Noah Pollak describes Mahmoud Abbas’s negotiating strategy as described in an interview with Jackson Diehl, as a “Princess Bride strategy.”
Diehl seems to get it too as he writes:
Abbas and his team fully expect that Netanyahu will never agree to the full settlement freeze — if he did, his center-right coalition would almost certainly collapse. So they plan to sit back and watch while U.S. pressure slowly squeezes the Israeli prime minister from office. “It will take a couple of years,” one official breezily predicted. Abbas rejects the notion that he should make any comparable concession — such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, which would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement of refugees.
There’s no reason to expect otherwise. That’s what happened, of course, during the 90’s. President Clinton wasn’t happy with Netanyahu’s approach to the peace process. So Clinton did everything in his power to undermine Netanyahu. He even reneged on an agreement he made with Netanyahu when Arafat objected to it. Netanyahu’s standing at home crumbled and Ehud Barak was elected prime minister in his place.
That, of course, allowed Clnton to make his attempt to bring peace to the Middle East an earn a Nobel Peace Prize. But as well know, Arafat rejected Barak’s offer and started the “Aqsa intifada.”
Diehl points out that Olmert offered Abbas even more than Barak had (offered Arafat) and it still wasn’t enough.
But by now we have a pattern. The Palestinian refuse to negotiate. They expect American pressure on Israel. (And the Obama administration seems willing to provide that pressure.) When they get the American pressure and Israel capitulates they claim it’s still not enough and refuse to budge. (Jack explains why it will never be enough.) All the while the Palestinian refuse to take the basic steps to build an economy (something Netanyahu wants to encourage – and did encourage when he was PM in the 90’s) or accountable political institutions or take any steps you’d expect if their goal was an independent state.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
I have noticed a curious omission in media discussions of Netanyahu’s idea of building the Palestinian economy. It’s already been done with interesting and significant results.
Prior to 1 1967, during which time, of course, no one thought to bring up the idea of a Palestinian state, Jordan had subjected the disputed territories to a rather unbenign neglect; no one reading this needs to be reminded of how Egypt treated the Gazans.
From 1967 on the territories experienced one of the highest growth rates in the world. By every economic and social indicator–employment, average GNP, life expectancy, literacy rates (especially among women), access to health care, and so forth–the territories were undergoing fundamental change and were on their way to becoming flourishing economies.
I lived for a couple of years on a kibbutz southeast of Haifa ont he road from Nablus, and every morning and evening I would see buses and jitneys heading to and from jobs in Israel. Access from the territories was easy; I often caught an Arab bus or jitney and saw and experienced i.d. check not all that often, and usually it was cursory and courteous. Nor did anything deter me from heading over to the West Bank and spending my money. In other words, the Palestinian territories were making good progress towards the economic development that everyone says is so important.
And the Palestinians threw it away–consciously and deliberately. They chose the path of hostility and terror. Abba Eban’s quip that the Palestinians never miss and opportunity to miss an opportunity is clever but, alas, untrue. “Missing an opportunity” means they could have had something they wanted. I have no doubt they would like development and prosperity but there’s something they want more.
Nevertheless, the consensus seems to be that all that stands between the current situation on the one hand and sweetness and light on the other is Israeli intransigence. If there is one single factor that more than any other keeps the Palestinians where they are, it is that they have never been made to suffer the consequences of their actions. Each Israeli concession brings only renewed hostility at which point Israel is told to do it again.
Or when anyone points out that the supply of vicious anti-Semitism that spews out of every Palestinian official and media source is a violation of the Oslo agreement the response is that Israel, too, hasn’t met all of its obligations. Indeed it hasn’t. Kiting a check is a crime. So is murder. That doesn’t necessarily make them equally abhorrent.
Very true Alex. Abbas seems to believe that Israelis will play along with his scenario, that they will react now as they did in the 90s and vote out Netanyahu because the President of the US is hostile to him. Since the last time they did this they got the Oslo Terrorism War very soon thereafter, I wonder if they might not take that experience into account, and become more intrasigent. How would Abbas (and Obama for that matter) like having to deal with PM Lieberman instead of PM Bibi?