficiaries of his
regime and the middle class government employees who are
dependent on their salaries to provide for their families
livelihood. The support of the middle class is essential for
the survival of any regime in any country. As for the
political opposition in the West Bank, his security forces can
be equipped and trained to control it in cooperation with the
Israeli military, but the opposition will not lie down without
a fight especially since his regime loses legitimacy after its
failure to produce a settlement.
The failure of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations in 2000
triggered the second Intifada against the Israeli occupation,
but the failure in 2007 will most likely trigger violence by
Palestinians against Palestinians, a re-run of their infighting during the 1936-39 revolt against the British. The
civil war in 1936 led to the abeyance of the national movement
and the triumph of Zionism in 1948, but a civil war in 2007
will seal the fate of the Palestinians’ national cause and the
completion of the Zionist colonialists’ project.
-Born in Nablus, Palestine, Hasan Afif El-Hasan, PhD, is a
political analyst and an author. He worked for 30-years in
Avionics Engineering.