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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 June 1999 Issue No. 432 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 June 1999 Issue No. 432
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Interview Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Beyond Camp David
By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
I do not believe there are substantive differences between Barak and Netanyahu over the conditions required to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict, but I believe differences do exist on issues of procedure. It was only reluctantly that Netanyahu acknowledged that a peace process was underway, while Barak considers himself an advocate of the process, even a Rabin disciple. However, Barak is to the right of Rabin in the political spectrum and, as I mentioned in my last article, is invoking the present fragmentation in the Israeli body-politic to justify giving full priority to mending fences between the discordant political forces in Israel, an enterprise that will inevitably involve making still greater concessions to the right.
That is why convening an Arab summit aimed at mending fences between the Arab parties has become so urgent -- at least a summit that would bring together the leaders of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. Barak's decision to give precedence to Israeli-Israeli reconciliation over doing what is necessary to move forward with the peace process makes it incumbent on the Arab parties to give a similar priority to Arab-Arab reconciliation, if only as a prerequisite for resuming the peace process meaningfully. Clinton is planning to call for a summit in Washington that would bring together Barak, Arafat, Mubarak and King Abdullah as soon as the Israeli cabinet has been formed. As this is likely to be in less than 45 days, there are good reasons to act swiftly.
But whether the negotiations are resumed in Washington or elsewhere, they are not likely to follow the pattern they acquired before Netanyahu came to power, which proceeded from the premise that the gradual build-up of a pro-peace drive on both sides of the confrontation line would eventually marginalise the anti-peace forces on both sides. The assumption was that though the process might be subjected to setbacks along the way, eventually leaders like Netanyahu on the Israeli side and movements like Hamas on the Arab side would be defeated. But things turned out very differently. Fedayin raids launched by Hamas undermined every step forward in the peace talks, and Netanyahu was elected as Israel's prime minister in the 1996 elections. The most acute contradictions were no longer the ones between the Arab states on the one hand and Israel on the other, but gradually appeared to have been 'transferred' to the ranks of the weaker of the two sides, i.e. the Arab side.
However, the manifest disarray in Arab ranks produced an unexpected result. With the Arab countries no longer posing a credible threat to Israel, the need for permanent alertness and mobilisation is fading away and fragmentation in Israeli society is setting in. In the past, the Israelis tried, often successfully, to equate Arab hostility to their presence in the Middle East with anti-Semitism, pogroms, the Holocaust and other forms of persecution in pre-World War II Europe. Today, the argument falls flat on its face. At any rate, what really concerns Israelis at this stage is whether Israel has in fact fulfilled its raison d'ètre as a melting pot for the Jews of the world. Divisions over identity problems (who is a Jew?) now seem to supersede everything else. As the recent electoral campaign revealed, tensions have reached unprecedented levels between secular and religious trends in Israel, between eastern and western Jews, and between Ashkenazi and Sephardim, overshadowing even the traditional lines of division between the advocates and opponents of the peace process, the hawks and the doves, the left and the right. With Barak signalling that he is giving precedence to Jewish-Jewish reconciliation over the peace process, the Arab parties find themselves driven into giving similar precedence to Arab-Arab reconciliation.
Healing the breach in Arab ranks becomes all the more imperative in the context of an unexpected and extremely significant development now unfolding in the region, namely, the rapprochement between Khatami's Iran and the Arab Gulf states, which was initiated by the dramatic reconciliation between Khatemi and Iran's erstwhile foe, Saudi Arabia. This is a healthy development. Middle-Easternism must not be conceived exclusively as peace between Arabs and Israelis. Other Middle Eastern countries are no less relevant to the equation: Iran, Turkey (whatever its present leanings towards Israel), African countries such as Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and even perhaps South Africa -- all countries with a strong impact on Middle East affairs.
In my view, these developments justify a reappraisal of what I describe as the Camp David approach. This is an issue I raised at a seminar entitled: The Arabs in face of Israel: what options for the future? held last November in Beirut. Referring to the historic 1978 meeting between Carter, Sadat and Begin in Camp David, which laid the groundwork for the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty in 1979, I said that the Camp David approach was not only an issue of the past, nor was it only an Egyptian-Israeli issue, but an issue touching on the very mechanics of peace-building in the Middle East setup, with implications that extend to the present and the future. The implications are not limited to implementing peace step by step along a time dimension, but extend to dealing with one Arab country after another within a space dimension. What remains of the Camp David approach today is the divisions it introduced between the Arab parties. If these divisions no longer affect Egypt's relations with the Arab parties, they certainly affect the relations of other Arab protagonists in the conflict with Israel. Particularly acute in this matter is the present rift between Syria and the Palestinian Authority, an issue that undermines any attempt at bringing about a reconciliation between the so-called front-line Arab states, the key actors in any significant Arab reconciliation.
Eliminating the adverse effects of the Camp David approach by abrogating the Camp David Accords altogether is not an option for the Arab regimes at this juncture, though there are precedents, notably Nahas Pasha's famous abrogation in 1951 of the treaty he had himself signed with Great Britain in 1936. But what is certain is that Arab parties are not obliged to implement all their engagements with Israel if the latter openly refuses to honour its commitments under agreements it signed, as is the case so far with the Wye Plantation agreement.
However, the Camp David approach does not only involve Arab relations with Israel. It has also affected inter-Arab relations. It has created a dynamic which allows each Arab party to imagine that it can get a better deal by negotiating separately with Israel than it would by negotiating collectively with the other Arab parties, indeed, that inter-Arab hostilities need not be negative and could be instrumental in enhancing the conditions for peace with Israel. This assumption has proved to be not only false but counter-productive even at the individual level of each Arab state taken separately.
Removing this assumption from our calculations will certainly enhance the chances for a better settlement with Israel. For a serious reappraisal of the Camp David approach to acquire its full potential, it should not be limited to the circle of decision-makers, but must be given full opportunity for nationwide debates, to make Israel understand that it should not take anything for granted and that we Arabs too are aware of how vital democratic openness is for anybody's future.
