Wa****ngton Watch: Palestinian statehood - as elusive as ever
By DOUGLAS BLOOMFIELD
May 11, 2008 20:37 | Updated May 12, 2008 9:39
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What does it say about the Palestinian commitment to peace when the
first American president to make the creation of a Palestinian state a
goal of his administration is told he is unwelcome when he comes next
week to celebrate Israel's 60th birthday?
When President Bush goes to Israel he will be persona non grata -
translation: Yankee go home -in the Palestinian Authority because they
will be mourning the establishment of the Jewish state, which they
refer to as the ****ba or catastrophe. That's not Hamas or Islamic
Jihad, who make no secret of their desire to eradicate the state of
Israel, but it is the man most identified with the concept of two
states, one Jewish and one Palestinian, living side-by-side in peace -
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority.
Even though he won't be welcome in Ramallah, Bush welcomed Abbas at
the White House last week when the Palestinian leader came to urge him
to put more pressure on Israel to meet Palestinian demands if he
expects to achieve his goal of a peace agreement before he leaves
office.
The American president isn't the only one being snubbed; the PA has
told French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel
and other world leaders attending the Israeli celebration they are
equally unwelcome.
If Bush wants to see Abbas, he will have to go to Egypt. In a further
effort to accommodate Palestinian sensitivities, Bush re****tedly will
not be visiting the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism and
location of the ancient Temple that the Palestinians insist never
existed.
Meanwhile, the PA is trying to organize a march of more than 100,000
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon toward the Israeli border and
thousands more from the West Bank and Gaza toward Israeli checkpoints
and border crossings. Those living abroad are being urged to fly to
Ben Gurion Air****t or take ****ps to Israeli ****ts. All this in the
name of "reclaiming" homes lost in the ****ba.
They are being billed as "peaceful demonstrations" but it won't take
much for the emotionally charged confrontations to turn violent,
creating a real catastrophe.
BUT THE real ****ba is not the creation of the Jewish state but the
rejection by Arab leaders of the 1947 partition plan and the
op****tunity to create a state for the Palestinians. They weren't
really interested in a two-state solution then and many apparently
still are not - Abbas's yanking the welcome mat raises questions about
his own professed commitment.
The tragedy, of course, was compounded by a succession of Israeli
leaders too timid and too focused on their own political careers to
confront a radical settlers movement consumed with its dreams of a
greater Israel and opposed to peace with the Palestinians on any terms
likely to be accepted.
Abbas is snubbing two im****tant allies, the president of the United
States and the Israeli public. He needs both if he wants to achieve
peace.
An unnamed senior Palestinian official told The Jerusalem Post that
Abbas left the White House "angry and depressed" last week when Bush
turned down his demands to tighten the screws on the Israelis. The
Bush administration is not a credible honest broker and Palestinians
will have to wait for the next president, he said.
He fails to understand that the close relation****p between Wa****ngton
and Jerusalem makes the United States an indispensable intermediary
between Israel and the Arabs; it is the only country with the
credibility and clout for that role.
However, he's right on the second point. After six years of neglect,
the Bush administration has started to talk as if peace was a real
priority - but action has lagged far behind rhetoric. The Republican
and Democratic candidates for president have indicated they would get
more personally involved in Mideast peace making.
Israeli public opinion can be a valuable asset; it is often ahead of
the political leader****p. Ehud Olmert was elected prime minister two
years ago on a platform calling for withdrawal from 90 percent of the
West Bank, and that was just for openers. There was hope for peace;
the Gaza withdrawal was expected to create a showcase for Palestinian
self-rule but instead Gaza sunk into chaos and Hamas seized power in a
coup.
THE DAILY barrage of missiles from Gaza, the failures of the Second
Lebanon war, scandals that have seen the Israeli president resign and
the prime minister under multiple corruption investigations cast
shadows over this Independence Day celebration. The Olmert government
could fall and if elections were held today it is likely the next
prime minister would be Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposes Palestinian
statehood and Bush's Annapolis initiative.
Abbas strengthens Netanyahu and the rejectionists when he tells
Israelis that the anniversary of their independence is a day of
mourning, and Palestinians will never recognize Israel as the homeland
of the Jewish people.
Jews were driven out of Arab lands in roughly the same number as Arabs
who fled Israel at the time of the creation of the Jewish state. The
difference was the Jews were absorbed into the new state, given jobs
and citizen****p, while the Palestinians were largely confined to
squalid camps in order for their unwilling Arab hosts to exploit them
as political pawns to use against Israel.
Sixty years later Palestinian statehood is as elusive as ever and the
Palestinians are still blaming their suffering on everyone but
themselves. Now that's a catastrophe.
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Deborah
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