News From the Israeli and Palestinian Front

A biweekly feature of news and opinion pieces from the Israeli and Palestinian press.

1.) Israel is planning on building a new housing complex and a synagogue in East Jerusalem. As was reported yesterday, “the area slated for the new project is located 200 meters from the Old City walls, in an area considered one of the most sensitive in the present negotiations with the Palestinians over the final-status agreement.” An editorial in Haaretz today expresses unease with the plan: “The creeping annexation of parts of the Arab neighborhoods will turn a political conflict into a religious struggle, which will prevent any diplomatic solution. It will also arouse the entire Arab and Muslim world against Israel.”

2.) A new poll has confirmed that President Mahmoud Abbas is suffering politically because of his inability to achieve concessions from Israel. In a head-to-head presidential race with Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, Abbas would lose by a margin of 34%-32%. In prior surveys, Abbas has edged Haniyeh by substantial margins. Salam Fayyad, Fatah’s prime minister, has also seen his popular support decline. The poll notes that his popularity rating is at 20%, down from 31% in January. Nader Said, who directed the study, suggests that the results indicate that “Palestinians will always come back to the core issues. Not to make progress on these issues will harm the stakeholders trying to achieve a solution.”

3.) Shas, a crucial party in Olmert’s governing coalition, has announced that building beyond the Green Line will continue apace. According to The Jerusalem Post: “During an interview on Israel Radio, [Shas Chairman Eli] Yishai said Construction and Housing Minister Ze’ev Boim would announce several new building projects, including continued building in the haredi town of Betar Illit, located in the southwestern hills of Jerusalem with a population of about 36,000.” Not surprisingly, the response from the Palestinian side was one of frustration. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that “it’s Israeli settlements or peace. They can’t have both.”

4.) Writing in The Los Angeles Times, Saree Makdisi suggests that a two-state solution is no longer viable; only a secular, democratic, bi-national state can end the conflict and achieve peace in the region.

After years of pursuing a two-state solution, and feeling perhaps that the conflict had nearly been solved, it’s hard to give up the idea as unworkable. But unworkable it is. A report published last summer by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs found that almost 40% of the West Bank is now taken up by Israeli infrastructure — roads, settlements, military bases and so on — largely off-limits to Palestinians. Israel has methodically broken the remainder of the territory into dozens of enclaves separated from each other and the outside world by zones that it alone controls (including, at last count, 612 checkpoints and roadblocks).

Moreover, according to the report, the Jewish settler population in the occupied territories, already approaching half a million, not only continues to grow but is growing at a rate three times greater than the rate of Israel’s population increase. If the current rate continues, the settler population will double to almost 1 million people in just 12 years. Many are heavily armed and ideologically driven, unlikely to walk away voluntarily from the land they have declared to be their God-given home. These facts alone render the status of the peace process academic.

…To resolve the conflict with the Palestinians, Israeli Jews will have to relinquish their exclusive privileges and acknowledge the right of return of Palestinians expelled from their homes. What they would get in return is the ability to live securely and to prosper with — rather than continuing to battle against — the Palestinians. They may not have a choice. As Olmert himself warned recently, more Palestinians are shifting their struggle from one for an independent state to a South African-style struggle that demands equal rights for all citizens, irrespective of religion, in a single state.

5.) On the eve of Bush’s visit to Israel this week, Prime Minister Olmert said that there has been “significant progress” in discussions with the Palestinian negotiators. Palestinian officials have flatly rejected that claim: “I don’t know what kind of progress he’s talking about,” responded negotiator Saeb Erekat.