[Peace-discuss] Phyllis Bennis on Sham Sharm talks

[David Green]

Subject: Phyllis Bennis - Palestine and Israel at the
Sham Sharm Talks

Palestine and Israel at the Sham Sharm Talks
by Phyllis Bennis

Institute for Policy Studies (http://www.ips-dc.org)
11 February 2005 

** The U.S. goal for the Sharon-Abbas ceasefire talks
was to provide a 
new 
chance for Sharon and Abu Mazen to deliver a level of
quiet on the 
Israel-Palestine front so it does not continue to
undermine the Iraq 
war and U.S. regional 
goals. The Israeli goal was to normalize the
occupation, not to end it. 
The 
Palestinian Authority's goal was to give Israel what
it wants (an end 
to 
militant resistance) in the hope that the Bush
administration will 
eventually make 
good on its claimed commitment to a Palestinian state,
however 
truncated, 
divided and besieged.

** Security for Israel, not an end to Israeli
occupation and creation 
of a 
Palestinian state, was the only operative focus.

** The talks reflected U.S. and Israeli hopes and
Palestinian 
exhaustion. 
Whether a Palestinian ceasefire holds (the only issue
relevant to the 
U.S.) will 
reflect decisions made by militant organizations
regarding their 
accountability to Palestinian public opinion; Abu
Mazen does not have 
the capacity to 
"impose" such a ceasefire. 

** There is no evidence of the U.S. planning a bigger,
let alone 
different, 
diplomatic role; the newly appointed U.S. security
coordinator's role 
is to 
monitor Palestinian, not Israeli, compliance.
Monitoring continuing 
Israeli use 
of U.S.-supplied weapons in violation of U.S. domestic
law is not part 
of Gen. 
Ward's mandate. 

** Israel's negotiations on serious issues (before and
after Sharm 
al-Sheikh) 
are being conducted with the U.S., not with the
Palestinians. They 
include 
where settlements can be strengthened, how much land
can be annexed, 
how to 
continue building the Apartheid Wall despite the World
Court ruling 
against it. 
The U.S. is not holding Israel accountable even to its
existing 
obligations 
under the U.S.-backed "Roadmap."  

** These talks are not "historic." Earlier parallels
of failed Middle 
East 
peace talks in history include the U.S.-convened 1991
Madrid talks 
after the 
Gulf War as well as the 1993 Oslo Declaration. In all
of them, 
occupation was 
never mentioned. 

** For optimists, the "best" possible outcome would be
a return to the 
conditions of September 2000 before the second
intifada began - 
recalling that those 
"better" conditions were so desperate that they led
directly TO the 
uprising.

*****************************************************

 The Bush administration orchestrated the Sharm
al-Sheikh talks as part 
of 
their regional strategy centered by the Iraq War. That
strategy 
requires 
reassuring Arab governments, as well as attempted
reassurance to the 
Arab 
populations, that U.S. calls for "freedom" and
"liberty" in the region 
include dealing 
with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, even if ending
the Israeli 
occupation was 
never on the U.S. agenda. The immediate goal is a
period of calm - 
characterized by an end, or at least serious decrease,
in Palestinian 
militant attacks 
against the Israeli occupation. 

 So far the Bush administration has largely succeeded
in its effort to 
win 
U.S. political and media acceptance of the 
Palestinians-must-provide-security-for-Israel approach
to these talks. 
When 
Israeli troops shot and killed Fathi Abu Jazar in
Rafah the day after 
the
ceasefire talks, the Washington Post never mentioned
it. But the next 
day, 
when Hamas fired mortars towards Israeli settlements
in Gaza, with no 
casualties,
in claimed response to the killing of Abu Jazar, the
Post responded 
with a huge
headline "Radical Palestinians Attack Jewish
Settlements in Gaza: Abbas 
Reacts 
Quickly by Firing 10 Security Officials." Only in the
second to last 
paragraph 
was there any mention of Abu Jazar "reportedly" being
hit by Israeli 
fire. The
New York Times did mention the shooting of Abu Jazar
(but never named 
him) in a
story headlined "Israelis and Palestinians Cautiously
Optimistic on 
Road Ahead." 
But the next day the Times' piece began "In the first
serious test of 
the 
Israeli-Palestinian truce, the Palestinian leader,
Mahmous Abbas, fired 
three 
of his security chiefs on Thursday after Palestinian
factions staged a 
mortar 
and rocket attack on Jewish settlements in the
southern Gaza Strip." 
The 
Israeli killing of Abu Jazar was clearly not a
"serious test of the
Israeli-Palestinian truce."

On their own terms, the talks were never designed to
move towards 
ending the 
Israeli occupation. Indeed, the word "occupation"
never appeared in any 
of the 
statements from either the Israeli or Palestinian
officials. Rather, 
the goal 
was to end Palestinian militant resistance to the
occupation, thus 
normalizing life for Israelis. Palestinians, even with
a partial 
redeployment of troops 
out of some West Bank cities, even with 10% of the
prisoners released, 
even if 
Israel temporarily halted its assassination policy,
would still live 
under 
conditions of military occupation in which all
economic, social and 
political 
life is constrained and controlled by Israeli troops.

Without moving directly towards an end to occupation,
"peace talks," 
even s
ecurity talks, are almost certain to fail. The goal of
these talks was 
not to 
move towards peace, justice and an end to occupation,
but to put 
Palestinian 
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) on
record with a full 
commitment to 
stop any Palestinian attacks on Israel. That would
include not only 
attacks 
on civilians but attacks on occupying soldiers as
well. Israeli Prime 
Minister 
Sharon's statement made clear that Israel's commitment
not to kill 
Palestinians was conditional and reactive, valid only
as long as Sharon 
believes the 
Palestinians are complying; there is no such
conditioning of the 
Palestinian 
commitment. 

For Israel, the talks were based on hopes that its
willingness to talk 
to Abu 
Mazen, after years of isolating Yasir Arafat as the
"obstacle to 
peace," will 
be sufficient to satisfy U.S. interests in finding
something resembling 
a 
solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. So far that
hope seems 
likely to be 
realized. After four years of the intifada, and
hundreds of Israeli 
casualties 
both military and civilian, Sharon is under pressure
to bring Israel 
back to 
"normal" life - meaning generally life as it was in
September 2000. If 
Sharon 
can claim credit for an end, even a significant
diminution, of 
Palestinian 
resistance violence, he will win his victory.

For Palestinians, the talks were largely a reflection
of the exhaustion 
of 
four years of escalating occupation violence, more
than 3200 dead, 
continued 
settlement expansion and the continued land-grab known
as the Apartheid 
Wall, 
massive impoverishment, social and economic
stagnation, and internal 
corruption. 
Palestinian public opinion has for more than a year
begun to turn 
against 
military attacks as a viable resistance strategy. The
significant 
second-place 
showing of human rights campaigner Mustafa Barghouti
in the recent 
Palestinian 
presidential election is one indicator of that shift.
If a Palestinian 
ceas> 
efire holds (the only issue relevant to the U.S.) it
will reflect 
decisions made 
by militant organizations regarding their
accountability to that 
shifting 
public opinion; Abu Mazen does not have the political
legitimacy or the 
military 
capacity to "impose" such a ceasefire. Unless Sharon
is prepared to 
move 
seriously towards ending occupation, even in the
future, it is unlikely 
his current 
conditional agreements will give Abu Mazen enough to
consolidate his 
political 
base. Israeli indications (they are no more than that)
on prisoner 
release 
(900 out of almost 10,000), redeployment of occupation
soldiers out of 
several 
West Bank towns (but not removing them from the
occupied territories), 
allowing 
workers back into Israel (a couple thousand when
150,000 Palestinians 
worked 
inside Israel before 2000), and maybe "easing" a few
checkpoints (when 
750 
permanent checkpoints choke off life for Palestinians
throughout the 
West Bank) 
are simply insufficient for Palestini> ans to take
seriously. 

The U.S. remains the key factor in determining whether
or not these 
talks are 
a serious beginning or simply one more
smile-for-the-cameras spin 
stunt. So 
far, there is no evidence of the U.S. planning a
bigger, let alone 
different, 
diplomatic role. A big part of the reason for U.S.
pressure to convene 
the 
talks is rooted in the U.S. government's need, in the
midst of a losing 
Iraq War 
strategy, to convince its regional and global allies
(and its 
opponents) that 
it is serious about "expanding democracy" in the
Middle East as a 
whole. While 
the eagerness of Jordan's king and Egypt's
president-for-life to 
preside over 
the festivities (and the Condoleezza Rice's eagerness
to stand aside 
while 
they do so) may indicate that the plan is working at
the regional 
governmental 
level, there is no indication that it is being taken
seriously in the 
Arab 
street or anywhere in Europe. Leaders of the UN,
Russia and the EU, who 
pretended 
to be equal partners with the U.S. in the 2002
"Quartet" clearly have 
no 
intention of protesting the all-but-official
abandonment of the Roadmap 
and of their 
alleged role in the context of these new talks. 

The Bush administration role has not qualitatively
changed. Bush and 
Rice 
continue to refuse selection of a high-level special
envoy to engage in 
the 
"peace process." Instead, Rice selected a new U.S.
"security 
coordinator," the 
title specifically chosen to make clear his limited
mandate. General 
Ward will 
spend most of his time in the Palestinian territories,
and his role is 
to monitor 
Palestinian, not Israeli, compliance with the
ceasefire call. 
Monitoring 
continuing Israeli use of U.S.-supplied weapons in the
occupied 
territories, 
violation of U.S. domestic law as well as
international law, is not 
part of Gen. 
Ward's mandate. Those continuing violations include
the use of F-16 
fighter-bombers, Apache helicopter gunships, Hellfire
missiles, 
Caterpillar armored D-9 
bulldozers and other U.S.-provided military equipment
to attack 
Palestinian 
towns, demolish Palestinian homes, uproot Palestinian
olive trees, and 
construct 
Israeli settlements and the Apartheid Wall on
Palestinian land. None of 
those 
actions are prohibited, nor did Israel promise to
avoid any of them, in 
the 
latest talks. 

In 2003 the U.S. had insisted that Israel sign on to
the "Roadmap." But 
Israel's acceptance was conditioned by its 14 points
of disagreement, 
and the U.S. 
accepted that. The obligations Israel actually
accepted in the Roadmap, 
including a complete freeze of all settlement
activity, dismantling 
over 50 
settlements established since 2001 (misleadingly
identified as 
"illegal" settlements 
as if the others were somehow legal because they are
older), end house 
demolitions, and pay the Palestinians the tax revenues
due them, are 
not even 
mentioned. 

Israel is in fact negotiating on critical issues of
settlements, the 
Wall, 
Jerusalem, even the Palestinian right of return. It
just isn't 
negotiating with 
Palestinians. Rather, Tel Aviv is and has been
negotiating these issues 
with 
U.S. intermediaries, to determine how far it can go in
annexing 
additional 
territory, expanding settlements, avoiding sanctions
or other 
consequences for its 
violations of the International Court of Justice's
findings against the 
Wall. 
It should be noted again that Sharon's plan for a
withdrawal of 
soldiers and 
settlers from Gaza will not only leave Gaza as
besieged rather than 
occupied 
(with all entrance and exit, all border crossings, the
ports, seas and 
airspace 
of Gaza all remaining under Israeli control) but it
will be accompanied 
by 
the annexation of huge swathes of far more valuable
West Bank land, an 
arrangement accepted by President Bush in the spring
of 2003.

These talks are obviously not the first to raise hopes
for a new era of 
Middle East diplomacy. Earlier parallels of failed
Middle East peace 
talks in 
history include the U.S.-convened 1991 Madrid talks
after the Gulf War, 
in which 
U.S. and Israeli willingness to talk to Palestinian
interlocutors 
(although the 
PLO was officially shut > out of the process, as were
all Palestinian 
refugees, Palestinians inside Israel and those living
in Jerusalem) was 
considered 
enough of a breakthrough that no serious negotiation
was required. Like 
the 
current talks, in Madrid international law was never
identified as the 
fundamental 
basis for any negotiations. Those talks foundered and
failed. 
Similarly, the 
1993 Oslo Declaration included two full volumes of
detailed analysis of 
first 
and final stages, sequences of actions, and more. In
none of them was 
the word 
"occupation" mentioned. Abu Mazen, who shook hands
with Sharon this 
week in 
Sharm al-Sheikh, was the primary author of the Oslo
agreement.
===
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