Palestine: Is the Third Intifada Possible?

Palestine: Hamas Rejects Elections in Gaza

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After mass protests and clashes this month between Israeli police and Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the prospect of a "Third Intifada" has re-emerged.

According to Israel Radio, after leaders had urged Palestinians and Israeli Muslims to defend Jerusalem against "Jewish conquest", a call which triggered a response for Israeli Jews to visit the Temple Mount, Israel's police stated that it will strengthen their forces around the Temple Mount on Sunday.

Haaretz's Zvi Bar'el write about the possibility of a Third Intifada, sharing the thoughts of Egyptian thinker Kamal Gabriel. According to Gabriel, Palestinians lack both a universally shared ideological authority and a leadership that is convinced of its ability to conduct another rising. Religious activism is not enough to trigger a new Intifada. Bar'el concludes that the deepening division between Hamas and Fatah and the increasing tension in the East Jerusalem makes the Intifada an event which is always "possible" but never occurs.

Meanwhile, Haaretz, passing on areport in the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi, says Sultan Abu al-Ghneim, who represents Fatah in the refugee camps of Lebanon, gave a speech last week at a Ramallah rally calling on Fatah to resume suicide bombings against Israel. Given the assessment that an Intifada is not imminent, the question arises: what purpose does Ghneim's statement serve?

Israel-Palestine: Clinton to Obama "Little Progress"

Israel-Palestine: Space for a US-Brokered Solution Narrows
Bring It On: Israel Counter-attacks UN over Gaza Enquiry

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, accompanied by Mideast special envoy George Mitchell, submitted her report on the Palestinian-Israeli peace process to President Barack Obama on Thursday.

Despite Mitchell's many claims of "highly productive" discussions, Clinton's report says there has been little progress in efforts to renew stalled peace talks. Challenges remain even though Palestinians have strengthened their security efforts, and the Israelis have expressed a willingness to curtail settlement activity.

The White House still maintains that Mitchell will return to the region next week to relaunch negotiations. However, the Obama Administration needs a strategic manoeuvre to get both sides to the table. Washington is pursuing this through an attempt to bring in UN resolutions 242 and 338 on Israeli-Palestinian borders. Yet, given the full U.S. support to Israel's rejection of the UN resolution on Gaza, will this merely be another burden rather than the bricks to build a resolution?

Israel-Palestine: Space for a US-Brokered Solution Narrows

Bring It On: Israel Counter-attacks UN over Gaza Enquiry
Palestine: Suffering Life at Israeli Checkpoints

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Is there any space left for the US as the "honest broker" of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks?

On Tuesday night, President Obama declared, on the eve of Israeli President Shimon Peres's Facing Tomorrow Conference in Jerusalem, that Israeli-US relations were "more than a strategic alliance." In a speech full of praises on Peres, he added:

Our moment in history is filled with challenges that test our will and invite pessimism. We can choose to defer action, to sustain a dangerous status quo, or we can meet the challenges of our time head-on. Like you, I believe now is the time to act.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhQaubxx6Rw[/youtube]

Obama's speech was undercut, however, by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ostensibly, he was calling for "peace", by putting the burden upon Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas:

Now it is your turn to say the truth about peace, the need for it and the true way to achieve it. What is important is to do it publicly, not just behind closed doors; to say the truth about peace publicly, to our people and to the Palestinian people.

The problem is that Netanyahu's demands comes in the context of a series of Israeli conditions on the talks, including the dispute over expansion of settlements and Tel Aviv's insistence on addressing of specific economic and security issues rather than the general recognition of a Palestinian state. So PA negotiator Saeb Erekat, who happened to be in Washington, pointedly said, "There's no agreement" and accused Israel of feigning interest in negotiations while claiming the Palestinians were preventing progress.

Israeli representatives were unable to reach common ground with Palestinians over three demands put by the latter: the start of the negotiations would be accompanied by a statement saying the goal was to reach an agreement within two years; the goal would the establishment of a Palestinian state with permanent borders based on an Israeli withdrawal; and there would a complete halt to construction of settlements, including in East Jerusalem. Late Tuesday, Israeli sources stated that negotiations failed.

Still the US persists. On Wednesday, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice told Israelis to "relaunch Middle East talks now" At Peres's conference, she said: "As President Peres always reminds us, being serious about peace means taking risks for peace. Being serious about peace means understanding that tomorrow need not look like yesterday."

That is enough for now, it appears, to keep the idea of a negotiation alive. After the message of the Obama Administration, One Israeli official said, "There appears to be a meeting of the minds and hopefully the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue will be able to re-start in the near future." Another explained under the prospective deal, on which Palestinians have not yet commented, the negotiations could be held on the basis of two UN Security Council resolutions, 242 and 338, from the 1960s and 1970s.

The resolutions call for "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict"; however, each party interprets this in its own way. For Palestinians, it obliges Israelis to withdraw unconditionally to pre-1967 borders, whereas Israel interprets this as a partial withdrawal.

So far from making Washington's task easier, the border issue may bring talks to a critical stage. Unless Israel is willing to drop its step-by-step approach in favour of a grand resolution, or conversely the Palestinians are willing to compromise on a de facto Israeli occupation while other issues are considered, there will be a stalemate, if not a dramatic collapse. Saed Erekat's words, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton prepared her detailed report on talks to Obama, laid the foundation for blame rather than agreement, "The report would identify the spoiler in the talks."

Enemy Iran: The US-Israeli Military Drill

Really?! Israel & Iran in Direct Talks on Nuclear Weapons
The Latest from Iran (22 October): Unsteady as She Goes

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On Wednesday, Israel and the US, with 1,000 participants on each side, launched a major air defense drill called Operation Juniper Cobra 10, simulating an Iranian missile attack. According to the scenario, Iran sends its missiles and Americans support the Israeli Defense Force with its missile defense system. Then allies attack Iranian missile batteries with missiles with unconventional warheads.

The drill will last for two weeks.

Bring It On: Israel Counter-attacks UN over Gaza Enquiry

Palestine: Suffering Life at Israeli Checkpoints

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Under the terms of the Goldstone Report on the Gaza War, now approved by the UN Human Rights Council, Israel and Hamas are required to conduct internal enquiries into the conduct of their military forces.

Fat chance.

On Tuesday, Israel's President Shimon Peres told CNN that the Goldstone Report "one-sided" and "unfair".





Peres' statement was mere prelude to the full Israeli resistance. In fact, for resistance, insert "counter-attack". On Tuesday, the Israeli Cabinet and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, promising a lengthy battle to "delegitimize" the findings of the United Nations commission, established a committee to deal with the prospect of "legal proceedings abroad against the state of Israel or its citizens."

Even Defense Minister Ehud Barak, seen as the moderate amongst senior Israeli ministers, refused to discuss the possibility of a Governmental investigation: "There is no need for a committee of inquiry. The Israeli military knows to examine itself better than anyone else."

Meanwhile Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman chose a diversionary strategy of undermining the Israel-Palestine peace process. He told his European Union counterpart Javier Solana:

The policy of subversion carried out by the Palestinian Authority against the State of Israel, which follows decisions at the Fatah conference in August in which there were calls for the resumption of the armed struggle, raises serious questions about the real aims of the Palestinians. The question now is whether the Palestinians want to establish a state, or to destroy the state of Israel.