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IPF Leadership Mission to Israel and the West Bank
Posted July 10, 2009 - 3:02pm
Last week, IPF Executive Director Nick Bunzl and President Peter Joseph returned from a leadership mission to Israel and the West Bank. They spent 3 days in high-level meetings in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the West Bank. To read their remarks, click here.
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Comments
The "Peace Process"
The report back from the IPF Leadership mission is a bit vague on the subject of negotiations between the Israeli government and the PA. According to Nick Bunzl's comments, your group heard from multiple sources "that the Olmert Abbas talks had progressed far and that the gaps were small", although "Abbas responded that the gaps were still 'large'." Without specifying what the gaps were, to say they were large or small is all spin.
At the conclusion of the Taba talks in January 2001, Shlomo Ben Ami and Abu Ala read the final communiqué which claimed that the parties "have never been so close to an accord." Yet they did not reach an accord. As the old American saying goes: Close, but no cigar.
To truly understand the state of negotiations between the two sides and whether a deal is possible in the near future, we need to know the specific areas of agreement and disagreement. The Newsweek article that you cite gives Olmert's version of what he offered to Abbas, which Erekat confirmed. The Palestinians "began to formulate a response" but there's no mention of what it consisted of and "time eventually ran out". So, apparently, it was never presented to the Israelis.
Israelis and Palestinians have been negotiating, off and on, for over 15 years without yet reaching agreement on a single "final status" issue. Apart from the questions of a settlement freeze, Hamas, Obama, Arab countries, Iran, and all the rest, just how close are the Israeli and Palestinian political establishments to cutting a deal, and what exactly are the gaps that still need to be closed?