Palestine and Israel at the Sham Sharm Talks

Palestine and Israel at the Sham Sharm Talks
by Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies

• The U.S. goal for the Sharon-Abbas ceasefire talks was to provide a new chance for Sharon and Abu Mazen to deliver a level of quiet on the Israel-Palestine front so it does not continue to undermine the Iraq war and U.S. regional goals. The Israeli goal was to normalize the occupation, not to end it. The Palestinian Authority's goal was to give Israel what it wants (an end to militant resistance) in the hope that the Bush administration will eventually make good on its claimed commitment to a Palestinian state, however truncated, divided and besieged.
• Security for Israel, not an end to Israeli occupation and creation of a Palestinian state, was the only operative focus.
• The talks reflected U.S. and Israeli hopes and Palestinian exhaustion. Whether a Palestinian ceasefire holds (the only issue relevant to the U.S.) will reflect decisions made by militant organizations regarding their accountability to Palestinian public opinion; Abu Mazen does not have the capacity to "impose" such a ceasefire.
• There is no evidence of the U.S. planning a bigger, let alone different, diplomatic role; the newly appointed U.S. security coordinator's role is to monitor Palestinian, not Israeli, compliance. Monitoring continuing Israeli use of U.S.-supplied weapons in violation of U.S. domestic law is not part of Gen. Ward's mandate.
• Israel's negotiations on serious issues (before and after Sharm al-Sheikh) are being conducted with the U.S., not with the Palestinians. They include where settlements can be strengthened, how much land can be annexed, how to continue building the Apartheid Wall despite the World Court ruling against it. The U.S. is not holding Israel accountable even to its existing obligations under the U.S.-backed "Roadmap."
• These talks are not "historic." Earlier parallels of failed Middle East peace talks in history include the U.S.-convened 1991 Madrid talks after the Gulf War as well as the 1993 Oslo Declaration. In all of them, occupation was never mentioned.
• For optimists, the "best" possible outcome would be a return to the conditions of September 2000 before the second intifada began - recalling that those "better" conditions were so desperate that they led directly TO the uprising.