21 - 27 December 2000
Issue No.513
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 21 - 27 December 2000 Issue No.513 |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Clutching at stones
Apart from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, no one expects the talks being held in Washington will result in a credible agreement. Barak seems eager to strike any deal at all before the elections (although it was his decision that precipitated these elections and determined their timing). His popularity has declined precipitously. He promised to bring peace, but has only dragged the region to the brink of war and fostered tension unprecedented since 1991.
Those Palestinians who have survived the war crimes committed by the Israeli army since the Intifada of Al-Aqsa began are also entitled to wonder how the man who has been ordering the killing of their children now dares to pose as a peacemaker.
Lowering further any expectations that a peace deal is possible, Israeli newspapers published a "draft agreement" clearly leaked by their government as a trial balloon. The only conclusion to be reached from this draft is that Barak still believes he can fool the Arabs by clothing old proposals in new words. The "compromise" now being offered consists of "maintaining the status quo in Jerusalem" and postponing any deal on the right of return of millions of Palestinian refugees for three to five years.
The status quo in Jerusalem is that of a city under occupation, where Muslims are frisked by Israeli police before they can enter Al-Aqsa, their third holiest shrine, and are constantly vulnerable to attacks by Israeli settlers. What compromise is possible here? As for refugees, deferring the matter, or forcibly settling them in Canada and Australia (as the Israeli papers suggested) cannot even be countenanced.
Given that the US administration has been negotiating on Israel's behalf all this time, only a miracle can bring any change in the four weeks remaining before President Clinton quits the White House. He and his team will have the dubious honour of going down in Arab memory as the most pro-Israeli administration of recent decades.
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