Defying the deadlock

By Dina Ezzat

Foreign Minister Amr Moussa has described the peace process as "clinically dead," adding that "in view of the current Israeli policies, we don't think that the peace process has a chance."

Cairo has no reason whatsoever to hope for a change in Israeli policy as long as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is in power, sources say. Officials are genuinely concerned that Netanyahu's policy of keeping the fruitless negotiations with the Palestinians going would only serve his own interests. He can project himself as a man of peace while he turns more Arab land into Israeli settlements, one source said.

"He [Netanyahu] is not serious about making peace; he is just trying to buy time. He does not care about the negotiations," the source said. "This man seems willing to go on negotiating forever."

As a result, Cairo has been weighing several diplomatic options to ensure that the Israeli government does not succeed in imposing its political terms on the Arab side.

In this context, President Hosni Mubarak and French President Jacques Chirac issued a joint call last week for an international conference to be attended by the countries concerned about the future of peace-making.

Despite the flat Israeli rejection, consultations and early preparations are under way to convene the conference sooner than later. As sources suggest, the consultations are making progress: the United States, the key sponsor of the peace process, has shown no opposition to the idea; France is very keen on an idea that is its own brainchild, and Egypt is successfully rallying significant Arab support.

Consequently, it is likely that within several weeks a European capital will be hosting a conference that will be attended by the two co-sponsors of the peace process, the US and Russia, representatives of the European Union, representatives of the Arab League, Egypt and France.

But if the conference is to see the light of day, there must be enough guarantees that it will come up with something. Sources say that, as defined by both Egypt and France, this "something" should neither be new terms for peace-making nor an exchange of recriminations. It is more likely to be a formula for a proposition to be made to Israel and the Palestinians to accept a form of international arbitration. The arbitrators would seek to ensure that each side is honouring its obligations and that enough momentum is sustained in a political process between two parties that have zero confidence in each other. In other words, this effort would be to press, if not downright pressure, the Israeli government into sticking to previous agreements it signed with the Palestinians.

"If there are not enough guarantees that this conference will come up with a serious result, then it will not be convened because having a meeting with no results would have very serious implications that could only serve Netanyahu's procrastination motives," a source said.

Parallel to this effort, Egypt is sounding out Arab views on what they should do next. The idea of holding a comprehensive Arab summit, repeatedly urged by Yasser Arafat, faces two obstacles: a Kuwaiti refusal to a summit with Iraq and the negative political connotations of keeping Iraq out.

A limited Arab summit comprising the countries concerned with the peace process has failed to materialise so far due to disagreements between heads-of-state over the future steps that should be taken with regards to Israel. For example, Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad refuses to play by the rules of Jordan's King Hussein. Some sources even say that Assad would not attend a mini-summit that includes Hussein.

A possible alternative would be for Mubarak, in his capacity as chairman of the last Arab summit that was convened in June 1996, to hold several rounds of talks with the leaders concerned to come with a consensus on the next step. Sources say that the inter-Arab effort is not contradictory with, or a substitute for, the proposed international peace-saving conference.

And neither effort is meant to replace what should be an active American role in the peace process. "We keep talking to the Americans. We keep emphasising that they should remain heavily involved. It is primarily the Americans who can seriously influence the Israeli government and Israeli public opinion," a source said.

Another possible course of action is for Egypt and other Arab countries to once again raise the question of Palestinian and Arab rights within the context of international legality.

It is generally agreed that there are no guarantees that any of these alternatives could break the deadlock. However, as one source put it, "No matter what happens, the Israelis must know that they will not have an easy time liquidating the peace process."