New strategy or patchwork politics?

Just three days before the critical deadline of April 29, marking the end of the 9-month-long period for negotiating a Palestinian-Israeli peace, PA President Mahmoud Abbas reaffirmed his terms for extending the talks for some additional time.

Addressing the Palestinian Central Council last Saturday, Abbas expressed willingness to extend the talks but only on Palestinian longstanding terms: the release of the last batch of Palestinian prisoners, a total freeze on all settlement activity and an Israeli acceptance of the 1967 lines as borders for the yet-to-emerge Palestinian state.

But Abbas made himself much clearer this time saying: “On the table we will present our map, for three months we will discuss our map. In that period, until the map is agreed upon, all settlement activity must cease completely.”

These Abbas terms were unanimously endorsed by the Palestinian Central Council, which had met earlier this week to evaluate the situation.

This indeed is a longstanding Palestinian position that has been constantly met with Israeli rejection. But the new element here is the Palestinian demand to discuss borders, something Israel would never agree to do.

Following failure of its previous efforts to convince Israel to agree to a time-limited settlement construction freeze to facilitate talks resumption, Washington, as usual, turned to the Palestinian side, suggesting that if the resumed discussions would address borders, the question of settlements would resolve itself.

Rather than arguing endlessly about settlement expansion, defining the final borders would determine which settlements would stay and which would have to be removed, was the American idea.

But that was the last thing any Israeli government would consider, not just Netanyahu’s.

The Zionist project for Palestine has set the territorial limits for the “Jewish state” right from the beginning. The borders then were specifically defined in the map that was presented by the Zionist delegation to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference after World War I.

The map (available on Google) covers all of historic Palestine, in addition to substantial areas in Lebanon, Syria, Sinai of Egypt and Transjordan. For this reason, Israel would never commit to discussing borders.

Almost 100 years after that Zionist plan was presented, and with so many changes on the ground, it may be reasonable to believe that present-day Israeli leaders may not hope to expand as initially planned: in Lebanon as far north as Sidon (included); in Syria and Transjordan along a line running north-south from just south of Damascus along the Hijaz Railway all the way down to the Gulf of Aqaba, covering the entire eastern heights of Syria and Jordan; and on the Egyptian side along a straight line running from El Arish (included) southwards to Eilat.

That, however, does not mean that the whole 1919 territorial scheme has been abandoned.

In the last decades, Israel invaded and occupied lands in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Syria along the lines defined by that map, and while the occupation in Lebanon and Egypt had to be abandoned, Israel remains in full control of all of Palestine (the West Bank was occupied when part of Jordan in 1967), the Syrian Golan Heights and small parts of Lebanon.

Israel would place itself in a very critical position if it were to acknowledge its real territorial ambitions, rendering therefore all its pretended adherence to the so-called peace process, the two-state solution and all the other revolving peace formulas meaningless.

Recently, US Secretary of State John Kerry began to realise that it was Israel’s position that hindered any progress in his peace mission. Apparently the Israeli tactic of negotiating peace while grabbing land has been exposed.

Under such circumstances, Abbas is right to finally clarify his position, on territorial and other issues, and stand by it even if he may not expect other than vilification and abuse from the Israelis.

Within the same context, Abbas has been condemned for his recent reconciliation with Hamas, a precarious move taken under intense political pressure whose positive outcome cannot be taken for granted.

The dilemma for Abbas is that while he resorted to few of his long-threatened options when confronted by stiff Israeli denial of all Palestinian rights, he kept his eyes wide open on the negotiations.

Abbas’ conciliatory signals to the Americans and the Israelis hardly stopped. He repeatedly affirmed his intention to continue negotiations if the Israelis agree to the appropriate terms of reference.

Just ahead of the Holocaust Remembrance Day, he made a resounding declaration on Sunday, describing the Nazi holocaust as “ the most heinous crime” against humanity in modern times.

The gesture, however, was snubbed by Netanyahu as “damage control” and as an attempt “to smooth over the fact that he made a terrible step away from peace”.

Netanyahu also accused Abbas of entering a partnership with Hamas, which “denies the holocaust and seeks Israel’s destruction”.

Netanyahu has been strongly opposed to the reconciliation with Hamas, chiding Abbas for “choosing terror over peace”. This is becoming for Netanyahu an additional condition to the many he was constantly demanding the Palestinians to meet: “What I say to him [Abbas] very simply is this: President Abbas, tear up your pact with Hamas.”

Abbas must be aware that no amount of additional talks, if ever resumed under such complex circumstances, would yield any positive results, but he must be equally aware of the consequences of abandoning the talks altogether in favour of the UN and reconciliation with Hamas options.

The risk here is the financial deprivation of the PA, maybe not to the extent of starvation — the PA remains relevant and necessary for Israel — but just to make life for Abbas’ political structure extremely difficult.

If Abbas returns to talks only to secure resumed funding, that will be no more than patchwork politics.

It may delay imminent possible hardship, but it will not avoid it altogether.

For the time being, the Palestinian Authority does face a real dilemma.

If reconciliation with Hamas, which is a vital Palestinian national necessity, were to proceed correctly, the entire PLO, PA political strategy as defined by Oslo might have to be radically reviewed.

The first consequence of such revision could be the end of negotiations and probably the end of the so-called peace process the way it has been formulated.

This option, if finally adopted, will mark the beginning of a well overdue correction of the Palestinian political path, not necessarily in the direction of violence.

Let us hope the Hamas-Fateh deal is not just meant to be a tactical move  taken in desperation to pressure the Americans and the Israelis to improve their terms for additional recycling of the same failed ideas, or just to enhance the slumping stance of the PA.