As these words were being written, Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the United States were engaged in detailed nighttime brinksmans’ negotiations in an effort to resolve the crisis surrounding the decision by the Netanyahu government to let its 10-month freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank expire without renewal.
The negotiations were expected to continue a number of days.
It must be borne in mind that the crisis is wholly of the PA’s making. Only with the installation of the Netanyahu government two years ago did the PA demand an a priori end to construction in the West Bank as a condition of merely entering into peace discussions. Never once in the 15 years preceding the installation of the Netanyahu government,did the PA make this demand of an Israeli government. Never once during those years did construction for Israelis in the West Bank prevent bilateral or multilateral peace talks between and among the interested parties.
Nevertheless, irrespective of the cause of the crisis, one cannot deny that a crisis exists. That it is real. That the entire western world and its media are fixated on it. And that it threatens to overturn, perhaps for a long time if not permanently, the very negotiations table itself.
That must not happen.
The stakes are far too high, the possibilities too palpable and the moment too significant to let it slip away, a victim of ultimatums by the PA and dysfunctional party politics in Israel.
It seems that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and PA President Mahmoud Abbas both understand this.
At a meeting in Paris on the weekend, Abbas reportedly said both sides know that compromise on the construction issue is necessary.
Netanyahu essentially pleaded with Abbas not to overturn the table.
“I call on President Abbas to continue the good and honest talks that we have only just started, in order to reach a historic peace agreement between our two peoples,” Netanyahu said. “Israel is ready to pursue continuous contacts in the coming days to find a way to continue the peace talks,” he added.
On Monday, Abbas said he would take his time and consult the Arab League before deciding whether to walk out of negotiations.
In truth, the PA’s threat to quit the talks is not – nor has it ever really been – about construction in the West Bank. It is rather, about the shape of the permanent borders that will demarcate the two future states of Israel and Palestine. To some extent, it may also be about future face of Israeli electoral politics. To be sure, there are a great many interconnected, complicated issues to be either joined or separated by the parties and resolved. With goodwill on both sides and a keen sense of the urgency of the hour, it can be done.
The leaders of Israel and the PA should set aside distractions and, in their place, embrace the negotiations that a majority of both peoples desire.