Poor Miri Eisen. At a press conference the day following the Annapolis peace summit, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert’s spokeswoman had to defend what should be self-evident: peace negotiations, prefatory as they may be, are better than no negotiations.
Responding to a statement made by a skeptical reporter, Mrs. Eisen said: “exactly a year ago, everyone was complaining because nothing was happening. Now everyone is complaining because they don’t think Annapolis will actually change anything.”
Similarly, senior Israeli political analyst Nahum Barnea said he was “disappointed” that the right wing’s protest against Annapolis in Jerusalem didn’t draw larger crowds. And that is not because he is opposed to the two-state solution. As he points out, if someone like Yitzhak Rabin were to travel to Annapolis, openly declaring that “painful compromises” are awaiting us, we would have likely seen large-scale violent protests, like we did in the days before and after the Oslo Accords.
What does all that tell us? That Israelis do not think Olmert has the necessary muscle to deliver on his promises. Nor do the Palestinians think that Abu-Mazen can stand up to Hamas. Yes: two weak leaders are presumed to solve the infamous Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The expectations from these two leaders are so low at this point, that counter-intuitively, progress can and should be made. As Bush, Abu-Mazen and Olmert all emphasized repeatedly in their speeches, “now is the right time.” Unfortunately, even if negotiations will proceed as scheduled and the two parties will reach an agreement by the end of 2008, am ambitious task in and of itself, as Mrs. Eisen openly admitted, “there is a problem of implementation.”
This “problem of implementation” has to do with the discrepancy between the goodwill shown by both leaders and the facts on the ground. These plainly reveal that Hamas’ Qasam rockets, that until not too long ago only had a range of 2 kilometers, can and do now reach a distance of 20 kilometers, continuing to threaten the lives of Sderot residents and beyond. More and more weapons are finding their way to Gaza, as Hamas attempts to become a formidable military power that would render the PLO permanently irrelevant. As it turns out, it is no secret that Israel’s defense ministry is preparing for the possibility of a military operation in Gaza, whose nature and extent are not clear yet.
This problem can be mitigated, if not solved. While no one came to Iran and Hamas’ anti-Annapolis conferences, everyone came to George Bush’s party, and Annapolis has succeeded in the important task of further isolating Hamas and Iran diplomatically. It is now the duty of the Tzipi Livni and Abu-Ala to meet as scheduled next month and do their best to add to the nascent diplomatic momentum created in Annapolis. Both sides know that losing time means losing moderate Palestinians in favor of Hamas. At the same time, Olmert’s coalition should do its best to prepare the Israeli public for the so-called “painful concessions”, and let right-wing parties like Sha”s and Yisrael-Betenu to threaten resignation if they wish.
And so before the situation escalates significantly, the Israeli and Palestinian steering committees should strictly follow the timetable for negotiations. Admittedly, Middle Easterners are not famous for being punctual. Even the joint-statement at Annapolis was finally agreed upon merely ten minutes before Bush’s opening speech- after Condi reprimanded Abu-Mazen, telling him to “stop playing games.” Surely, it would be nice if Olmert and Abu-Mazen could make progress on their own. Until then, they should embrace Condi’s forceful hug- for the alternative is much worse.
Talia Gorodess is a Research Assistant at the Hudson Institute.
