Political Is Personal in Peace Process

For Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas this comes through external pageinsistencecall_made that a discussion on future borders, Jerusalem and refugees take precedence in the round of talks which starts tomorrow in Sharm el-Sheikh, continuing later this week in Jerusalem.

For Netanyahu it takes the form of a push for talks on future security arrangements, mutual recognition and a discussion of Palestinian acceptance of Israel’s identification as a Jewish state.

The Israeli premier knows that no Palestinian negotiating team would agree to recognize the Jewish specificity of Israel. Netanyahu’s promotion of the same is both a reflection of personal sentiment and designed to prop up his predominantly hard right coalition.

In this week’s talks, Abbas will seek to ratchet up the pressure building on Netanyahu to extend the current settlement freeze in the West Bank, which is due to expire on 30 September.

Here, the US appears in relative concert with the Palestinian position, with President Barack Obama praising the settlement freeze in an address Friday.

While unpalatable for the Palestinians, a compromise is likely. The issue of ongoing settlement construction remains fundamental, but Abbas knows that future widespread construction will only be prevented by the successful implementation of a full peace deal.

With the talks only likely to pick up pace as the external page12 months allottedcall_made draw to a close, there is plenty of time for critics to bewail the seeming lack of progress and to point to the alleged implacability of the parties.

Indeed, the process, of itself, provides an important political respite for both leaders, allowing them to extend their time at the head of the Palestinian and Israeli political systems without significant political fallout.

However, it should be noted that despite US pressure, these talks were not inevitable and that their success would constitute a defining achievement for both leaders.

For Netanyahu, success would expunge the failures of his first term and cement his authority.

For Abbas, it would book-end his presidency in a manner that would secure Fatah predominance in the West Bank, providing his movement with a far stronger position as it considers a necessary rapprochement with Hamas.

Most commentaries on the talks ignore the central fact that the political battle over the settlements was won by the turn of the millennia by the Zionist left, which subsequently virtually disappeared from the political map due to the usurpation of its remaining ideological premise by the centre-right; suffocated under the weight of its own anachronisms.

In parallel, the focus of much of the Israeli hard right has shifted from land to domestic racial issues, with the emergence of Yisrael Beiteinu an accurate reflection of the prevailing zeitgeist.

The settler right has been unable to muster a single major demonstration against the resumption of talks, which is staggering for those of us who remember the hundreds of thousands on both sides who rallied in the 1990s.

The debate in Israel is now not over whether Greater Israel is possible, but what price the country must pay to be rid of the conflict, while maintaining internal cohesion and guaranteeing the personal safety of citizens.

If Netanyahu presents the Israeli people with a viable peace deal he could potentially write his own political checks for years to come, just as Sharon did through anchoring his failing premiership on the Gaza withdrawal.

For the Palestinians, the pain of compromise will be acute but the eventual payoff, through the emergence of a viable Palestinian state free from the blight of occupation, worthwhile.

Whether this ideal becomes a reality or we are consigned to further damaging, wasted years of torpor and bloodshed depends primarily on the personal leadership of Abbas and Netanyahu. Let’s hope they are up to it.