Kerry’s efforts have poisoned push for peace

AS the Israel-Palestine peace process promoted by US Secretary of State John Kerry ­appears doomed, a prominent Arab Israeli recently visiting Australia says this is not the “tragedy” of which Kerry warns — since from the start, his efforts have made relations worse.

Khaled Abu Toameh says: “Relations with Palestine are now more tense, because if you force the two sides to place all the core, explosive issues between them on the table, you escalate them.

“For the five years before the talks, relations were quieter. Kerry showed up and said, ‘Folks, you have nine months to solve this 100-year-old problem’.”

Since then, he says, conditions and pre-conditions, and demands have multiplied, as tempers have worsened.

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can’t give 100 per cent even if he wanted to, while Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas can’t accept anything less than 100 per cent.”

The core problem preventing any prospect of a deal, he says, is that “we have radicalised our people in the Arab world to the point where we can’t make any formal concessions to Israel. Anyone who even talks of doing so is deemed a traitor.”

Abu Toameh, an Arab Muslim Israeli journalist who is today Palestinian affairs correspondent for The Jerusalem Post, says Abbas might be a “peace partner”, but an ineffective one, who can’t deliver.

“If he stands in a public forum and talks about peace with Israel, he would be lucky to get away with being shot in the leg. Six months after the peace talks supposedly began, you can’t find a Palestinian official to go on ­record supporting them.”

Instead, Kerry and the US are using up credibility, he says. “But if the US isn’t involved in the ­region, others will be. I’d rather have them than the Russians or Europeans or Iranians. But they can’t impose solutions. You might be able to force two sides to sign, but it won’t create a real peace.”

Abbas originally said he wouldn’t return to talks unless ­Israel freezes settlement construction and recognises a Palestinian state. “Kerry forced him to abandon these demands, undermining his credibility among Palestinians.”

And the younger generation of Palestinians, Abu Toameh says, are more dogmatic than their elders.

“The older generation knew Israelis. The new generation — including the journalists I know — are opposed to any co-operation with Israeli counterparts, they lead anti-normalisation campaigns.

“They are radicals — not necessarily terrorists, but they oppose compromise. And they feel distant from the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, whose average age is 73. There are no free elections, therefore no clear mandate, no free media, no functioning parliament.”

Abu Toameh was born on the West Bank under Jordan, and raised in Jerusalem under Israel — without his family moving house. The situation moved instead, he says.

Now he is one of 1.5 million Arab Israelis, 20 per cent of the population, “and we want to see a two-state solution ... but how? Our dilemma is that our state is in conflict with our people. But we’ve made our choice.

“A physical separation from the Palestinians is a solution for Israel. But inside Israel there is no official separation. I went to ­Hebrew University. Do we have problems? Yes. But we lead normal lives.”

He says he used to feel safe in Ramallah, and worked for the major Palestine Liberation Organisation newspaper. But there has been a crackdown on critics there, while “I can express myself freely in Jerusalem. My editors have never told me what to write.

“I like the freedom and the power of the Israeli media, where in the Arab world journalists tend to be expected to be loyal to the government and the line.”

The Gaza dilemma is grim, he says. “It’s a lost cause. If Hamas is brought down, it’ll be followed by something worse. But it and the PLO are both in trouble.”

One of the side-effects of the pressure for peace talks, he says, is the intensification of a diplomatic war against Israel. “It’s being waged on several fronts, including here in Australia, on university campuses. What can one do about such a massive campaign to de-legitimise and isolate Israel? The country has coped with suicide bombers and missiles, but this is more difficult to counter.”

Even Abbas, he says, is opposed to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that has its supporters on Australian campuses. “I’ve met these people,” he says. “It’s about anti-Semitism, not about helping Palestinians living in the West Bank, who need to buy Israeli milk and to sell goods in Israeli shops.”

The most likely outcome of the talks is a face-saver for Kerry in which the sides agree to agree at some time in the future. “We’ve seen this old movie before,” says Abu Toameh.

He doesn’t expect much to change as long as the relentlessly hostile media and education vilification campaign against Jews and against Israel persists in Palestine and the Arab world at large.

“I have become a member of an endangered species: a moderate Arab. We were hoping the ­so-called Arab Spring would bring us positive changes. But now we find nothing Arab or springy about it. It’s an Islamist tsunami of violence.”

He says: “People in the West think it’s about better living conditions. I wish.

“The only way to improve living standards is through education, and we aren’t looking at that in the Arab world, which has raised an entire generation on suicide bombings, death to Israel and death to the US.

“If they’re not killing Jews they’re killing each other.”