Peace Process Theater
April 17, 2012 § 1 Comment
Today’s developments in Israeli-Palestinian peace process negotiations demonstrate why the two sides, despite the joint statement that they issued reiterating that they are both committed to peace, are in reality farther apart then ever in coming to a lasting, binding agreement. Let’s begin with the turmoil on the Palestinian side of the ledger. The much-anticipated letter from Abbas to Netanyahu was delivered by Saeb Erekat and Majed Faraj, and while there had been speculation that it would contain a threat to dismantle the Palestinian Authority and return day to day control of the West Bank to Israel, the letter reportedly did not go that far, which should be cause for optimism. This means that a small sliver of agreement and coordination still theoretically exists on which to base negotiations.
The bad news is that Salam Fayyad, who was slated to deliver the letter to Netanyahu, was a no-show. There are a number of reasons why this might be, and none of them bode well for the future. Fayyad might have backed out because he does not think another expression of Palestinian discontent is going to jumpstart negotiations, which would signal a worrying degree of frustration on his part. Fayyad is the great moderate of Palestinian politics, and he has enormous credibility with the U.S. and other international actors. He has led the effort to build up Palestinian institutions and improve the West Bank’s economy and security, and he has been largely successful. He is also the rare – or maybe even more accurately, only – Palestinian politician who says the same things in Arabic to his domestic audience as he does in English to an international audience. He has never been accused of inciting or excusing violence, does not glorify terrorists who kill civilians, called for Hamas to recognize Israel years ago, does not have even a whiff of corruption about him, and by all accounts is honest and determined. If Fayyad believes that things have degenerated to the point that this letter will accomplish nothing, the risk exists that he is at the point of abandoning his project of state-building. Fayyad does not have a natural constituency among Palestinians as he is not a career politician or a high ranking PLO member, and if he resigns as prime minister, international aid to the PA will dry up overnight and the situation in the West Bank will quickly deteriorate.
Fayyad might also not have agreed to deliver the letter because Abbas was trying to discredit him by asking him to do it. Today is Palestinian Prisoners Day, in which Palestinians express their solidarity with those in Israeli jails, and the optic of meeting with Israeli officials today is not a popular one. Abbas and Fayyad do not have a good relationship, and it was not improved with the news that the unity deal that Abbas agreed to with Hamas stipulated sacking Fayyad. Abbas might have been trying to embarrass Fayyad even further by demanding that the letter be delivered today, and Fayyad understandably did not want to do it himself. The PA’s footing is tenuous enough already, and it certainly will not be improved by more fighting between its two top figures. If the PA implodes, the party that stands to benefit the most is Hamas, and that will certainly not do any wonders for Israeli security or the prospects of a deal.
Finally, it’s possible that Fayyad did not deliver the letter himself because he does not think that negotiations with Israel are still a viable path to a Palestinian state. Fayyad is on record as being against a unilateral declaration of statehood and did not agree with last fall’s strategy of pressing the UN to recognize a Palestinian state, and if he has one way or another become so disenchanted that he now believes in institution-building for its own sake without it leading to negotiations with Israel, then Israel will have lost in a big way. In many ways, Fayyad is the perfect Palestinian counterpart for Netanyahu, as they have both expressed the opinion that improving the West Bank’s economy and security is a vital precursor to successful political negotiations. If Fayyad does not want to be a part of the PA’s current negotiating process because he thinks it is a waste of time, it would signal the death knell of true moderate Palestinian partnership.
In the meantime, while Israel and the PA held a meeting and issued a joint statement that nobody expects to lead to any real progress, 1200 Palestinians in Israeli prisons began an indefinite hunger strike to protest the practice of administrative detentions and what they allege to be abusive and humiliating behavior on Israel’s part. This more than anything highlights the absurdity of today’s peace process theater. Of these two separate and distinct events, the one that is guaranteed to hold Palestinian attention and support is prisoners going on a hunger strike in opposition to Israel rather than Palestinian negotiators exchanging letters with the Israeli government. Even if Abbas were to drop his preconditions and come to the negotiating table, and the two sides were able to make some progress, is there really going to be much appetite for talks among Palestinians at this point? With hunger striker Khader Adnan being freed today, there is a stark example of what appears to be a successful strategy for countering Israel against the backdrop of endless negotiations that have not produced much in the way of tangible gains. This doesn’t mean that it will lead to Palestinian violence, but it also does not mean that negotiations are still viewed as the only alternative to armed resistance. Of all the days in which the peace process has seemed moribund, today might have reached a new low with its hollow message of two sides working together.
Netanyahu’s Smart Maneuver
April 12, 2012 § Leave a comment
Yediot reports today that Netanyahu is planning on responding to Abbas’s letter detailing Palestinian demands and preconditions for negotiations by dropping the one precondition of his own, namely that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Irrespective of whether this is a serious step toward reinvigorating peace talks, or just Netanyahu’s way of winning the battle for public opinion by highlighting Israel’s willingness to negotiate compared to Abbas’s obduracy, it is a good move. I have written before about why insisting on preconditions before negotiating is a bad idea, and by removing his, Netanyahu is bargaining from a position of strength.
Aside from the strategic aspect, dropping the demand for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state is good policy as well, and Netanyahu should not let it become a sticking point should talks ever progress to a final stage. Israel’s status as a Jewish state is not dependent on any outside recognition of that fact, and demanding that other parties recognize it as such makes Israel appear insecure. Israel’s Jewish character does not require Palestinian validation, and Netanyahu’s years of incessant demands that Palestinians acknowledge Israel as Jewish has always seemed petty and nothing more than a naked appeal to nationalism. The Jewish connection to Israel is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, Israeli law and custom, and Israeli society. Whether or not Mahmoud Abbas wants to admit this fact or not is of no consequence, and Israel should not elevate any outside party’s views on this issue to the point where it becomes an obstacle to a successful peace agreement. Let’s hope that this negotiating maneuver marks an end to the era of Israel being more concerned with irrelevant outside validation than with doing everything it can to implement a viable two state solution.
The Pitfalls of Preconditions
April 3, 2012 § 6 Comments
Barak Ravid reports in Haaretz that long-time negotiators Saeb Erekat and Yitzchak Molcho recently met in secret in an effort to revive dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and that the PA has outlined a number of demands that it plans on presenting to Netanyahu as preconditions to negotiations. Unsurprisingly, Abbas’s preconditions are that negotiations begin with a baseline of the 1967 borders and that Israel freeze all settlement activity.
While the Palestinians are in a difficult spot and want to gain some leverage going into peace talks, the preconditions gambit is a continuation of the same negotiating mistake. A little reminder of recent history is helpful in understanding why this is. When AIPAC convened its annual conference in March 2010, the attendees gathered during a particularly rocky period for Israel diplomatically. Earlier that month, Vice President Biden had landed in Tel Aviv to be infamously greeted with an announcement of 1600 new housing units in East Jerusalem which led to a mini-crisis with the United States and an hour-long dressing down from Secretary of State Clinton. Israel’s deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon was fresh off causing a diplomatic crisis with Turkey following his attempt to humiliate the Turkish ambassador with cameras rolling in response to Turkish television dramas portraying Israeli soldiers as kidnappers and intentional murderers of innocent civilians. Britain was also threatening to cut intelligence ties and cease intelligence sharing following revelations that Israel had used British passports while assassinating a Hamas military leader in Dubai.
Most importantly, serious pressure was building up for Israel to make real concessions in service of creating an independent Palestinian state. President Obama had called for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to resume negotiations and had pressed Israel for a freeze on all settlement activity. The PA seemed for the first time in nearly two decades to be making progress in building state institutions in the West Bank, and the U.S.-trained PA police force was winning accolades for its progress and professionalism. There was also a growing sense among military officials that a lack of progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front was becoming a problem for the U.S., embodied by General David Petraeus’s Senate testimony that anti-American sentiment in the Middle East was partly due to the absence of a Palestinian state. The momentum for an independent Palestine was building, and following the Biden episode and the fury among top U.S. officials at what they saw as an unacceptable humiliation of the vice president, the Palestinians were in an ideal situation to negotiate a favorable resolution to the conflict.
Such negotiations never took place, however, because the Palestinian Authority committed the crucial mistake of setting preconditions before coming to the negotiating table. As every first year law student required to read the seminal negotiation treatise Getting To Yes can tell you, setting preconditions to negotiating is a tactic that almost always fails. The book’s very first lesson is not to bargain over positions as it is inefficient, damages the relationship between parties, and leads to bad agreements. Tactics such as setting preconditions and refusing to negotiate until they are met are fated to backfire if the objective is to reach an agreement, as the other side is likely to dig in and paint the refusal to negotiate as evidence of bad faith. Over time, the party setting the preconditions will become hostage to the perception that it has no interest in reaching a deal, and will then be forced to maintain its principled position even when events on the ground put it at a disadvantage or give up credibility and leverage by dropping its demand entirely. In short, setting preconditions before agreeing to negotiate an agreement is rarely going to be a winning strategy.
In early 2010, Abbas insisted that no negotiations could take place absent a complete freeze on all building activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which was a condition that Israel was in no way prepared to meet given the extension of the freeze request to East Jerusalem. Netanyahu did, however, agree to a 10 month West Bank settlement freeze, allowing him to take the high road by announcing that he was making concessions and was ready to negotiate at any time while portraying the Palestinians as unwilling peace partners. By September 2010, following months of demands that Israel freeze all East Jerusalem construction, the Palestinians finally agreed to negotiate, but by that point it was too late, as Israel’s settlement freeze expired. Events on the ground had also shifted by that point and Obama announced his unwillingness to ask the Israelis for yet another halt to all West Bank building activity, and the Palestinians were in no position to make a credible case having squandered months of potential negotiations. Fast forward two years later to the most recent AIPAC conference, and the Palestinians and peace negotiations barely registered with attention turned exclusively to Iran.
Despite all this, Abbas is about to pull a Groundhog Day and make the exact same mistake, although this time his starting point is far less favorable and thus his tactic is even more unlikely to work. The question is whether the PA actually wants to have serious negotiations at this point in time or is just looking to win a p.r. battle with Israel. If it’s the latter, then setting preconditions makes sense since it highlights Israeli settlement activity, which is already being cast in an unfavorable light following the High Court’s Migron decision and the current standoff between the IDF and the prime minister’s office over the Beit Hamachpela group in Hebron. If the objective is to actually negotiate though, Abbas and Erekat need to wake up to the fact that setting preconditions is a terrible negotiating strategy that is fated to fail from the start.
