Mideast peace chats
Abbas’ visit gives glimpse of White House intent
President Donald Trump’s meeting at the White House Wednesday with acting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was largely ceremonial, without substance in terms of grappling with the issues, but nonetheless raising the question of the Trump administration’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian question.
Other hot wars across the Middle East, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, in recent years have attracted more world and United States attention than the continuing, sputtering quest by the 12 million-plus Palestinians for a state of their own, and the parallel effort by the Israelis to establish their control through expanding settlements in the whole West Bank territory.
In the meantime, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement chugs along and the threat of Islamic State action against Israel continues to weigh in the balance, among myriad other hazards, including Hezbollah and its state sponsor, Iran.
So far, the Trump administration has shown itself to be pro-Israel in its orientation in the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Mr. Trump appointed a pro-Israeli-settler American, David Friedman, as U.S. ambassador to Israel and Mr. Trump’s Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as his point man on the Israeli-Palestinian question, and pledged to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, although so far that campaign promise seems to be reposing on the same dormant shelf as Mr. Trump’s “I’ll bring back coal and steel” mantra.
The meeting with Mr. Abbas was symbolic in diplomatic terms, so Mr. Trump can say that he did. The PA president is acting, overdue for elections for eight years now. He is 82, and his ineffectiveness in leading the Palestinians toward their own state has lost him virtually all credibility among the people he in principle leads.
As for Mr. Trump, no one expects much in terms of international leadership toward an end to the 69-yearold unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in spite of its importance. If he really decided to put heart and soul into intensive deal-making on this question, he might get somewhere, but it is unlikely to end up high on his list. During Wednesday’s meeting with Mr. Abbas, the president remarked with his usual bravado that a solution is “something, frankly, maybe not as difficult as people have thought over the years.” His trip later this month to Saudi Arabia and Israel might help the president appreciate the complexity.
In the meantime, it is still not only incumbent upon, but also vital for, the Palestinians to sort out their leadership questions, in Mr. Abbas’ Fatah in the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza in the middle of a succession, in order to be in a position to present a united policy front to Israel in what comes next. The lesson of the past is that, absent constructive talk, the drift toward renewed war can become irresistible. The IS is what it is, including in the nearby Sinai Peninsula. Hezbollah is coming off a relative military success in Syria. The United States remains on the hook to defend Israel. The combination could be explosive.