Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 19 - 25 October 2000 Issue No. 504
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

	Egypt Elections Palestine International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Travel Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters

Moving backwards

By Graham Usher

Two hours before President Clinton announced that Israel and the Palestinians had agreed to make an "unequivocal" call for an "end of violence" in the occupied territories, Jewish settlers shot dead a Palestinian and wounded three others while they were picking olives near Nablus. And as Clinton was boarding Airforce 1 for the flight home, an Israeli Border Police officer was wounded by Palestinian fire near the Gilo Jewish settlement in occupied East Jerusalem. And as Yasser Arafat landed in Gaza a demonstration led by his Fatah movement marched through Ramallah because "the summit in Sharm Al-Sheikh failed to address the real reasons for the Intifada -- which is the Israeli occupation," said Fatah West Bank leader Marwan Al-Barghouti.

Such were the immediate fruits of Clinton's desperate, last ditch attempt to haul the "peace process" back to "where things stood" on 28 September, before Likud leader Ariel Sharon decided to demonstrate "Jewish sovereignty" over the Islamic holy sites in occupied East Jerusalem. Few Israelis believe this is now possible. Even fewer Palestinians believe it is desirable. On the contrary, "the Intifada will continue until we achieve sovereignty and independence," said Al-Barghouti.

TRIGGER-HAPPY: Israeli soldiers prepare to fire at young Palestinians in the West Bank city of Ramallah. World leaders may scurry back and forth, convening summits and formulating resolutions so carefully worded as to render them meaningless; but the Intifada rages on, against impossible odds, as the brutal horror of Israeli occupation systematically continues to crush any hope for real peace (photo: Reuters)

Clinton said the two sides would "take immediate concrete measures to end the current confrontation" and had agreed to the setting up of a US-led "fact-finding committee" to look into recent events in the occupied territories and prevent their recurrence. He also announced that US diplomats would make intensive efforts over the "next two weeks" to resume negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians for a final status agreement based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and "subsequent understandings."

But -- as so often with US diplomacy in the Middle East -- Clinton's "binding statement" was long on wind but dangerously short on clarity. For the Palestinians ending the confrontation meant an "immediate lifting of the siege" on the Palestinian territories and the "halt of Israeli aggression against our people," said Palestinian negotiator Yasser Abed Rabbo.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said such moves would be predicated on "tight security measures" being established between the two sides, including such "common sense" actions as disarming the Fatah Tanzim organisation. "We will disarm the Tanzim when Barak disarms the settlers," was the reply of Mohamed Dahlan, head of the Palestinian Authority's Preventive Security Force in the Gaza Strip.

The same absolute ambiguity riddled the idea of a "fact-finding committee." The US will establish this "in consultation with the UN," said Clinton. However, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright later admitted that there is as yet no agreement on the committee's composition. The Palestinians had wanted an international commission of enquiry with UN, European and Arab representation. If this is to be left to "consultations with the parties" and the Israeli veto, the commission is going to be a US-run show or, more probably, no show at all.

But Palestinians' anger was not simply because the summit enabled "Israel to achieve its objectives" (in Ehud Barak's words) but precious few of theirs. It was also because the "successful" outcome can only deflate the importance of the Arab summit opening on Saturday in Cairo. True, the Arabs will still denounce "Israeli aggression", raise money for the Palestinian Authority and reassert that there can be no end of conflict with Israel without implementation of UN resolutions 242, 338 and 194.

But it is unlikely they will now do much else -- not while Albright is visiting, assuring them that Israeli-Palestinian negotiations can be resumed and Palestinian security chiefs are meeting with their Israeli and US peers to re-arrest Hamas activists for fear of "terror strikes" on Israel.

What is happening at the diplomatic level mirrors what is happening at the intra-Palestinian level over the significance and purpose of the Palestinian revolt. By endorsing Clinton's "binding statement" at Sharm Al-Sheikh, the Palestinian leadership is signalling that it is still committed to the terms and constraints of the Oslo process and the US diplomatic monopoly it involves. Arafat is signalling that he too wants a return to "where things stood" before Israeli tanks started to surround Palestinian cities and Apache helicopters started to strafe Palestinian areas, both military and residential.

But for the vast majority of Palestinians, including many within Fatah, a return to the status quo ante is less a solution for the present conflict than its cause. Their protests have not been driven by Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque or even by the 97 Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in its wake, even if these provided the spark and the fuel. Their revolt is against the apartheid realities embodied by "where things stood" on 28 September. The revolt was for releasing the Palestinian cause from the US and Israeli terms in which it has become shackled. They want that cause to return to where they feel it should belong: on the terrain of international legitimacy and at the heart of the Arab world.

---

Related stories:
Hurried half-measures
'Resistance will always unite us'
Point of no return
The real stakes 12 - 18 October 2000
'We will not be bullied' 12 - 18 October 2000
Summit call 5 - 11 October 2000
See also Intifada in focus 12 - 18 October 2000

	weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg