If Israel has a Plan B, let's hear it.

Many Israelis seem pleased that the second shoe has now dropped on the unlikely U.S.-led effort to bridge old and new gaps between Israelis and Palestinians. Now, Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett has even mocked Mahmoud Abbas' threat to dissolve the Palestinian Authority. 

If the leaders of Israel's governing coalition truly appreciated the degree to which a credible and sustainable Palestinian entity is in their national interest, as they often acknowledge at least rhetorically, they might be less triumphant and superior at this moment, or at any moment. And they would be more concerned with how to bolster Abbas, rather than forcing Washington to drag them kicking and screaming at each turn.

Whatever positive steps Israel has taken of late, much energy has also been spent in ways that obviously undermine Abbas and boost his Hamas rivals. Over the past few years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has continued expansion and proliferation of West Bank settlements, even into areas generally accepted as part of a future Palestinian state. He has negotiated truces with Hamas and released hundreds of Hamas fighters without complaining to Washington.

Netanyahu alternately denies that Abbas has the legitimacy or capacity to deliver on any agreements -- because after all, Hamas and not Abbas controls Gaza -- and condemns Abbas whenever he makes an effort to coordinate with Hamas and forge a unified Palestinian front. 

If Abbas leaves the scene, with or without the Palestinian Authority, Israel will have to invent one. And it is unlikely to get as good an interlocutor as it has right now. 

If Israelis, and Netanyahu, are OK with this state of affairs, then so be it. But the notion of a tangible, sustainable peace WITHOUT a reliable Palestinian partner, or of waiting for a BETTER Palestinian partner to emerge someday -- as though any kind of real status quo could possibly hold in the meantime -- seems absurd.

If there is an alternative to the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, let's hear it (of course, several other options were tried before). Deriving political benefit and scoring rhetorical points off the flaws and failings of Mahmoud Abbas and other moderate Palestinian leaders is no way to build or maintain the possibility for an eventual peace. And yet, this is what Netanyahu's government has been doing all along. Or do they expect two million-plus Palestinians to just ride off into the sunset?

Negotiating with Hamas, but for the wrong reason?

Whether to advance a peace agreement leading to a Palestinian state or to consolidate the status quo, an Israeli government will probably be talking to Hamas before too long.

Twenty years ago, Israeli law prohibited any Israeli citizen from contact with the Palestine Liberation. As Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir put it, talking to the PLO would lead to the unacceptable establishment of a Palestinian state. And center-left politicians, including Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres agreed. So when Rabin became the PM and Peres his Foreign Minister, they pursued indirect contacts with the PLO precisely because they had realized that a separate Palestinian state was indispensable to Israel's long-term stability.

Today, the idea of "a PLO state bordering Israel" sounds pretty bad, but it remains the official preference of the Government of Israel... even if the actions of Israel's current leadership seem to be making that outcome progressively less likely. When President Ronald Reagan authorized the U.S. Government to talk directly with the PLO 24 years ago, the PLO was still on the State Department's list of Foreign Terror Organizations -- as is Hamas today.

But it was still the Cold War, PLO leader Yasir Arafat had met the specific conditions the United States had pledged to Israel, and Vice-President George H.W. Bush had already won the election to succeed the departing Reagan. There was little Israel or American Jewish organizations could do beyond calling for strict controls. Within five years, partly thanks to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and serious strong-arming by then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III, the Bush administration helped set the stage for the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Today, the memory of Hamas terror is constantly refreshed by new attacks on Israeli civilians, and Hamas leaders speak regularly of destroying Israel. The PLO once acted the same way, and that bitter legacy will never be erased. And yet, the Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and the PLO, and PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas is generally seen as the best chance for a moderate Palestinian leader willing to make a final deal with Israel.

Gaza's gifts

It is intolerable for Israel's major population centers to be under attack. Ideally, Israel wants a cease-fire with Hamas, with international guarantees, or at least some outside verification, which will further elevate Israel's claims for the next time around. Israel's military offensive to neutralize the rockets and missiles being launched from Gaza against Israeli civilians also has broader and less direct implications.

ANTIDOTE TO ABBAS

As well, this is not the first time a right-wing Israeli government elevates Hamas at the expense of the more moderate PLO, now embodied in the Palestinian Authority as headed by Mahmoud Abbas. During the 1980s, Israel did not mind the ascendance of Hamas as a way of hampering the PLO's operational and political strength.

In addition to making Israelis more secure -- at least in the short term -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaps further political advantage by diminishing Abbas and reducing the Palestinian leader's capacity to sustain a moderate course that might eventually compel Israel to finalize territorial compromises leading to a viable Palestinian state. Such an agreement and such a state used to be an Israeli goal, but under Netanyahu these are reduced to mere rhetorical flourishes. Beyond further cutting down Abbas, the Gaza operation also distracts attention from any potential peace initiative heading into the second Obama term. These may not have been considerations in his decision to counter-attack now, but they must definitely be seen as fringe benefits.

Israelis should wish Obama well in Europe

For which audience did President Obama tailor last Thursday's long speech on the Middle East? Of course, Arabs were interested in how Obama might meet the seismic changes rippling across the Middle East, but it's been a long time since they stopped taking speeches seriously. And they're hardly waiting on Washington's green light to take to the streets and fight for their rights. 

Israelis seem not to mind that their Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was doing nothing substantive to promote meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians even before the Fatah-Hamas merger. Netanyahu had been using House Speaker John Boehner to get his own Capitol Hill pep rally and one-up the President, so Obama pulled rank and moved up his own Mideast speech to the day before his own meeting with Netanyahu. But mutual spite still doesn't impact a major Presidential speech. Obama must know the peace process is going nowhere for a while, so what impact could he hope to make with such a speech?

One audience that could be useful to the President is the Europeans, whom he will be visiting this coming week. Nearly all the Western European nations were already signed up to support Palestinian statehood next September at the United Nations. Then, in a belated tribute to the efforts of Hosni Mubarak, Hamas and Fatah agreed to try out a reconciliation. Almost immediately, the Europeans made clear they wouldn't support the declaration of statehood if the new Palestine embraced the rejectionist, terrorist Hamas. So Hamas started intimating its readiness to accept further negotiations with Israel... possibly just enough to keep the Europeans hanging on.

Will Obama use AIPAC to announce Israel vacation?

It looks like President Obama will address the AIPAC Conference Sunday morning, one day before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does the same. The President may use the opportunity to announce the details of his upcoming visit to Israel, as Laura Rozen has just reported. He already said he'll visit this year. Since there continues to be little hope for a genuine peace breakthrough in the short term, there's nothing holding him back -- since if there were any chance, a President would wait until there's something he can throw his weight behind. The fact that George Mitchell is stepping down empty-handed is a further sign that nothing serious will happen this year.

The President has learned the hard way that (1) in addition to believing in Greater Israel in his heart, Netanyahu will also not be taking any risks beyond what it takes to keep his day job; (2) he will therefore have to meet the Arab Spring without the credibility of delivering an Israeli-Palestinian deal; and (3) he can win over Israelis and retain the "Jewish vote" stateside if he just makes a re-election campaign visit to Israel, spends quality time with Israeli President Shimon Peres, and appears to get along with Netanyahu. If he can't secure a lasting peace, at least he can avoid looking hard on Israel.

Netanyahu faces Obama's rising star

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be in Washington in two weeks to address the annual AIPAC Conference, as he did in March 2010, and so he also gets to meet again with President Obama. Last year's White House meeting produced no photo op, underscoring the Administration's general disappointment with Netanyahu's failure to open any functioning doors to substantive talks with the Palestinians. It also didn't help Netanyahu that Obama was fresh from winning one of the biggest fights of his Presidency -- comprehensive health care reform. I'm guessing Netanyahu was caught off guard by a President not looking to waste time on losing propositions (as if Netanyahu really intends to cut a realistic deal with the Palestinians) -- especially on one of his best days.

This year, Netanyahu's visit comes shortly after the President's biggest and gutsiest victory so far: The killing of Osama Bin Laden. And the timing only gets worse. The Palestinians Netanyahu could have dealt with last year have now merged with Hamas, largely out of weakness and desparation brought on by no resumption of talks -- and partly thanks to Obama for persistently highlighting Israeli settlements and to the Israelis for consistently flaunting them. Last year, Israeli-Palestinian peace could have taken the pressure off the United States for its military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, but now the Middle East has a dozen countries in various stages of democratic change, thank you very much. 

President Obama could have used an Israeli-Palestinian peace process under his belt BEFORE the Arab Spring. He could still use it, were his domestic policies still under assault from all quarters. But his approval rating got a serious boost following the Bin Laden kill, and being seen to twist the arm of an Israeli Prime Minister -- an inevitable consequence of any serious peacemaking -- is not a useful way for a popular President to secure re-election. 

Mission Accomplished.

Any American, and anyone who believes in civilization, should be relieved and even pleased that Osama Bin Laden no longer walks this Earth. CNN and other news media have so redundantly explained the obvious reasons, I have no interest in repeating them here. He was evil. The legitimate concern about revenge attacks following his death should be balanced by the reality that most Al Qaeda supporters were already out to get "us" even before Sunday evening. The only reasons they haven't attacked more are a lack of capability or the success of anti-terrorism policies and practices worldwide.

The fact that Bin Laden had been living for years without phone or internet service, relying upon couriers who evidently conveyed only verbal commands based on personal visits to the compound, all confirms that he was not in operational command for some time. He had never really been the operational commander of Al Qaeda anyway, but the point is: Al Qaeda's tactical capabilities have not been significantly impacted, other than the disruptive value of documents and data acquired during the raid.

More than the direct relevance of Osama Bin Laden was the sidelining of the whole Al Qaeda ethos during the "Arab Spring". Despite murmurs of openings for Al Qaeda in Libya and Yemen, none of the uprisings or popular movements sweeping the Middle East has demonstrated any effective allegiance to Al Qaeda or Bin Laden, nor any functional collaboration. Al Qaeda has tried to catch up to history, but it's been a tough year. The Yemen-based cells remain a potent threat, but that has little or nothing to do with the public resistance to President Saleh.

Even the posthumous tears for Osama being shed by Hamas (and that's no revolution) are really tears of relief, for Osama and Al Qaeda would have gladly destroyed Hamas had they the opportunity. No one needed Osama out of the way more than Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Fatah-Hamas deal is a defeat, but no orphan

Now that Fatah and Hamas have reached an initial reconciliation, there's little room left to pile on the wave of condemnations against Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas for even thinking of such a deal. Hamas is definitely reprehensible, but it also controls Gaza, partly thanks to an over-zealous, pro-democracy President named George W. Bush. For so long, we Israel supporters have pointed out that Abbas cannot speak for Gaza when he negotiates for peace. And yet, now that they are consolidating, it is objectively worse for stability and for reconciliation with the Israelis. 

That fact should not distract us from the glaring truth: That it was easier for Abbas to find common ground with religious extremists bent on mass murder -- and who have ritualistically massacred Fatah fighters in cold blood -- than with the democratic and enlightened State of Israel.

Wow. Talk about a dramatic put-down.

In reality, there has always been a faction within Hamas that seeks not only to destroy Israel and murder Jews, but also to be a player in any eventual settlement with Israel and the resulting Palestinian state. This does not mean Israel should let its guard down, but it also means there may be a light at the end of the tunnel... a long tunnel.

September target for Israeli-Palestinian agreement? Right...

The United Nations has just issued a glowing report on the readiness of Palestinian institutions and capacity for statehood. The target date for concluding Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, after all, is September 2011... The Palestinians' idea has been that they'll declare statehood and get nearly all members of the UN General Assembly (and most of the UN Security Council) to endorse the move, which will go through unless the United States (or France, or the United Kingdom) vetoes it as one of the "P-5" permanent members of the Council.

In fact, there has been significant progress in the West Bank toward building institutions, infrastructure, and rule of law. If one looks at sovereign states these days, the bar is not really that high, anyway. But then, Gaza is included as part of these calculations, which stretches credulity. When people mention "the Palestinians", they still need to specify whether that's the West Bank / Fatah / Palestinian Authority Palestinians, or the Gaza/Hamas Palestinians -- the nation-builders or the tunnel-diggers with rocket launchers. And there may as well be a competition to see which negotiation track is more tenuous -- Palestinian-Israeli or Fatah-Hamas.

The Arab League strategy has been to play the Israeli-Palestinian track as a justification for declaring a state -- if negotiations work out, great; if they fail, even better, since the Palestinians can then show they tried but the Israelis were unwilling. As long as Israel keeps expanding settlements, the Palestinians get a free pass.

Has Israel given up on history?

The New York Times Sunday Magazine has an informative look at how far Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas had progressed toward an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, before Olmert stepped down as Israel's Prime Minister under a cloud of financial allegations. Since the Egyptian uprising started gaining steam two weeks ago, various voices -- including Olmert -- have insisted that now is the time to push forward with the Palestinians, instead of hunkering down. I happen to agree on a wishful, geopolitical level, but practically this cannot happen.

First, the reasoning for taking a break: The revolution/coup in Egypt underscores the ephemeral nature of any peace agreement with either a dictatorship or an Islamist-influenced Arab state, including the Palestinians -- in other words, no existing or future Arab state is presumed to be a reliable partner. That's quite a prison term for an isolated Israel. And it's a caricature of the reality, where Israel has used a 30-year respite from existential threats (Iran's someday nuclear weapons notwithstanding) to absorb one million post-Soviet immigrants and occupy the top tier of high-tech industry and economics.

Next, the reasoning for pushing forward now: It's precisely the negative potential for any changes that makes it urgent to push for peace now, while Abbas (and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad) still retains some control of the situation. Because Sadat committed Egypt to the binding peace treaty in 1979, and the United States committed to bankrolling both the Israeli and Egyptian concessions in effective perpetuity, no Egyptian government can ever afford to abrogate the legal arrangement. If Egypt's military rulers ever hand over power to a democratically elected government, it's unlikely that such a coalition would be inclined or focused enough to agree to such a deal today. And the absence of Mubarak as a regional broker makes it less likely that both sides can bridge the remaining gaps, or that Hamas will ever sign on.

Now, why this won't work: Benjamin Netanyahu, the current Prime Minister of Israel, has proven by his actions that he is less interested in a final arrangement with Palestinians than with postponing any day of reckoning for as long as possible. U.S. President Barack Obama might have used Mubarak's resignation as an opportunity to yank Netanyahu forward, but he already gambled his political capital on a settlement freeze -- twice -- and now Netanyahu's Republican allies on Capitol Hill have the White House playing defense on domestic issues.