The best single word to describe the latest idea for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations proposed originally by Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and endorsed recently by President Obama is "rigged".
First, Israel would be required to accept negotiations based on the pre-war 1967 lines. That means that before the negotiations actually begin, Israel would have to promise to reset the clock to pre-war 1967, and accept that as the situation for the start of the negotiations, as the goal for the final result, and as the mediator's accepted position for mediating the negotiations. If Israel did this, it would mean that Israel is put into a deep hole, without the means for getting out, and would be required to negotiate after first giving up its negotiating chips.
Israel's basic negotiating position concerning territory is that "the settlement blocs will remain within the state of Israel and Jerusalem will remain its united capital", summarizing the territorial part of Netanyahu's speech to the Israeli Knesset, in the words of correspondent Elad Benari of Israel National News. This is a position that the entire Israeli coalition government agrees on, and that the main opposition party, Kadima, also agrees on. It is the Israeli position. There is a letter from then-President George W. Bush affirming support for Israel keeping the settlement blocs. There is a congressional resolution affirming the unity of Jerusalem under Israeli control. There is a congressional resolution affirming support for Bush's letter.
But the Abbas-Obama demand is that before the negotiations even begin, Israel must agree to the 1967 lines. That means Israel gives up the Western Wall, gives up the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, gives up half of its capital Jerusalem, and gives up all of the settlement blocs. The demand is for Israel to retreat to indefensible borders only 9 miles wide. But it gets even worse: the Abbas-Obama demand is for Israel to give up all of its negotiating chips before the negotiations start. Israel's plan is for some of the territory that Israel gained in the 1967 war in Judea and Samaria be given up by Israel as negotiating chips, but since the Abbas-Obama demand is for Israel to agree to lose all of this territory in advance of the negotiations, Israel would be losing its negotiating chips before negotiations start.That is the first way that the negotiations are rigged.
The second way the negotiations are rigged is that Israel's basic demand for security requires an Israeli long term presence along the Jordan River. When this would end cannot be predicted in advance, because that depends on the state of relations between Israel and its neighbors. This is necessary in order to prevent the smuggling of arms, including rockets and missiles, into areas of Judea and Samaria that would be controlled by the Palestinians. It would be necessary also in order to prevent the infiltration of terrorists and other jihadis into areas of Judea and Samaria that would be controlled by the Palestinians. It is not possible to know now which regimes are going to survive in the long term, and when regime change will take place. The Muslim Brotherhood is growing in strength in the region. Al Qaida is also determined to overthrow what it considers to be "apostate" regimes that are not governing according to Sharia. There have been Arab-Israeli wars in the past, and they could happen in the future also. An Israeli long term presence is needed along the Jordan River in order to delay an incoming invasion from across the Jordan River, if the friendly regime across the river is ever overthrown by Islamist forces, or if an invasionary force uses Jordan's territory to carry out its intended invasion into Israel. But Obama's speech, which he wants to make the basis of negotiations, rules out such an Israeli long-term presence along the Jordan River. It doesn't say that this is even negotiable. It just rules it out.
Obama's decision on the final result of the negotiations states: "The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state. And the duration of this transition period must be agreed, and the effectiveness of security arrangements must be demonstrated." Full withdrawal with a defined period of transition, as Obama requires of the final result of the negotiations, means that if Israel agrees to Obama's terms for the final result of the negotiations, it would be denied a long-term military presence on the Jordan River, and denied effective means of stopping the smuggling of weapons including rockets into the Palestinian entity, denied effective means of stopping the infiltration of jihadis and terrorists, and denied effective means of holding up an invasionary force that crosses the Jordan River. That is a denial of Israel's basic security needs, and it does not allow Israel to even negotiate for this necessity. That is the second way the negotiations are rigged.
The third way that the proposed negotiations have been rigged is for Israel's essential requirements for ending the conflict to be taken off the table at the time Israel makes its territorial concessions. That means that these will not even be discussed. These requirements are, according to Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu (in the summary words of correspondent Elad Benari):
1. "The Palestinians must recognize Israel as the Jewish nation's state."
2. "The treaty must be an end to the conflict."
3. "The Arab refugee problem must be solved outside of Israel's borders."
But these will not even be considered when Israel makes territorial concessions, because Obama has taken them off the table.
They are essential for ending the conflict, but they will not be addressed, certainly not with the needed concessions by the Palestinians, because Israel will be deprived of negotiating chips long before they are discussed, if ever.
The conflict goes on for a root cause reason that Obama has never acknowledged. The Muslim states, the states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to which Obama has sent a US ambassador, has territory that sweeps from the Atlantic Ocean, across north Africa, and to the Persian Gulf and beyond the Persian Gulf. This Islamic territory has in its midst a small piece of territory controlled by infidels, the Jews, who have no desire to convert to Islam, and have the desire and need to keep the Jewish state. This is a part of the Dar al Harb that is within the territory that the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists consider to be Islamic. For example, Hamas, the terrorist Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood, considers all of the territory of Israel, whatever its dimensions now or in the future, to be part of an Islamic trust, that must be ruled by Sharia. Plainly, it is clear that there will not be peace with the Palestinians until they change their approach by recognizing Israel as the Jewish nation's state, and take on the task of educating their children that Israel is the Jewish nation's state and is entitled to exist. But this issue has been taken off the table by Obama while Israel makes territorial concessions, so the root cause of the endless war will not be resolved.
There are millions of descendants of the 1948 Arab refugees, including great-grandchildren, and the mass of people that the Palestinians consider to be "Arab refugees" includes these descendants and other relatives. If they were to inundate Israel, the country would cease to be a Jewish state. If there is a 22nd Arab state of Palestine, and if these millions of foreign Arabs who are hostile to Israel were to immigrate to Israel, that would turn it into the 23rd Arab state. That is not what is meant by a "2 state solution", both Arab states. It would mark the end of the aspirations, rights, and needs of the Jewish state of Israel. And yet Obama has decreed in his speech that this issue would be taken off the table while Israel was making territorial concessions. That means that the necessary concessions that the Palestinians need to make to end this Arab refugee issue, which has been a cassus belli or pretext for war, would not be made. The pretext for war would continue, and the wars and terrorism would continue, and this whole matter would not be resolved.
Israel's requirement for peace is that the process results in a treaty that is the end to the conflict. But this has not been put on the table for the time that Israel makes territorial concessions. So it will not be addressed, and the Palestinians, who have wanted to have endless war (as the Hamas charter makes clear, and even the Fatah charter, and the PLO charter), will not make the necessary concession to even state in the treaty that the conflict is ended (let alone carry it out). Therefore, there is no chance that this will lead to anything but irredentist war, war continuing indefinitely.
The Abbas-Obama plan for negotiations rigs the negotiations so that right at the start, before negotiations start, Israel loses its rights and its valuable assets, and loses defensible borders, and in the final result loses the essential ingredient for security -- a long term presence along the Jordan River (which was blocked by Obama), and doesn't address the issues necessary for ending the war. It is a formula for slicing and dicing Israel, to make it even more attractive for war against it by the Islamists, and its result, just as the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip turned out to be, is a land-for-war result.
