Tested by Zion (43 page)

While Israelis and Palestinian terror groups fought in Gaza, Welch and
I visited Israel and the West Bank in early November to discuss once again Condi's idea of an international conference and to see where the Palestinian “national unity government” efforts stood. She had scaled back her idea and was thinking not of a new Madrid Conference but a smaller one – with just the Quartet, Israelis and Palestinians, Egypt and Jordan (which had peace treaties and diplomatic relations with Israel), and perhaps the Gulf countries under the umbrella of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Israel had at times had trade links and face-to-face talks with Qatar, the Emirates, Bahrain, and Oman, so their participation was not impossible. This would not be a major international conference but just a regional meeting.

Welch and I met with Olmert, but he was not buying even this more limited conference. I have told Condi repeatedly, he said, that whatever you want from the moderate Arabs for Afghanistan and Iraq you can get because of Iran; you don't have to pay them off in Israeli-Palestinian currency. And look, he said, Abbas is doing nothing. He should not be rewarded by a huge drama where Kofi and Javier Solana will want to come. And anyway, a long emotional appeal on the misery of the Palestinians, supposedly all caused by Israel, will not lead Abbas to act. Why does such a meeting encourage him? It sets expectations too high, and then they'll be devastated. Why should Abbas deal with Olmert and
the Israelis privately when a huge conference like this allows him an out, and kills the Roadmap?

Olmert then pulled back a bit and said he was not saying no to the conference but was just laying out his concerns. I share the view that we need to do something, he said, and I realize the advantage of getting the Arabs involved. But is this the only possible way? He warned us: What if there are more Qassams, and more terrorism, and we react, and it is worse in Gaza, and then the Arabs cancel? So let's analyze it first, let's be careful, don't spread the idea. I am thinking of ways to move forward and will explain them next time I see the president. The chances of progress without a powerful disciplined Palestinian partner are slim, he said, and we don't have one. And right now, unilateralism is not politically realistic. My position is the same – Israel must pull out from most of the West Bank and create a Palestinian state. What I’m thinking about,
Olmert said, is what is the process if it is no longer “convergence?” I told Olmert we could address some of the problems in the outcome document for the conference and made the old argument: We need to fill the vacuum, and there is a danger of doing nothing. I agreed with Olmert, not with Condi, but my job during this trip was to advance the goal she had apparently sold to the president: get some international meeting.

I get it, said Olmert, but if Abbas does zero and gets the conference, he will continue to do zero. Anyway, what you are talking about is not really a regional meeting, Israeli and Arab; there will be too many attending from the international community and then it becomes an international conference. Let me think about it and we'll discuss it more when I come to Washington. Olmert did send “T and T” to Washington soon thereafter, and Hadley told them our thinking now was a meeting in Amman of the United States, Israel, the PA, Jordan, Egypt, and some Gulf countries. We're surprised you're so negative, Hadley told them; this isn't some great international conference. You want to avoid “Madrid II,” and so do we. The Israelis remembered this among many conversations where they were promised a small meeting – not the Annapolis Conference we later held.

On November 6, Welch and
I then traveled from Jerusalem to Ramallah to see Abbas. He said to us that after the national unity government failed, I told Hamas I want a government of independent technocrats based on certain principles. We have been discussing those principles – and today is the deadline for Hamas to name three independents, and I will then choose one of them to be a prime minister. It has to be a moderate who accepts my letter designating him as prime minister, so he will be acceptable to the international community. All the ministers will be independents, not party members, nominated by Hamas or Fatah. Welch replied that, remember, we need a government we can work with, which means it must endorse the Quartet principles. It has to be clear, no loopholes. Well, said Abbas, my letter won't mention the Quartet principles but it will refer to my UN Security Council speech, which did. Then the prime minister will accept my designation letter and will form a government accordingly. The new prime minister will not be a Hamas member. Abbas got to his bottom line: Will you lift the siege (meaning, end the financial boycott) if there is a technocratic government? Welch gave the obvious reply: Yes, if the new government accepts the three Quartet principles.

We were fully aware of Abbas's plan from our own diplomatic reporting. After efforts to reach a coalition government under Ismail Haniyeh broke down in September, there had been almost constant Hamas-Fatah violence in October. Eight had been killed on October 1 and several more in the days that followed; then on October 11, 20 were killed and more than 100 injured. A truce was brokered and broke down on October 20. The rivalry between Hamas and Fatah was visible in Ramallah in endless political machinations and the tug of war between Prime Minister Haniyeh and his cabinet versus President Abbas and
the PA organs under him. But in Gaza, the rivalry was producing daily gunfights.

The new Abbas proposal was to have a nonparty government, a government of technocrats who were “fellow travelers,” some of whom were Hamas and others from Fatah. As Abbas had explained, Haniyeh would propose three names for prime minister and Abbas would choose one. Haniyeh himself would not be among the names, making it far easier for the Quartet and the United States to accept the new cabinet. Fatah and Hamas would divide the cabinet posts and we assumed Fayyad would be finance minister again – if Fayyad agreed to participate in this new game. As Abbas had explained to us, he would issue a letter to the new prime minister he was appointing, who would formally accept this charge. November 6 was the last day for Hamas to respond to the proposal. Welch and
I pressed Abbas and
his advisors again, reminding them that no confusion, no loopholes were possible. We could not accept the new government if we could not say it was operating under the three Quartet Principles. In fact, we had worked with both Israel and the PA vetting names for prime minister and believed there were a couple of men who would be acceptable. Welch was in frequent touch with Abbas's advisors as they worked through lists of names. Far from seeking to sabotage Abbas's plans, we were quietly working to see if they could be implemented. But we also asked Abbas what he would do if Hamas said no. He would give a speech a week or two later, he said, and might declare a state of emergency and appoint some kind of caretaker government. Then he would call for new elections.

In fact, no deal was concluded despite weeks more of work. In the second week of November, after the supposed deadline had passed, the PA was still floating names past us, and we were still trying to help them make Abbas's plan succeed. But the division of ministries between Fatah and Hamas was never agreed: Who would get which of the important posts such as interior (which meant security), finance, and foreign affairs? The text of Abbas's letter to a new prime minister was also never agreed: Would the letter demand that Hamas
honor
previous agreements, or
respect
them, or
comply with
them? The exact formulation was critical. But on November 14, Hamas stated again that it would never recognize Israel, making further negotiations senseless.

At the end of November, we were on the road again with Secretary Rice. We have two years left, Condi told the king of Jordan, so it is increasingly unlikely that we can go all the way to a final status agreement. Is an interim agreement possible? We can go part of the way if not the whole way in two years; will the Palestinians accept that? In her meeting with Abbas, he told her the idea of a national unity government
was dead. The door is closed; the dialogue with Hamas is over. Condi told Israelis and Palestinians she would come back to the region again in January, six weeks from then, to take stock.

On December 16, Abbas said he would call early elections, for both the PLC and his own presidential post. With political agreement impossible, the gunfights escalated once again. There was significant violence from December 11–22, with scores wounded and several killed in battles almost every day and with Fatah and Hamas capturing each other's security men and executing them. The violence picked up again on January 1 and continued through January
into February: Fatah and Hamas gunmen were killing each other almost every day, attacking each other's strongholds and offices, ambushing motorcades, agreeing to truces, and then breaking them within hours.

We did not think this violence marked the end of any chance for Israeli-Palestinian progress; in fact, the contrary might be true. It was clear that Olmert could not go forward with unilateral withdrawals on the West Bank because there was little public support for such a move after the Second Lebanon War and the corruption allegations against him. But that did not rule out negotiations
and, in fact, Olmert and Abbas met – for the first time since June – on December 24, 2006, amidst the Hamas-Fatah violence. The day before, Olmert had made several gestures of support for the PA: Israel would hand over to the PA about $100 million in tax revenues it had collected for the PA but had previously refused to disgorge, and it would remove some checkpoints in the West Bank. Shortly after the meeting, the Israelis authorized Egypt to supply lethal weapons to PA/Fatah forces in Gaza.

One way ahead seemed open: for Abbas to dismiss the Hamas government and appoint a new one. Asserting himself against Hamas would gain him additional credibility in Israel as well as with us, and we would then try to broker new rounds of peace talks between Olmert and the new Palestinian government – which would have no one from Hamas in it. A cold-blooded assessment showed that the more Fatah fought Hamas, the more Israelis would think it worth engaging in talks with Fatah and Abbas, and would think it smart to support the PA – which surely would emerge victorious from these confrontations. Condi Rice believed the negotiations could be advanced by some sort of international meeting that would include Arab states as well as the Israelis and Palestinians, and had been pressing that idea at least since the end of the Lebanon conflict the previous summer. I was unpersuaded about the need for such a conference but did agree that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were possible as Fatah took on Hamas. We made plans for another Rice trip to the Middle East, in February, to see how we could move the ball forward.