 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 April 2000 Issue No. 478 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 April 2000 Issue No. 478
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Heritage Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters No ball, no game
Since the opening of the Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid in 1991, Israel has been trying, without success, to play the Arab tracks off against each other. When negotiations with the Palestinians stumble, reports suddenly emerge on a possible breakthrough on the Syrian track.
Following the failure of the Geneva summit between Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad and US President Bill Clinton, Israeli officials were quick to announce the demise of the Syrian track. As if to underline their point, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak ordered the building of hundreds of housing units in Jewish settlements in the occupied Golan Heights. Time, then, given past precedents, for an "advance" on the Palestinian track.
Like his predecessors, though, Prime Minister Barak is trying to sell an offer that he knows in advance neither Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, nor any Arab government, can afford to endorse. When Assad met with Clinton in Geneva, the US president reportedly asked the Syrian leader to help Barak sell a peace deal to his people. It is likely the American president will make a similar appeal to Arafat during their meeting in Washington today.
US officials tend to ignore the fact, when offering deals in the name of Barak's government, that Arab public opinion is no less important than Israeli public opinion. And offering the Palestinians just 70 per cent of the West Bank, asking them to postpone indefinitely any prospect for the return of millions of refugees or aspirations to declare occupied East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state, is hardly a formula designed to appease Arab public opinion.
Arafat has repeatedly pointed out that peace in the Middle East is not only an Arab demand, but also an Israeli, regional and international one. Palestinians who have successfully maintained their identity over the past five decades, despite all attempts by Israel to falsify history, will not suddenly disappear or give up their legitimate demands. Arab countries, who have shouldered responsibility for the development of the Palestinian cause over the past years, will not suddenly be able to tell their people that it was all a lost cause, and must be abandoned.
Will today's talks conclude, as has happened before, with crass statements from the US administration to the effect that the ball is now in Arafat's court? We can only hope not. For until Barak comes up with some convincing proposals, the ball, as always, remains firmly in his.
