So far, the Arab Spring has largely bypassed Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. Those areas are facing their own political mini-quakes but not on the magnitude of events in neighboring states. Still, the tremors should be enough to deter President Obama from pushing for renewed Mideast talks — and force him to look elsewhere for an October Surprise.
Which, when you think about it, isn’t such bad news.
Start with the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations last September. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had threatened to overturn the applecart by marching into the building, gaining Palestinian UN membership — and ending any hope for a negotiated settlement of the age-old conflict. Some Israelis and Americans dubbed it “Black September.”
It didn’t happen. Now, Palestinians are threatening to redouble their efforts at the UN unless Israel — by Jan. 26 — agrees to their terms to relaunch peace talks. Jerusalem isn’t likely to bite, so the same seers now call January the new “Black September.” Again, it won’t be. But certainly none of this will advance the prospects for a quick peace deal.
Next, consider that, to strengthen a weak political hand, Abbas and his secular Fatah Party have used the last few weeks to negotiate with the rival Islamists of Hamas. The goal: to create a temporary unity government as a prelude to Palestinian elections in May.
Such détente seems unworkable. Hamas, for starters, demands the replacement of Abbas’ nonpartisan prime minister, Salam Fayyad — who oversees the Western-equipped internal armed force — with its own man. But if it does, the government would lose virtually all its outside funding, because Fayyad is the only Palestinian the Israelis, Americans and Europeans (who together keep the Palestinian Authority solvent) trust with their money. Even Gulf states that publicly support Hamas won’t fund a government without Fayyad.
Still, any temporary Hamas-Fatah unity regime that does manage to come together would be in no position to resume peace talks. For now, Israel, the United States, the Europeans and the United Nations all regard the Gaza-based Islamists as an illegitimate negotiating partner.
And should Abbas’ maneuvering actually pave the way for Palestinian elections, obstacles to talks would only increase. Fatah, for its part, has no strong leader to field. Abbas, who is aging, says he won’t run again, and the closest plausible successor, Marwan Barghouti, is unlikely to leave an Israeli prison, where he’s serving multiple life sentences.
Hamas has its own problems, including losing its home base in Damascus, where sugar daddy President Bashar al-Assad has bigger worries. Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, is now wandering between Egypt and Qatar in search of a new home.
True, with the rest of the Arab world trending Islamist, Hamas is ascending politically. But its growing presence will only make Israeli-Palestinian talks less likely.
As Hamas’s top Gaza politician Ismail Hanyia explained recently (a tip of the hat to Palestinian Media Watch for reporting the fact): “Interim” agreements with Fatah and Israel won’t alter Hamas’s “strategic choice for liberating the Palestinian land from the sea to the river, and for the expulsion of the invaders and usurpers” from all of current Israel.
Then there’s Israel. Some analysts think Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will call an early 2012 election if by the spring his advisers believe Obama is likely to win reelection. Positioned to win, he’s unlikely to offer new concessions to the Palestinians.
Upon entering the White House, Obama was convinced that solving the Israel-Palestinian dilemma is America’s top foreign-policy goal. But he wound up setting the process back, and now he’s too caught up with his re-election — and uncooperative world events — to even think about it.
As veteran Mideast hand Aaron David Miller predicts, this will be “the year of the four no’s”: no Palestinian unity, no elections, no UN action and no negotiations.
Then again, that could be the best news yet. With Obama not peace-processing, the major risks — a forced deal that would likely lead to more violence — can be contained.
Who says political tremblors inevitably bring bad tidings?