Khaled Amayreh

Freed Palestinian prisoners hold rifles during a celebration of the recent
release of hundreds of Palestinians by Israel in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza
Strip. More than 1,000 Palestinians were released in exchange for captured
Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit last month.

Question marks hover over the relevance of the Quartet on Middle East peace that has failed to secure any progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front.

With Israel continuing to seize more Palestinian land and build more Jewish settlements throughout the occupied West Bank, the International Quartet on Middle East peace appears to have failed completely to get both sides to agree to resume stalled peace talks.

The Quartet includes the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

The UNESCO vote on Monday, 31 October, to grant Palestine full membership, amid angry Israeli and American objections, is expected to further deepen the stalemate in the peace process as Israel is threatening to "punish" the Palestinian Authority (PA) for its "provocative unilateralism".

Quartet officials, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have been meeting with Israeli and Palestinian representatives in occupied Jerusalem and Ramallah, but without making progress towards reviving the moribund peace process. Palestinian officials told Al-Ahram Weekly that the Quartet had absolutely nothing new to offer and that "they were only trying to sell old wine in new bottles."

"They are just trying to get us and the Israelis to resume talks. And when we tell them that we have been talking for ages but in vain, they tell us 'Just try one more time.' You see, they think that the mere resumption of talks constitutes progress, which is not true at all," said PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina.

Meanwhile, a Norwegian diplomat involved in the peace process has warned of grave consequences if the Middle East peace process collapses. Robert Serry was quoted by the Israeli media as saying that the total collapse of the Palestinian Authority (PA) may well be one of the by-products of the collapse of the peace process.

"I hear many voices in Ramallah that call for the dismantling of the PA and to throw the keys back to Israel. I don't want to sound apocalyptic, but if things go wrong don't expect the international community to pay the bill. This trend should worry the Israeli government and the Israeli public. If things stay like this, the security situation will deteriorate," he said.

Meanwhile, Palestinian officials have accused Israel of "doing everything" to thwart a successful resumption of peace talks by approving new plans to build thousands of new settler units in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Since the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991, Israel has confiscated hundreds of thousands of square acres belonging to Palestinian farmers. The Israeli government last week asked the Israeli justice system to "legalise" the theft, irrespective of its illegality and unlawfulness.

Reacting to the manifest Israeli ill-will, as expressed in land confiscation and settlement expansion, Fatah leaders have voiced mounting frustration vis-a-vis "the Israeli lack of seriousness about the peace process". At a Fatah Revolutionary Council meeting in Ramallah on Wednesday, 24 October, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas instructed the council to establish a committee to discuss "the future of the PA in light of the continued Israeli occupation".

Israel is not taking Palestinian threats to dismantle the PA and "throw the keys" seriously -- or at least seriously enough. However, reliable sources in Ramallah, some of them in the immediate coterie surrounding Abbas, have intimated to the Weekly that Abbas is "really, really frustrated and he is quite serious about dissolving the PA if this game of make believe continues".

Last week, the Israeli media reported that Israel was trying to expedite an ultimate vision of keeping the West Bank under perpetual Israeli control. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has been defending the continued building of Jewish settlements on occupied Arab land, arguing that any settlement freeze would effectively lead to the collapse of his coalition government.

Netanyahu and other Israeli officials are hoping the Quartet will pressure the PA leadership to resume peace talks without preconditions, namely without a genuine settlement expansion freeze. The Israeli leadership seems strongly convinced that neither the Quartet as a group, nor as individual members, will be able to force Israel to freeze settlement expansion, even for a limited period.

The PA insists that a genuine and comprehensive settlement freeze is a sine qua non for any successful peace process. PA officials have dismissed statements attributed to Israeli officials that Israel is willing to hold talks any time and any place without preconditions.

"These are meaningless words. The world ought not to pay attention to what Israel is saying, but rather to what Israel is doing. Israel is simply stealing more Palestinian land every day and building more settlements for Jews at the expense of the Palestinian people. Israel is simply killing the peace process. Period," said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Ereikat.

"Do you think that a state that keeps building colonies in occupied territories and keeps transferring its citizens by the hundreds of thousands to live on land that belongs to another people, in utter violation of international law, is truly interested in peace?" he added.

Ereikat reportedly recently urged his boss, Abbas, to "throw the keys" and seriously contemplate the dismantlement of the entire PA structure as a response to the failure of the peace process.

Sources in Ramallah said Ereikat and "a growing number of Palestinian officials" have lost hope in the relevance of the peace process. "Ereikat rightly believes that the raison d'³¤tre of the Palestinian Authority is the establishment of a viable Palestinian state, and that if that goal appears to be unachievable due to Israeli intransigence, then the PA loses its reason for existence," intimated one of Ereikat's aides who asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

Meanwhile, George Mitchell, the former US envoy to the Middle East, has warned that the continued stalemate of the peace process will sooner or later lead to a serious conflagration in the West Bank.

"Order and personal security in the West Bank have been established in a way that never was previously. The problem is that that effort cannot be sustained in the absence of progress, or at least the hope for progress on the political front. It will break down internally on the Palestinian side, and it will break down in relations with Israel. And it is to President Abbas's credit that, notwithstanding the fact that we haven't been able to get into meaningful negotiations, he has maintained coordination and cooperation on the security front and it continues. But even he will tell you that that cannot go on indefinitely. There has to be a political horizon."

Mitchell opined that changing demographic realities would eventually compel Israel to make fateful choices. "Israel, if the two state solution is lost, will have to choose between being a Jewish state and a democratic state. And that's a choice they should not have to make."

Earlier, Jordan's King Abdullah II and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned that the continued stalemate in the peace process could destabilise the entire region. The Jordanian king reportedly warned that the window of opportunity for peace in the Middle East was constantly narrowing and that things were moving in the wrong direction.

The Jordanian monarch, who is facing mounting unrest due to growing public demands for political reforms, blamed Israel for the absence of progress in the peace process, saying he was more pessimistic than he had ever been, thanks to Israeli intransigence and the inability of the international community to force Israel to abide by international law.

Similarly, Blair, who is the Quartet's envoy to the Middle East peace process, voiced fears that the continued Arab Spring would undermine that process. Blair hinted that the Arab Spring was radicalising and emboldening the Palestinians while increasing Arab hostility to Israel.

Palestinian officials recently castigated Blair's role in the peace process, calling him an "advocate for Israel" and an "extraordinary official in the Israeli Foreign Ministry."

Blair has consistently refused to blame Israel for the paralysis of the peace process. He defended his discourse, arguing that neutrality between Israel and the Palestinians was essential to making progress. Some observers, especially on the Palestinian side, see as unconvincing Blair's rationales for the absence of progress.

-###-

By Khaled Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem, source: Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1071/re1.htm