PERPLEXED PEACE PROCESS

July 16, 2007
Stymied ARLENE KUSHNER

It is I who am stymied. Flummoxed. Not to mention grieved, and furious.It is 1:00 AM here in Israel as I write, and yet I feel compulsed to send out this message, which I can only hope and pray will make the rounds extensively. Why stymied and flummoxed? Because there is the sense that the world is truly insane, and that it's hard to know how to handle this or respond to it. Or to know what the end will be.
Olmert met today with Abbas in the prime minister's Jerusalem residence. At that time Olmert made many gestures and concessions.

Start with the 250 prisoners who are about to be released. Most, but not all, of them are from Fatah -- some are from other factions, not including Hamas. They all have at least one more year to serve on their terms, they all will have signed that very significant and binding pledge to renounce terrorism, and none of them have blood on their hands. But let's look a bit closer at this last criterion. Many of them ATTEMPTED terror attacks that were unsuccessful. They may have thrown a bomb that failed to go off or shot a gun that misfired. They may even have been caught with a suicide belt. They wanted to kill Jews, they tried to kill Jews, they just didn't manage to do it. Yet. Their mindset, their goals are not different from those of terrorists who have succeeded. And our prime minister agrees to send them out there, to try again. Does anyone -- anyone! -- take seriously their pledge to renounce terrorism? Does Olmert do anything but make a laughing stock of himself with this? Does Olmert, with his talk about risks that we can afford to take, give a damn about the innocents to be targeted?

And then there are the roughly 180 Al Aksa Brigades people we're pardoning. I wrote about them yesterday -- about their connections to Iran, and the fact that they already are in or are being incorporated into the PA security services. And I ask if Olmert has lost his mind entirely. The logic being advanced is that since we won't any longer have to monitor these guys -- who will also be signing those valuable commitments to renounce terrorism -- we will have more time to go after Hamas. And, while I have scrupulously refrained from utilizing obscenities in my postings, it seems that nothing short of an obscenity can truly express how I feel about this. I ask myself, again, does anyone -- anyone! -- really take seriously their stated intentions to start being nice guys? We're talking about people who DO have Jewish blood on their hands, people who take money and instructions from Iran.

Because I understand the mentality and the process...Because I know that we've been had a dozen times this way before...I knew intuitively and with certainty that the conversion of the Al Aksa terrorists was not real. The Palestinians are masters at appearing to be what the world wants them to be, while not changing their ultimate goal (Israel's destruction) one iota.But tonight I also read Caroline Glick's latest column, entitled The joke's on us. Glick wrote:

It's all a joke. It's just a joke.
That's how the Palestinian terror commanders in Judea and Samaria explained the show they made of handing in their weapons to Fatah commander Mahmoud Abbas's official militias over the weekend. This is all a big joke, they told reporters while posing for pictures. Abbas asked us to sign a declaration saying we won't attack Israel and so we are.And why not? The Palestinian Authority Chairman agreed to pay them thousands of dollars in exchange for the photo opportunities. There is also the non-financial incentive. In exchange for their propaganda photos and their signatures on declarations not to engage in terror anymore, Israel has pledged to take these murderers off of its wanted list. So just for participating in a satire, these men get to walk without fear for the first time in years. Now, if this doesn't make you sick to your stomach, it's made of cast iron.

And I'm not finished yet. I knew this was also on the table, but Glick says it's pretty much finalized:

In anticipation of the formalization of the agreement at the Olmert-Abbas meeting Monday, the IDF ended its nightly raids in Judea and Samaria for the first time in five years. Those raids, in which thousands of terrorists were apprehended in their sleep and their networks disrupted, were the main reason that Israelis in Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, Netanya and Hadera have been able to sleep in a modicum of safety for the past three years. It is these raids, rather than Abbas's vaunted efforts to strengthen the so-called peace camp in Palestinian society or the security fence that have prevented suicide bombers from entering Israeli cities with any frequency.

Saturday the IDF's General Staff ordered Central Command to receive prior General Staff approval for any such raids in the future. By taking the ability to fight terrorists away from the commanders in the field, the General Staff essentially made fighting terrorists off limits for IDF forces in Judea and Samaria. That is, without officially announcing it, Israel has agreed to Abbas's demand that it extend its 'unilateral cease-fire' in Gaza (which existed until Hamas rose to power last month), to Judea and Samaria.It's Jewish lives we're talking about, once again. And so I am enraged.

But there's something else going on here: Glick makes the point that Hamas was able to take Gaza because of that IDF self-imposed unilateral ceasefire; Hamas had more latitude to act unimpeded and to build its strength. Just days ago I quoted a top IDF official who said that Hamas's intention in Judea and Samaria is the same as in Gaza, but that they would not succeed. You have to come and see us operate each night, to understand this, said the IDF official. But now, if the IDF won't be operating each night? Abbas has been seeking the right to have his people maintain security. But Abbas and his security forces will not make the grade. Could it be (or am I merely looking for a silver lining here?) that the pullback on IDF operations will hasten Abbas's downfall?

Caroline Glick's piece can be found at: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1184585439056&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Still, I am not done. With all of this President Bush gave a major speech tonight. In it he said that the US would be giving unprecedented amounts of money and political support to the PA. This, you see, is supposed to strengthen Abbas and motivate his people to become moderate. A mistake of colossal dimensions, and I will have much to say about this in coming days. Here I simply register my shock at this statement. What has Abbas done to justify such support? He lost Gaza because he didn't give the order to his men to shoot, and because they ran away. It was not for lack of arms or training that he lost. Yet Bush imagines that funds to strengthen Abbas's security forces will make the difference.

Bush also called for a conference on peace in the fall, that would include Israel, the Palestinians, and neighboring states, and be moderated by Condoleezza Rice. Shriek! This would be lean on Israel time. They're after Judea and Samaria for a Palestinian state.My only consolation: The times are so volatile, who knows what will happen by the fall.see my website www.ArlenefromIsrael.info

U.S. launches Middle East peace moves By Caren Bohan
Mon Jul 16, 3:39 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush called on Monday for a Middle East peace conference bringing together Israel, the Palestinians and some Arab neighbors and led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Aiming to break years of stalemate and under pressure from Arab allies to pursue the issue, Bush set the conference for later this year and announced $190 million in aid to the Palestinians' Fatah-led government.Bush said the conference meant to pave the way to a Palestinian state alongside Israel would take place in the autumn but he specified no date, location or which neighbors would attend.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told President Mahmoud Abbas that Israel would start freeing 250 Palestinian prisoners by week's end. Prisoner releases have bolstered confidence in the past.Bush said Palestinians faced a moment of choice between the Islamist militant group Hamas and Abbas' more moderate vision, and reaffirmed his vision of a Palestinian state at peace with Israel.This is a moment of clarity for all Palestinians. Now comes a moment of choice, Bush said in a White House speech. The alternatives before the Palestinian people are stark.Bush said the participants in the talks would help review progress on building Palestinian institutions.

PALESTINIAN STATE

They will provide diplomatic support for the parties in their bilateral discussions and negotiations so that we can move forward on a successful path to a Palestinian state, he said.With only 18 months left in office, Bush has said he will send Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the region soon and they will press anew for help on Iraq which U.S. troops invaded in 2003.Olmert and Abbas met for two hours at Olmert's Jerusalem residence. They discussed how they can see arriving at a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Olmert's spokeswoman Miri Eisin said, although sources in Olmert's office said they did not discuss such divisive issues as the fate of Jerusalem, borders and Palestinian refugees.The Palestinians want to go a lot faster. The average Israeli would like to go a lot slower. We have to find something that is acceptable to both sides, Eisin said.Palestinian Information Minister Riyad al-Malki said the government, appointed by Abbas last month to replace a Hamas-led cabinet, did not put much weight on these meetings.We are not sure about Israel's seriousness, he said.

Israel has described its decisions to free 250 low-security Palestinian prisoners, mostly from Abbas' secular Fatah faction, and to suspend kill-or-capture missions against 180 Fatah gunmen, as goodwill gestures in support of the new government.
Israel has already reopened the financial taps to Western-backed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's government while tightening the economic and security cordon around the Gaza Strip, which Hamas seized by force on June 14.

$190 MILLION

Bush's $190 million is for the fiscal year that ends on September 30. Western countries rallied behind Abbas with promises of renewed aid after the Gaza seizure. Their hope is to isolate Hamas, branded a terrorist group by Washington, and spur peace moves between Palestinian moderates and Israel. Some political analysts said the strategy could backfire as Abbas will be viewed more as a collaborator with Israel and the United States. While Abbas and Olmert welcomed Bush's call for revised peace talks and an international conference, Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri accused Bush of outlining a plot to launch a crusade against the Palestinian people.We call upon all Arab countries to stand firm against these threats, he said in Gaza. U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt have long wanted Bush to get more involved in Middle East peacemaking.

Eisin said Olmert would present the final list of prisoners to be released to an Israeli ministerial committee on Tuesday. She said Israel would begin releasing prisoners as early as Friday after at least a 48-hour legal review. Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said Olmert refused Abbas' request to change the criteria by which Israel decides whom to release. Erekat said the Palestinian president urged Olmert to release jailed Palestinian political leaders including Marwan Barghouthi, an uprising leader who is seen as a possible successor to Abbas.(Additional reporting by Dan Williams, Ari Rabinovitch and Adam Entous in Jerusalem; Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah; Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza)

Tuesday July 17, 11:54 PM
Israel rebuffs call for talks on issues

Israel ruled out negotiations at this stage over the boundaries of a future Palestinian state, rebuffing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and casting doubt on a renewed US push to address the issue.Israel's response came one day after US President George W Bush said serious negotiations toward the creation of a Palestinian state can begin soon. Bush said these negotiations should lead to a deal on Palestinian borders, suggesting other final-status issues like Jerusalem and refugees wait for later.Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said the Palestinian president, who dismissed a Hamas-led cabinet after the Islamist group's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last month, was prepared to start negotiations immediately on all final-status issues. Abbas delivered that message in person to Olmert when they met in Jerusalem on Monday, officials said.

Israel has openly stated that we're willing to talk about issues of political horizon and about how to achieve the vision of two states for two peoples, said Miri Eisin, spokeswoman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.But we have been very clear that we are not willing to discuss at this stage the three core issues of borders, refugees and Jerusalem, Eisin added.Western diplomats and analysts said Bush appeared to be outlining a new strategy of staged negotiations under which borders would be delineated before the parties try to settle the other core questions.Bush said the negotiations he envisaged starting soon must lead to a territorial settlement, with mutually agreed borders reflecting previous lines and current realities, and mutually agreed adjustments.

Doing so, Bush said, would help show Palestinians a clear way forward to establishing a state, and could ultimately lead to agreement on the fate of refugees and Jerusalem and a permanent end to the conflict.On the face of it, President Bush is now saying, in effect, that parties should focus on what is solvable, namely territory, while deferring the issues considered most difficult: Jerusalem and refugees, said David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He called this a departure from the past when all issues were bundled together.Several Israeli newspaper columnists cast Bush's new peace push as too little, too late. He leaves office in a year and a half.

Peace in the Middle East is like the horizon: The closer you get to it, the farther away it becomes, wrote Nahum Barnea, a pundit with Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth daily.
A senior Israeli official said Israel discounted the seriousness of Bush's push for negotiations on borders because he did not set any timetable.The senior Israeli official said Israel was counting on Bush insisting that Palestinians rein in militants before advancing to talks about borders. But another official acknowledged: The sequencing/phasing is left vague and open to interpretation.Bush urged Israel to uproot small Jewish outposts built without government approval in the West Bank but stopped short of demanding established settlements be removed. Instead, he called for an end to settlement expansion.Israel said it welcomed US plans to hold a peace conference that would include neighbouring Arab states. Eisin said Saudi Arabia and other countries that do not have formal ties to Israel should take part.

MIDDLE EAST: BAN KI-MOON WELCOMES US PRESIDENT’S PROPOSAL FOR INTERNATIONAL MEETING New York, Jul 17 2007 3:00PM

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed United States President George W. Bush’s proposal for an international meeting on the Middle East this autumn.The Secretary-General welcomes the statement made by US President George W. Bush on the Middle East peace process, a spokesperson for Mr. Ban, who is scheduled to meet the President today in Washington, DC, said in a statement.

He is encouraged by the President’s renewed commitment to a two-State solution, entailing the creation of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state living side-by-side with a secure Israel. The Secretary-General also welcomed the President’s proposal for an international meeting this autumn. “He looks forward to discussing these ideas with his partners in the Quartet in Lisbon on 19 July, spokesperson Marie Okabe told reporters in New York. The diplomatic Quartet is comprised of the UN, US, European Union and the Russian Federation. 2007-07-17 00:00:00.000

July 16, 2007
Commentary: Merkel embraces a new European order

Germany's Angela Merkel heads the new European triangle of power with Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown(Michel Euler/AP)
Sarkozy and Merkel: with Gordon Brown, forming competing but friendly new coalitions at the head of Europe - Roger Boyes in Berlin

The first hint of change in the new triangle of power at the heart of Europe came when Nicolas Sarkozy hugged Angela Merkel. Not the gallant and slightly patronising hand-kiss of President Jacques Chirac, but an egalitarian Gallic embrace. As for Gordon Brown, the best that can be expected for now is a firm handshake.

Studying body language may seem out of date in a European Union that is run, after all, by 27 separate bodies, each with their own shrugs and twitches. But the modern Franco-German-British relationship depends on at least mimicking personal friendship between the respective leaders; too many of the continent's vital issues have to be settled with a quick phone call or over a hurried dinner.

And the management of Europe is changing: to secure consensus in the swollen Union, different heavyweight leaders may have to be enlisted to lean on dissidents. President Sarkozy was swift to understand this and made himself useful to Chancellor Merkel, both at the G8 summit in Heligendamm - where he helped to build the consensus around climate change - and at the last EU summit of the German presidency, when he applied subtle pressure on the Poles.

This stole some of the Chancellor’s thunder but signalled the coming shift in the way that Europe is going to be run: each EU presidency is going to have to be helped out by an informal directorate of the diplomatically gifted. Mrs Merkel signed up not only Sarko but also Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg to save the last EU summit.

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Is this the future of the Franco-German partnership - not an ideological axis committed to deeper European integration but a kind of crisis-busting A-team? And, if so, will Britain be part of this new pragmatic order? So far, the leaders know almost nothing of each other.

According to the German press, Peer Steinbrueck, the German Finance Minister, has submitted a short character analysis of Gordon Brown to Chancellor Merkel. Very sharp-witted, concluded the briefing, and no lover of empty phrases. Not much to go on there. It will take more than a dinner at the Chancellery to fill in the gaps, though there is common ground on at least one thing: a committment to an open European economy.

More, of course, is known about Sarko, who is starting to irritate the Germans. He seems to specialise in attention-grabbing faits accomplis: when he positioned Dominique Strauss-Kahn as head of the International Monetary Fund recently he talked to Mr Juncker and to President Bush - but not to Chancellor Merkel.That is not how the Franco-German friendship used to work.

The French leader’s protectionist genes, his passion for French industrial champions and his drive to give eurozone governments some oversight of the European Central Bank’s monetary policy:all that suggests a truly happy marriage should be made in Heaven, not on the Rhine.

Given the differences between the world view of the three new leaders, the betting is that they will form shifting, competing but superficially friendly coalitions rather than lead the European Union into a brave new dawn.