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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 23 - 29 November 2000 Issue No.509
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters After the summits -- dotting the 'i's
By Hassan Nafaa *
The tensions related to the Middle East conflict have so escalated over the past four or five months as to bring the entire region to a qualitatively different phase. At the heart of the turmoil, the status of Jerusalem has emerged to the forefront, and it was, therefore, not surprising that this question becomes the primary focus of the various summit conferences held during the period, these being Camp David II held last July, the Sharm Al-Sheikh summit held a few days before the emergency Arab Summit in Cairo on 21 and 22 October, and the Islamic summit held in Doha on 12 and 13 November.
Linking all of these summits was an involuntary bond in which the Palestinian Intifada formed the common denominator. Camp David II created the Intifada by having primed the already volatile tensions for the conflagration that erupted in Jerusalem and blazed throughout the occupied territories and the Arab and Islamic worlds. The Intifada in effect was the manifestation of the Palestinians' outrage against the results of Camp David II, a reaction that reverberated across Arab public opinion and compelled Arab leaders to hold the emergency summit. In order to stop the Intifada and preempt the results of the emergency Arab summit, the US hastened to call for another summit in Sharm Al-Sheikh, while the Intifada was also responsible for turning what was to be an ordinary summit of the Islamic Conference Organisation (ICO) on "Peace and Development" into a quasi-emergency session.
In order to determine how the Intifada has affected the course of the Arab-Israeli struggle we must examine the true significance of the results of the various summits above. The US, for example, did not have to convene Camp David II at that particular time. However, the impasse into which the peace process had descended and Clinton's urgency in concluding his term in the White House with a historic feat that would efface the scandal that had tainted his incumbency were among the many factors that prompted the US to hasten the holding of that summit, which, regardless of one's opinion on the circumstances and motives that gave rise to it, had far reaching consequences. Perhaps the most important consequence of Camp David II was that it hastened the realisation of Israel's true positions towards the pending final status issues on the Palestinian-Israeli negotiating track.
When Arafat went to Camp David there was little doubt that he was prepared to show the greatest possible flexibility, particularly with regard to the questions of the Jewish settlements, Palestinian refugees and water, and to make whatever concessions necessary in order to salvage the peace process, on the condition that his concessions did not ultimately impede the establishment of an independent or quasi-independent Palestinian state in the future. However, Barak's insistence on Israel's sovereignty over the Islamic holy places in Jerusalem, and his adamancy that what he offered was a package deal that Arafat could either take or leave, left Arafat with no choice but to turn the deal down. The jubilation with which the Palestinian people greeted Arafat's refusal to bow to the Israeli and US dictates was highly significant.
The silent majority of the Palestinians had never imagined that Israel's arrogance and contempt for their rights and their holy places could reach such heights. Perhaps the Palestinians had wished to believe, until the last moment, that the demands of some Jewish extremists to reconstruct Solomon's Temple on the ruins of the Al-Aqsa Mosque was not the official Israeli view. In all events, Barak's positions in Camp David put paid to all such illusions. No longer could there be a shadow of a doubt that Israeli policy still subscribes to Ben Gurion's famous pronouncement, "Israel has no meaning without Jerusalem and Jerusalem has no meaning without the Temple Mount." The realisation of this fact has had profound repercussions, the most important of which was that it set the stage for the eruption of the Palestinian Intifada, which needed only a spark to ignite it. Ariel Sharon's visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque was that spark.
If the Intifada were no more than an outpouring of furore against that provocative visit, Barak, had he possessed a modicum of wisdom, could have contained it quickly. However, the viciousness of the official Israeli response to the legitimate Palestinian anger only furnished further proof that Barak was determined to impose his conception for a solution to the conflict by force upon the Palestinian people, even to the point of perpetrating the most horrendous violations of human rights, atrocities that fit squarely into the definitions of war crimes under international law.
The image of stone-throwing children up against the unrestrained brutality of Israeli heavy artillery inflamed the Palestinian people within the confines of the green line and beyond, and aroused the compassion of all Arab and Islamic peoples. The naked reality of Israel's recourse to excessive force exposed, once again, the true nature of the Zionist enterprise, which had sought to brighten its image behind the mask of a fraudulent peace process, while simultaneously exposing the weakness of Arab and Islamic regimes. The overwhelming anger that pervaded public opinion in the region, as mentioned above, compelled Arab governments to hold an emergency summit and forced the ninth convention of the ICO to place Jerusalem and Palestinian demands at the top of its agenda.
In order to keep Arab and Islamic governments from falling prey to popular demands to adopt a bolder stance against Israeli belligerence, the US attempted to preempt the Arab and Islamic summits with the summit at Sharm Al-Sheikh. As this summit offered no guarantees to protect the rights of the Palestinians once they stopped the Intifada it was destined to fail, and, therefore, could not forestall the Arab and Islamic summits, though it did succeed in causing a certain confusion in Arab ranks.
When the emergency Arab summit met in Cairo, it was patently evident that the Arab governments were fearful of losing their grip on the direction of events in the face of the tide of popular opinion and the collapsing peace process. And, to aggravate the enormous strains Arab leaders were under the US sought to convey the impression that Sharm Al-Sheikh had produced an agreement over a "ceasefire," even though whatever agreement was reached lacked the necessary provisions for its actual implementation.
The failure of the Sharm Al-Sheikh summit should have rendered the participants at the Cairo summit doubly committed to as strong as possible a stance against the massacre of the Palestinian people and the continued Israeli occupation. However, the nature of the relationship between many Arab regimes and the US prevented the summit from rising to the challenge. Popular opinion in the Arab world had hoped that the Arab summit would convey three powerful courses of action: moral and material support for the Palestinian people in order to help them sustain their resistance, measures to prevent the escalation of Israeli belligerence and a stance that would compel the US to relent from its absolute pro-Israeli bias. The messages delivered by the summit fell far short of the Arab people's aspirations.
Still, it would be premature to assert that the emergency summit failed. After all, it instituted two funds, totaling a billion dollars, the first to support the Intifada and the second to protect Jerusalem. The participants also pledged to pursue all possible diplomatic avenues towards establishing an international tribune to prosecute Israeli war criminals and to break diplomatic relations with any country that moves its embassy to Jerusalem. In addition, most Arab countries have severed their relations with Israel, while simultaneously Egypt and Jordan, which are contractually bound to Israel through peace treaties, will consider initiating a gradual freeze of normalisation with Israel, perhaps beginning with a recall of their ambassadors for consultation and escalating to the point of breaking off relations, although the two countries have reserved for themselves the right to determine the appropriate means and timing for instituting such measures.
Ultimately, however, the test of the success or failure of that summit does not lie in the wording of its resolutions, but in the resolve of Arab nations in implementing them. Only then we can judge whether Arab countries are capable of supporting the Intifada and contending with developments in the region, particularly in view of the prospect of heightened tensions should Israel seek to reoccupy portions of Palestinian territory and/or wage a limited -- or even full scale -- war on Syria and Lebanon.
Many expected the ICO summit to go further than the Arab summit, considering that saving Jerusalem was the prime motivation behind the creation of this forum. Yet, over the past thirty years the ICO has looked on mutely as Israel pursued the Judaisation of Jerusalem and relentlessly altered the physical and cultural character of the city. In addition, the ICO was created not so much as a tool for Islamic revivalism, but to counter the tide of Arab nationalism. As a result, it was not surprising that the Islamic Summit was incapable of so much as resolving to supplement the funds instituted by the Arab summit and persuading members such as Turkey and Indonesia to even minimally reduce the level of their relations with Israel.
On the other hand, that the Intifada was able to impose itself on the agenda of what was supposed to be an ordinary summit indicates that the ICO, too, can furnish an important dimension of depth to the Arab struggle, provided, of course that the Arabs themselves demonstrate a minimum level of solidarity to serve as a basis.
From the preceding survey of the network of events and motives that engendered several successive summit conferences it is possible to conclude, firstly, that the Al-Aqsa Intifada, a natural and appropriate response to attempts to dictate Israeli conditions, has become the prime factor capable of redressing the imbalances in the current peace process. That Israel will do everything in its power to suppress the Intifada, including recourse to the most brutal exercise of violence, blockades and starvation, is now abundantly obvious, as is, too, the fact that it is thoroughly prepared to propel the region towards the brink of disaster, risking everything it had gained so far, confident that it has the unmitigated and unconditional support of the US.
Simultaneously, the Arab governments will come under immense pressure to take action to end the Intifada. The leaders of the uprising must prepare themselves to confront, not only the pressures from the US and Israel, but also from "brotherly" Arab countries under such pretexts as the need to subordinate the Intifada to diplomatic exigencies in order to avert yet another of the many lost opportunities to reach a political solution to the crisis, even if, to date, no other alternatives for a "political solution" have been forwarded on the Palestinian track apart from the Israeli dictates.
On the other hand, as the urgent scramble to hold an emergency Arab summit suggests, Arab public opinion has demonstrated the potential to remain a powerful and lasting stay in the struggle of the Palestinian people. However, as public opinion in the Arab world is still restricted by a number of factors over which Arab regimes retain control, perpetuating the Intifada through all possible means is the only way to sustain the strength of that secret cord that binds the Palestinian people with the vaster Arab street.
Finally, the unity of all factions of the Palestinians around a strategy for resistance is an indispensable condition for the perpetuation of the Intifada and, consequently, for sustaining the popular pressure on Arab and Islamic governments to support it until it achieves its objectives. The Palestinian people have been fated to sacrifice their blood on behalf of the Arab and Islamic peoples at this crucial phase in the struggle for liberation from one of the most brutal, racist and arrogant powers history has ever seen. Perhaps the sacrifices the Palestinians are being called to make at this juncture are greater than they can sustain, particularly in view of the critical vulnerability of the Arab and Islamic worlds. Unfortunately, however, these sacrifices have become the only remaining hope, not only for the Palestinian people to regain their legitimate rights, but also for freeing Arab and Islamic will from the many bonds that fetter it.
* The writer is chairman of the department of political science, Cairo University.
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