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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 - 31 March 1999 Issue No. 422
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters From cold peace to cold war
By Wahid Abdel-Meguid *
Twenty years have passed since the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty was signed. A world of difference separates then and now: that much is obvious. The statement, however, can mean very different things. It could, for example, be interpreted to mean that there is a vast gap between what Egyptian-Israeli peace has come to mean today, and what it was intended to be when the treaty was signed at the White House 20 years ago. The first months after the ceremony saw a short-lived burst of movement toward the normalisation of relations. Yet, in spite of these auspicious beginnings, the peace turned "cold" faster than could have been predicted. In the past two years, in fact, it has acquired the characteristics of a "cold war".
On the other hand, this statement could imply that, with all their flaws, Egyptian-Israeli relations are still a long way from what they were during the armed confrontation that preceded the treaty. Finally, there are those who might view Egyptian-Israeli relations from the standpoint of the major transformations that have taken place in the region -- transformations not necessarily connected with questions of war and peace.
Among these transformations is one that only disturbs a few people until now. This is the scientific and technological boom Israel has witnessed during the past 20 years. Unfortunately, the resultant scientific and technological gap between Arabs and Israelis has not received its share of attention in comparison with matters of war and peace.
In all events, there is a general consensus that the 20th anniversary of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty comes at a time of unprecedented tension in bilateral relations. This consensus hardly needs corroboration in light of the many developments that testify to the level of deterioration. The call issued by some opposition and independent members of parliament to annul the treaty, however, is not a serious development that could be used to measure the deterioration of relations between the two countries. This call is little more than empty rhetoric issued by largely isolated and ineffectual political groupings.
One issue which may serve as an accurate indicator of the state of relations between Egypt and Israel is the export -- or rather, the non-export -- of Egyptian natural gas to Israel. So much has been written about this issue in the past two months in particular that one might have thought that the public had little else to think about. Most of what was written in the opposition and private press gives the impression that gas exports are central to the "national struggle" and that Egypt has refused to export gas to Israel in retaliation against its actions. Conversely, we find intimations that Egyptian officialdom is not telling the truth when the minister of petroleum announces that Egypt will not export natural gas to Israel, because all the while preparations are being made to extend a natural gas pipeline beneath the Mediterranean to Izmir, and thence to Israel.
Gas exports have thus become an arena for political one-upmanship; respected professors have entered the fray, spouting assorted conspiracy theories which people swallow as facts. The problem is that gas exports to Israel are not connected to a "great national struggle", nor to evil hidden agendas. Rather, they are important only insofar as they are related to Egyptian-Israeli relations in general, and the degree to which these relations have been damaged by Netanyahu's policies. One is led to conclude that the crisis in these relations emanates first and foremost from fundamental distortions, rather than the contingencies of the peace process.
The project to export Egyptian natural gas to Israel failed because the Netanyahu government did not welcome it in spite of American efforts to push it forward. There are two reasons why Netanyahu, along with Sharon when he was minister of infrastructure, acted in this way. The first pertains to the policy of his government and its political/ideological underpinnings. This policy, contrary to that of the Labour government, aims to limit cooperation with the Arabs. The second, more specific (and therefore more important), reason is Netanyahu's reluctance to increase Israel's dependence upon Egypt as a source of energy. Israel already obtains approximately 20 per cent of the petroleum it consumes from Egypt.
The real issue, therefore, could not be further removed from recent pronouncements, some in praise of the government's firm stance against the enemy, others accusing it of duplicity, as though the major business of exporting gas to Israel is something that can be done clandestinely. Indeed, from a strategic perspective, it would be in Egypt's interest to augment Israel's dependence on strategic commodities such as oil and gas. At least, this is what Netanyahu and Sharon must have been thinking when they moved to block the project, while pretending to assess the prospects in order to use the natural gas issue as a bargaining chip in negotiations with other countries, such as Russia.
In all events, Israel's need for natural gas is certain to increase; the US hoped that natural gas could serve as a means of generating concrete mutual interests for the first time since the signing of the peace accord 20 years ago. Netanyahu's vision of Israel's position in the region, however, prevented the formation of such mutual interests. Beyond the prime minister himself, some Israeli circles fear that importing gas would put Israel at Egypt's mercy in the vital area of energy resources.
Israel's rejection of the gas export project epitomises the crisis in relations, 20 years after the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty. The heart of the problem is rivalry over regional leadership, as well as mutual suspicion, not with respect to the commitment to peace itself, but to the other's true intentions in abiding by the commitment to peace.
The peace process policies of the Netanyahu government have exacerbated the inherent problem in bilateral relations, but they are not the root cause of the current deterioration. Egyptian-Israeli relations are an autonomous issue that is not necessarily contingent upon the peace process. The primacy of the peace process is a thing of the past. This is not to underplay the historical importance of the conditions under which a "comprehensive peaceful settlement" was sacrosanct and the notion of a "separate peace" with Israel was associated with treason. The fact, however, is that successive separate settlements were concluded, not because Egypt broke ranks with the Arabs' steadfast adherence to a comprehensive settlement (never more than one of those many slogans that floated sluggishly through the political atmosphere), but because Arab relations could produce no better -- perhaps, indeed, they could have produced worse.
Egypt entered peace negotiations with Israel after the late President Sadat visited occupied Jerusalem on 9 November 1977 and signed the peace agreement with Israel on 26 March 1979 because Arab relations until that point had left him no choice. By entering into negotiations, Egypt was posing a temporary challenge to the disparity between words and action -- a tangible symptom of the diseases infecting the body, mind and soul of the Arab world. Nevertheless, the notion of a comprehensive settlement was always present at every phase of the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations, from the Ismailiya summit in December 1977 to Camp David and the difficult negotiations intended to transform the Camp David framework into a bilateral agreement and the final signing of the treaty.
In Twenty Years after Camp David, published in September 1998, I attempted to analyse how the concept of a comprehensive settlement effected the performance of the Egyptian negotiating team. An examination of the details reveals the diverse concerns of the Egyptian negotiators, particularly before reaching the Camp David framework. President Sadat was preoccupied above all with the issue of total Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai. He was unwilling to relinquish that goal, even if it meant concluding what was termed a separate peace. Some of his aides, however, were so focused on the Palestinian cause that the Sinai issue sometimes seemed to recede into the background. This disparity in emphasis was frequently a source of rancour and misunderstanding. Negotiators may be divided in their individual approaches, but in the actual negotiating process there can be only one line of approach. Naturally, it was Sadat's approach that ultimately prevailed. This in turn led to the treaty restoring to Egypt its occupied territory, regardless of any differences in opinion on specific points in the treaty.
Still, the Egyptian negotiators, and Sadat above all, sought to establish some kind of link between the bilateral treaty and the Palestinian cause. The most they were able to achieve was to render Camp David, in effect, a two-track framework: a Middle East peace track and an Egyptian-Israeli peace track. The former was very loosely formulated, and focused on a formula for autonomous rule as a starting point for resolving the Palestinian cause. Even then the Egyptian negotiators worked arduously to ensure the strongest possible link between the Egyptian and the Palestinian/Middle East peace track.
The Israeli negotiators, for their part, sought to de-link the two issues or at best to make the link as tenuous as possible. For example, the Egyptian negotiators sought to include in the treaty the statement that it constituted the first step towards the realisation of peace in the Middle East, a formula which the Israeli negotiators adamantly rejected on the grounds that, if other steps were not taken, Egypt would be able to claim that the treaty was no longer binding. Indeed, the Israelis became so annoyed by the Egyptian persistence in formulating a link with the resolution of the Palestinian issue that they threatened to walk out of the negotiations.
On one occasion, then Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan said: "We didn't come to Washington to discuss the Palestinian problem but to examine the possibilities of reaching a bilateral peace in accordance with what we agreed upon at Camp David." The Israeli negotiators also sought to use the Arab, and Palestinian, rejectionist card to undermine the Egyptian negotiating position. Moreover, so intent were the Israelis upon ensuring no link between the Egyptian-Israeli accord and the Palestinian issue that they sought to include a statement to the effect that the accord would remain in effect even if no agreement was reached on the Palestinian issue. The Israelis, of course, were unable to obtain this. The Egyptians, however, managed to obtain an affirmation of the commitment to the Camp David framework, with the attendant implication that Camp David was the basis for peace not only between Egypt and Israel but between Israel and any of its Arab neighbours which were prepared to enter peace negotiations on that basis.
Also, instead of the "first step" formula, the Egyptians succeeded in including a statement that the accord constituted "an important step toward comprehensive peace in the region and toward a settlement of all aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict." This was accompanied by an appeal that all other Arab parties to the conflict participate in the peace process. The Egyptian success did not come easily. It took three additional months, beyond the three months that had been scheduled originally to reach an agreement. During this six-month period, the negotiating parties engaged in mutual recriminations and exerted mutual pressure, as the US sought to narrow the gap between them. Much negotiating time was focused on the Palestinian issue.
In fact, in retrospect, it is possible to say that, in many respects, the position and performance of the Egyptian negotiators was better than the position and performance of the Palestinian negotiators in Oslo 14 years later. The Egyptians succeeded in obtaining the best overall terms possible at the time without ruining the prospects of regaining a cherished portion of Egypt's national territory, the fate of which hung in the balance of these negotiations. It would, furthermore, have been unreasonable to sacrifice this portion of Egyptian territory for the sake of clinging to a more hard-line stance and slogans that had no bearing on reality.
It is difficult to conceive that true peace between Egypt and Israel will ever be achieved without resolving the Palestinian issue and restoring the remainder of occupied Arab territory. That does not imply, however, that Egyptian-Israeli relations were contingent upon the other aspects of the peace process. These relations have had their ups and downs, even if the downs were longer than the ups, due to mutual rivalry and suspicion. It is very difficult to find a common ground for building mutual interests. The situation between Egypt and Israel contrasts with that prevailing between Israel and Jordan, where there is inherently greater scope for common ground. It was therefore possible for Israel and Jordan to establish bases of mutual interests in a much shorter span of time, considering that the Wadi Araba Treaty was concluded 15 and a half years after the Egyptian-Israeli accord. This factor alone supports the claim that the current deterioration in Egyptian-Israeli relations devolves from bilateral considerations.
Further supporting this claim are the changes Netanyahu has effected in Israeli regional policy. Specifically, the way he has recently sought to redefine the concept of Israeli security indicates that the normalisation of relations with the Arabs is a goal that is no longer integral to Israeli security and can be pursued in a selective manner. Little wonder, therefore, that the Netanyahu government was not overly distraught at the deterioration in Egyptian-Israeli relations, the freeze in the normalisation processes which other Arab nations had begun following Oslo, or, for that matter, the continued suspension of the multilateral negotiations. Jordan was the only country with which Netanyahu was keen to maintain the illusion of good relations, even if that did not prevent him from jeopardising these relations by such provocative acts as the assassination attempt against the Hamas leader Khaled Mish'al in September 1997.
By making absolute Israeli military superiority the highest priority, and minimising the importance of economic and political normalisation, Netanyahu has destroyed the minimal progress Rabin and Peres had made toward relieving Israeli society of its obsession with security and seeking alternative avenues through new regional arrangements and healthier bilateral relations. Netanyahu's security policy has contributed to deepening the strategic rivalry between Egypt and Israel over their future roles in the region.
It is this strategic rivalry that caused the chill in the Egyptian-Israeli peace not long after the signing of the 26 March 1979 treaty. Even so, the two sides had largely accommodated themselves to living with this cold peace and had arrived at a form of mutual understanding: neither side would act to escalate crises to the point of no return.
The policies of Netanyahu and his coterie, however, have pushed these relations toward a low-intensity cold war. With Netanyahu in power in Israel, crises always threaten to get out of control; heightened levels of tension have manifested themselves in the press and in official policy. While Israel's intransigence in the peace process has contributed to exacerbating tension, it has not been the primary factor. The change in the course of Israeli policy, away from encouraging bilateral and regional cooperation with the Arab states, has made the current Israeli government less sensitive to Arab reactions and more prepared to escalate tension than any of its predecessors.
One of the ways in which the peace process has affected Egyptian-Israeli relations is Netanyahu's attempts to marginalise Egypt's role in this process. This is why the interplay entailed in the peace process will most likely remain a source of difference between Egypt and Israel, even if negotiations move forward and make some progress. It is in this context that we can understand why Netanyahu accused Egypt of obstructing the peace process and urging the Palestinians to adopt a stauncher stance. For Netanyahu, such accusations are intended to kill two birds with one stone. They are a manoeuvre to edge Egypt out of the peace process, and a ploy to harm Cairo's relations with Washington. Yet, while this is one of the clearest indications of Israel's intentions with respect to Egypt, it is only one of the many Israeli policies that have contributed to moving Israeli-Egyptian relations from cold peace to cold war.
* The writer is chief editor of the annual Arab Strategic Report, issued by the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
