Palestine - Netanyahu Courts Disaster Without Political Gain

[Published December 2009]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ten months suspension of residential house construction in the West Bank reached Israel’s High Court of Justice on 23 December - without any sign of the Palestinian Authority showing the slightest interest in resuming negotiations one month after the moratorium was announced on 25 November.

During the past month Jewish residents angered by the suspension have mounted large demonstrations and clashed with police and building inspectors seeking access to settlements. Tensions have been rising between Jewish and Arab neighbours.

The Yasuf mosque arson on 13 December and the murder yesterday of a 45 years old Jewish father of 7 in a terrorist ambush are grim portents of what may happen in future in the present state of indecisiveness caused by the moratorium.

Civil disobedience is set to continue which the Government has indicated will be met with firm resistance by the police and civil authorities - and if necessary by the Army - to ensure the moratorium is observed and no new residences are constructed.

Thousands of would be occupants of dwellings slated for building or halted by the moratorium in various stages of construction - not to mention builders and building suppliers - will suffer huge financial losses requiring compensation claims being made against Israel. It is impossible to quantify the damages that will be have to be paid at this time but they obviously will be substantial.

Add to this the public cost of providing additional police, building inspectors, possibly deploying large parts of the army to assist in enforcing the moratorium and the costs of prosecutions for, and demolition of, illegal building work - and you have a picture of chaos and confusion set to involve Israel’s courts and civil authorities for years to come.

That Israel is not prepared for the consequences of its moratorium was made clear by the High Court of Justice which on 23 December gave the State 30 days to let it know when a compensation claims court included in the military order freezing settlement construction would be established and begin work.

The panel of three justices, headed by Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, demanded to know

1. when the compensation claims committee would be established,
2. when it would start working,
3. what the grounds would be for applying to it,
4. how applications would be filed,
5. what the hearing procedures would be and
6. what body the settlers could turn to if they were dissatisfied with the committee’s decisions.

This decision is only going to cause greater distress and anxiety for those affected by the moratorium as a further 30 days is given to the State to provide these details whilst the moratorium continues to drift for another month with no assured response from the Palestinian Authority on the resumption of negotiations.

One must seriously question the continuation of the moratorium in the absence of any signal from the Palestinian Authority of its intention to resume negotiations.

The idea of a moratorium is not in issue. It has been done before. If it achieved its intended result of negotiations being resumed then it can be justified - even if those negotiations eventually lead to nowhere which is the most likely scenario that will occur.

Menachem Begin instituted a three months moratorium on settlement construction when he commenced negotiations with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. But the distinction then from the present moratorium is that it was given in consideration of the actual negotiations being undertaken.

This is not the case in the present moratorium where there are no such understandings or commitment.

Netanyahu’s failure to place a deadline on the continuation of the moratorium being dependent on the Palestinian Authority resuming negotiations - only encourages the Palestinan Authority to sit around and do nothing for 10 months ostensibly trying to extract a more comprehensive moratorium from Israel including a total freeze on any construction whatsoever in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Meanwhile the financial and social costs to Israel arising from the moratorium soar exponentially as the time frame of the moratorium increases and civil disobedience escalates.

Any expectation of lasting political gain being obtained by Israel by announcing the moratorium is minimal.

Although American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the moratorium as “unprecedented” nevertheless US Special Envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell said on 27 November:

“The United States also disagrees with some Israeli actions in Jerusalem affecting Palestinians in areas such as housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes,”

It is precisely these Israeli actions that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has given for refusing to accept the current limited moratorium and seeking its widening to cover such actions.

The Americans can therefore hardly blame Abbas if he sits on his heels for 10 months and does nothing whilst professing to express his earnest desire to resume negotiations if Israel ceases any such evictions and demolitions during the moratorium.

Freezing all settlement construction has been urged for years by the Quartet - America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. Again the Quartet cannot complain at Abbas’s demand that the moratorium be extended to all such construction - not merely residential houses.

Whilst President Obama had urged Abbas and Netanyahu to enter into negotiations without preconditions prior to the current moratorium offered by Israel, Abbas will lose little support from the Quartet - if any - as he continues to refuse to negotiate until there is a total freeze.

Netanyahu should have prevented the current state of uncertainty arising by initially putting a deadline on the resumption of negotiations and declaring that in default the moratorium would end and a resumption of unrestricted building activity in the West Bank would immediately follow.

As time drags on the folly and consequences of failing to stipulate this time constraint becomes clear for all to see. Overlooking such a small but highly significant detail is unforgivable.

The moratorium in its present form is bad news for Israel and a classic blunder that has caused and will cause significant financial and social consequences for Israel and its citizens until it is rectified.

Perhaps Netanyahu will come to his senses now that the issue has come before the Courts.

The sooner a deadline for the resumption of negotiations is announced by Israel - the sooner some clarity and certainty will be established to replace what is developing into a very tense and dangerous political void.

Palestine - Abbas Aborts Any Two State Solution

[Published December 2009]

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has now made it abundantly clear that he does not intend to enter into further negotiations with Israel to create a new Arab State between Israel, Jordan and Egypt - by insisting on conditions for resuming negotiations with Israel that prejudge fundamental issues that were supposed to be only settled in negotiations.

Speaking before the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee in Ramallah on 15 December Abbas said:

“We will renew negotiations if the settlements are completely halted and the 1967 borders recognized as the borders of the Palestinian state,”

In demanding that the 1967 “borders” - they are in fact only armistice lines - be recognized as the “borders” of the Palestinian state before negotiations are resumed - Abbas has repudiated one of the key issues that was to be decided by negotiations.

His demand is both peremptory and racist - amounting effectively to an ultimatum that Israel agree to 500000 Jews being evicted from their present homes and businesses in the West Bank prior to the Palestinian Authority even agreeing to resume negotiations on the future of the West Bank’s Jewish population.

Abbas has now reached the end of the road of no return in making the irrational demands he has.

In welcoming Israel’s 10 months moratorium on residential building activity in the West Bank as “unprecedented” in an effort to induce Abbas to resume negotiations with Israel - United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had declared on 25 November:

“We believe that through good faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome that ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish State with secure and recognized borders.”

The Secretary of State’s expressed belief that Abbas would agree to land swaps has now been comprehensively and publicly rejected by Abbas in his latest statement.

Abbas’s statement also amounts to a rejection of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 which do not require that Israel withdraw from all the land it occupied following the Six Day War in 1967.

There seems to be a general ignorance about the status in international law of the West Bank and Gaza which are at present not under the recognized sovereignty of any State.

In international law the West Bank and Gaza are the only remaining areas of the Mandate for Palestine still unallocated between Jews and Arabs pursuant to the 1922 League of Nations Mandate whose provisions still apply today by virtue of Article 80 of the United Nations Charter.

Both Jews and Arabs claim the West Bank and Gaza - which are “no man’s land “ in common parlance.

Although all Jews living in Gaza evacuated their homes there in 2005 no formal abandonment of Jewish claims to sovereignty in Gaza has yet been conceded by Israel.

Both Jews and Arabs maintain claims to sovereignty in the West Bank that can only be peacefully resolved by negotiations between them.

The Palestinian Authority has now made it plainly clear that it is not prepared to enter into further negotiations with Israel to settle their respective claims to sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza by stipulating the Palestinian Authority be granted sovereignty in 100% and not one square metre less as a pre-condition to resuming negotiations.

Israel now needs to find an Arab negotiating partner or partners that will not demand such a pre-condition. Until that happens the unsatisfactory status quo will continue - which clearly is in no one’s interest.

In response to Abbas’s latest demands Mark Regev the spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on 17 December 2009:

“Up until now, he (Abbas) was talking about a settlement freeze. Now he is adding (a return to) 1967 borders. It’s like we have to accept the outcome of negotiations before negotiations start. We are concerned that they are trying to avoid negotiations.

The reason we haven’t been negotiating is the Palestinians have been placing new preconditions on talks.”

Israel needs to go much further than Regev has articulated.

Any hope that Abbas will withdraw or modify his latest conditions for resuming negotiations is fatuous.

Israel initially erred in not conditioning its 10 months building moratorium on the Palestinian Authority agreeing to resume negotiations with Israel within a fixed period of time after the date when the moratorium was first announced on 25 November 2009.

In theory the Palestinian Authority was given up to 10 months to decide whether to negotiate any further with Israel - during which time no further houses would be commenced in the West Bank even if the Palestinian Authority made no decision to negotiate during that time.

This moratorium has already caused much personal distress, confusion and financial loss as well as large demonstrations in Israel and on the West Bank protesting the moratorium. Continuing the moratorium in view of Abbas’s latest demands will not advance the peace process one iota.

There is at this point of time no possible hope whatsoever in negotiations being resumed by Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

In view of Abbas’s latest statement Israel should now make it very clear that:

* Abbas’s conditions for resuming negotiations with Israel are completely unacceptable
* If Abbas does not resume negotiations with Israel by 20 January 2010 without the preconditions stipulated by Abbas then Israel will cancel the 10 months moratorium and resume building houses in the West Bank in accordance with the rights vested in the Jewish people by the Mandate for Palestine and the United Nations Charter.

The time for playing diplomatic word games is surely over.

Bibi's Big Blunder

[Published December 2009]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu incredibly appears to have committed a major blunder in announcing his cabinet’s decision on 25 November 2009:

“ authorizing a policy of restraint regarding settlements which will include a suspension of new permits and new construction in Judea and Samaria for a period of ten months.”

The statement further elaborated on this offer by clarifying that :

“..this suspension will not affect construction currently underway. It will not include the schools, kindergartens, synagogues and public buildings necessary for the continuation of normal life over the period of suspension. Obviously, any infrastructure that may be needed to protect our national security or to safeguard the lives of our citizens will also be provided during this time. … We do not put any restrictions on building in our sovereign capital."

Nowhere in the Prime Minister’s statement is there a cut off point for the Palestinian Authority to accept Israel’s offer before it is deemed to be withdrawn.

It seems that this offer is to be kept on foot for ten months during which period the Palestinian Authority will be given the time to decide whether it will enter into negotiations or not.

The Palestinian Authority is clearly not happy with the limited suspension of building activity set out in Mr Netanyahu’s statement and is trying to get America to pressure Israel into making further concessions before agreeing to enter into negotiations.

Y NET News reported the following on 25 November:

“Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements do not constitute a progress which will enable the Palestinians to resume negotiations. Erekat claimed the move was unsatisfactory.

Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said that the resumption of negotiations requires total cessation of settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. "We will not accept any arrangement in which Jerusalem is not part of the proposal," Abu Rudeina said."

If the Palestinian Authority eventually decides to enter into negotiations with Israel in say seven months time, that will leave only three months to complete those negotiations. What will happen at the end of those three months if such negotiations have not been finalised? Will further extensions have to be granted by Israel to keep the negotiations alive?

Mr Netanyahu’s statement goes on to say:

“When the suspension ends, my government will revert to the policies of previous governments in relation to construction.”

This would appear to clearly indicate that if the Palestinian Authority does not enter into negotiations in ten months the moratorium period is over.

However if Israel were not to extend the moratorium period once the negotiations had begun - it would soon be branded as irresponsible and the prime cause of any breakdown in negotiations by unreasonably refusing to extend the moratorium period to enable the negotiations to continue.

The longer the negotiations continue the greater the pressure on Israel to extend the moratorium period to allow those negotiations to be finalized.

Since the parties have been negotiating for sixteen years without any result it would not be too unrealistic to assume that the Palestinian Authority could enter into negotiations within the next ten months and thereafter indefinitely delay the end of the moratorium period.

What Israel should have done is make it quite clear that:

1. The Palestinian Authority was to be given until 25 December 2009 to enter into negotiations with Israel.

2. If negotiations were commenced within that time then the moratorium period would be extended until 25 September 2010

3. If negotiations were not concluded by 25 September 2010, no extension of the moratorium period would be granted as a condition of the negotiations continuing.

Israel appears to have fallen into a trap of its own making. It urgently needs to clarify the intent and meaning of its statement and remove any ambiguity as soon as possible.