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January 2008

When the second edition of Israel/Palestine went to press in June 2007, the Hamas movement had just seized control of the Gaza strip in a quick coup that dislodged the Palestinian Authority (PA) from any effective control over that area (p.185). In response, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the unity government in which Hamas, as the majority party in the Palestine National Council, had held the key posts and effectively re-established his own movement, Fatah, as the dominant force on the West Bank. This de facto partition of Palestine - Hamas in Gaza, Fatah in the West Bank - remains the central reality on the ground in the Israel/Palestine arena. Any initiatives to stabilize the conflict, let alone resolve underlying issues, has to contend with the fact that President Abbas cannot speak for or implement any agreement regarding the Gaza strip - roughly one-third of his theoretical constituency.

The chronological account in Israel/Palestine ends with the observation that "the objective pressures and interests that narrowed the gap between the two sides, in the past, were still operative," but that before these forces reasserted themselves, "it was likely to be a rough ride" (p. 186). Several months later, this judgment is still valid. Attempts to bridge the gap between the PA and Hamas, in order to establish a unified Palestinian negotiating position, have broken down. Rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled territory on Israeli settlements near Gaza rose sharply after the June take-over, and the possibility of a major Israeli operation to suppress these attacks consequently also increased. The withholding of international aid to Hamas-controlled institutions could, it was feared, only worsen living conditions for Palestinians and contribute to greater instability. While humanitarian assistance directly to Palestinians did not decline as a result of the boycott of Hamas, physical conditions in Gaza continue to deteriorate.

At the same time, polls continue to show that a majority of both Palestinians and Israelis favor a two-state solution in which Palestine and Israel would co-exist, and some Palestinian polls show a decline in support for Hamas as it faces the dilemma of translating its rejectionist position into positive and visible benefits for besieged Palestinians. International donors who had re-channeled their assistance through non-governmental organizations, in order to avoid aiding Hamas, now returned to direct support of the PA and its institutions in the West Bank. By year's end Abbas was speaking optimistically about doubling international support in order to pull the West Bank population out of its dire straits and undermine support for Hamas throughout the Palestinian territories.

One of the other "objective pressures" noted in the text was the growing concern of Arab regimes over the rising threat of radical Islamist states and non-state movements, and consequent readiness of these regimes to cooperate with Western powers in efforts to defuse the region's trouble-spots such as Iraq, Lebanon, and the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. The increased visibility of Iran under its provocative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, fed by controversy over a possible Iranian nuclear weapons program, tied in with concerns about Hizballah (a Shi'a organization directly tied to Iran) and Hamas, also said to receive support from Iran. Support and pressure from Arab states contributed directly to a new U.S. initiative, in late 2007, to revive peace negotiations on basic ("final status") issues separating Israel and the Palestinians.

The decision to convene a conference to revive negotiations - essentially dormant since the Camp David and Taba talks in 2000-2001 - was in some degree a reflection of the degree to which all the major parties felt under great pressure and in need of a dramatic move. The United States, beleaguered in Iraq, needed success elsewhere in the Middle East; the Israeli government, also in a very weak political position following discontent over the second Lebanese War, needed a policy that would pull together the Israeli center; the PA needed to establish that diplomacy, not Hamas rejectionism, was the road forward; and Arab states (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the Gulf states) sought to counter the momentum of Iran and its Islamist allies.

Consequently, the Middle East Peace Conference convened in Annapolis on November 27. Iran, Hamas, and Hizballah were not invited, but some fifty nations (including Syria, a key participant) did attend the formal opening sessions. The intention was to establish a framework for bilateral Israeli-Palestinian (and Israeli-Syrian) negotiations that would attempt to resolve all outstanding issues in the conflict by the end of 2008. There was general recognition that resolution of these issues - the same ones that are reviewed in detail in Chapter 8 - within this time frame, given the hurdles that remain, is a daunting if not foolhardy undertaking. Apart from the huge gaps that remain - in particular, on borders and Israeli settlements, Jerusalem, and above all the Palestinian refugee issue - looms the central reality, as noted, that one of the two Palestinian territories remains under the control of a political movement that rejects not only the content of any future agreement but the act of an agreement itself. This was underlined by massive demonstrations in Gaza, organized by Hamas, denouncing the Annapolis conference in its entirety.

At year's end, therefore, prospects for a breakthrough on the diplomatic front, despite some auspicious circumstances, remained bleak at best. Few international diplomatic initiatives have been accompanied by as many predictions of failure, at the very moment of genesis, as has the Annapolis Conference.

Furthermore, as often happens in the Arab-Israeli arena, it is also possible that once again quiet diplomacy might be overshadowed by dramatic developments on the ground. In this case, the continuing struggle over Iran's development of nuclear technology could easily take center stage. While the newly released U.S. National Intelligence Estimate concludes that Iran stopped its actual weapons program in 2003, the Israeli government believes that this program has resumed since then and remains a major threat. In any event, the continued development of Iran's capability to enrich uranium constitutes the infrastructure for a weapons program, which could be resumed when the enriched uranium becomes available. There is still strong support in Israel for action to prevent this taking place.