Peace not given much chance in Israel, Middle East

NY Times:

In the weeks since Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, finally accepted the principle of a Palestinian state, with qualifications, there has been deep skepticism about his sincerity.

On the Palestinian side, aides to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, have called Mr. Netanyahu’s grudging endorsement of Palestinian statehood, under international pressure, a disingenuous public relations exercise.

But even senior officials and prominent figures of his conservative Likud Party have been busy explaining, privately and publicly, why they think there is not likely to be a Palestinian state any time soon, in ways that raise even more questions about the current government’s commitment to reaching a final peace accord.

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Mr. Netanyahu has been explicit, though, about his conditions for a deal. He says the Palestinians must recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. Palestinian negotiators reject such recognition, contending it would preclude the demand of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 and their descendants for the right of return to their former homes, and be detrimental to the status of Israel’s Arab minority.

Mr. Netanyahu adds that the problem of the refugees has to be resolved outside the borders of Israel and that Israel will only accept defensible borders, and he wants international guarantees that any Palestinian state will be fully demilitarized.

To that his aides have lately added that there is currently no Palestinian partner who can deliver the essential conditions for statehood as outlined by Mr. Netanyahu, or who is capable of making the historic compromise necessary for a final peace deal.

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This comes pretty close to stating the real problem in reaching an agreement. The Palestinians have nothing of value to offer Israel. Even if they accepted all of his conditions, they could not and would not enforce any attempt to stop attacks on Israel and they would continue to find "reasons" for such attacks. Fundamentally, the Palestinians and their Arab supporters want to continue their attempts to push the Jews from power in Israel. The Clinton deal forced their hand on this and little has changed since. While Abbas is more of a passive aggressive figure, he still does not have the capacity to deliver on a deal.

The Obama talk about the settlements is not going to create conditions for peace, because the Palestinians would be given something for nothing. On fact the settlements should be an incentive for the Palestinians to reach an agreement to stop their growth if they were really serious about reaching a peace agreement. The fact is they are not. Neither are their Arab supporters. If they were serious they would limit the right of return to the territory they would get in the deal. They would outlaw the terrorist organizations that are attacking Israel. The latter would lead to a Palestinian civil war and it is not clear that the PA would win.