May 04, 2014
The Israeli decision to break off negotiations with the
Palestinians last week after the Palestinian groups Fateh and Hamas announced
their reconciliation agreement reveals the darkest and most destructive sides
of Israel and its Western backers vis-a-vis their declared desire for a
negotiated peace agreement: their inconsistency, insincerity and hypocrisy. You
might say these are normal attributes of any political actor, which is true to
some extent. But here this kind of behaviour also advances the accusation that
Israel and the United States in particular only wish to negotiate peace on
their terms, and not on terms that treat the Palestinians and Israelis equally.
I say this because in their reconciliation
announcement Fateh and Hamas made it clear that the unity government and the
desired subsequent negotiations with Israel would be based on three important
principles that have long been an Israeli and American demand, and that the
Quartet in 2006 specifically demanded from Hamas: that Hamas adhere to three
conditions of non-violence, adherence to previous agreements, and acceptance of
Israel’s right to exist. On this basis, it was assumed, Palestinian negotiators
would speak for all Palestinians, and Israel, the United States and other
countries could deal with Hamas.
Well, the national unity agreement between Fatah
and Hamas last week precisely mentioned that Hamas had agreed to these three
demands; the UN Secretary General’s special representative to the Arab-Israeli
peace process, Robert Serry, made it clear after meeting Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas that the national unity government would respect the existing PLO
commitments that include recognition of Israel, non-violence, and adherence to
previous agreements. In other words, the UN sees the Palestinian unity
agreement terms as having met the conditions that the Quartet set on 30 Jan
2006.
So what did Israel do in return for Hamas
meetings its conditions, with the United States in tow? It immediately ended
the negotiations and told President Abbas that he had to choose between peace
with Israel or a “pact” with Hamas. The American government, predictably,
described Palestinian unity as “unhelpful.” So when the Israelis and Americans
suddenly came face-to-face with a united Palestinian leadership that openly and
explicitly accepted the Israeli-American terms for diplomatic engagement, the
Israelis-Americans ignored their own terms for talks and totally shattered the
most recent attempt to negotiate peace.
This kind of reckless hypocrisy or straightforward
lying is bad enough in itself, but it is made even worse by the fact that on
the Israeli side there are ministers in the Netanyahu government who reject the
Quartet’s three conditions: They reject Palestine’s right to exist; they reject
previous agreements (most notably the Oslo Accords); and, they reserve the
right to use violence against Palestinians and other Arabs and to create their
envisioned Greater Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
This only reminds us yet again why the peace
negotiations that the Americans have mediated single-handedly have failed to
produce any meaningful results during the past 20 years, since the Oslo
agreements. It is because the Israelis deem it appropriate to set the terms
they wish for the negotiations, and to ignore those same terms when they wish,
while the United States meekly follows the Israeli position.
The consequences of this are enormous, starting
with the likelihood that few will continue to believe what the United States
tells them is Washington’s position on the issues. The United States will not
be trusted as a mediator for some time, and Palestinians and other Arabs
perhaps will think twice about “giving up violence, accepting previous
agreements and recognizing Israel’s right to exist,” because it now seems that
doing so would only result in diplomatic punishment.
Palestinians also expect to get punished for
joining UN organizations, whose main aim in life is to spread adherence to the
rule of law and non-violent conflict resolution.
The Quartet has now officially died a merciful
death in the wake of the United States abandoning the three key principles it
had once demanded of Hamas. Netanyahu for his part responded to Hamas’
acceptance of these three critical principles by announcing on April 24 that he
would vastly expand Israeli settlements by approving the construction of
another 350,000 homes for Jews only, and prepare for “widespread death and
destruction through bombing campaigns and full-scale ground invasions.”
The many consequences of this series of events
will take some time to clarify, but they are likely to be destructive.
Political violence is sure to escalate on various fronts, and the idea of
negotiating a comprehensive peace agreement will probably remain dormant for
some time. The United States will find it very difficult to regain the key
parties’ trust, which is essential for any serious mediation.
A reasonable conclusion is that Israel prefers
violence, chaos and perpetual warfare to the terms of non-violent negotiations
and respect for agreements that it had itself set in 2006.
Rami G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star,
and Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International
Affairs at the American University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. You can
follow him @ramikhouri.
Copyright © 2014 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by Agence Global