fugitive peace

“Don’t expect the talk of peace with Syria to come true,” I said on this blog a couple of months ago. Well, now Israel and Syria are holding talks via Turkish mediation. But as my piece in this week’s issue of The Economist says, there are plenty of people who think Olmert is just doing it to divert attention from the Palestinian talks and his corruption investigation. And it may be no coincidence that Bashar al-Assad and Recep Tayyip Erdogan would welcome something to distract people from their own scandals.

Or it may indeed be just coincidence. The received wisdom now does seem to be that Syria and Israel have been trying to get talks going for a long while. And if they really wanted to, points out a friend of mine who follows Syria, it should be a piece of cake compared to negotiating Israeli-Palestinian peace.

The prices are well-known: Syria wants all of the Golan back to the June 4, 1967 border. Israel wants Syria to cut ties with Hizbullah, Hamas and Iran, though that will be harder to verify. Other issues like water rights are tricky but basically soluble.

The main problem I see is that even if Olmert and Assad are both totally serious, it doesn’t depend only on them. Syria wants the West to welcome it back into the community of nations. That gift is in the hands of the Americans, first and foremost, and they don’t believe Syria will play by the West’s rules. Perhaps more to the point, Condoleezza Rice has invested all her efforts in Israeli-Palestinian peace, which she claims is “the most mature track” (mature to the point of decomposition, if you ask me) and she doesn’t want to see her hard work and her legacy as secretary of state go down the drain. So even if Olmert is ready to give up all of the Golan, he can’t in fact give Syria what it wants.

Update (May 23): An Israeli lawyer is demanding that the attorney-general open a criminal investigation into Olmert for launching the peace talks without government approval. The news report I linked to isn’t quite accurate: it says no citizen may discuss the transfer of sovereign territory to another state. The lawyer’s letter, provided by the Israel Resource Review which published the report, cites a section from the 1977 penal code that forbids any citizen from, in his words, “an act leading to the removal of any area of land from the sovereignty of the state or its coming under the sovereignty of a foreign state,” unless the government approves it. According to him, launching peace talks without a cabinet decision, which seems to be what Olmert has done, comes under this rubric.

Of course, Olmert will only have committed an offence if his decision leads to land under Israeli sovereignty being transferred to Syria. If the peace talks go nowhere he’s not guilty. And I’m no lawyer, but I’m not sure that land occupied in wartime and not internationally recognised as part of your territory counts as land under your sovereignty. The things people waste their time on here…

Just got in from the swish opening reception in Bethlehem for the Palestine Investment Conference. As Salam Fayyad, the prime minister, said, “We are throwing a party, and the whole world is invited.” Well, a lot of those who turned up seemed to be not foreign investors but expatriate Palestinians who took advantage of a brief moment of Israeli openness to get a permit to visit home. Still, that’s a party by anyone’s standards.

I spent a bit of the previous afternoon with one of the real investors, the CEO of Qatari Diar, which plans to co-build Rawabi, a new Palestinian town for 40,000 people on a hillside about 15 minutes drive north of Ramallah. I didn’t think there were any hills in the West Bank that hadn’t been conquered by either Palestinians or settlers, but there we were, scrambling over the stones while the Qataris’ Palestinian business partner described the layout and gushed over the breathtaking views (you could even see the towers of Tel Aviv silhouetted in the sunset). I and another journalist recorded the CEO talking about how important it was to him to invest “with our brothers in Palestine” and saying that the symbolism mattered more than the profits.

As we talked to him a minion walked up and handed us each little boxes with “Balenciaga” and the Qatari Diar logo embossed on them. We fingered them nervously. Our employers both have policies about accepting gifts, but you don’t offend a senior Gulf businessman who is probably related to the royal family just after you’ve met him.

The interviews over, we walked back to the cars parked on the other side of the hill, where we discovered that one of the Palestinians had left his SUV in neutral and it had rolled 50 metres down into the ravine, where it lay with its windscreen wipers waving in a forlorn distress signal. The owner seemed remarkably sanguine. My colleague backed his car out gingerly.

Back on the road, we opened the little boxes. Turned out we needn’t have worried. Qatari Diar may be willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on its Palestinian brethren, but when it comes to journalists it makes do with the cheapest possible fake-leather notebook (and rightly so). Balenciaga might not be too happy, though.

I’m feeling pretty cynical about the Bush visit, and not just because getting around Jerusalem has been impossible (again). Akiva Eldar’s diatribe—“Bush is an accomplice to an offence far worse than all of the criminal offences of which Olmert is suspected combined”—was a shade harsher than I would allow myself, but his despairing assessment of the peace process and Bush’s non-contribution to it is right on target.

Which meant that listening to Olmert’s speech of welcome at the conference hosted by Shimon Peres, I found myself adding subtitles sotto voce:

“President Peres… Your ardent dedication to Israel throughout its 60 vibrant years is unmatched, while your rich experience and leadership provides us all with guidance and fills us with hope for the future.”

You never give up, you old has-been. You fill me with hope – hope that I don’t turn into such a perennial loser.

“It gives me great pleasure to offer a special welcome to the President of the United States of America, George W. Bush—a great personal friend whose commitment to the State of Israel is immeasurable.”

You’ve taken three days out of your last year in office to party here with the presidents of Poland, Albania, Togo, Burkina Faso and Palau. You must really have bugger-all to do back in Washington.

“You are an unusual person, you are an unusual leader and you are an unusual friend of the people of Israel.”

I’ve met some freiers in my time, but you take the biscuit.

“Our countries represent different peoples, but they have kindred souls… Our core beliefs, our founding values and our aspirations are all drawn from the same inspiration.”

Remember–it’s us versus them. The good guys against the crazy Muslims. I know we’ve got some religious nut-jobs too, but hey, you do the God stuff yourself, you know where that comes from.

“Relations between our countries have evolved into a joint vision and are based on a deep understanding of the invaluable benefits of close cooperation.”

We’ve dug ourselves into the same deep hole. So get out the chequebook already.

“With full confidence I say that the United States under your leadership represents the pinnacle of this friendship.”

And you’ve dug the deepest. Boy, would I hate to be in your shoes.

“Israel is and must remain capable of securing its own future, relying only – and I repeat again, at the end of the day – only on ourselves for our protection. But everybody in Israel knows that we can always depend on our greatest ally in the world, the United States of America, when navigating the geo-political challenges of the future.”

Don’t ever — and I repeat again, ever — tell us what to do. But when we come asking for help, you better give it or else those lobby people will be on you like a ton of bricks.

“Israel continues to actively seek peace with its neighbors, especially with the Palestinians. We are making great efforts and seeing progress on this front, which we believe, with continued dedication and labor, will come to fruition…”

We’re on the case, okay? So as I said, quit leaning on us…

“In addition to strong diplomatic relations, an integral element of the close cooperation between our countries is the dedication of the Jewish communities and the numerous Jewish organizations in America. I thank you for your efforts and know that you will continue to play a key role in preserving our special relations.”

…or else.

“Israel’s founding generation could only have dreams of achieving a state as advanced and spectacular as we have today. As one Jewish people, one Jewish nation, we must continue with the same vision, the same energy, and the same passion for developing our country, our homeland, as our forefathers had, so that we can implement our inspiring vision for the future.”

Our grandparents showed up here with nothing, and look what they created. Now we’re so busy fighting each other, never mind the Arabs, that we’re on a straight line to trashing it all.

“Mr. President, in 2004 you said that America as a ‘nation is stronger and safer because we have a true and dependable ally in Israel’.”

You must have been on drugs. Frankly, you need us as an ally like you need a hole in the head.

“Today I say to you Mr. President, Israel is stronger and safer because we look to the future, and we know that the United States of America will always remain our closest and most dependable ally.”

But hey, we’re not complaining. Like I said, get out the chequebook.

I’m in New York, having just resurfaced from a few days of splendid isolation in the American countryside. In the meantime Prospect has published my piece on the possible obstacles facing J Street on its website. As I wrote before, I think J Street is a good idea, but it won’t be plain sailing; this piece explains why.