Monday, November 26, 2007

Why the world remains sceptical

Nov.26 2007

Why the world remains sceptical

US President George Bush has "personally committed" himself to his two-state vision for Israelis and Palestinians. Effectively, as his spokespersons took pains explaining on Sunday, Bush would be closely following up the process. As a sign of his "personal" involvement, Bush was meeting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday and Tuesday ahead of the Annapolis meeting and would receive them again on Wednesday at the White House. The US president was also in touch with several Arab leaders and playing a key role in securing the attendance of some 50 governments and groups at the Annapolis conference. So far so good.
There is no doubt that Bush wants an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement in place before he quits the White House in early 2009. That is intented to be touted as his greatest accomplishment in his eight years at the White House (never mind the Iraq and Afghanistan fiascos and the various other crises at home).
In principle, it is indeed a source of optimism for the Middle East that a US president has made Israeli-Palestinian peace a top priority with a definite timeframe — 14 months in this case — and has committed himself to remain involved in the process until its success.
However, there is a pessimistic rider to it: He has made it clear that it is upto the Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate peace. That is the clincher. It is a message that it is strictly up to the negotiating skills of the Palestinians to secure Israeli acceptance of their demands. And that exposes the weakest flank of the Palestinians and casts a disturbingly negative cloud over the whole process.
By definition and in view of the realities on the ground in Israeli-occupied Palestine, the Palestinians are the underdog in any negotiation with Israel, which has made no secret that it wants a peace agreement on its own terms. By default, the Palestinians are not in an equal footing with the Israelis in order to have a just and fair negotiating process governed by international legitimacy as enshrined in UN Security Council resolutions and various conventions and charters and the inadmissibility of seizing other's territory through the use of force.
Israel is not willing to commit itself into accepting the minimum requirements for peace. Its track record since the 1993 Oslo agreement shows that it would continue to pile up pressure on the Palestinians into accepting its grand designs in Palestine while giving little in return to them.
A between-the-lines reading of Bush's stated position will show that the US would keep itself and all others out of post-Annapolis Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and thus leave the field free for the Israelis to pressure the Palestinians — who would be left without any recourse — and force down their throats the Israeli version of a peace agreement. Of course, it goes without saying that the US would be working behind the scenes to persuade the Palestinians that they would be better off accepting whatever Israel is willing to offer them because that is the best they would ever get. So much for the US-professed neutrality and role as honest broker.
That is what it boils down to when we remove all rhetoric and lofty statements linked to the expected Annapolis process.
We have yet to see any sign of the US stepping away from Israel's shadow and act in its capacity as the world's sole superpower to ensure fairness and justice for all. And hence the scepticism over the Annapolis exercise because all that the US is interested in is any agreement — be it fair or unfair, just or unjust — but one that could be the "jewel" in Bush's otherwise bare departing crown.