Palestinians Head for Self-Defeat--Again : Mideast: Their stonewalling only boosts Israeli opposition to Rabin’s attempt to make peace, and if he fails, the process dies.

In 1947, when the United Nations proposed the establishment of a Jewish and an Arab state, the Palestinians overreached, rejected compromise and attempted to conquer everything. They ended up with nothing. In 1967, after Nasser’s threats to “drive the Jews into the sea” led to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the Palestinians rejected Israel’s offer to trade land for peace. In Khartoum, they joined Arab leaders who responded to the Israeli proposal by declaring “no talks, no recognition, no peace.” They were convinced that, as in 1956, external pressure would quickly force Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 boundaries, without requiring Arab acceptance of Israel. They overreached again, and after 26 years, Israel still has not moved.

Now, after substantive negotiations have finally begun, it appears that the Palestinians are again pushing too far and may end up with nothing for the third time.

Responding to American pressure, and in order to get the Palestinians back to the table, Israel took a number of unprecedented and difficult measures to build confidence. These included acceptance of PLO representative Faisal Husseini as the head of the Palestinian delegation and agreement to create a Palestinian police force. Israel presented a detailed and far-reaching proposal that would establish an elected Palestinian council with extensive powers, and would give it extensive control over strategic areas of land and water.

In response, the Palestinian negotiators in Washington stonewalled, rejecting all efforts to make progress toward an agreement. Instead of offering a substantive response, they exploited the media’s attention to continue their anti-Israel propaganda. They demanded more direct American involvement in the talks, expecting more pressure on Israel, but when State Department officials invited them to sign a joint statement of principles with the Israelis, the Palestinians did not even bother to show up.

Within Israel, the policies and proposals of the government, headed by Yitzhak Rabin, are very controversial. In March, the Israeli public was numbed by a series of stabbings and murders, leading the government to seal the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, Rabin went ahead with a string of concessions and presentation of his autonomy proposal, in the hope of producing a response in kind from the Palestinians. Critics and leaders of opposition parties, however, argue that the Palestinians will accept nothing short of Israel’s national suicide. Rabin is accused of weakness in enhancing the status of the PLO, which is widely viewed in Israel as a terrorist organization dedicated to the eradication of the Jewish state.

Rabin’s coalition is very narrow, and to prevent a collapse of his government and new elections, he needs a quid pro quo from the Palestinians. Instead, Israelis are seeing a continuation of the cynical political games and anti-Israel propaganda that have characterized Palestinian and Arab policies for decades.

Indeed, Palestinian leaders and the delegation in Washington seem to think that they have the upper hand and can extract many more concessions from Israel while giving up nothing. After Israel allowed 5,000 illegal Palestinian “visitors” to stay in the West Bank, the Palestinians declared that this was the first installment toward exercising the “right of return” for all those who fled in the 1948 and 1967 wars, as well as their descendants. For many Israelis, this rhetoric is a sign that the Palestinians continue to cling to the hope that they will be able to convert the Jewish state into an Arab one.

In October, 1991, when the negotiation process began, all sides agreed that a five-year interim stage of autonomy was necessary. Now, the Palestinians are demanding that the interim stage be skipped and that negotiations begin immediately on the long-term solution, which for them means an independent state. They see Israel as too weak and politically isolated to resist.

Now, as in the past, the Palestinians are reading the political map incorrectly. From Israel, it is the Palestinians who appear to be weak, hopelessly divided and guided by a fundamental rejection of the legitimacy of the Jewish state. The Clinton Administration has also lost patience with the Palestinians. Policy-makers in the State Department and White House know that in the Israeli democracy, unless Rabin can show an end to the Arab hatred and hostility that has marked the conflict for decades, no government can offer more than limited autonomy to the Palestinians until they have demonstrated an end to terror and warfare.

Despite their rhetoric, the Palestinians are still by far the weaker party, and they have the most to prove and to gain in this process. By overreaching and demanding concessions that Israel cannot give, they are likely to end up in the same situation in which they found themselves in 1949 and 1967.