PROLONGED STALEMATE is not an option. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum and the failure of the parties to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to engage meaningfully was eventually going to push the process back into uncertainty and, probably, escalating violence. So, the announcement yesterday by president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, that he “has no intent of running” for re-election in a vote planned for January has a dreary inevitability to it.
Deeply frustrated by the deadlocks over resuming peace talks with Israel and in reconciling Palestinian factions, Mr Abbas said that Israeli procrastination on the talks allied to the continuation of Israeli settlements in east Jerusalem and the West Bank were unacceptable. If he does depart – and his decision is “not up for debate or bargaining” – it will be regretted by the international community. This is a man they could deal with. Finding a replacement will be problematic. The best-placed Fatah alternative, the popular Marwan Barghouti, is in an Israeli jail, and a lesser candidate would be defeated by the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Mr Abbas’s decision may even call into question the election itself and could open up factional turmoil inside Fatah.
In a parallel development, the peace deadlock now appears also to be prompting a major strategic rethink by the PLO. On Wednesday, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat urged the abandoning of their aspiration to an independent state alongside Israel. Because of the extent and continuing development of Israeli settlements, instead of demanding what many Palestinians now see as an unviable state in the West Bank and Gaza, they would press for full citizenship rights and equality within an expanded, secular, democratic Israel. It may be time for Mr Abbas to “tell his people the truth, that with the continuation of settlement activities, the two-state solution is no longer an option”, Mr Erekat argued. Mr Abbas, for the moment, is not listening. In his speech he made it clear that a two-state solution is his preference and that “it is still possible”.
The two-state strategy has been central to PLO diplomacy since Yasser Arafat declared it as policy in 1988 and it hailed every international endorsement as major diplomatic coups. A single-state policy, if it comes about, would be deeply problematic for Israel, not least because of the demographic reality that the Palestinian population in the area will pass out Jewish numbers by 2016, and the demand would raise very difficult questions about the character of the Jewish state.