Contemplating the Renewed Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Ever since United States Secretary of State John Kerry revealed to international media on July 19 that he had reached an agreement between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government to resume direct negotiations, there has been a torrent of reactions and commentary on the issue. Some of this has focused on the procedural and structural elements of the negotiations, from those Israel supporters who are outraged that the Israeli government acquiesced to the release of 104 pre-Oslo Palestinian prisoners with blood on their hands, to those on the pro-Palestinian side angered at the American government’s alleged bias in favor of Israel. Others, such as former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, have expressed the opinion that the negotiations are doomed to fail. And still others, such as Hamas and Iran, have (predictably) condemned the negotiations altogether. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. The diverse array of commentaries and reactions to the negotiations goes on and on. It is extremely difficult – perhaps impossible – to add anything new. However, the following attempts to pull together a few different things to consider:

• Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is blessed with a lot of political capital and room for far-reaching compromises, while one cannot say the same of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Netanyahu has the luxury of the majority of the Israeli public believing that he will act in Israel’s best interests and will not compromise Israel’s security. This was perhaps most exemplified in a recent poll that showed Israeli support for the amended Arab Peace Initiative increasing by almost 15% (to 69%) if Netanyahu were to endorse it. On the other hand, Mahmoud Abbas is not viewed the same way by the Palestinian public. While Palestinian public opinion polls do indicate that Abbas and his Fatah Party is preferred over Ismail Haniyeh and Hamas, Abbas does not have as much room to maneuver as Netanyahu.
• To make matters worse for Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, the Palestine Papers debacle showed that the Palestinian public is considerably less willing to acquiesce to the type of two-state solution that has been discussed before. The leak of the Palestine Papers – government documents which contain records of talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials through late 2008 – created a considerable stir among some segments of the Palestinian public, while the Israeli public remained much less enraged. Palestinians were particularly upset by compromises the Palestinian negotiators made on Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugee issue. On Jerusalem, the Palestinians conceded that some neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city would remain in Israeli hands; on the refugee issue, Palestinian negotiators signaled a willingness to let Israel permit only some 10,000 of the estimated four to five million Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to their homes and towns in what is now Israel. The leak led to the resignation of the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, who later returned to his position (without much objection from the Palestinian public).
• On a more positive note, Saeb Erekat and Tzipi Livni – the chief negotiators for the Palestinians and Israelis – have spent a lot of time negotiating face-to-face before. It was they who came close to brokering a deal in 2008, before the Palestinians broke off negotiations in protest over the Gaza War, which began in December 2008 and ended in January of 2009. With so much experience working together, Livni and Erekat are starting these talks off on (ostensibly) very good footing.
• Tzipi Livni is considerably more dovish and flexible on many issues than her boss, Binyamin Netanyahu. Right now, Netanyahu is not participating in the actual face-to-face negotiations; only Livni’s team is. It may be that Livni will agree to some far-reaching concessions, only to be vetoed by Netanyahu. However, if the shroud of secrecy over these negotiations is maintained throughout, observers will not know whether and to what extent this happens until the negotiations are long over. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to predict that tensions will arise between the two.

These are just a small taste of the things that can be taken into consideration when thinking about the renewed peace talks. Whatever ends up happening, it is almost certain that some of these factors will play a role.