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CMEP Bulletin
October 28, 2011
The Status of Negotiations: Looking Forward and Looking Back
Where Negotiations Stand
Who Are the Negotiators?
Settlement Construction Continues
Palestinians and UNESCO
What Could Have Been…
Christian Leaders Support Palestinian UN Membership
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Where Negotiations Stand
This week Middle East Quartet Envoy Tony Blair met with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators separately to discuss the possibility of resuming talks. While this is a far cry from the plan laid out by the Quartet last month which called for negotiators from both parties to meet, one positive agreement came out of the meetings. Both Israeli and Palestinian leadership agreed to put forward proposals on the issues of borders and security within the next three months. This agreement represents a shift in policy for the current Israeli government which has yet to put forward its own proposal on borders and security.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Quartet envoy Tony Blair said that the call for proposals is an attempt on the part of the Quartet to determine how far apart the parties are and whether there is a basis for negotiations. Blair noted that while the Palestinians put forward a detailed proposal on borders during the Annapolis Conference in 2008, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration has yet to do so.
Following Blair’s meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials on Wednesday, the Quartet released a statement saying, “The parties agreed with the Quartet to come forward with comprehensive proposals on territory and security within three months in the context of our shared commitment to the objective of direct negotiations leading toward an agreement by the end of 2012.”
Who Are the Negotiators?
This week, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resign, saying, “If there is one obstacle that should be removed immediately, it is [Abbas]…if he were to return the keys and resign, it would not be a threat, but a blessing.”
Israeli President Shimon Peres quickly disagreed with the statement. "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Salam Fayyad are serious leaders who want peace and are working to prevent violence and extremism in our area," Peres said in a meeting with a delegation of American business leaders, entertainers, and members of the Knesset put together by the OneVoice Movement.
Despite the expressions of confidence from President Peres, there are serious discussions taking place about the role of Abbas and the Palestinian Authority in the absence of the peace process. Abbas is planning to meet with his political rivals in Hamas next month, and the future of the administrative body will be a part of the discussion. The Palestinian Authority was set up 17 years ago as a part of the Oslo Accords which were supposed to lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state. “The Authority is not an authority. People and Palestinian institutions are asking me about the benefits of the continuation of the Authority,” Abbas said in comment to the Fatah party this week.
The discussion of the future of the PA comes at a time when the U.S. Congress has placed a hold on substantial funds for the PA and humanitarian projects in the Palestinian Territories and is threatening to cut off funding in the coming fiscal year as well. In testimony this week before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged members of Congress to maintain funding for Palestinians. “We certainly don't want the collapse of the Palestinian Authority and a vacuum that could then be filled by radicals like Hamas,” she said.
Your members of Congress need to hear from you too that you support continued Palestinian aid. Write your members of Congress today and urge them to maintain U.S. aid to Palestinians. Let them know that U.S. funding is helping lay the foundation for a future peace.
Settlement Construction Continues
On Wednesday, the United States urged Israel to stop their plans to build in Gilo, a settlement on the outskirts of East Jerusalem. The recently appointed U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro met with Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai to urge him to halt the Gilo construction plan, saying that it might fuel more international support in the United Nations General Assembly for the Palestinians bid for international recognition of their state.
According to Israel’s English daily, Ha’aretz, “Yishai reportedly rejected Shapiro's request, saying that construction in Jerusalem has never stopped - even during left-wing governments - and that it would not stop now.”
This comes after German Chancellor Angela Merkel angrily called Prime Minister Netanyahu and took him to task over the settlement expansion. Netanyahu has dismissed criticism of the plan saying, according to Ha’aretz, “Gilo is not a settlement, but rather a Jerusalem neighborhood five minutes from the center of the capital. He noted that all Israeli governments built in such neighborhoods.”
In addition to Gilo, plans continue to move forward for a new settlement in East Jerusalem called Givat Hamatos. Additional housing units likely to be approved this year will push the new development in this neighborhood to as many as 4,000 new units, all of which are located beyond the Green Line.
Palestinians and UNESCO
The Palestinians are pushing forward with their bid to become part of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. While the initiative had broad support within UNESCO at the beginning of October, winning the majority of 58 members in an initial vote, the prospect of the Palestinians becoming a member is putting pressure on the organization.
A twenty-year-old U.S. law specifies that, “No funds authorized to be appropriated by this Act or any other Act shall be available for the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof which accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states.” This means that if UNESCO accepts the PLO as a member, the 22 percent of the funding that the United States provides to the agency would be in jeopardy. State Department lawyers are looking into ways around the law that would enable the United States to continue its support of UNESCO, but so far no way around the law has been discovered. A vote on the Palestinian membership application is expected on Monday.
The repercussions of this law restricting U.S. dues to the UN could have a cascading impact on U.S. engagement in the international community. Diplomatic journalist Colum Lynch writes that the likely Palestinian applications to a variety of UN agencies after UNESCO would trigger a congressional cut off of approximately $84 million in annual U.S. contributions to the global body.
The Timothy Wirth, a former U.S. senator wrote in the Los Angeles Times that U.S. withdrawal from UNESCO and other UN agencies would be detrimental to U.S. influence in the world. He writes, “The U.N. and its related organizations bring the world together to consider issues that affect all of the planet’s human beings. Every day, decisions are made that have a direct effect on American prosperity, health, safety and security. The discussions won’t stop and the international policies won’t disappear just because the U.S. no longer participates. Our absence would only lessen our ability to influence how the world functions and would undermine the legitimacy of vitally important global institutions.”
What Could Have Been…
This week excerpts of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s new memoir, “No Higher Honor,” were revealed. Parts of the book discuss how close then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and current Palestinians President Mahmoud Abbas were to coming up with a peace deal in 2008. She describes a dinner with Olmert where he detailed his vision for peace, which included: a transfer 94.2% of the West Bank to a Palestinian state, a corridor linking the West Bank and Gaza, a formula for dividing Jerusalem, an international committee in charge of administering the Old City, a maximum of 5,000 refugees would return to the new state of Palestine and several billion dollars would be set aside to compensate other refugees.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, both leaders were too politically weak to make a deal happen and it fell through. Rice ultimately blames Abbas for the failure, since he didn’t accept the deal on the spot. She writes, “Abbas refused [Olmert’s offer]. … We had one last chance. The two leaders came separately in November and December to say good-bye. The President took Abbas into the Oval Office alone and appealed to him to reconsider. The Palestinian stood firm, and the idea died.”
However, in an interview an interview with the pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat on December 20, 2009, Abbas disputes this. He says he was open to the ideas and negotiations continued up until Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, which began in December 2008. “We did not stop the negotiations, we did not reject the negotiations, and they did not reject them. We went back to Washington, but the aggression on Gaza exploded.”
No matter whose fault it is, this all goes to show that Israelis and Palestinians were closer to reaching a peace deal than ever before.
Christian Leaders Support Palestinian UN Membership
U.S. faith leaders in four denominations have issued a statement in support of the Palestinian Authority’s bid for membership in the UN. Geoffery Black from the United Church of Christ, Gradye Parsons of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Sharon Watkins from the Disciples of Christ and Jim Winkler from the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society all signed onto the letter.
It concludes by saying, “We are committed to the right of both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security with their neighbors, within internationally recognized borders as described by UN resolutions that envision two viable states. We believe UN membership for Palestine would be a step in that direction…We urge the Obama Administration not to use the veto for a 42nd time when the Security Council considers the recommendation for membership for Palestine, but to abstain—for the sake of a better future for the entire holy land.”
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