Diplomatic Illusions

BEIRUT -- The likelihood that Palestinians and Israelis will soon launch indirect negotiations, or "proximity talks" intermediated by US officials, sounds positive on the surface, but in reality it is a very bad sign. It provides the illusion of progress towards peace, while in fact it mainly affirms the depressing state of play of the five primary actors in this long drama -- the Palestinians, Israelis, Americans, Arabs, and the UN. (The Europeans do not figure here, because they are now all busy ski jumping. Perhaps they will re-enter the picture in the Spring.)

The sudden resort to indirect talks is bizarre because it follows 17 years, on and off, in which the two sides have met regularly and negotiated directly. They have concluded agreements, implemented parts of them, and established joint mechanisms and close working ties in many fields. The 1993 Oslo Accords never achieved their full potential, as the momentum for a comprehensive peace agreement was halted then reversed, Israeli colonization and Palestinian resistance persisted, wars followed in Lebanon and Gaza, and we are now back to square one.

The desperate resort to indirect talks following 17 years of failure makes no sense, other than to provide the illusion of progress where there is only stalemate. The Israelis are the most pleased with this development, because they will feel that they have forced the Palestinians and Americans to play by Zionist rules. Talks will resume while core Israeli activities persist unchanged -- colonization, expropriation and theft of occupied Arab lands, slow motion ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs from occupied East Jerusalem, the siege and strangulation of Gaza, and refusal to seriously explore resolving the Palestinian refugee issue through the application of UN resolutions and international law.

The Palestinians, represented by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, have neither credibility nor clout. Abbas has tried several approaches to negotiating with Israel, and all have failed. He has marginalized himself and his Fateh movement because he has tried to do the impossible: enter into a serious diplomatic negotiation without harnessing his national Palestinian assets, resolving the split with Hamas, or marshalling the support of wider circles of allies in the region and beyond. When he finally did take a principled stand -- refusing to negotiate with Israel until it froze all settlement activity -- he was unable to maintain this for more than a few months, and ultimately panicked and agreed to the bizarre proximity talks suggestion.

The Americans who will be the go-betweens in the proximity talks are the world's least credible go-between, to judge by their performance during the past four decades. Senator George Mitchell's personal credibility from his Northern Ireland days is impressive, but the past year has not provided a single shred of evidence that the Obama administration wants to apply the approach that worked in Northern Ireland to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The opposite seems to be the case, as the United States has backed down from demanding an Israeli settlement freeze and still refuses to engage diplomatically with Hamas. Relying on the US to mediate fairly when Israel is involved seems slightly delusional.

The Arabs who should provide support for the Palestinians are nowhere to be seen. They have never seriously followed up their 2002 Arab Peace Plan that offered Israel long-term, comprehensive peace, coexistence and normal relations. Whether this is because of insincerity, incompetence or irresoluteness due to dependence on US (and occasional Israeli) protection is not clear. What is clear is that the Arabs collectively are on diplomatic vacation.

The United Nations is intriguing as an actor, or, in this case, a non-actor. While it is not a sovereign player, but rather reflects the collective position of the world's states, it does provide diplomatic mechanisms that states could harness, and that the secretary-general of the UN could trigger as well through personal initiatives. It remains on the sidelines, though, shackled by its odd participation in the American-dominated and Israeli-defined Quartet (with the United States, European Union and Russia), licking the wounds of its own growing irrelevance.

The resort to indirect proximity talks merely highlights these five prevailing postures of the principal actors. None of the five has offered any sign that it will change positions to help move towards a diplomatic breakthrough. With no likelihood of progress, it is not clear why anyone is interested in these proximity talks, other than to perfect their skills in the domain of diplomatic illusion and self-deception.

It is interesting to contrast these moves with this week's 20th anniversary commemoration of F.W. de Klerk's release of Nelson Mandela from prison in South Africa -- a decisive, bold move that paved the way for justice, peace and reconciliation in that land. The giants who changed South Africa belong to a different world than the thugs, wimps, and children who prevail in Israel and Palestine.