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The Process Will Resume, But Why?

(bitterlemons.org) Yossi Alpher - Israeli-Palestinian final status talks will be renewed because the international community wants this to happen. Mahmoud Abbas, currently the reluctant partner, will bow to American and Arab will once he has extracted maximum preliminary concessions from Israel and the U.S. The real question should be why the U.S. wants negotiations to resume when they are doomed to failure, rather than face up to the strategic realities. The first is the three-state reality. There is little near-term prospect that Abbas will succeed in bringing Gaza and Hamas back into the fold of a single Palestinian partner for Israel. Hence he can negotiate only on behalf of the West Bank. The second reality is that, when he does negotiate, Abbas is certain to table a set of demands on issues like refugees, Jerusalem and borders that Netanyahu cannot and will not meet. The third reality is that the Palestinians are currently embarked on a largely unilateral state-building process and that negotiations - particularly frustrating and fruitless negotiations - are not necessary to sustain that process. The writer is former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.
2010-01-20 08:16:49
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