How Israel can strengthen Abbas and other Palestinian moderates

by Ray Hanania (Palestine/USA)

Israel clearly wants to help shore up support for moderate Palestinians, and that is a good idea, although maybe they want to destroy the extremists more.

But, I have a few suggestions for Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert can help make President Mahmoud Abbas more popular, strengthen support for peace among Palestinians – well, restore faith that compromise with actually lead to a just peace — and achieve Israel’s goal of undermining Hamas.

For example, Olmert could make it clear that Israel supports “two states,” not three. The “other state” being Palestinian that is both politically viable and geographically cohesive. He could declare he rejects a Palestinian state that would be a collection of buntastans divided by Israel’s illegal settlements.

Olmert could also declare that Palestinians could share Jerusalem, at least most of East Jerusalem; We know Palestinians will accept placing the Jewish Quarter under Israeli control.

The Israeli Prime Minister might also call the “fence” a “wall,” and declare a little more convincingly that the “Wall” is just temporary, even if history has shown that everything that Israel declares is “temporary” eventually becomes “permanent.” Permanent not because of Israel’s actions, of course. But permanent because, according to Israelis, Palestinians have a bad habit of forcing the Israelis to make the “temporary” become the “permanent.”

Olmert could go further and argue that the term “temporary” in Hebrew really means “permanent.” That would help Abbas explain away some of his people’s problems. (Palestinians always need reason to explain why they fail in regional politics so often.)

And Olmert and other Israelis might stop telling American audiences that “Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” How about saying that they hope Palestinians might “miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” That would be okay, right?

Olmert could demonstrate that a “two-state future” is genuine and achievable by dismantling a settlement of significance in the West Bank. Not one of those illegal, fake settlements. But a real settlement, like Ariel.

Of course, all that might be too much to ask of any Israeli leader.

Maybe Olmert might need a “Plan B.”

Instead of hugging Abbas and calling him a friend, Olmert would be better off helping his “friend” by denouncing Abbas and attacking his presidential offices. Declare that Abbas is “Arafat-like.”

Put more soldiers in the West Bank, not less, and increase the checkpoints.

Don’t release prisoners, Israel should take more. Israel’s soldiers should become more oppressive, and use alternative phrases like “disputed” instead of “occupied,” and “most generous” instead of “ridiculously meager peace offer.”

Announce more settlements. Don’t forget to put up more hurdles that are impossible for the Palestinians to meet as a pre-conditions to resuming to the “peace talks.”

Olmert could try making it more clear that Israel rejects all Palestinian “pre-conditions,” declaring them “obstacles to peace,” while imposing their own set of pre-conditions as a basis of kick-starting the dead peace process. (Of course, maybe the peace process has been kicked in the head once too often by the Israelis.)

Still, it is very possible all that rhetoric won’t help Abbas at all. I mean, Palestinians not only cut off their noses to spite their faces as a tradition, but they also throw the babies out with the bathwater all the time.

Hey. Maybe Olmert could just be honest with the Palestinians and say Israeli is never going to return any significant portion of the West Bank. They’re going to keep everything just the way they always have. And, they’ll blame everything on the Palestinians.

That way, when the non-existent peace process fails, and the suicide bombings and the violent attacks against Israel resume, Abbas can say it wasn’t his fault.

That’s not good for the Palestinian people, either, but at least it will achieve the Olmert and American goal of making Abbas “look good.”

As it stands now, when the peace process fails because Israel really isn’t going to do the things that need to be done and Palestinians can’t do the things that they need to do, Abbas is going to be the one who is blamed for everything.

And if Abbas gets blamed for anything more, the West Bank will eventually go the way of the Gaza, falling into the hands of Hamas.

Well, at least we’ll be back to the idea of two-states, again.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning Palestinian American columnist, author and standup comedian. He can be reached at www.hanania.com. His columns can be reprinted with attribution.)