Home >> Middle East >> Arab-Israeli Relations  Email  Print Don't Bank On The 'West Bank First' Option Ted Belman - 6/28/2007 Just as President Bush is in the process of embracing the West Bank First Option there are many detractors.
In today's Washington Post, Robert Malley and Aaron David Miller take the position it won't work.
A year ago, in the New York Times, Malley re-wrote history.
He disputed the view that Yasser Arafat was the sole culprit responsible for the talks' failure and he wrote in reference to Barak's offer at Camp David
"the measure of Israel's concessions ought not be how far it has moved from its own starting point; it must be how far it has moved toward a fair solution."
Now you remember, that's the guy.
But here he gets it right, mostly, except for the recommendation,
Having embraced one illusion -- that it could help isolate and defeat Hamas -- the Bush administration is dangerously close to embracing another: Gaza is dead, long live the West Bank. This approach appears compelling. Flood the West Bank with money, boost Fatah security forces and create a meaningful negotiating process. The Palestinian people, drawn to a recovering West Bank and repelled by the nightmare of an impoverished Gaza, will rally around the more pragmatic of the Palestinians.
The theory is a few years late and several steps removed from reality. If the United States wanted to help President Mahmoud Abbas, the time to do so was in 2005, when he won office in a landslide, emerged as the Palestinians' uncontested leader and was in a position to sell difficult compromises to his people. Today, Abbas is challenged by far more Palestinians and is far less capable of securing a consensus on any important decision.
But the more fundamental problem with this theory is its lack of grounding. It is premised on the notion that Fatah controls the West Bank. Yet the West Bank is not Gaza in reverse. Unlike in Gaza, Israel's West Bank presence is overwhelming and, unlike Hamas, Fatah has ceased to exist as an ideologically or organizationally coherent movement. Behind the brand name lie a multitude of offshoots, fiefdoms and personal interests. Most attacks against Israel since the elections were launched by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the unruly Fatah-affiliated militias, notwithstanding Abbas's repeated calls for them to stop. Given this, why would Israel agree to measurably loosen security restrictions?
"West Bank first" also relies on the notion that Abbas -- or any other Palestinian leader -- can afford to concentrate on the West Bank at Gaza's expense. There is raw anger among Palestinians. But once the dust settles, Abbas will want to be viewed as president of all Palestinians, not of a geographic or political segment of them. For him to accept funds that can be spent only on the West Bank, or international dealings that exclude Gaza, would critically undercut his position as a symbol of the Palestinian nation.
Finally, the theory assumes that Hamas has little influence in the West Bank. Fatah may have more guns, but Hamas retains considerable political support. More important, it takes only a few militants to conduct attacks against Israel and few such attacks to provoke an Israeli military reaction. If Hamas is convinced that there is an effort to strangle its rule, it is likely to resume violence against Israel -- either directly or through one of many militant groups, Fatah offshoots included. There will be no shortage of militants angry at Fatah leaders' dealings with Israel or hungry for cash. If such violence occurs, hope for progress in the West Bank will come crashing down.
Barry Rubin, in Hamastan, in the Wall Street Journal reaches the same conclusion for other compelling reasons,
So let’s get this straight: There is no near-term solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. There is no Palestinian side with which a compromise agreement can be negotiated. Many Arab states seek to exploit the conflict.
But Malley, being the liberal that he is, and formerly having been a senior bureaucrat in the State Department, argues
Sticks for Gaza coupled with carrots for the West Bank will divide Palestinians, radicalize Gazans, provoke violence by those who are left out and discredit those the United States embraces. Dividing Palestine geographically is no more a recipe for success than dividing Palestinians politically.
We should not be fooled by Abbas's rhetoric. Sooner or later he will be forced to pursue new power-sharing arrangements between Hamas and Fatah and restore unity among Palestinians. As the United States and others seek to empower him, they should push for a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire in Gaza and the West Bank, which will require dealing -- indirectly at least -- with elements of Hamas. They should resist the temptation to isolate Gaza and should tend to its population's needs. And should a national unity government be established, this time they should welcome the outcome and take steps to shore it up. Only then will efforts to broker credible political negotiations between Abbas and his Israeli counterpart on a two-state solution have a chance to succeed.
In my article, US embrace of Abbas is a travesty I saw this coming,
Condi Rice’s statement today:
“Through its actions, Hamas sought to divide the Palestinan nation, we reject that,” Rice said. “It is the position of the United States that there is one Palestinian people and there should be one Palestinian state.”
Beware. What does she mean? She intends to try to stabilize Abbas’ rule in the Westbank and to have a political horizon agreed up or Palestine created with provisional borders or is it a provisional state with temporary borders. Whatever.
Malley's advice,
As the United States and others seek to empower him, they should push for a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire in Gaza and the West Bank, which will require dealing -- indirectly at least -- with elements of Hamas.
So the State Department is still trying to get a cease fire on the West Bank just as Hamas has demanded. No doubt the benchmarks will see the light of day again, too.
The only settlement he can imagine given his remarks on Barak's offer above, is the Saudi Peace Plan. Thankfully Hamas and Iran won't agree to even that if its a final settlement. Besides, the Arab League is only offering "normalization" as opposed to a peace agreement.
Daniel Pipes has no illusions regarding Fatah and Hamas,
As for Israel, it faces the same existential threat as before. It gains from Hamas's near-isolation from the West, from the fractured Palestinian Arab movement, and from its having a single address in Gaza. It also benefits from having an enemy, Hamas, that is overt in its intention to eliminate the Jewish state, rather than dissimulating, like Fatah. (Fatah talks to Jerusalem while killing Israelis, Hamas kills Israelis without negotiations; Fatah is not moderate, but crafty; Hamas is purely ideological.) But Israel loses when the fervor, discipline, and stern consistency of totalitarian Islam replace Fatah's incoherent, Arafatian mishmash.
The Fatah-Hamas differences concern personnel, approaches, and tactics. They share allies and goals. Tehran arms both Hamas and Fatah. The "moderate" terrorists of Fatah and the bad terrorists of Hamas equally inculcate children with a barbaric creed of "martyrdom." Both agree on eliminating the Jewish state. Neither shows a map with Israel present, or even Tel Aviv.
Fatah's willingness to play a fraudulent diplomatic game has lured woolly-minded and gullible Westerners, including Israelis, to invest in it. The most recent folly was Washington's decision to listen to its security coordinator in the region, Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, and send Fatah $59 million in military aid to fight Hamas — a policy that proved even more bone-headed when Hamas promptly seized those shipments for its own use.
His advice,
One of these days, maybe, the idiot-savant "peace process-ers" will note the trail of disasters their handiwork has achieved. Instead of mulishly working to return Fatah and Jerusalem to the bargaining table, they might try focusing on gaining a change of heart among the roughly 80% of Palestinian Arabs, those still seeking to undo the outcome of the 1948–49 war by defeating Zionism and constructing a 22nd Arab state atop Israel's carcass.
Jimmy Carter has different advice "Stop favoring Fatah over Hamas"
The United States, Israel and the European Union must end their policy of favoring Fatah over Hamas, or they will doom the Palestinian people to deepening conflict between the rival movements, former US President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday.
Barry Rubin is right, "There is no near-term solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict."
Ted Belman also writes for Israpundit.com
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