In an interview with Middle East Progress, Quartet Envoy Tony Blair provides his input on the “institution building” debate currently undergoing in the Palestinian Authority and the peace process with Israel, urging for political -and not just economic- reconciliation first. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad called on Palestinians to begin developing the economic, security, and state building institutions while others in the PA urged for a unilateral declaration of statehood. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said an economic peace between Palestinians and Israelis could establish the foundation for a political solution to the conflict.
Plus, we need to look to make further changes to the access and movement regime in the West Bank, so we can further improve the ability of Palestinians to move around and do business. A significant boost could come from allowing Palestinian use and development of the so-called “Area C,” where Israel currently maintains sole security and administrative control. This land makes up some 60 percent of the West Bank. Much more needs to be done for people to believe that they are on an inexorable road to peace, and a political process is necessary to ensure that the economic gains are enshrined and continue…”
“As I have continually said, the economics is not a substitute for the politics, and so we need to combine changing the facts on the ground with a restarting of the political negotiations and that is what President Obama, Secretary Clinton and Senator Mitchell are working so hard on to achieve. What I hope this work can do is help to provide a context in which successful negotiations can be launched.”
Israel-Palestine analyst Yossi Alpher, in a piece for bitterlemons, chimes in as well, calling for a political solution in tandem with the Fayyad plan. He writes:
“Obviously, to make Fayyad’s scheme work, state-building must be paralleled, in real time, by serious negotiations. If these negotiations are tried but, almost inevitably (like all their predecessors), fail due to lack of agreement regarding core final-status issues, then at least by August 2011 the international community will have something substantive to dig its teeth into: the makings of a Palestinian state on the ground, along with clearly defined gaps between the two sides’ positions to be bridged through international intervention.
But Fayyad’s scheme, along with other variations on unilateral or partial peace process themes being discussed today, applies to the Gaza Strip only in theory. Assuming Egypt’s prolonged efforts to bring about genuine Palestinian geographical and political unity continue to falter, any peace and/or state-building achievements emanating from Ramallah do not apply to Gaza and Hamas. This brings us to the second non-bilateral process that can be characterized as an evolving reality: the existence of two separate Palestinian proto-state entities or, in political shorthand, the three-state solution.”