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Al-Ahram Weekly 30 March - 5 April 2000 Issue No. 475 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 30 March - 5 April 2000 Issue No. 475
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Two overlapping processes
By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
The next few months promise to be eventful ones in the Middle East. On the one hand, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has declared that Israel will pull out of Lebanon before the end of July, even unilaterally if no agreement is reached before that date. On the other, PA President Yasser Arafat has declared he will announce the creation of a Palestinian state before the end of September, also unilaterally if necessary.
With both parties threatening to act unilaterally -- by definition the exact opposite of coming to a contractual agreement -- the very future of the peace process is at stake. Unless decisive efforts are made to overcome the crisis, the whole process is condemned to fall apart.
Actually, the breakthrough-or-breakdown dichotomy is not the only one with which the peace process has to contend. There is also the fact that the peace process itself is becoming two distinct, overlapping processes: the peace process proper on the one hand and Clinton's personal stake in its success on the other. The incumbent president is keen to have a deal wrapped up before he leaves office so that he can be remembered in the history books for bringing an end to one of the most intractable conflicts of the twentieth century rather than only for the scandals and failures with which his name is now associated.
The fact that both the Israeli and Palestinian parties are today threatening to resort to unilateral steps reveals that the peace process has lost the momentum necessary to reach its final goal. It appears that only the American 'whip' can get things moving. In other words, Clinton's personal interest in bringing the peace process to a successful conclusion before he leaves office has become a necessary ingredient for the process itself to move forward. It seems fairly certain that without Clinton's insistent and repeated interventions, the peace process would collapse altogether.
Unfortunately, Clinton will not be around much longer, and the priorities of his successor, whether Al Gore or George W Bush, are bound to change. There is no reason why the Middle East should continue to occupy the privileged position it now holds. Moreover, the fact that the primaries leading up to the US presidential elections have been shorter than usual means that attention will shift away from the incumbent to the future president earlier than usual. That is why the few remaining weeks are so vital for the future of the Middle East.
Keenly aware that his leverage will decline as the November US elections approach, Clinton made a concerted effort last week to nudge the peace process forward on both the Syrian and Palestinian fronts. Although he managed to set up a meeting with President Assad in Geneva last Sunday, he failed to convince the Syrian president to resume negotiations with the Israelis. Earlier, he succeeded in getting Palestinian and Israeli negotiators together for a week of intensive talks at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington. But the real litmus test of whether the peace process in general is moving forward is the resumption of talks between Syria and Israel which have been stalled since last January. Syria insists that any fresh talks must start with Israel's acceptance of full withdrawal from the Golan up to the 4 June 1967 line. So far, Clinton has been unable to pin Barak down to an undertaking in this respect. Once this major stumbling block is overcome, Israel's security, water and normalisation requirements can easily be satisfied.
If the first step is the most difficult on the Syrian-Israeli track, the opposite is true on the Palestinian-Israeli track, where the most contentious issues have been deferred to the final status talks. That is why any progress is more likely to be made on the Syrian than the Palestinian track.
In any event, there is no question of catching the current deadline for a permanent status agreement, which is next September. The Israeli press recently reported that Barak is working towards a new plan for a limited agreement with the Palestinians, in which Israel would recognise a Palestinian state on part of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and, in return, the Palestinians would consent to Israeli annexation of some 10 per cent of the West Bank areas where the majority of settlers live.
From Barak's viewpoint, this proposal has many advantages:
First, the plan is intended to skirt a confrontation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which is likely if the two sides fail to reach a settlement by the deadline and then resort to unilateral steps. The new plan allows both sides to agree in advance, whether officially or implicitly, on moves that are already expected: the declaration of a Palestinian state, and the Israeli reaction of annexing parts of the West Bank. Moreover, a state-for-annexation deal would not involve any concessions on Israel's part. Barak himself is for the creation of a Palestinian state and has repeatedly declared that he does not want to sign final agreements with an entity, whether the PLO or the Palestinian Authority, which has no validity in terms of international law. Thus the Palestinian negotiator is required to relinquish 10 per cent of Palestinian territory with no counterpart!
Second, the precedent of accepting a priori the abandonment of 10 per cent of Palestinian territory opens the door for further territorial concessions. So far, the Palestinians have restored no more than 40 per cent of their territory. This leaves 50 per cent open to future negotiations. Barak will thus have succeeded in reducing the tension brought about by Israeli occupation with minimal tradeoffs. The status of Jerusalem and the right of return of the Palestinians will not be addressed in the limited agreement.
Third, the formula of restricting withdrawal on one front to the minimum necessary to defuse a chronic crisis situation can be applied to other fronts as well. In fact, Israeli generals oppose the prime minister's plan for a total withdrawal from south Lebanon, and are pressing him to consider leaving "some outposts" on Lebanese territory for security reasons. However, Barak believes that anything short of total withdrawal would allow Hizbollah to justify its attacks on Israeli targets as legitimate defence against foreign occupation. The military have invoked similar arguments to justify maintaining advance warning stations on the Golan.
In face of poll results indicating that a majority of Israelis are in favour of pulling out of south Lebanon but opposed to a total withdrawal from the Golan, it has been suggested that the tracks should be related and one referendum (instead of two separate ones) held to ensure that the principle of withdrawal is agreed upon. This merging of the two referenda is all the more imperative now that part of the governing coalition defected and voted with the opposition to make the majority required for approval of the referendum more difficult to reach.
Of course, an agreement that would respond to Clinton's wishes will have many benefits, especially for Israel which is expected to be rewarded with tens of billions of dollars. But the agreement will remain incomplete, good enough to de-fuse the crisis not to overcome it or remove the factors of instability in the region.
A settlement at this stage will not only leave the conflict largely unresolved but will be based on conditions heavily weighed in Israel's favour. According to Ha'artz, Clinton promised former Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu that the United States would preserve Israel's strategic deterrence capabilities and ensure that Middle East arms control initiatives will not damage it in the future. Commenting on the American undertaking, the Israeli newspaper notes that "the Clinton letter provides written -- if secret -- backup to the long-standing agreement between Jerusalem and Washington over the preservation of Israel's nuclear capabilities if Israel maintains its policy of 'ambiguity' and does not announce publicly that it has the bomb". The Ha'artz article (14 March 2000) further reveals that "Barak wants an updated strategic commitment from Clinton, to be included in the 'relations upgrade' package if and when a peace treaty is signed with Syria. The plan is for Clinton to sign a new letter, with the exact same wording, but addressed to Barak rather than Netanyahu".
Clinton's overriding ambition to go down in history as the architect of peace in the Middle East could have been put to better use. As it is, it threatens to expose the region to new upheavals and to make the prospect of a settlement more remote with each passing day.
