by MATT ROWLAND HILL
29 April: that was the date, according to John Kerry’s initial timetable, by which an agreement to end the Israel-Palestine conflict would be signed. But it now risks going down in history for another reason: as the day the modern “peace process” died. The secretary of state is engaged in a race against time to persuade the sides to keep negotiating beyond the end of the month. A unity agreement between Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas, signed this week, may have complicated his task. Nevertheless all those who, like me, believe a two-state agreement is the only way of ending Israelis’ and Palestinians’ century-long dispute will be hoping against hope that he succeeds – right?
Wrong. It’s time to face facts: a quarter century of on-off peace talks has left the Palestinians empty-handed, and there’s no reason to believe the result will be any different this time. Consider the evidence rather than the soundbites, and it’s clear Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no intention of offering the Palestinians a deal that would give them a viable state.
For a peace agreement to work, it must satisfy two fundamental conditions. First, both Israelis and Palestinians must approve it in separate referendums. If either people feels the deal is unfair, or sacrifices too many of their fundamental rights, it’s a non-starter. The second condition is that a peace agreement must actually bring peace. For several years after a deal is signed there will be those on both sides agitating for renewed conflict, and unless Israelis feel more secure and Palestinians more prosperous and free, new cycles of violence are bound to break out.
And here’s the problem: Netanyahu wants the Palestinians to sign a one-sided deal that, even if it meets the first condition, will certainly fail the second. After spending his whole political career, including an earlier spell as prime minister, doing everything he could to oppose the two-state solution, he abruptly changed his position under severe US pressure in 2009, and since then has been saying that a negotiated deal is essential to Israel’s future. But even though he now talks about peace and Palestinian statehood, his understanding of those words is a long way from their usual meaning. As a result, any deal that arises from these talks will not only fail to bring justice to the Palestinians – it will fail to bring lasting peace.
How do I know this? Because Netanyahu has said so again and again, to anyone who will listen. It’s universally recognised – by the international community, independent experts, previous Israeli leaders, and civil society groups in the US, Israel and Palestine – that two essential conditions for Palestinian statehood are a capital in East Jerusalem and a border based on the 1967 line (with minor, agreed modifications). But Netanyahu’s “Palestinian state” involves neither. He said so in September 2009, in the very speech in which he reversed his long opposition to the two-state solution. He said so in May 2011, when President Obama last tried to kickstart talks between the two sides. He was still saying so in January 2013 while campaigning in the runup to the last Israeli election. And he has continued saying so while the talks sponsored by Kerry have been taking place. It’s not surprising that Netanyahu’s father and political mentor Benzion Netanyahu said of his son’s “embrace” of Palestinian statehood: “He doesn’t support it. He supports the sorts of conditions that they” – the Palestinians, that is – “would never accept.”
remainder with embedded links: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/25/the-day-the-modern-peace-process-died/
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