Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) – the former a head of state who enjoys little of the trust of his people, the latter the president of an entity much of whose authority, if he has any at all, devolves from the protection provided by the army defined by his people as the enemy – are discussing a declaration of final status principles. This week, if an event like the Israel Air Force flight over Syria doesn t disrupt Olmert s plans, they will reconvene for another round of drafting.
In the eyes of many Israelis, including many of those who seek not only a declaration of principles but aspire to its implementation, nothing surrounding the two leaders meetings is serious. Hot air is the way it was described to me by someone intimately familiar with the proceedings.
Indeed, both figures, whether because of their character or due to decisive internal constraints, are incapable of recruiting the necessary support for the declaration of intentions whose outline is described in recent very credible leaks to the media.
Last weekend witnessed the detailed publication in Yediot Aharonot of the plan attributed to Deputy PM Haim Ramon. Everyone in Israel understands that a deputy prime minister (particularly one whose standing is as fragile as Ramon) doesn t publish a peace plan that is not acceptable to the prime minister. Just as in 2003 Ehud Olmert, then deputy to PM Ariel Sharon, could not have publicized his disengagement plan (following Sharon s murky statement of intentions at the Herzliya conference) without the knowledge and even the guidance of the man who intended to implement it.
So Ramon publishes the Olmert plan as the Ramon plan because, were it to bear the prime minister s direct imprimatur, the coalition, which relies on the majority provided by Shas and Yisrael Beitenu, would collapse, the government would fall and the plan, like many before it, would be thrown onto the garbage dump of history. Indeed, Eli Yishai and Avigdor Lieberman, the leaders of those two parties, responded with hostility to Ramon s plan.
Further, heavy hitters within Olmert and Ramon s own Kadima party like Minister of Transportation Shaul Mofaz, a former minister of defense, and Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter, a former head of the General Security Service, were openly critical not only of Ramon but particularly of the Olmert-Abbas contacts. Their main contention was that Abbas had first to prove that he was willing and able, independently of support from the IDF, to be a partner. Neither Mofaz nor Dichter, along with other members of Knesset from Kadima, Olmert s ruling party, believes that Abbas can ever overcome Hamas or concede the right of return.
But lack of faith in Abbas, and by extension in Olmert, is not limited to Kadima and the parties of the right. Ehud Barak, leader of the Labor party, disparages the capabilities, character and leadership qualities of the president of the Palestinian Authority. Accordingly, and because he does not envisage a future Palestinian leader who could concede the right of return or abandon terrorism, Barak remains virtually the only supporter in Israeli politics of the concept of unilateral disengagement. This is why we can totally dismiss the conspiratorial explanation that the IAF over-flight of Syria was intended to divert Israeli public opinion away from the agreement that is being put together by Olmert and Abbas. Moreover the Olmert plan, as described in the Ramon plan, is all too similar to the proposals presented by Barak himself to Yasser Arafat at Camp David in 2000, even including the readiness to relinquish Jewish control over the Temple Mount. And lest we forget the angry response to that position by the Jewish public: Barak s coalition disintegrated until only some 30 MKs supported the government, which was obliged to resign and go to elections – which it lost.
Most Israelis, including on the left, are well aware of Abu Mazen s shaky status. They know he was expelled in disgrace from Gaza and that a similar fate awaits him in Judea and Samaria the moment he has to rule on his own, without IDF protection for him and his regime. Hence they wonder why on earth Olmert is making such an effort to reach agreement with a man who is incapable, with all the will in the world, of implementing it.
The conference scheduled for November is not a satisfactory answer. After all, even the president of the United States, and certainly his secretary of state, knows the truth about the capacity of Abbas and his government to maintain agreements. Thus the Americans must also realize that they are dealing with an Israeli prime minister who is misreading the situation, just as he misread it in the Second Lebanon War.
Yisrael Harel heads the Institute for Zionist Strategy in Jerusalem and writes a weekly political column in Haaretz. He is former head of the Yesha Council (Council of Jewish Settlements in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza District) and former editor of its monthly Nekuda. This commentary is published by DAILY NEWS EGYPT in collaboration with bitterlemons-international.org.
