The much-vaunted Olmert-Abbas meeting ends in failure, though likely it was never designed to succeed, writes Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank As widely expected, the US-brokered meeting between Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ended in manifest failure, with one Palestinian official describing the talks as "dialogue of the deaf". The two sides, as well as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who appeared confused and a little disoriented, were clearly at cross-purposes. Abbas had hoped that Rice would convince Olmert to start discussing the so-called "endgame", namely the shape any final-status solution would assume and the borders of the contemplated Palestinian state. Abbas vehemently rejects the concept of "a state with temporary borders", which Israel and the Bush administration have been trying to sell to the Palestinians, as "vacuous" and "impractical". Moreover, the Palestinian leader had also hoped, but failed, to convince Rice to support, or at least extenuate American opposition to the Mecca Accord. He told Rice that the agreement gave the Palestine Liberation Organisation and him personally carte blanche to conduct peace talks with Israel, even pursuant to the American-backed "roadmap". On the other side, it was clear that both Rice and Olmert -- who may have sought to turn the meeting into an ordeal for Abbas for having dared to sign the Mecca Accord with Hamas -- were in no mood to listen. Instead, they began chewing the same cud again, fulminating against Hamas's non- recognition of Israel as if Israel herself recognised a Palestinian state and Palestinian reciprocity was all that was left blocking peace. Abbas, having failed to convince Rice to depart from stalling tactics over which comes first, ending the occupation or fighting so-called "terror", for the umpteenth time demanded that Israel relax its repressive measures against Palestinians and pay back hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue money seized following Hamas's election victory one year ago. Olmert responded, saying "yes", but as the discussion unfolded it became clear he really meant "no". Eventually, red-herring tactics on Olmert's part and the irksome repetitiveness of Rice's worn out platitudes about Bush's vision for two states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side in peace, dominated the meeting and ensured its failure. Was anything other intended? It is no secret that the meeting, planned prior to the Mecca Accord, was originally meant to deepen and widen the erstwhile showdown between Fatah and Hamas. This malicious intent stems from the morbid infatuation Washington's neo-cons with forces of "extremism" and "terror". For them, the real problem in the Middle East is not Israel's military occupation of Palestine and its Nazi-like repression of Palestinians, but rather the violence this elicits as the Palestinians defend themselves with what little means they have. In an effort to defeat resistance to US-Israeli strategic plans, the US, undoubtedly in cahoots with Israel, appears to have been stoking the flames of civil war in Palestine, seemingly in hope that "forces of moderation" would prevail over the "forces of terror", or self-defence against aggression. Defeating the concept of resistance would allow Israel to dictate its conditions and impose a fait accompli solution on an exhausted and debilitated PA that would be in no position to refuse even the wildest of Israel's demands. Now all that has come to naught after Fatah and Hamas managed, more or less, to overcome their differences by agreeing to form a government of national unity, which is expected to see the light within two weeks. As to why Rice decided to hold the meeting in West Jerusalem after the Mecca Accord despite foreknowledge that it would likely end in failure remains unclear. Some observers are speaking of a "communication problem" between her and her boss, President George W Bush, who himself is facing an uphill battle with US Democrats over the conduct of the war in Iraq. Others have come to consider Rice, a Soviet-era specialist, as unfit and unable to tackle the insurmountable problems of the Middle East. There are probably other more mundane factors contributing to her decision to go ahead with the Olmert-Abbas meeting, such as showing the American public that the Bush administration is trying to make peace in the Middle East and that in this the effectively moribund roadmap is still the only game in town. This is not inconsistent with the more important reason for holding the meeting, from the American viewpoint -- to simply corrode and undermine the Mecca Accord. Indeed, one is prompted to think that Rice has not yet lost hope that through a combination of carrots and sticks she will be able to cajole, or even bully, Abbas to find an excuse to rock the boat of national unity with Hamas. In this light, the Palestinians and the Arab world in general would do well not to pin all hope on a genuine peace settlement emerging soon, or even a genuine movement towards a real peace agreement, under the current administration in Washington. Any US administration that can't bring itself to understand that the crux of the matter in the Middle East is the Israeli occupation of Palestine and its adamant refusal to give up the spoils of the 1967 war -- as evident in unmitigated and illegal settlement expansion throughout the occupied Palestinian territories -- is obviously not qualified to act as "an honest broker", or carry off a semblance of credibility. The same applies even more to Olmert, a man who appears to have no notion of logical consistency and who believes that prevarication, spin and verbal juggling is the essence of true statesmanship and provides for honest discourse. Last week, Olmert threatened to excommunicate Abbas from the circle of "moderates" if he continued to assert the Palestinian constants for peace with Israel, including total Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, the dismantling of Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank, and a just and equitable settlement of the refugee issue pursuant to UN General Assembly Resolution 194. Olmert's threat is a clear proof, if any were needed, that Israel's problem is not really with Hamas's non-recognition of it as a state. Israel, after all, doesn't need Hamas's recognition, though it uses the issue relentlessly to vilify the Palestinians and conceal its illegal acts in the West Bank. More to the point, Israel knows that from 1993- 2006, Fatah and the PLO and the PA recognised Israel. They received nothing in return then, save more humiliation, more subjugation and more Jewish settlements. The bottom line is that a Palestinian leader can only be classified as "moderate" from an Israeli view point, and only if he is willing to act as a quisling, a submissive collaborator, by succumbing to Israeli demands and agreeing to give up his people's rights to freedom and independence. Fortunately, such a leader has not been born among the Palestinians and it is unlikely that he will.
