The Palestine Papers: "Risks for peace"

Al-Jazeera - Robert Grenier- The overwhelming conclusion one draws from this record is that the process for a two-state solution is essentially over.

It has been an American mantra throughout the many years of the peace process that both sides must take “risks for peace.” Those risks have taken different forms over time, but the most compelling risk for both Israelis and Palestinians has been a domestic political one: So long as the prospect of peace has remained a hazy dream, no one could object to it compellingly; but just begin to seriously consider the hard compromises necessarily involved, and it becomes clear to important constituencies on both sides that they will lose. To accept and politically manage those realities: That is the essence of “risks for peace.”

Given the current disproportion of grievances – and aggrieved constituencies – on their side, and the relative weakness of their bargaining position vis-a-vis Israel, it has always been true, though often willfully ignored by both the Israelis and the Americans, that the greatest burden of risk falls upon the Palestinian leadership. To reach their goals and to satisfy their people, they must have an agreement, and the right agreement, and soon; for as time goes on, their dispossession only increases. On the other hand, the status quo, particularly as illegally and unilaterally changed by them, has suited the Israelis very nicely, so long as bombs were not going off in their cafes and buses. From the Israeli point of view, at least in the short term, the major risk is in agreeing to any settlement at all.

Beginning with the signing of the Oslo accords, the political risks to the Palestinian leadership qualitatively changed, and not for the better. No longer would it be enough just to accept hard compromises and permanent concessions. Now, the Israelis, with full American support, demand that the Palestinians provide assurances of their ability to carry out an agreement by developing the institutions of a stable and competent state, despite having neither the legitimacy nor the independent resources necessary to do so. Read more