Gaza ceasefire-consolidation talks update

I’ve been busy recently: I’ve been in New York with editors and (separately) the new grandbaby… Also, preparing for my next reporting trip to the Middle East, which starts this afternoon as I head off from freezing Washington DC to Cairo.
Cairo is the place where negotiations have been continuing over the past two weeks to consolidate the still extremely shaky, in-parallel, and un-negotiated brace of reciprocal ceasefires across the Israel-Gaza border that went into operation January 18.
A negotiated, and therefore mutually agreed, ceasefire is absolutely essential if the military actions that have already marked the period since January 18 are to be prevented from escalating, at any moment’s notice, into yet another full-blown war between Israel and Gaza. This negotiation need not be direct. In fact, both sides at this point probably prefer strongly not to deal directly with the other. But it does– as Jimmy Carter’s point-man Bob Pastor pointed out at the excellent panel discussion of his that I attended last week– need to be written down, and to have some form of third party authentication, oversight, or even more preferably still a continuing, third-party verification and monitoring mechanism. (Evident parallels there with the development of Israel-Hizbullah relations that took place between 1993 and 1996. Btw, the 1996 war was also launched by an Israeli PM as a part of his general election campaign… )
Bob Pastor said that Hamas and the Israeli government had notably disagreed, thoughout last summer and fall, about what exactly Israel had promised, regarding lifting the siege on Gaza, in the Egyptian-negotiated, six-month-long, mutual ceasefire (tahdi’eh) the two sides reached on June 18 last year; and that’s why, if the new ceasefire is to have any durability t needs to be written down, signed, and counter-signed. It also makes elementary sense that, in a situation of such grave mutual distrust, any agreement needs to be written down, signed by authorized representatives of both parties– and those signatures and texts authenticated by a third party whose third-party role is trusted and authorized by both of them.
Several Hamas people have expressed grave distrust in the role that Egypt has been playing as mediator/intermediary. But apparently Egypt– and in particular, Egyptian intel boss Omar Suleiman– is still trusted “enough” by both parties that he is once again the main intermediary/channel between them.
That’s one reason why it’ll be interesting for me to be in Cairo. From there I’ll proceed to Amman, Israel, and Palestine and perhaps also Syria, depending on a number of things.
As far as I understand the Hamas-Israel negotiation, Hamas has been adamant that any renewed ceasefire agreement must include solid provisions for lifting the siege that Israel has imposed on Gaza ever since Hamas won the January 2006 elections. The present Israeli government, for its part, is facing tough elections next Tuesday. The war on Gaza did not go nearly as well as Olmert, Livni, and Barak had hoped. The intermittent descent of Gaza-launched rockets onto southern Israel that has occurred– along with many Israeli military actions against Gaza– even since January 18, reminds Israeli voters that the Olmert government has not “solved” the problems with Gaza that the war was, they had promised, intended to solve. Pressure from (and support for) the rightwing Israeli parties has intensified…
Under these circumstances, it’s unclear to me whether Olmert even has any motivation at all to conclude– far less announce!– any ceasefire agreement with Hamas before next Tuesday. Probably the only thing that just might make such an agreement acceptable to Israeli voters, in their current state of great anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Hamas frenzy, would be if it included the release of Cpl. Gilad Shalit, an Israeli POW who has been held by unidentified militant groups in Gaza since June 2006, and by Hamas since it took control of the Strip in June 2007.
Hamas wants to keep the prisoner-exchange negotiations separate from the Gaza-ceasefire (and siege-lifting) negotiations. More than two dozen elected Hamas negotiators from the West Bank– including the speaker of the Palestinian parliament– have been held by Israel, without charges, as apparent bargaining chips for Shalit. Israel also holds a further 11,000-plus Palestinian detainees in its extensive complex of prisons for political prisoners. Most of these are being held without trial. Many of them are Hamas supporters and activists– though they come from all branches of the Palestinian national-liberation movement.
The rightwing Likud party is now clearly expected to win in Tuesday’s elections– and parties even further to the right like Avigdor Lieberman’s “Israel Beitenu” party have been moving up in the polls. Israel Beitenu now outranks Ehud Barak’s Labor Party as #3 in the opinion polls. (This marks yet another phase in the long decline of Israel’s once completely dominant Labour Party, which I have chronicled since 1998.)
… In other news, George Mitchell returned to DC a couple of days ago after completing his first “fact-finding” tour of the Middle East in connection with his role as the special envoy appointed jointly by Pres. Obama and Sec. Hillary Clinton. He reported back to both Clinton and Obama– in the White House’s Oval Office, yesterday. Tuesday, Clinton had earlier jumped the gun in terms of public announcements, by declaring that Hamas would still have to meet the three tired old, and very exclusionary “requirements” before it could be included in any US peacemaking. (Commitments not to use armed force and to recognize Palestinian rights have notably not been reciprocally required from the Government of Israel.)
Time has been running out for Obama to say something principled and clear about our country’s own strong interest in and commitment to a fair and durable Israeli-Palestinian peace, in time for that statement to resonate effectively with Israeli voters before they go to the polls Tuesday.
That’s a pity. I guess Obama has had a few other things to deal with, like the still-imploding national economy and the tanking of his nomination of old buddy Tom Daschle as secretary of Health and Human Services. But he really does need to keep his eye on this Israeli-Palestinian ball; and I hope that george Mitchell is dedicated to helping him do that.
This matter certainly can’t be left to the uncertain capabilities and understanding of Hillary Clinton.
Well, that’s it for now… Watch this space for continuing field updates as I travel. (Also, given how clunky the hosting service has become here at JWN, I’m considering shifting over to WordPress sometime soon. No change for JWN readers, though Don and Scott, as occasional authors, will need to get the new info when I do that. But until I can get that switch organized, I’ll probably be doing a lot of Delicious-ing of online resources I find helpful– check them out on the JWN sidebar. I’ll also be Twittering as the spirit moves me. So check that out, too. I’ve figured how to do that from my cellphone… I think.)