Worrying about peace

Several events have occurred during the past week that indicate that progress might be made at the “meeting” convened by the US to discuss how to achieve a negotiated settlement of the conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Although the “meeting”, tentatively scheduled for November 26th , still has no firm date, no agenda and no guest list, Secretary of State Rice has been meeting with everybody in sight to encourage progress towards a “vision of a political horizon”. Since the political horizon still seems as far away as ever, the efforts toward progress have returned to working on process as envisioned by the Oslo Accords and the Quartet Road Map. Israel has turned much of the responsibility for security in Nablus over to the Palestinian Authority. The PA has responded by disarming a number of the gangs and factions who have been responsible for much of the violence in this isolated city. This disarmament has included the factions affiliated with the Prime Minister Abbas’s Fatah party. The improvement in security has been praised by Nablus residents as well as the US. Indeed the US has criticized Israel for interfering in the efforts of the PA. (For this story, click here.) Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has floated a couple of trial balloons indicating that Israel might be willing to relinquish a portion of East Jerusalem to the PA as part of a peace settlement. Exactly what this means remains to be seen. The US, having indicated that the PA is beginning to meet its security obligations under the Quartet Road Map, has started to pressure Israel to meet its obligations under the road map to halt the building of new settlements and to freeze current settlements in occupied territories. Precisely what this means is not clear. How does it affect outpost settlements that are illegal under Israeli law? How does it affect major settlement blocs such as Maale Adumin and Gilo that are illegal under international law but recognized by George Bush and Israel? All of this activity has some people worried and they are trying to throw boulders on the road to peace. Worried right wing Likud party members in the Israeli Knesset have introduced legislation to require an unachievable super majority before Jerusalem could be divided. (For this story, click here.) Prime Minister Olmert’s weak government is worried that the US will define the settlement issue in such a way that Israel will be unwilling or unable to meet its obligations and will be accused of being an obstacle to peace. PM Olmert is dispatching a delegation to Washington to address this problem. (For this story, click here.) All this ignores the fact that no one is dealing with the Israeli settlers and Hamas, both of whom have the ability to derail the whole process with violence. Everybody seems to think that if you ignore a problem it will go away. We have been down this peace process road before and have always ended up in the ditch. In my view until all the parties, including the US, can agree on a vision, however sketchy, of what a peace settlement might look like, we a doomed to end up in the same ditch.