Obama needs Palestine merely to pursue his scheme to isolate Iran, says Khaled Amayreh cynically in occupied JerusalemDesperate to achieve progress of any kind on the Israeli- Palestinian track, the Obama administration is pressuring, even bullying the weak and vulnerable Palestinian Authority (PA) to agree, at least in principle, to an Israeli proposal that would see the creation of a Palestinian "state" on some 60 per cent of the West Bank.
However, such an entity as proposed by the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in recent talks with US officials, would be devoid of any semblance of sovereignty and conspicuously lacking control of its borders, which would be temporary in any case and tightly controlled by Israel.
Israel reportedly ensured the American administration that negotiations over the fate of the remaining 40 per cent of the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem and land located west of the Apartheid Wall, would ensure the creation of a viable mini- Palestinian state.
The Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, utterly desperate and confused as to the best approach to adopt, fears that Israel is only trying to trick the Palestinians (and the Americans) into accepting a vague arrangement that would eventually enable Israel to arrogate up to half of the West Bank under the rubric of a cumulative peace process and Palestinian statehood.
For its part, the Obama administration's representative George Mitchell has been holding several rounds of inconclusive talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. It seems desperate and determined to achieve something that would help isolate Iran and also enhance the Democratic Party's chances in the next Congressional elections in November.
The administration officials have been arguing that the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is of the utmost importance to American interests and affects US global strategic standing.
However, these statements are being interpreted by many experts as part of the administration's posturing to resist mounting pressure by pro-Israeli groups, including Congress. Congress is widely considered another "Israeli occupied territory" and is strongly trying to undercut President Obama's efforts to get Israel to freeze settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem which is widely seen as a sin-qua-non for a successful peace process, let alone for the conclusion of a final peace agreement.
An expression of Abbas's confusion and desperation loomed large this week when he admitted that he had asked the US to "impose a solution on the sides". The admission is very telling since it presumed that Abbas believed that an American-imposed solution would be somewhat evenhanded.
Speaking in Ramallah before a meeting of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, Abbas said: "We've asked the American administration more than once to impose a solution."
Abbas said he would reject the creation of a Palestinian state with temporary borders. "The Palestinians were being asked to take a state with temporary borders on 40 or 50 per cent of the West Bank and then they [the Israelis] tell us 'we will see what comes up next.'"
Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad continued to promise the Palestinians, even in a euphoric way, that a state would be born around this time next year with or without agreement with Israel.
Speaking at a conference "The Present and Future of Jerusalem" at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis on 26 April, Fayyad said Palestinian statehood was already a de facto reality and that the international community would soon come to the conclusion that a formal recognition of that reality was inescapable.
"Without a Palestinian state on the basis of the 1967 borders, there can be no stability or security in this region. The creation of a Palestinian state is not only a Palestinian interest, but is also an Israeli and world interest," Fayyad told Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) officials and a group of Palestinian intellectuals and academics present at the conference.
However, a few hours later, Abbas was quoted as saying that the PA wouldn't declare Palestinian statehood without Israeli consent. "We stand by agreements. We will not declare Palestinian state unilaterally."
The Palestinian leader, who was being interviewed by the Israeli TV Channel-10, said he was extending his hand in peace to the Israeli people, saying that he was willing to work with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
He also added that he would be willing to return to the negotiating table next month, saying he hoped to get Arab League approval for the proposed proximity talks.
Nonetheless, Abbas is unlikely to obtain Arab League approval for speedy but nearly unconditional talks with the Netanyahu government if only because such talks had been tried before ad nauseam but to no avail.
Abbas had been vowing not to resume talks with Israel unless the Jewish state froze settlement expansion in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.
According to Arab sources in Damascus and Cairo, the 22-state body, which is struggling to overcome an erstwhile notorious image of incompetence and reconstruct a more positive image, will reject any unconditional resumption of talks with Israel in the absence of guarantees regarding halting Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank, including Jerusalem.
The League's Monitoring Committee, which is entrusted with following up on the Arab Peace Initiative, is expected to meet next week in order to vote on the proposal.
Despite repeated assertions rejecting a state with temporary borders, the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah is still reluctant to say a clear-cut no to the Americans, calculating that the Obama administration represents a rare opportunity that must not be allowed to be wasted or missed, and that it would be politically inexpedient for the overall Palestinian cause to reject outright the latest American proposals.
Indeed, it is likely that it was in this context that Abbas had asked the Obama administration to impose a solution on the sides.
There are those who are profoundly convinced that the extremist government of Binyamin Netanyahu is only prevaricating and playing tactics with both the Obama administration and the PA leadership.
One PA official present at the Al-Quds University conference described Mitchell's talks with PA officials in Ramallah as "a tedious repetition of the same old platitudes about the beauty of peace and need to restart talks."
"The Americans, unable or reluctant to pressure Israel, are trying to pressure us, given the fact that we are the weaker party. They think that the key to isolate Iran in the current standoff with the West lies in far-reaching Palestinian concessions to Israel on cardinal issues such as Jerusalem and the refugees. And I want to tell you something. Even if all Arab states say yes for such concessions, we, the mother of the child, will say a clarion no because this is our land, our future."
The official, who demanded that his name not be mentioned, said the bulk of the PA leadership was fully aware of "Netanyahu's tricks, deception, mendacity and stalling tactics".
"Netanyahu wants to gain more time to create more irreversible facts in Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, and the Americans have come to think that we are merely obsessed with the symbol of statehood, even at the expense of losing Jerusalem and one third of the West Bank, in addition to the right of return for the refugees. Well, all I can tell you is that they are dreaming if they think that we will succumb to their designs and wishful thinking."
Needless to say, the Palestinian official's scepticism is more than justified. Netanyahu, while telling Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that he is willing to conduct "frank and honest discussion" over all core issues, has been telling settlers, leaders and his own coalition partners that there is no way Israel would leave any part of Jerusalem to the Palestinians and that settlements west and east of the Annexation Wall would continue to grow irrespective of the peace process with the Palestinians.
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