Editorials
The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process: Don’t Give Terrorism Veto Power
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to be cynical about the resumption of negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority launched by the Bush Administration at Annapolis in late November. It feels, in the immortal words of Rabbi Yogi Berra, like “déja vu all over again” to see an about-to-retire president trying to pull off a peace-making miracle. How can such an unpopular Israeli prime minister as Ehud Olmert, and as vulnerable a Palestinian president as Mahmoud Abbas, possibly achieve an agreement that will have any staying power? As one Yiddish proverb puts it, “You can never fill a sack full of holes.” Yet it is those very ‘holes’ that make the prospect of change seem tantalizing. Israel’s leaders have had holes drilled in their confidence by their stalemate with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and are deeply troubled by the rising tide of Islamic radicalism throughout their neighborhood; they know well that Israel’s only reliable path to security is by cooling off the hot issue of the stateless Palestinians and normalizing relations with the nations of the Arab League. The Palestinian Authority, meanwhile, has lost Gaza to Hamas and is standing on wobbly legs in the West Bank; Abbas must achieve significant improvement in the lives of West Bank residents or be reduced to utter irrelevance. And Bush, for his part, has no prospect of redeeming our country’s reputation and national interests from the damages done by our disastrous war in Iraq and our multiple failures in the ‘War on Terror’ short of diplomatic miraclemaking in this intractable Israeli-Palestinian struggle. t is easy
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Such miracle-making, however, will require more than tired old incantations. Unfortunately, Bush and Olmert have implied that progress towards a peace treaty will be dependent upon Abbas’ ability to halt terrorism, as required by the 2003 “road map.” In his November 28th statement following the Annapolis summit, Bush noted that “implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the road map, as judged by the United States.” Olmert was far more blunt when he briefed the Israeli cabinet on December 1st, reaffirming, according to the JTA, “that any progress in peace talks would be predicated on the Palestinians cracking down on terrorist groups.” Does anyone doubt that Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, or some other group committed to disrupting a two-state solution will seek to launch a terrorist strike against Israel in the coming months? Does anyone seriously believe that the Palestinian Authority, unable to protect its own power in Gaza, will be able to prevent such an incident? And does anyone doubt that Israel will retaliate with a fury indifferent to “collateral damages”? In the past, such exchanges of violence have disrupted peace negotiations time and again — thus granting veto power to the terrorists. The new abracadabra needed for miracle-making is a definitive statement from Olmert and Abbas that their negotiations will proceed regardless of terrorism and counter-terrorism — that peace will be built even while the battle rages.