When Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House last week, Barack Obama faced an Israeli leader who has no intention of doing most of what the White House asks of him. The US leader faces an altogether different challenge this week when he welcomes the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. It's not that Mr Abbas won't do as he's told (during the Bush years he did the bidding of the White House against his own instincts and at the cost of his domestic credibility). The problem with Mr Abbas is what exactly to ask of him.
@body arnhem:Long proclaimed as the Palestinian leader to complete the two-state peace that President Obama seeks, politically Mr Abbas has been hopelessly enfeebled, primarily as a result of his fruitless obeisance to Washington. So weak has his political authority become that, as the Israelis correctly point out, he cannot negotiate effectively on behalf of his people. The appointment last week of a new PA government with Salam Fayyad as prime minister is a perfect illustration of the problem confronting Mr Abbas and, by extension, Mr Obama: the new PM is a competent technocrat anointed by the US and the Europeans as the man to build the infrastructure of good governance for a future Palestinian state – which is why the West has leaned on Mr Abbas to make him prime minister. Reports in Israel even suggested that the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, believes Mr Fayyad would make an ideal replacement for Mr Abbas as president when the ageing Fatah leader retires.
In your dreams, Madam Secretary: Mr Fayyad has no political base among Palestinians, he's not a member of Fatah and he wouldn't have a hope of being elected president. Building the administrative infrastructure of Palestinian statehood has become a pet project of western powers whose intentions are distrusted by most Palestinians. For the residents of the West Bank the overwhelming priority is ending the ever-expanding occupation, and for Gazans it's breaking Israel's (and, it must be said, Egypt's) siege. The failure of Mr Abbas to achieve either goal is precisely what explains his, and Fatah's, eclipse by Hamas.
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Mr Obama knows as well as anyone that no progress is possible without the involvement of Hamas. Putting in place yet another government of “moderates” in the hope of bypassing them is simply repeating the failed tactics of the Bush years, except that the consequences are now worse.It's not just Hamas that rejects Mr Fayyad's new government; Fatah has openly challenged the appointment. The Fatah leadership resents Mr Fayyad as a US-backed outsider and is furious at the PA president for following Washington's orders. What the US has finally managed to achieve is the creation of a Palestinian government that represents no one. The Palestinian leader who will be welcomed at the White House on Thursday has been reduced, politically, to a ward of the United States.
This is the culmination of eight years of Washington micromanagement of Palestinian politics, beginning with its marginalisation of Yasser Arafat. The more the White House tried to reshape the Palestinian leadership to its own, Israel-biased agenda, the weaker that leadership became. And there is no sign that the Obama administration has abandoned the failed policies of its predecessor. So what will Mr Obama tell a Palestinian leader accustomed to being given his orders in Washington? There is speculation that he will tell Mr Abbas to begin immediate, unconditional talks with Mr Netanyahu. But you could file that one under “Looking Busy”: everyone already knows what a two-state solution looks like, and Mr Netanyahu isn't much interested in it; nor in a settlement freeze; nor in sharing Jerusalem; and don't even mention the rights of the refugees. The Israelis came to expect, under Mr Bush, that they negotiate only with Washington, even
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document.write(''); When Mr 'Yes we can' meets Mr 'Sorry, I can't'
Tony Karon
Last Updated: May 24. 2009 12:19AM UAE / May 23. 2009 8:19PM GMT
When Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House last week, Barack Obama faced an Israeli leader who has no intention of doing most of what the White House asks of him. The US leader faces an altogether different challenge this week when he welcomes the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. It's not that Mr Abbas won't do as he's told (during the Bush years he did the bidding of the White House against his own instincts and at the cost of his domestic credibility). The problem with Mr Abbas is what exactly to ask of him.
@body arnhem:Long proclaimed as the Palestinian leader to complete the two-state peace that President Obama seeks, politically Mr Abbas has been hopelessly enfeebled, primarily as a result of his fruitless obeisance to Washington. So weak has his political authority become that, as the Israelis correctly point out, he cannot negotiate effectively on behalf of his people. The appointment last week of a new PA government with Salam Fayyad as prime minister is a perfect illustration of the problem confronting Mr Abbas and, by extension, Mr Obama: the new PM is a competent technocrat anointed by the US and the Europeans as the man to build the infrastructure of good governance for a future Palestinian state – which is why the West has leaned on Mr Abbas to make him prime minister. Reports in Israel even suggested that the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, believes Mr Fayyad would make an ideal replacement for Mr Abbas as president when the ageing Fatah leader retires.
In your dreams, Madam Secretary: Mr Fayyad has no political base among Palestinians, he's not a member of Fatah and he wouldn't have a hope of being elected president. Building the administrative infrastructure of Palestinian statehood has become a pet project of western powers whose intentions are distrusted by most Palestinians. For the residents of the West Bank the overwhelming priority is ending the ever-expanding occupation, and for Gazans it's breaking Israel's (and, it must be said, Egypt's) siege. The failure of Mr Abbas to achieve either goal is precisely what explains his, and Fatah's, eclipse by Hamas.
document.write('');
Mr Obama knows as well as anyone that no progress is possible without the involvement of Hamas. Putting in place yet another government of “moderates” in the hope of bypassing them is simply repeating the failed tactics of the Bush years, except that the consequences are now worse.It's not just Hamas that rejects Mr Fayyad's new government; Fatah has openly challenged the appointment. The Fatah leadership resents Mr Fayyad as a US-backed outsider and is furious at the PA president for following Washington's orders. What the US has finally managed to achieve is the creation of a Palestinian government that represents no one. The Palestinian leader who will be welcomed at the White House on Thursday has been reduced, politically, to a ward of the United States.
This is the culmination of eight years of Washington micromanagement of Palestinian politics, beginning with its marginalisation of Yasser Arafat. The more the White House tried to reshape the Palestinian leadership to its own, Israel-biased agenda, the weaker that leadership became. And there is no sign that the Obama administration has abandoned the failed policies of its predecessor. So what will Mr Obama tell a Palestinian leader accustomed to being given his orders in Washington? There is speculation that he will tell Mr Abbas to begin immediate, unconditional talks with Mr Netanyahu. But you could file that one under “Looking Busy”: everyone already knows what a two-state solution looks like, and Mr Netanyahu isn't much interested in it; nor in a settlement freeze; nor in sharing Jerusalem; and don't even mention the rights of the refugees. The Israelis came to expect, under Mr Bush, that they negotiate only with Washington, even if they're willing to hold symbolic chats with Mr Abbas to appease their American allies. The Israelis know, and Mr Obama knows, that Mr Abbas is too weak to deliver on any promises he makes. And even if he could strengthen his mandate by achieving a unity agreement with Hamas, that would become Mr Netanyahu's new reason for refusing to talk.
It is expected that Mr Obama will also tell Mr Abbas to hold the first Fatah internal congress in 20 years, and to hold elections next year. Good advice, to be sure, although the outcome may not be what Washington expects. Making Fatah more democratic and answerable to its base will make it more resistant to Washington's demands; it may even set in motion a chain of events that sees Mr Abbas eased out and replaced by Marwan Barghouti, the imprisoned Fatah leader far more inclined to seek a united front with Hamas based on resuscitating the national struggle to end the occupation than to accept Washington's instructions.
And of course, the polls show that if an election were held now Mr Abbas would probably lose to a Hamas candidate. The most egregious error of the Bush administration was refusing, in 2006, to accept the outcome of the Palestinian election that it had demanded. Mr Obama is unlikely to make the same mistake. But avoiding an election would leave Mr Abbas more isolated, and weakened, than ever. That might suit Mr Netanyahu, of course, but it would hardly help Mr Obama to achieve the two-state solution to which he is committed.
Still, restoring the principle of representative Palestinian government and avoiding a repeat of the Bush administration's efforts to sabotage a Fatah-Hamas unity government is the key to avoiding failure. Sure, the Palestinian democratic process may not put in power those with whom the US would prefer to work. But neither did the Israeli democratic process, and no one suggests that Mr Obama should boycott the Netanyahu government.
Tony Karon is a New York-based analyst. He blogs at rootlesscosmopolitan.com
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