No one-sided bargains

The month of May will possibly be a diplomatic watershed in the search for a solution to the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are scheduled to travel to Washington to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama.

Abbas has wasted no time in softening up the diplomatic terrain in advance of his May 28 visit with the American leader. He met Sunday with King Abdullah of Jordan and has also announced a pre-Washington meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Whenever a microphone appears near him, he issues pronouncements on the peace process and the usual list of his peace process diktats to the Israeli government. He does so to maintain his image as a stalwart protector of Palestinian rights in light of the fact that his rivals for power, Hamas, control Gaza and most likely, the allegiance of many Palestinians in the West Bank, too. Thus, being known as a fair-minded negotiator of a permanent, two-sided bargain with the Jewish state is not part of the image he assiduously cultivates.

Abbas constantly carps that Middle East peace talks hinge on Israel’s support for a two-state solution. At his meeting with King Abdullah, he loudly reiterated, “Our conditions and vision are part of the two-state solution, which also involves halting settlement building and the policy of house demolitions.”

He was emphatic in stating that a prior commitment from the Israeli government that there will be two states is a precondition for talks with Israel. It must have come, therefore, as somewhat of a surprise to him when Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Daniel Ayalon, the same day, told Bloomberg News that the “government of Israel, because of our democratic tradition and because of the continuity principle, is going to abide by all previous commitments the former government took, including the acceptance of the ‘road map’ to peace, which will lead to a two-state solution.” Ayalon’s statement was unambiguous and quite definitive. Israel is bound by its earlier agreements, which, as we know, envision an end result of two states coexisting side by side.

Ayalon was merely restating the commitment last month by Netanyahu said that he will co-operate with Abbas for the sake of attaining peace.

Let, therefore, a sound, reasonable plan for good faith negotiations emerge from the  meetings later this month among the various leaders in Washington. But that plan must also include an unambiguous, definitive statement by Abbas that one of the two states will be the Jewish State of Israel. This will require some equally unambiguous, definitive declarations to that same effect by Obama, for Abbas and his colleagues and, of course, his rivals for leadership in Hamas, have already told the world that they will never agree to the existence of a Jewish state alongside their Palestinian one.

Two states must mean one Palestinian Arab, the other Israeli Jewish. No Israeli government will agree to a one-sided bargain. Nor should they.  Nor should the United States. Nor should the world.