By Alex Traiman , JNS.org
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinian negotiators have resigned over the lack of progress in Israeli-Palestinian conflict talks.
Abbas said in an interview on Egypt’s CBC television that his negotiators were upset over continued plans for Jewish construction in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. But he said negotiations could still continue with a new delegation.
“Either we can convince [the current negotiators] to return, and we’re trying with them, or we form a new delegation,” Abbas said.
While chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations stopped “in light of the settlement announcements last week,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently canceled plans for the construction of 1,200 housing units in the E1 corridor that links Jerusalem with the Jewish community of Ma’ale Adumim.
Despite attempts to jumpstart them by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the parties involved in trying to create a framework for a negotiated peace deal showed the lack of trust among all sides.
Kerry last week warned that should peace not advance between the parties, Israel could face growing isolation in the international community as well as violence.
“The alternative to getting back to the talks is the potential of chaos. I mean, does Israel want a third Intifada?” Kerry said in an interview that was broadcast on both Israeli and Palestinian TV networks.
“If we do not find the way to find peace, there will be an increasing isolation of Israel, there will be an increasing campaign of delegitimization of Israel that has been taking place in an international basis,” he said.
Yet many Israeli citizens and leaders are choosing not to heed what they consider to be empty warnings from Kerry.
“It’s a funny argument [Kerry is] making. This administration simply doesn’t see reality,” Professor Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan University, told JNS.org.
With America’s lack of success in bringing about peaceful resolutions and conditions in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, Israelis are as skeptical as ever that the U.S. can play a productive role in negotiating peace in Israel. The latest monthly Peace Index Poll from Tel Aviv University’s Israel Democracy Institute showed that 73 percent of Israelis do not believe the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations will lead to peace.
Israeli leaders quickly downplayed Kerry’s warnings. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said, “There is no need to fear threats of whether there will or won’t be a third intifada.”
According to Inbar, an intifada is not a likely outcome of failed negotiations, since the Palestinians are bent on proving that Israel is the primary obstacle to a peace deal. Furthermore, the Israel Defense Forces is well prepared to quickly handle any uptick in Palestinian violence, he said.
“I’m not really sure that an intifada will erupt, and if the Palestinians have a clear interest [in a violent uprising],” Inbar told JNS.org, “we can beat them again. The Palestinians remember what happened the last time they started a cycle of violence at the beginning of this century.”
Alan Elsner, vice president of communications for J Street, the left-leaning Israel-advocacy organization that is heavily promoting a campaign in favor of a two-state agreement, said he believes the failure of an agreement will be very difficult for both sides.
“I think the Palestinian economy will pancake. They’re already dependent on a lot of foreign aid, and a lot of the foreign aid will dry up,” said Elsner during a visit to Seattle on Nov. 6. “You’re going to see Israel diplomatically isolated to a great extent, which will be very painful emotionally for Israelis who like to feel welcome traveling the world and going to Europe. You’re going to see Israeli academics being boycotted increasingly. You’re going to see the Palestinians go to the international criminal court, which has the potential of criminalizing the entire occupation and anyone who serves in it.”
According to Inbar, however, Israel has improving relations with many countries around the world — including in Europe, as far east as China, and even in the Middle East. The same cannot be said of the Palestinians, he said.
“Most countries simply don’t care about the Palestinian issue. How many protests did we see during the Arab Spring about the Palestinian issue?” Inbar said.
Yet honoring America’s push for a negotiated settlement, even in the unlikely scenario of a peace deal, is a responsibility that Israel must bear, Inbar believes.
“After all, America is our greatest ally. We are deferential to the Americans. It is very difficult for us to tell them to stay home,” he said.
Recent reports have stated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could agree to a peace framework in which signing a deal would bring about the permanent end to all hostilities, and that Israel would be recognized officially by Arab nations as a Jewish state.
Netanyahu is “simply trying to buy time, to minimize the damage to Israel, to convince the international community that Iran is taking the Americans for a ride,” Inbar said. “This will not be the first round of negotiation that failed and nothing happened.”