Perspective

A missing piece of peace

By BILL MAXWELL, Times columnist
Published December 2, 2007

The much anticipated Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Md., ended with some good news and bad news.

The good news: First, it was progress that the conference happened at all while President Bush is still in the White House. Second, Syria and nearly 50 other Arab governments, some with land disputes with Israel, attended the summit. Third, and most importantly, it produced an outline of broad aspirations for the region and a specific agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians to confer every two weeks to create a framework for a Palestinian state by the time Bush leaves office after the 2008 election.

Now, the bad news: As Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas did photo ops, the deal-breaking fissures of the Palestinian question made the meeting a chimera. To be sure, the abysmal plight of the Palestinians has been the direct source of wars, battles and terrorist acts and reprisals since the Jewish state was founded on what was then-Palestinian land in 1948.

Some issues, such as the borders of an independent Palestine, Jerusalem as a shared capital, the right of return for Palestinian refugees and the cessation of settlement building and the dismantling of other settlements in the West Bank, are so rancorous that they spoiled expectations for Annapolis long before the White House finalized the invitation list.

The pall these issues cast over the event, according to the Economist magazine, scuttled Bush's major goal of having Olmert and Abbas communicate before coming to Annapolis and arrive with a "joint declaration" of a "vision" for a Palestinian state. Once in Annapolis, the two leaders would work out details.

Of course, nothing of the kind happened because Abbas lacks the courage to alter what the Economist refers to as the "Palestinians' mantra," its primary mandate being the establishment of a free state on the 1967 borders. Abbas did not place demands on Olmert because the resilient Hamas remains a powerful force in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Abbas, Olmert, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice encouraged a fantasy that an honest agreement can be reached without Hamas, which was not invited to Annapolis. Remember, Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006. And remember that Bush insisted on the elections even as Arab leaders warned otherwise. Then, Hamas violently wrested control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas and his Fatah party in June. Abbas now controls the West Bank.

America and Israel now face two ideologically and geographically separated Palestinian governments. How, then, can Israel and America and their allies earnestly speak of creating an independent Palestine that controls its own airspace and waters and security? What will we call the new nation? The State of Palestine in the West Bank?

The major strategy, of course, is to isolate Hamas, to make life so miserable for Gaza Strip residents, women and children included, that they will turn against their democratically elected government and support Fatah.

During the run-up to Annapolis, the Bush and Olmert administrations never mentioned Hamas in public. But the reality in Israel and the Palestinian territories is too deadly for pretense, ill-informed policies, silence and cowardice.

Yossi Beilin, an Israeli, is one of the rare politicians anywhere in the world with the courage to speak truthfully about the need to deal with Hamas. Because I will quote Beilin at length, I need to present his bona fides. First elected to the Knesset in 1988, he has served as Israel's deputy foreign minister, deputy finance minister, economic planning minister and minister of justice. Still a member of the Knesset and chairman of Israel's Meretz Party, he is a spokesman for Peace Now, a group seeking peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

In an article for the Washington Post days before the Annapolis summit, Beilin acknowledged that Hamas' victories in the Gaza Strip were bad news for anyone, especially Israelis, who desires Israeli-Palestinian peace.

"But as Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization prepare to launch formal negotiations on final status - for the first time in seven years - Israel should seek to reach a cease-fire with Hamas as soon as possible. ... In other words, precisely because Israel and the PLO are ready to sit down and talk, Hamas cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, a broad coalition has formed of those who believe that it not only should be ignored but must be.

"Against such a broad coalition, it is hard for an Israeli to talk about engaging Hamas, let alone a cease-fire. But unlike many others, Israel cannot afford to pretend that Hamas does not exist. Hamas is our next-door neighbor, not that of Washington or Brussels or (with all due respect to Egypt's sensitivity to the dangers of fundamentalist fervor) Cairo."

In comments that have angered many Israelis and American Jews, Beilin said Israel has a duty to care about the welfare of Gaza Strip residents: "Israel also continues to share residual responsibility for the welfare of the 1.4-million Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied for nearly 40 years. The fact, moreover, that Israel continues to exercise control over all but one of Gaza's entry and exit points, as well as over its airspace and sea territory, places additional responsibilities on it."

Beilin argues that Israel's old way of dealing with Hamas is foolhardy: "Given that the current policy of containment has not quelled the violence across its border, Israel should opt for another way. The only option that I see serving the cause of peace is to enter into a dialogue with Hamas through a third party in order to reach a cease-fire."

As to Israel's role in establishing a Palestinian state, Beilin observes: "If we are to arrive at a two-state solution, we must put an end to Israeli settlements and expansion in the West Bank. Every additional settlement makes the establishment of a viable Palestinian state more difficult."

After the Annapolis summit, Olmert huddled with Israeli reporters, revealing to them that deep down he understands the necessity of a viable Palestinian state.

"If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished," he said. "The Jewish organizations, which are our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us because they say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents."

Olmert and policymakers in Israel and the United States need to begin to act pragmatically. Otherwise, the Israeli-Palestinian peace that everyone discusses will remain nothing more than rhetoric, and Israel's future will continue to be threatened.

[Last modified December 3, 2007, 08:58:04]