By Dr. Nayyer Ali

May 12 , 2006

Dennis Ross on the Middle East

Last week I attended a small gathering at UCLA where Dennis Ross, Clinton’s special Middle East envoy, gave his impressions of the current situation and future US policy as regards Israel and the Palestinians. Dennis Ross was in charge of the Israeli-Palestinian issue during the Clinton years, and was deeply involved in all the US negotiating efforts, including the Camp David Summit of 2000. He remains well connected with the players and with the policy-makers inside the State Department, and is well aware of the current dynamics.
Within Israel, Ross stated that there is now a broad consensus to get out of significant portions of the West Bank without getting anything tangible in return from the Palestinians. This means that up to 80,000 settlers (out of a total of 450,000) would be evacuated, perhaps forcibly. The Israelis at this point want to be done with the Palestinians, and have accepted that this will require at least some withdrawal.
The Palestinians have just elected Hamas, but Ross stated that Hamas was elected on a platform of reform and anti-corruption, not war. Hamas promised a new education policy, a new industrial policy, a new health policy, and a general improvement in government services. But Hamas rejects recognition of Israel and negotiation at present. War though is not an option for Hamas as it requires calm with Israel in order to fulfill its election promises to the Palestinians. As such, Hamas has been diligent about honoring its one-year long truce that it unilaterally declared in 2005.
Hamas has a quandary. It is supposed to be the vehicle of Palestinian resistance, and yet it also needs a truce to hold and calm with Israel. Hamas itself does not strike Israel, but so far it has refused to stop other smaller groups (such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which carried out a recent suicide bombing in Israel) from attacking. This is not an acceptable truce to the Israelis, and they will continue their attacks, which will prevent Hamas from making progress as a government.
Ross was critical of the Bush administration which pushed for elections but now wont deal with the choice of the Palestinian people. Ross stated that US government should have made clear to the Palestinians before the election that they were free to vote for anyone they chose, but that the US would not deal with any government that did not abide by previous treaties and agreements of the Palestinian Authority, including recognition of Israel.
Ross stated that Israel plans to withdraw to the wall that it is building in the West Bank. This wall is meant to allow Israel to incorporate a large fraction of the settler population. Israel wants the US to recognize the wall as the new official boundary of Israel, and to get the international community to recognize that border. This will allow Israel to get what it wants without negotiating with the Palestinians. If the Israelis do pull back to the wall, and also give up the Jordan River Valley (which is unclear at present), then the Palestinians will end up with 90% of the West Bank. Of course this is only 21% of the original Palestine.
Ross recommended that the US should not recognize the wall as Israel’s permanent border. Instead, he put forth the idea that it be recognized as a “political border”, and the final border will be set by negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians at such time that the Palestinians are capable and willing to negotiate the border.
The Palestinians have done a terrible job of trying to advance their own interests over the last few years. The suicide bombings cost them both sympathy and moral standing as the victim. Israel’s PR machine has run circles around them, convincing the world that the Palestinians are the main impediment to peace. The real impediment remains the settlers and Israel’s desire to grab as much of the West Bank as possible. When the Israelis are willing to give those up, this conflict will be over. Comments can reach me at Nali@socal.rr.com

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