Intercepting Israel

By Dina Ezzat

On top of that, not only do the current negotiations seem to be going nowhere, but nobody appears to have a clear answer to the obvious question: "When this is over, what comes next?"

The talks that were initiated this week are the second round of direct Israeli-Palestinian discussions in response to a request from US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

The first round was a failure and officials say they can see no reason why this second round of talks should produce any better results. Behind their ever-increasing pessimism lies the fact that unless one party is prepared to make a compromise, the gap between them can never be bridged. "We know that the Palestinians cannot reduce their demands any further below the ceiling of 13 per cent [Israeli] redeployment [from West Bank territories] that is proposed by the US initiative, which was never equal to their expectations anyway," said one diplomat. He continued, "When you add this to the obvious Israeli intransigence, their refusal to accept this percentage, then you can immediately see that progress is going to continue to evade us."

Beyond the horizon of the current negotiations, the future is even less clear than it was before.

The US, for its part, seems to be planning to steer clear of the peace process for a while. Despite commitments made by US President Bill Clinton that his administration will not be abandoning the Middle East peace process for good, the US State department has just turned down an Israeli request for a US envoy to sit in on the next round of direct talks between Palestinian and Israeli negotiators.

In actual fact, Washington has told several Arab officials that due to internal US political and electoral concerns, there is very little they can do for the rest of this year. According to informed sources, the Arabs should not even expect any promises of serious efforts in the next twelve months. In addition, Washington has explicitly stated that it is unwilling to put any pressure on Israel, either publicly or in private.

Meanwhile, the summits that were being considered by both the Arabs and the Europeans so as to bring political pressure to bear on Israel have apparently either been cancelled outright or at least substantially scaled down.

The international conference that Egypt and France called for has so far failed to garner the kind of international support that would enable it to convene in the near future at the heads-of-state level. Efforts are still being made to this end, but it seems that the Egyptians and the French might well settle for a meeting of the foreign ministers of the countries concerned, possibly on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York next September.

Should they manage to gain more support for their idea, then the date could be advanced to some time next month. But even then, there is only a very limited chance of the presidents of the states concerned attending. At any event, no dramatic transformation of the situation should be expected to result from the conference.

"It is certainly not going to be devoted to recriminations against Israel; it is going to be a chance for the international community, as represented by the states present at the conference, to tell the Israeli people that their government is harming the chances of peace," said one official.

Meanwhile, the Arabs are still unable to get a strong, unified action of their own off the ground. In fact, they have failed to agree on a summit on any scale, to determine economic and political measures that could be taken against the current Israeli government. Preliminary preparations and consultations to assess the chances of organising an Arab conference have shown that much more work is still needed before a summit can be convened that would be able to adopt resolutions capable of having a serious impact on the peace process.

The Saudis are worried that a broad-based Arab summit, even if it excluded Iraq, would anger the US whose troops are still in the Gulf where they are presumably defending Saudi Arabia and other rich Arab Gulf states against a "potential" Iraqi attack.

Egypt, informed sources say, does not want an inconclusive meeting that would simply anger the US and achieve nothing. "A meeting that does not take the resolutions of the last summit [held in Cairo in 1996] a step further shouldn't be allowed to take place, because it would simply be an announcement of the Arabs' failure".

Moreover, a limited Arab summit, bringing together the so-called "frontline states" plus Saudi Arabia, has also been scrapped after preparatory consultations showed that the differences between these countries were greater than expected. Saudi and Egyptian mediation attempts came to nought, in the face of Amman's uncompromising dedication to its common economic and political interests with Israel, and the refusal of Damsacus to attend a summit which condoned any kind of cooperation with Israel at this point.

The Syrians would seem to be keeping an open mind as regards the idea of French mediation that could move things forward simultaneously on both the Syrian and Lebanese tracks. The Palestinians, however, fear that such a move would only mean more stagnation on their side of the negotiations.

Meanwhile, there are certain outstanding points which Egypt needs to resolve with both Jordan and Syria. Amman's attempt to insinuate itself into the direct Palestinian-Israeli meetings that took place this week prompted Foreign Minister Amr Moussa to call his Jordanian counterpart Jawad El-Anani for consultations and clarifications. Damascus, for its part, remains sceptical about the Mubarak-Chirac proposal for an international peace conference which it fears could be manipulated by Netanyahu so as to allow the Israeli government to tamper with the existing principles of the peace process.

On top of that, the Palestinians may complain of insufficient Arab support, but they have still not managed to say clearly just what they want from an Arab summit. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine why a Gulf state, for example, should agree to freeze all economic ties with Israel while the Palestinian Authority is still fully engaged in both economic and political business with the Israeli government.

Nevertheless, Egypt for one remains determined that the options available, although very limited, should still be thoroughly tested before moving on to the next stage -- which could well be to return to the Security Council.

In the words of one senior Egyptian official, "Things don't look very good, but we have to keep trying. We are working very hard. No matter what, Netanyahu's plans will somehow be intercepted".