Israeli Sabotage is a Deliberate Policy to Bring Down Palestinian Moderation

Raghida Dergham, Dar Al-Hayat, 16.11.07 Israel currently rejects mentioning the Arab Peace Initiative as a reference-point for the peace process, which is very embarrassing for the US administration, which has made the greatest possible efforts to convince Arab countries to attend the conference, and this includes the initiative's author, Saudi Arabia. This peace plan is the Arab peace plan. Israel has never put forward an Israeli peace plan. It continually works to abort peace plans that are proposed. Its provocative stance on refusing to mention the Arab Peace Initiative as one of the reference-points for the peace process can only be a testament to the sterile Israeli maneuvers, just like its demand that Palestinians issue a prior recognition of the Jewishness of Israel to head off any discussion of the right of return.

Then there is the Knesset, which last week approved a draft law to prevent the Israeli government from changing the borders of east and west Jerusalem without the approval of two thirds (80) of Knesset members, instead of an absolute majority of 61, according to current law. The goal of this change is head off any chance of reaching an agreement about the status of East Jerusalem. This stance by the Israeli Knesset is another chapter in the annals of Israeli intransigence when it comes to the requirements of peace with the Palestinians.

It's no coincidence that these Israeli positions, meant to sabotage the conference, are part of a deliberate policy to bring down Palestinian moderates, represented by the PA and the government of Abbas and Fayyad, at a time of competition between Hamas and the PA. This is not the first time that Israel has invested in Hamas; the Jewish state directly helped create Hamas to challenge the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Israel is trying to ignite inter-Palestinian division, in the belief that this is in Israel's interest. Thus, it is readying itself militarily for the post-Annapolis conference phase, since it expects the eruption of a wave of violence against the PA if the Annapolis Conference fails to push the peace process seriously forward. Thus, the Israelis are competing among themselves, at a time in which there is no Israeli option other than igniting a Palestinian civil war in order to justify Israel's mass expulsion of Palestinians to Jordan, as an alternative homeland - this is in order to solve the demographic problem and turn Israel into a purely Jewish state, militarily, with no need for negotiations or compromises.