Despite reassurances by the Obama administration that the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations are merely at a standstill, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s initiative to jump-start the peace process is destined for failure. As such, we should not expect any substantive agreements to emerge from the current negotiations; indeed, the focus of Kerry’s efforts has recently shifted from creating a framework for the terms of a final solution, to preventing the parties from walking out of the negotiations altogether.
A variety of recent events compellingly suggest that the U.S.-brokered peace talks are spiraling out of control. Eight months of negotiations came to an abrupt halt last week when the Israeli government decided to suspend talks, citing the Palestinians’ reconciliation agreement.
Relations between Hamas, the Islamist political organization that governs the Gaza Strip, and the secular Fatah in the West Bank have been strained due to factional fighting that occurred in 2006. Due to Hamas’ rejection of Israel’s right to exist and its periodic, indiscriminate rocket attacks against population centers in Southern Israel, Fatah’s decision to pursue reconciliation with Hamas has enraged Israeli officials.
The New York Times reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated, “Whoever chooses the terrorism of Hamas does not want peace,” in response to the reconciliation measures between Hamas and Fatah to form a unity government.
Peace talks have been strained for months due to tit-for-tat provocations on both sides; in response to Israel’s failure to release an agreed upon 25 Palestinian prisoners on April 2, according to an article from Foreign Policy. Palestine unilaterally attempted to join more than a dozen international organizations and treaties in defiance of earlier promises to Israel. The parties reached another stumbling block when President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority rejected Israel’s calls to recognize it as a Jewish state.
Additionally, Israel has defaulted on its tacit agreement to slow settlement construction in disputed territories in the West Bank.
In addition to the 500,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Netanyahu’s government has approved the construction of more than 10,000 homes since the start of the peace talks eight months ago.
Palestinian officials regard the construction of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as a serious obstacle to peace.
“The Israeli government was given the choice between peace and settlements, but it chose settlements,” said Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, in an interview with the New York Times last Thursday.
In an off-handed remark to the Trilateral Commission last Friday, Kerry mentioned that if the parties fail to reach an agreement that provides for a two-state solution, then Israel risks becoming “an apartheid state.” Although he retracted his statement on Monday, his characterization of Israel as an apartheid state just made the task of inspiring trust among Israeli officials significantly more arduous and unlikely.
Finally, Republican Senator Rand Paul’s introduction of legislation to end Palestinian aid this week, unless they renounce terrorism and recognize Israel’s right to exist, threatens to further derail the peace process. Since Hamas will undoubtedly reject these two conditions, the Kentucky senator and likely 2016 presidential candidate’s measure would result in the U.S. cutting off assistance and debt relief to the Palestinians if passed.
In sum, this round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is destined for failure. Hopefully, the impending breakdown of the Palestinian peace talks will induce Kerry to focus on other global issues with higher humanitarian costs and more significant implications for U.S. long-term national interests; simply put, issues such as Bashar al-Assad’s butchery of civilians in Syria, Russia’s incursion upon Ukraine’s sovereignty and the precarious territorial disputes in Southeast Asia warrant more of Secretary Kerry’s time and attention than the faltering Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
Hunter Paul is a junior criminal justice major and a contributing writer at the Daily 49er.