Another Abbas trick?
Each round of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, which have ebbed and flowed for more than 20 years now, has been characterized by certain words that sank into oblivion once the round ended in failure. The current round is characterized by the words "blame game."
Senior Israeli officials have used these words to describe the conduct of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in recent weeks. After endless refusals and precondition after precondition, Abbas has started telling visitors that he wants to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once, without yielding on his preconditions.
Israeli officials say Abbas doesn't have the desire to conduct real negotiations. Abbas doesn't want to meet with Netanyahu in a tent on the road to Ramallah and stay there for as long as necessary (until white smoke comes out, as Finance Minister Yair Lapid put it last week). Abbas won't appoint work teams to discuss details. In the end, Israeli officials believe, Abbas wants to be able to claim that while he indeed met with Netanyahu, Israel isn't interested in negotiations. Abbas will then turn to the U.N. and seek condemnations of Israel.
Netanyahu is aware of this possibility, but Israel is in a position in which it can't say no to a meeting with Abbas. Abbas is sticking to his preconditions, but he is not grandstanding them.
Netanyahu won't have any trouble agreeing to meet with Abbas. Economics and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett, like Benny Begin and others in the last Netanyahu government, thinks nothing will come of such talks, and he believes they will be no more than a game of guilt. Bennett thus won't stand in Netanyahu's way.
Neither will the Likud's right flank, which has coped with similar situations since 2009. Talks with the Palestinians will also give Lapid and Justice Mnister Tzipi Livni a convenient alibi to remain in the coalition.
Ultimately, one could view such talks as part of what Defense Minister Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon says is the need for long-term crisis management, since the conflict is insolvable in the foreseeable future.
Israel does fear that the Palestinians will gain the upper hand in a game of guilt, since they enjoy wider support in the international media and in parts of the Western establishment and academia. Everything is therefore still a trial balloon.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has not yet committed to the meeting with Netanyahu that Abbas has laid at his feet. Kerry has made it clear to Abbas that the U.S. suspects the Palestinians are planning to engage in a game of guilt rather than in true negotiations.
How tightly will Kerry stick to this position? All of Kerry's talks in the Middle East are a game of tug o' war between Jerusalem and Ramallah. The Americans are the handkerchief hanging at the center of the rope.
A Netanyahu-Abbas meeting? A resumption of negotiations? Everything is on the stove, Israeli officials say, but nothing is cooking yet.
טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו