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Essay

Next Rouna The Charm.

Slate free of contingences might ignite Israeli-Palestinian talks.

reconditions.
There's no sign that these
unnecessary obstacles to ending
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will abate.
They loom more entrenched than ever.
Before re-entering peace talks, the
Palestinians insist on Israel pre-agreeing to
a Palestinian state on the pre-1967 border,
to east Jerusalem as their capital city, and
to settling, on their terms, the matter of
Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
For their part, the Israelis seek Palestinian
recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, no
freeze on major-settlement growth and a
continued military presence in the Jordan
Valley.
It doesn't take
a political scholar
OPPlai -
to understand the
respective strategies
at play. Protecting
one's turf is impor-
tant, but wiping
away preconditions
would clear the way
for talking unen-
Robert Sklar
cumbered.
Contributing
True, negotiations
Editor
seem dead because
Palestinian leader-
ship won't recognize
Israel as a Jewish state even though it was
created as one by the United Nations. That
same leadership continues to incite against
Israel via its schools, mosques, news media,
music videos and sports tourneys. Still, both
sides remain obsessed with preconditions.
Getting together unconditionally, at least to
test the political waters, could prove invalu-
able toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
Take Israel's demand for the Israel Defense
Forces (IDF) to maintain patrols in the
Jordan Valley. There's no question Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn't kidding
in asserting such a presence helps keep Israel
safe from Palestinian terrorist activity brew-
ing in the West Bank.
The strategically significant question
becomes, "Could an international force not
directly tied to the IDF provide the same
level of protection?" If so, we can begin to
eliminate negotiating hurdles. Or Israel
might well bolster its concern about the
West Bank becoming another Gaza Strip,
where terror-monger Hamas seized control
after Israel withdrew in 2005 and routed
Palestinian rival Fatah. Certainly, interna-

N

32

June 11 • 2015

distinctly different peoples), he stirs hope
that another round of talks will sprout.
The thrust of the prime minister's care-
fully crafted message invokes how Israel
is advancing conditions for Palestinian
statehood by contributing to Palestinian
economic stability, cooperating with
Palestinian security forces, supporting basic
Palestinian needs — and aiding Gaza Strip
reconstruction and development
In a cogent analysis in the Times
despite the impediment of having
of Israel on May 26, founding
to deal with Hamas and its aim to
editor David Horovitz proposes
destroy the ancestral Jewish home-
that Netanyahu endorse the
land.
initiative as "a basis for negotia-
Netanyahu bought diplomatic
tions" and for "an improvement
time by telling European Union
of relations where possible with
foreign policy chief Frederica
others in the region" though not
Mogherini in late May he remains
accepting it in its current form.
David Ho rovitz generally committed to the peace
At the same time, Horovitz
process and a two-state solution —
posits, Netanyahu should declare
and the resumption of talks. The
"a freeze in building outside the
time isn't ripe for that just now, but
major-settlement blocs and making com-
when it is — and it's his duty as prime min-
pensation available to those Israelis who live ister to nurture such a breakthrough to the
in areas of the West Bank that Israel does
extent possible — Netanyahu must elevate
not envision retaining in any permanent
that vague pledge to something concrete.
accord" Netanyahu should "make a regional
Ultimately, the two-state solution, if
and international virtue out of a policy he is sustainable and peaceful, remains the
quietly following anyway" Horovitz asserts.
best potential outcome for Israel and the
Horovitz isn't wrong.
Palestinians.
The burden to act responsibly in the
wake of stalled talks would fall to Palestine
Liberation Organization
Chairman Mahmoud Abbas,
who has gained the upper hand
by finding plenty of international
support for Palestinian statehood
EGYPT, ISRAEL
NOW FACE
IRAN, MAMAS, AND
A COMMON
outside the corridors of negotia-
HEZBOLLAH
ENEMY!
tion. Against the current global
backdrop, he's not obligated to
compromise.
As the international communi-
ty gangs up in blaming Israel for
the latest negotiations impasse,
let's not forget the Palestinians
rejected attractive land-for-peace
offers in 2008 under Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert and in
ISIS HAS DECLARED •
AND IT DIDN'T TAKE
2000 under Prime Minister Ehud
THE SINAI TO BE A
AN INVASION FROM
Barak. It takes two to negotiate a
PROVINCE OF "THE
MARS TO DO IT!
dispute between two peoples.
ISLAMIC STATE"
As Netanyahu goes on a spree
to promote a two-state solution
O
that features a demilitarized
Palestinian state along negotiated
borders (to underscore he oppos-
es the potential effects of a one-
state solution intermingling two

Getting together unconditionally, at least to

test the political waters, could prove invaluable

toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

tional peacekeeping in southern Lebanon
has proven lax in preventing Hezbollah from
re-arming to Israel's north.
Against this backdrop, the Middle
East roils from the terrorist likes of ISIS,
Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Syria's Assad
regime, let alone Hamas, Hezbollah and the
global jihadist reach of Al Qaida.

Rather than lay out a host of demands
beforehand, it would be wiser if both the
Israelis and Palestinians met informally to
exchange positions on all final-status issues,
including borders, security, settlements, refu-
gees, Jerusalem, water rights and holy sites.
The parties could develop an action plan
for scrutinizing each issue in the context of
the rest. The weighty subject of borders, for
example, is bound to hinge on how security,
settlements and Jerusalem relate.
The Palestinians are pressuring Israel
to accept the Saudi-led 2002 Arab Peace
Initiative as a base line for discussion while
also imagining a sovereign Palestinian state
from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean
Sea — which the Palestinian narrative con-
siders "historic Palestine notwithstanding
Israel's existence there today. Meanwhile,
Israel asserts its historic right to that same
land (Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel),
which takes in the biblical areas of Judea
and Samaria, the present-day West Bank.
But rest assured: The Jewish state isn't con-
templating a scenario of bringing all of the
West Bank under its long-term control and
effectively creating a politically, economically
and demographically nightmarish situation
caused by a de facto bi-national state.
Israel has never acknowledged or respond-
ed to the Arab Peace Initiative, which calls
for Israel on 78 percent of "historic Palestine"
and a Palestinian state on 22 percent of it —
largely the Israel-West Bank border before
the Six-Day War in 1967. The initiative may
have value to get the parties talking again,
and to score diplomatic points among Arab
nations, even as it requires heavy retooling to
have enduring value in bargaining.

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