The Big Step has been taken in the Holy Land. You can be as cynical as you want, but I’m choosing to hope. It has to start somewhere.
Sharm El-Sheik – Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas declared on Tuesday they would stop all military or violent activity against each other, a pledge crucial to getting Mideast peace talks that stalled four years ago back on track.
With their flags whipping in the wind, Sharon and Abbas met face-to-face at a Mideast summit on Tuesday. Afterward, Abbas said: “We have agreed on halting all violent actions against Palestinians and Israelis wherever they are.”
Sharon made a similar pledge: “Today, in my meeting with chairman Abbas, we agreed that all Palestinians will stop all acts of violence against all Israelis everywhere, and, at the same time, Israel will cease all its military activity against all Palestinians everywhere.”
UPDATE: Astuteblogger also sees cause for optimism.
MEANWHILE: Controversy inside Hamas. But that’s not surprising.
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13 Comments
1. Macker:Trust, but Verify. Let’s see what Abbas says in ARABIC…we’ll know real soon.
Feb 8, 2005 - 7:49 am 2. PeterUK:It is not just a question of Abbas intent,but whether he can deliver the various Palestinian factions,and whether external forces will let him.Heres hoping.
Feb 8, 2005 - 7:55 am 3. BigFire:I have every expectation that Abbas will either be assasinated or being ineffective. Nothing will really change until the PLO changes itself, which is really too much to ask for mere mortals.
Feb 8, 2005 - 8:19 am 4. scalefree:I bet they’re getting jumpy over on RaptureReady.com.
Speaking of which – has anyone ever in the history of the world signed a peace treaty that had a built-in expiration date (for example, 7 years)?
Tim
Feb 8, 2005 - 8:33 am 5. ricpic:Will the pledge be broken when this or that Palestinian, acting “independently,” picks off one or two Jews? This will happen.
And when the IDF responds? Will the pledge be broken then?
The answer to the first circumstance is no; to the second, yes.
Feb 8, 2005 - 8:47 am 6. Keith:I don’t have any real optimism for a truce. Hamas says that the cease fire doesn’t apply to them and also:
“(Hamas) is maintaining its position. There will not be a real truce with Israel without real reciprocity,” he said.
“We will act on the truce depending on the commitment by the Zionist enemy to meet our conditions, starting with all Palestinian prisoners.”
Feb 8, 2005 - 8:54 am 7. Mike_Nargizian:Let’s start with what we know -
1) Abbas can’t physically or politically take on Hamas or Islamic Jihad and if he did Syria would make sure he was taken care of.
2) Al Asqua and most of Fatah is not for a final peace either.
3) The hatred brainwashing as of last week, (Abbas made perhaps a meaningless statement on it this week) was still on Pali televisions.
4) Sharon as well as Condi know all of this.
5) What is each side hoping to gain?
a) Israel gains some quiet and forces the Palis to take some responsible action or be made to look like the bad guy.
b) Abbas can gain political points and try and engage a Pali center (what there is of one) while winning some concessions from Israel, like alleviating some of the IDF forward progress in cities as well as releasing some Pali terrorists.
c) US gains ability to pressure the EU and win more backers on its overall path in the Middle East.
d) US is eyeing Syria for its next target and is going to be increasing the pressure on it with Jordan and the Dictator in Egypt on board.
Don’t be naiive this is just another step in the cycle, like the market, this step was brought about by 2 things -
1) The success of the Security Barrier and Sharon’s war on the Terrorism
2) Death of Arafat
It will ebb and flow as long as at the end of the day the fence is closer to completion and the Palis are continuing to lose the long road to some sort of quieting or “”peace”" is closer.
Mike
Feb 8, 2005 - 9:05 am 8. JenLArt:Sadly, Roger, its the Israelis’ fond hope for peace that has kept them in a state of war with the Arabs since 1948; the IslamoNazis see this yearning for peace and only exploit it to get concessions to make their jihad easier.
Abbas is only calling an end to the Intifada.
When it comes to things like “right of return” or claiming East Jerusalem or objecting to the security fence, the Paleostinians aren’t budging an inch.
But Sharon is no fool and he will make sure that Israel follows the road map, knowing full well the Paleos can’t and won’t.
Mubarak is hanging on by his fingernails to that $2 billion/yr. from Camp David and “King” Abdullah of Jordan isn’t much better–needless to say, they’re “allowing” their countries, under their despotic rule, to move towards democracy at a snail’s pace.
George W. Bush is not too pleased with the lot of them, Sharon excepted, of course.
Feb 8, 2005 - 9:17 am 9. Eg:Hamas: Summit represents PA alone, not factions
Now we’ll be returning you to ’Killing-Time: That Time Honored Islamic Tradition.’
Feb 8, 2005 - 9:18 am 10. Bruce W.:“Amateurs hope. Professionals work.”
–Garson Kanin
Almost all of us that write here do not even rise to “amateurs” where peacemaking between bloodied peoples is concerned. My hope is that Abbas and Sharon will prove themselves professionals.
My hope is that the shifting sands and trends in the Middle East (thanks to our President, and to the demise of Arafat) give birth to a new reality.
There is more reason to have hope now than when Rabin grudgingly gave his hand to the Terrorist in Chief almost a decade ago.
“At first we hope too much, later on, not enough.” Joseph Roux
I must choose hope. It is the national anthem of Israel and yet to be fully realized.
Feb 8, 2005 - 9:58 am 11. Cynic:PeterUK
“It is not just a question of Abbas intent,but whether he can deliver the various Palestinian factions,and whether external forces will let him.”
Israel’s Channel 10 interviewed the head “activist” of Fatah’s Armed Wing, Mazen’s own faction, who said, more or less, that they would not go along with any promises made to Sharon by Mazen.
Feb 8, 2005 - 10:45 am 12. Mike_Nargizian:Reply to Jen Art
I believe the Saudi leader decades ago once said it is the Israelis love for this life that is their ultimate weakness and our ultimate advantage.
Abbas is no push over in negotiations not that he’s necessarily a genius, but why would he concded these?
1) He doesn’t have to to the UN or EU
2) His own people and other factions within the PA itself, let alone Hamas or Islamic Jihad or Syria or Hezballah, would drop him and kill him pretty quicly. The Palestinians believe in it and have been brainwashed by 10 yrs of the Terrorfat and Abbas’s Police State media.
3) He doesn’t want to drop the irredentist demands anyway.
As long as Sharon is in control and Peres is kept in the background forced to shut the ** up I agree. But don’t discount the level of Peres’s ego and desire to run diarrhea through his orifice.
Watched news the other night showing the ‘moderate’ Morocco and the leader saying “this year he would allow” a bit more democratic crumb due to……
Kind of like Richard Dreyfus in Moon over Parador (Rent it!)
Big difference between democracy and freedom, ie… Liberia and Hong Kong as noted by a link from Roger. The alternative in Egypt and Jordan is not secularists and public demand for civil rights and true democracy its the Muslim Brotherhood and hard line Islamist factions…
1) Abdullah declared an interrum end to Honor Killings making them illegal and each time the elected Parliament overrode him and made them legal again.
2) Read Pharoh’s post on Egypt here -
http://bigpharaoh.blogspot.com/2005/02/why-i-dont-want-iraqs-tsunami-to-hit.html
and here -
http://bigpharaoh.blogspot.com/2005/02/we-need-political-discourse-before.html
and the Democracy Tsunami ‘catching’ on there.
Feb 8, 2005 - 10:15 pm 13. Mike_Nargizian:Read Shai’s (from Israel) excellent and interesting take on the the Sharm summit.
As usual he’s a very good read.
and for the record a lefty centrist/realist.
http://www.shaister.com/archives/000598.html
Also, here is the link to ‘Moon over Parador’ as referred to in my previous comment -
though I know Roger already knows of the movie.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0095654/
ENJOY!
Mike
Feb 8, 2005 - 11:00 pm