Questions on Palestine

The Secretary of State's wildly belated trip to the Palestinian territories raises a few questions. First -- what on God's green earth is a "provisional" state? Something like the Irish Free State? I don't know. Why, one wonders, would you bother making this proposal to President Abbas at a time when due to his domestic political weakness he couldn't possibly accept? Well, I suppose I do know the answer to that one, namely that for the next five years suggestions that the US should be aggressively involved in forging an Israeli-Palestinian settlement will be shot down on the theory that "Abbas was offered a state and turned it down." Something like that.

Then we get to the small matter of "State Department proposal for $86 million in 'nonlethal assistance' to enhance the Palestinian security forces directly under his political wing — as opposed to those loyal to Hamas." The distinction between "lethal" and "nonlethal" assistance to security forces escapes me. Perhaps more to the point as you'll recall several years ago the Palestinian Authority was a corrupt and authoritarian structure, ruling undemocratically over the Palestinian people with the aid of its security services. The United States government insisted on reforms, democratic elections, etc. Hamas -- which, to be clear, everyone understood to be the only realistically possible alternative to Fatah -- won the election. And now we're pumping money into those very same Fatah security forces so that they can re-establish the autocracy we insisted they dismantle? Yet another "I don't see any method at all, sir" moment from Team Bush.

Comments

And now we're pumping money into those very same Fatah security forces so that they can re-establish the autocracy we insisted they dismantle?

Huh? Why on earth would you think that? Abbas was elected, or did Matthew forget that?

Posted by Al | January 15, 2007 12:00 AM

Oh, I think there is a method. Here it is.

Posted by Dan Kervick | January 15, 2007 12:18 AM

A good point.

The reality, as I see it, is that neither Condi nor Bush expects peace to happen anytime soon in Palestine. But there's another way to diffuse Arabs' Palestine-based anger: a Palestinian civil war.

Condi made a proposal she knew would be rejected because it allows Bush to look like he's pushing for peace. The reality is that the aid to Abbas' forces will stoke the civil war, which will allow Bush to claim to the Arabs, "Look, they're fighting each other, what can we do?"

Actually, not a half-bad strategy, if it didn't involve killing dozens of people and impoverishing millions more. Now there's a quotable quote. ;-)

Posted by Mr. Noah | January 15, 2007 12:18 AM

On an unrelated note, did anyone catch Kaus' attack on Sen Hagel in Slate? So all of us who thought he went easy on Republicans owe him an apology. I bet he doesn't hate all Democrats either, or at least he didn't until Zell Miller retired.

Posted by aleks | January 15, 2007 12:26 AM

Fine, take the potshot at the Bushies for being inconsistent, but we can all agree that this administration causes far greater problems when, in the face of all mounting evidence that a policy has fails, clings to it. MY has been pretty adament that attempting to establish democracy in Iraq was delusional. Could it possibly be that the policy of letting Hamas participate in the Palestinian elections without first disarming and agreeing to the basic contours of Oslo was also delusional? If so, isn't backing Abbas and Fatah the best of a host of bad options? Wouldn't a Hamas victory in a civil war with Fatah makes things drastically worse? Does MY support facilitating the toppling of the authoritarian regime in Egypt as well and replacing it with popularly elected Islamists?

Posted by mhp | January 15, 2007 2:01 AM

for the next five years suggestions that the US should be aggressively involved in forging an Israeli-Palestinian settlement will be shot down on the theory that "Abbas was offered a state and turned it down."

That certainly worked in regard to Barak's supposed "generous offer" to Arafat.

Posted by hed | January 15, 2007 2:18 AM

,em>Could it possibly be that the policy of letting Hamas participate in the Palestinian elections without first disarming and agreeing to the basic contours of Oslo was also delusional?
Perhaps, but not nearly as delusional as expecting the Palestinians to be able to create viable political institutions while enduring a military occupation and ongoing colonization by Israel. It's farcical to locate the problem with Hamas's participation in Palestinian politics rather than with the conditions which make Hamas popular.

Posted by hed | January 15, 2007 2:23 AM

And now we're pumping money into those very same Fatah security forces so that they can re-establish the autocracy we insisted they dismantle?

Huh? Why on earth would you think that? Abbas was elected, or did Matthew forget that?

Um, he would probably point out that Arafat was also "elected."

Recall that one of Abbas' first maneuvers upon becoming President was to propose a law that would have removed many of the powers of the office of prime minister that he himself had insisted upon when Arafat was president. There were discussions of some others also, all in the direction of reversing reforms that delivered control and power to the parliament (which Hamas was set to play a big part in), but none of them went anywhere, probably because of the strong reservations of Hamas (or of America itself).

Abbas wanted to concentrate power in the parliament when he was prime minister and now that he is president he wants to concentrate power in that office. What a coincidence! (Of course, it couldn't possibly be the case that his previous commitment to "democratic reform" was a power play. Heaven forbid it.)

That he plans to do this by developing a security force, instead of a political movement, says a lot about his commitment to democracy. If he feels besieged by Hamas perhaps he should make an appeal to the people, instead of menacing them with armed groups.

(btw, I've always been partial to the conspiracy theory that Abbas poisoned Arafat to gain power.

Of course the question is, who would he have been poisoned by? It's like a giant game of Clue. If you accept the idea that someone killed Yasir Arafat, why stop with the Israelis? There's nobody in the country house that weekend who wouldn't have wanted Arafat dead. One diplomat I talked to, mischievously but with a straight face said, Well, you know who killed him. Who had the most to gain? Mahmoud Abbas—Abu Mazen. He goes from being in exile, living in Jordan, afraid for his life and totally marginalized from Palestinian political debate, to being Arafat's successor. He came back to Ramallah a week before Arafat got sick. Why did he come back? He left because he was afraid for his life. Suddenly he's not afraid for his life anymore. Who was there at the right time? Mahmoud Abbas. Who had motive and opportunity? Mahmoud Abbas.)

Posted by Yuri Guri | January 15, 2007 6:15 AM

The "Irish Free State" was actually a bit of a con on the part of the Irish negotiators. The Brits didn't want to have Ireland declaring itself a republic; but Saorstat Eireann, the literal translation of Irish Free State into Irish, means Republic of Ireland, more or less. The Brits, not having the cupla focail, didn't cop onto this ...

Posted by Henry | January 15, 2007 6:34 AM

What's happening is that nobody knows what to do. The Palestinians are clearly divided. The Israelis are somewhat rudderless and having a leadership crisis, and the Bushies have maybe half a clue. Even a whole clue wouldn't help, though.

Until the Israelis and the Palestinians get their respective acts together, there isn't much that anybody can do except pose for the cameras, so that's what the Administration is doing.

The "Moderate" Abbas is torpedoing the Road Map as often and as hard as he can. In this case he's beating a dead horse. May as well, it won't get any deader, and he gets "Radical Points" from the Palestinians.

Only Olmert is failing to exploit the situation to boost his political standing. With the minor exception that he meets with the Americans.

Posted by Warren | January 15, 2007 6:57 AM

What's happening is that nobody knows what to do.

Lebanese across the entire sectarian spectrum think they know what the US should do. See page 20 in the PDF. If the United States articulated a position along these lines, I think you would find the major actors "getting their act together" very quickly.

Posted by Dan Kervick | January 15, 2007 8:03 AM

I know what's happening: we're seeing the dress rehearsal for a really huge dystopian movie about civilization crumbling. Very realistic effects.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | January 15, 2007 8:44 AM

WRT the Irish Free State, whatever its translated name meant, it, er, wasn't a republic. George V was recognized as King, and acted as King in the same way he did in Canada and Australia and so forth.

And isn't "Republic of Ireland" "Poblacht na hÉireann" in Irish?

Posted by John | January 15, 2007 10:25 AM

I just did a post about the recent history of the "provisional" Palestinian state idea, which was actually suggested at first by Abu Ala. MY's skepticism about the concept is certainly well-founded, although it's not a new idea. It's not something the Bush administration came up with, although they have (in theory) been in favor of it for more than 4 years now.

Posted by Haggai | January 15, 2007 11:52 AM

Matthew Y:

You don't see the method, huh? You just described it.

Posted by brendan | January 16, 2007 11:26 AM

There's a method, Matt. The method is, push Abbas towards attempting to wipe Hamas out. Then negotiate with Israel for 75% of what was being offered in 1999.

Of course, Hamas will just blow up those negotiations with rockets like they blew up the last ones with suicide bombers. Hooray!

It's not good news for those who believe that Islam can come to power with or without democracy in the ME, but it's definitely going to come to power, long-term. It may not be good news for any real development in the region, if the PA turns into a miniature Egypt. But it'll be great PR for the Administration.

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