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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 May - 2 June 1999 Issue No. 431 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 May - 2 June 1999 Issue No. 431
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Living Features Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters A new Middle East rationale?
By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
Some thirty years ago, an Israeli author, Mark Hillel, published a book entitled Israel in Danger of Peace. The book attributed Israel's unity and integrity to its permanent state of alertness generated by the feeling that it was surrounded by enemy states which threatened to destroy it. Today, Israelis no longer believe that the Arab environment constitutes a threat. True, overall peace has not been achieved, but the area has been pacified. Thus Hillel's prophecy has been partially realised. As the Arab threat receded, inter-Jewish conflict has come to the fore and can even have superseded Jewish-Arab conflict.
Israel's political stage is no longer polarised between two major parties, Labour and Likud. Both have been downgraded, with Likud's representation in the Knesset dropping from 32 to 19 seats, Labour's from 34 to 27. Parties have proliferated: of a staggering 31 registered parties -- many of them splinter groups -- 15 are in the Knesset. The political landscape is determined less by traditional considerations of right and left, pro- and anti-peace forces, hawks and doves, as it is by new categories of alignments: secular versus religious (despite the conviction of party leader, rabbi Aryeh Deri, for bribe-taking, the Shas religious party's Knesset seats have risen from 10 to 17, making it Israel's third largest party); Western versus Eastern Jews; Ashkenaz versus Sephardim; opponents of Netanyahu versus opponents of Barak.
There is no doubt that Netanyahu's resounding defeat at the polls was seen as a welcome development by many people, both inside and outside Israel. But one cannot afford to be overly optimistic. Barak is not Netanyahu's antipode.
True, Barak was the Labour Party candidate for Israel's premiership; true, he was one of Rabin's closest associates. But this does not mean that the peace process in the coming period will restore the features it had before Netanyahu took over. What is more likely to happen is that the process will acquire different features, and will face still greater difficulties despite the expected efforts to accelerate the process at a time marked by momentous events, both regional and global.
It is important to remember that it was not the Arab-Israeli conflict which determined the outcome of the recent Israeli elections, not the peace process, not the Palestinian problem, but, rather, intense inter-Jewish strife within Israeli society itself -- even if certain reasons for that strife (such as the current economic recession) can be attributed in large measure to the deadlock in the peace process. Barak's main efforts over the coming period are expected to focus on bringing internal reconciliation and subordinating everything to that purpose. It is no accident that he called the alliance that supported his candidacy "Israel, unite!".
It was because the conflicts triggered by the electoral campaign reached unprecedented intensity that the centre party candidate, Itzhak Mordechai, decided to pull out before the first round once he realised he had little chance of success, attributing this pullout to the fact that Israeli society had been so torn apart throughout the contest that it could not withstand another two weeks of campaigning. Barak, who is no less a centrist than Mordechai, even if the two men head different parties, certainly shares the latter's apprehensions on this issue.
If this is true, it means that Barak will be more keen to win over forces from the right than to consolidate his position within the left, under pretext of neutralising the right and isolating leaders such as Netanyahu, and on the grounds that the left has no choice but to follow Barak. The question is whether he will go as far as to name Ariel Sharon as his foreign minister in the next cabinet. That Barak has decided to give precedence to appeasing the right over ensuring the resumption of the peace talks was eminently clear from his first post-election statement, in which he underlined the now famous four no's: no to the division of Jerusalem, no to a return to the 1967 borders, no to the dismantling of the settlements, no to a Palestinian army.
In other words, Barak does not intend to follow the former blueprint for peace laid down by Rabin and Peres, which proceeded from the assumption that the peace process would develop by creating a movement in defence of peace on both sides of the confrontation line, and that this movement would eventually gain the upper hand over the forces opposing peace on both sides. In Barak's blueprint, Israel should first achieve national reconciliation before coming forward with peace proposals. Peace must be made conditional on terms that will not provoke divisions within Israel. In other words, any Palestinian or Arab demand on which Israelis disagree is to be rejected out of hand. Thus Jerusalem, which Barak was quick to announce will remain the indivisible and eternal capital of Israel, is bound to become an issue of fundamental contention.
But if the Palestinian issue, as an external factor affecting the Israeli elections, proved very marginal in this last campaign as compared to previous ones, it was omnipresent, even decisive, as an internal factor. I am talking of Dr Azmi Bishara's candidacy for Israel's premiership.
Bishara, a Palestinian Christian and Israeli citizen, faced Israelis with the dilemma that if Israel is, as it claims, a democracy in which all citizens enjoy equal rights, then he has the same right as his Jewish compatriots to run for the office of prime minister. However, this comes up against Israel's self-proclaimed identity as a Jewish state. Bishara put forward the idea that if Israel is to be democratic, it must either be bi-national and not a state for the Jews only, or, if it insists on retaining its Jewish identity, a fully sovereign Palestinian state should exist side by side with it.
With divisions within the ranks of Israel's Jews reaching such a point that they neutralised each other, it was the Arab vote which rallied behind Bishara that played the key role in deblocking the situation. By being the first candidate to step down, Bishara set off a domino effect among the other candidates, leaving the road open to Barak's victory. It can therefore be said that Barak owes his victory over Netanyahu to Bishara. It is practically certain that, in consideration for stepping down, Bishara demanded and received assurances from Barak, not only on rights for Arab Israelis, but also for the Palestinian problem in a wider perspective.
Reconciling Israel's Jews without achieving fundamental progress on the peace process may be an option for Barak, but it is questionable whether Clinton would find this acceptable. One can speculate that Clinton, perhaps with the help of the US negotiating team (practically all of the Jewish faith), could have had something to do with the decision to call early elections in Israel, a decision that was to cost Netanyahu dearly. There is no love lost between the two men. Netanyahu challenged Clinton at a time the latter was in dire need of a foreign policy triumph to offset the adverse effects of his impeachment trial. Netanyahu blackmailed Clinton and even blocked the Wye River agreement after it was signed.
It is safe to assume that Clinton would like to see the Middle East peace process wrapped up before his term is over, that is, within the few months to come, not only on the Palestinian track, but also on the Syrian-Lebanese track. A dramatic breakthrough on the Middle East front could help balance the history books in his favour. But time is short. With Barak as Israeli negotiator, any package acceptable to him is bound to come at a high price for the Arab parties. In the context of a world order ruled by a might-is-right logic, best exemplified by the NATO bombing of Serbia, the Arabs have little room for manoeuvre. The question is how prepared are they to cope with what is most likely to be a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum?
