The Palestinians have set the stage for Netanyahu's Washington trip
July 5, 2010 - 2:32pm
This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his entourage will be visiting Washington and meeting with Pres. Obama tomorrow, but it all comes very much in the context of last month's highly successful trip by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and an entourage of PLO leaders, the centerpiece of which was a meeting on June 9 with Obama in the White House. The logical of the Abbas visit, which had originally been scheduled to follow one week after a similar meeting between Obama and Netanyahu, originally seemed lost due to Netanyahu's cancelation of the meeting. He returned to Israel from Canada, rather than continuing on the United States, as scheduled, probably to avoid causing yet another embarrassment to Obama, given the Gaza flotilla attack. Theoretically, no one would have scheduled a meeting between Obama and Abbas before the aborted Netanyahu meeting, but neither party had any grounds or reasons to postpone it, so the Palestinians came as scheduled. As it turns out, the visit could hardly have been more successful under existing circumstances and proved to be an impressive surprise. More importantly, it has raised a significant set of challenges for the Israeli prime minister as he prepares for his delayed appearance.
The most important aspect of the Palestinian visit was the striking demonstration of Palestinian forthcomingness on peace, especially from Abbas personally. Crucially, when the PLO came under fairly heavy pressure from predictable quarters not to return to proximity talks after the flotilla attack, it firmly pointed out that while it condemned Israel's actions, no purpose would be served by bowing out of the American-brokered talks. The two issues were separate and not connected, they pointed out, and could have added that refusing to continue with diplomacy on final status issues would actually reward rather than punish Israel and pointlessly damage the Palestinian national interest. The wisdom of this decision became clear during the visit, which would not even have taken place if Palestinians walked away from the talks or put them on hold.
What the Palestinians were able to do, for the first time in many years, arguably since the late 1990s, was position themselves as a real diplomatic and political partner in peace to the US administration, something the present Israeli government has most certainly failed to do. The Americans and Palestinians found themselves in broad agreement on the most pressing points. They agreed that a way has to be found to relive the suffering of the people of Gaza without strengthening Hamas and that breaking down the commonality of interests between Gazans and their rulers is crucial. On vexed question of negotiations, it was expected that the Palestinians were going to be harangued with a mantra of returning to direct talks as soon as possible and without conditions. The Palestinian position was unusually serviceable: they told the Americans that while they are all in favor of direct talks, the proximity talks should yield some progress of some kind first to demonstrate that there is, in fact, a point to negotiating with this Israeli government. The essential point they were making, and that was accepted by the administration, is that direct talks are desirable and important, but that more diplomatic and political groundwork is needed before they can successfully be launched. The Palestinian suggestion to the Americans is that they work out with Israel what, exactly, is going to be tackled in the early stages of direct talks, and that when the US is satisfied that the talks will have merit and substance and can explain how to the Palestinians, they will agree to resume direct negotiations. It has also helped that while the Israelis have been insisting that the proximity talks focus on procedural issues and water, Palestinians have been pushing the issues of borders and security, which is an agenda that is very compatible with the White House approach....READ MORE
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