Summit Of Weaklings

There are two schools of thought about November's planned Israeli-Arab/Palestinian-American summit in the United States.

The first school holds that this can indeed be turned into a historical event. A concatenation of circumstances — the Hamas-Fatah split, the fear of Iran and Islamic radicalism among Arab moderates, the desire of the unpopular Olmert government to strengthen its standing by means of a peace agreement — all set the stage for a possible Israeli-Palestinian compromise such as has eluded the two sides until now. Everything must therefore be done to ensure that the opportunity is not frittered away or wasted on mere rhetorical declarations.

The second school of thought holds the opposite. Both Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas, it maintains, head weak governments. Even if they can agree between them on such hitherto insoluble issues as future Israeli-Palestinian borders, the resolution of the Palestinian refugee issue, the status of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, etc., neither leader has his people behind him. Any agreement reached between them would be impossible to implement, a meaningless piece of paper. Even in the best of cases, the November summit will lead nowhere and its practical significance will be nil.

These analyses do not really contradict each other and neither is incorrect. Messrs. Olmert and Abbas may indeed reach agreement on some issues and these agreements will almost certainly be impossible to carry out. But this does not mean that the summit will then have had no significance. Its significance will have been great — and bad for Israel.

The Olmert government is walking, with eyes wide open, into a potential diplomatic trap. It is being asked, and is persuading itself, to do once again what Israel has done to its disadvantage in the past — namely, to make concessions that are "pocketed" by an Arab side unwilling to reciprocate, which then, with the international community's backing, insists on treating them as the starting point whenever a new round of negotiations begins. In this manner, Israel has been made to retreat from position to position while getting nothing substantial in return.

The history of Syrian-Israeli diplomacy is a good example. Between 1993 and 1994, the government of Yitzhak Rabin, the prospect of an imminent peace with Syria dangled before it, agreed, without consulting the Knesset (which it was only required to do for the ratification of an actual peace treaty), to surrender the entire Golan Heights.

No agreement was arrived at, the Syrians having then demanded further Israeli concessions, but from then on Israel's willingness to give up the Golan became, in the eyes of both Syria and the world, an official Israeli position that every future Israeli government was expected to honor.

The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations at Camp David and Taba in 2000 tell a similar story. In the course of them, for instance, Prime Minister Barak, desperate for an agreement, went from demanding the annexation of roughly 10% of the West Bank to less than 5%; then consented to swap sovereign Israeli territory for the annexed areas at a ratio of nine square Palestinian kilometers for one Israeli one; then reportedly came down to three-to-one and two-to-one. It didn't help, because the Palestinians didn't budge an inch on other issues, such as the Palestinian refugees. But from then a land swap of at least two-to-one was what the world expected of Israel if the West Bank settlement blocs were to remain in its possession.

Rationally speaking, this makes no sense. The notion that if negotiations between two parties fail, the concessions made by the more forthcoming of the two must again be offered when negotiations recommence is absurd. It is like saying that if you are bargaining for a used car the owner of which asks for $10,000 and refuses to come down by one cent even after you have upped your initial offer to $7,500 from $5,000, he then has the right to say to you a month later: "All right, I demand that you come back to the bargaining table. My starting price is still $10,000, your initial offer is now $7,500, let's negotiate from there."

This isn't the way the business world works. There, it is perfectly acceptable to reply, "I'm very sorry, you turned down my offer of $7,500 and it no longer stands." But not when it comes to Israel and the Arabs. And this is the danger of the November summit. Already we are being told, to take one example, the Olmert government is now willing to go beyond Mr. Barak's offer and trade land on the basis of one-to-one. Since it is extremely unlikely that the Knesset or the Israeli public would ever accept such a trade, or that it would induce the Palestinians to back down on other issues, it too will not produce a peace treaty when the November summit is held. Meanwhile, however, the damage will have been done. The next time Israel sits down to negotiate with the Palestinians, one-to-one will be considered its starting point.

It is difficult to understand why Israel has let itself be out-maneuvered in this fashion time after time. Not only does this steadily whittle away Israel's interests, it is a disincentive for the Palestinians, or Syrians, ever to tone down their demands, since their experience is that the more they dig in their heels, the more Israel takes another step toward them.

For a country that has been an independent state in the Middle East for 50 years, Israel still acts like a European tourist in an Arab souk. Do that and the local merchants will always fleece you.

Mr. Halkin is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.