There appears to be renewed impetus in the rounds of Palestinian-Israeli talks taking place variously in Washington, Tel Aviv and Ramallah after four months during which US Secretary of State John Kerry undertook 10 trips to the region in order to salvage what he could of the so-called peace process. Yet nothing in Arab reactions suggests any immanent change in any of the negotiating tracks that were initiated in Oslo in 1993. In fact, frustration seems to best describe what Kerry faces as Palestinians and Israelis exchange accusations that the other side is not ready for peace and as Israel notches up its intransigence on the question of recognition of the Jewishness of the Israeli state. To complicate matters further, tensions between Tel Aviv and Amman rose last week when the Jordanian parliament unanimously approved a motion (non-binding by law) to expel the Israeli ambassador in protest against a Knesset bill to assert Israeli sovereignty over Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which has been administered by Jordan for the past 20 years. The development could jeopardise the Jordanian-Israeli Peace Treaty and added yet another factor propelling the situation not towards a peace agreement with the Palestinians but towards conflict at worst or a complete breakdown in diplomacy at best amid mounting Arab indifference to the US-led drive to reach a framework agreement by 29 April. Thus, in spite of the official attention the US administration is giving according to Kerry's movements and the great plaudits he has received in Congress for his efforts to bring Palestinian and Israeli negotiators together again, experts and think tanks close to the White House and Capitol Hill are not jubilant. In fact, pessimism appears the order of the day in those circles in view of the complications on the ground impeding progress towards any viable agreement between the two sides. The pessimism is heightened by the fact that behind each side there is a column pressuring for an alternative course which would effectively be contingent on the failure of talks. On the Palestinian side are those campaigning to turn to the UN in order to hold an international conference to uphold already internationally recognised Palestinian rights and to relieve Washington of its sole command of the mediating drive. On the other side there is the camp headed by Avigdor Lieberman pushing for a land exchange between the 1948 territories (Israel proper) and the West Bank within the framework of the Jewish state project, an idea that runs counter to the US vision for a settlement. However, some analysts are holding off on their opinions until after the Israeli prime minister's current visit of the US and the subsequent visit scheduled for PA President Mahmoud Abbas on 17 March. In the opinion of Arnaud de Borchgrave, a veteran Middle East expert, journalist and currently project director and senior adviser for the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Kerry is trying to “chase the mirage of a Palestinian state there, in the West Bank.” Why? “Because Palestine has vanished from the map amidst the expansion of settlements. They tell us, ‘Please don't publish that information'... But what's the point? The reality is that many things have changed [on the ground].” A top-level political expert close to decision-making circles has an equally grim prognosis. “There are strong indications that the current course is doomed to failure in spite of all due praise to Kerry's efforts,” he told Al-Ahram Weekly. “The framework agreement will not place a commitment on the sides or form an agreement. It will set the preliminary bases for the major or final status issues. It will also include two other dimensions: Palestinian recognition that Israel is a national state for the Jewish people and the reciprocal recognition of a Palestinian state for the Palestinian people.” He added that the Americans have been soliciting Arab “logistic support” for the idea of recognition of the Jewishness of the Israeli state, a principle that Abbas and his team reject. “But Washington, via Kerry, has asked the Saudi and Jordanian monarchs to use their influence to let this problem be overcome though guarantees that the Arabs of ‘48 can remain within the Green Line (Israel proper).” But even if that could be overcome through some formula, there are the other issues, of water, borders and Palestinian refugees. With regards to the latter, the American rhetoric is clear: “No” to the return of Palestinians to the territories of 1948 and the Arabs have to absorb the refugees to the best of their ability in exchange for support and compensation for the Palestinians. According to a number of US sources, President Barack Obama, who has been monitoring the progress of the talks, will have an important question to put to his guests this month: What will be the alternative if the two sides do not come together talk and reach a framework agreement? A Palestinian source that had taken part in the Oslo negotiations told Al-Ahram Weekly: “I am still not sure that Washington is looking for a solution to the problem. There was a team that negotiated in Oslo. Washington cut off a part of it to create a parallel team for the negotiations that took place in Clinton's time. That team was headed by the then young Mohamed Dahlan. After continuing in this channel for nine years, Dahlan and I began to realise that the Americans were obstructing the solution more than Israel. Now they have come back with an initiative that is not very different from the one that had been proposed in those days.” It seemed that the outlook was bleaker with every source turned to. When the Weekly asked the previous source what his expectations were with respect to final status talks, he responded: “I don't think we will get that far. Instead of nine more months to round up negotiations, we'll be spending 10-15 more years with settlement expansion, which will gobble up every last thing that indicated that this place was Palestine. The next shift or plan will come at the expense of Jordan.” He added: “I've been there many times and I've seen for myself while in the company of King Abdullah II how influential the Palestinians have become there, some reaching the rank of colonel in the Jordanian army.” Barely had our interview with this source ended that the Jordanian monarch issued a statement rejecting what he termed “the illusion of an alternative state [for Palestine]”, and suggesting that those advocating this idea were bent on sowing sedition. He said that he would have preferred to bring that subject up before leaving on his latest trip to the US, but decided to leave it until he returned, “so that no one would say that things changed after my trip to the US.” He added: “Whenever there is any serious efforts in the peace process, the illusion of the alternative state crops up again, as though peace has to come at Jordan's expense. Our position is clear and what we say behind closed doors and what we say before the world are exactly the same.” King Abdullah maintained that a certain movement deliberately raised the subject of the alternative Palestinian state with certain nefarious intentions in mind. “We know how this has been working for 15 years or more. It begins in spring, with the same group who start to incite alarm among Jordanian society so that by the time summer arrives people are in a panic and I have to reassure them through a speech or newspaper interview. This year, unfortunately, the talk about the so-called alternative nation began early.” Perhaps the most pro-Israeli view was expressed by Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, although he would describe himself as being frank and objective. “I believe in the need for the two state solution. As an American Jew, I believe that there should be a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem and that the people there should live in peace. There is an initiative out there. But I do not think that it has much support and, therefore, it is not the right initiative. Also, while the US has criticised settlement expansion it has not exerted the necessary degree of pressure on that matter. During the time when I worked at the Pentagon, we pushed for the two-state solution. But we should not forget that in the mind of every Jew there is the fear of returning to 5,000 years of wilderness not to mention the murder of six million (referring to the Holocaust) Jews. The Jews will not accept any settlement that does not include the recognition of a state for the Jews. Everything else is negotiable.” The US administration officially reiterated its support for the Israeli demand for recognition of the Jewishness of Israel in advance of Netanyahu's visit. On 19 February, State Department spokesperson Mary Harf said: “I believe the president has said many times that we support Israel as a Jewish state.” She referred, for example, to Obama's speech to the UN General Assembly on 24 September last year, and then added: “The US will not relinquish its commitment to the security of Israel and our support for its existence as a Jewish state.” According to our sources, even if the two sides reach a framework agreement, the final touches on the negotiating tracks will be effected by other developments, not least of which would be developments in Iranian-US relations, which have been a subject of prime importance in US-Israeli relations. Then there remains the effort behind the scenes as to the alternative plan to export the borders of the conflict with Palestine and the rest of the Palestinians themselves. Indeed, the question of how this would affect the bartering that will begin if the Palestinian Authority collapses due to European pressures, which link what the EU pays to the PA with progress on a peace agreement with Israel by next year. In sum, all signs point to further complications that will be easy for the Obama administration to manipulate as it sees fit.
