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Essay
Editorial
Divergent Path?
Delving into the collapse of Mideast peace talks.
sraeli-Palestinian peace talks
failed largely because the two sides
intensely dislike one another, not
just because of fundamentally parallel
visions for two states, one
Jewish and one Palestinian,
coexisting side by side with
defined borders and account-
abilities.
That's the conclusion of a
former key associate of U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry,
who tried valiantly (although
with baseless hope) to
bring together the two sides
Rober
involved in the longstanding
Contri
conflict.
Edi
In the wake of two years of
fruitless talks, which ended
in April 2014, Hamas joined Fatah, its
former archenemy, in a unity accord
reached under the Palestinian Authority
(P.A.) rubric. Fatah governs Palestinian-
controlled areas of the West Bank and
formerly governed Gaza before Hamas
drove it from the coastal enclave in
2007.
Last summer, Hamas instigated a
50-day war with Israel by revving up
rocket blasts into the ancestral Jewish
homeland.
Ilan Goldenberg,
senior fellow and
director of the Middle
East security pro-
gram at the liberal-
leaning think tank
Center for a New
Ar
.
American Security in
Washington, issued
Ilan
his not-so-surprising
Goldenberg
take in a March 2
white paper examin-
ing the second round of talks initiated
by U.S. President Barack Obama and
presided over by Secretary Kerry.
Goldenberg was chief of staff to
the U.S. negotiating team so speaks
from an informed, though politically
charged position.
JTA, a Jewish wire service, reported
that "the 22-page paper, the most public
accounting to date of the failure of the
Obama administration's months-long
effort to broker a peace agreement
between Israelis and Palestinians, is
unusual in focusing less on the policy
differences between the two sides and
more on the profoundly dysfunctional
culture of recrimination and distrust."
That's a revealing — and cogent —
assessment.
38
April 9 • 2015
Wayward Roots
At the time of Kerry's shuttle diploma-
cy, news coverage typically tilted toward
competing policy interests of Jerusalem
and Ramallah, not what
Goldenberg called "20 years
of inconclusive talks" that
tainted the "environment in
the negotiating room."
Such taint, rooted in often-
- instinctive retrenchment
at the hint of a moderating
breakthrough, doomed any
chance of a meaningful out-
come.
Goldenberg confirmed
that Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and
Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas just don't
like each other and that's affected their
ability to negotiate — a neutral word
for making tough choices that still
uphold the values of the people the
involved sides represent.
In the white paper, Goldenberg cited
how something seemingly routine,
Israel's insistence that the Palestinians
recognize Israel as the Jewish state to
branch. The Palestinians, of course,
are of Arab descent, but it often seems
the Arab League considers them
outcasts. Arab League disinterest is
partly why thousands of Palestinians,
some actual refugees of Israel's War
for Independence, languish in United
Nations-run camps.
Destructive Currents
It hasn't helped the Palestinian cause
that its leaders, including President
Abbas, continue to denigrate the very
existence of Israel. Just recently, the
Mufti of the Palestinian Authority Sheik
Muhammad Hussein, appointed in 2006
by Abbas, told a meeting of Muslim del-
egations that Israel must be destroyed
in the name of Islam, Israel-based
Palestinian Media Watch reported.
The thrust of the sheik's message: That
Muslims are prohibited from recognizing
Israel or allying with it because it's really
part of "Palestine Muslims are thus obli-
gated to liberate "Palestine" — to claim
all of Israel as theirs.
This brings to mind the Iranian
drumbeat to erase Israel from the map.
That's why the Israeli prime minister
It hasn't helped the Palestinian cause that its
leaders, including Mahmoud Abbas, continue
to denigrate the very existence of Israel.
counter the effects of an international
movement to delegitimize Zionism,
blew up in a deal buster before nego-
tiations arrived at pivotal final-status
agreement issues — starting with bor-
ders, security and settlements.
Israel wanted the assurance because
of Palestinian banter imagining a
Palestinian state encompassing all of
the State of Israel, not just the disputed
territories and the largely Arab eastern
sector of Jerusalem. The Palestinians
rejected Jewish state enshrinement
ostensibly out of fear it would hurt the
mythical historical narrative that they,
not the Jews, hold claim to modern-day
Israel.
Further, the Palestinians imagine
Arabs one day achieving a firmer foot-
hold in the State of Israel — Arabs
already represent more than 20 percent
of the population — so don't want
to curtail a perceived potential olive
is pushing for an international nuclear
pact with Tehran that's tougher than
the one preliminarily forged by an alli-
ance of world powers: America, Britain,
Russia, China, France and Germany.
Tehran, whose proxies include Hamas,
is the lead state sponsor of global ter-
ror.
Do Secretary Kerry or President
Obama truly believe Israel, whoever is
prime minister, could come to well-rea-
soned terms with a Palestinian culture
that inculcates religious hatred rather
than promotes peaceful coexistence?
You don't hear much anymore about
how the Palestinians repelled overly
generous peace offers by then-Prime
Ministers Ehud Barak (2000) and Ehud
Olmert (2008). Those offers could have
yielded long-craved sovereign indepen-
dence as a result of direct negotiation,
not via backdoor politicking via the
largely morally bankrupt U.N.
❑
Missile
Defense:
An Israeli
Pillar
M
uch has been reported
about the unsettling
ties between the U.S.
and Israel caused by threadbare
relations between President
Barack Obama and Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
over a host of pressing issues,
especially the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict and the Iranian nuclear
crisis.
Fortunately, the joint U.S.-
Israel missile defense system is
humming along, to the credit of
both nations.
On April 1, Reuters reported
progress with Israel's midrange
missile and rocket defense sys-
tem dubbed David's Sling. It's
intended to counter long-range
rockets, drones and cruise
missiles – weapons of choice
for terrorist groups and state
enemies. Full-scale deployment
isn't far off, possibly within a
year; that's great news given
the tumultuous neighborhood in
which Israel resides.
David's Sling joins the Iron
Dome, which targets short-range
rockets, and the Arrow shield,
designed to disrupt ballistic
missiles, in Israel's increasingly
impressive aerial defense lineup.
Israel is seeking another $317
million to staunch incoming
missiles beyond $158 million
previously sought in the 2016
U.S. budget. Notably, the rift
between Obama and Netanyahu
has never affected U.S. military
aid to the Jewish state.
The Israeli financial newspaper
Globes pegged the per-intercep-
tion price tag for David's Sling
at $1 million, a hefty, but critical
expense when Hamas, the Sunni
Islamist organization ruling the
Gaza Strip, is your southern
neighbor and Lebanon-based
Hezbollah, a Shiite Islamist orga-
nization, hovers to the north;
both are proxies of Iran.
By any calculation, robust
missile defense is an essential,
under-appreciated element of
Israel's U.S.-supported security
arsenal.
❑