Tested by Zion (56 page)

On May 21, just a week after we returned to Washington, Israel and Syria
finally announced that their secret peace talks had been going on. No one in the Bush administration, or at least the White House, could figure out what Olmert was doing. The president told him so when they spoke on the phone on June 4. You are giving freebies to Assad, the president said, a view with which I agreed entirely. We had a policy of isolating Syria for several reasons – its role in Iraq, its vicious repression internally, its support for terrorist groups like Hamas and Hizballah – and the policy had met with some success; for long periods, we were able to keep European foreign ministers from even visiting Damascus. All that was gone now, we knew; if Israel was negotiating with Syria, how could we persuade others to keep it isolated? We saw what Syria was getting out of the talks then but could not see that Israel had gained anything at all. Olmert claimed this was the way to break Syria off from Iran, a worthy goal that we shared. We just did not see how these talks would achieve it. But the president did not push Olmert too hard in that conversation because Olmert also explained to him how bad the Israeli political situation had become for him. It was unclear how long he would last in office, he admitted for the first time. Tourgeman and
I reflected on this sad conversation, and he told me politics was now the only thing on the mind of most Israeli leaders. It seemed to me increasingly that their government was incapable of making decisions, except for one: If the missiles from Gaza did not stop, there would be a consensus to go in there.

In June, Secretary Rice traveled back to Jerusalem once again. The president's May trip had, of course, come and gone without a peace deal, and now it was a month later – and seven months after Annapolis and only six to our own elections. Rice had another very difficult meeting with the Israelis, this time with Livni. Livni reported on her talks with Abu Ala'a and Erekat; they were discussing borders, security, and refugees, not Jerusalem, but had reached agreement on precisely nothing. As we had heard from Olmert, she told us the Palestinians were now saying that Ma'ale Adumim, Ariel, and Givat Ze'ev had to go. Perhaps this was their negotiating position because they wanted to use them as bargaining chips to give away later, I thought; surely, they could
not think Ma'ale Adumim or Givat Ze'ev – the latter a town of 10,000 just northwest of Jerusalem – was really up for discussion. Ariel was in a different situation geographically, for though it was large, it was in an isolated spot 25 miles due east of Tel Aviv and required dedicated and protected roads to allow commuting to the coast. Here, the PA might put up a fight, but I knew that abandoning a city of 18,000 was more than the traffic would bear in Israel.

Livni then discussed the territorial percentages. Olmert had offered that we would keep 7.3% and give them 5% in a swap; this gap is breachable, she told us. The Palestinians are still saying they will not go above 1.9% in Israeli hands, but if they want a state, I cannot see why they would not accept our offer. What about security matters? we asked. Nothing; they had not even been discussed. Everyone expects a Palestinian state, Livni told us, and uses words like contiguous, independent, and sovereign, but Israel's security needs will affect what those words mean. The Palestinians understand that Israel has security needs but there is nothing concrete. We have those eight points that Barak gave the president but the Palestinians just keep saying “we'll bring in international forces” as if that solved every issue. I cannot afford progress on the borders without progress on security, she told us; to reach a border agreement without any steps on security is negligence of my responsibilities to the Israeli people.

Even to me this pessimistic report was a little surprising. The constant repetition by Olmert that a deal was close, or could come in May, or was coming by August had given me the sense that there must be some progress on security issues. Rice told Livni the lack of progress was a problem, and the Palestinians were promised a map. The president feels strongly about it, she added, playing the Bush card with the Israelis – unsuccessfully, as usual, because they made their own judgments about which matters the president really cared about and which he probably saw as a detail. Not possible, Livni replied. They want a map where we show the 5% of the West Bank we will keep, while they are telling us the maximum is 1.9%. Why should I do that? There is no progress on security, she said again, and when I suggested I would give them a map, I thought we would be farther advanced on security. Nor did they accept the proposal that we would keep 7.3% and give them 5% back from Israeli territory, and we can't keep offering more and more and showing more and more on maps. I can't show them parts of Israel that would be in a Palestinian state if they won't move. If these negotiations fail, I cannot have a map like that left on the table, Livni concluded.

In our meeting with Abbas, Rice urged him to continue the negotiations and try to narrow the gaps. But she also pushed for her own role. We would like to intensify the trilateral engagement, she said, to see if the United States can help with final status negotiations
. The bilateral track is working, but I think I can be helpful, Rice said. During the trip, we did have one trilateral, with Abu Ala'a and Livni, but it seemed to me that this experiment proved that trilaterals were counterproductive. We got nowhere and, in fact, Livni and
Abu Ala'a got
into an argument that would have been avoided had we not been there. Both of them played to the U.S. audience; there was no negotiating, and it was clear to me that there never would be while we were in the room. At this session, Abu Ala'a repeated that the Palestinian side could never accept Ma'ale Adumim, Givat Ze'ev, and Ariel, and Livni said they were not on the same page about basic matters when it came to security. They disagreed about everything, it seemed, with one exception: When Condi pushed for another trilateral, both resisted, Livni with considerable energy. This was the only issue on which the Israelis and Palestinians truly saw eye to eye.

On June 19, the efforts of Egypt to stop the violence between Israel and Hamas succeeded, and a sort of truce was declared. Though it began to fray in November and fell apart in December, the figures on rockets and mortars showed that while it lasted, it did work: 245 rockets and mortars were fired in June before the truce was declared compared to 9 in July, 11 in August, 4 in September, and 2 in October.

In the summer, the biggest news was about Olmert. There was a new and devastating accusation against him: that he had engaged in double billing during foreign travel, charging both the government and charitable groups for the same expenses and pocketing the surplus. This came on top of the previous accusations, including that an American businessman named Morris Talansky had delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash to Olmert while he was the minister of industry.
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After the July 11 announcement by the Israeli police and the Ministry of Justice about the new investigation of Olmert, it was hard to see how he could survive; the issue became more and more how and when his time as prime minister would end. Israelis whom I consulted privately said he might hang on for months, but his popularity and his legitimacy were gone.

To me this meant the pressure to complete negotiations in the “Annapolis Process” was increasingly untethered to reality. Olmert was in no position to bind Israel to anything, and I thought he should not be trying to do so. Kadima had to elect a leader in September, and it was impossible to believe he could run or win. In fact, he came to the same conclusion: On July 30, he announced his resignation – sort of. He said he would not run in the Kadima primary in September, but it was not clear when he would actually vacate the office of prime minister. This announcement did not have any legal impact: He remained prime minister, not in the caretaker role he would later have and that, under Israeli law, did formally limit his ability to act.

Yet our focus remained on the negotiating track, and we continued to pay far too little attention to events in the West Bank. On the very same day that Olmert acknowledged for the first time that he would have to go, July 30, the PA announced it was going broke. “Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has appealed to the World Bank to help him secure emergency financing to bridge a shortfall in donor funds and pay public workers,” Reuters reported. “Fayyad is seeking a so-called comfort letter from the Washington-based international lending agency to obtain short-term private bank funding, the sources said,
speaking on condition of anonymity. The unusual appeal underscores the extent of the Palestinian Authority's budget crisis.”
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Once again, it struck me how skewed our priorities were and had been since Annapolis. And once again when I raised this problem, there were reassurances that we would proceed on all tracks simultaneously – but we did not.

In late August, Secretary Rice visited Jerusalem again. Now we had an Israeli prime minister who was under investigation and had admitted he was on the way out, and we were just two months away from the U.S. elections that would make President Bush a lame duck. Still, Condi pressed forward. We met with the Palestinians first, and Abu Ala'a said he continued to aim for a full agreement. Rice told him she continued to believe we could finish one this year. We then met with Livni who poured some cold water on this hope, repeating that she was unwilling to move forward on border negotiations without equal progress on the issues of refugees and security – issues on which, she said, there was no progress at all. As to security, the Palestinians were saying they would not accept one single Israeli soldier on their territory, but the Israelis were opposed to having international forces there because they believed such forces would never seriously fight terrorism and would get in the way of Israeli efforts to do so. The answer, of course, was for Palestinian security forces to do the job, but they were simply not ready to do so in 2008.

Once again, Rice asked for and held a trilateral meeting, and once again there was no progress despite a pep talk from our side. You are running out of time and need to start closing these gaps, Condi urged them; you are closer than ever and you can't miss this opportunity. Rice realized that a final status agreement was impossible now because time had run out, but she believed that some sort of agreement was still possible. You cannot do a full agreement by the end of the year but you can do a framework agreement, she told them, and you should put as much into it as you are able. Abu Ala'a demurred. We do not want a framework agreement, he answered; we want a full agreement that can immediately be implemented. It should cover everything, including Jerusalem. Livni was completely allergic to mentioning Jerusalem because she was in a very tight race with former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz for the leadership of Kadima, and if she won, then she would be competing with Benjamin Netanyahu of Likud in Israel's next election. If you start talking about Jerusalem, she told the Palestinians, this meeting will end in two minutes. In fact, that is just what happened. There was a blow-up and the meeting soon ended, the two sides probably farther apart than when we began.

We did go to see President Abbas on August 26, and the discussion showed how his thinking had evolved. We may well not reach any agreement this year, he told us, and we need to figure out how to protect the process as we go forward. It seemed clear to me that he had no hope of reaching any agreement
and simply wanted to keep negotiations going while Israel and the United States held elections; he wanted to avoid a collapse of negotiations that might spark a crisis or bring violence. Condi was not giving up: Let's think about “protecting the process” in December, not now, she told him. He said he was worried that December would be too late to achieve that, but Rice had not given up on getting a document. I may be the last person on the planet who thinks an agreement is still possible, but I do, she told Abbas with a smile; the question is how to use the next few months to get to an agreement; I still think you can.

But when we all turned to substance, it became apparent that an agreement was not near. We cannot discuss Jerusalem now, Rice told the Palestinians. Abu Ala'a rejoined that he was unwilling to give in on the major settlement blocks; Ma'ale Adumim and Ariel could not be part of any deal and could not remain in Israeli hands. Rice knew this was simply unrealistic and told him so. Keep your eye on Palestinian statehood, she told them. When the April 14, 2004, Bush letter said new realities on the ground, it
meant
Ma'ale Adumim and Ariel. The issue is how to provide contiguity despite them. No Israeli prime minister can cede Ariel and Ma'ale Adumim, she concluded.

What was unclear to me was whether the president still remained optimistic and still thought – with our own election so close and Olmert on the way out – that a deal could be done. Olmert later told me he thought not; he believed that by the fall of 2008, the president had come to the conclusion that nothing would happen but that there was no downside to Condi's continuing efforts. Olmert summed up his own view of the president's approach: “He decided to play the game because that's what Condi wanted and Condi was his Foreign Minister. And there was no alternative; what was the alternative? What was the option other than to try and bring us together? And he also thought probably that, you know; as long as we talk, we don't fight.…I think that he just decided that this was the least dangerous strategy.”
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