ARE THEY TALKING YET?

Last week there was actually a headline in the Israeli newspapers that Olmert had assured his cabinet that no deal with Abbas had been reached. As if an end to the sixty years of Israeli and Arab state war and thirteen hundred years of religious disagreement could end over coffee between two low-energy marginally creditably leaders. Just imagine the anxiety that has been avoided by Olmert’s assurances that things can just go on and on no one need to worry about any compromise over land or security.

Now that the Arabs of Palestine have split in two, and the internecine warfare taking place between them has sapped the energy of the intifada, there is no real pressure on Israel for any “peace talks”. Further, without the charismatic Arafat and with an Israeli president of the de minimus stature of Olmert, no one should expect much.

In fact, not expecting much is what seems to be on the table in this round 10 of talks. With the failures in the past to get real and make a deal haunting the present, it must seem (especially to the participants) that the trip to Annapolis is one more empty gesture in a long saga of failure. The failure at Camp David some years ago, for whatever reason, resulted in the third intifada, essentially a war against Israel by the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza. Hundreds of Israeli’s died. They were torn to bits, dismembered and decapitated at religious festivals, on buses and in pizza parlors. Tourism and foreign investment stopped, the economy was in tatters and Israelis were afraid to go to the store for bread.

Israel responded, it re-occupied the West Bank, jailed thousands of Hamas and Fatah soldiers, assassinated scores of the Arab army’s leadership and increased its intelligence capabilities to the point where it’s enemy’s commanders fear using the military tool used by every thirteen year Israeli… a cell phone. Riven by competing dreams of Zionist annihilation, Gaza and Nabulus have split and are in a civil war. Meanwhile, the Israeli economy is booming, tourism and foreign investment are at an all time high and the café’s and stores are full of customers.

Why would Israel give the Arab Palestinians anything in failure they could not achieve by success? On what issue; final borders, East Jerusalem or ‘48 refugees is Israel under more pressure than years ago at Camp David. The answer is none. The pressure now for a peace deal is from a very different quarter, the United States and it’s allies and the monarchist Arab States themselves. Having this open wound between the Israeli and Arab Palestinians gives stature and political capital to the Iranians, Hizabollah, Syria and Hamas, all of whom are a larger political and military threat to those Arab states than they are to Israel.

The strings will be pulled by the West on the weak, non-credible Olmert, and the Arabs will do the same to Abbas the ruler of the rump West Bank. It was no coincidence that Hamas begged Saudi Arabia not to attend or support the Annapolis peace talks. The dream of the right of return to Dezendorf St. will be set back if the Arabs sell out the Palestinians to diminish the Iranians. When expectations are this low and the two sides leadership this weak, a situation like the Yalta conference could result. The fates of each side traded away for global hegemony. In fact that was what the semi-late Sharon feared might happen when everyone wanted to end the past intifida.

We have two sides with very little to loose. Contrary to the anti-Zionist camp, the Israelis actually don’t want to police the West Bank and as for Gaza a massive devastating counter attack will be aimed there shortly, Hamas wants it, they will provoke it and they will glory in it. In a paraphrase of Orwell the Hamas motto could be “destruction equals resistance”. The Arab Palestinians have already lost. They took their best shots and gained nothing but stones and dust. The kufeya dream of Arafat lost to the suite and tie of Abbas. From revolt to pleading, from martyrdom to lockdown, from candy at the Mosque, to the taste of bitter lemons. Their dreams are already dead they can easily be sold a lesser reality.

All in all the actual chances for peace remain very low but the chances for a step in that direction have never been higher. Inshallah.