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Dergham: Will a US veto lead you to alternatives that you know of? 
What will you do? What are your alternatives if the US veto is used? 
Abbas: I said that we will now return home and study all 
possibilities. This means that anything that will be proposed to us, we 
shall not reject readily, but instead consider in accordance to the 
ground rules that we hold. In other words, we want to return to the 
negotiations. But without recognition of the 1967 borders and without 
a halt to settlement activity, we will not do so. We await the Security 
Council to resolve the matter in due course through its formal and 
technical procedures. However, we reject any political games aimed 
at obstructionism and stalling. 
Dergham: Is there a scenario whereby upon the arrival of the 
application to the Security Council, a decision on it is deferred, only 
deferred, until the European efforts along with those of the Arabs at 
the General Assembly are concluded, so that Palestine would be 
given the membership of an observing state but not full membership? 
Abbas: We are not currently looking into this issue. Certainly, we 
reject any kind of delay or obstruction. 
Dergham: If the issue comes to an end with the US veto, Palestine 
would not have the status or position of a state, and would not be able 
to head to the ICC [International Criminal Court]. What would you 
have gained then? 
Abbas: The United States, the bastion of democracy, would do 
wrong to the Palestinian people if it denies them the right to liberty 
and self-determination. It will have to bear responsibility for its own 
actions. 
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Dergham: But there are those who say, Why risk losing an American 
president who sympathizes with you and your cause? 
Abbas: It is the US president who spoke of the necessity to halt 
settlement, and it is he who spoke of the '67 borders. He has to fulfill 
his words, at the very least. 
Dergham: Has [French] President Nicolas Sarkozy become the 
alternative when he put forward detailed proposals? 
Abbas: We say that we appreciate what he proposed, but our official 
answer will be given after we consult the Palestinian leadership. We 
present everything before the latter in detail, and it is this leadership 
that decides upon the appropriate position. 
Dergham: Is the Quartet over? Are you disappointed with the stances 
of the Quartet? 
Abbas: Unfortunately, the Quartet has failed throughout the past year 
in issuing a statement, despite the fact that in the past it indeed issued 
good ones. But this year, since September and to date, it has failed. 
Twice it has failed to meet, and in the third time, it was the Quartet 
that rejected American proposals, not us. Russia, Europe, and the 
United Nations rejected what the Americans proposed. This means 
that what the Americans offered was unacceptable to anyone. Such 
proposals talk about a Jewish state, about the settlement blocs, as 
though they were a fait accompli, and about security that would 
remain in Israel's control. After that, the Quartet envoy, Tony Blair, 
carried to us the ideas that the Quartet itself had rejected. For this 
reason, I told President Obama that we reject totally such ideas. 
Dergham: The Quartet statement the [UN] secretary general told you 
about includes new ideas, correct? 
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23 
Abbas: They presented some ideas and views. We said we would 
listen to them, discuss them, and then give them our feedback. 
Dergham: President Sarkozy has proposed a timetable for 
negotiations. Are you ready to move forward on that? 
Abbas: The negotiations are the first matter, before the timeframe. 
This is important. But the core issue is the substance. If the substance 
is appropriate, then yes, a timeframe. We would put a timeframe in 
place and within which we would conclude the negotiations. 
Dergham: Hamas has criticized your speech. While the world was 
applauding you and giving you a standing ovation, positions were 
taken and statements were issued against you? 
Abbas: From the outset, Hamas said that this move is unilateral and 
one-sided. True, we perhaps did not consult with them. But the matter 
should not be, "If you do not consult me then I am against you." At 
least I understand the essence of their position. But they have taken 
pride in erroneousness. They continued to reject and started looking 
for pretexts, saying that the statement contained contradictions and 
whatnot. The whole world understood the speech, and yet they say it 
is full of contradictions. This is regrettable. 
Dergham: Why is there talk of dissolving the Palestinian Authority? 
Abbas: We are not talking about dissolving the Palestinian 
Authority. 
Dergham: You proposed what is now close to being a civil intifada 
against the occupation. 
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24 
Abbas: I did not say intifada. This has existed for some time. The 
popular and peaceful resistance is present in Bil'in and Ni'lin and 
elsewhere in Palestinian cities adjacent to the Wall, and it is carried 
out every week by Palestinians, Israelis, and foreign volunteers. We 
encourage these popular and peaceful protests, which are not against 
international law, or anyone for that matter, but only against the 
occupation, while using peaceful methods. What is required of us? 
Now, our Arab brethren have taught us with their uprisings and their 
Spring. They talk about the peacefulness of their protests. And 
indeed, this has proven to be the most effective way for people to 
attain their rights. 
Dergham: Are you afraid [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin 
Netanyahu may carry out his threats of taking measures, as it seems 
he is making threats that may even amount to military action? 
Abbas: He can, without making any threats, he can do anything on 
the military level because we cannot confront him on that level, nor 
do we want to. If he likes, the doors will be open to him. 
Dergham: Do you fear that US financial aid to you may be 
suspended? 
Abbas: There is talk of suspending aid, but at least the Americans 
should tell us why, if they want to suspend aid, then why. But we 
shall cross that bridge when we get to it. 
Dergham: Are you currently on good terms with Syria? And why do 
you not conduct a visit to Iran? The first to congratulate you on your 
speech were the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and 
the emir of Qatar. What is the nature of your relations at present, 
while bearing in mind that there is an Iranian-Turkish competition 
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25 
over the region, and what is the nature of your relations with Iran and 
Syria currently? 
Abbas: I think, when we went to the conference, there was the 
Iranian delegation who welcomed us. The same can be said of the 
Syrian delegation with whom we've met. 
Dergham: Here? 
Abbas: Yes, we met yesterday, we more than once met with the 
Syrian delegation, both in the General Assembly or at the home of 
the emir of Qatar. Then today, [Syrian Vice Foreign Minister] Faisal 
Mekdad came and congratulated me. We are not on bad terms at all 
with any side, and we maintain good relations with everyone. With 
regard to Erdogan, our relationship is excellent, and our relationship 
with the emir of Qatar is excellent as well. We have no problems with 
anyone. For this reason, everyone came to congratulate us and greet 
us. If a certain side did not want to do so, then no one is putting 
pressure on anyone to congratulate, greet, or say good words about 
the speech. 
Dergham: Is there anything that makes you afraid? 
Abbas: Of whom should I be afraid? If Netanyahu wants to attack us, 
then welcome. If he wants to annul agreements, then welcome. He is 
free to do whatever he wishes because he is the occupier, not us. He 
occupies our land, and he is able to do what he wants. But we will not 
submit to what he wants. We shall oppose him by all peaceful means. 
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Artick 6. 
Project Syndicate 
Has Palestine Won? 
Shlomo Ben-Ami 
2011-09-30 -- The somber spectacle of Israel's isolation during the 
United Nations debate on Palestinian statehood marks the political 
tsunami that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's critics warned 
would arrive if Israel did not propose a bold peace initiative. But, 
more importantly, the speeches at the UN General Assembly by the 
two rivals, Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, 
showed that any initiative to bring the parties back to the negotiating 
table might turn out to be futile. Speeches do not make peace, but 
they can mar its prospects. Netanyahu and Abbas both showed once 
again how the politics surrounding "the peace process" has defeated 
the cause of peace. Both leaders exhibited utter indifference to the 
other's core concerns, and catered to their constituencies, Hamas and 
Israeli settlers included, making it clear, urbi et orbi, that the gaps 
separating their positions are as unbridgeable as ever. Netanyahu 
could not bring himself to admit the sins of occupation, or even to 
utter a minimal expression of empathy with the Palestinian tragedy of 
dispossession and dispersion. Israel's march of folly in expanding its 
West Bank settlements did not deserve a hint of soul searching on his 
part. Indeed, Netanyahu's call for peace will remain hollow so long 
as he continues to view the solution to Israel's legitimate security 
concerns as requiring continuous occupation of sizable portions of 
the future Palestinian state. The Jordan Valley and the hills of Judea 
and Samaria are, undoubtedly, strategic assets for a country whose 
width is that of the length of a Manhattan avenue. But 
demilitarization, the deployment of international forces, and rigid 
security arrangements could offer an answer. Security concerns can 
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27 
no longer be treated as a license for territorial expansion. Eager to 
deliver his elementary history lessons, Netanyahu refuses to admit the 
validity of one key perspective. Rather than interpreting Israel's 
victory in the 1967 Six-Day War as permission for annexation of 
territory, that triumph should be viewed as a watershed that made 
possible peace with the entire Arab world should Israel relinquish 
occupied Arab lands. This principle was stipulated by the 2002 Arab 
peace initiative, and was previously realized in Israel's peace with 
Egypt and Jordan. So, whoever aspires to help the parties reach a 
settlement needs to be attentive to the fact that territorial borders are 
only one aspect of this conflict — and not necessarily the most 
contentious one. Unlike Israel's peace with Egypt (and, one hopes, its 
peace with Syria), the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is rooted in more 
than a real-estate dispute. As the UN debate showed, what is at stake 
is a clash of irreconcilable national narratives. Egypt had to grant 
Israel only political recognition, but the Palestinians are being asked 
to recognize Israel's moral legitimacy by accepting Jewish links to 
the Holy Land and hence admitting the Jews' millenarian claim for a 
state in a land that the Palestinians believe is historically theirs. 
Not a word, nor an omission, in Abbas's UN speech was accidental. 
What was most striking was how flagrantly dismissive he was of 
Israel's most fundamental national narrative. He spoke of the Holy 
Land as the source of Christianity and the home of sacred shrines of 
Islam, but intentionally ignored the Biblical roots of Judaism and 
Jerusalem as the home of Hebrew kings and prophets. For Israelis, 
that omission reveals even the most moderate Palestinians' 
unwillingness to embrace the existence of a Jewish state. 
Abbas's refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state — on the ground 
that to do so would betray Israel's 1.5 million Palestinian citizens —
vindicated a key Israeli concern, and fueled skeptics' fears of a 
hidden long-term Palestinian agenda to do away with the Jewish state 
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28 
altogether. This is likely to dishearten Israeli doves — and embolden 
hawks in their insistence that no progress toward peace is possible 
without the Palestinians' unequivocal acceptance of Israel as the 
Jewish national homeland. Thus, Abbas's implicit message that 
Israel will never offer a fair deal to its Arab minority will reinforce 
Netanyahu's leadership as the staunch defender of the national 
interest against the naive dreamers of the left. Netanyahu has only to 
present Abbas' arguments as proof that, for the Palestinians, peace 
with Israel is just the first stage in a grand strategy leading to one 
Palestine, embracing all of Israel, with an Arab majority. Even if, as 
expected, the Security Council rejects the Palestinians' request for 
full UN membership and Palestine ends up with observer status in the 
General Assembly, Abbas can already claim victory. He managed to 
redress the balance of power with Israel and the United States by 
mobilizing the vast support that the Palestinian cause elicits in the 
international community. If not for his bold initiative at the UN, the 
Quartet (the UN, the US, the European Union, and Russia) would not 
have become so suddenly hyperactive in searching for a formula to 
bring the parties back to the negotiating table. But don't hold your 
breath. Nothing will come out of the Quartet's move unless the 
parties change their attitudes. Peacemaking is about courageously 
addressing the other side's genuinely vital concerns. And would-be 
mediators, for their part, can no longer just be "facilitators"; they 
need to regard themselves as stakeholders — and be prepared to exert 
pressure and twist arms. Left to their own devices, Israelis and 
Palestinians will never reach a comprehensive peace settlement. 
Shlomo Ben Ami is a former Israeli foreign minister who now serves 
as the vice-president of the Toledo international Centre for Peace. 
He is the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab 
Tragedy. 
EFTA01169343

AnICIC 7. 
The Independent 
Will Israel still exist in 2048? 
Mary Dejevsky 
30 September 2011 -- This time last week the diplomatic world was 
on tenterhooks, as President Mahmoud Abbas prepared to make 
Palestine's claim to recognition at the UN General Assembly. Seven 
days on, his historic demand languishes in a vague limbo, as 
Americans and Europeans try to pre-empt an ill-tempered stand-off in 
the Security Council and the US veto that would surely follow. The 
idea seems to be to try to deflect the Palestinians with a promise of 
revamped peace talks with Israel. 
Whether or not this tactic works, however, there can be little doubt 
that one day, sooner rather than later, a fully fledged Palestinian state 
will come into being. There have been many mis-starts, including the 
2006 elections that much of the West rejected retrospectively when 
Hamas emerged as the biggest party. But the momentum is 
inexorable. The Arab Spring, better described as the Arab awakening, 
can only speed the process along. 
The bigger and longer-term question relates not to the existence, or 
even the viability of a Palestinian state — which should be a given. 
The demographics, economics and politics all point the same way. It 
relates to the future, and long-term survival, of Israel. In short, will 
Israel, as the Jewish state, still be around to celebrate its centenary in 
2048? 
Let me make it absolutely clear: the question is not whether Israel 
should continue to exist. That is beyond doubt. It is a legally 
constituted state with full UN recognition. It is a stable, albeit 
fractious, democracy and has survived more than 60 years in a 
distinctly hostile neighbourhood. It has created a thriving economy, 
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30 
with intensive agriculture and advanced industry, from almost 
nothing. It has a rich cultural life. It is not alone in having borders 
that are not finally demarcated and are regarded by some as illegal. 
The fact that it has enemies who withhold recognition does not 
negate its legitimacy. 
No, the question is not whether Israel should survive, but whether it 
can and will survive. And here there must be room at the very least 
for doubt. A string of recent developments contains hints that the 
state of Israel, as currently constituted, may not be a permanent 
feature of the international scene. 
One is the new porousness of its borders. Despite massive spending 
on security and recent, controversial, efforts to erect physical barriers 
along what Israel defines as its border with the Palestinian Authority, 
its other frontiers have become, or threaten to become, porous. On 
several weekends in May and June, Palestinians in Syria breached the 
border with Israel. They did not use overwhelming force. Numbers 
were enough, against Israeli troops — rightly — reluctant to mow down 
dozens of young people. 
The incursions appeared to be encouraged, if not actually incited, by 
the Syrian authorities seeking a diversion from their own difficulties. 
They have since ceased; but the threat remains, and could soon 
escalate were the situation in Syria to deteriorate. If, in the worst 
case, Syria descended into civil war, chaos could present an even 
greater danger to Israel because there would be no one in Damascus 
with the authority to call the crowds of frustrated young Palestinians 
back. 
Something similar, perhaps even less tractable, applies in the south, 
on Israel's border with Egypt. Sinai is a vast territory and hard to 
patrol. Security on the Egyptian side has already deteriorated as a by-
product of the fall of the Mubarak regime, and there have been 
attacks on Israeli convoys in the Negev. If unrest in Syria and Egypt 
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31 
were to extend to Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, the 
consequences for Israel's security could be even worse. 
Add to these growing security problems the demographics — very 
young and fast-increasing populations in the countries all around —
and it is clear that present trends will not easily be reversed. It is just 
about possible to imagine Israel resorting to the sort of impenetrable 
fortifications that extend along stretches of the US frontier with 
Mexico, but the investment would be huge, the message one of 
isolation, and the effect on daily life in Israel almost entirely 
negative. A second reason why Israelis might be justified in having 
qualms about their future relates to the political aftermath of the Arab 
Spring. For a long time the fear was that any change in Arab 
countries would bring Islamist regimes to power, with fiercely anti-
Israel agendas. That still cannot be ruled out. But what has happened 
so far could have more insidious consequences for Israel. Not only is 
the Jewish state losing its kudos as the sole democracy in the region, 
but those Arab leaders who actively supported peace have lost, or are 
losing, power, and the US is giving up on intervention. 
One hope was that the emergence of more democratic regimes around 
Israel might foster a climate of normalisation and mutual respect. 
That may yet happen. But another effect is that leaders will have to 
be more responsive to the wishes of their people. As can already be 
discerned with Egypt, this may not bode well for stability in Arab-
Israel relations. With the Arab Spring also bolstering the self-
confidence of the Palestinians — a factor in Mr Abbas's decision to 
take his case to the UN last week — the political balance in the region 
is shifting. A third reason for doubt about Israel's future lies within 
the Jewish state itself. With the early pioneering spirit fading, and 
even the Holocaust — dare one hazard — less of a unifying force, Israel 
is not the same country it was 60, 30, even 10 years ago. And 
demography means that it will continue to change, with the Arab, 
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32 
Orthodox Jewish and second-generation Russian populations 
increasing much faster than other groups. The Israel of the next 30 
years is likely to be more divided, less productive, more inward-
looking and more hawkish than it is today — but without the financial 
means and unquestioning sense of duty that inspired young people to 
defend their homeland by force of arms. Recent mass protests 
against inequality and the cost of middle-class living also suggest that 
the social solidarity that has prevailed hitherto could break down. In 
such circumstances, it must be asked how much longer Israel can 
maintain the unity it has always presented against what it terms the 
"existential threat". An Israel whose borders are leaky, which is 
surrounded by states that are at once chaotic and assertive, and whose 
citizens are less able or willing than they were to fight, could face 
real serious questions about its viability. The choice then might be 
between a fortress state, explicitly protected by nuclear weapons, and 
a state so weak that association, or federation, with the burgeoning 
independent Palestine would become plausible: the so-called one-
state solution by other means. In either event, those with other 
options — the younger, more educated, more cosmopolitan sections of 
the population — might well seek their future elsewhere, leaving the 
homeland of their ancestors' dreams a husk of its former self. The 
emotive call, "Next year in Jerusalem" would be the wistful vestige 
of a noble ambition overtaken by cruel demographic and geopolitical 
reality. 
Maly Dejevsky has worked as a foreign correspondent all over the world, 
including Washington, Paris and Moscow. She is now the chief editorial 
writer and a columnist at The Independent and regularly appears on radio 
and television. 
EFTA01169347

AnICIC 8. 
Real-Clear-World 
Erdogan Should Mind His Own Glass 
House 
Hillel Fradkin & Lewis Libby 
September 30, 2011 -- Two weeks ago, Turkish Prime Minister 
Tayyip Erdogan visited Egypt, Tunisia and Libya on what was 
dubbed his "Arab Spring Tour." With a growing economy, a strong 
regional military and three successive electoral pluralities (the most 
recent this past June), Erdogan enjoys greater legitimacy than any 
other Middle Eastern Muslim ruler. He designed his Arab Tour to 
bolster his claim to lead the Middle East. But Erdogan also needed 
his tour to obscure his recent record of regional failures, failures from 
which he badly needs to recover. 
Outwardly, the tour appeared to succeed. Erdogan's airport arrivals 
won him "rock star" treatment, and he even addressed the Arab 
League — the first non-Arab afforded that distinction. Arab Spring 
activists, worried that hold-over militaries might yet derail their 
revolutions, marveled at Erdogan's ability to reassert Islamism and, 
most recently, his success in bringing Turkey's generals to heel. But 
his greatest appeal sprang from his vociferous attacks on Israel, 
which he threatened with naval war, and the West, whom he accused 
of seeking to exploit Libya's wealth. By contrast, he cited Turkey as 
a long and selfless friend. Here was a man, he would have people say, 
willing to confront Israel like a Nasser, willing to lead like an 
Ottoman. 
Heady stuff, but in fact Erdogan's foreign policy is in shambles. The 
Arab Spring, which often cites approvingly Turkey's domestic 
EFTA01169348

34 
model, has also presented the Turkish prime minister with his first 
serious tests. And Erdogan has stumbled badly. 
It began in Libya, where Erdogan had warned sternly against NATO 
intervention, even though NATO sought to protect Muslim civilians. 
NATO ignored him, and Erdogan soon crept back into line, even 
trying to claim credit. 
But it is in Syria that Erdogan has suffered his most serious setbacks. 
He had once loudly advertised a regional foreign policy of "zero 
problems with neighbors"; helped create an EU-like free trade and 
travel zone with Syria, Iraq and Iran; and backed Syria's President 
Assad and Iran's rulers in their quarrels with the West, even seeking 
to shield Iran's nuclear program. But today, Turkey staggers under 
problems with Syria, Iraq and Iran. Worse yet, Erdogan has appeared 
ineffective. The Syrian crisis is the proximate cause, but Erdogan's 
problems run deeper still. 
Erdogan raised the stakes in Syria by declaring it to be not merely a 
regional issue, but a crucial "domestic" one for Turkey. After all, 
violence in Syria risks flooding Turkey with Syrian Kurds; and 
Turkey's long-running problems with its Kurdish population includes 
terror attacks by the Kurdish group, PKK. So Erdogan demanded that 
Assad halt assaults on Syrians and reform, even as Erdogan was 
bombing PKK camps in Northern Iraq, killing Iraqi civilians, 
violating Iraqi sovereignty and causing Iraq to complain about 
Turkey. 
Nonplussed, Assad has repeatedly rejected Turkish demands, despite 
Turkish sputtering that its "patience" was running out. Once, 
Turkey's foreign minister proudly announced he had persuaded Syria 
to withdraw tanks from a siege, only to see the tanks return hours 
later. Turkey looked the fool. 
Turkey failed because Assad knows both the dreadful price of 
looking weak and that Iran will support him. Herein lies the deeper 
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35 
cause of Erdogan's failures in Syria: Iran also seeks to lead the 
region. For that, it needs its proxy Syria. Erdogan is in Syria's and 
Iran's way. So Iran charges that Turkey's suppression of its Kurdish 
opposition is no different than Assad's suppression of his opposition. 
Iran - which is itself shelling Iraqi territory — refers sometimes to the 
PICK not as "terrorists" but as "insurgents," who are an authentic 
voice of legitimate Kurdish aspirations. As Erdogan squirms, Iran 
chortles. 
For the moment, and for so long as Assad stands, the region will see 
Iran as winning. As long as Iran continues work on its nuclear 
program, time works against Erdogan. This is what lay behind 
Turkey's recent decision to accept installation of a U.S. radar needed 
to protect against Iran. 
Against this background, Erdogan launched his Arab Spring tour, 
expelled the Israeli Ambassador and threatened naval war with Israel. 
He sought to shift the focus to those Arab and largely Sunni lands 
where his strengths lay; but his liabilities lurk still. Arab League 
dignitaries in the audience were enraptured by Erdogan's 
denunciations of Israel, but others - the Egyptian military included —
do not relish where this may lead. And the League's serious business 
that day was Syria, about which Erdogan sat silent. As he left the 
hall, Syrian exiles called him "coward." 
Indeed, some in the Turkish opposition have begun to denounce 
Erdogan's morally hypocritical "glass house." They ridicule his 
government's travels as motion without results. They deride his 
vanity, a man given to delivering moral sermons whose tests he fails -
ironic commentary on the man who still holds with pride the Gaddafi 
prize for human rights. 
All this, then, marks Erdogan's reverting to trump: the anti-Israel 
card. Erdogan's hostility to Israel undoubtedly runs deep. In 2006, he 
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36 
embraced Hamas, devoted to Israel's destruction. But now he slaps 
trump down with ever greater ferocity, threatening military conflict. 
Erdogan's broader international standing slides, too. The UN Palmer 
Report criticized his support for Turkish ships attempting last spring 
to run Israel's legitimate effort to keep weapons from terrorists in 
Gaza. Erdogan's efforts to block Cyprus from enjoying the rights of 
EU membership, and his military threats against Cyprus lawfully 
developing resources useful to the EU, win few friends. 
For a would-be leader of the new Middle East, his anti-Israeli, anti-
Western tactics look awfully similar to the old. So far, at least, 
Erdogan's foreign policy has mostly just entangled Turkey more in 
the unproductive Middle East politics his predecessors avoided. 
Erdogan's foreign minister has essentially admitted as much. While 
calling the "zero problems" policy a success, he now defines it 
narrowly as Turkish-Egyptian alliance, one implicitly directed against 
Israel. 
It would be nice to suppose that Turkey's inherent strengths, its past 
moderation and the apparent political and moral limits to Erdogan's 
regional influence might soon turn him to a more sober course. After 
all, a would-be "leader" must eventually show results more 
substantial than applause. 
Hillel Fradkin is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Lewis Libby 
is a senior vice president at the Hudson Institute. 
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