Today's Situation

Diplomatic diversions Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Jerusalem tried to dash cold water on the reports, saying it was ‘not aware’ of the details mentioned by Abbas and Al Hayat while Noam Shalit, the missing corporal’s father was saying that until he sees proof his son is alive and well, he won’t be rushing to believe the reports.

The general outlines of the deal have more or less been known since early July, hammered out by Egypt. Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committee and Islamic Army, which are supposedly holding Shalit, will hand him over to Egypt as a trustworthy third party. Egypt will then hand him over to Israel, which will then release several hundred prisoners, to Abbas, in at least two or possibly three stages. The Palestinian prisoners to be released are said to include women, minors, and prisoners who have served very long sentences. Israel is sticking to its ‘no freedom for people with blood on their hands’ policy and will not be releasing Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, whom an Israeli court convicted on five counts of conspiracy to murder, for his role in the orchestration of terror attacks in the Jerusalem area in 2001 and 2002.

Meanwhile, if the Al Hayat report is accurate -- and regrettably, many of the Arab press reports on progress in the prisoner exchange deal have not been very accurate -- Shalit could be handed over to Israel just as an Arab summit convenes ostensibly to re-endorse the 2002 Arab peace initiative originally launched by Saudi Arabia. In 2002, the Arab League met in Beirut and issued a call for full-fledged normal peace with Israel, in exchange for Israel withdrawing to the 1967 borders and the establishment of a Palestinian state. There is some dispute over what the Arab initiative meant to happen to the refugees, though it has become pretty evident that Israel will only allow a ‘right of return’ to the new Palestinian state. That 2002 initiative coincided almost to the day with one of the worst of the Palestinian suicide bombings, at the Park Hotel in Netanya, killing more than 30 people attending a Passover seder. And Ariel Sharon was prime minister at the time, never hiding his absolute skepticism about the possibility of any peace deal with the Palestinians. The Arabs issued their peace offer, and Sharon initiated Operation Defensive Shield, a military occupation of the West Bank meant to stop the suicide bombings.

This time, however, circumstances are different. True, Israel had its nose bloodied in a war against Hizbollah, which has greatly reduced the authority of the government and seemingly given the Right a shot of adrenaline. On the other hand, the government is desperate to find a new ‘vision’ to replace the unilateralist approach that Sharon promoted in Gaza and which the Kadima party, headed by Ehud Olmert, was elected to apply to a least most of the West Bank. There is talk inside Kadima and certainly inside Labor about replacing the ‘convergence/realignment’ plan to unilaterally pull out of most of the West Bank, with a plan to politically engage the Palestinians and possibly the Syrians. Vice Premier Shimon Peres just this morning said that he expects an Olmert-Abbas meeting to come on the heels of the release of Shalit. Meanwhile, the Palestinians continue to negotiate a national unity government that would involve power sharing between Hamas and Fateh, and could make possible ending the international embargo against the Hamas government.

But as always in the Middle East, seeing is believing. And no Israeli will believe an Arab newspaper or even PA President Abbas, until they see Shalit in Egyptian hands, and at the very least on his way to Israel. But it is true that a move freeing Shalit that coincides with an Arab call for normalized relations with Israel in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Golan Heights, could give a boost to Israeli interest in the new Arab initiative. On the other hand, since the Arabs plan to bring the initiative to the UN, which is hardly Israel’s favorite international institution, it could all end up as another diplomatic dud like all the others littering the landscape.

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