Offering Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the carrot and Islamic Hamas the stick features Israeli diplomatic efforts towards the Palestinians at large in the Year 2007.
The approach seems a success to guide Abbas to the Annapolis conference to restart stalled peace talks, but still doubted if itwould lead to a two-state solution as well as the end of Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.
CARROT TO MODERATE ABBAS
Trying to shake off the dust he bit in the second Lebanon War in August, 2006, which overshadowed his political image and undermined his career, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert began to struggle for a diplomatic way leading to peace talks as well as the security which Israeli public is mostly concerned about.
Olmert successfully guided Abbas to a meeting table on Dec. 23,2006 and vowed to take a series of concrete steps to improve the Israeli-Palestinian situation in efforts to bring peace to the region.
At the meeting, announced as to mark the first substantial talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in 22 months since Abbas' last formal meeting with then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in February 2005, Olmert told Abbas that it was time to proceed in the peace process as the Palestinian and Israeli people had suffered enough.
During the meeting, Olmert and Abbas reached a series of concessions, including the transfer of 100 million U.S. dollars in frozen taxes which were collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian National Authorities (PNA).
On the following day, Olmert briefed the Israeli cabinet that his meeting with Abbas was a good meeting, and he planned to continue to meet Abbas in order to implement the joint understandings and the diplomatic agenda Israel wish to promote.
The Israeli cabinet unanimously approved the release of part of withheld Palestinian funds the following day after the Olmert-Abbas meeting.
Olmert also agreed to dismantle a number of checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank and take measures to make the daily life of Palestinians easier.
On the eve of a summit among Olmert, Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak held at Egypt's Red Sea resort Sharm el-Sheikh in June, a total of 250 prisoners were released in a gesture of goodwill followed by 90 more in September for Muslims' holy fasting month of Ramadan.
The measures were seen by the Israeli government as goodwill gestures to bolster the moderate PNA Chairman Abbas, who is involved in power struggle with the ruling Hamas movement which refused to recognize Israel.
Since the ice-breaking meeting, Olmert and Abbas has had regular meetings as frequent as one or two in a month through the whole year of 2007.
STICK TO RADICAL HAMAS
It was the unexpected event of Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip on June 14 which helped Israel to speed up its carrot and stick approach, although Israel has prepared bigger stick for its arch foe Hamas since the beginning of this year.
Despite the involvement of secular Fatah in newly formed unity government led by Hamas on March 17, Israel still gave the cold shoulder to the Palestinian coalition, calling the platform of the coalition "very problematic."
However, the fledgling unity government fell apart after scant three months when Hamas routed Fatah and thus took control of the Gaza Strip.
The factional infighting left the Palestinians two administrations, a Hamas-controlled one in Gaza and a caretaker government installed by Abbas in the West Bank.
Following Hamas' violent takeover of Gaza, Israel has been holding a clear position: the PNA headed by Abbas would receive full support, while Hamas' regime in Gaza must be undermined in any possible way.
After the Gaza "coup", Israel closed crossings with Gaza almost entirely, allowing in only humanitarian aids.
Furthermore, Israel declared on Sept. 19 the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip a "hostile entity" and announced a plan of reducing power and fuel supplies to the enclave as response to the frequent rocket attacks launched by Palestinian militants in Gaza.
Once the cutoff plan is put into effect, it would make Gaza Palestinians' life from bad to worse as Gaza's population, largely impoverished, almost entirely relies on Israeli supplies of power, water and fuel.
While tightening its blockade on Gaza, Israel called on Egypt to strictly control its borders with Gaza to prevent arms smuggling into the enclave.
COINCIDENT WITH U.S. PRESSURE
It is obvious that Israeli carrot and stick approach has been coincident with U.S. pressure.
In order to show his commitment to Middle East progress in his final year in office, U.S. President George W. Bush sent Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region eight times this year to promote the two-state solution he set as an early priority.
Rice began her first regional trip in January when she met with senior Israeli officials, Abbas and Jordanian King Abdullah II to assure them the U.S. willingness in expanding the role of Washington in the Middle East peace process.
Rice's efforts echoed by all the parties she had met with, particularly Israel, a strong ally of the United States in the Middle East, and Abbas, who was in need of U.S. support to strengthen his power in facing a severe internal power struggle between his presidency and the Hamas-led government.
In each of her following seven visits to the Middle East region throughout 2007, she met with Abbas and sounded him out on U.S. support and pressure.
Abbas came to the turning point to wave a farewell to Hamas in June when he dismantled the Hamas-led government and formed a caretaker government in Ramallah headed by U.S.-educated economist Salam Fayyad following Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip.
As both the United States and Israel view the split between Abbas and Hamas a long-expected opportunity, they extended their support to Abbas almost immediately after Hamas seized Gaza.
President Bush declared that Abbas was the president of all Palestinians and vowed to resume direct aid to PNA, which had been cut off due to the establishment of the Hamas-dominated Palestinian government, while Olmert pledged Abbas every possible effort in cooperating with Abbas.
DIFFICULT TO TWO-STATE SOLUTION
The U.S.-sponsored international peace conference in Annapolis on Nov. 27 might be considered to mark a success of Israeli carrot and stick approach in terms of restarting the stalled peace talks, but this approach is hardly believed leading to the two-state solution without Hamas which now controls Gaza.
Hamas has not seemed to bow down under Israeli stick efforts for years and, on contrary, more often to undermine Israeli security by firing home-made rockets at southern Israeli city of Sderot while refusing to recognize Israel, renounce terror and uphold past agreements.
Addressing a rally of tens of thousands of demonstrators in the Gaza Strip against Annapolis conference, Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas hardliner, reiterated that the Palestinian people will not recognize a Jewish state or Israel. Hamas' Gaza leader Ismail Haneya has also stated that "we do not recognize that this state is Jewish."
The Israeli carrot efforts has not yet helped to turn Abbas into a powerful leader as it has expected. Abbas' power has been even weakened since Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip after defeating Fatah in June.
According to Israeli intelligence services, there will be no chance to implement the understandings reached in Annapolis as Abbas is powerless to control the Palestinian territories and there is a total disconnection between the leadership and the Palestinian people.
Israel will not be able to accept the two-state solution leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state with the leadership too weak to prevent security problems from the Gaza Strip as Olmert has told Bush prior to Annapolis conference that every settlement must also include the PNA taking responsibility for preventing terrorism from the Gaza Strip.
Convinced that what Olmert needs is a partner for peace talks to show Israeli public that he is capable of diplomatic initiatives, observers are skeptical that the relaunched peace talks between Israel and the PNA would result in the two-state solution.
Source: Xinhua
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