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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 March 1999 Issue No. 420 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 March 1999 Issue No. 420
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Special Features Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Getting tough with Israel
By Graham UsherIn what is becoming a regular pilgrimage, US Defence Secretary William Cohen's current Middle East tour is aimed at cementing the two pillars of American foreign policy in the region. With the Gulf states, the principal purpose is to rally support -- and lucrative arms deals -- behind America's new policy on Iraq of containment plus the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Iraq was on the agenda when Cohen visited Israel and Jordan, but so also was the other pillar: the moribund Middle East "peace process".
In Jordan, Cohen's message was the same as his president's. Last month, President Bill Clinton issued an urgent request to Congress for some $300 million in extra aid to Jordan over the next two years to "promote stability in... the region during this period of transition [after King Hussein's death] and help maintain US diplomatic leadership in the Middle East."
A breakdown of the aid indicates where this leadership is heading and what its priorities are. Thus, $100 million will be provided to confront Jordan's "economic difficulties", caused mainly by the UN sanctions regime against Iraq and by Israel's refusal to adhere to the economic agreements it has signed with both Jordan and Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority. But $200 million is to enable Jordan to buy US weapons -- in readiness, perhaps, for an eventual US-led showdown with Iraq.
So far, King Abdullah appears to be following the US lead with all the dexterity of his father. He has pledged "continuity" in Jordan's foreign and domestic policies, and is starting to appoint the personnel mandated to execute them. Washington will be particularly pleased with Abdullah's appointment last week of Abdul-Karim Kabariti as the new chief of the Royal Court. During his tenure as Jordan's prime minister from 1996 to 1997, Kabariti was known to be hostile to an Iraq led by Saddam Hussein and extremely supportive of Arafat and the PA. Kabariti also enjoys good relations with several Gulf states, especially Kuwait, which restored full diplomatic ties with Jordan on 3 March -- one day before Kabariti's appointment.
Such harmony was notably absent when Cohen met Israel's Binyamin Netanyahu on 9 March, coming as it did on the back of an unusual spat between Washington and its "chief strategic ally" in the region.
On 5 March, Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported that the US was withholding $1.2 billion in special aid to Israel until and unless it implemented the terms of the Wye River Memorandum signed in Washington on 23 October. To rub salt into the wound, Washington also announced that the PA would receive $400 million in aid, implying thereby that the PA had adhered to Wye, including its Draconian measures on policing the Palestinian opposition.
Washington's irritation at Israel's unilateral abandonment of its Wye commitments -- and especially its refusal to carry out the 10 per cent re-deployment so tortuously negotiated with the Americans -- has become an open secret in recent weeks. On 22 February, a very undiplomatic row erupted between US Assistant Secretary of State, Martyn Indyk, and Israel's deputy chief of mission at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Lenny Ben-David.
Ben-David had accused the PA of including "known terrorists and murderers" in its release in January of 37 political prisoners from Palestinian jails. Indyk's response was absolutely categorical. "We checked on it," he said. "We checked your information, we checked their [the PA's] information and we have our information and it's simply not true. On the basis that they did not have any grounds for holding these people, they released them. Israel releases people as well. You have to be very careful about making these kinds of charges unless you are on sure ground."
Indyk's ground is rock solid: under the Wye agreements, the organisation authorised to monitor PA prisoner releases is the CIA.
If the US is starting to mildly chastise Israel, it is probably for two reasons. The first is President Clinton's meeting with Arafat in Washington on 23 March. At this, Clinton is expected to prevail on the Palestinian leader to publicly drop his avowed intention to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state when Oslo's interim period formally expires on 4 May.
It is a message to which Arafat is almost certainly receptive, but he has also made it clear that he wants something in return, such as Israel's implementation of an agreement it has signed, the Knesset has approved and the Americans have guaranteed. Given that Netanyahu is not going to budge on Wye this side of the Israeli elections, the next best thing for the PA is a clear statement from the US as to which party is in violation and which is not.
The second reason is the Clinton administration's clear desire to have Labour's Ehud Barak or the Centre Party's Yitzak Mordechai as Israel's next prime minister rather than Netanyahu. The "leak" over withholding aid to Israel is a subtle way of influencing the Israeli electorate, especially as all three prime ministerial candidates are so close in the polls. In 1992, George Bush's refusal to release $10 billion in loan guarantees in protest at Israel's settlement policies in the Occupied Territories helped lose Likud's Yitzak Shamir (and win Labour's Yitzak Rabin) the vote. The hope in the White House is that withholding money to Israel over Wye -- together with financial and military support for Jordan and the PA -- may have a similar impact this time round.
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