semitism.net

I’m catching up on the news from the past few days. Here are a few odds and ends about the peace process and the upcoming Palestinian elections…

Mahmoud Abbas evidently came back from the U.S. without much in the way of new committments.  As Uzi Benziman points out in Haaretz,

  Experience shows that a number of days go by until a full picture emerges from White House talks.

But it didn’t help any that Bush, whose administration seems barely functional with Karl Rove out of commission, decided to extemporize during his press conference with Abbas, and accidentally backed down from his promise of Palestinian statehood by 2009:

 "I believe that two democratic states living side by side in peace is possible. I can’t tell you when it’s going to happen. It’s happening," Bush said.

"If it happens before I get out of office, I’ll be there to witness the ceremony. And if doesn’t, we will work hard to lay that foundation so that the process becomes irreversible," the US president added.

Abbas, in an attempt at damage control, told reporters today that an independent state was

realistic, if we work on it… I had the impression that the comments of President Bush were not planned, that he had not set out to say what he did. We had no discussion about this topic.

The White House also evidently leaked that the President had turned down a request from Abbas for secret final status negotiations.  Oh well - nice try.

On the good side,

 Israel eased this weekend its position over the participation of Hamas in the PA general elections in January. According to government sources, Israel understands that it does not have the ability nor the intention to forcefully prevent Hamas from running in the vote.

A report from the Palestinian News Network notes that Hamas leaders in Gaza (where the movement is strongest) are keen on holding the legislative council elections as scheduled in January; but the younger West Bank leadership wants them postponed, since Israel has managed to jail most of their candidates:

 “this would severely harm the movement and lessen its support in the elections, most likely causing them to lose.”

Finally, Gaza’s popular security chief Mohammed Dahlan returned after a lengthy stay in Belgrade (Belgrade?) where he had (I assume) surgery for his herniated disc.  His absence may provide a partial explanation for the recent violence from breakaway Fatah factions.  Palestinian politics is still, I believe, very much driven by personal loyalties and informal power structures.  Abbas wasn’t doing much better without Dahlan than Bush has been without Rove. 

From Haaretz: 

 Without the armed resistance, the Palestinians would not have made progress in their struggle, Dahlan told the crowd, in an apparent reference to Israel’s withdrawal last month from the Gaza Strip. However, he said, it was time for Fatah to control their arms, end the chaos in Gaza and focus on winning a January parliamentary vote.

"We are the pioneers in the Fatah movement and we should put an end to the division. We should be united. It’s time for democracy," Dahlan said.

Let’s hope.

That’s it for tonight.   I’ll try to write some more tomorrow and also answer some of the comments from earlier posts.

Sleep well, everyone.