On December 28, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz held a gathering on the latter’s house. This was their second official encounter for the reason that present Israeli authorities took energy in June. The 2 had beforehand met in August and had had a cellphone name a number of weeks beforehand.
Gantz and Abbas mentioned deepening safety cooperation between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Israeli authorities and measures to ease the extreme financial disaster within the West Financial institution.
The assembly was seen as controversial on each side. Hamas and different Palestinian factions declared the assembly futile, because it didn’t advance in any means the Palestinian nationwide trigger, whereas numerous Israeli political figures, together with members of the ruling coalition, noticed it as step one in direction of making undue “concessions” to the Palestinians.
It’s unlikely that Gantz and Abbas didn’t count on the controversy that their assembly would trigger. So why did they proceed with it anyway and what does the persevering with engagement between the 2 imply for the Palestinian-Israeli battle?
Political calculations
Having suffered worldwide isolation beneath the earlier United States administration, Abbas has been wanting to return to the worldwide enviornment after US President Joe Biden took workplace in January 2021 and a brand new Israeli authorities was shaped with out longtime Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later within the yr.
The Palestinian president probably thought of Gantz’s outreach in July as his finest probability to take action. It is usually doable he hopes that the Israeli defence minister might comply with within the footsteps of the late Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who was prepared to have interaction the Palestinian management and even signal a peace settlement with Yasser Arafat.
Abbas visited Gantz’s house searching for a “political horizon” to be able to proceed down the trail of the Oslo Accords, of which he was the godfather. However in Israel, nobody is speaking a few political course of with the Palestinians and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has made it fairly clear there gained’t be one beneath his authorities.
That’s the reason, Abbas solely managed to safe some financial measures from Gantz, which are supposed to assist alleviate the PA’s financial disaster. These included Israel sending an advance fee of $32m of tax cash to the PA and offering extra work permits for Palestinian staff and entry permits for Palestinian businessmen.
In line with Israeli media, Gantz additionally knowledgeable Abbas that the Israeli authorities agreed to permit some 6,000 Palestinians from the West Financial institution and three,500 from the Gaza Strip to be registered within the Palestinian inhabitants registry and issued identification paperwork. The registry is instantly managed by the Israeli authorities and the PA can not add anybody to it with out Israeli permission, leaving tens of hundreds of Palestinians with out paperwork.
For Gantz, engagement with Abbas permits him to take over the Palestinian file fully and construct his home and worldwide political standing utilizing it. This initiative wins him favour with the Biden administration, which has been placing stress on each the Israeli authorities and the Palestinian Authority to renew talks. It additionally permits him to face other than Bennett, who, fearing that his right-wing allies might abandon him, is reluctant to have interaction instantly with the PA.
The Israeli authorities, regardless of its far-right rhetoric, does have an curiosity in conserving shut relations with the PA, notably a safety one.
The assembly with Abbas got here amid an escalation of resistance operations within the West Financial institution all through final yr and an uptick within the violence of settlers and occupation forces towards Palestinian civilians. These assaults have resulted in quite a lot of Israeli and Palestinian deaths and accidents.
Each Gantz and Bennett know that the safety of the a whole lot of hundreds of unlawful Jewish settlers within the West Financial institution is dependent upon the PA’s cooperation. The Israeli defence minister sought and obtained such safety ensures secured from Abbas in trade for the financial measures he supplied.
The Israeli authorities can also be propping up the PA as a result of it fears that an inside collapse might result in a Hamas resurgence within the West Financial institution.
No means ahead
The one stakeholder within the Israeli-Palestinian battle that appeared to welcome the engagement between Abbas and Ganz was Washington. US Nationwide Safety Adviser Jake Sullivan labored onerous to carry the views of each side nearer on numerous points and be certain that the assembly would happen.
However even the Biden administration is just not pushing for a serious reset in Israeli-Palestinian relations and the resumption of political negotiations. It appears it’s glad with this low-level engagement, recognising that resuming talks could also be unattainable for the time being because of inside Palestinian divisions, the right-wing authorities in Tel Aviv, and Washington’s personal preoccupation with regional and worldwide points that it deems extra urgent than the Palestinian-Israeli battle.
Though Bennett is publicly against engagement with the PA, he has not stopped it as a result of he doesn’t wish to upset Washington, particularly at a time when the Iranian nuclear deal is being renegotiated. He sees no level in getting into right into a political confrontation with US allies as long as the ceiling of the Abbas-Gantz engagement doesn’t transcend discussing the financial situations of the Palestinians.
This technique of swapping restricted financial advantages for deepening safety cooperation might serve nicely the pursuits of the Israeli authorities and its US allies, but it surely does hardly something for the Palestinians. A couple of hundred work and entry permits and an advance on tax cash are hardly going to enhance the lives of Palestinians dwelling beneath Israeli army occupation. Additionally they can not repair the deep legitimacy disaster that the PA is affected by.
Asking for extra safety cooperation from the Palestinian safety equipment at a time when settler assaults on Palestinians are peaking wouldn’t assist repair Abbas’s dismal public picture in Palestine both. It could quickly assist Israel stem the assaults within the West Financial institution, however with the basis causes of the violence remaining unaddressed, it’s certain to surge once more.
Moreover, the mobilisation throughout historic Palestine that we witnessed in 2021 towards the Israeli occupation exhibits that the technique of divide and rule now not works. Treating the financial disaster within the West Financial institution as a separate situation from the struggling of Palestinians in Gaza and inside official Israeli borders wouldn’t carry peace and stability. In truth, the extra the political calls for of the Palestinians stay unaddressed, the larger the stress grows and eventually it could erupt into a 3rd Intifada.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.