Analysis: Palestinians may soon be the ones to threaten US (and Israel) by inviting Russia to the negotiating table as a partner and mediator.
Last week, the Palestinian Authority halted (until further notice) the talks with Israel and the United States. That is the proper definition for the decisions made by the Palestinian political echelon, which led to a deadlock in the negotiations.
The Netanyahu government did play for time and stutter in response to the initiatives of American Secretary of State John Kerry, but (most of the government) did not want to stop talking – if only because talking prevents another intifada-style popular outburst. And also because the Americans asked us to, both nicely and not nicely.
The hidden Israeli assumption was that the Palestinian political leadership would not dare disobey the US either; that it was only flexing its muscles; that it would be willing to walk on the edge without crossing it. From Jerusalem, a Palestinian cost-benefit calculation appeared relatively simple: A continuation of US aid and backing if the talks go on, or economic damage and diplomatic isolation if they are halted.
This led to the conclusion that the Palestinians were pursuing a new deal in order to “improve their position.” In contrast to his usual method, Netanyahu did not reject the possibility of such a three-way deal out of hand. He even made practical suggestions for its formation.
But at the decisive moment, the Palestinians more or less spat in America’s face. Have they gone mad? Have they lost their mind? Don’t they understand that, in today’s dismantled Arab world, they have no real friend to lean on? Not to mention the fact that they have no significant supporters beyond the Middle Eastern region.
But perhaps they do: Take a look in Russia’s direction. Unexpected things are happening there. Russia has concentrated a large military force along its border with Ukraine and is capable, according to NATO leaders’ estimates, of invading the country within half a day’s order. President Vladimir Putin appears to be looking for the right excuse to do that: The Kremlin is waging an internal and external false campaign unlike anything seen for at least 30 years. The campaign aims to prove that the current Ukraine government is fascist, pro-Western and is persecuting the Russian minority members to the point of putting their life in danger.
On the other side, the government in Kiev is releasing documents which it says prove that the Russian secret services were involved in commanding the crowd dispersal unit whose officers fired on protestors at Maidan Square, killing dozens of people. The conflict is growing and could deteriorate into violence at any moment.
Change in balance of power
Under these circumstances, it’s only natural that the Kremlin is interested in expanding its (very limited) global circle of friends, and that the Palestinians are interested in an alternative patronage, in a strong, reliable friend with deep pockets. The Russian-Palestinian strategic alliance appears, therefore, to be a self-evident political and diplomatic move, which serves both sides very well.
From a Russian strategic point of view, the Palestinian Authority is perceived as an ideal bridgehead to the Arab world and as a fighter against the radical and fanatic Islam, which Russia sees as an enemy too. Some of the PLO’s leaders studied in Soviet universities, understand Russian and share Putin’s opinion that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was “the greatest political disaster of the 20th century.”
From a Palestinian point of view, Russia’s credibility as a world power which does not abandon its protégés has been clearly proven in its attitude towards the Assad regime in Syria. Ramallah officials are certain that Russia can, within hours, approve emergency economic aid at a volume which the US is incapable of approving under any circumstances. Russia’s representative at the UN will vote in favor of upgrading Palestine in the organization, while the US representative will object. The “Duma” (Russian assembly) in Moscow sympathizes with them, while the Congress in Washington is hostile towards them.
This is, therefore, an exemplary meeting of interests. Implementing it will change the balance of power in our region. Today, Secretary of State Kerry can threaten the Palestinians (and Israel) by warning that America will wash its hands off the attempt and effort to bring about a solution to the conflict. Tomorrow, the Palestinians will be the ones to threaten Kerry (and Israel) by inviting Russia to the negotiating table as a partner and mediator.
Who knows, perhaps Russia will be a better mediator after all
ppksky Said:
Sorry, Gulf Cooperation Council, the vehicle of the sunni gulf monarchies. (I do not buy into the well touted narratives of “splits” in the council, I beleive they are fabricated to obscure funding and support of jihadis and to distance the main players, saudi and US, from the funding and arming of the Jihadis as exposed at benghazi. I beleive the same with the Obama sisi split and that after the Sisi election Obama will say that the people have deocratically elected sisi and he will return to the fold. All this show obscures the very serious and illegal arming , training and funding Jihadis in collaboration with the GCC, Jordan and Turkey. If it were pursued it should have lead to impeachment and the rehashing of 911 as a false flag. Obama had to distance himself from anything that would personally harm him and his party at the mid terms. Now he is reinvented as a cautious player not running into war and as a non supporter of coups. that’s who elected him.
BTW, LIbya foreign minister calls for return of monarchy. Monarchy is the convenient structure whereby Islam can be a tool for the royal.
@ ArnoldHarris:
Mr. Harris, you lavish great praise on Russia and heap criticism on America (I tend to agree with the latter, at least with regards to Obama’s Blue State Socialist America).
If I may ask – if you were 15-20 years younger, would you move to Russia?
@ bernard ross:
Bernard, you really have to cite your acronyms. “GCC” means what? The is the best I come up with:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperation_Council_for_the_Arab_States_of_the_Gulf
Arnold, I couldn’t explain Kerry and Obama’s foreign policy in east-central Europe. My guess would be there is none. Kerry and Obama have humiliated themselves by basing a foreign policy on pushing Israel around. That’s all they’ve been doing and now, suddenly, real trouble crops up for them. They are happy EU toadies and the EU is very, very upset about what is going on in Ukraine. Recall that it was a rejection of the EU that precipitated the violent overthrow of the Russian sympathetic leadership. The EU also loves to push around weak and powerless Eastern looking countries like the former Yugoslavia and especially the Serbs. They also gleefully push around Israel in the same spirit.
NATO doesn’t look any better. It comes up repeatedly that NATO would like a hand is pushing Israel around on the ground in Israel, sort of like they did in the former Yugoslavia with the Serbs. That would mean lots of war crimes tribunals for Israelis in the Hague, no doubt, with lots of guilty verdicts and lots of Jews living in fear in the Promised Land once again, if at all.
Imagine a NATO militarily confronting Russia with the most enthusiastic contributing countries like Croatia, Albania, Hungary, Turkey. This isn’t the USSR any more, it is the Russian Federation. NATO is not likely to get much sympathy from a public no longer cowed by the spectre of communism.
Langfan raises thoroughly well-grounded and believable points why Russia will take back the Russian majority and heavily industrialized oblasts of southern and eastern Ukraine.
And I want to see all that happen for my own reasons:
1) I like Russia and the Russians, and I want to see their Eurasian Customs Union grow into a mutual economic and defense security zone that will help keep the world in better political balance than would be the case if the USA, NATO and the European Union were the sole superpower alignment. I think also that is in Israel’s long term interests as well as Russia’s.
2) Kerry and Obama have chained American foreign policy in east-central Europe into a corner from which they cannot escape, when the Russians make the next set of moves expected of them. They will have no choice but to leave the Middle East to its own local actors and concentrate on shoring up what may be left of their position in east-central Europe. That will make it at least psychologically easier for Israel to make its own move in annexing Area C+, an annexation that probably will cause the decay of Fatah’s “Palestine Authority”, and, over a matter of time, its breakup as local urban Arab clan leaderships separately negotiate local autonomy agreements with the State of Israel, at meetings in which no US or other foreign governments will either be invited or allowed to interfere.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I think this article way off and that the pals are of no value to Russia except as a fly in the ointment. E. G. If Israel enters the syrian battle beyond protecting its direct interests then russia may stir up trouble in the west bank. russias bridge to the arab world would be the GCC, why go to the puppets when russia deals with the puppet masters. the GCC is willing to do deals with russia. They may all come to a deal in syria for their separate interests. Even the GCC doesn’t care about the Pals except to keep them from obstructing their own agenda.
How would that aid get there when the only route to the PA is through Israel and at Israels pleasure.
Mark Langfan has an interesting article on why Russia is going to move on East Ukraine:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/14808
The situation in Ukraine circumscribes why exactly Russia is not the Soviet Union. Both Gorbachev and Kruschev were Ukrainian. Stalin was Georgian. There was very little about the Soviet Union that was Russian except the language in government.
The interest that the USSR had in Palestinian Nationalism was based exclusively on the fraudulent notion that the PLO was a Marxist front against colonialism. For the Russian Federation to support Palestinian Nationalism, it would have to chose some good reason to do so and the Palestinian narrative is becoming harder and harder to sustain. The Russian Federation needs intellectual respectability and integrity to sustain its standing in the world. Power isn’t going to do it all by itself.
History makes the Russians look good in Ukraine and also the neo-Nazi so-called nationalists who violently seized power in Kiev make Russia look good. Supporting the Palestinian Nationalists would be poor public relations. The EU Left that parade the Palestinians will love the Russians only if they toe the EU left wing line and the Russians are too big for that. There are also some ethnic issues that stand in the way.
There are still some communists in Ukraine, but the Russians are too deeply scarred by communism for that to be significant. Communism did as little for Russians in Ukraine as communism did for the Serbs in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Back to Langfan’s article …
It is worth wondering who has been running the rich supply of military resources in East Ukraine. Has it been the Russians? Consider the connection with Assad. Assad has a reputation for hosting former Nazis and Ukraine was a Nazi ally in WWII. With Russia in control of East Ukraine, it could be that connections between Syria and Iran and the Russians become weaker instead of stronger.
A State of Israel that would continual seek dependence upon a weakened and fading American empire in comparison with a reviving Russian Federation with its growing Eurasian Union, is a state dominated by wishful-thinking assholes who elect one after another of a seemingly endless succession of feeble, cowardly and confused judenraten.
I know America very damned well, having been born and raised around here 80 years ago. And what I am certain I know is that any dependency of the the present day United States of America is living the life of another Czechoslovakia back in 1938. The governments of this country are not your friend. The smile at you, and even offer to return their pathetic Jewish hostage from his federal prison. Because they know you better than you do. And what they see is a country they regard as strategical nonviable and surrounded by Arabs and other Moslems who dream of killing the lot of you. For their real attitude toward Jews, check back on the history of World War II, when they took absolutely no action even to bomb the rail lines then being used to haul millions of Jews in cattle cars to the death factories of Nazi-controlled Poland. And that at a time when they knew perfectly well what those camps in Poland were being used for.
You expect overt friendship from Russia now, to keep them from siding with the local Arabs against you? But what exactly has the State of Israel ever done for Russia, other than turn up their noses at that country immediately after they used the aircraft and weapons that Stalin arranged to send to them at a time when your American “friends” maintained a complete weapons embargo against Israel.
Now nobody trusts Israel, because both sides seem to sense that you seem to lack the capacity to even begin accumulating the kind of national power that alone guarantees your independence.
You want “democracy” above all else? See exactly what that gets you in the long run. But be careful. Because if you make the wrong national choices, there will be no long run.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I know everyone here hates Obama.
They think he is pro-Muslim. Maybe so!
But any other power would have been worse.
Israel still has massive influence in the US Congress which it has nowhere else.
Not in France. Not in China. Not in Russia. Not in Britain. Not in India.