Opinion Betting on status quo

This September marks two anniversaries,one conspicuously pertinent to the direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians about to resume tomorrow,September 2. The other marks the 20th century’s demonstration of how the instinct to genocide can direct every move of a nation. It’s coincidental,but the Middle East’s only talk that produced immediate and enduring results was the Camp David conference between Israel and Egypt hosted by Jimmy Carter in September 1978. Seventy-five years ago,in September 1935,at the annual Nazi rally in Nuremberg,the Nuremberg Laws were introduced. The culmination of the Zionist aspiration for a safe home for world Jewry and the rediscovery of that home in Mandate Palestine were sealed,half-a-decade before the Holocaust,in September 1935. They didn’t know it yet,but Europe was lost to its Jews.

The two-day direct talks with a year-long lifeline,as have been oft-remarked upon,are not progress but a return to things as they were before Israel’s December 2008 attack on Gaza. Yet it’s not just dismal history that’s keeping every party and observer unenthusiastic about these talks that have finally materialised from a shuttling George Mitchell’s indirect “proximity talks”.

What’s on everybody’s mind,except perhaps the Palestinians’,is Iran and its awaited nuclear bomb. The US is leaving an Iraq that Iran is expected to make political inroads into; a crumbling,balkanising Iraq could destabilise the region.

Israel has alienated its old ally Turkey; Turkey and Saudi Arabia are rehabilitating Syria; Israel’s Arab ally Egypt is undergoing a risky transition; its other Arab ally Jordan is ineffectual and afraid. Arab governments,long indifferent if not hostile to the Palestinian cause,would rather watch Tehran. In fact,they have a direct stake in Israel’s survival and were uncomfortable with the Obama administration’s initial toughening with Netanyahu. Their logic is simple — use rhetoric to denounce the US and Israel to satisfy and distract a very anti-American,anti-Israeli public opinion but silently go along with the two as both the US and these regimes need each other. Israel,in their perspective,is a buffer against clear and present danger — Iran. Since Iran is also Israel’s nightmare,Obama’s only leverage over Netanyahu is Tehran. (And regardless of its intentions,Tehran is relishing the agitation and subtly asserting its rising status.)

The talks are happening only because Washington wants them. Netanyahu has talked about “surprising” everybody,which led to speculation about a secret Israeli peace plan. But,given the anathema that any concession is to his far-right colleagues,he agreed to the talks because that’s his safeguard against blame for not trying. Israel is ideologically,religiously and ethnically fracturing; both his cabinet and the public could sabotage anything Netanyahu offers. Abbas is even less representative of the Palestinian people. Any concession will be torpedoed by Hamas,Gaza could secede (if Hamas forgets Israel’s threat),and there could be a Hamas uprising on the West Bank.

Abbas is very modest about his own acceptability to Palestinians right now. With no room for manoeuvre,he can’t even relinquish the Palestinian “right of return”,the one demand he would readily have dropped. That’s why,the Palestinians won’t “miss” any opportunity this time — the PNA under Fatah knows it has none. They hope the settlements issue will leave Netanyahu with the blame for failure,whether or not Obama tables his “bridging proposal”.

So it’s actually Advantage Netanyahu — a turnaround from Washington’s browbeating. He could thus look to do the clever thing and extend the settlement freeze that expires on September 26,especially since he’s promised not to.

Abbas will be hapless. If the talks still fail,the PNA will be blamed. But,for this,Netanyahu has to follow Defence Minister and Labor party chief Ehud Barak’s line — exchanging his madhouse cabinet’s right-wing fringe for Tzipi Livni’s Kadima. After all,his Bar-Ilan University speech stands as government policy,when an Israeli PM automatically associated with the indivisibility of Greater Israel accepted the two-state solution. But is Bibi that big a risk-taker,willing to trigger a domestic political upheaval? Can he deal with Kadima that will rival his Likud with one seat more in the Knesset?

Perhaps not. Right now,Israel and the Palestinians don’t face an existential crisis powerful enough to make them take any risk to engender further uncertainty. They’ve known much worse. Along with the US and Arab states,they would be content with an enduring status quo. Geography and ideology divide Palestinians. Israel,on top of its widening divides,is politically paralysed thanks to its electoral system. Obama’s Cairo speech is forgotten; the talks will,as usual,generate the perception of something being done. That’s for mass consumption. Still,if anybody can surprise tomorrow,it’s Bibi alone.

sudeep.paul@expressindia.com