Taking Sides for Peace

After years of a half-hearted "Quartet" Road Map, Bush is gearing up for the Peace Conference to End All Peace Conferences. With Iraq, um, as it is, his only hope to have something not disastrous is this new Fall Peace Conference. The Administration is pulling out all stops on this one - Rice has been meeting up a storm with government officials. There's talk that Syria may even be invited (even Syria!).

All of these diplomatic machinations (like the recent Israeli freeing of Palestinian prisoners and a promised $80 million for Abbas's security forces) are attempts to bolster Abbas and the Fatah-West Bank against Hamas in Gaza. In other words, Hamas should not be expecting an invitation to the conference, despite the fact that Hamas is part of the elected and legitimate Palestinian government. When Israel includes Yisrael Beitenu in its majority coalition, a party that believes even Israeli Palestinians (Israeli Arabs) should be kicked out, that sort of extremism is alright, but God forbid an Islamist party is included in the Palestinian government. The U.S, E.U, and Israeli policy of shunning was certainly a success in any case...

But now that Hamas and Fatah have been conveniently seperated, we can lend our support to one faction against the other. No matter Fatah's horrible corruption- Hamas won legislative elections in 2006 partly because many voted "against Fatah" rather than "for Hamas". The corruption was so bad that it was cheaper to buy goods off the Israeli settlements in Gaza (obviously before their dismantling) than from the marketplace after all the bribes to Palestinian Authority officials (basically Fatah). So Fatah is crap in the eyes of many Palestinians (as is Hamas in the eyes of many others), but Fatah does not wave the green flag so the U.S. supports them wholeheartedly.

But is there a chance that this proposed peace conference will actually achieve anything? There are some hints that it might. Today Saudi Arabia indicated it might take part: Saudi Arabia Says it May Meet Israel. Saudi Arabia put forth their own peace proposal, endorsed by the Arab League, and negotiated the Mecca agreement between Fatah and Hamas, so they are no stranger to the issue. Saudi Arabia says they will only attend the conference if it tackles the big "final status" issues:

the fate of Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced to flee their homes in Israel, mostly before or during the 1948 war; the status of Jerusalem; the borders of a Palestinian state; and the dismantlement of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Thus they might actually work on the hard issues, the ones that everyone knows needs to be addressed but are much easier to leave aside (see: Oslo) and then bite everyone in the ass later (see: everything after Oslo).

Then again, maybe not. The Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni (about whom there was a massive article in the Times Magazine - sorry it's Times Select so get registered with your .edu address for free already!) responded by saying that sometimes "it's not wise to put the most sensitive issues out first." So what instead? Leave any issue of subtance off the table and have a pretty photo op rather than a serious attempt at solving issues? Livni, by the way, protested back in 1979 against peace with Egypt. She felt Sinai (Sinai!) was part of greater Israel. It'll be interesting to see how she feels about giving up "Judea and Samarra" now.