The negotiated peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians with no negotiating authority is back in the news:
In a cover letter for the Geneva Accord sent to Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, the Palestinian and Israeli participants write: “None of us represents our respective peoples in any binding sense.”
I wrote about this last year, when I first heard about it, and said it was a bad idea. And I still think so now.
The plan itself actually sounds pretty decent:
The unofficial deal envisions a Palestinian state in 98 percent of the West Bank and all of the Gaza Strip, lands Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.
It gives Palestinian refugees — who fled or were forced to flee their homes during the 1948 Mideast war — three options, but blocks the possibility of having them resettle in large numbers in what is today Israel.
[ . . . ]
Under the treaty, the Palestinians would have sovereignty over the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s walled Old City, while Israel would control parts of the Western Wall which runs alongside the compound.
It’s pretty close to what a final agreement should probably look like, IMHO. And you can understand why people, frustrated with ongoing terror and violence, would want to work towards a solution. (Side note: What do you figure Peres thinks of having his name put on equal footing with Arafat’s? Does Arafat really believe he can paint himself as a “moderate”?)
But the main problems with this aren’t going to go away. The plan can only work if there’s a true commitment on the part of the Palestinians to live peacefully as neighbours with Israel. As the ongoing campaign of terror indicates, there is no such commitment. And as far as I can tell, there’s nothing in the plan about stopping terrorism, enforcing security for the Israeli people, or destroying the terrorist infrastructure.
Perhaps more importantly, anything Israel “concedes” in this unofficial, unsanctioned agreement, will probably be adopted as a jumping-off point for Palestinians in the next round of negotiations. Arab nations will scream and point fingers for years to come that the Israelis “promised” to give up half of Jerusalem and 97% of the West Bank and Gaza. And any Palestinian obligations in this deal will be conveniently forgotten, as they were in the Road Map, the Taba agreement, and pretty much every agreement they’ve ever endorsed.
Israel has everything to lose here and nothing to gain. And the people involved in this plan are undercutting the government. I don’t blame them for being mad.
Update: Lynn isn’t too impressed by this “agreement” either.
Before the ink dried on this document, the arab signers were already backing away from “deal” on arab refugees.
And people are overlooking the truly scary part of all this… the name of the agreement.
“Geneva Accord”
A little twist here and there, and 5 years down the road Israel will be accused of rejecting the Geneva Convention. You heard it here first, its gonna happen.