Here’s the sad irony of the coming Israeli-Palestinian conclave: if Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were locked in a room and left to their own devices, they would be quite capable of real progress on some of the thorniest Middle East problems.
Both leaders are willing negotiators and desperately need some sort of breakthrough, no matter how modest, to boost their sagging political standing at home. Yet Olmert and Abbas are so weak among their own constituencies that any promises they make at the talks in Annapolis, Maryland, will immediately raise questions about their ability to deliver.
When Olmert campaigned for his post in the spring of 2006, he told Israeli voters he wanted to set Israel’s permanent borders, which would mean giving up many West Bank settlements. But his coalition government has never gained traction, and a skeptical Israeli public is in no mood to consider major concessions to the Palestinians.
A few years back, Abbas was one of the first prominent Palestinian politicians to publicly criticize violence against Israel, saying the attacks were counterproductive and undermined Palestinian efforts to achieve statehood. Yet he has no control in the Gaza Strip, the source of persistent Palestinian rocket fire. Mr. Abbas has been powerless in Gaza since his Fatah movement was defeated by the radical Islamic group Hamas in fighting last June.
President Bush is speaking loftily of establishing a Palestinian state before the end of his term in January 2009. But after years of daily violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians, it has taken a major diplomatic push just to get the leaders to meet face-to-face.
The metric for success at the Annapolis conference should be modest: Can the Israeli and Palestinian leaders start working together on a range of problems, including the crisis in the Gaza Strip?
Olmert and Abbas, along with the United States, share an interest in pressuring Hamas. But punishing Hamas has meant squeezing Gaza and making normal life impossible for the territory’s 1.5 million residents.
If Olmert wants to help Abbas, then Israel will have to allow Palestinian people and goods to move more freely, in both Gaza and the West Bank. If Abbas wants to help Olmert, he will have to crack down on Palestinian militants, relying on the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and on his powers of persuasion in Gaza.
Hamas, which will not be at Annapolis, is rooting for the conference to fail, and could have much to cheer about. Hamas believes that Abbas will have little to show for this visit, buttressing the group’s argument that negotiating with Israel is futile.
If Abbas goes home empty-handed, he could face increasing Palestinian pressure to resume a dialogue with Hamas in hopes of mending the fracture between the two main Palestinian factions.
In one example of how bizarre life has become in Gaza, Abbas does not want Palestinian security force members there to cooperate with the Hamas leadership.
So Abbas is paying the vast majority of the security force members in Gaza not to work, according to Safwat al-Kahlout, a Palestinian journalist who runs the Gaza News Service. Hamas, in turn, is paying a small minority of security force members who support Hamas.
When President Bush came into office, he viewed Bill Clinton’s intensive Middle East peace efforts a failure and has largely kept his distance. The periodic diplomatic pushes have been short-lived,
and it’s difficult to see how this one will fare better.
The most ambitious venture was the Road Map in 2003, with its detailed timetable for negotiations. It flopped immediately.
US diplomacy was stepped up briefly in 2005 when Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza, raising hopes that the Palestinians would focus on nation-building in the coastal territory. But Gaza descended into ever more chaos, and the “Gaza First” plan quickly collapsed.
Today, the Bush administration is looking to prop up Abbas in what amounts to a “West Bank First” policy. Yet the timing of the Annapolis talks feels artificial and forced, motivated by an administration trying to show it is doing something, no matter how long the odds.
For all its good intentions, the Annapolis meeting is a stark illustration of how much time has been wasted and how much ground has been lost during seven long years of violence.
Greg Myre, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, was based in Jerusalem and covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from 1999 until June 2007 for The New York Times and The Associated Press.
Disclaimer: Assertions and opinions in this Commentary are solely those of the above-mentioned author(s) and do not reflect necessarily the views of the Middle East Institute, which expressly does not take positions on Middle East policy.
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Here’s the sad irony of the coming Israeli-Palestinian conclave: if Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were locked in a room and left to their own devices, they would be quite capable of real progress on some of the thorniest Middle East problems.
Both leaders are willing negotiators and desperately need some sort of breakthrough, no matter how modest, to boost their sagging political standing at home. Yet Olmert and Abbas are so weak among their own constituencies that any promises they make at the talks in Annapolis, Maryland, will immediately raise questions about their ability to deliver.
When Olmert campaigned for his post in the spring of 2006, he told Israeli voters he wanted to set Israel’s permanent borders, which would mean giving up many West Bank settlements. But his coalition government has never gained traction, and a skeptical Israeli public is in no mood to consider major concessions to the Palestinians.
A few years back, Abbas was one of the first prominent Palestinian politicians to publicly criticize violence against Israel, saying the attacks were counterproductive and undermined Palestinian efforts to achieve statehood. Yet he has no control in the Gaza Strip, the source of persistent Palestinian rocket fire. Mr. Abbas has been powerless in Gaza since his Fatah movement was defeated by the radical Islamic group Hamas in fighting last June.
President Bush is speaking loftily of establishing a Palestinian state before the end of his term in January 2009. But after years of daily violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians, it has taken a major diplomatic push just to get the leaders to meet face-to-face.
The metric for success at the Annapolis conference should be modest: Can the Israeli and Palestinian leaders start working together on a range of problems, including the crisis in the Gaza Strip?
Olmert and Abbas, along with the United States, share an interest in pressuring Hamas. But punishing Hamas has meant squeezing Gaza and making normal life impossible for the territory’s 1.5 million residents.
If Olmert wants to help Abbas, then Israel will have to allow Palestinian people and goods to move more freely, in both Gaza and the West Bank. If Abbas wants to help Olmert, he will have to crack down on Palestinian militants, relying on the Palestinian security forces in the West Bank and on his powers of persuasion in Gaza.
Hamas, which will not be at Annapolis, is rooting for the conference to fail, and could have much to cheer about. Hamas believes that Abbas will have little to show for this visit, buttressing the group’s argument that negotiating with Israel is futile.
If Abbas goes home empty-handed, he could face increasing Palestinian pressure to resume a dialogue with Hamas in hopes of mending the fracture between the two main Palestinian factions.
In one example of how bizarre life has become in Gaza, Abbas does not want Palestinian security force members there to cooperate with the Hamas leadership.
So Abbas is paying the vast majority of the security force members in Gaza not to work, according to Safwat al-Kahlout, a Palestinian journalist who runs the Gaza News Service. Hamas, in turn, is paying a small minority of security force members who support Hamas.
When President Bush came into office, he viewed Bill Clinton’s intensive Middle East peace efforts a failure and has largely kept his distance. The periodic diplomatic pushes have been short-lived,
and it’s difficult to see how this one will fare better.
The most ambitious venture was the Road Map in 2003, with its detailed timetable for negotiations. It flopped immediately.
US diplomacy was stepped up briefly in 2005 when Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza, raising hopes that the Palestinians would focus on nation-building in the coastal territory. But Gaza descended into ever more chaos, and the “Gaza First” plan quickly collapsed.
Today, the Bush administration is looking to prop up Abbas in what amounts to a “West Bank First” policy. Yet the timing of the Annapolis talks feels artificial and forced, motivated by an administration trying to show it is doing something, no matter how long the odds.
For all its good intentions, the Annapolis meeting is a stark illustration of how much time has been wasted and how much ground has been lost during seven long years of violence.
Greg Myre, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute, was based in Jerusalem and covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from 1999 until June 2007 for The New York Times and The Associated Press.