NEW AMERICA in Downtown WASHINGTON
Way Off Base and Oh-So On-The-Make
MER - Washington - MiddleEast.Org - 1 March:
Washington is filled with all kinds of people and groups on-the-make as
well as on-the-take -- including a category of self-serving
oh-so-full-of-themselves interlopers and 'do-gooders'. One of the
relatively new boys on the block in this later category is Steve
Clemons, chief operating honcho over at what is known as the New
American Foundation with offices near Dupont Circle.
On the whole New America is top-heavy with 'realist', flag-waving,
Republican internationalists, with a sprinkling of like-minded
Democrats, all aspiring to power when the Neocon/Evengelical
Republicans depart. They've got some big bucks behind them from
foundations, corporations, and Israel-Jewish lobby operatives like Rita
Hauser and they interconnect in various ways with other groups like the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York and the Huffington crowd HQ
California.
To put things in perspective, the New America Foundation moved in
to town a few years ago after the Bush/Cheney takeover trying to
establish a kind of new centrist block in modern-day Rome. On the
whole New America types are too smart and internationalist to be
Bush/Cheney/Neocons, too patriotic to want to be part of an American
super-nova eclipse which they fear is underway, yet too compromised,
power hungry, and on-the-make to be trusted by the rest of us.
These days, with things coming apart even more in the Middle East
and with Hamas taking power in the occupied territories of the once
Holy Land, New America nevertheless is beating the dead by continuing
to front for the oh-so-discredited VIP Westernized Palestinians and by
being so presumptuous as to declare out of the blue a date for the
disingenuous 'final status talks' to begin toward some kind of mythical
and unreal 'peace treaty settlement'. But then such popular
quasi-politically correct mythology does give them all something to
talk about, something more to write more about, and most of all
something to raise money to promote, along with themselves of course.
With such self-professed but hardly real friends in Washington the
Palestinians should prepare, however tragically, for even worse days
ahead for themselves, and probably for all of us. For as nutty as
all this all must seem to far more serious and realistic and
knowledgeable experts -- and as harmful as it all is in the end to the
Palestinian people who need most of all a hard-headed assessment of
their predicament as preparations for still-greater 'ethnic cleansing'
proceed -- here's the way New America's Steve Clemons is telling people
in Washington to deal with things. In the process Clemons both uses
and fronts for the old co-opted Palestinian 'partners', Saeb Erakat and
Mahmoud Abbas at the top of that list, even presuming to tell all the
exact date they should get the new negotiations to nowhere underway
once again.
Israel must sort out its political tectonics in its election on
March 28th, and then the emergent Israeli leadership, regardless of
victor, should move forward in negotiating with Mahmoud Abbas a "final
status" deal defining the boundaries of tomorrow's Israel and Palestine.
Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, lays out the plan in a compelling op-ed today in the New York Times, "What the P.L.O. Has to Offer".
All that is missing in his sensible comments about the importance of moving now on final status negotiations is a date.
I propose that Monday, April 24th be the start date of such serious
negotiations -- and if not the formal start of table-to-table talks
then at least the start of laying the groundwork for such talks.
This start date gives Israel more than three weeks to digest the
outcome of its election and to sort out its negotiating stance. Israel
should move forward with a credible plan, working with individuals like
Abbas, Erekat and others -- with the presumption that Hamas will
cooperate. The world will be watching, and if Hamas fails to perform,
then at least what has been achieved is that Israel has demonstrated a
serious willingness to work out a land deal that might have been
reasonable.
I spent about an hour with the charismatic Saeb Erekat last December
at his offices in Jericho, and I have rarely met anywhere a more
dynamic politician -- and democratic advocate to the core.
While a member of Fatah, from my assessment then and since, it's
clear that Erekat is on the reform edge of his otherwise corrupt party
-- and he works hard to keep his constituents in Jericho believers in
his leadership, which is what democratically-minded politicians
competing with other potential rivals should do.
Erekat opens his interesting piece:
Many have argued that Hamas's winning of a decisive
majority in the Palestinian Parliament provides yet another setback for
peace and democracy in the Middle East. Some have even suggested that
it vindicates Israeli unilateralism. I, however, think the opposite is
true: A negotiated and lasting peace may now be closer than many of us
could have imagined just weeks ago.
The parliamentary elections could be seen as a referendum on the
leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas, who came to office a year ago
after winning nearly two-thirds of the popular vote. Mr. Abbas ran on a
platform of job creation, internal security and a negotiated resolution
of the conflict with Israel based on two states living side by side in
peace.
Many people believe that Mr. Abbas did not deliver. Today, there are
fewer jobs, not more; security for Palestinians in the occupied West
Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Gaza Strip is worse,
not better; and negotiations, like the two-state solution, are stalled.
Mr. Abbas, however, is not ultimately to blame. When he called on
Israel to lift restrictions on Palestinian movement and trade within
and between Palestinian areas, Israel refused -- despite similar calls
from the World Bank, the United Nations, the European Union and
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The restrictions translated not
just into more poverty but also into less security, for Mr. Abbas could
not even move police forces within Palestinian territory.
President Abbas did deliver, and largely maintained, a "tahdia" -- a
"period of calm" between the Palestinian factions and Israel. And he
was able to do this despite scores of Palestinian deaths and several
thousand military raids and arrests that Israel conducted in violation
of its agreement not to undertake such activities. Israel also
tightened its control over key territory, resources and markets --
primarily occupied East Jerusalem -- that we will need to build an
economically viable state.
So, President Abbas, the leader of the Fatah party, made a set of
campaign promises; the opposite came to fruition; therefore,
Palestinians elected the only alternative: Hamas.
In reality, however, the vote was neither a rejection of President
Abbas and his peace program nor an endorsement of the Hamas charter.
According to recent polls, nearly 70 percent of Palestinians still
support Mr. Abbas as president. And 84 percent of Palestinians still
want a negotiated peace agreement with Israel. Even among Hamas voters,
more than 60 percent of those polled support an "immediate" resumption
of negotiations.
The Palestinians -- in all polls that I have seen -- want negotiations with Israel. To want negoatiations with Israel is de facto recognition of Israel, and at minimum, is recognition of the realities of co-existence.
It is not serious at this point to seriously entertain the cliche
that many Israel leaders have promulgated that they have no negotiating
partner. That is not true -- and if they fail to move forward with
Abbas, using the trappings of legitimacy that Abbas and his office
still have in the eyes of the Palestinian people, then Israel and the
Palestinians will be a victim of this missed opportunity.
Let me share something that Saeb Erekat told me when he met:
If Israel does nothing, if Israel avoids negotiations using
the fake excuse that they have no negotiating partner, we Palestinians
are fine. We will just wait. Our population is growing faster than theirs,
and when we are the majority, we will simply vote our will in a
democratic state.
Today, the population difference between Israelis and Palestinians is 53% to 47% respectively.
Israel's motivations lie there. Israel must resolve this battle over borders, or a unified state will find them in a minority.
I had originally thought that April 17th would be the right start
date, but that date falls in the middle of Passover, which ends at
sundown on Thursday, April 20th. Just so that all parties can be on
board, this process should begin without haste on Monday, April 24th.
Since Sunday is a work day on the Israel and Palestinian side, this
will give one prep day at the beginning of the week before these
proposed negotiations begin. April 24th, Monday, is the right day for
Israel and Mahmoud Abbas to move forward.