Still "no-one to talk to"
One of the most popular myths in the corridors of power in Tel Aviv and Washington is the notion that the Israeli/Palestinian conflcict could be solved easily were it not for the obstructionism of Palestinian president, Yasser Arafat. If nothing else, Arafat's imminent death will soon show this belief to be a fiction.
It is of course convenient for Bush and Sharon to place all the blame for the conflict at Arafat's door, since it absolves them and their countries from any responsibility for the bloodshed. By blaming Yasser, there is no need for Israel or America to ask searching questions of themselves or to make painful policy changes. It's much cosier to pretend that the violence is all the fault of the Palestinian leader who is holding back his people from accepting "peace" as offered by Bush and Sharon.
Such an attitude is nonsense, a willful refusal to confront painful facts. I have never met a Palestinian who considered Arafat to be too hardline in his dealings with the Israelis and the Americans. I have met many though who believe that Yasser, thanks to his blunders, has conceded too much already. One need only look at the salutory lesson provided by Mahmoud Abbas, a man made prime minister solely on the grounds that he was acceptable to Israel and America. When he finally threw in the towel, poor Abu Mazen had a job approval rating of just 1.7%.
Israel and America need to face the fact that the real problem is not Arafat, it's the occupation. For all that the Israeli/Palestinian conflcict is hideously complex, it is also blindingly simple. As long as Israeli troops and settlers remain in the West Bank and Gaza, there will be violence. It doesn't matter whether the Palestinians are led by Yasser Arafat or Slobodan Milosevic or Nelson Mandela - it's the occupation, stupid!
Unfortunately, the majority of Israelis refuse to accept this. For the Israeli mainstream, "peace" does not mean and end to the occupation but rather a reconfiguration of it. In their view, peace will be achieved by Israel leaving the Palestinian population centres while retaining control of the borders, the airspace, the water and of course, the settlement blocs. This is the common thread running through the Allon plan, the Oslo agreements and the current Road Map.
For the Palestinian people, regardless of who is their leader, such a solution is unacceptable. In their minds, they have already compromised enough. It has been fuly 16 years since the Algiers conference, when the PLO, led of course by that nasty Mr. Arafat, accepted the two-state solution. In other words, most Palestinians have long accepted that they will only have a state on 22% of their own country.
But rather than count their blessings for such reasonable adversaries, successive Israeli governments have instead pushed ahead with the settlement drive on that 22%, making a two-state solution impossible. Any Palestinian leader who accepts this Israeli diktat is doomed to failure. The Palestinian people believe, quite rightly, that the ball is in Israel's court.
It is not therefore the Israelis who do not have a partner for peace. It's the Palestinians.