Ja, ve got der Sudetenland, but...If anyone thought that Israelâs withdrawal from Gaza would revive prospects for peace, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas scotched that notion nearly two weeks ago. Full withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines is insufficient, he declared: Israel must also concede additional territory inside these lines.
Specifically, Abbas demanded land north and east of the Gaza Strip. This land was indeed on the Arab side of the 1949 armistice lines, but Egypt, which controlled Gaza at the time, traded it to Israel in 1950 in exchange for a larger chunk of land that Israel held in eastern Gaza. This new border was subsequently acknowledged not only by UN Resolution 242, but also by the Oslo accords, which the Palestinians signed. The PA, therefore, has no conceivable claim to this land: not only did Israel âpurchaseâ it by ceding a larger bit of land to Gaza, but the new border was recognized by both the UN and the PA itself.
Thus when PA officials first raised this demand in talks with Israel several weeks ago, Israeli officials dismissed it as a negotiating ploy. But what Abbas did nearly two weeks ago is not so easily dismissed: in an interview published in a major Palestinian daily, Al-Quds, on Sept. 3, he told the Palestinian public that âthe evacuation of the settlers, the settlements and the army from the Strip are steps in the right direction, but it does not mean the end of the occupation. There are lands in eastern and northern Gaza still under occupation⊠We need to renegotiate the details and get back to the real border.â
This statement manages to undermine every major foundation of the peace process at once.
First, peace was always predicated on the idea that Palestinian demands are finite, and that once Israel meets them, the grounds for conflict will disappear. But in this case, Israel no sooner agreed to withdraw to Gazaâs recognized international border than the PA produced a new territorial demand â one it had never raised before â and began mobilizing Palestinian public opinion behind it.
Second, any treaty requires confidence that once an agreement is signed, the issue is closed. But in this case, the PA, which consented to the current Gaza-Israel border in the Oslo accords, is now blithely demanding that the issue be renegotiated.
Third, the peace process relied on the assumption that even if parts of Palestinian society were reluctant to end the conflict, their leaders would educate them toward reconciliation. Instead, the âmoderateâ Abbas has done the opposite: by raising his new territorial demand publicly, in the Palestinian media, he has encouraged the Palestinians to adopt a previously nonexistent grievance, thereby making it harder for any future leader to reach an agreement.
Fourth, the peace process was predicated on the belief that most Palestinians do want peace. But even Abbas, the most moderate leader the Palestinians have yet produced, is apparently so unwilling to give up any pretext for conflict that he has advanced a completely untenable territorial claim in order to avoid acknowledging the end of Israelâs âoccupationâ of Gaza. That indicates that his goal is not ending the conflict, but perpetuating it.
Finally, the peace process rested on the belief that ending âthe occupationâ would end Palestinian terror. Thus disengagement supporters predicted that Israelâs departure from Gaza would largely end terror from the Strip, because the terrorist organizations would be unable to justify continued attacks against Israel from âliberatedâ territory.