Report: Bibi in no rush, wants peace deal to take 40 years

Yasser Arafat would speak of the "peace of the brave." Now Benjamin Netanyahu is suggesting something that may be dubbed the "peace of the grave" -- because that's where most of today's leaders will be by the time the "framework" peace agreement supposed to be hammered out is actually implemented. While US President Barack Hussein Obama, in a Rosh Hashana message Tuesday, urged Israelis and Palestinians to “move beyond their differences and work towards security and peace in the Holy Land,” and pledged to “encourage and support progress,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas vowed “to pack my bags and leave” the peace table if he is pressured to make any concessions at all on core issues.

Netanyahu: There is no guarantee talks will succeed
Abbas: No 'historic compromise' on Jerusalem, borders

Meanwhile, Channel 2 reported that Netanyahu will travel to Sharm e-Sheikh next week for a second round of direct talks with the Palestinians, to promote the idea of finishing a framework peace agreement in a year but implementing it over a period of 30 to 40 years.

The TV report, based on senior Palestinian sources who accompanied Abbas to the re-launch of direct talks in Washington last week, dovetails with statements Netanyahu has made over the past several months in which he has talked about how any future agreement would have to be implemented over time. At a speech in March in Washington to AIPAC, Netanyahu said that any peace agreement must include an “Israeli presence on the eastern border of a future Palestinian state. If peace with the Palestinians proves its durability over time, we can review security arrangements.” In an interview in July on Fox News, Netanyahu said that while he thought an Israeli- Palestinian agreement could be reached by 2012, he added, “It may be implemented over time, because time is an important factor of getting the solution, both in terms of security arrangements and other things that would be difficult if they’re not allowed to take place over time.”

And in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Netanyahu elaborated on this theme, saying time was a crucial dimension to any future agreement. “Time is a crucial element both for security and for other critical elements of a solution. It has – it’s a great facilitator of change. And if you build in a time factor to any type of solution that we have, I think it would help enormously,” he said. A source in the Prime Minister’s Office said he has heard Netanyahu speak about reaching a framework agreement within a year, and then implementing it over a period of time. The source said, however, he never heard Netanyahu discuss spreading the process over 30-40 years.

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Comment by Mark Storm on September 11, 2010 at 10:01pm: I've heard (and read) some interesting articles http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=104&x_... about how the oft-called "Palestinian Population Bomb" might be an illusion. The claim is that the Palestinians have inflated their numbers of residents in the West Bank and Gaza and probably elsewhere in the region, too (to lend leverage to more UNRWA funding???). The high birth rate of Palestinian women in the 1980s (about 8 children per woman) is said to have dropped to only 3.9; convergent with the average Israeli (Jewish) woman.
These statistics might make some think that within a generation or two, there'll be such a high proportion of Jews-to-Palestinians (in the Jewish Israeli favour) that the Palestinians will just have to face facts, come to their senses and realise that the Jews aren't going to go.
In that event, the thinking would be that the Palestinians might just as well give up on the idea of ever having their state and just merge into Israel as an independently-managed people under the aegis of Medinat Yisrael. Is this behind Netanyahu's statement about spreading the process over 30 - 40 years....?
With that logic, we would need to hear Abbas say to the Palestinians of the West Bank... "Guys, give it up. Just drop the whole idea of having a state. Just let it go - and get on with the business of making life more comfortable and happy for your children. Is it really such a pain in the backside to let Israel run the show? What should we care? We can all get rich, have safe homes, see our children grow up smiling and smart and well fed. Why is this a bad idea?"
I am still not sure about how confident Israelis ought to feel about those statistics. What makes one generation of a people suddenly experience a population explosion... or reduction? Demographers often point out that economic prosperity is indirectly proportional to birthrate: the more money you have, the fewer children. But then we have the complete opposite argument: the more prosperous you are, the more confident you feel about the future... and so the more babies you have!
If the Palestinian population is dropping, is it because they are becoming more prosperous... or because they are despairing about their future?
Why is the Israeli population growing? Because Israeli women are becoming more prosperous and confident..?
This ‘get prosperous, get happy’ thinking was, as I see it, predominant shortly after Israel’s victory in the Six Day War: If the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza could be shown the benefits of modern Israeli technologies, lifestyles and attitudes, then the Palestinians would become committed to peace. So Israel got them out of the tents, build them new apartment blocks, got in some plumbing, schools... even a swimming pool or two... and what happened?
Yasser Arafat, decades of terror, two Intifada.... you name it.
What is stopping a new generation of (prosperous) Palestinians becoming enamoured of the idea of having large families? What is stopping a new generation of Palestinians becoming enamoured the idea of having their own state? And, worst of all, how many neo-Arafats are waiting in the wings? How many Haniyehs does it take to ruin a peace process?
IF... and it's a huge IF... the Palestinians of the West Bank can be encouraged (allowed by their leaders?) to become more prosperous and peaceful then might this very condition become a habit? The habit of peace for 40 years? I think that is what Netanyahu is thinking. If so, Hamas will be discredited as envious Gazans will look across the Negev at their contented and wealthier (not to mention day-to-day free-er) cousins in the Israeli province of 'West Bankia' - as they might call it. Just like North Koreans, the very presence of happy cousins across the border will discredit their own system.
If Gaza reverts to becoming an insular, ‘rogue’ state like North Korea... well, as Mr Lincoln wisely observed; “One war at a time”. First, let’s get the West Bank Palestinians into the habit of peace. Ultimately, all will say Shalom.
Maybe. We can dream, can't we? It was Dayan's dream, I think. It is a noble dream. It is a hopeful dream. And 'hope' is at the core of the Jewish soul, after all. So is compromise... so is just getting along with people, no matter how much you might not like them. For the Palestinians, this would mean giving up their pursuit of their own state (with or without Israel in the map). But this means swallowing ones pride – not something Palestinians are well known for.
Sadly, it has been observed and remarked time and again: It is "Arafat / Haniyeh thinking" that has to be ended before any other barriers can come down.