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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 Liar, liar
By Salama Ahmed Salama
As negotiations on the Syrian track froze, talks with the Palestinians stopped, and Israel braced itself to spark the conflict on the Lebanese border anew, threatening to set Lebanon ablaze in retaliation for the heroic self-defence mounted by Hizbullah, all illusions about Barak dissolved. Those willing to give credence to his intentions as a peace-maker saw the scales fall from their eyes. He proved that the promises he had made at his accession to power, about reaching an agreement with the Palestinians in a specific time frame, concluding a deal with Syria and withdrawing from southern Lebanon by the end of the year, were a smoke screen -- nothing more.
Amazingly, despite Israel's record of violations, it still finds parties ready to believe it. Perhaps this is because of the Arabs' weakness, or our propensity to heed the proverb advising us to "go along with the liar to the very end". We have now reached the very end. Eight months after reaching power, Barak has not delivered. Four months have passed since the Sharm Al-Sheikh agreement, in which he promised to end the second transition stage on 13 February, and the final stage at the end of September. He does not consider the two dates binding, however, arguing that no deadline is "sacred" for him. Violating agreements is not an accountable offence, as long as the US believes that reneging on promises serves Israel's interests.
Certain Arab sources seem willing to go along with this game. In a recent statement, the foreign minister of Jordan almost absolved Israel of its failures to meet its commitments, noting: "What really matters is to achieve real progress on the Palestinian track, not so much to abide by 'sacred' dates."
But how can any progress be achieved since negotiations have been halted by a premeditated act on Israel's part? Its failure to abide by any commitment to any deadline, "sacred" or not, is apparently designed to extract more concessions from the Palestinians. Before Barak, Netanyahu had aimed at integrating the third transitional stage into the final stage of negotiations, as a means of bringing the greatest possible pressure to bear on the Arabs when the more sensitive issues -- namely, the refugees, the borders, the settlements and Jerusalem -- are tabled. Barak is simply doing what Netanyahu had tried to do.
With the US reluctant to intervene, Arafat has no one to turn to. He seems to be waiting for some miracle, and meanwhile is going about threatening to declare the Palestinian state. Ultimately, he may be forced to accept the integration of both stages. On the Syrian track, negotiations stopped almost before they had started. Despite rumours that negotiations were continuing secretly, Syria's insistence that negotiations be based on Israeli withdrawal from the entire Golan seems to have created domestic problems for Barak. Israel's confrontation with the Lebanese resistance and the unprecedented attack on Lebanon's infrastructure are very reminiscent of Likud policy under Netanyahu. This same policy had triggered the bombing of Lebanon's power stations only days before Barak came to power. The attack was aimed at exploding the "understanding" on southern Lebanon.
In such a murky atmosphere, the rapid moves to normalise made by Tunisia and Morocco are, to say the least, disappointing. The resumption of multilateral talks with Israel has not improved its position; clearly, the wave of optimism that had certain European prime ministers already envisaging post-peace scenarios was unjustified. Economic cooperation, the water problem, trade relations and confidence-building measures cannot be discussed at this point -- nor as long as military aggression, supported by Israel's military supremacy and monopoly on nuclear power, is the policy guiding the construction of the new Middle East.
