Israel's Deputy Ambassador in Birmingham: Challenges, But Where is the Hope?

On Thursday, Israel's Deputy Ambassador to Britain, Talya Lador-Fresher, "Challenges and Hopes in the Middle East" to an University of Birmingham audience.

For her first challenge, Lador-Fresher chose the 2008/9 Gaza War. This had been "successful" since life in southern Israel is becoming normal and Egypt's eyes have been opened so it no longer allows smuggling through almost 150 tunnels.

Challenge #2 is that the Fatah Party of Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayad do not represent the majority of Palestinians since Hamas is controlling the Gaza Strip. Hamas poses Challenge #3 is that Hamas is killing and hiding among the civilian population and then crying as if they have done nothing. (Lador-Fresher stated that both the Goldstone Report and the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations are biased against Israel on the Gaza issue.)


Those challenges put Lador-Fresher's professed "hope" for a two-state solution into context. She proclaimed, "There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. People are not suffering," and continued, "We will not help and assist economic development in Gaza." This was in sharp contrast to Lador-Fresher's statment of a policy to assist the West Bank's economic growth.

On the same day, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said that Israel's blockade of Gaza is not helping its security or weakening Hamas' hold on the territory. Yet, when Lador-Fresher was reminded by a student that trucks going inside Gaza are prohibited from carrying important items such as spare parts of machines or construction materials, she said blithely that Gazans have heat, gas, and electricity.

This claim of Israeli generosity sits alongside a recent articlethat daily power cuts cost lives in Gaza. Her declaration that Egypt can assist Gazans if they wish, since one third of Gaza's border is surrounded by Egypt, co-exists with the Israeli applause for Cairo's efforts to place underground metal plates over the tunnels, as well as its fence standing along Gaza's southern border.

And asked about white phosphorous bombs dropped on Gazan civilians, Lador-Fresher replied, "Yes, it is not pleasing but many Western countries use it."

Strange juxtapositions, accompanied by misperceptions. The Deputy Ambassador said she did not understand why some Palestinian mothers crave their children to be shaheed (martyr), but she then explained that "the meaning of shaheed is a murderer, a terrorist". In fact, the meaning of shaheed in Islam is the one who is killed on the path of God, not the one killing civilians and himself. Indeed, suicide is strictly forbidden in this religion.

So from the challenges set forth by Lador-Fresher, we get her own challenges --- as a spokeswoman for Israel --- of empty assurances, declarations of bias, and distortions. Where in this is "hope"?

Israel-Palestine: "Proximity Talks" On the Edge of a Settlement Cliff

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x10wc0gR1tA[/youtube]

Later on Wednesday, Arab League chief Amr Moussa said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas haddeclared he would not enter indirect talks with Israel. The situation was still unclear on Thursday, but statements coming from the region now put the "proximity talks" at the edge of a cliff.

Israel: Masquerade of “Proximity Talks” and Settlements (Levy)
Israel-Palestine Proximity Talks: “Theatre of the Absurd”

Although US Vice President Joe Biden condemned the announcement of the construction of new 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem and questioned Israel's "trustability" on Tuesday, he stated two days later that the "proximity talks" could continue.

Speaking at Tel Aviv University, Biden said Palestinians had misunderstood Israel's announcement of the settlement plan, thinking that building would begin immediately. With no construction scheduled for now, he said, negotiators would have time to "resolve this and other outstanding issues."

However, on Thursday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat insisted on the end of talks unless Israel steps back:

We want to hear from [United States envoy George] Mitchell that Israel has cancelled the decision to build housing units before we start the negotiations.

The subsequent news? Israel is planning to build 50,000 new housing units including the recent announcement of 1,600 units in East Jerusalem neighborhoods in the coming years, planning officials told Haaretz.

Israel: Masquerade of "Proximity Talks" and Settlements (Levy)

After the announcement of the planned construction of 1,600 Israeli housing units in East Jerusalem, Haaretz's Gideon Levy put the absurdity on paper by declaring there is someone to blame now: Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai:

Here's someone new to blame for everything: Eli Yishai. After all, Benjamin Netanyahu wanted it so much, Ehud Barak pressed so hard, Shimon Peres wielded so much influence - and along came the interior minister and ruined everything.

Israel-Gaza: EU Endorses Goldstone Report

There we were, on the brink of another historic upheaval (almost). Proximity talks with the Palestinians were in the air, peace was knocking on the door, the occupation was nearing its end - and then a Shas rogue, who knows nothing about timing and diplomacy, came and shuffled all the proximity and peace cards.



The scoundrel appeared in the midst of the smile- and hug-fest with the vice president of the United States and disrupted the celebration. Joe Biden's white-toothed smiles froze abruptly, the great friendship was about to disintegrate, and even the dinner with the prime minister and his wife was almost canceled, along with the entire "peace process." And all because of Yishai.

Well, the interior minister does deserve our modest thanks. The move was perfect. The timing, which everyone is complaining about, was brilliant. It was exactly the time to call a spade a spade. As always, we need Yishai (and occasionally Avigdor Lieberman) to expose our true face, without the mask and lies, and play the enfant terrible who shouts that the emperor has no clothes.

For the emperor indeed has no clothes. Thank you, Yishai, for exposing it. Thank you for ripping the disguise off the revelers in the great ongoing peace-process masquerade in which nobody means anything or believes in anything.

What do we want from Yishai? To know when the Jerusalem planning committee convenes? To postpone its meeting by two weeks? What for? Hadn't the prime minister announced to Israel, the world and the United States, in a move seen at the time as a great Israeli victory, that the construction freeze in the settlements does not include Jerusalem? Then why blame that lowly official, the interior minister, who implemented that policy?

What's the big deal? Another 1,600 apartments for ultra-Orthodox Jews on occupied, stolen land? Jerusalem won't ever be divided, Benjamin Netanyahu promised, in another applause-winning move. In that case, why not build in it? The Americans have agreed to all this, so they have no reason to pretend to be insulted.

The interior minister should not apologize for the "distress" he caused, but be proud of it. He is the government's true face. Who knows, perhaps thanks to him America will finally understand that nothing will happen unless it exerts real pressure on Israel.

What would we do without Yishai? Biden would have left Israel propelled by the momentum of success. Netanyahu would have boasted of a renewed close friendship. A few weeks later, the indirect talks would have started. Europe would have applauded, and Barack Obama, the president of big promises, would even have taken a moment away from dealing with his country's health-care issues to meet with Netanyahu. George Mitchell, who has already scored quite a few diplomatic feats here, would shuttle between Ramallah and Jerusalem, and maybe Netanyahu would eventually have met with Mahmoud Abbas. Face to face. Then everything would have been sorted out.

Without preconditions, certainly without preconditions, Israel would have continued to build in the territories in the meantime - not 1,600 but 16,000 new apartments. The IDF would have continued arresting, imprisoning, humiliating and starving - all under the auspices of the peace talks, of course. Jerusalem forever. The right of return is out of the question, and so is Hamas. And onward to peace!

Months would go by, the talks would "progress," there would be lots of photo ops, and every now and then a mini-crisis would erupt - all because of the Palestinians, who want neither peace nor a state. At the very end, there might be another plan with another timetable that no one intends to keep.

Everything was so ready, so ripe, until that scoundrel, Yishai, came and kicked it all into oblivion. It's a bit embarrassing, but not so terrible. After all, time heals all wounds. The Americans will soon forgive, the Palestinians will have no choice, and once again everyone will stand ceremoniously on the platform and the process will be "jump-started" again - despite everything that the sole enemy of peace around here, Eli Yishai, has done to us.

Israel-Palestine: Have New Settlements Threatened "Proximity Talks"?

Another develepment on the Israel-Palestine "proximity talks" (see related analysis by Sharmine Narwani). On Tuesday, the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee approved a new plan to build 1,600 more housing units in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in East Jerusalem.

White House's spokesman Robert Gibbs, condemned Jerusalem's announcement from the White House. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said:

I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units. The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now.

The European Union's foreign-policy director, Catherine Ashton, said on Wednesday, "May I join Vice-President Biden in condemning the decision to build 1,600 new houses."

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned Israel's plan. Then, according to the Ma'an news agency, the Palestinian Authority's leader Mahmoud Abbas warned that the move would derail negotiations before they had even begun and said:

It is apparent that the Israeli government does not want negotiations, nor does it want peace. The American administration must respond to this provocation with effective measures.

Israel's Interior Minister Eli Yishai apologized on Wednesday for causing domestic and international distress and stated that he was uninformed of the district committee's plan, because the matter was simply a routine, technical authorization. Yishai added:

If I'd have known, I would have postponed the authorization by a week or two since we had no intention of provoking anyone. It is definitely unpleasant that this happened during Biden's visit. If the committee members would have known that the approval would have escalated to such a situation, they would have informed me.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assured his guest Biden that the programme, which had been drafted three years ago and only received initial authorization that day, could take several months to be granted final approval.

Israel-Palestine Proximity Talks: "Theatre of the Absurd"

Sharmine Narwani writes for The Huffington Post:

After a year of grandiose declarations on Mideast peace prospects and a gazillion trips to the region by US envoy George Mitchell, the Obama administration has come up with this?

"Proximity Talks." Look it up in the Dictionary of Realpolitik and you will find the following: "Negotiations going nowhere fast. Wear seatbelts lest the speed of self-destruction spins you off the earth's axis."

Israel-Palestine-Hamas Mystery: Questions & A Response
Israel-Palestine: “Proximity Talks” and US Vice President Biden

Palestinians and Israelis are not even going to be at the table together. Mitchell could not even make that happen. This isn't phase one of a longstanding conflict. These are adversaries who have sat across many tables and struck many agreements over the past 19 years.



And so this is where we are in the gruelingly endless Middle East peace process. About a dozen steps back from where we started.

False Starts

Here's the down-low. After an upbeat set of promises to bring old foes to the Mideast negotiating table, Obama realized that Israel would not move so much as an inch on freezing illegal settlement-building activity -- a fundamental necessity since there can be no land-for-peace agreement without land to cede.

The Obama presidency began just days after Israel's three-week military devastation of Gaza concluded, putting not even the most sycophantic of Palestinian leaders in a position to be generous without a significant Israeli goodwill gesture. Then Benjamin Netanyahu emerged victorious from Israeli national elections and the die was cast.

Netanyahu's Likud Party has never accepted a Two-State Solution, and Obama wasted much time wresting a luke-warm endorsement of this plan from the new Israeli prime minister. But while Netanyahu's "compromise" was lauded by US officials and media pundits, the fact is that Mideast observers knew there was nothing new in his for-the-cameras acceptance of a Palestinian state minus sovereignty.

On the other side of the fence, the increasingly unpopular Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) government -- as corrupt and ineffectual as our Arab allies come -- desperately needed an active peace process to give it a veneer of respectability. Fatah's credibility is in serious jeopardy -- it pushed for participation in peace talks with Israel almost two decades ago at the Madrid Peace Conference -- and has virtually nothing to show for it.

Well, except for the fact that Jewish settlers in the West Bank have quintupled in number and that Israel has managed to divide up the West Bank to its advantage, with Jewish-only roads and checkpoints cutting off Palestinian movement and freedoms further.

But PA leader Mahmoud Abbas was unable to participate in post-Gaza peace talks without a settlement halt -- he had drawn that line in the sand after Obama offered up a settlement freeze as part of his fantasy-based approach to peacemaking.

Eureka!

So, as Israel continued to announce new settlement projects and evict Palestinians in hotly-contested Jerusalem from their homes, Abbas and Obama looked desperately for a way to hang on to credibility and launch talks in some form.

And then the brilliant idea struck. Why, if we can't talk to Israel directly because of its flagrant violations of international principles and laws, let's just have the Americans do it for us. And this way, if anything goes wrong and our popularity suffers, we have plausible deniability and can blame it all on the US.

The Proximity Talks were thus born. Presumably that means "talks that are close, but not too close."

And the absurdity continues. US Vice President Joe Biden, during his visit to Israel on Monday said: "If the talks develop, we believe that we'll be able to bridge the gaps and that the conflict will be ended."

Really? Two decades of talks between Palestinians and Israelis when the players were far more motivated to deliver a solution -- and now -- Biden believes the conflict will be "ended."

One-Way Street To Irrelevance

Here's what I think is actually happening:

I think Obama is realigning his peacemaking priorities in the Middle East -- at least until he has the US economy, health care reform and Iraq under his belt -- a must if he wants to be re-elected in 2012. For both domestic and international public consumption, he cannot accept complete failure in such a visibly-touted part of his global agenda. There must be talks in some form, but they will be placed on a low burner, increasing the risk of more of the same endless "process without peace" that the US has sponsored since 1991.

Instead, Obama is placing his bets on Iran to bring him home a foreign policy "victory" -- contradicting his earlier claims that Palestinian-Israeli conflict resolution should be tackled first, as this will diffuse Iran's grandstanding and reduce its regional influence.

The US's Mideast allies have to be dealt with in the meantime. Saudi Arabia, in particular, is getting testy watching Iran's ascendency in the Persian Gulf, and is champing at the bit to halt this trend. The Saudi King is the proud benefactor of the Arab Peace Plan and he would like to see it advanced. As would Egypt -- facing key elections in 2011 and suffering from regional criticism for its own blockade of Gaza. In return for Saudi and Egyptian cooperation on isolating Iran further - and financial/political help in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the US will push forward its half-baked peace process and try to keep the wheels grinding as long as humanly possible.

In the meantime, the entire US "Camp" is doing all it can to retain the status quo in the Mideast. It isn't just Iran that threatens. The rising popularity of a bloc of nations, leaders and groups that challenges US, Israeli, Saudi and Egyptian hegemony in the region just keeps growing. The Arab and Muslim Street is with the new bloc -- decades of corruption, occupation and stagnation have seen to that.

And here we are, just la-la-la plodding along, ignoring facts and realities in a quick-changing landscape. We are not the economic and military power of yesteryear -- protracted, unwinnable battles in tribal Afghanistan and splintered Iraq demonstrate that we can not even win an elementary victory in the Mideast.

We listen to political decision makers -- not area experts who can clue us in -- and advance forward as though nothing has changed, as though we are the only player that counts. We decide who plays with us -- not the democratically-elected Hezbollah and Hamas whose critical part in any feasible and long lasting Mideast solution we still refuse to acknowledge.

We vilify Iran and others who threaten our view of things, not realizing that this opposition emerges because of our blinkered behaviors and double standards in a region straining to discover its own identity and set wrongs right.

Double standards have destroyed any credibility we have in the region. We resist international demands that Israel and its 300 nuclear warheads join the IAEA, but censure the longstanding IAEA member, Iran, from pursuing a nuclear energy program. We back some of the most despicable dictatorships in the Arab world and then undermine the electoral victories of those we oppose. We send troops and funding to rein in Salafi jihadists throughout the region without a backward glance at the most intolerant nation of them all, our ally Saudi Arabia, the very source of radical militancy. And we don't even offer an apology for the wrongful deaths of hundreds of thousands of their civilians in our zealous attempts to avenge the deaths of 2,750 of ours.

And now we are hosting the Theater of the Absurd -- these so-called proximity talks -- where there are no actors, just us, sitting in a room alone, talking to ourselves. We have fooled them all! Or have we?