The PLO Executive Committee decided on March 7 to accept the US administration s proposal to commence proximity talks with American mediation. This followed the decision by a monitoring committee of the Arab League foreign ministers to support resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on a Permanent Status Agreement (PSA) in the form of proximity talks. Within the framework of these talks the American mediator, Senator George Mitchell, will deliver messages between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks are a regression to a darker era when the two parties refused to recognize each other and banned contacts. They are also less effective than direct talks because this form of negotiating gives too much power to the mediator, especially a powerful mediator like the United States. As a result, the two parties will probably aim their messages at the American mediator instead of at each other. This brings about a situation in which the purpose of the talks for the two parties is not to reach an agreement but rather to position themselves so that at the conclusion of the talks they can, with US backing, blame the other party for their failure.
At one level, this regression reflects the depth of Palestinian mistrust of the present Israeli government. The Palestinian leadership does not believe that PM Binyamin Netanyahu s commitment to the two-state solution is genuine. Hence it assumes the talks will fail and it will bear the brunt of the resulting political damage. The reason for its acceptance of the idea of proximity talks is its wish, on the one hand, to avoid friction with the US administration – it doesn t want to be perceived as the trouble-making party that prevents negotiations – and on the other hand to minimize the potential political damage. This also explains why the Palestinian leadership needed the support of the Arab foreign ministers.
At another level, the idea of proximity talks was necessary because Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas needed a ladder to climb down from the tree he had ascended thanks to the mistakes of the Obama administration. The main American mistake was the demand for a comprehensive freeze on settlement construction as a pre-condition for restarting negotiations.
On the one hand, it was easy for Netanyahu to reject this condition, because under prevailing political and legal circumstances in Israel no prime minister can implement a full settlement freeze. It was certainly not possible for Netanyahu to do so with his right-wing coalition and when he can assume that the public supports this rejection.
On the other hand, Abbas could not agree to a resumption of direct talks without the fulfillment of this pre-condition when that was the US demand. That would have been perceived by the Palestinian public as surrendering to Netanyahu and would have caused Abbas heavy political damage. Indeed, even now that he is cushioned by the idea of indirect talks and the support of the Arab League, Abbas is under attack by Hamas and within his own Fateh party for his decision.
Abbas has apparently also received some American promises that enabled him to make this decision. The administration has undertaken a commitment that if one of the negotiating parties does not meet American expectations, the US will express its concern and act to overcome the obstacle. This means the US will point to the guilty party and offer its own bridging proposals. The administration also assured the Palestinians that the aim of the talks is to establish a sovereign, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation of 1967. This repeats an earlier formula offered by Secretary of State Hilary Clinton; it does not constitute a clear commitment to the 1967 lines. The US also added that it understands that the Palestinian party opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state with provisional borders.
The Palestinians have set a time limit of four months for the talks. This means that if within a relatively short period of time these negotiations do not produce sufficient results to enable a transition to direct talks that are not constrained by draconian time limits, these proximity talks will end in failure.
This high probability of failure emphasizes the urgency of the need to develop alternative concepts for making progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track. These should include agreements that are less than a PSA. The Palestinians currently oppose this approach, but they may reconsider their position when the alternative is prolongation of deadlock and possible return to a violent conflict. The international community, led by the US and Israel, should facilitate such a Palestinian reassessment by giving the Palestinians strong guarantees that partial agreements are not a substitute for a PSA but rather are interim measures aimed at facilitating the conclusion of a PSA.
Brig. Gen. (ret.) Shlomo Brom is a senior research associate at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv. This commentary is published by Daily News Egypt in collaboration with bitterlemons.org.
