PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT Mahmoud Abbas has bought a few more days for the fragile peace talks with Israel. In the wake of the ending of Israel’s 10-month embargo on settlement building, he has postponed his pull-out from the talks promising to discuss their fate with the Arab League and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. In doing so, however, he has emphasised just how little scope he has for manoeuvre.
On a personal level, he may accept the George Mitchell Northern Ireland-inspired logic of pressing ahead with talks through inevitable provocations from all sides. But he is aware that his complete isolation from his own constituencies is likely to make continued talks futile. Mr Abbas’s political authority and ability to sell a deal involving difficult compromises has already been severely diminished. And his important attempts to effect a reconciliation with Hamas will come to a halt if he is seen to cave in completely on settlements.
Unwilling to extend the embargo on construction strongly urged on him by the US and EU – among others – Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s appeal to irredentist settlers on Sunday for “restraint and responsibility” is certainly welcome but unlikely to be sufficient. Both parties, however, are being cajoled by the US into a compromise which would accept, under Palestinian protest, some settlement construction in areas likely to remain within the state of Israel in any final peace deal.
That is the very least Mr Netanyahu must accept and enforce, difficult as that may be to some of his allies on the religious right in coalition. At stake are not just the peace talks but Mr Netanyahu's credibility as a partner for peace. He too knows he will eventually have to sell compromises to the Israeli people that will involve the evacuation of thousands of illegal homes in the occupied territories of the West Bank. As one Haaretzcolumnist puts it "Who will believe Bibi [Netanyahu] will be ready within a year to evacuate thousands of homes if he cannot/will not declare a temporary moratorium on the construction of a few hundred new homes? Or that it's worth breaking up the peace talks?"
A collapse of the talks and renewed diplomatic stalemate is in neither Israel’s nor Mr Netanyahu’s interests. It is likely to provoke new violence and international condemnation, even sanctions. And it is likely to accelerate the departure of Labor from his coalition, leaving a minority government dependent on extremists inside and outside the government.