Oslo

A Palestinian View: Settlement construction contradicts negotiations

The issues of Israeli settlement activity and the need for a settlement construction freeze are again at the top of the political agenda.

A Palestinian View: Abbas' absense would have a dramatic effect

President Mahmoud Abbas [Abu Mazen] is known as the Palestinian politician most dedicated to a peacefully negotiated end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. His possible absence from the scene could have serious implications for the peace process.

The Thirteenth Palestinian Government

From the earliest days, once the Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat forced the United States back in 1978 to take an active role in resolving the Palestinian problem, we have largely focused our efforts on security and the key final status issues like borders and Jerusalem.

A Palestinian view: Optional and problematic

The second phase of the roadmap was always the most problematic part of that document, particularly to the Palestinian side.

Phase II calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state with provisional borders for a transitional period. From a Palestinian perspective, this has serious problems, but the Palestinian side was able to live with the document because it stipulates that the clause about "provisional borders" was optional and would be implemented only if the parties agreed. In other words, the second phase does not have the same level of binding commitment that the first and last phases embody.

Fatah’s Sixth Convention: An Initial Assessment

INSS Insight No. 124, August 17, 2009

Fatah's sixth convention, held in Bethlehem on August 4-13, 2009, took place 20 years after the previous convention in Tunisia, which antedated the Madrid conference and the beginning of the Oslo process. For many years Yasir Arafat refrained from convening the forum, even though Fatah's protocol calls for a convention every five years. The very fact of the recent event is a victory for Fatah's current leader, Mahmoud Abbas, who succeeded in holding the convention after many postponements and in the face of severe intra-organizational opposition, especially on the part of the old guard worried about losing positions of influence.

An Israeli View: For our own good

Ever since the Israeli-Palestinian peace process began in earnest with the Oslo accords of 1993, the two sides' negotiations have been accompanied by Israeli settlement construction. Serious Israeli peace-seekers like Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert all continued building or at least expanding settlements even as they sought interim and final status arrangements with the PLO leadership. The latter, first Yasser Arafat and in recent years Mahmoud Abbas, proceeded with negotiations even as they protested settlement expansion.

Netanyahu joins the rest of Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his policy address on Sunday and accepted the two state solution already embraced by a large majority of Israelis. OK, I am not really suggesting that the Ameinu public letter that many of you signed before Netanyahu's Washington visit was the deciding blow, but he definitely heard from the U.S. President, the Congress and the American Jewish community which way the wind was blowing. I am proud that we made our modest contribution.

Natural growth or growth by immigration?

The U.S. demand to freeze settlement activity has sparked the traditional self-righteous Israeli response that cites "natural growth" as the rationale for continued settler expansion. In fact, however, a quick look at both the numbers of Israelis living over the Green Line and the number of settlements there readily reveals why the Americans don't actually believe us. And why they don't buy the feigned innocence displayed by the Israeli government, headed by Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, each time the new Obama administration raises the issue.

Obama's Two-State Challenge

President Obama's May 18th meeting with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will introduce a new dimension to the long standing American-Israeli alliance. The changing circumstances in the Middle East and the potentially diverging views each leader holds in connection with the Arab-Israeli conflict could make finding common ground more challenging than in the past. To preserve the integrity of the bilateral relations, both leaders can be expected to engage in some serious give and take.

A Palestinian View: Netanyahu is throwing obstacles in the way of peace

The election of Binyamin Netanyahu marked a new, intransigent phase in the recent history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, not that the period before provided any serious opportunities for peacemaking. Even then, however, Netanyahu has managed to add to the burden of making peace by creating two new additional obstacles.

First he has skirted, so far, any clear commitment to the principle of two states as the basic framework for a solution to the conflict even though this is the position of not only most Palestinians and Israelis but of the international community.