Al-Ahram Weekly | Opinion | Half-hearted and too late

		Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 14 - 20 December 2000 Issue No.512
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Current issue \| Previous issue \| Site map

Half-hearted and too late

By Salama Ahmed Salama

Since the breakdown of the peace process and the eruption of the Intifada, the Middle East has been effectively devoid of political and diplomatic activity. And while the EU readies itself for a new role in the Middle East, aiming to fill that gap, Israel has surprised the world with a brand-new game, with Barak announcing his resignation in preparation for elections to be held within 60 days.
It is hardly expected that Barak's sudden move will resolve the crisis in Israel, however. Indeed, it may generate complications like those the American presidency has been undergoing. Barak's goal is to push Netanyahu out of the race on the basis of an agreement with Sharon. Yet it is equally clear that Netanyahu will not give in to the Barak-Sharon conspiracy, and will resort to a different route, gaining control of the Likud Party and adjusting the laws governing the election of the Israeli prime minister.
A recent visit to Cairo by the EU's Middle East envoy seems to have taken place in response to Arab criticism of Europe's vague, generally disinterested position on Israel's aggressions against the Palestinian people. The EU could be reconsidering its position, encouraged no less by the paralysis that has beset the American body politic than by the desire to build a new Europe on the basis of more extensive European negotiations.
Yet the European states have neither ideas nor initiatives concerning the resolution of the Middle East crisis. And when the French foreign affairs minister arrives in Cairo, he will no doubt follow his predecessors' example; he will neither affirm the need to end the violence in the Palestinian territories, nor hold Israel responsible for its continued aggressions against the Palestinian people. Until the effectively US-driven committee charged with ascertaining the reasons for the violence begins its activities, and international troops are sent in to protect the Palestinian people, there will be no grounds upon which a new beginning might be built.
A new beginning, however, is what the Europeans seek, since they realise that the bases upon which the peace process was constructed can yield only negative results: expansion of settlements, complication of the issues of Jerusalem, refugees and international borders, and more violence. They know, too, that the US's monopoly on the process is among the principal reasons for its collapse, given that the US is absolutely biased towards Israel.
The European states are increasingly concerned with broadening peace efforts to include Russia and the EU, drawing up a time frame within which all the crises must be resolved, and thinking about the Madrid II Conference, where such endeavours can be conceptualised.
This new orientation will depend on the efforts of the Arab parties. The US and Israel's rejection of any "interference" beyond economic support, as well as the Arabs' failure to insist on European inclusion, have served to justify Europe's failure to play an effective role; yet it is to Europe that the Arabs rush when they come up against Israeli-American obstinacy.
European interest in the current Middle East crisis comes very late, and there is no reason to believe that such interest is not merely a way of standing in for the US until the presidential crisis is resolved. It is very possible that it will fade away in light of the new Israeli complications.

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