George Mitchell is apparently slated to be the special envoy to Israel
and to...well, how does one tell who can represent the Palestinians in
peace talks? Mitchell has been very clear that there is no purpose in
negotiations with parties which don't want peace. So this leaves us
with Fatah whose certified terrorist history outranks the Tamil Tigers,
the Basque ETA and several other fraternal Muslim killer organizations
altogether. And whose commitment to an arrangement continues to be --
shall we say? -- a bit suspect.
Still, Fatah, which has run the
Palestinian Authority over the last two years, is having hundreds of
its militiamen trained by General Keith Dayton and put them into
service, not altogether dysfunctionally, in Hebron and Jenin. It is
clearly the more "moderate" of the Palestinian irridentist forces, and
its words -- of course, not to its people, but to world diplomats and
Israelis -- are civil. Its not a sound basis for trust. But if you
can't trust Mahmoud Abbas you can trust no Palestinian leader. Except,
to be sure, the World Bank economist-turned-prime minister Salaam
Fayyaad, practical, reasonable and, alas, without following in the
Palestinian streets. What about Sari Nusseibeh? He is the wet dream
of Jewish peaceniks on the Upper West Side, a little slippery, but very
entertaining at dinner. He runs a niceuniversity in Abu Dis, astride
east Jerusalem. Utterly irrelevant.
Oh, one other query about
Fatah: Can it win an election in the West Bank? Perhaps. It is still,
however, unbelievably corrupt and inefficient. It is also probably
tarnished by its quotidian ties to Israel. And, after all, from the
point of view of reasonable Palestinians of which there are some, Fatah
was the political party that gave up a real state in the West Bank to
assuage the demonic "from the river to the sea" delusions of Yassir
Arafat. On the other hand, there was little turmoil in the West Bank
while the I.D.F. was bombing in Gaza.
And, then, there is Hamas.
It entrapped the people of Gaza in a war it provoked. Relentless
rocketry and missiles, utterly relentless, many thousands of them over
almost eight years. What did Hamas or the subjects of its tyranny think
Israel would do? Let the torment mount day in, day out? This war was
perfectly proper because it struck at the Hamas military machine. That
this machine was fused with civil life is not the responsibility of
Israel. But let's face stark facts: many Gaza
"civilians" were also happy with this fusion. Victims, yes, but also fools.
The
delirium of Palestinian politics is also a stark fact, and that is
reality. And it is not residual reality. Many Palestinians and most in
the Palestinian leadership believe they can whittle Israel down to size
without they themselves having to whittle down their ambitions. This
delirium also translates into the assumption that losing a military
confrontation or, in fact, a war has no consequences. Hamas may launch
another of their suicidal battles. This one won't last a day.
George
Mitchell came into the region almost nine years ago. He's an
even-handed man. I myself can't grasp how one can be even-handed
between
political gangsters like Hamas and Israel. Unless, that
is, one is willing to be even-handed between the Taliban and its
antagonists, which I don't think Mitchell is prepared to be. And
certainly not Barack Obama. And if I am wrong God have mercy on our
collective soul.
So one of the questions that Mitchell must
address first is whether Hamas is really fooling when it says it seeks
the elimination of the Jewish state and, secondly, whether Fatah is
really willing to live with a Jewish state. I'm afraid that a truthful
evaluation is likely to disappoint him quite a lot. After all, this is
not a time for ingenuous little tactics to calm the borders for a
while. It is time to settle the matter, perhaps over the long haul in
order to build confidence, but with a clear goal in
sight.
I
myself am doubtful whether such an outcome is even plausible. And Mr.
Mitchell's experience in the Irish dispute is frankly no experience at
all. The I.R.A. did not have designs on London. Let's not make too much
of what was always a bitter but containable dispute.
Still, the
fact that some Arabs trust Mitchell is a fine omen; and it doesn't mean
that Israelis (or Jews) should distrust him He is aman of good-will,
perhaps a bit too credulous. Skepticism is an apt trait to bring to
this very combustible area.
What's more, Martin Kramer, a tough-minded Zionist strategist whom I have cited here many times, has written a posting
on his "Sandbox" blog similarly welcoming to George Mitchell. Mitchell
should understand, however, that Israel's security and peace is not a
matter for barter in the Arab market.