Israel-Palestine: Israel's Security Summit, Abbas and Netanyahu Clash on Core Issues

Israel's Security Summit: On Monday, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with members of the Israel Security Council led by Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Uzi Dayan. In the meeting, four strategic measures were discussed in detail: "Maintaining a solid Jewish majority in the State of Israel, preventing the creation of a hostile Palestinian entity that could threaten Israel from Judea and Samaria as is the case today in Gaza, the Iranian threat, and the de-legitimization assault against Israel."

The Israel Security Council also stated that there must be clear red lines during negotiations with Palestinians, especially in maintaining the Jordan Valley as Israel's eastern security border. The need to to strengthen Jewish-democratic identity in Israel and to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons were also conveyed to PM Netanyahu.

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No Israeli Presence in the West Bank: Talking to al-Ayyam on Monday morning,  Palestine Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said: “We clarified that [the Palestinian Authority] would not agree to continued Israeli presence, military or civil, within a future Palestinian state.”

Abbas-Netanyahu Challenge on Core Issues: According to Al Quds, Abbas has said that if he is pressured on key issues at the direct talks, such as borders and refugees, he "will take his bags and leave". Abbas stated that the issue of the pre-1967 borders are as important as Israel's emphasis on its security.

Abbas said late Monday that he has asked the U.S. "to intervene in the settlement issue", with the freeze ending in less than three weeks. It appears that Israeli "gestures" instead of an extension of the freeze did not work in Ramallah. Abbas does not see these gestures --- such as transferring an important piece of land from Israeli to Palestinian control, releasing hundreds of prisoners, and removing dozens of checkpoints --- as a substitute of a concession on settlements.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat denied on Monday that there will be a meeting between President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in mid-September. "What has been agreed upon is a meeting between President Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in Sharm el-Sheikh on Sept. 14 only," Erekat told Xinhua.

On Tuesday, in a Rosh Hashanah greeting, Netanyahu told the nation that there was no guarantee that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians would succeed, but he vowed to aim for a peace agreement by the end of the year. (Interpretation: Our red lines are crystal-clear, sothere can be no improvement if Palestinians do not come to terms.) He said:

We are trying in good faith, but not naivety, to reach a peace agreement. Any arrangement between us and the Palestinians will be based on two criteria: security and recognition of Israel as a Jewish state.

Security, because no peace will last without a strong anchor of actual security on the ground, not on paper and not as a hazy international commitment. The second thing is the recognition that Israel is the national state of the Jewish people.

If we are asked to recognize a Palestinian state, it is both natural and appropriate that the Palestinians recognize the state of the Israeli people as a Jewish state.

Israel-Palestine Analysis: Can Ramallah's "Security" Card Advance the Talks? (Yenidunya)

After the killing of four Israeli settlers and wounded of two others in the West Bank on 31 August, the Palestinian Authority arrested dozens of Hamas members. However, Hamas' war on the peace process has continued through an attempt to legitimise the targeting of the settlers.

On Friday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah praised Hamas for the West Bank attacks and said, "This is the way to free Jerusalem and Palestine." Supported byIran's statements calling the participants of peace talks in Washington "traitors", Hamas sharpened its tone.

Israeli settlers in the West Bank are legitimate targets since they are an army in every sense of the word, senior Hamas official Ezzat al-Rashk said on Saturday:

They are now a real army in every sense of the word, with more than 500,000 automatic weapons at their disposal, on top of the basic protection by the [Israel Defense Forces].

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In response, Ramallah arrested dozens of Hamas members and vowed to hit them with the iron fist.

Hamas' action, rather than undermining the talks, may have strengthened the Palestinian Authority's hand in the negotiations. Officials from Ramallah are sending message to Washington that extra pressure on the PA damage the chance for peace and security of the region.

On Sunday, the chief PA negotiator Saeb Eerekat said that if his organisation and Israel "sign[ed] an endgame agreement on all core issues, I believe we will bring Gaza back." Then Erekat added that he feared the "Palestinian Authority will dissolve if we fail to reach an endgame agreement".

Talking to Palestinian newspaper al-Ayyam on Monday morning, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas took the message further by linking it to a core demand: "We clarified that [the Palestinian Authority] would not agree to continued Israeli presence, military or civil, within a future Palestinian state." Message? want peace and security, it is that Palestinian state, existing peacefully alongside Israel, that should have a monopoly over the use of power in its terrority.

Ramallah had already warned that they would leave the negotiation table if the 10-month-freeze in the settlements did not continue. Its latest deployment of peace and security will be put to two Israeli groups: a relatively "practical" camp in giving concessions but conceding on security and a relatively "conservative" one that moving strategically to capitalise on the failure of the talks. The former one is the alliance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak alliance and the latter is the team of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Shas leader Eli Yishai.

Lieberman has already said that the direct talks with the Palestinians would not bring a general peace agreement. He is backed by Yishai, who recently said that the Israeli forces lost against 2000 Hezbollah men "because Israel's people had distanced themselves from God". On the other side, Netanyahu says that creative thinking can remove obstacles on the way to Mideast peace and Ehud Barak fills in the details by saying that Israel will neither cancel the 10-month curb on settlement expansion nor extend it before getting a concession from the other side on borders.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials are playing another card on the negotiation table. Israel's ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, said on Friday that West Jerusalem is offering the Palestinians gestures, in place of extending the settlement moratorium, to keep them in peace negotiations. Indeed, the move seizes upon the PA's "security" theme, with the gestures including the removal of checkpoints and transfer of greater control of the West Bank to Ramallah.

Yet all of this may be overshadowed by the news from diplomatic circles who said on Sunday that Israel is considering calling off the meeting with the PA's negotiating team, scheduled to be held in Jericho on Monday, after news of the discussion was leaked to the press. [Editor's Note: The meeting has been cancelled.]

So, before the scheduled high-level meeting in Sharm-e-Sheikh on 14 September, the question is put forth: can the Palestinian Authority's own "security" card, ironically brought into play by its rival Hamas, offer a way forward in talks or will the sticking points over Israeli settlements --- the moratorium on West Bank expansion ends in less than three weeks --- ensure that there is no movement?