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Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 September 2000 Issue No. 499 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 September 2000 Issue No. 499
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region Interview International Economy Opinion Culture Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The deal-breaker
By Graham UsherThe 13th of September 2000 will go down in the annals of the Oslo process as the day on which nothing happened -- no final peace agreement was sealed, no Palestinian state was declared and no end of Oslo's interminable "interim" period was in sight.
On the contrary, following Yasser Arafat's second deferral on statehood in as many years the Palestinian Authority officially -- albeit quietly -- informed Israel that all the security, economic and geo-political "interim arrangements" would remain in place. "We are giving another chance for peace," said Arafat at the PLO's Central Council in Gaza.
Israel met this with the usual magnanimity. Its obligations under the interim phase -- such as another West Bank redeployment, the release of Palestinian prisoners and the opening of a northern safe passage route -- would come as part of a final status deal or they would not come at all, replied Israeli negotiator Oded Eran on Tuesday.
The only chink of light in this dim vista is the awareness by both sides that the current negotiations (or "contacts" as the Israelis prefer to call them) cannot drag on indefinitely. This is not due to any expected breakthrough in an increasingly snarled process, but rather because of the facts of time and circumstance. By the end of October the US presidential race will be all but over (and President Clinton on his last legs) and the Israeli Knesset will reconvene with Ehud Barak at the head of a minority and vulnerable government. "These deadlines will compel the sides to resume serious negotiations," predicted PLO negotiator Yasser Abed Rabbo on Tuesday.
With perhaps less ambitious aims. In recent weeks more than one Palestinian (and Israeli) negotiator has intimated that what is possible now is less a comprehensive package wrapping up all the final status issues than a partial accord leaving certain items undone. This applies especially to the fraught issue of Jerusalem and its contested holy sites.
During his meeting with Clinton at the UN Millennium Summit last week, Arafat gave what many believe (or hope) will be his final compromise on the status of the Old City's Haram Al-Sharif, known to the Israelis as the Temple Mount compound. He reportedly suggested that the site could come under the "Muslim sovereignty" of the Jerusalem Committee of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) but with the practical administration run by the Palestinians. Clinton was unimpressed, aware that Israel would refuse such a solution.
The only apparent dent in Israel's stance was via press reports that it would perhaps be willing to place the site in the hands of an international body like the United Nations Security Council. In this dispensation, wrote Israel's Haaretz newspaper on Tuesday, Arafat would be granted "custodianship" over the mosques while Israel would "retain" sovereignty over the Western Wall.
Ehud Barak's office immediately dismissed the report as "media speculation." And his acting Foreign Minister and chief negotiator Shlomo Ben-Ami, who is thought to quietly support the idea, clarified that whatever the arrangement for the holy sites Israel would keep "residual sovereignty" over the Old City as a whole. If this is Israel's true position, "then forget it, there won't be an agreement," insisted a Palestinian Authority source close to the negotiations.
The deeper question is why Barak is so insistent about not allowing any form of Palestinian sovereignty at the site. Barak is fully aware that the "one thing that is utterly unacceptable to all the Arabs and all the Muslims is the proposal to extend Israeli sovereignty over Haram Al-Sharif," says the source. He submits two possible explanations.
The first is that Barak's position is now so weak in Israeli public opinion he feels compelled to win a permanent "historical reward for the aggression of 1967," and there can be no greater prize than Palestinian and, therefore, international recognition of Israel's "sovereign claim" on the Temple Mount. The second is that Barak proposed the idea of Israeli sovereignty as an "intentional deal-breaker," akin to his proposal to the Syrians to keep Israeli sovereignty over the north-eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. In both cases Barak knew these were offers his Arab "partners" could only refuse. The trick of course was to create such a climate of international opinion as to cast Arafat and Hafez Al-Assad as the "rejectionists" and Israel as the party willing to go "the extra mile" for peace. Given the rapturous reception afforded to Barak at last week's UN summit, and frosty shoulders turned toward Syria and the Palestinians, it would seem he has so far succeeded on both counts.
Related article:
Deciding not to decide - twice
