Olmert's Challenge for the U.S.

Ehu

d Olmert followed his election victory Tuesday by inviting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to engage in peace talks. But he also warned that if the Palestinians didn't seize the moment, Israel would proceed to finalize its borders on its own terms, which it has already begun doing by building its security wall and evacuating Gaza settlements.

Olmert, leader of the Kadima party, is set to become Prime Minister even though his support wasn't as robust as some had hoped. With nearly all of the vote counted, Kadima had won 28 seats in the 120-member Israeli Knesset—fewer than some polls had predicted. The Labor party was second with 20 seats, and Likud, represented by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, took just 11 seats as voters all but abandoned the party in the voting booth.

The idea of completing the "disengagement" begun last summer in Gaza by withdrawing from outlying settlements in the West Bank was at the core of Olmert's political platform, and it will likely be the basis of a coalition with Labor and some of the smaller parties. Proclaiming that they have no Palestinians negotiating partner, a majority of Israelis supports a unilateral withdrawal to borders of Israel's own choosing, ostensibly ending Israel's control over the lives of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians and letting them get on with creating a state of their own.

While Abbas would likely jump at the chance to negotiate with Olmert, it remains doubtful that the two could reach agreement over where Israel ends and Palestine begins, or even what "Palestine" would mean. After all, as the case of Gaza illustrates, while Israeli settlers and soldiers are no longer based inside the territory, Israel retains effective control, down to determining how much food is on the table in Gaza households by virtue of its stranglehold on border crossings and its control over Palestinian Authority revenues.

Moreover, whereas in the case of Gaza, Israel withdrew to its 1967 border, it has no intention of doing the same in the West Bank. The route followed by Israel's security wall and the map outlined by Olmert himself on the campaign trail suggest Israel plans to annex not only East Jerusalem, but also the West Bank settlement blocs, including a land corridor to the Ariel settlement complex that would essentially cut the West Bank in half. Olmert also indicated that Israel would maintain its military border along the Jordan River, implying that whatever Palestinian entity exists on the West Bank will be entirely surrounded by Israel.

Neither Abbas nor any other democratically accountable Palestinian leader would be willing to accept the terms laid out by Olmert in what sounds a lot like a take-it-or-leave-it offer. The Palestinians' sense of injustice over the homes and lands their grandparents and parents have lost to Israel over the past half-century has made the principle of restoring the 1967 borders the basis of a two-state solution to the conflict even for moderates such as President Abbas. "We have no choice but to stay fast on our land until Israel ends its occupation, we establish our independent Palestinian state on the June 4th 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital."

Those are the words not of Hamas, but of Abbas, in a letter two weeks ago urging the new Palestinian ruling party to accept the principle of negotiating a two-state solution with Israel. (Hamas Prime Minister-designate, Ismail Haniya, has lately indicated that his movement is prepared to negotiate with the international community over Palestinian statehood on the basis of the 1967 borders. Perhaps Haniya senses the diplomatic advantages of hewing to what remains the consensus position of the Arab states, and most of the wider international community, while complaining that Israel does not.)

Ariel Sharon's predecessor, the Labor leader Ehud Barak, had accepted the principle of negotiating on the basis of the 1967 lines, and modifying them on a quid-pro-quo basis—Barak also imagined Israel retaining the settlement blocs near Jerusalem, by ceding to the Palestinians equivalent land from within Israel's pre-67 borders. But Sharon and his successor have been working from a different map— one in which the West Bank settlement blocs and control over Jerusalem are not on the table.

But when Olmert says he'll draw his own borders if he can't reach agreement with the Palestinians, he promises to do so in consultation with the U.S. That would be because there is no clear legal or diplomatic basis for Olmert's planned West Bank borders, and Israel would hope Washington's imprimatur would provide international legitimacy.

So, as the dust settles on the Palestinian and Israeli elections, the question is less whether Israel and the Palestinians can negotiate but whether or not they can agree. Presently, there's little reason to be expect that they can, and Sharon's unilateral course is likely to be continued by Olmert. Well, not entirely unilateral: Olmert will be looking to Washington to bless his version of "final borders" in the West Bank, making the U.S. a partner in Israel's permanent acquisition of West Bank land without Palestinian consent — and in bearing the attendant baggage of Arab and Palestinian enmity.