 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 January 2000 Issue No. 463 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 January 2000 Issue No. 463
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Heritage Millennium Features Profile Living Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters 1999 -- the year of Barak
By Graham UsherWhatever year 2000 may bring, 1999 will be remembered in Israel and the occupied territories as the year of Ehud Barak. Even before Barak's stunning election win on 17 May, Yasser Arafat moved swiftly to rescue the Oslo process from the trough Binyamin Netanyahu had consigned it and extract the maximum diplomatic capital from the prospect of a new Israeli government.
Between January and March the Palestinian leader visited 65 capitals, seeking 'advice' as to whether the PLO should declare unilaterally a Palestinian state at the expiry of Oslo's interim period in May 1999. He was 'advised' by the European Union -- and just about everybody else -- to extend Oslo for at least another year. As reward for such 'statesmanship', the EU issued the Berlin Declaration in March, recognising the Palestinians' 'unqualified' right to self determination, slamming the illegality of Israel's settlement policies and reaffirming that the bases of the Oslo process were UN Resolutions 242 and 338.
If Arafat was looking for a similar trade with the Americans, he was to be disappointed. On the eve of the PLO's Central Council meeting in Gaza in April -- convened to take a "final decision" on statehood -- President Bill Clinton sent a letter prevailing on Arafat to persevere within the constraints of Oslo but with barely a nod to the Palestinians' national rights. Arafat nonetheless agreed, adjourning the Central Council without any decision taken on statehood and thus implicitly extending Oslo's interim period indefinitely.
Even at the time many Palestinian observers believed Arafat had sold his people short with such concessions. But they became convinced of it when Barak -- on the night of his election victory -- declared that Jerusalem would be Israel's undivided capital "forever", there would be no Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines and most settlers would be annexed to Israel in "settlement blocs." A few weeks later he also ruled out the right of return of Palestinian refugees to "sovereign Israel". Nor were these "red-lines" merely to appease the more hawkish elements in his new government. By October Israel's Peace Movement was reporting that Barak's government had issued more tenders for settlement starts in the West Bank and Gaza in its first three months than had Netanyahu's government in a year.
The difference was that whereas Netanyahu had been condemned for such practices, Barak was feted for his 'commitment' to the peace process in US, European and Arab capitals. This essentially boiled down to a pledge to implement an extended version of the Wye agreement Netanyahu had signed in October 1998. In return, Barak wanted the Palestinians to postpone the deadline for the final status agreement until around September 2000 and endorse the idea of a "Framework Agreement" on the final status issues to be drafted by February 2000. Under US pressure, Arafat buckled again, signing the revised Wye deal at Sharm El-Sheikh on 5 September and authorising his chief negotiators to start the final status talks.
Yet Barak was in no greater hurry to implement "Wye Two" than had been Netanyahu. He appeared rather to be waiting activation of the one deadline he truly intended to keep -- his pre-election promise to have Israeli soldiers out of south Lebanon by July 2000. And activation came on 8 December, when President Clinton announced that Israel and Syria would resume negotiations from "the point they had stopped" in February 1996. Within a week, Barak was in Washington with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa, the highest level meeting ever held between the two countries. Negotiations between the two sides began in earnest at Shepherdstown, West Virginia, on 3 January.
The speed of the Syrian track could not stand in greater contrast to the sloth of the Palestinian, now six weeks behind schedule on implementing the second phase of Israel's "second" redeployment. Yet it betrays where Barak's immediate political priorities lie. And these are to extract the maximum by way of security pledges, water rights and normalisation in an agreement with Syria in return for Israel's full withdrawal from both south Lebanon and the Golan Heights. Barak knows that only such a package will sway an Israeli public that -- as of now -- remains unconvinced that peace with President Assad is worth the "painful territorial price" involved in giving up the Golan.
If Barak is prepared to stake his premiership on such a vote (and this is what defeat in the referendum on peace with Syria and Lebanon would mean) it is because he knows that the political dividend is truly tremendous. For peace with Syria and a withdrawal from Lebanon would not only end the last active military front in the Arab-Israeli conflict. It would place Barak in a position of maximum diplomatic and domestic strength once he finally does decide to turn his mind to the question of Palestine.
This does not mean that Israel would then be able to close a final settlement with the Palestinians. But it would mean that Israel could leave the Palestinian issue unresolved on its terms. And the terms are becoming increasingly clear. An Israeli and American recognition of a "provisional" Palestinian state in exchange for a territorial dispensation in the West Bank and Gaza more or less consistent with what the Palestinians have now and "long-term interim agreements" on "insoluble" issues like Jerusalem and refugees.
A deal along these lines -- even if "unfinished" -- would still mean a huge political and diplomatic achievement for Israel. For the rest of the world and, above all, the Arabs, however, it would pose two other questions, surmises Palestinian analyst, Mustafa Barghouti. And these are "Whether Arafat can bring the Palestinians with him to such a 'state'? And, if he can, whether he and his system of rule can keep them there?"
The first question will be answered in the next millennium. The second -- says Barghouti, can be answered now: "No."
