Palestine: Diplomatic flurry

This week and next will see a flurry of diplomacy on the Israel-Palestine front.  Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday. A meeting of the US–EU-UN-Russia 'Quartet' and another visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will follow. Then on July 25, there is the prospect of the first ever visit by an Arab League delegation to Israel, albeit one led by the foreign ministers of the only two frontline states that already have ties with Israel.  For good measure, last week saw the first meeting between Israel and the new Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

What does all this mean? Unfortunately, while various parties have expressed optimism about the 'peace process', there is a good deal more form than substance here.  In reality, US-Israeli policy, embraced with less enthusiasm by other Quartet members, is to reward and boost Abbas's West Bank administration and marginalise the Hamas administration in charge of Gaza.  The economy there is deteriorating yet further as all but humanitarian goods are barred entry, and people are suffering despite the avowed policy of Abbas and his backers to squeeze Hamas, not the people.

The hope is that Hamas and its supporters will come to their senses and defer once again to Abbas's unreformed, disunited and discredited Fatah.  In the meantime, confidence building measures, such as an end to Palestinian attacks on Israeli targets and the removal of Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank will lead to substantive peace talks once Palestine is reunited. However, Abbas is probably too weak to deliver security; Hamas is too strong to be marginalised; and Olmert is too hamstrung to offer much to Abbas.  The policy instead risks dividing Palestinians yet further and rendering a settlement an even more distant prospect.