It seems clear that Bush and Rice are serious about trying to get an end to the war for greater Israel this year, but weakness on the part of Olmert and the Israeli Government is slowing the process up. It’s against the Israeli interest, as identified by Olmert, to not make a peace agreement with the Palestinians and he is now pushing forward with Syria and the ‘minor’ issues with Lebanon.
So what if anything is delaying things?Given how little I know about the inner workings of the Israeli ruling elite, I don’t know. However I would venture that the numbers in the Knesset, rather than the corruption scandal around Olmert, is the problem. In short the Israelis are having real problems getting the deal done.
Rice is arriving this weekend to have separate meetings with Barak, Livni and Olmert so the pressure is still right on, but with the weakened state of the U.S. as the lastsuperpower, there is no certainty they will get their way this year, Nevertheless there is still a chance.
An interesting development at the moment is Olmert’s attitude to releasing Barghouti amid the increasing loudness of demands to do just that. He commented publicly that he didn’t think it was a good idea at this stage:
“Imagine that Barghouti is released tomorrow. Is there a way for him to prove that he’s not a collaborator with the Israelis? There’s only one way: to be more extreme than the present leadership.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3972599.ece
So what are the issues that are unfolding?
Delay in ending the failed war and doing the deal is obviously weakening Abbas as a ‘partner’ (not to mention Bush and the Republicans). This tends to strengthen Hamas but it also has a definite time limit because without a deal done this year, Abbas will lose the coming election to Barghouti, who if still in prison will run and win and that would be a worst of all outcomes for Israel.
The context now is that Egypt is arranging a ‘quiet’, between Israel and Hamas. At the same time, Israel has been threatening a large ground assault on Gaza which would be about as useful as the debacle in Lebanon and would ultimately strengthen Hamas in the West Bank. Egypt is also involved in rapidly developing reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas.
Egypt must get the border with Gaza working in a manner that’s acceptable to the Palestinian people before Egyptians take the issues involved a bit further and rid themselves of Mubarak.
Now the timing of all this is quite interesting and logic would point to an earlier rather than later breakthrough. Barghouti is top of the prisoner list that Hamas raises in prisoner swap talks.
By the way, it’s interesting to watch pseudo-leftists face the reality of Obama being to the right of GWB! Take his willingness to continue the failing 40 year war for greater Israel by declaring that all of Jerusalem would be retained by the Zionists! McCain would not have done this, GWB has not done it and no Palestinian leadership could accept this. Obama was ‘forced’ to back away from this declaration within 24hrs. IMV a bad blunder – showing a very self centered inexperienced bourgeois politician on the make. He went straight after the Jewish lobby – showing an incapacity to grasp the actual issue of bringing the failed war for greater Israel to an end as it must, in Zionist defeat. GWB and Rice have been pushing the Zionists to face up to this defeat and have been applying pressure to get a settlement this year.
My thinking on the foot-dragging by Olmert, is that he wants to delay until the next president in the hope that he might get a better outcome under the Democrats. At this rate the Palestinians ought to hope for a McCain victory!
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Here are some relevant links from our old forum archive to discussions we’ve had on this topic over several years:
Still no time to do a proper analysis but I think Patrick’s post is missing some important aspects.
1. The central problem for the Israeli government is that of demobilizing the psychotic but still very significant Israeli minority which still believes it can retain East Jerusalam plus more territory in the West Bank than they will have to exchange in the rest of Palestine, without measures that would hasten the collapse in support for Zionism. Hence the ludicrous posturing about Iran being an “existential threat”.
Hamas and their own weakness are not central problems for the Israelis since they already know they have lost the 1967 war for Great Israel, just as the Nixon administration knew it had lost the war to maintain US domination in Vietnam. Their problem is how to get out without losing more than they actually have to.
2. No coherent discussion of what’s actually going on is feasible in either the mass media or more specialized publications. This is for the same sort of reasons that required the Bush administration to demobilize the US foreign policy establishment with stuff about a “War on Terror”, “Axis of Evil” and WMDs – despite those themes being totally counterproductive to long term reversed policy goals for destabilizing US “allies” in the region and allowing democratic change.
3. Hence people can read reports about a cease fire between Hamas and Israel, the opening of the Egyptian border, international financing of both the West Bank and Gaza, Hezbollah obtaining a veto in the government of Lebanon, preparations for swapping Lebanese prisoners for Israaeli corpses and for handing back the Golan to Syria, without immediately drawing the obvious conclusion that a comprehensive settlement is imminent (and instead, continue to bloviate about transparent disinformation campaigns “threatening” war with Iran).
4. The problem is not whether such a settlement is possible or inevitable, but why it has been delayed for so long when it became inevitable after the US decision to invade Iraq and the basic terms were settled in the subsequent “Geneva” accords.
Nothing the Israelis are being forced to concede now for what was on offer long ago, could not have been conceded long ago.
5. My guess is that events are being synchronized to “unfold” before November rather than before or after January. That would have obvious implications for the US Presidential election campaign if it was widely recognized.
6. Some (inconclusive) indications that it is understood by at least some people who have no interest in spelling it out for others is shown in Barack Obama’s blatant threats to wreck the Democrats coalition by alienating much of its black support if he was not nominated, the unexpectedly rapid collapse of superdelegate support for Hilary Clinton in the face of that threat, and the continuing delay in selecting a Vice Presidential candidate.
7. On the Republican side, the “miraculous” recovery of McCain after being written off, with control of the party machine now in the hands of people who don’t want to maintain the old coalition promoted by Karl Rove is another (also inconclusive) indication, as is the corresponding complete lack of campaign finance compared with the Democrats, and the delay in selecting a candidate for Vice President.
8. Firm predictions are impossible for scenarios that are inherently contingent, but everything I have noticed confirms my impression that there is a real likelihood of Condi Rice gaining immense kudos for a comprehensive middle east settlement that will be widely seen as “miraculous” (about the most positive thing the pro-Democrat media could be expected to say about it when, as a result of actually having happened, it becomes impossible to ignore any longer).
9. McCain clearly has no chance of winning, even against someone as transparently phony as Barack Obama. Yet he does not appear to be delusional and he does keep saying that he would rather win the war than be President. However, if he remains the Republican candidate, he will contribute to a devastating rout in the Congressional, Senate and Governor elections that will make it very hard to re-establish a viable Republican coalition.
10. Condi has shown no signs of being a candidate, but also no signs of lacking ambition. She is young enough to be potentially interested in a two election strategy and could build a new coalition for the “party of Lincoln”.
11. If McCain became ill, had an accident, quit or was assassinated, “drafting Condi” would immediately spring to mind as a plausible response. The Republicans are in such disarray that they could still lose even with Condi, despite Obama’s inherent implausability. But they would certainly not be wiped out to the same degree as they would with McCain. They would at least be in a position to start building a new coalition, rather than facing long term impotence in the face of the successful preservation of a Democrat coalition that has long ceased to make any sense.
12. If there is a Middle East settlement and Condi is offered the Vice Presidential spot, her obvious response would be “Yes, we would make a great team, but we still couldn’t win”.
13. McCain’s obvious response would be “You’re right, and I would be honoured to serve under you as Vice President”. The Republican National Committee has power to implement such a deal under “Rule 9” and no reason to attempt any other alternative.
14. Its a highly contingent scenario, depending on the separate decisions of John McCain, Condi Rice and various players in the Middle East. So I won’t actually predict it – but I don’t see any other explanation for the current “coincidental” synchronization of so many different “unlikely” or “impossible” events in the Middle East with the US election timetable, and the resolute determination not to draw conclusions from those events – so I do expect it.