Can #Hamas and the #PLO really kiss and make up?

Well, they say they can, the New York Times reports, noting that they've talked about it before and failed.

Related: should they? (That of course depends in part on who's asking that question.)

That said, politics, and political enemies, make strange bedfellows.

Given that Israeli prime minster Bibi Netanyahu is in bed with people in his cabinet that make him look halfway sane, it's no wonder that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have renewed unity government talks. And, this shouldn't have surprised either Israel or the US. Things like the PA (PLO) working to get officially accepted into more United Nations-affiliate organizations should have been a sign that the PA was tired of getting the back of the hand from the US as well as Israel.

This is yet another area where Dear Leader and both his current and previous foreign policy leaders, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, have been all talk and no show, except when the show's been to give the PA the back of the hand.

I have repeatedly blogged about this, like here, based on leaks to al-Jazeera and other things, where the US continually threatened to turn the financial screws on the PA unless it kowtowed to every Israeli demand. At the same time, Obama never threatened the foreign aid funding for Israel.

Say what else one will about Poppy Bush, I'll give him credit for being the only president in the last 30 years to link foreign aid to Israel to it not building settlements on the West Bank, that is, Palestine.

Of course, I still won't hold my breath too much. The Palestinians have long been their own worst enemies. At the same time, the fact that Egypt's new secular government is overseeing negotiations between Hamas and the PA means we shouldn't expect a guaranteed failure.

On the other hand, if this does pan out, the US will now have a Netanyahu who is even more foaming at the mouth than normal. And, a Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan willing to exploit this for domestic Turkish wag the dog reasons if nothing else. And, Bibi's intransigence, silently supported in Washington, is at root.

As for the "should," in a big picture sense? I don't want it to happen until Hamas officially rejects Holocaust denial, among other things. As for expecting jihad of some sort to make all of Israel and Palestine Muslim? I had a Lutheran seminary professor say that we ought to evangelize Muslims at the point of a gun then cut their heads off before they could reconvert, and this was a full decade before 9/11.

And, it was more than 2,000 years ago, but Google the two words of "Hasmoneans" and "Idumeans" or similar. Judaism, although much more rarely, has itself occasionally evangelized at the point of a sword.

Update, April 23: Israel has officially suspended talks.

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Related to all of this?

My ideal solution for Palestine would be:
1. Eliminate the Gaza Strip;
2. Give Palestine lands in the Negev in compensation;
3. Give Israel a decade to move people out of most of its settlements (the precise details of "most of" to be negotiated);
4. Without expecting a peace treaty, have a unified Palestine and Israel sign joint recognition documents, with the understanding that the PA and Israel will both likely want their equivalent of "presidential signing statements" as part of that;
5. Get the Saudis to give an under-the-table pledge to Israel that, unless it lurches further right, it will never be the target of a Saudi oil embargo.

And, now, I'll just crown myself as a more omnipotent version of John Rawls.

That said, Hamas has offered long-term truces to Israel before.

US again gives lip service to Mideast neutrality, back of hand to #Palestinians

So, Mahmoud Abbas wants the government of Palestine to join a few UN agencies?

Nope, can't do that, the US says; Dear Leader tells Secretary of State John Kerry to stop talking to the Palestinian leader.

Specific on which agencies the Palestinians want to join?

A senior Palestinian official said the 15 agencies Mr. Abbas moved to join — out of more than 60 possible — did not include the International Criminal Court or International Court of Justice, where many Palestinians hope to prosecute Israelis for what they consider war crimes, including the demolition of homes, arrests and killings of Palestinians, and the building of settlements. The 15 did include the Geneva and Vienna Conventions and agencies dealing with women’s and children’s rights, the official said.

Sounds reasonable to me. Abbas is deliberately avoiding being highly provocative.

But, we still give him the back of the hand.

And, that's why this idea that we would release Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard 18 months early to speed up the peace process is bullshit. Because, as al-Jazeera documented a couple of years ago, the "peace process" that the US envisions has always been on Israel's terms, and the Palestinian Authority has always had to dance to the puppet strings of US money, whereas, ever since Poppy Bush's one brief "hold" on foreign aid to Israel, we've never put Tel Aviv through the same hoops.

And, if anything, Obama's worse than Poppy's son Shrub, not better. From diminishing the severity of Israeli settlements in Palestine to

That said, per the link about Israeli settlements, Abbas has been a good Palestinian leader only through the soft bigotry of low expectations and comparisons to his predecessor, Yasir Arafat.

On the third hand, mainstream media have a history of misrepresenting how much, or how little, Israel is actually ready to give away on the land issue.  Also on the third hand, it's not just Abbas that's been getting the back of the hand; it's PA leadership in general.

Back to the original link, though, with this as the nut graf:

Israel and the United States have argued that Palestinian membership in these international agencies is a mistaken approach to Palestinian statehood, which should instead be negotiated directly between Israel and the Palestinians. Congress passed a law saying such membership could trigger a withdrawal of United States financial aid to the Palestinian Authority and other steps.

Uhh, I thought Palestine already was a state? So says 70 percent of UN member states; only the US and Western allies, plus a stray country here and there, disagree.

That said, the reason the US and the West reject it is because the PLO and Israel both agreed in the Oslo Accords not to act unilaterally on this issue.

On the fourth hand, this is the real world; usually a geopolitical action is part of a chess board, and a chess board that's not quite so blatantly underwritten with US dollars. And also on the fourth hand, since Bibi Netanyahu intransigently opposes Palestinian statehood, one could argue HE is the one acting unilaterally.

And, since Obama and Kerry won't lean on him to loosen up (despite Bibi's tears over various Obama alleged actions) there you go.

The Palestinian vacuousness of Obama

Well, after his first-term administration played fiscal purse bare-knuckle bruising of the Palestinian Authority, his vacuousness about the process for Palestinian statehood shouldn't be totally surprising, even if he's not up for re-election.

I mean, calling the land grab of Israeli settlements an "irritant" that should not be a precondition for resuming talks? WTF?

"If the expectation is that we can only have direct negotiations when everything is settled ahead of time, then there is no point for negotiations, so I think it is important to work through this process even if there are irritants on both sides," Obama told reporters at a joint news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah.

The Palestinians have, in the past under Yasir Arafat, shot themselves in the foot, tis true. And under Mahmoud Abbas during Obama's first term:

 During his first four years in office, Obama had sided with the Palestinians on the issue. He and his surrogates repeatedly demanded that all settlement activity cease. However, when Israel reluctantly declared a 10-month moratorium on construction, the Palestinians balked at returning to the table until shortly before it expired and talks foundered shortly thereafter.

But, a land grab is more than an irritant.

That said, I think the Gaza Strip should be eliminated and Palestinians given additional territory on the south of today's current "West Bank" to form a single contiguous state.

As other geographically divided countries, like East/West Pakistan and post-World War I Germany have shown, these geographically split nations have a tendency not to work out in the long run. In Germany's case, it led to a push for war. In the two Pakistans, it was a tragic mix of civil war plus war with India.

So, alternative B is, since Gaza and the West Bank are almost two separate countries anyway, make this legally real. Palestine = West Bank and Hamasland = Gaza.

Of course, that's got about zero chance of happening. Not just Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, but Israel, and Egypt, and Jordan and much of the rest of the Arab World would all oppose a Hamas state.

Meanwhile, speaking of bare knuckles with the fiscal purse? We're in the fricking sequester, right? So, why not cut off, or at least seriously cut back, foreign aid to Israel?

Obama takes Palestine hypocrisy to UN

Dear Leader tells Palestinian leaders that only direct negotiations will get a Palestinian state. He tells the res of the world that, too. He "forgets" to tell them that both his administration and the Bush administration colluded with the government of Israel to torpedo those negotiations time after time.

The Al-Jazeera papers showed us that, and many a leader of a developing nation has read about them.

Speaking of, Team Obama has yet to respond in public to Prince Turki's op-ed in the NYT last week, with all of its implications. Wonder what the private White House take has been?

And, what if Mahmoud Abbas, stymied at the Security Council, goes to the General Assembly? There's simply no way the U.S. can bribe that many countries to vote no. And, if it gets "half-ghetto" status there, that doesn't preclude the Palestinian Authority from re-applying to the Security Council time after time. Abbas has already said that.

Meanwhile, Abbas has agreed to not ask for an immediate vote. The carrot puppet-string of $450M in U.S. aid, or withdrawal of it, was a persuader.

First, Abbas should have known, given that Team Obama threatened that before as part of disrupting negotiations, that this threat would come again.

Second, per his column, if that was official Saudi talking points, surely Prince Turki could round up $450M in loose change from under Saudi seat cushions. Why doesn't Abbas ask?

Or hell, why doesn't Hamas ask? If the Middle East applecart needs upsetting ...

And, with Israel possibly already gearing up for a new crackdown, its current leaders can't be trusted, anyway. Well, certainly not its current leaders. And not totally its former leaders, as former PM Ehud Olmert is given moralizing space in the NYT. He gets to lament that we're all at this pass, while also opposing the UN route Abbas is taking, and not talking about how past negotiations under HIS government as well as Netanyahu's were sabotaged by the Israelis and the U.S. (And they were. The al Jazeera papers tell us that, too.)

And, with the Abbas cave-in, does that show how incompetent he is? Or, as Time hinted a week ago, is he being a stooge for Israel and the U.S.? He's agreed to a delay for action by the Security Council ... but for how long? And, can this even be settled? Has Abbas talked to the Saudis?

Bibi's speech: Lies, damned lies, smugness, intransigence

Israel Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu was clearly playing to suckers like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, he of undercutting Obama's non-change statement on 1967 borders, during Netanyahu's speech to Congress.

Let's start with the most basic of lies: Netanyahu's demand that Palestinian President Mahmoud Aabbas recognize Israel's right to exist. Abbas' predecessor, Yasser Arafat, did that LONG ago.

Smugness? Well, when you have somebody as stupid as Harry Reid running the U.S. Senate, it's easy to be smug.

Intransigence? Starting with his statement on borders, that's clear enough.

As for his offer to make "painful compromises," that probably means "I'll stop construction on one West Bank settlement of 50 houses."

And, I love the mainstream media that says there is no "Jewish lobby" manipulating public opinion. The mainstream media that doesn't have Arab commentators, even for an issue like this, on talk shows. That said, the claim is technically tru, only if you ignore the fundamentalist Christan "Amen corner." And, given Mr. Rapture, Harold Camping, ignoring Christian millennialists is something we do at our peril.

Speaking of that Amen corner, Glenn Greenwald snorts derisively at such "American patriots."

Surprisingly, Josh Marshall, whom I have characterized in the past as a semi-Zionist on Middle East issues over his eye-closing on the al-Jazeera leaks, sees through Netanyahu.

And that gets to the crux of the issue. Just as Israel essentially "created" Hamas decades ago, Zionists like Bibi want to yoke Fatah to it all they can, then claim Fatah did this freely, rather than being backed into an Israeli-American corner.

Don't forget that, Josh. You're still a semi-Zionist until you recognize how much a role the U.S. is playing here.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Goldberg notes Bibi is becoming as bumbling as stereotypical Palestinians.

And, here's great oversight on how theocrats are gaining more power in Israel, how it's a myth that Israel is so "insecure," and more.

Abbas sacks Palestinian cabinet

I'm not surprised at this, in light of the Palestine Papers and now, the fall of Mubarak in Egypt.

It's not going to do anything to bring Hamas closer, though, and probably won't strengthen the Palestinian Authority's hand within the West Bank that much either. Of course, because the U.S. has warned him not to, and he's afraid of Hamas, there will be no free elections in the West Bank anytime soon, for president.

Tzipi Livni, full of PR smoke

Oh, NOOOOOWWWWW Kadima's leader and Israel's former foreign minister is wanting to do more, including "linkage," to a genuine two-state solution in the Middle East.

Rather than kicking Mahmoud Abbas in the nuts like she did a year ago, per Al Jazeera's Palestine papers.

What this is is the "fear of Egypt's future" fallout starting to hit Israel.

Meanwhile, Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is on full bipartisan foreign policy establishment suck-up mode on this one, saying she's been saying the same thing in public for years.

He still said that, with a straight face, AFTER I e-mailed him links and comments from two Guardian stories based on the Palestine papers.

From one of the Guardian stories:

In an emotional – and apparently humiliating – outburst to Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in Washington in October 2009, the senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat complained that the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership wasn't even being offered a "figleaf". ...

(W)hen Palestinian leaders balked at the prospect of an entirely demilitarised state, Livni made clear where the negotiating power lay. In May 2008, Erekat asked (Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister): "Short of your jet fighters in my sky and your army on my territory, can I choose where I secure external defence?"

"No," Livni replied. "In order to create your state you have to agree in advance with Israel – you choose not to have the right of choice afterwards."

And more ...

Here’s Lipni, again from the Guardian, favoring “transfer:”

In several areas, (then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni) pressed for Israeli Arab citizens to be moved into a Palestinian state in a land-swap deal, raising the spectre of "transfer" - in other words, moving Palestinians from one state to another without consent. The issue is controversial in Israel and backed in its wholesale form by rightwing nationalists such as the Yisrael Beiteinu party of the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

Seems pretty clear, Josh, if you want to open your eyes.

That said, Josh is, if not a Zionist, highly uncritical of Israel's current bipartisan foreign policy establishment. Also, he seems to have little love last for Al Jazeera. He's not given it and its coverage Mention No. 1 during the current Egypt crisis. And, on further reflection, I don't think he did a single blog post about the Palestine papers. For lack of a better word or phrase, I'm creating the new tag of "semi-Zionism."

Team Obama turns financial screws on Abbas, Palestinians

Team Obama threatened to cut off funds to the Palestinian Authority if it replaced Mahmoud Abbas as leader.

Almost a year later (than November 2008), the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, reacted angrily to news that Abbas had threatened to resign and call for new presidential elections. She told Palestinian negotiators: "Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] not running in the election is not an option – there is no alternative to him." The threat was withdrawn and no election was held.

As the Guardian notes, on background as to Abbas' legitimacy, or lack thereof:

Abbas was elected president in 2005, but his mandate expired in 2009 and is no longer recognised by Hamas, among others, as the legitimate Palestinian leader. (Prime Minister Salem) Fayyad was appointed prime minister by Abbas after the Hamas takeover of Gaza but his legitimacy is also strongly contested as his appointment was never confirmed as required by the PA's parliament.

The Guardian notes no new elections are immediately on the table. And, if the PA wants U.S. dollars, they can't be. Talk about a Catch-22. Talk about yet more justification for some PA person to leak to al Jazeera.

Israel wants to expel Palestinians

That's yet another tidbit coming out of the Al Jazeera leaks about Israel-Palestinian peace negotiations.

Palestinian President Abbas' negotiating team, in private, officially accepted that Israel could define itself as a Jewish state.

That, in turn connects closely to the right of return. It gives Israeli leaders justification for saying the PA has officially waived the right of return. It also theoretically gives Israel justification for Palestinian expulsion. Indeed, it already popped up in "negotiations":

In several areas, (then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni) pressed for Israeli Arab citizens to be moved into a Palestinian state in a land-swap deal, raising the spectre of "transfer" - in other words, moving Palestinians from one state to another without consent. The issue is controversial in Israel and backed in its wholesale form by rightwing nationalists such as the Yisrael Beiteinu party of the foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman.

"Transfer" is such a polite euphemism.

Who benefits from the Al Jazeera 'A-bomb"?

I blogged earlier today about the big "A-bomb" that al-Jazeera dropped on the Middle East and passed on to the Guardian, about the sorry state of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. (Here's the link to the al Jazeera main webpage for the coverage, to make sure it gets its due.)

An Al Jazeera explainer page notes what's behind the papers:

There are 1,684 total documents, including
* 275 sets of meeting minutes;
* 690 internal e-mails;
* 153 reports and studies;
* 134 sets of talking points and prep notes for meetings;
* 64 draft agreements;
* 54 maps, charts and graphs;
* and 51 “non-papers.”

Among the bombshells, in numerous sublinks at the Guardian?

But, why? And why now?

The cui bono question is running through my head, mainly.

Yes, we know that WikiLeaks had the U.S. diplomatic cables, but the al-Jazeera leak is separate. So, who gave it what it got and why? And, how did that person come into the info, if he or she isn't an insider?

Would this benefit an Israeli ultrahawk like Avigdor Lieberman? By deliberately sabotaging future talks, which it will?

Or, somebody from Hamas? Though it would be tough for anybody from Hamas to have gotten such detailed information.

Or, either a rival to Abbas for leadership within the PA, or a principled PA negotiator who finally had had enough?

Meanwhile, Team Obama threatened to cut off funds to the Palestinian Authority if it replaced Mahmoud Abbas as leader.

This would be the same Abbas whose negotiating team, in private, officially accepted that Israel could define itself as a Jewish state.

This all further impinges on the "who benefits" issue.

And, was this leak, whoever did it, already planned before the WikiLeaks release of the U.S. cables or not?

Who doesn't benefit? Per one al Jazeera piece, everyday Palestinians, likely to see further Israeli intimidation and violence.

Al Jazeera just droppped an A-bomb on the Middle East

The Arab-world-based news service uncovered a treasure trove of leaked documents about Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and exclusively shared them with the Guardian. (Here's the link to the al Jazeera main webpage for the coverage, to make sure it gets its due.)

An Al Jazeera explainer page notes what's behind the papers:

There are 1,684 total documents, including
* 275 sets of meeting minutes;
* 690 internal e-mails;
* 153 reports and studies;
* 134 sets of talking points and prep notes for meetings;
* 64 draft agreements;
* 54 maps, charts and graphs;
* and 51 “non-papers.”

Among the bombshells, in numerous sublinks at the Guardian?

Israeli intransigence on negotiations, U.S. acquiescence, and Palestinian desperation.

In an emotional – and apparently humiliating – outburst to Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in Washington in October 2009, the senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat complained that the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership wasn't even being offered a "figleaf". ...

(W)hen Palestinian leaders balked at the prospect of an entirely demilitarised state, Livni made clear where the negotiating power lay. In May 2008, Erekat asked (Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister): "Short of your jet fighters in my sky and your army on my territory, can I choose where I secure external defence?"

"No," Livni replied. "In order to create your state you have to agree in advance with Israel – you choose not to have the right of choice afterwards."

By the following year, Erekat appeared to have accepted that choice. "The Palestinians know they will have a country with limitations," he told Mitchell. "They won't have an army, air force or navy." A string of other major concessions had been made, but the issues were no further forward. "They need decisions," Erekat pleaded.

Wow. A demilitarized Palestine.

Israeli annexation of most East Jerusalem settlements.

There's more. Go to the main link, the first one up top, and start reading.

If I'm Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, I'm not walking anywhere now without a bulletproof vest. And, no, that's not too hyperbolic. Plenty of people at various spots in the Hamas food chain would surely be willing to pull a trigger.

Beyond that, this undermines plenty of actors beyond the Palestinian Authority.

Livni is now head of the opposition Kadima Party. Whenever it gets into power again, she'll be no more trusted by Palestinians outside the PA than Bibi Netanyahu is now.

Given that American acquiescence to Israeli intransigence carried over into the Obama Administration, it loses credibility.

And, to the degree more moderate Arab governments are seen has having thrown their collective lot with the PA rather than Hamas, to the degree either further al Jazeera information or WikiLeaks cables shed any light on this, they lose credibility too.

A couple of other thoughts, too.

The cui bono question is running through my head, mainly.

Yes, we know that WikiLeaks had the U.S. diplomatic cables, but the al-Jazeera leak is separate. So, who gave it what it got and why? And, how did that person come into the info, if he or she isn't an insider?

Would this benefit an Israeli ultrahawk like Avigdor Lieberman? By deliberately sabotaging future talks, which it will?

Or, somebody from Hamas? Though it would be tough for anybody from Hamas to have gotten such detailed information.

Or, either a rival to Abbas for leadership within the PA, or a principled PA negotiator who finally had had enough?

Meanwhile, Team Obama threatened to cut off funds to the Palestinian Authority if it replaced Mahmoud Abbas as leader.

This would be the same Abbas whose negotiating team, in private, officially accepted that Israel could define itself as a Jewish state.

This all further impinges on the "who benefits" issue.

And, was this leak, whoever did it, already planned before the WikiLeaks release of the U.S. cables or not?

Who doesn't benefit? Per one al Jazeera piece, everyday Palestinians, likely to see further Israeli intimidation and violence.