U.S. Diplomacy Aborts Jerusalem Summit, Shuns Arab Allies

By Nicola Nasser*

Instead of building a diplomatic momentum on the political breakthrough mediated by their Saudi Arabian ally who succeeded in developing an Arab and Palestinian consensus on going along with the U.S.-steered Quartet efforts to revive the deadlocked peace process, the American diplomacy has turned their sponsored Palestinian – Israeli summit meeting in Jerusalem on Monday from a promising event into a missed opportunity.

The trilateral meeting, which secretary of State Condoleezza Rice planned with President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to be a breakthrough in a six-year old Palestinian – Israeli impasse, began without an agreed upon agenda or at least with a last minute change of the originally perceived agenda, convened grudgingly as a face saving event and ended nonetheless a summit void of content.

Embarrassing U.S. friends and allies as important as Riyadh, Amman and Cairo, and further antagonizing influential regional players like Syria, who all weighed in heavily to conclude the Mecca deal in order to develop a unified Arab and Palestinian stance that easily could be discerned as distancing them away from Iranian influences, which is a key U.S.-Israeli endeavor, may not harm the U.S. historically-tested strategic alliances with Arabs, but it would certainly put off indefinitely whatever is left for peace-making in the region.

There was nothing new in the five points of agreement reported by Rice after the meeting: Commitment to the two-state vision of President George W. Bush, continued respect of the ceasefire, working together to implement “Road Map,” honouring by the Palestinian government of the Quartet-adopted three conditions of renouncing violence, recognizing Israel and honouring previously signed accords with her, and agreeing to meet again; all have become obsolete non-starters in view of the U.S. and Israeli determination not to follow them up with working mechanisms and binding timetables.

Playing into the hands of the Israeli declared policy of “lowering the expectations” of Palestinians, Rice promoted the summit since her landing in Israel on Friday with a flow of skeptical and discouraging remarks, thus creating the environment for conflicting Palestinian and Israeli expectations and contradictory differences over the agenda.

Israel had every intention to derail any progress at the summit unless the Palestinian leaders subscribe to her plan for a long-term interim arrangement during which they should be satisfied with a transitional state without borders, a plan that is rejected by a Palestinian consensus conveyed on Monday to Rice because in the long run this plan will boil down to nothing more than giving Israel enough time to create more facts on the ground to render any Palestinian state, whether temporary or permanent, unviable, unsustainable and impossible.

Israel and her American strategic ally promoted Abbas as a partner first as an alternative for late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, but when he ascended to the helm of the national decision-making they qualified his partnership credentials by taking on Hamas; when Abbas concluded that was a recipe for civil war and insisted on dialogue with the Islamic movement he was accused of “dialogue with terror;” when he succeeded in convincing Hamas to join the political institutions of the Oslo accords in a democratic process they challenged his credentials because, according to them, the ensuing two-head Palestinian Authority compromised his representative competence and his ability to govern; after the Mecca deal they claimed his credentials as a peace partner were neutralized by his new partnership with Hamas and steered the Quartet to insist on their three preconditions as the prerequisite to legitimize him as a partner, and sent Rice to convey the message.

Evasive Diplomacy to Avoid Negotiations

However, President Bush, torpedoed the success of her mission when he hours ahead of her arrival in the region ruled out, according to Olmert, any dealing by his administration with any new Palestinian government formed on the basis of the inter-Palestinian power-sharing deal, which the Saudis mediated and sponsored at the highest level in Mecca two weeks ago, while the Congress pre-empted her success by blocking a $86 million aid package promised for Abbas before the deal, thus dispatching Rice empty handed.

Amid mounting Israeli and American threats of tightening the siege imposed on the Palestinian people, Palestinian and Arab observers are almost in consensus on interpreting the U.S. policy as premeditated and not a blunder, aimed at “aborting” the Abbas – Olmert summit and the new Palestinian unity government by refusing the Mecca accord as the approach to lifting the siege.

By ruling out the Mecca accord as a non-starter the U.S. policy was also interpreted as an evasive diplomacy to avoid negotiations, whether bilateral or multilateral within the framework of an international conference proposed by the Palestinians, the League of Arab States and recently by Russian President Vladimir Putin during a Middle East tour, and supported by the pro-Mecca deal Turkish-chaired Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

The Israeli and U.S. framework condemns PLO’s partnership with Hamas, labelled by both as a “terrorist” group and persist on sowing discord among Palestinian parties so as not to give “legitimacy” to the Islamic movement. What’s wrong with giving legitimacy to Hamas? Wasn’t the legitimacy given to the PLO, which was also labelled by both strategic allies as “terrorist,” the organization’s guarantee to involve in political struggle in pursuit of its national goals?

The U.S.-Israeli diplomacy is also steering against world consensus. Russia, a member of the Quartet is already saying the new Palestinian government should be dealt with, recognized, and legitimized. Although the Europeans and the United Nations, the other two members, are taking a cautious position, France, Germany and the Nordics of Denmark, Norway and Sweden also welcomed the Palestinian unity government deal. Aside from Israel the United States is lonely not forthcoming.

When Riyadh stepped in out of national interest to skilfully contain some of the regional mess created by the U.S. blundering, not only in Iraq and Lebanon but also and more successfully in Palestine, where a unity government is underway thanks to the Mecca agreement, Washington still seems ungratefully determined to miss this opportunity to improve its image and help one of its most important regional allies avert the regional repercussions of her foreign policy failures in the Middle East.

Palestinian Unity Pre-requisite for Peace

Mecca deal politically averted Palestinian infighting, which could have been only averted otherwise by directing the Palestinian fire against a common enemy, a tactic that the latest attack in Elat could have been the first salvo. Internal Palestinian calm is a prerequisite for calm across the still un-demarcated Israeli borders. Robert Malley, a senior aide to former U.S. President Bill Clinton on Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, concluded in an interview published by the Council on Foreign Relations on February 14: “Abbas could not have concluded a historic deal with Israel, entailing difficult compromises, without a prior intra-Palestinian agreement … The only way Israeli-Palestinian negotiations can proceed and conclude is in the context of a Fatah/Hamas national unity agreement … All the rest is wishful—and dangerous—thinking.” Only Palestinian national unity can sustain a viable peace process. Oslo accords could not have been launched on a divided Palestinian house.

At least the U.S. and Israel should give a chance for the national unity government to prove its political credentials and not repeat their mistaken boycott of the former government, which is now replaced by a stronger one supported by national unity, Arab, Islamic and almost a world consensus.

They could at least flash on a green light for the other Quartet three members to lift their siege and for the international banking system to channel in the Arab and Islamic-pledged financial aid to the united Palestinian Authority, in a show of good will for a mutual trial period of grace during which they could maintain their own sanctions until their arguments prove either right or wrong.

*Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Ramallah, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.