Halpern: Abbas knows the answer is ‘no’

I'm thinking

by Micah D. Halpern

The Israeli moratorium on building in the West Bank ends on September 26th. The United States, the European Union, the United Nations, the Arab League, even the Chinese, are holding their collective breath, uncertain what will happen on the day after, on Monday, September 27th.

The Palestinians have declared that any building, even any change to existing buildings, will torpedo the direct talks. The U.S. believes that Israel should shelve all building plans, that building is an irritant to Palestinians and to Palestinian supporters around the world.

Israeli settlements are more than the sum of their parts for Palestinians and the Arab world. Settlements are not homes and parks and schools, settlements are Israeli buildings on Arab soil. Just as settlements are a symbol for Palestinians, settlements are a symbol for Israelis. For Israelis, settlements symbolize building on Jewish land.

And yet, as symbolic as the issue of settlement building is, as fraught with tension as discussion of and about settlements is, the success or failure of the direct talks just begun in Washington will have nothing to do with either settlements or the moratorium on settlement building.

But it will be an excuse. Abbas will use settlement activity as the excuse he wants — the excuse he needs — for pulling out of direct talks with Israel.

I have read Abbas’ comments about the Washington talks in Arabic and in English; I have read them in the Arabic press and in the international press. I have heard his press conferences and followed his briefings with Arab leaders like Libya’s Muammar Ghadaffi; I have read statements by Abbas’ aides and spokespeople. And I have come to the conclusion that while they are all spinning the settlement issue, the settlements are not the issue.

Settlements are not the problem. Abbas is the problem.

Mahmoud Abbas makes demands, he does not make concessions. He offers nothing, not even symbolic gestures. And right now, Israel is offering the Palestinians almost everything, both real and symbolic.

The fact that the first meeting in Washington took place as scheduled, despite two terrorist attacks in Israel, is, in and of itself, a powerful shift in the Israeli attitude towards these talks. No other prime minister, not even Netanyahu himself in his earlier stint as prime minister of Israel, would have allowed the talks to go on as scheduled. At the insistence of the Israeli prime minister the talks would have been suspended — at least until after the burial of the victims, sometimes even until after the week of shiva.

Abbas is isolated — from the Palestinian people and from Arab leadership. As of now Abbas is not officially the legally elected president of the Palestinian Authority and neither is the prime minister legally elected. Abbas is the de-facto leader of the Palestinian Authority and the interim leader.

In January of 2009 there was supposed to be a presidential election. At first it was postponed, then it just never happened and it will not happen anytime soon. Meanwhile, the elected prime minister of the PA was Ismail Haniyah, the Hamas leader from Gaza. Abbas removed him from the position and put in place his own man, Salem Fayyad.

Abbas must fight for his popularity and for support every single day. Every day he engages in internal struggles to maintain his position as the leader of a fractionalized society composed of very strong reactionary parties, including Hamas, which want him out. Abbas’ hold on his leadership is precarious at best.

Abbas does not know what will happen on September 26th and September 27th. He does know that whatever happens, his reaction will be “no.” The only way for Abbas to survive — personally or politically survive — is by saying “no.” But he must finesse his “no.”

For the United States, Abbas’ “no” has to look nice. For the Arab world, Abbas’ “no” has to look strong. For the next few weeks Abbas will be engaging in an exercise to determine how to say “no” in a manner that neither angers the United States nor isolates his constituents.

No matter what Israel gives, no matter what the United States wants, in the end, Abbas will just say “no.”