Wouter
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Lieberman and Annapolis: Reason versus wishful thinking
MidEast Web Log, 04/09/2009
http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000757.htm
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's entry into the world of diplomacy proved what many of us long suspected: He is disastrously unsuited for the post of Foreign Minister. A competent diplomat can pass off inanities as good news, and a skilled one can pass off outrageous policy as acceptable and even desirable.Avigdor Lieberman stated facts that everyone agrees are true, but managed to do it in such a way that the entire world is mad at Israel
Lieberman's speech was careless about language and aggressive. He referred to "Annapolis documents" and at another point he referred to "Annapolis." To make matters worse, a creative translator in the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs added the word "accord" to "Annapolis," evidently thinking it would "sound better." There was never any Annapolis Accord, and therefore Israel could not abrogate any such accord, but that is what the headlines in the newspapers said.
When Lieberman said that the Annapolis talks had reached a dead end, he was only stating a fact, one which the Palestinians have themselves stated on several occasions. He could have left it at that, and gently noted that "under the circumstances," Israel does not see any point to continuing in this frameworkd.
Is there anyone who honestly believes that there has been any forward movement in the Annapolis peace talks or that there is any possibility that they will end, as was their goal, in an agreement for a Palestinian State in 2008? As it is now April 2009, it is manifest that the talks have failed. Moreover, it seems that in a hundred more years of negotiations in the current track, none of the following will happen:
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No Israeli government will allow right of return to Israel for Palestinian refugees, and no Palestinian leadership will concede this point.
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No Israeli government will give up all Israeli claims in East Jerusalem, and no Palestinian leadership will allow any Israeli claims at all in East Jerusalem.
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No Palestinian leadership will affirm that it recognizes the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state, and no Israeli government can sign a peace treaty without that affirmation.
And even should anyone reach an agreement on all the above points, Hamas is still there in Gaza, and Hamas "will never recognize Israel, Period". If anything, there has been regression rather than progress. It is not just Hamas that will not recognize Israel. Mohamed Dahlan has helpfully pointed out that Fatah never recognized Israel, either. We have to deal with reality as it is, and not as we would like it to be.
The most that could be expected in the circumstances, is that Israel would remove illegal outposts and announce a settlement freeze. Even that was not offered and not done by the supposedly more dovish government of Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni
As portrayed by the Likud government, the Annapolis process was a means of bypassing the Road map for peace, because it skipped all the intermediary implementation phases and jumped to the final status negotiations, ignoring the stipulations of the road map. On that interpretation, the Road Map and Annapolis are mutually exclusive processes. Therefore it makes no sense for U.S. President Barack Obama to announce that the United States is committed to the Annapolis process and the Road Map. On a more charitable interpretation, the Annapolis framework provides a method of showing both sides the peace agreement that will be implemented when the rest of the road map has been completed. In either case, it is not working.
If the United States pressures Israel and the Palestinians to continue with the Annapolis talks, then certainly the talks will continue. There will be photo-ops and announcements and everything that all those State Department people who love process will demand. What there will not be is a peace agreement or peace. A real peace agreement has to reflect a reality where both sides are willing to coexist, and that reality is absent. The United States will have to work on changing the reality rather than trying to obtain a scrap of paper.
Ami Isseroff
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