This week was marked by yet another meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and yet another speech on the Palestinian issue by US President George W. Bush. All this activity should not deceive us into assuming that it’s business-as-usual between Israelis and Palestinians under Abbas’ rule. On the contrary, a number of recent events and developments in Palestine and the region require that we take a new and somewhat different look at the prospects for working effectively with Abbas. Most of these events and developments are negative: the recent Hamas takeover of Gaza and the rise of militant Islam in general, the Iranian drive for regional hegemony, the weakness and fragmentation exhibited by a growing number of Arab states and the horribly counter-productive American occupation of Iraq and democratization campaign. Israel’s actions, too, are part of the negative picture: it has difficulty combating the Islamist non-state actors operating on its borders, seemingly cannot stop the deadly spread of settlements, and is undergoing a prolonged leadership crisis. Only one development is positive: the Arab peace initiative. Yet here too the Arab League and its leading states, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, appear thus far to be incapable of following through on a good idea. Abbas is very much a creature of these times and trends. He is a weak leader ruling over a fragmented political entity. He confronts a militant Islamist movement whose recent triumph in Gaza reflects an Iranian achievement, broader mistakes by Arab states, and an overall Palestinian failure at state-building since the emergence of the Oslo process. If this analysis suggests any prospect at all for a positive new departure in Israeli-Palestinian relations during the Abbas era, it is the recognition that because the malaise is regional, so too must the solution be regional. If Abbas is yet to play a positive role in advancing an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, this can only be through a greater readiness on the part of the neighboring Arab states to themselves play a more active role, in their own self-interest. For starters, the neighbors must help Abbas reform the Palestine Liberation Organization, Israel’s designated Palestinian negotiating partner. Lest we forget, the Arab League created the PLO. Now that Palestinian body is hopelessly corrupt, manipulated by “dinosaurs appointed decades ago by Yasser Arafat and out of touch with the Palestinian masses. Abbas, who is basing his leadership strategy on the PLO now that the Palestinian Authority is virtually defunct, seems sadly incapable of changing very much on his own. Second, it’s time the Egyptians, Saudis and Jordanians weighed in on the heavy negotiating issues: Jerusalem and refugees. They backed away from taking a stand on them in July 2000 when Arafat needed their support. Now that it is clearly beyond Abbas’ capacity to make the concessions required to inspire Israeli public confidence in a final status deal, the Arab neighbors have another opportunity. There is a clear pan-Arab and, in the case of Jerusalem, pan-Islamic dimension to both issues. The Arab peace initiative provides cover for a broader Arab role in which Arab states commit to help absorb refugees and foster a Muslim-Jewish compromise agreement on the Temple Mount-Haram al-Sharif. This means, to begin with, that the Arab League delegation has to stop postponing its visit to Israel to open negotiations on the Arab peace initiative and that the Saudis have to join the direct negotiating effort to make the initiative a genuine instrument for advancing Israeli-Palestinian (and Israeli-Syrian) peace. Third, the Arab states and particularly Jordan and Egypt must exploit the Arab peace initiative’s proposed umbrella of regional security arrangements to play a more direct role in providing security in the Israeli-Palestinian sphere. Here again they would be compensating for Abbas’ weaknesses and providing incentives for Israeli concessions while improving overall regional stability for their own benefit. Finally, both Egypt and Saudi Arabia have been active in trying to reconcile between Fatah and Hamas, Abbas and Khalid Meshaal. Their efforts thus far have been abortive, to the detriment of Abbas’ overall prestige and authority. If they have concluded that Abbas is a spent force and is incapable of rallying Fatah and its allies behind him, they should say so and suggest alternative modes for stabilizing Palestinian rule. If not, they should provide him with better political support in his confrontation with Hamas. Abbas is not likely to remain president of the Palestinian Authority and head of the PLO beyond the end of his presidential term in another year and a half. This period could be critical in determining whether the PLO remains a potential peace partner for Israel, at least in the West Bank, or is subverted by Hamas. Abbas is a weak but well-intentioned leader for whom there is no obvious successor or replacement (although Israel could contribute here by releasing Marwan Barghouti). With the active backing and involvement of Israel’s Arab neighbors and a forthcoming Israeli approach–we can’t expect much from the United States during the next 18 months–his legacy could conceivably be the initiation of a modest conflict-management process that ushers in another attempt at peace negotiations, keeps Hamas at bay, and inaugurates a new and more realistic generation of Palestinian leadership. That is a best-case scenario. Otherwise–if we leave matters to Abbas alone, if Israel doesn’t resume rolling back the settlements and outposts or if the Arabs once again fail the Palestinian cause–he will almost certainly usher in even greater chaos and more Islamist rule.
Yossi Alpher was director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and an adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons.org, an online newsletter dealing with Israeli-Palestinian issues.
