Would the real Abbas please stand up

If from the festivities of Annapolis Abbas brings home simply more of the same he will appear an incompetent, or worse, that has sold out his own people, writes Curtis Doebbler

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A casual observer of the fanfare surrounding the meeting between Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas in Annapolis would wonder how the Israelis and Palestinians could help themselves from rushing to take advantage of the welcoming embrace, luxurious accommodations and sumptuous meals with which their hosts George W Bush and Condoleezza Rice have tempted them. Of course such an atmosphere of festive cordiality must mean that these old friends will agree to something constructive.

Indeed, Bush has even provided the parties with financial support and advisers. For years Israel has been the largest recipient of US aid and, at least for a time, more New Yorkers voted in Israeli elections than inhabitants of the Israeli capital of Tel Aviv. More recently, Bush has bestowed his lavish gifts upon some Palestinians, paying for the travel of the prime minister and giving the Fatah government ordained by Palestinian President Abbas substantial resources as long as they do not share them with the elected Hamas government.

US support for Israel has continued through thick and thin. When the UN Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council condemned Israel for its violations of international human rights law, the US stood by Israel defending it as proudly as it did their own actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. In America, there is apparently no shame in illegality and overwhelming international consensus is no reason to forge a political compromise.

When even the majority of the conservative-minded judges of International Court of Justice found that the wall that Israel is still building through Palestine is illegal, the US still did not budge in its support for Israel. No World Court was going to dent America's friendship with its ally Israel. Again, legality meant nothing.

Even when the acclaimed academics John J Mearsheimer and Stephen M Walt published The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, documenting the harmful effect that the US's close relationship with Israel has had on America's own interests, there was hardly a nod of recognition that something might be wrong.

And even as Bush, Olmert and Abbas embraced each other and explained the problems and what had to be done, the silent elephant of overwhelming pro-Israel bias remained hidden from view and not a subject to be discussed.

As a result, the Annapolis negotiations, which are supposed to lead to a year of bi-weekly negotiations, started as business as usual. Both Olmert and Abbas were deemed "holding" to their positions while both Olmert and Abbas continue to take American money. Both continue pandering to Bush's struggle to leave a legacy by enforcing any type of peace on the Middle East that might be possible.

Few in Annapolis seemed to understand that bi-weekly negotiations are a barely noticeable advance on regular negotiations agreed to by both parties with Rice almost a year ago. And even fewer seemed to care that the Hamas government elected by the Palestinian people in elections that were widely certified as free and fair -- even by Western observers -- was not even invited to George and Condi's party, merely because neither of the two hosts likes them very much.

It is perhaps even more telling that just before he convened the meeting in Annapolis, Bush is rumoured to have conferred with members of the Southern Baptist Convention, who advocate converting the whole world to Christianity. They have set about doing so both covertly and overtly in such places as Iraq, with the assistance of the US military. It is little wonder they follow the US military as Bush praises them lavishly -- they are often credited with ensuring his election -- and has even named one of their leading advocates to one of the most senior posts in the Pentagon: General William Boyken coordinates the hunt for Osama Bin Laden in part undoubtedly motivated by his publicly stated belief that Christianity must wage war on Islam.

Now even a causal observer, understanding this extremely sparse but undisputed glimpse of the history of US relations with Israel and Palestine, must be somewhat confounded as to why Abbas would even come to a meeting held by a US president who not only appears to be an enemy of his people, but even appears to be hostile to the most basic tenants of Islam that are shared by most Palestinians.

A similarly placed observer with this casual knowledge of the facts would also undoubtedly wonder how the US can be a fair broker in negotiations when it has already shown so much bias? How can an avowed enemy of the Palestinian people, and even of the most basic values of most of them, and a friend "without limit" to the Israeli government, be impartial or even accrue the minimum trust of the Palestinians?

An answer defies conjecture. It is likely that Bush has not even thought of it, but what about Abbas: Does he not understand the suffering of his own people? Does Abbas think that he can convert the American president to respecting international law and consensus in the president's own backyard, where he is surrounded by neo-conservatives, Christian fundamentalists and Israeli lobbyists? Or is his "appearance fee" just so large that he could not resist?

Whatever the reason, it appears clear to most Palestinians that peace will not come through negotiations that are not only with your enemy but controlled by your enemies. In such a context one must speak about coercion and not compromise.

It is perhaps the concept of coercion that could be an explanation for the cooperation of both Abbas and Olmert. It is also coercion that explains what could make the Annapolis meeting a success.

Certainly the US has the ability to coerce Israel into accepting international law and the international consensus by calling for an end to the occupation, reparations, and the recognition of the Palestinian state. Unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, where American coercion took the form of the use of force, all the US has to do in this case is stop providing Israel with the support it requires to maintain its occupation of Palestine. If this happens, it is unlikely that Israel will be able to find sufficient support elsewhere, and then it would be forced to negotiate in accordance with the principles of international law and with respect for the international political consensus.

Does Bush have the courage to take this step? It is unlikely, but it is perhaps the only step that could make Annapolis a success. Bush will have to choose between acting in a way that will provide the smallest chance of a legacy and forever burying himself as perhaps the most notable American political failure to have ever lived in the White House.

If Bush did take this extraordinary step, it may also be the only move that could save the reputation and fading political life of Abbas and his "government-by-decree". Having spurned his people's democratic choice to serve a US paymaster, Abbas must now show some results. A negotiation based on business as usual whereby the US continues to provide Israel with the weapons to massively kill, torture, detain and oppress Palestinians is not a negotiation at all. Instead, such a farce, even if continued for one year, is merely an insult and further injury to the Palestinian people.

If Abbas returns to Palestine with nothing more than an agreement to continue to negotiate, while Israel continues to strangle his people, he has not only lost the negotiations, he has sold out his people. This result could be as dangerous to Abbas as to the Palestinian people.

Already Hamas has used Annapolis as evidence of the sell-out of Abbas and his "government-by-decree". At the same time, Hamas has shown that it can consolidate authority even while continuing to fight an unrelenting enemy that surrounds the small Gaza Strip. And Hamas has done this without the support of Abbas's "government-by-decree".

Abbas must counter these Hamas successes by showing that he can provide for his people, who yearn not only for the increasingly less valuable American dollar that has been drenched in the blood of their own sons and daughters, but also for justice.

The key to success for Abbas among his own people is the practical achievement of removing American support for Israel and the proof that he has changed the parameters of negotiations from one of a timid struggle against coercion to the principles of justice. Hamas has been able to maintain its commitment to a just Palestinian cause even from its besieged position in Gaza City.

Abbas must show that negotiations will not be based on surrendering fundamental Palestinian human rights for peace, or the trading of land stained with decades of Palestinian sweat and blood for an unjust peace. The boundaries of Palestine must not be set at anything less than those decreed by the UN in 1967 and now accepted as international law. The same Arab states that are sitting with Olmert and Abbas in Annapolis agreed to this minimum standard of justice in 2002 when Saudi Arabia inspired the Arab Peace Initiative. To reverse the Arab and international consensus at this stage will undoubtedly mark Abbas as a traitor among his own people.

Indeed, the task that Abbas faces is extremely difficult. If he went to Annapolis to pay homage to the efforts of Bush to build a favourable legacy for himself after almost a decade of deadly disasters, then Abbas may have sealed his own legacy. However, if Abbas does fight successfully to end American support to Israel and to ensure that international law and consensus are the basis for a solution to the decades-old problem facing the Israeli and Palestinian people, then he will have earned the respect of many Palestinians.

Abbas is taking the hard path and should perhaps be given credit for it. But he should realise that it is the path he has chosen and he can hurt or help the Palestinians significantly by the result he achieves or fails to achieve.

The writer is a professor of law at An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine.