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From: Portside moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2013 16:23:06
To: <[email protected]>
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Subject: John Kerry’s Doomed Peace Process is Deja Vu All Over Again
John Kerry’s Doomed Peace Process is Deja Vu All Over Again
August 3, 2013
By Phyllis Bennis
Mondoweiss (August 2, 2013)
In recent years it has become common to see Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross, Aaron
Miller and others responsible for the 22 years of failed U.S. diplomacy in the
Middle East relying on their “veteran” status as a credential for continuing
their careers.
Secretary of State John Kerry’s latest foray into Middle East negotiations
should be called the Einstein peace process. Doing the same thing over and
over again and still expecting different results is the great scientist’s
definition of insanity. This time around, indications are that Kerry actually
believes, all evidence to the contrary aside, that this latest iteration of the
decades-old industry known as the “peace process” might really succeed. But
unfortunately for Kerry, his political calculations are about to run aground on
the unforgiving shoals of political reality.
Whatever Kerry’s beliefs, the timing of this latest version of the
talks clearly has a lot to do with the crises erupting across the Middle East
region. The escalating civil and regional war in Syria, the growing sectarian
and religious-secular divides exploding across the region, and even the
Pentagon-backed Egyptian military’s coup against the Muslim Brotherhood all
reflect broader U.S. weakness and failures in the Middle East. The inability of
the U.S. to respond strategically to those challenges is certainly part of why
plunging back into Israel-Palestine talks, however repetitive of earlier
failures, might have seemed a useful move – for distraction, for reassurance of
Israel’s backers, for reassertion of a weakened empire’s fading but still
extant power.
But despite all those reasons, these talks are doomed to the same
failure as the 22 years of failed diplomacy that precedes them.
Part of the problem lies squarely in Kerry’s stated U.S. goal for the
talks: “ending the conflict, ending the claims.” Not ending the occupation, not
ending the siege of Gaza, not ending the decades of dispossession and exile of
Palestinian refugees. Only ending the tension, the dispute – regardless of
which version of current reality becomes the officially agreed upon final
status. Then, in Kerry’s world, all Palestinian claims will disappear, and the
Palestinians, even if their internationally-recognized rights remain out of
reach, will smile, applaud their brave leaders, and politely agree to suck it
up. (Future Israeli claims will not have to end, of course, because Israeli
claims are about “security,” inherently legitimate and non-negotiable, while
Palestinian claims – to self-determination, real sovereignty, equality, return
– are simply political and up for grabs.)
The appointment of Martin Indyk as U.S. envoy to the talks is a further
indication that no one intends to change the framework of the last 22 years of
failed U.S.-led diplomacy. Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, former
deputy research director of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, and
co-founder of the AIPAC-linked Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has
been central to U.S.-controlled Israel-Palestine diplomacy for years. (In
recent years it has become common to see Indyk, Dennis Ross, Aaron Miller and
others responsible for the 22 years of failed U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East
relying on their “veteran” status as a credential for continuing their careers.)
This round, like those before, will ignore international law, and
instead be based on accepting the current disparity of power between occupied
and occupier. The pro-Israel U.S. arbiter will determine the Israeli positions
and Israeli-proposed “compromises” to be “reasonable.” Israel will continue to
build and expand settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West
Bank based on the thousands of permits already in place, while likely offering
some kind of short-term partial slowdown in granting some number of new permits
– and that will be called a major compromise. More than 600,000 Israeli
settlers will continue to live in huge city-sized Jews-only settlements
throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the talks will be rooted in
the understanding that in any final arrangement Israel will be allowed to keep
all the major settlement blocs, the aquifers, and 80% or more of the settlers
right where they are.
Secretary Kerry announced proudly that this round of talks is different – based
on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. But he slid over the small U.S.- and
Israeli-imposed “adjustment” to that plan, which stripped it of its potential
value. The plan originally offered Arab states’ normalization with Israel only
after “full” withdrawal to the 1967 borders, and a just solution to the refugee
problem based on UN resolution 194 guaranteeing their right of return. Kerry’s
new version ignores the refugees (at least so far) and adopts the U.S.-Israeli
language on borders (always said as one word) of 1967-borders-with-swaps. Those
land “swaps,” of course, mean Israel gets to keep all its settlement cities,
most of its illegal settlers, virtually all the Palestinian water sources,
while the Palestinians will be offered some undeveloped desert land abutting
Gaza, or perhaps a proposal to place Palestinian-majority cities inside Israel,
such as Nazareth, under the jurisdic
tion of the to-be-created Palestinian “state.” (There is likely to be no
compromise even discussed on Gaza – Israel’s siege will remain, strengthened by
Egypt’s new post-coup government sealing tunnels and tightening the closure of
the Egypt-Gaza crossing at Rafah – and the Palestinian Authority diplomats are
not likely to make Gaza a major part of their negotiating strategy.)
Palestinians, of course, will be expected to accept Israel’s
“reasonable” compromises as if both sides, occupied & occupier, have the same
obligations under international law. (Oh right, international law doesn’t have
a role here.) The price, if Palestinians reject any of Israel’s
oh-so-reasonable proposals, will be U.S. and perhaps global opprobrium for
blocking peace. Right now some developing countries (South Africa, Brazil) are
hinting at somewhat more independent positions towards Israel-Palestine. The
European Union’s new restrictions on funding settlement entities, made public
just before Kerry’s announcement of the new talks and Israel’s acceptance of
them, is particularly important, reflecting the impact of even mild sanctions
on Tel Aviv. But while the civil society movement for boycott, divestment and
sanctions (BDS) continues to build, it remains unclear how the governments
tentatively backing away from U.S. positions would respond to the collap
se of the U.S.-controlled talks, especially if the U.S. claim is that the
failure is the Palestinians’ fault.
Israeli violations of international law, the Geneva Conventions, UN resolutions
and more remain. The U.S. does not set an end to those violations as a goal of
these peace talks – let alone as a precondition. If it did, Israel would have
to end its occupation of the 1967 territories and recognize the Palestinians’
right of return unilaterally – ending violations shouldn’t require
negotiations. That’s why, ultimately, these talks will fail. Until negotiations
are based not on U.S. support for Israeli power but on international law, human
rights, and equality for all, the “peace process,” including this latest
Einstein Edition, will continue to fail.
___________
Fellow Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute
for Policy Studies(IPS). She is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in
Amsterdam. She has been a writer, analyst, and activist on Middle East and UN
issues for many years. In 2001 she helped found and remains on the steering
committee of the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She works closely
with the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition, co-chairs the
UN-based International Coordinating Network on Palestine, and since 2002 has
played an active role in the growing global peace movement. She continues to
serve as an adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East and UN
democratization issues.
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