Is it peace yet?

Last week the Washington Post expressed guarded optimism about the peace in the Middle East in An opening in Annapolis.

THE MIDDLE EAST peace meeting in Annapolis yesterday comfortably cleared the low bar of expectations that had been set for it. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and President Bush committed themselves and their governments to reaching a two-state peace settlement by the end of next year. At the last minute, the Israeli and Palestinian delegations agreed on a joint statement promising “vigorous, ongoing and continuous negotiations” to resolve “all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception.” The more than 50 countries and organizations that witnessed and implicitly blessed the new peace process included Saudi Arabia, which dispatched its foreign minister, and Syria, whose attendance may have opened a small crack in its alliance with Iran.

And yet the little signs I saw, showed something much less appealing.

First there was the behavior of the Saudis. David Horovitz writes about how the Saudis treated Israeli journalists and diplomats.

The United States on Monday indicated that it was willing to accede to the Saudis’ desire not to shake hands or otherwise be seen making overtures to the Israelis.”That’s going to be up to all of the representatives, how they decide to interact. We will of course be respectful of the various relationships, of the various states of relationships among the participants,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. “They’re going to be focused on the tasks at hand. As the Saudi foreign minister put it, nobody’s interested in these uncomfortable situations where there are theatrics for the sake of photographs. We’ll of course be respectful and mindful of that as we’ll put together the various events.”

Other diplomatic sources have said that the Saudis don’t want any contact whatsoever with the Israeli delegation at Annapolis, and therefore the respective delegations will even use different doors to enter the meeting room.

Not only were the Saudis allowed to practice their form of anti-Israel apartheid, the Americans allowed it as a sign of “respect.” Allison Kaplan Sommer provided another telling detail.

During the ceremony, while the world press was watching Olmert’s speech, Barnea, who always has a sharp eye for telling detail, was watching the Saudi diplomats watch Olmert as he delivered his speech.“All of the foreign ministers put on their headphones (for translation.) All of them, except for one, the Saudi minister, Saud Al-Faisel. His ears, underneath his red keffiyah, were left bare. And no, it wasn’t because he understood Hebrew. It was the Saudi method of demonstrating their relationship to the State of Israel. Even as the Israeli Prime Minister was greeting him and speaking of peace, they were refusing to listen. For a minute I thought I was wrong that maybe there was a technical problem. But then I saw his aide next to him – also leaving his ears demonstrably naked.”

Then, as Olmert’s speech ended, and the audience applauded. “The Saudi representative also brought his palms together in order to appear polite. Only someone who sat very close to him could see that the never touched. The little game that the Saudis were playing was just one contradiction – the least noticeable one – in a day full of contradictions.”

So the Saudis who attended Annapolis couldn’t even be bothered to show PM Olmert basic courtesy. And yet, somehow, their presence was seen as a reason for optimism. A handshake would have been a very reasonable (though too insignificant) confidence building measure. And yet America couldn’t even prevail upon Saudi Arabia to do so.

Then we learned that the murderers of Ido Zoldan were Palestinian policemen and that announcement of their arrest was delayed until after Annapolis.

The IDF arrested members of a cell responsible for the murder of Ido Zoldan two weeks ago close to the northern West Bank settlement of Kedumim, it was cleared for publication on Sunday.According to army officials, the arrested men are Palestinian policemen from the nearby village of Qadum.

The IDF reported that two of the men, Abdullah Braham and Jafar Braham, were arrested on the night of the murder. A third terrorist, Fadi Jama’a, was apprehended by Palestinian security forces. The cell members are all 22 years of age.

There are a lot of factors obviously involved in making peace. But when making peace involves keeping slights and outrages quiet how can it be expected to work? Yesterday, I quoted columnist Jackson Diehl

Senior administration officials have told Olmert that he should prepare his public to absorb some terrorism without giving up on the talks.

Now it’s quite possible that the Olmert government is taking its marching orders from Washington. It’s also possible that Olmert has decided to keep the inconvenient aspects of Annapolis quite lest it trigger the fall of his government. For now he’s protected by two parties who claim to be against his diplomatic efforts and yet stay in the government. What if their constituencies started protesting? Playing down the little snubs and absorbing the violence is necessary to keep alive politically.

It also does very little for cultivating support for “painful concessions” and “risks for peace.”

The peace process in Israel wasn’t unpopular because it involved giving away land. It was unpopular because it didn’t work. In order to keep it going early, PM Rabin had to pull a parliamentary maneuver. Certainly Israel isn’t as safe as it was in 1993, the terrorist having established bases of operation in Gaza and Ramallah (and elsewhere) as a result of being invited in by Israel to make peace.

So the only way to convince Israel to go forward with the peace process is to argue that the alternative is too terrible.

“If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Haaretz Wednesday, the day the Annapolis conference ended in an agreement to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008.”The Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us,” Olmert said, “because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents.”

This was too much, even for leftist columnist Yoel Marcus.

I almost fell off my chair when I saw the banner headline splashed across Haaretz’s front page: “Olmert: Two states or Israel is done for.” Israel is done for? I read this quote, taken from an exclusive Haaretz interview with the prime minister, in utter disbelief. Throughout 60 years of Israel’s battle for existence, no prime minister has ever declared that Israel might be “done for.” The closest anyone has ever come to that was the statement by Israel’s greatest general, Moshe Dayan, on the second day of the Yom Kippur War, when he told a forum of news editors that “the destruction of the Third Temple is at hand.” Some of the editors (among them Gershom Schocken) worried that Dayan’s desperation might leak out at the news conference scheduled for that evening. They called prime minister Golda Meir and the event was canceled. In the end, the tables turned and the war paved the way for peace with Egypt. Conclusion: Don’t scare the public. Israel is not done for, in any shape or form.

It’s worse than that. Olmert, by his declaration, has given the Palestinians veto power over any Israeli concession. All the Palestinians have to do is reject a concession as not enough and Olmert is forced to increase the concession. Because if he doesn’t mollify his “partners” the talks risk falling apart and the consequence of that is too terrible to allow.

But is that really what peace should be about? Should it be a matter of keeping quiet over the other side’s bad behavior and fear about the future? Peace and its benefits should sell itself. The problem is that the process hasn’t worked in the past and even its proponents believe that it holds little hope for the future.

So instead of selling a peace of hope, Olmert sells a peace of fear.

UPDATE: It was pointed out that the title to this post, is one of the “Sentiments for the Foreseeable Future” of In Context, a regular read. I suspect that I inadvertently ripped off the sentiment.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.