Why the stalemate?

Headline in Friday's Ha'aretz:  "Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] is losing hope: 'I sense that Netanyahu has not changed since 1996'"
 
A headline on an inside page in the same edition: "Paralysis at the summit of coordination between the government and the territories." That story goes on to say that things are not happening in the policy to advance "economic peace" on account of the failure of Israeli government to make appointments to key positions in the program.
 
Elsewhere in the news we hear that negotiations about freeing Gilad Schalit are moving at the speed of a crippled snail. International donors are complaining that Gazans are still living amid the rubble because Israel will not open the borders to the supplies and equipment that their contributions will provide.
 
Let me offer explanations for these disparate items, summed up in some pithy epigrams:

• There is no free lunch in international relations
• You screw us, we'll screw you
• "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" may be a spiritual ideal, but the more popular norm in international politics is the simpler "Do unto others."

Israel can live well enough without solving the problem of Palestine. The Palestinians may pride themselves in their willingness to die for their national cause, but they have committed national suicide. There will be no Palestinian state as long as key factions persist with the dreams of turning back the clock to 1967, to 1947, or to the mid-19th century before Jews began coming to this area.
 
I perceive that Netanyahu has changed since 1996. He appears to be wiser, and more skilled in expressing what he demands as conditions for moving forward with a peace process.
 
Abu Mazen's problem is that he has not changed. From the information available to the public, I see no signs of flexibility in his position. No matter what Israel has offered, it is not enough.

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You want moderation? Not here

Muslim and Jewish religious leaders are competing to heat up their followers in defense of incompatible rights to the Temple Mount/Haram e-Sharif. And Ha'aretz is marking the 14th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination with a front page story revealing that his late widow, Leah, said that Binyamin Netanyahu was corrupt.
 
Should we comment first on the madness of religion, or the madness of journalism?
 
On religion and the Temple Mount/Haram e-Sharif, one can go on forever parsing the history and the rights of Jews and Muslims. Did Moshe Dayan make a fatal mistake in 1967 when he ordered that the flag of Israel be removed from the Dome of the Rock and turned over the management of the whole site to Muslim religious authorities? Did that contribute to peace, or did it contribute to Muslim insistence on a monopoly of their rights and their denial of a historic Jewish presence, and provoke Jews to demand the right to pray on the Mount, erect a synagogue, or start construction of the Third Temple, which might entail the removal of Muslim holy sites?
 
The controversy is fascinating for its historical and political elements, but Jerusalemites content to live without solving religious mysteries are left with the effects of simmering conflict. Currently we are in the midst of what may be an escalation that, at the least, will tie up traffic in the area of the Old City.

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Competing to establish Palestine? Or to kill it...

Recent expressions coming from the Palestinians reveal a chronic internal competition that does not auger well for their ability to get it together and reach statehood.
 
A week ago the Palestine National Authority, presumably under the direction of Mahmoud Abbas, withdrew its demand that the Goldstone Report move up from the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva to the Security Council in New York.
 
Leading Palestinian voices accused Abbas of caving into Israeli demands, and say he did it to get Israeli permission to open a second Palestinian cell phone service, in which they claim his son had a financial interest.
 
Abbas responded with a "who, me?" He insisted that he was acting on the advice of the United States rather than pressure from Israel, and that his son was not involved with the cell phone initiative.
 
Egyptian opposition politicians are calling Abbas a traitor to Palestine, and demanding that the Palestinian ambassador leave Cairo.
 
Leading Palestinian figures accuse Israel of taking more and more land in Jerusalem, say that Arabs are not investing enough in their neighborhoods, and recall that it was Benyamin Netanyahu who opened a provocative site for tourists that threatened Muslim landmarks during his previous term as prime minister in 1996.
 
Abbas has joined the chorus, led by Hamas and its Islamic allies, that Israeli extremists are behind the recent incidents of violence in Jerusalem. Palestinians must defend the sanctity of al Aqsa.
 
This is not the first time Palestinians have accused one another of not being sufficiently shrill, and fiddling with sacred causes. Ranking office holders and their relatives have been involved with selling cement meant for Palestinian purposes to Israelis for building apartments in the West Bank, and even for the awful security barrier.
 
What is most worrying is the inclination of religious and political leaders to goad one another for not being sufficiently extreme on issues of national importance.

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Some puzzles for Israel and others

Should Israel be scorned because its former prime minister is said to have helped himself to financial favors during his service in increasingly important government offices on the way to the top? Or be praised for indicting him on charges of fraudulent receipt of goods, false registration of corporate documents, fraud, breach of trust and tax evasion? Should it be scorned because its former president is alleged to be a sexual predator, or praised for indicting him on charges of rape and sexual harassment?
 
Even those who praise Israel for cleaning house may criticize it for taking so long to do so. Investigations went on for years before the Attorney General handed down indictments, and the trials may last even longer. 

Justice, and the closely related legitimacy of criticism, are deeply rooted in Jewish doctrine. Israelis who do not study sacred texts acquire the traits somewhere else.
 
Should one doubt the presence of criticism, it is only necessary to look at the front page of the country's most distinguished newspaper the day after the Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke to the United Nations General Assembly.
 
Praise for a speech carried live in Israeli and international media? Think again.

Obama's Middle East record to date: unimpressive to embarrassing

Since the country went back to work after Rosh Hashana, the airwaves were filled with competing speculation about the upcoming meeting in New York of Barack Obama, Benyamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas. The central question: What, if anything, would Obama wring from Netanyahu and Abbas? Perhaps Bibi would agree to more of a settlement freeze than previously, and Abu Mazan would agree to negotiate with him.
 
Once the leaders had met, and the American president spoke, the commentary shifted to new terrain, where it will likely stay for awhile.

Neither Bibi nor Abbas gave Obama what he wanted. The president came close to admitting defeat when he spoke of "restraining" building in the settlements rather than "freezing" it, and did not mention east Jerusalem. The process will continue. Secretary of State Clinton and special envoy Mitchell will return to the region, and press Israelis and Palestinians to be reasonable.
 
Some commentators are saying that Israel will eventually pay a heavy price for refusing to bend under the pressure of the American president. Others are ridiculing Obama. How could he have invested his time and prestige so heavily and achieve nothing?
 
Actually, he achieved less than nothing. He made things worse.
 
Earlier, the Palestinians negotiated while construction in the settlements continued. Obama hardened their position by his insistence on a freeze. And he may have spurred a greater rate of construction by Israelis enraged by his demand to freeze construction for Jews in neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
 
Skeptics will say that Obama's efforts have had no impact. The gaps between what the most generous of the major Israeli parties are willing to offer and what the Palestinians demand are so great as to make agreement unlikely.
 
So what is the future?
 
Most likely more of the same.

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A slap in the face for Obama?

Has Israel insulted the United States by approving construction on some 500 new dwellings in the West Bank, and indicating that construction will continue on about 2,500 others? This against President Obama's plan for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations based upon a complete construction freeze, including neighborhoods of east Jerusalem.
 
Or is it a reasonable response to a naive American conception that the settlements are a major obstacle preventing agreement between Palestinians and Israel?
 
Perhaps the Israeli response is appropriate, but presented in a way that is insulting. If Netanyahu was working with the Americans on the conception of a freeze, what he has done seems far from that. And was it nice to announce new construction a day before the long Labor Day weekend, when Americans would be away from their desks?

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Maybe I should have been a tailor

This is one of those days when I wish I had taken up a profession other than academic craft of political science. Maybe tailoring or peddling, like my grandfathers.
 
Or maybe I should go back to school, where someone might be able to teach me to understand what I'm reading.
 
Israel's prime minister is saying that he agrees to a limited-time freeze on West Bank settlements, but only to take effect after he signs off on several hundred new building permits, then excludes them from the freeze along with some 2,500 units already under construction, along with schools and other public buildings that might be built in existing settlements. He is also saying that the freeze will not include neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
 
All that sounds good for Likud party activists who used terms like "traitor" when they heard that Netanyahu was agreeing to any freeze at all. However, it also recalls one of Tzipi Livni's slogans in the recent election campaign: "Bibi. I don't believe him."

US public opinion turning against Israel

Several friends have cautioned me that public opinion in America is turning against Israel, and public opinion in Europe is more intense in its opposition.
 
The reasons cited are the ugly pictures coming out of Gaza, as well as the perception that President Obama is upping the pressure against Israeli stubbornness with respect to concessions for the Palestinians.
 
If you actually read my letters, you should have noticed that I judged Obama's speech to be at least as harsh toward the Arabs as toward Israel. Nonetheless, public opinion polls show a strong tendency among Israelis to perceive animosity. Perhaps it is Jewish nerves, overly suspicious about an escalation of threat. It is incorrect to conclude that George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice never criticized Israel. I recall them saying what Obama said about the need to stop settlement growth.

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Israel's troubled legislative proposals

Israel is going through a season of proclamations and legislative proposals that remind me of American campaigns about prayer in schools, abortions, and gay marriage.
 
The equivalents here are a proposals to outlaw the mourning of Israel's existence (Nakba) by the country's Arab population, jail sentences for those who deny the Jewish character of the country, and rabbinical demands that soldiers refuse orders to remove settlements.
 
What links these Israeli and American issues is their capacity to inflame marginal issues with religious fanaticism.

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Is it curtains for the peace process?

If you enjoy political drama, the new Israeli government may be your cup of tea.
 
The problem is, the drama isn't on stage, but here and now. And the disappointment may be greater than popcorn with too much salt.
 
The opening scene was Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman giving his first speech in office. To take him at his word, he will change the rules of the game. The time of one-sided Israeli concessions is over. They have not brought peace. Palestinians and other Arabs will have to match Israel with concessions. He did not denounce the goal of a Palestinian state, but seemed to be pushing it somewhere over the horizon. He will welcome peace with Syria, but not at the cost of withdrawing from the Golan Heights. He respects Egypt as an important force that works to stabilize the Middle East, but the era of Israeli foreign ministers visiting Egypt, when Egyptian leaders cannot tarnish their reputations by visiting Israel, is over.

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