It’s a good thing I’m not a diplomat working on the non-existent Israeli-Palestinian “peace process,” a 25-year pipe dream that left the Emergency Room years ago for the coma unit. I mean, what would I tell my boss? Sorry, I can’t work on a project that is 100 percent guaranteed to go nowhere and will only lead to more cynicism?
Luckily, I’m no diplomat, nor do I work at a think tank or organization that gets paid to show optimism or a “way forward.” I can tell you exactly what I think.
And here’s what I think: I’ve been following the Israeli-Palestinian peace process since its Oslo days in the early 1990s, and I think it’s the biggest fake news in the world.
When I see President Trump get all excited about making “the ultimate deal,” I roll my eyes. All I see is another Western sucker about to be eaten alive in the labyrinth of a Mideast bazaar, where no one knows from think tanks and a truth is only uttered by accident.
The leader of this peace bazaar is the formidable Mahmoud Abbas. He is the wily, duplicitous operator who says with a straight face that he wants peace and a two-state solution. The fact that he has never actually put a real offer on the table is an inconvenient detail. What matters is that he has evaded all responsibility and convinced the world that Israel is the real obstacle to peace.
The saddest sucker in the bazaar is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who thinks he’s so smart because he hasn’t really given up anything and is still clinging to his throne. What he doesn’t realize is that as long as the world thinks the failure of peace is Israel’s fault, Bibi will remain the sad sucker.
And now, here comes the biggest, baddest sucker of them all, the leader of the free world, the artist of the deal with an ego the size of Godzilla. “I got this,” President Trump is telling the world.
Hypnotized by his greatness, Trump barely noticed when Abbas showed up for an official visit at the White House and started seducing him. The shrewd Abbas said all the right things. He even lied and said that his government is teaching peace to Palestinian children. The Great One ate it up, and as he did, he forgot bazaar rule #1: When you show your zeal to make a deal, you’re toast.
Mahmoud Abbas now owns Donald Trump, and by extension, Bibi. He will pull all the strings to make sure Israel continues to be blamed for the inevitable failure. He will tantalize Trump with empty promises and pressure Israel to deliver on concrete ones. He will involve other players so he can hide behind them. He’ll make Bibi and Israel sweat. That’s his only game.
Chronic peace addicts are incapable of absorbing the possibility that the biggest nightmare for Mahmoud Abbas would be the creation of a Palestinian state, which would mean that the hated Zionist state would survive as a Jewish democracy. Why would a Palestinian leader ever want to rescue the Zionist project?
The bazaar prince also knows that the “Israeli occupation” is his ATM machine. As long as it continues, he gets the best of both worlds: He gets to bash the Zionists in global forums while the foreign aid keeps flowing into his bank accounts. And let’s not forget this other detail: With the IDF protecting the West Bank, Abbas never has to worry that Hamas and ISIS will swoop in and turn Ramallah into Aleppo.
Forget all the rational stuff you hear, such as, “The most Israel can offer is less than the Palestinians can accept.” That’s too reasonable. It makes the conflict look like any other conflict where the parties are too far apart. It’s not about that. It’s about the unspoken reality that corrupt Palestinian leaders have enormous incentives NOT to separate from Israel, and no amount of Israeli concessions or settlement freezes will ever change that.
What to do, you ask? Well, if peace is what you’re after, forget it. That won’t be in the cards for a while.
But if Bibi wanted to stop being blamed for the failure to end the conflict, there’s one Hail Mary move he can still make: When he meets with Trump on May 24, he could hand him a signed Israeli offer to end the conflict, and say: “Mr. President, please hand this peace offer to Mr. Abbas when you see him tomorrow. If he has issues with it, ask for a specific counter offer. If he’s OK with it, then have him sign it and we have a deal.”
Will Bibi do it? Not a chance. He’s too cautious to play poker and call Abbas’s bluff. He’s too afraid to lose his coalition and have to call new elections. That would threaten his throne. And, sucker or no sucker, staying on the throne is Bibi’s ultimate deal.
Peace process: Here we die again : http://ift.tt/2pGtELK
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