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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 July 1999 Issue No. 439 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 July 1999 Issue No. 439
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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 Focus Interview Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Barak's Peace
By Graham Usher"Washington is yours!" gushed US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at the close of Ehud Barak's first trip to America as Israeli prime minister. "You have brought us the message that Israel wants peace".
The first part of this statement is certainly true, as Barak proceeded during his six-day stay to win over an American administration inordinately relieved that he is not another Binyamin Netanyahu. The second part is also true so long as "peace" is defined as an enterprise designed to secure Israeli and American interests in the region.
The "new phase in the US-Israeli relationship" -- as expressed by Albright -- consists in Israel making a number of abstract pledges to progress on all tracks of the peace process in return for several very concrete commitments by the US to maintain Israel's "qualitative edge" as the Middle East's only nuclear military power. As published, these so far include upgrading Israel's airforce and Arrow defence systems to the tune of $250 million; establishing a new defence committee at leadership level that will meet every four months to ensure Israel's "deterrent capability" against "any threat or possible combination of threats"; increasing over the next decade the US military aid to Israel from $1.9 billion to around $2.4 billion a year and, finally, getting Congressional approval to provide $1.2 billion so that Israel can build "fortified" by-pass roads to isolated settlements in the occupied West Bank to ensure a "secure" Israeli redeployment under the terms of the 1998 Wye agreement.
In exchange for such riches, Barak made the truly groundbreaking statement that he believes it should be possible "within the next 15 months" (or by the US presidential elections in November 2000) for Israel to determine "whether we have a breakthrough and are really going to put an end to the conflict" on the Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese tracks of the peace process. But -- as he also made clear in various interviews with the American media -- this possibility hinged on a withdrawal "on" rather than "from" the occupied Golan Height, on Jewish settlements being neither dismantled nor their construction frozen in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and on the 3.5 million registered Palestinian refugees "finding a solution to their problem" in their present countries of abode rather than in their lands and homes inside Israel. As for Jerusalem -- and in line with Hilary Clinton -- this is "the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel".
Nor did Barak retreat from his desire to have certain "parts" of the Wye agreement "combined" with Oslo's final status negotiations whose deadline -- despite assurances from both the US and the European Union that they should be wrapped up by May 2000 -- now appears to be receding ever more distantly on the horizon. Even for a leader as patient as Yasser Arafat, Barak's continued revision of the terms of the peace process -- and the Americans wholly uncritical support for it -- became a little too much to take.
"We do not accept this," Arafat told reporters following a meeting with President Hosni Mubarak and Foreign Minister Amr Moussa in Cairo on 20 July. "It is not reasonable to waste another period [of time] with the new Israeli government... We will accept only the immediate and speedy implementation of the Wye River Memorandum and the [1997] Hebron protocol and the other agreements". It was a stance supported by Egypt and Jordan's King Abdullah.
But not, it seems, by Syria. Its response to Barak's several discussions with Washington were that they signalled a "confirmation of a commitment by Washington and Tel Aviv to push the peace process forward", although, added Syria's national radio, "peace would not be made by wishes and words" but by "facts on the ground to restore confidence in the peace process which was suspended for three years". As for the Palestinian track, Syria's only gesture was a carefully calibrated leak that Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam had reportedly "advised" several Damascus based Palestinian opposition groups to abandon the gun in the struggle against Israel and turn instead to "political activity".
Fresh from his return from Washington, Barak must thus feel pleased with his handicraft. He has managed to alarm the Palestinians and Egyptians, intrigue the Syrians with his desire to "press forward" with their peace process and consolidate to an unprecedented military degree Israel's role as America's protector and strongest ally in the region. Should he now go on to make "peace" -- whether in the next 15 months or beyond -- he will also be remembered as the Israeli leader who navigated "Israel's final arrival at the place where Herzl always wanted us to be", says the leftist Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe. "A sun-splashed Vienna -- in the Middle East, but not of it".
