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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 June 1999 Issue No. 435 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 June 1999 Issue No. 435
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Interview Travel Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters The Middle East's last reckoning
By Hassan Nafaa *
Four principal factors will affect the region in the near future. The first is the reconfiguration of the Israeli political map following the recent elections in Israel, and the possible revival of the peace process. The second is the domestic situation in Iran and Turkey. In Iran, the moderate trend has become more firmly entrenched. In Turkey, the secularists won important gains in the recent elections, following Ocalan's arrest, although the struggle over national identity is still seething. The NATO victory in Kosovo is the third factor. This victory, for now at least, permits the primary players in the international order to turn their attention to issues elsewhere in the world and to assert themselves with greater confidence. The final factor pertains to the US and the forthcoming presidential elections. President Clinton, still limping from the Lewinsky scandal, has only six months to go. In this short time, he will try to erase the scandal that has overshadowed his domestic successes. The Middle East, for many reasons, will be a tempting target.
Of these factors, the change in Israel will constitute the primary determinant of forthcoming developments. The renewed US-Israeli consensus will give a fresh impetus to diplomatic and military drives in this region. The Arab-Israeli conflict has entered its most crucial phase. Core issues, deferred for so long -- Jerusalem, settlements, the refugees, water and the borders and authority of a Palestinian state -- must be addressed now. Negotiations with Syria and Lebanon must resume quickly. The coming six months will tell us whether the "peace process" can in fact produce a comprehensive peace, or whether the parties will finally pull the plug.
The Arab media gave an excessively stark portrayal of a pre-election Israeli society split into two camps: one, pro-peace, championed by Barak; the other, anti-peace, championed by Netanyahu. Barak's victory, therefore, meant that of peace. The simplicity of this portrait is misleading and potentially dangerous, particularly if it contributes to shaping the Arab negotiating position. Israeli society at the time of the elections was torn over many complex issues, many with no immediate bearing on the peace process. The growing rift between secular and religious, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jew, rich and poor, left and right forced the problem of peace with the Arabs into second place.
Barak portrayed himself as intent upon mending these rifts; he accused Netanyahu of exploiting them for personal and political gain. The floundering peace process only contributed to sharpening the boundaries of domestic contradictions; while Barak will most likely return to the table, he will be thinking of how the peace process can alleviate internal hostilities. In other words, he will make only those "concessions" that can help mend domestic rifts.
In the recent elections, the drive to oust Netanyahu was stronger than the push to elect Barak. Although Netanyahu's political and ideological outlook is shared by a broad sector of Israeli public opinion, his heavy-handed leadership alienated even his closest political allies. He antagonised the most important political symbols in his ruling coalition and the Likud itself. Key figures tendered their resignations at the most embarrassing times. His smooth rhetorical skills and slick way with the media were neutralised by the fact that Barak had some of America's best spin doctors on his team. Thus, the outcome of the Israeli ballot box was essentially the condemnation of a leader who had lost the confidence of his aides, before losing that of the voters.
Finally, the results of the Israeli elections indicate that the fissures within Israeli society have damaged all the major political parties. The gaps have been filled by the more radical right- and left-wing parties or by the Centre Party. Against a background of increasing atomisation, the issue of the peace settlement was ironically one on which many parties found some common ground. It is possible to conclude that Israel's negotiating position in the post-electoral phase will be determined by two fundamental factors: the character of Israel's new prime minister and the nature of the ruling coalition.
Barak was in charge of the special units of the Israeli army that conducted assassination operations against Palestinian leaders. He personally killed Kamal Adwan, Youssef El-Naggar and Kamal Nasser in Beirut, besides masterminding and participating in the assassination of Abu Jihad in Tunisia. There is a vast difference between a military leader responsible for field operations and a man who has conducted clandestine assassination operations against individual targets whom he perceives as "criminals" and "terrorists". We can therefore expect Barak to be even more tenacious than his predecessors on "security" and extremely reluctant to concede even the minimum legitimate rights to the Palestinians.
Barak received his BA in physics and mathematics from the Hebrew University, then an MA in systems analysis from Stanford. He is the intellectual antithesis of Netanyahu. The Arabs will now face a negotiator with a minutely constructed negotiating scheme, detailed objectives, carefully studied interim strategies and tactics to be summoned in the event of sudden contingencies.
As for the ruling coalition, the elections produced a political configuration that will permit the prime minister-elect to choose from among many alternatives. Initially, Barak wanted to form an expanded coalition. He seems to have discovered, however, that this would be too costly an option. Still, Barak's pragmatism will force him to focus on an effective domestic consensus in order to resolve external problems.
Barak has promised that he would withdraw the Israeli army from Lebanon within a year. At the same time, he is aware that Israel's border with Lebanon will be secure only in the context of an agreement with Syria. His negotiating strategy for the forthcoming phase, therefore, will most likely give immediate priority to the Syrian-Lebanese front, which could produce an important breakthrough in the peace process.
On the Palestinian track, Barak will continue to brandish the conditions stipulated by the Wye Memorandum, rather than the obligations stipulated by the original Oslo accord and the subsequent executive agreements signed by the Labour Party. According to Wye, Israel has to withdraw from only 13 per cent of the Occupied Territories, thus retaining control over most of the West Bank, before the final-status negotiations.
Finally, Barak will begin to press the other Arab countries to restore relations to the levels they had reached prior to Rabin's assassination and Netanyahu's succession. He could ask the Arabs to reopen their representative offices, to resume normalisation and to launch MENA once more.
Once a climate of optimism has been generated and amplified by an intensive media campaign, the US and its "friends in the region" can move to implement its deferred plans for Iraq and Iran. For Iraq, this entails toppling the current regime and installing a more pliable, pro-Western government, perhaps through a military operation conducted by Iraqi opposition forces and possibly troops from neighbouring countries. Iran can expect increasing pressure aimed at speeding up the current pace of domestic change. This could involve aid to the liberal trend, enabling it to oust the conservatives prior to creating a more accommodating regime.
If this analysis is correct, movement in the peace process, made possible by Barak's victory, will accompany a US (and perhaps NATO) drive -- facilitated by developments in Kosovo -- to seize the opportunity and encourage a reconfiguration of regional power.
When Barak, following his victory, said Israel would not return to the '67 borders, he was referring not to Syria or Lebanon, but to the Palestinian front, where he hopes to annex between 35 and 55 per cent of the West Bank. When he said Jerusalem would remain the united, eternal capital of Israel, he did not rule out "another Jerusalem" being the capital of Palestine. When he said he would not accept the presence of an army between Jordan and Israel, he did not exclude the possibility of a Palestinian "state", unarmed and perhaps stripped of sovereignty as well. In other words, what was impossible under Netanyahu has become possible. Barak expects that Syria will accept any solution that restores the Golan in full and guarantees its continued influence in Lebanon. He also feels that the Arabs will pressure the Palestinians to accept what he offers them. But will this reliance on Arab pressure constitute a sufficient guarantee for a lasting settlement?
*The writer is a professor of political science at Cairo University.
