Why America's Undying Devotion to Israel Guarantees New Peace Talks Will Fail

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The question is: Why has it been so difficult to do so? And the answer to that is: because of a failure of U.S. mediation over the years, time and time again. And so, I think what we should be looking for here, if these talks are going to have any—any hope of moving forward in any positive direction, is the way in which the U.S. approaches handling its role as a mediator. In the past, unfortunately, instead of acting as an enforcer of international law, as an enforcer of Israeli obligations and previous commitments, the United States has only acted instead as an enforcer of Israeli positions in the negotiations. And so, if you’re on the Palestinian end, there’s really no interest for you to keep going back to negotiations that only act as a cover for Israel’s continued colonial activities in the West Bank.

AARON MATÉ: Norman, what’s your sense of why these talks are taking place right now? And give us your assessment of where you think the various parties are at?

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: Well, on the Palestinian side, they really don’t have much choice, because the Palestinian economy was almost in a crisis last year just at the time Salam Fayyad, the prime minister, left office, and Obama basically told him that if you don’t go to talks, we’re not going to pay the bills.

On the Israeli side, they had one immediate motive. The immediate motive was they wanted to deflect international pressure on them. The Israeli press was reporting that, as is true, in order to deflect international pressure, you have to pretend to be negotiating. And the Israelis didn’t panic, but they saw it as a harbinger when the European Union issued its guidelines, which were not going to have a huge impact, but guidelines which threatened Israel’s ability, its maneuverability, in continuing its annexation of the Palestinian territories.

The U.S. goal is a little bit more interesting, and it requires a historical perspective. If you look at the last three presidencies—Clinton, then Bush and then Obama—in each of the three presidencies, at the end of the terms, the eight-year terms, there were attempts to negotiate a settlement. In the Clinton presidency, the purpose was clearly Clinton wanted to redeem himself after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In the Bush presidency, the negotiations came in 2008, and the purpose again was pretty clear, that Condoleezza Rice, in particular—she was secretary of state at the time, and she was looking for somehow to redeem her role as the secretary of state in what was the end of the Bush administration a complete disaster. Now Obama is facing the same problem, namely, his is a failed presidency, and even though he’s a narcissist, he knows that the presidency has been a disaster. And just like Clinton and just like the Bush administration, he’s now hoping that maybe he can pull a rabbit out of the hat with the Israel-Palestine conflict and redeem, as Clinton hoped to do and as Condoleezza Rice hoped to do, and redeem his record in at least foreign policy.

And so, each of them has a different motive, but we have to be clear that this time circumstances are slightly different. That is, number one, the Arab world is shattered right now. Hamas, the principal opponent of the collaborationist Palestinian Authority, has been reduced to a nullity, because it put all of its eggs in the Brotherhood basket.

AARON MATÉ: In Egypt.

NORMAN FINKELSTEIN: In Egypt. The Palestinians are more depressed, despondent, despairing and depoliticized than ever. And the Palestinian Authority is now more enthrall to the United States than ever. And so, there is a hope. There is a possibility that this time they may be able to push through the Israeli terms of settlement. And the Israeli terms of settlement are very clear. Israel has said it over and over again: "We’re building a wall. The wall is our final border." And the wall consists of annexing about 10 percent of the West Bank, fragmenting what remains of the West Bank, annexing some of the most arable soil, annexing the critical water resources, annexing the hub of Palestinian life, namely East Jerusalem, and there will be a—some sort of international consortium to solve the refugee problem. There is a possibility that they can ram it through this time.