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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Permanent crisis
Graham UsherIt was supposed to be the date for a Framework Agreement between Israel and the Palestinians on Oslo's final status issues of Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, borders and water. But 13 February passed with barely a nod from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak (his mind preoccupied almost entirely with the war in south Lebanon and, beyond that, the negotiations with Syria) and against a chorus of "crisis" from various Palestinian Authority officials.
There is some truth in the PA's description. But there is also hyperbole. For crises are less unusual events in the Oslo process than a more or less permanent condition born of one enduring reality -- that the maximum Barak's or any other Israeli government is prepared to "concede" to the Palestinians falls far below the minimum any authentic Palestinian leadership can accept.
This truism was most recently illustrated at the meeting between Barak and Yasser Arafat at Erez on 3 February. There the Israeli leader proposed putting back the "target date" for a Framework Agreement by six months and the deadline for a final deal until June 2001. He also revived the old demand of Binyamin Netanyahu that the final status negotiations be "merged" with Israel's third redeployment, which PA officials insist should give them control of everywhere in the West Bank except for the final status territories of Jerusalem, settlements, borders and "specified military locations."
These revisions -- Barak told the Israeli press -- were necessary because the Palestinians had "wasted time" in the Framework negotiations due to the fuss they had made over Israel's miserly second phase redeployment, scheduled for last November but not implemented until January. But the real reason for the delay -- opined virtually every Palestinian and Israeli commentator -- was that Barak wants to clear decks in the months ahead for renewed negotiations and perhaps an agreement with Syria before he pulls out Israeli soldiers from south Lebanon in July 2000.
None of this came as a surprise to Arafat, since Israel has long mooted such revisions in both the final status and interim negotiations. The straw that broke the spine of the Palestinian leader's patience was the map Barak presented to him of the third phase of Israel's second redeployment. Despite weeks of nods and winks that this would include some "quality" territories near Jerusalem, the next phase included the usual archipelago of lands in the far north and south of the West Bank, but with no territorial contiguity between them and none anywhere near Jerusalem. The reason -- Barak quietly told Arafat -- was that "domestic political troubles" (such as Hizbullah's successes in Lebanon and the scandal around the funding of his 1999 election campaign) would make it "difficult" for him to address the issue of Jerusalem before the end of the peace process.
Mindful of his own "domestic troubles" (such as the scathing indictment of both his governance and peace policy expressed in the 'Petition of the 20' last November), Arafat was unimpressed. He froze all official negotiations pending Israeli answers to three fundamental questions. The first is whether the principle of "consultation" rather than "dictation" will be observed in both the latest and future redeployments. The second is whether Israel intends to clearly separate the obligation of a third redeployment from the health or otherwise of the final status talks. Finally, Arafat wants to know whether Israel is amenable to scrapping the whole idea of a Framework Agreement and moving instead to accelerated negotiations for a final peace treaty by the original deadline of September 2000.
Although addressed to Israel, PA negotiators are under no illusion that there will be any answers until the next visit of US Special Envoy, Dennis Ross, now tentatively set for 20 February. There may not be answers then either, given that Barak has already ruled out any changes to the third phase map and reaffirmed his belief that a Framework Agreement must precede any fully-fledged peace treaty.
In the meantime, Arafat has responded to the "unprecedented crisis" in the usual way -- by launching a diplomatic blitz to rally Arab and European support for the Palestinians. On 14 February, he addressed a meeting of the Arab and Islamic "Jerusalem Fund" in Morocco to enlist financial and political means to resist Israel's settlement policies in Jerusalem. He carried much the same message to his meeting with the Pope in Rome the next day, hoping to receive the Vatican's reaffirmation that Jerusalem is not only a holy but occupied city that must enjoy shared rather than exclusive sovereignty. He also convened Fatah's Revolutionary Council on 13 February to endorse the PLO Central Council's decision on 3 February to declare a Palestinian state "this year" and prepare the Palestinians for their "national missions" both before and after the state is established.
But if these "missions" do not include institutional reform and political and indeed military as much as diplomatic mobilisation it is difficult to see what such a declaration would grant Arafat other than what he possesses already, which is military and civilian control over most of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza but without any real control over the resources, geography and independence of these territories. Without sovereignty in these spheres Palestinians can live in a "state" or under an "autonomy". For the vast majority it would still mean occupation by another name.
