The relationship between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) can best be described as a tragedy of political weakness. On the one hand, there has never been such proximity of opening positions and such lack of personal animosity and mistrust between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. On the other hand, each side's capacity to reach a sustainable long-term deal appears as remote as ever.
When Olmert succeeded the ailing Ariel Sharon January 4, Israel was at the apogee of its unilateral policy vis-a-vis the Palestinians. Sharon's disengagement from Gaza won global admiration and proved that Israel was willing and able to confront its rejectionists, the settlers.
A vocal advocate of deep West Bank withdrawal for demographic reasons - preserving Israel's Jewish majority and identity over a smaller territory - Olmert set out to follow in his predecessor's path. While paying the requisite lip service to a negotiated process based on the roadmap, Olmert has clearly favored going it alone.
He proposed drawing Israel's long-term eastern border along the security barrier while removing the settlements outside its perimeter and maintaining a security presence along the Jordan Rift Valley.
Three weeks after Olmert's takeover, Hamas won the Palestinian Authority (PA) legislative elections. From Olmert's perspective, this represented both a threat and an opportunity. A hostile political force had taken charge of the Palestinian government, but this could convince the international community that Israel's unilateral strategy was justified precisely by the lack of a Palestinian partner.
Olmert successfully recruited international support against the Hamas government, and sought to topple or seriously cripple it through economic and political boycott.
Abu Mazen played a key role in this strategy: as long as there was a "good" Palestinian interlocutor, even in a diminished political capacity, there was a visible alternative to Hamas. Strengthened by American, European, and Egyptian support, Abbas has clung to his pro-negotiations, anti-terror stance while seeking a modus vivendi with Hamas.
Olmert, however, abiding by an old rule of Israeli politics, distanced himself from Abbas: first, to win the March 28 elections, then to form a new coalition and then to establish his credentials with key world leaders. His meeting with Abu Mazen had to wait, Olmert explained, until he concluded a round of handshakes in Western and Arab capitals. He met Abbas only briefly in Petra, hugged him and promised to meet him again soon.
Alas, the foot dragging killed the momentum. The cross-border attack from Gaza June 25 in which Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted prompted an Israeli invasion of Gaza. This was followed in mid-July by another abduction and full-scale war in Lebanon.
The fighting in Gaza and Lebanon has had a quadruple effect. First, it destroyed Olmert's unilateralism, as Israel returned to areas it had evacuated only several years before. Second, it crippled Olmert's political stance, forcing him to seek a new agenda to survive. Third, it brought Hamas closer to sharing power with Abbas' Fateh in order to fend off mounting pressure. And fourth, it prompted Israel and Hamas to talk indirectly about exchanging prisoners and resuming the ceasefire.
These developments have brought Abbas back to center stage. He could serve Israel as an interlocutor, both as a substitute for unilateral moves and as a go-between with Hamas. Indeed, Olmert was quick to portray Abu Mazen as a new hope rather than a hopeless weakling as before. Olmert now said that he had wanted all along to release prisoners as a gesture to Abu Mazen, but had to postpone it because of the Shalit abduction.
Knowing the penchant of Western leaders for any expression of Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, Olmert welcomed British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Jerusalem with the promise of meeting Abbas "without preconditions." Last week, Israeli ministers Tzipi Livni and Shimon Peres met Abbas at the United Nations.
Olmert's long-delayed meeting with Abbas is now pending the sorting out of Palestinian unity government deliberations and resolution of the Shalit prisoner deal. Despite the mutual need for a political helping hand, however, little can be expected from the Abbas-Olmert meeting. Both leaders' ability to deliver on key issues is strictly limited by their domestic troubles.
Olmert's adherence to the road map first-phase requirement of a Palestinian crackdown on terror and his firm demand that any Palestinian government recognize Israel serve as impediments to any quick progress. At the same time, the current Israeli government is too weak to perform its own roadmap obligations, such as removing settlement outposts.
Therefore, the best that can be expected is another round of Israeli "gestures" and confidence-building measures, like prisoner release and easing of the economic blockade, in order to support a new ceasefire. While better than the current situation, recent history has shown that such respites are fragile and temporary, leading to yet another outbreak of violence and chaos.
Aluf Benn is the diplomatic editor of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. Acknowledgement to bitterlemons.org
Commentary: The tragedy of weakness
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