New Israeli-Palestinian talks are doomed to failure

Nothing constructive is likely to emerge from the latest talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas because both leaders are too weak and the two sides are too far apart. Netanyahu cannot maintain his majority in Israel's parliament without the support of conservative settler parties that oppose further territorial concessions, and Abbas does not even have authority over all the territory he expects to make part of the Palestininan-dominated new country to emerge from a comprehensive peace agreement. The talks, which would not have even been scheduled without diplomatic pressure from the United States, have started just in time to resolve the still widely misunderstood issue of Israeli settlements when Israel's freeze on such construction expires Sept. 26, according to the Reuters international news service. The Abbas-led Palestinian Authority considers a freeze extension to be a necessary condition of its continued participation in the talks; Israel insists on continuing to build housing for its population, and obviously considers such construction to be its prerogative as a conquering power. But these people have been over this same issue for decades. It should be obvious to everyone involved that somebody is going to have to blink first. But whom? It doesn't help, of course, that both sides think they have already blinked numerous times with questionable results. Israel has maintained its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip for more than 40 years, and the Palestinians -- people who did not even exist as a people until they were disowned by their Arab brethren after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war -- have a functioning government and observer status at the United Nations. Complicating matters is the breakaway Hamas government in Gaza, which broke off from the West Bank government in 2007 to protest the PA's moves toward settlement with Israel. In the midst of the pessimism is U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said recently that her view is that the issues could be settled within one year. Good luck with that.

Israeli move to stop flotilla explodes into shooting and damaging rhetoric

It looks like Israel has a lot to answer for after its commandos killed at least nine activists trying to outmaneuver the county's blockade of the Gaza Strip territory controlled by Hamas. The commandos staged a predawn raid to try to stop the six-ship flotilla of 700 activists after it refused orders to stop. The flotilla was bringing thousands of tons of supplies to Gaza's isolated Palestinian population, but violence broke out before the boats could be secured and brought to the Israeli port of Ashdod to be searched, according to the Reuters international news service. European countries that had been steadily warming to Israel for two decades were quick with condemnations including, as expected, the usually hostile General Assembly of the United Nations. Turkey, the Muslim country that has been trying to join the European Union for years and has recently been facilitating negotiations between Israel and Syria, also joined the anti-Israel chorus. But Israel rightly contends that it had a right to enforce its blockade, which was imposed to prevent material that could be used to make weapons from reaching Gaza. Militants have fired thousands of missiles from the territory into southern Israeli cities. Egypt has cooperated with Israel in officially sealing the territory, but there have been reports of massive amounts of smuggling through tunnels under the border between Egypt and Gaza. But Israel is being sadly unrealistic if it ignores the magnitude of its miscalculation. That the commando raid went awry is not entirely Israel's fault, since the supposedly peaceful activists had obviously expected something to happen and came armed with, at least, crude weapons. But Israel did send paratroopers to seize control of the flotilla instead of using navy vessels to force the activists into Ashdod so the cargo could be searched. Israel will investigate the conduct of its soldiers and, hopefully, figure out what went wrong. But Israel will be forced to do it alone, since the rhetoric coming from the Palestinian Authority and other Arab states shows they are less interested in preventing violence than in scoring propaganda points against the Jewish state. Turkey called Israel's actions "terrorism," a comment so illogical it precludes any reasonable response. The Palestinian Authority called the attack on the flotilla "a massacre," which it obviously wasn't. Israel certainly did not expect its commando raid to go so terribly wrong. U.S. President Barack Obama got it exactly right when he said he regretted the loss of life and demanded a full accounting of what transpired at sea.

Indirect peace talks between Israel and Palestinian Authority are pointless

Word from Ramallah yesterday that Palestinian leaders had agreed to take part in indirect peace talks with Israel is at once good news and bad. It's good news, of course, because the Palestinians and Israelis are going to have to be in constant and constructive contact with each other if there is any hope of the two societies living together in peace. But it's bad news, too, because the Palestinian Authority agreed only to hold indirect talks with Israeli leaders in Jerusalem, with the United States acting as mediator, and that's a huge step in the wrong direction. Nothing can come from indirect talks that will be better than what the Israelis and Palestinians can achieve together, and whatever comes of them is likely to be a lot less useful for both. Sunday's agreement to hold indirect talks for four months was arranged after the Arab League endorsed the talks at a meeting in Cairo on Wednesday, according to the New York Times. The PA had refused to resume negotiations until Israel agreed to freeze settlement activity in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, which it wants for the capital of a future state. The new agreement comes one day before U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is expected to arrive in the region for the highest-level talks since the election of Biden and President Barack Obama. Israel accepted the indirect talks offer last week; the talks will be the first between the two sides in 14 months. But all the maneuverings and nuances cannot hide the real problem that keeps the PA from reaching a comprehensive peace deal. The Palestinian leadership doesn't want one, even though it promises tremendous benefits for the Palestinian people. Have Palestinian Authority-run schools stopped teaching children to hate Jews? Are Palestinian children still taught to mistrust their Israeli neighbors? It will take at least two generations to fix the years of hatred deliberately sowed by the PA, and Hamas-run schools in Gaza are undoubtedly worse. It will take generations to fix this, but the PA hasn't even started yet. This is the work that any real peace will require, and it's not getting done. Palestinian leaders prefer to dither over boundary lines and eschew any real compromises, because they know -- and the radical elements that dominate regional political discourse know, too -- that they are simply unwilling to accept Israel.

Democracy takes a holiday in West Bank political mess

Maybe the biggest casualty in the relentlessly intractable Palestinian-Israeli conflict is democracy in the new country planned for the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The latest from the West Bank is that the Palestinian Liberation Organization has extended the term of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas because it is expiring and the rebellious Hamas group that controls Gaza refuses to participate in elections scheduled for Jan. 24, 2010, according to the New York Times. That means, assuming Abbas agrees to stay in office -- not an entirely assured prospect, given recent public statements -- that the Palestinian people will no longer have elected representatives in a matter of weeks. Not that this would be the first time -- the PA deactivated its parliament after Hamas candidates won a clear majority in the 2007 elections and Western nations threatened to withdraw financial support if Hamas refused to change a charter provision calling for the destruction of Israel. But, then again, it's probably not entirely Hamas' fault; Middle East nations are well known for their lack of enthusiasm for democracy except westernized Israel, their avowed enemy. That is probably not a mere coincidence. The PLO Central Council reached its decision to extend Abbas' term at its meeting yesterday and today in Ramallah, the West Bank city where the PA has its headquarters. Hamas, which was unable to resolve its differences with the PA despite high-profile mediation by Egypt earlier this year, has rejected the PLO plan as "illegal," the Times said. Abbas has indicated he will not be a candidate for re-election no matter when the elections are held out of frustration with the peace process with Israel, which has stalled, but officials from the Palestinian, Israeli and United States governments have been trying to convince him to reconsider.

Israel calls UN report on Gaza "unfair"

Okay, Israel's rejection of a United Nations report that accused Jerusalem of committing war crimes in its three-week Gaza offensive was more than expected. The Jewish state has actually been speaking out loudly against the findings of the report, which was approved last week by the UN Council on Human Rights. The report blamed both Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, for committing "actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity," during the offensive that ended in January, according to Cable News Network (CNN). Israeli President Shimon Peres, a former prime minister, told CNN on Monday that the report was "one-sided" and "unfair" because his country had the right to defend itself against the barrages of missiles fired from Gaza since Hamas took control of the territory in 2007. "The right of self-defense is non-negotiable," Peres said. "I think we have shown courage in war and we have shown devotion in peace and we shall continue to struggle for peace." Not to be outdone, Hamas also rejected the portion of the report accusing it of war crimes while endorsing accusations against Israel. Hamas and Israel also disagree about the number of casualties, with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights putting the Palestinian death toll at 1,419, including 1,167 civilians, and the Israeli military saying 1,166 Palestinians were killed.

UN report says Israel and Hamas committed war crimes

What are we to make of yesterday's UN report finding both Israel and the Hamas government in Gaza committed war crimes during Israel's three-week incursion that ended in January? The report, released Tuesday by South African Judge Richard Gladstone, head of the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, found Israel responsible for "war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity," and called on the Palestinian organization to investigate alleged war crimes, respect human rights and release an Israeli soldier captured in 2006, according to the Cable News Network (CNN). We know what the combatants think -- Israel and Hamas immediately rejected all findings of wrongdoing by their own fighters. Israel's Defense Ministry released a statement saying it had refused to cooperate with the investigation because it expected the Fact Finding Mission, and its findings, to be "one-sided." A Hamas spokesman applauded the report as "evidence of the crimes committed" by Israel but rejected any suggestion that its conduct also violated international law. The report highlighted what it termed violations by Israel, including using the chemical agent phosphorous in civilian areas, even though it is not proscribed by international law, firing shells at hospitals, which is, and failing to properly warn citizens before attacks. If Israel did these things, there is no excuse and leaders of the Jewish state should explain themselves beyond standard denials. We know Israel is trying to defend itself from hostile regimes in the Middle East yet attacking defenseless civilian populations only exacerbates the conflict and makes it even more difficult to resolve. But Hamas should likewise be required to take responsibility for its indiscriminate firing of missiles into population centers in southern Israel, near the border of the Gaza Strip, which precipitated Israel's attack. The Palestinians have to solve their governmental crisis and unify their leadership before they're going to be able to figure out what they want and reach a meaningful and beneficial peace with Israel.

Palestinian leader agrees his people are not ready for statehood

Sure, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's speech Monday was full of the usual unproductive rhetoric that has long characterized the decadeslong dispute over the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. But the speech at Al Quds university near Jerusalem, billed as the Palestinian answer to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's June 14 address accepting an independent state on the West Bank of the Jordan River, also included a major concession that his people are not ready for statehood despite years of self-governance. According to the Reuters international news service, Fayyad said the Palestinians would need at least one year, and possibly two, to set up their new country. "I call on all our people to unite around the project of establishing a state and to strengthen its institutions ... so that the Palestinian state becomes, by the end of next year or within two years at most, a reality," he said. "Achieving this goal within two years is possible." Of course, bureaucrats always give the most optimistic estimate of anything they have to do, so a more likely estimate is three-four years, even though the 15-year-old Palestinian Authority essentially operates like a government already with ambassadors in many world capitals. But since the PA doesn't even control its own territory, having lost power over the Gaza Strip and its 1.5 million residents to the radical Hamas organization after a short war in 2007, a more-realistic view is that two years will be needed just to reunite the Palestinian people under the same government. Then, the PA might be able to get ready within two years, assuming it is government that prevails. Israel may indeed be responsible for a lot of what ails the Palestinians -- the PA certainly thinks to -- but if the goal at the end is statehood, there's a lot more work to do. And that is the Palestinians' responsibility, not Israel's, regardless of the rhetoric.

Palestinian Authority agrees deal with Hamas is necessary for peace with Israel

At least Fatah, which controls Palestinian civil society on the West Bank of the Jordan River, understands that it must resolve its standoff with the radical group Hamas before it can hope to negotiate a reasonable peace with Israel. At least, that's what a top Fatah official said Tuesday after the fourth round of negotiations in Cairo failed to reach an agreement between the rivals. Azzam al-Ahmed, a senior Fatah official who took part in the negotiations with Fatah, said a deal between the groups was a priority because it is a prerequisite for a regional peace deal with Israel, according to the New York Times. “The next round will determine everything,” Ahmed said. “Egypt will not allow a failure." The Times said Egypt has set a May 15 deadline for an agreement, according to Moussa Abu Marzouk, the deputy political chief of Hamas leader. “We cannot just talk for the sake of talking,” said Abu Marzouk said. “To continue without results is a disaster on the national level.” Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, which Israel abandoned to Palestinian authority in 2005. Such an agreement would be a daunting accomplishment. The two sides, which fought a bitter war nearly two years ago, have been unable to resolve any of the major issues separating them, including terms for setting up a unity government, holding new legislative and presidential elections, and unifying competing security forces, the Times said. Such a deal is urgent for the Palestinians because the international community refuses to openly provide reconstruction funds to Hamas, which Israel, the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist group. The aid is sorely needed in the Gaza Strip following the 22-day Israeli offensive that ended in January.

With their future at stake, Palestinians try to settle differences

At least Palestinian Authority officials realize how vital it is that they resolve their differences with their Hamas counterparts in Gaza, and how how far apart they are politically. An unnamed official told the Reuters international news service on Monday that "the gap is huge." That doesn't sound promising, coming as it does on the eve of unification negotiation between from the PA, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Cairo. But the PA understands, even if Hamas and Islamic Jihad doesn't, that Palestinians must be able to present a unified negotiating position to the Israelis, and one that will be respected by the factions, if they have any hope of reaching a regional territorial compromise with Israel. The talks are expected to last 10 days, and are expected to focus on formation of a unity government and the inclusion of Hamas in the PA, which governs the West Bank. Hamas militants defeated PA forces in 2007 to take control of the densely populated Gaza Strip but has been isolated by the West because of its refusal of recognize Israel or abide by previously negotiated peace agreements, Reuters said. "We must reach an agreement to form a government of reconciliation that will abide by the obligations of the PLO," PA President Mahmoud Abbas told reporters yesterday, Reuters said. Agreement by Hamas also could speed international aid to Gaza, where a recent 22-day offensive by Israel, aimed at eliminating daily rocket fire from militants, left more than 1,000 dead and thousands of buildings damaged or destroyed. "The sooner (a unity) government is formed, the faster the reconstruction will be realized," Abbas told Reuters. But Hamas official Ayman Taha said: "Gaza reconstruction is important but we are not required in return to cede our principles or recognize Israel, because that will never happen." And so it goes in the Middle East.