Middle East

On 11/5, Secretary Rice will start a four-day trip to Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Palestine. I guess she’s decided the term “lame duck” won’t apply to her. Although, I know that I expect to hear about nothing but the presidential election over those four days; we’ll see whether that’s the case for her.

Tzipi Livni may face new challenges in forming a governing coalition thanks to Ehud Olmert’s comments on the necessity of certain concessions on the part of Israel. Olmert’s frank admission that Israel will probably have to withdraw from East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights pushed Kadima (Olmert and Livni’s party) to the left, and right-wing parties will likely be reluctant to join a Kadima government.

If Livni cannot form a coalition, new elections will be held.

Ehud Olmert, current lame-duck Prime Minister of Israel, conceded yesterday in an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth that Israel will have to give up land in order to achieve peace with Palestine, specifically land in the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, and the West Bank. Summary quote:
“In the end of the day, we will have to withdraw from the most decisive areas of the territories. In exchange for the same territories left in our hands, we will have to give compensation in the form of territories within the State of Israel.”

His admission was not well received within Israel, and viewed as unconstructive. Palestinian officials were skeptical that this admission would bring any kind of result, as Olmert has no political capital to leverage in order to make any withdrawal or land swap a reality.

What more can be said, when a Prime Minister’s swan song is to tell the truth about the negotiations, and is subsequently lambasted by both parties?

… for Mahmoud Abbas’ departure on 1/9/09.

I am inclined to think that a man whose tenure may or may not end with tripartite violence between his party, the opposing party and an occupying force is not one on whom the US should rest their hopes for leaving a legacy of peace in the Middle East.

The NYT has a piece on the disillusionment of Palestinians with the 2-state solution dream. It has, after all, been 15 years since the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, and it can’t be comforting to know that Olmert, Abbas, and Bush are hard at work - their combined approval rating probably hovers somewhere around 60%.

For an interesting account of the economic realities of the Gaza strip, and its relative lack of any infrastructure independent of Israel, read Amira Hass’ Drinking the Sea at Gaza. Hass is an Israeli journalist who lived in Gaza City and in Ramallah as the correspondet for Haaretz - her account of life in the strip, criticism of Israel’s policies aside, raises some important questions about what kind of support would be necessary there to make a state viable.

And, since it is the weekend, if you are interested in reading a (possibly inflammatory, depending on your views) piece advocating a one-state solution, Tony Judt wrote one for the New York Review of Books in 2003.

Secretary Rice has been a frequent traveler to Israel/Palestine in the recent past (17 times in the past 2 years), and she is now in the middle of another visit in an attempt to broker an agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians by the end of 2008. Read her remarks with Israeli Foreign Minister (and now Acting Prime Minister) Tzipi Livni here and with Mahmoud Abbas here. Settlements, unsurprisingly, continue to be a thorn in the side of all three parties; PeaceNow, an Israeli pressure group, released a report shortly before Secretary Rice’s visit documenting a rise in settlement activities relative to this time last year. (Almost twice as many new buildings are under construction as there were in the first half of 2008). Rice said, in her press conference with Livni, that the settlement activity was “not helpful” but pointed out that negotiations were proceeding despite it. Abbas and Livni were slightly more pointed in their comments; Livni said 

“… the peace process is not and should not be affected by any kind of settlement activities. I mean, at the end of the day, we are talking about the future borders of the Palestinian state, considering more than 40 years we are talking, plus minus, about the same blocks of settlements, and this is part of the negotiations. And as I suggested also to my co-partners on the Palestinian side, to try — and I understand that sometimes (inaudible) and sometimes how does it affect on different parts of Palestinian society. But at the end of the day, the role of leaders is to try and find a way to live in peace in the future, and to avoid any kind of — not to let any kind of noises that relate to the situation on the ground these days to enter the negotiations room. I mean, it could have been easier also for me to use some excuses, and to say that this affects my ability to negotiate. But I decided not to do so, even in harder days of terror. So I would like to suggest my co-partners not to use it as an excuse. And I know that they are not using it as an excuse, but I understand the frustration sometimes.”

Abbas, later on the same day, made the following comments:

We have focused also on the settlement activities that continue, that are ongoing, and that are undoubtedly an obstacle, a main obstacle in the road of the peace process. And as you all know, we reject all the settlement activities in principle because they contradict with the agreements and the Roadmap plan and the objectives of Annapolis that have started one year ago – almost one year ago.

So, Rice has got her work cut out for her. As Fareed Zakaria said, no one has ever lost money betting against the peace process. There is one interesting new development, though – Rice has appointed Lt. Gen. Will Fraser to oversee the progress of the Roadmap. He’s established a system for quantifying the impact of each of the roadblocks up in the West Bank/Gaza and East Jerusalem, ostensibly so that the most disruptive roadblocks can be removed first. Sean McCormack discusses this in greater depth at DipNote, the State Dept’s blog.