It has become something of a peacemaking cliché that Yasser Arafat had the
authority and credibility with his own people to make peace with Israel but
didn’t want to, while his successor Mahmoud Abbas wants to make peace with
Israel but lacks the authority and credibility.
Unwittingly or otherwise,
in presenting an op-ed article for
The Jerusalem Post last week that was plainly
intended to encourage his successor Binyamin Netanyahu to make another dramatic
attempt at peacemaking, former prime minister Ehud Olmert appeared to undermine
this argument, to Abbas’s detriment.
RELATED:Ben-Gurion’s legacy on Jerusalem under assaultThe terms for an accordUrging Netanyahu to “transform the
atmosphere” surrounding the troubled direct talks with the Palestinians, Olmert
set out a series of generous positions he said Israel should take. He offered a
formula for finalizing borders between Israel and Palestine, advocated that
Israel agree to solve the Palestinian refugee issue within the framework of the
Arab peace initiative, pressed for an Israeli withdrawal from Arab neighborhoods
of east Jerusalem that would then serve as the capital of a sovereign Palestine,
and spelled out terms for an “international trusteeship” to oversee Jerusalem’s
Holy Basin. This last concession would involve relinquishing Israeli sovereignty
at the Western Wall and Temple Mount, in favor of a five-member non-sovereign
body in which Israel would be joined by the US, the new Palestine, Saudi Arabia
and Jordan.
Olmert wrote the article against the background of the
current bitter controversy over Israel’s now-lapsed 10-month settlement freeze.
He lamented that the potentially marginal issue of the freeze had now taken
center stage and was threatening to derail the barely resumed negotiations. A
new Israeli offer, he argued, would refocus attention on the issues that really
matter, the core points of dispute.
The truth, though Abbas’s defenders
are finding it convenient to overlook it, is that it was Abbas who chose to
fritter away the first nine months of Netanyahu’s unprecedented settlement
freeze, declaring it inadequate or unsatisfactory, twisting this way and that in
order to stay away from the negotiating table. This was hardly the behavior of a
Palestinian leader desperate to reach an accommodation with the stable, widely
supported Netanyahu government – a government more capable than most any in
recent Israeli history of delivering on a peace deal.
Still more
significant, however, as a source close to Olmert confirmed to the Post
last
week, is the fact that the peace terms the former prime minister spelled
out in
his article reflect the very ideas that he put to Abbas at the
conclusion of
their two years of negotiations. Olmert, that is, in his discussions
with Abbas,
already set out his border proposals; already raised the Arab peace
initiative
framework for resolving the refugee issue; already indicated a readiness
to
transfer sovereignty to a new Palestine in Arab neighborhoods of east
Jerusalem;
already backed the idea of an international trusteeship for the Holy
Basin. And Abbas did not rush enthusiastically to accept the
terms.
As Olmert has made plain in other forums, in fact, Abbas
neither
accepted nor rejected those far-reaching proposals. Rather, he did not
respond to them one way or the other.
The source close to Olmert
who
spoke to
the Post expressed the
conviction that Abbas “now regrets not
responding.”
But Abbas himself, most notably in a
Washington Post
interview last year, has characterized the gaps between his positions
and
Olmert’s as being too wide. In other words, it wasn’t that he didn’t get
around
to formally saying “yes” to Olmert. Rather, he didn’t get around to
delivering a
formal “no.”
EHUD OLMERT’S advice notwithstanding, Netanyahu has
made
abundantly clear since taking office that he does not intend to
reiterate
previous offers made to the Palestinians by his predecessors.
While
he
has declared that he supports an independent Palestinian state, and has
moved
strikingly to help create improved economic conditions for such a state
to take
shape in the West Bank, he has also repeatedly stressed his aim to forge
a
permanent accord under better territorial terms for Israel than those
proposed
by several previous prime ministers. Specifically responding to Olmert’s
op-ed, furthermore, MKs close to the prime minister stated firmly that
he would
never relinquish sovereignty at the Western Wall or Temple
Mount.
Netanyahu, as is his wont, has been attempting the near
impossible
in recent weeks as regards the settlement freeze: trying to keep
everybody if
not happy, then at least partially mollified. He publicly committed
himself,
when reluctantly assenting to the moratorium under American pressure 10
months
ago, to a one-time only complete halt to building, and he refused to
reverse
that position this week by formally extending the freeze. At the same
time, he
has indicated that he is not looking to provoke further Palestinian and
international criticism by supporting a push for the major expansion of
the
settlement enterprise.
There have been some suggestions, notably
from
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, that if only the two sides could
knuckle down
to the substance of their talks, and make rapid headway on the issue of
where a
border between Israel and a new Palestine might run, such progress would
render
irrelevant the complex questions of where exactly Israel, and for that
matter
the Palestinians, can and cannot build. But such readiness to knuckle
down to
the substantive issues is precisely what has been absent from this
resumed peace
process to date, and there’s no doubting which side is responsible for
that.
Netanyahu was all but begging Abbas to come back to the peace table,
month after
spurned month. Had Abbas done so, had he entered the talks last winter,
he and
Netanyahu would have had a great deal of time to do precisely what
Mubarak has
recently advocated – to make headway on the border issue before the
question of
a resumption of settlement building arose to trouble them
again.
Netanyahu, and Israel, are now being roundly criticized
internationally for not extending the settlement freeze. Many in Kadima,
the
opposition party that has pledged to provide a “safety net” should
Netanyahu’s
coalition collapse around the issue of negotiated concessions, argue
that
Israel’s wider interests require an ongoing freeze. Even within his own
Likud
party, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor has been advocating a
resumption of
building only within the settlement blocs where Israel envisages
expanding its
sovereignty under a permanent accord. And in these columns last Friday,
fellow
Likud minister Michael Eitan bitterly protested any allocation of
further
resources to areas in Judea and Samaria that the government has
indicated it
does not anticipate permanently retaining. Again, Netanyahu has
intimated
vaguely that he wants a sensitive approach to further building, but
opted not to
make any explicit promises.
EHUD OLMERT was right to lament the
extent to
which the issue of short-term construction in the settlements has come
to
dominate the peace process. The Obama administration has been central to
that
misdirected focus – making demands of Israel, including for a freeze in
all
construction over the Green Line in Jerusalem, that even the
Palestinians had
not previously advanced as preconditions for talks, and thus hugely
complicating
what should have been the routine resumption of direct negotiations for
well
over a year.
Critics may argue over how astutely Netanyahu has
handled
the issue – whether he should have defied Washington 10 months ago and
withstood
the demands for the moratorium, or defied his own more hawkish,
pro-settlement
supporters this week and extended it.
But the sad fact is that
the freeze
is a red herring, a tactical issue. It is not the heart of the matter –
as Ehud
Olmert’s negotiating experiences unfortunately made all too clear.
On
the
major strategic disputes – on the demarcation of a border (that would
overtake
all the vexed debate on settlement building) and most notably on the
issues of
refugees and the future of Jerusalem – Abbas chose not to respond to
terms from
Olmert that were far more generous than those Netanyahu will ever offer,
belying
that image of a Palestinian leader with his heart set on peace.
Doubtless
to the relief of many hawks who would fervently oppose the concessions
Olmert
offered, and to the dismay of many doves who would have anticipated that
those
terms would meet the Palestinians’ needs, Abbas allowed the Olmert
principles to
pass into irrelevance.
Some apologists for Abbas claim the offer
was
never properly made to him, or that he could not dare accept it from a
prime
minister who was going to be out of office before too long. But while
Abbas is
on record with those negative comments about the gaps being too wide, to
this
day he has yet to come out with a counter declaration – with a statement
to the
effect that, if only Netanyahu were now to proffer similar terms, he
would rush
to accept them. Such a statement would fuel a truly momentous debate in
Israel,
but Abbas shows no inclination to make it.
In urging Netanyahu to
put the
very same terms to the Palestinians again, Olmert evidently believes
Abbas’s
response would be different this time.
But it’s hard to find
indications
to support that notion. And it’s impossible to believe that it will ever
be put
to the test.