Brazil
President Lula da Silva meets Palestinian President
Mahmoud
Abbas in Ramallah, March 17. Attempts to inject Iranian President
Ahmadinejad into the discussion didn't go well.
Estadao, Brazil
President Lula's 'Magical' Middle East Thinking
"President
Lula said that the current conflict between Israel and the U.S., 'which once
seemed impossible,' may be just the 'magic ingredient that was missing' for
reaching a peace agreement. This is called 'magical thinking': the belief in a
cause-and-effect relationship between events that have nothing in common."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: When his government announced plans to build 1,600 new homes on what is widely percieved to be occupied Palestinian land in East Jerusalem, it was a major slap in the face to visiting Vice President Joe Biden.
In the absence of anything
better, President Lula used the word "magic" to sum up the futility
and irrelevance of his pretensions about mediating the conflict between
Israelis and Palestinians. In an interview in Ramallah, headquarters of the
Palestinian Authority, Lula said that the current conflict between Israel and
the United States, "which once seemed impossible," may be just the
"magic ingredient that was missing" for reaching a peace agreement in
the region. This is called "magical thinking": the belief in a
cause-and-effect relationship between events that have nothing in common, or in
the power to transform facts through the mere expression of will.
The U.S. government, as we
know, responded with exceptional toughness to Israel's provocation, when it
announced, in full view of Vice President Joe Biden, the construction of 1,600 new
houses in East Jerusalem, where Palestinians want to put the capital of the
government to which they aspire. Considered by Washington an
"insult" and an "affront," the act made obvious the lack of
interest on the part of Benjamin Netanyahu's ultra-nationalist government in
President Obama's initiative to reopen negotiations between the parties, frozen
since the Israeli offensive in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip at the end of
2008.
The reality is that Israel has
turned its back on the peace plan, which is based on the coexistence of the two
states. Hence the expansion of settlements in the West Bank that the Israeli
right calls, significantly, Judea and Samaria. But the balance of power in
Washington and the lack of sympathy among Israelis for Obama make it unlikely
that, as far as the eye can see, he will marshal the means to pressure Israel to
the point of producing the magic of Lula's daydreams.
Lula's plan consisted, so to
speak, of his magic. He managed to be criticized by both sides of the wall that
separates Israel and the Palestinian Territories, both because of their approach
to Iran and the absurdity of including the Islamic Republic among the countries
interested in a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem. In the
Israeli Knesset, both government supporters and the opposition gave Lula an
earful about on the idea that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who preaches the destruction
of the Jewish state, could be persuaded to play a constructive role in the
Middle East. This comes as no surprise. If there's unanimity about anything in
Israel, it's that Tehran represents an "existential threat."
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by WORLDMEETS.US
What was really demoralizing
was the Palestinian reaction to Lula's offer to help make peace between the
secular Fatah movement, which comprises the government of the Palestinian
Authority, and fundamentalist Hamas, which holds strong in Gaza - perhaps on
Brazilian soil. In front of President Mahmoud Abbas, Lula laid it all out. He
began by lecturing his listener, as if he didn't already know, that the
Palestinians need to speak with one voice at the negotiating table, otherwise
they would, "continue being a people without borders and Israel would
continue to feel threatened." Abbas responded patiently by saying that it
would be more appropriate for Lula to tell Ahmadinejad that Iranian support for
Hamas is the biggest obstacle to Palestinian unity.
In an interview he granted to
Brazil's special envoy, Denise ChrispimMarins, which was published yesterday, Abbas insisted on
this point. "Influential actors in the region," he declared,
"make national reconciliation difficult, particularly Iran, who hasn't
shown itself interested in a Palestinian dialogue based on a Palestinian
agenda." He confirmed having asked Lula, "to include the Palestinian
issue in his dialogue with Iran." For someone who was warmly received by the
Palestinians, Abbas' discontent should instill a minimum of sobriety in the
madness of the Lula's diplomacy. Its one thing for Brazil to make itself heard
in the defense of peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians, but quite another
for it to depict itself as the central character in the process, and more so,
to court a government that seeks precisely the opposite.
