In Syrian, the strategic choice of negotiations over resistance prevailed, but not as unchallenged as hitherto This week, in the Syrian capital Damascus, the Arab summit declared that this year is make or break, not just for the chances of a Palestinian-Israeli settlement, but also for the fate of the Arab Peace Initiative and the entire Arab-Israeli struggle. "The next few months will be critical -- very critical," announced Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas before the Arab summit Saturday. The speech of Abbas, delivered to the inaugural session of the summit, came against the backdrop of the dismal failure of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to herald a breakthrough under the patronage of the United States whose president has committed to achieving a framework for Palestinian-Israeli peace before leaving office at the end of the year. It also came amid anticipation of a fresh round of frequent visits by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region, declared as an essential catalyst to Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. "If we reach the end of this year without achieving the internationally stated target of realising [Middle East] peace, then this would [throw] the region [on the path to] a new phase of tension where the peoples [of the region] would lose faith in the chances of making peace and in the ability of the international community and its institutions in shouldering its responsibilities," Abbas added. This acknowledgment by the Palestinian president, who has given himself entirely and unconditionally to the cause of negotiations, failed to assuage the concerns of Palestinian and other Arab critics who cast doubt on pragmatism as a means of resolving the intractable Arab-Israeli conflict. In their reaction to the statement of Abbas, political figures of Hamas -- his strong and increasingly popular political foes -- shrugged off the speech for failing to propose a national and consensual Palestinian strategy to deal with the "inevitable" failure of current negotiations launched in the wake of the Annapolis conference. Abbas, they argued, is still hijacked by "Annapolis's illusions", over which he has chosen to depart from the will of his own people. Informed sources say that it was upon the firm request of the Palestinian delegation -- with the joint support of Jordan and Egypt -- that language adopted by Arab foreign ministers early March was diluted in Damascus to remove any insinuation on the part of Arabs that the Arab Peace Initiative, adopted in the Beirut summit in 2002 and re- launched last year in the Riyadh summit, offering full peace with Israel in return for the full withdrawal of Israel from all occupied Arab territories, the establishment of a valid Palestinian state, and a legal settlement of the issue of Palestinian refugees, may be withdrawn. "The Arab Peace Initiative is a political stance that should not be wavered... If we pull out this initiative we would be doing Israel a favour," said Nimer Hammad, political adviser to Abbas on the eve of the Damascus summit. In Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, following talks with Saudi King Abdullah, Abbas announced that it was not impossible for Palestinians and Israelis to make peace before the end of the year. The end of the year marks not only the end of the current US administration. It also marks, in theory, the end of Abbas's term in office. With only a few more months to go, most Arab and Palestinian officials seem agreed that there is no great harm in prolonging the Annapolis process a little longer. Even for Hamas, the Arab Peace Initiative has been promoted since 2002 and a few more months, "but not forever", for negotiations can be permitted. In his statement to the Arab summit, however, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa chose to be the bearer of bad news. Months after the Annapolis meeting, Moussa said to the obvious unease of an edgy Abbas, "we hardly see any results or any reassuring movement, with the negotiations literally at a standstill and the situation in the occupied [Palestinian] territories at the worst and most dangerous [phase] ever, with [aggressive Israeli] settlement [activity] that actually and systematically alters the demographic composition and the geographic topography of the occupied territories, including Jerusalem." According to Moussa, Arabs are duty-bound to face such a state of affairs with "a firm stance" for which they "could not be blamed by anyone", especially "when history is written". "We extended Israel an offer of peace and got nothing in return." The question now, Moussa argued, is whether Arabs should conclude that their offer for peace is rejected and that the line of moderation is ineffective in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. For his part, in his inaugural speech to the Arab summit, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad proposed the need to "search for the balanced stance that could accommodate both the prerequisites of fair and comprehensive peace, that could bring back the occupied territories and secure the return of legitimate rights, and the basic requirements of steadfastness and resistance". Moussa, with the support of the Syrian presidency of the Arab summit and some Arab states, further used the Damascus forum to argue the need for a total reassessment of Arab strategy. In a joint press conference held by Moussa and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moallem, the two Arab diplomats granted Abbas what he wanted: the Arab Peace Initiative is still on the table, they said. They promptly added, however, that what is at stake now is the overall Arab strategy for peace with Israel. According to the statements of Moussa and Al-Moallem, a meeting for the foreign ministers of the Arab Peace Initiative should convene around June to examine the chances of peacemaking with Israel. "At that point we might have to take some so-called 'painful decisions'," said Moussa in his speech to the summit. "Political choices, limited as they might be, are not exactly scarce," he added. Meanwhile, Moussa Abu Marzouk, the Damascus-based deputy chief of Hamas's political bureau, argued in a press briefing accorded to a limited group of journalists on the eve of the Arab summit that Abbas, "the admittedly democratically elected president of all Palestinians", is lagging behind the evolving position of even European leaders, including Quartet Envoy to the Middle East Tony Blair who recently told the European Parliament that "the politics of isolating Hamas has not brought any benefits." Pursuing Palestinian reconciliation, "not just between Fatah and Hamas but among all Palestinian factions", is an obvious prerequisite, according to Abu Marzouk, for any effective management of the coming few months. He further blamed Abbas -- and the lack of sufficient Arab support -- for the failure of a series of attempts to mediate between the Abbas-led Fatah movement and Hamas, including the recent Yemeni initiative. For Abu Marzouk and other Hamas leaders, the failure of the Arab summit to firmly adopt the Yemeni initiative indicates a lack of Arab resolve to end current Palestinian divisions. Positive statements at the end of the summit by the foreign ministers of Yemen and Syria about continuing to work towards Palestinian reconciliation failed to convince top Hamas leaders who were disheartened by the failure of Abbas to respond positively to proposals that the Palestinian president meet in Damascus with Hamas's political chief, Khaled Meshaal, and by the disinterest Abbas displayed in the face of a fresh call for direct reconciliation talks with Hamas leaders in Gaza that Meshaal made the day after the Damascus summit. To the mind of these Palestinian leaders and other Palestinian political figures and Arab commentators, Abbas is unlikely to be in a strong enough position to extract serious gains through negotiations with Israel. In the words of Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, Abbas should now put his "unproductive negotiations with Israel on hold" and focus on achieving national Palestinian reconciliation during the coming few months. Some of Abbas's aides argue, however, that national reconciliation would be an easier attained target "with a framework agreement at the hand of the president". None, however, can assure that this framework materialises by year's end. According to Meshaal, a devastating Israeli war on Gaza during the closing months of 2008 is more realistic prospect. There is also concern of a bloody confrontation between Palestinian factions over the Palestinian presidency and the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), on which Hamas is currently contesting Fatah's historic control. "There are new facts on the ground that need to be examined. Fatah is no longer the strongest or most popular Palestinian faction. This is history now," commented one Hamas leader on condition of anonymity. In similar vein, in his statement to the Arab summit, Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi pressed for an urgent re- conceptualisation of the structure and role of the PLO, beyond the "narrow" political agendas of either Fatah, "that is much smaller than the PLO", or Hamas, "that would be violating the national identity of the Palestinian people if it were to violate the PLO". Given that decisions over the fate of negotiations and/or resistance is predominantly decided within the PLO, rather than the Palestinian Authority, political tension over the restructuring of this organisation is sure to build and could explode. To avoid such troubling scenarios, several Hamas leaders, including Abu Marzouk and Meshaal, and Prime Minister in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh, argue that the time is now for a collective Palestinian dialogue building on Yemeni and other Arab reconciliation initiatives. It is being suggested that such efforts and be sponsored by Egypt. "Reconciling the divided Palestinian factions should be a priority for [Cairo], alongside the attempt to broker a truce between Hamas and Israel," argued Abu Marzouk. For their part, Egyptian officials argue, Cairo cannot support a PLO restructuring or a reconciliation agenda that would include resistance as a concrete alternative to negotiations should the Annapolis process be declared a failure by year's end as many expect. Egyptian officials argue that while not contesting the ethical legitimacy of militant resistance of occupation, Cairo is not in favour of such an option on the basis that it is not conducive to positive results. Common in Egyptian official quarters is criticism of the Qassam rockets that Hamas fires on Siderot and other Israeli settlements near Gaza and that have "only" brought disastrous humanitarian consequences down upon the Palestinians. So what's next? Meshaal is worried about a "possible" Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza or Hizbullah in Lebanon, or an American military attack on Iran. On the other side, aides of Abbas are predicting a failure of the two-state solution as proposed by US President George W Bush, especially in view of ongoing Israeli settlement activities, and are floating the idea that the future Palestinian strategy should be "not [one] of resistance but of a one state solution for both Israelis and Palestinians". All are agreed that the coming critical months will be marked by upheaval.
