A failure of US and international efforts in reviving the Middle East talks will dim the chances for reaching a breakthrough in the peace process, which may start a new Intifada in the Palestinian territories, His Majesty King Abdullah has said in an interview.
In an interview with The Washington Post published on Thursday, King Abdullah said Israel’s conservative political atmosphere has rendered its government incapable of pledging meaningful concessions and predicted gloomy prospects for peace in 2011.
“2011 will be, I think, a very bad year for peace,” he told The Washington Post. “Although we will continue to try to bring both sides to the table, I am the most pessimistic I have been in 11 years.”
The King pointed out that the tumult that has accompanied the Arab Spring provides a rare opportunity for peace, which the two sides have so far failed to seize. He noted that Israel will face a growing threat when Palestinians abandon hope of a peaceful path to statehood.
“When there’s a status quo, usually what shakes everybody up is some sort of military confrontation, at which point we all come running and screaming to pick up the pieces,” he said.
The Post pointed out that His Masjesty has launched a campaign to restart peace talks, “meeting with dozens of leaders throughout the region and laying out a vision for a peaceful Middle East in a book, ‘Our Last Best Chance’, which he penned last year just as the final round of US-brokered peace talks was beginning to falter”.
“If it’s not a two-state solution, then it’s a one-state solution,” he said. “And then, is it going to be apartheid, or is it going to be democracy?”
King Abdullah said that demographics do not favour Israel,since Palestinians will be a majority within a decade, and that unless the Palestinians are granted full rights, Israel will soon witness more clashes like those that erupted during protests by Palestinians marking the Nakbeh last month.
“A lot of Arabs are saying, ‘Okay, if you’re talking about democracy for us, what about democracy [in] Israel?’” he said.
The King voiced concern that the United States may lose its credibility with Arabs as a mediator in the conflict as a result of Washington’s successive failures to broker an agreement and its record of indiscriminate support for Israel despite its policies towards Arabs.
“When you get billions in aid and your weapons resupplied and your ammunition stock resupplied, you don’t learn the lesson that war is bad and nobody wins,” he said.
In the meantime, with insignificant US pressure Israel has adopted increasingly conservative policies, King Abdullah said.
“I think you have the right and the hard right in Israel,” he said, “and everybody has moved by so many degrees.”