MESOPOTAMIA NEWS MIDEAST : Israel Pulse – Israeli think tank’s diplomatic plan signals left while turning right

READ IN:    עברית  – Yossi Beilin October 29, 2018  – AL MONITOR –  Article Summary

The diplomatic framework presented by Israel’s top security studies institute plays into the hands of those working to keep the status quo rather than enter real negotiations with the Palestinians.

The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) is considered the most important of its kind in Israel. Headed by Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin (ret.), a former head of Military Intelligence, its researchers include retired senior military officers as well as former top diplomats and academics. Though it is considered to lean center-left because of the political orientation of its leadership (Yadlin was the Zionist Camp’s candidate for minister of defense in the 2015 election), even people aligned with the far-right attend INSS conferences, which receive considerable media attention.

On Oct. 2, the INSS published “A Strategic Outline for the Israeli-Palestinian Arena” and promoted it widely. The plan, composed and edited over two years by Yadlin, Udi Dekel and Kim Lavi, proposes diplomatic measures for peace.

I was eager to read the proposal and hoped to find new ideas in it. There were none. It did remind me of a story that was told in the 1960s about how Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito distanced himself from communism: Three cars, traveling together in a convoy, reached a fork in the road. The first car, driven by Nikita Khrushchev, signaled left and turned left. The second car, driven by John F. Kennedy, signaled right and turned right. Then the third car, driven by Tito, signaled left and turned right.

It seems to me as if the authors of this proposal are also signaling left and turning right. They speak in terms of the Clinton Parameters of 2000 and the informal Geneva Initiative of 2003 (the author was one of its authors), conclude that it would be impossible to reach a permanent solution at this time and suggest a plan that would bolster the status quo, which they themselves consider extremely risky.

They call on Israel to announce that it is prepared to negotiate a permanent-status agreement even though they do not believe that the Palestinians would agree to it. They then try to establish a situation on the ground that would not inhibit the creation of a Palestinian state at some point in the future, while ensuring that Israel remains a democratic state with a Jewish majority. Much like similar documents from the past, this proposal offers various possibilities for the diplomatic process. They include a single state, a Jordanian-Palestinian confederacy, an Israeli-Palestinian confederacy and a two-state solution. Each of these options, apart from the two-state solution, are offhandedly rejected by the authors. Most of the intellectual effort has been invested in the question of how a desirable solution can be reached even if there is no Palestinian partner, at least for now.

The main reason that there are no negotiations with the Palestinians over a permanent-status arrangement is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s various governments have rejected negotiations based on the 1967 borders with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Had Netanyahu agreed to do so, he would long have been engaged in direct negotiations over an arrangement. But Netanyahu is apparently unwilling to partition the land. For their part, the Palestinians are concerned about lengthy negotiations that will lead nowhere but nonetheless provide coverage for Israel’s policy in the West Bank, particularly in the form of continued settlement and nighttime visits by the Israel Defense Forces to the West Bank’s cities.

The proposal’s easy forgiveness of Israel’s refusal is as problematic as the alternative that it presents. The authors would grant the Palestinian Authority in Area B (22% of the West Bank, under Palestinian civil control and joint Israeli-Palestinian security control) the same responsibility enjoyed by the PA in Area A (18% of the West Bank, under Palestinian civil and security control). In other words, Palestinian civil and security control in Areas A and B. That way, the PA will control 40% of the West Bank without immediately transferring any additional territory to it.

In Area C (60% of the West Bank, under Israeli control), the outline allows Palestinians to build factories and apartment complexes in one-quarter of the territory, with the understanding that over time, this area (15% of the West Bank) would be transferred to the PA. At the same time, Israel would continue to build in the settlement blocs, while freezing construction in the isolated settlements.

The plan referred to areas that are part of a supposed “Israeli consensus” for a future agreement, even though this is a hazy concept that fails to consider the Palestinians’ demands. It may be the plan’s weakest point. Even if it is true that settlements along the Green Line would apparently become part of Israel in exchange for Israeli territory, this has yet to be agreed upon, and it does not legitimize construction in the settlements, which runs counter to international law as long as an agreement on borders has not been reached with the other party.

Anyone who refuses to offer a complete settlement construction freeze along the lines of President George W. Bush’s 2003 Road Map, which was adopted by the Sharon government, legitimizes a wave of construction in the West Bank under the umbrella of an interim process, economic aid to the Palestinians, closer security cooperation and greater regional cooperation with neighboring states, but such international legitimacy has no chance of happening. It is therefore surprising that the authors of this plan expect it to. The only person who might grant the plan some kind of legitimacy is US President Donald Trump, and even that would fade into obscurity as soon as he disappears from the political arena.

The document includes some ideas worth discussing in detail, including its plan to create a Metropolitan Jerusalem with a newly created Palestinian municipality subject to Israel’s Ministry of the Interior, at least in the first stage. One might wonder, however, why the plan suggests that Israel announce at this early stage that it would keep some 10% of the West Bank and that it would not give it up even in the context of a comprehensive peace agreement. It’s more than Prime Minister Ehud Barak suggested in 2000 and much more than Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered in 2008. Where would Israel find territory of that size it would be willing to exchange with the Palestinians as compensation? Even more problematic, however, is the risk of another conundrum: Pragmatic and reasonable people who want peace with the Palestinians are accepting the position of the political right that there is no partner on the other side and making a series of proposals that would be rejected by the pragmatic Palestinian leadership and most of the international community.

The INSS plan is hardly appealing to the current government. One senior official told Al-Monitor privately that the Netanyahu government has no problem with announcing yet again that it is prepared to enter into negotiations with Abbas without any preconditions. But the government would certainly not agree to freeze settlement construction in most of the West Bank.

Meanwhile, the right can use the institute’s proposal to say things like, “Even the INSS agrees that the settlements should be kept in place. Even it speaks about annexation of 10% of the territory.” This could be the plan’s only concrete outcome.

YOSSI BEILIN –  has served in various positions in the Knesset and in Israeli government posts, the last of which was justice and religious affairs minister. After resigning from the Labor Party, Beilin headed Meretz. He was involved in initiating the Oslo process, the Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement, the Geneva Initiative and Birthright.

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/10/israel-palestinians-mahmoud-abbas-benjamin-netanyahu-inss.html#ixzz5VL9wuJMM