Dangers of international 'fatigue' on Israel-Palestine issue
If the international community opts for passivity on a two-state solution instead of intervention, the policy vacuum might attract many negative factors and ignite violence.
In recent months, the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah was told repeatedly to wait until after the Iran deal for an intervention by the international community in favor of Palestinian statehood. President Mahmoud Abbas and his senior advisers heard this promise from the Americans, the French, the Germans and even the Russians. Visiting the government offices in Ramallah these days, one comes away with the feeling that there, in the aftermath of the agreement, waiting for the international community has become synonymous with “waiting for Godot.”
A senior Fatah official who played a central role in the Oslo Accord and ever since, told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that he and virtually all of the Palestinian leadership have given up on the international community doing anything with any timing that will be relevant for the establishment of a Palestinian state. He said, with unconcealed anger, “Both the US and the EU have given Israel a free pass to expand settlement construction in a way that will, already in the near future, make a two-state solution impossible. The last Kerry initiative [2014] was full of good intentions, but it failed because the American administration was attentive to [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's demands. President [Barack] Obama was taken aback by the experience and soon may become a 'lame duck' in regards to any major policy initiatives, while the EU is too weak to act on its own.”
