1 - 7 March 2001
Issue No.523
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 1 - 7 March 2001 Issue No.523 |
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Moussa's new task
Most people reacted with dismay to the news that Amr Moussa would no longer be serving as Egypt's foreign minister, thus closing a distinguished chapter in the annals of Egyptian diplomacy. But the post that awaits him as secretary-general of the Arab League can be just as important, especially in the present circumstances and before the convocation this month of the first Arab summit to be held after the resolution taken at the last summit to convene regular summits once a year in order to ensure the follow-up and proper implementation of summit resolutions.
The Arab League faces a formidable challenge at this critical juncture. The peace process is in shambles following the failure of the Camp David summit between Clinton, Barak and Arafat to reach an overall agreement on the Palestinian problem, leaving the region caught in a dangerous vacuum.
The collapse of the peace process has set into motion new dynamics that are likely to have deep ramifications for the future of the region. For a start, it has brought to an end the tripartite formula of the negotiations, with each of the parties now going it alone. The failure of the three-sided talks to achieve results provoked different reactions in each of the parties: the Palestinian arena has witnessed the uprising of the Intifada; the Israelis elected Sharon with a crushing majority; and the Bush administration distanced itself from the Middle East peace talks and decided to use Iraq, not the Arab-Israeli dispute, as its gateway to the region.
Colin Powell paid his first visit as US secretary of state to the Middle East this week. Despite the friendly relations he enjoys with most of the leaders he met, negotiations were far from smooth and did not achieve results satisfactory to any of the concerned parties. The visit was preceded by the resumption of violent air strikes against Iraq, a move that was widely interpreted in the Arab world as a diversionary tactic aimed at distracting attention from the more immediate danger posed to regional stability by Ariel Sharon. Not only did most of the strikes fail to reach their objectives, they also deepened the differences between the erstwhile Gulf coalition partners over how best to deal with the Iraqi problem. Even America's closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, could not support Bush's stand without reservation.
Bush has simply swept aside all the efforts furnished to achieve a Middle East settlement throughout the eight years of the Clinton administration, wiping the slate clean and beginning from the point at which his father left off. As far as the Middle East is concerned, the Clinton years might never have been, and the frames of reference established during those years are no longer valid. Colin Powell's visit has only served to highlight the sharp differences of opinion between the Arab side and the American side over the problems of the region.
As the Arabs see it, the main problem is Sharon; for the Bush administration, it is Saddam. To focus attention on Saddam Hussein is to direct a blow at the cohesion of the Damascus Declaration countries, which include the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, plus Egypt and Syria. For the latter two, as well as for Jordan, it is Sharon who represents the main threat. On the other hand, some of the GCC states might be tempted to go along with the Bush administration's decision to tighten the screws on Iraq, in the hope that this will rid them once and for all of the territorial ambitions of their powerful neighbour. In fact, we can expect to see greater polarisation in the region: on the one hand, Israel is trying to build a government of national unity, while the new US administration's intervention in the Middle East seems to be aimed at defeating Arab attempts to promote pan-Arab unity, a goal Amr Moussa is now called upon to achieve. For the peace process to move forward, the ability of the Arabs to cooperate must outstrip Israel's ability to create a government of national unity that will allow Sharon to impose his definition of peace on the region.
That is the difficult equation facing the Arab League and its new secretary general: how to foster Arab solidarity at a time the potential for inter-Arab discord is on the rise? If they are to effectively resist attempts to undermine their solidarity, the Arab parties must present a united front when it comes to defining the features of the peace they envisage for the region. It is no longer enough for the Arabs to declare that they are committed to peace as a strategic objective; the time has come for them to translate their commitment into concrete proposals concerning the terms of a just and durable peace. They can invoke the precedent set by Clinton when, going beyond the role of sponsor, mediator, or facilitator of the peace process, he came forward with his own ideas for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. We are not concerned here with the merits of the terms of peace he proposed, only with the idea that coming up with proposals need no longer be confined to the negotiating parties. In this logic, the forthcoming Arab summit could try to put together a collection of ideas incorporating a unified Arab vision of peace, naturally after consultations with the Palestinian Authority, based on the provisions of international legality, so that Sharon's opposition to those ideas would expose him as acting outside the rule of law.
Previous rounds of negotiations were described as having failed despite the fact that they succeeded in finding solutions to 90 per cent of the disputed issues because the parties had agreed in advance that no partial agreement would be valid unless an overall agreement is reached. Thus the net overall result so far still remain 0 per cent. The question now is whether we can move from a 90 per cent agreement to a 100 per cent agreement without having to go back to 0 per cent. Much will depend on the ability of the Arabs to use their coming summit as a launching pad for a pan-Arab project for peace. A far from easy undertaking, it is nevertheless one that someone with the status and credentials of Amr Moussa can bring off once his new mandate as secretary-general of the Arab League is confirmed.
For such an Arab initiative to succeed, however, it will have to be met by an Israeli counterpole, an alternative interlocutor to the Sharon-led government that promises to be impervious to minimal Palestinian demands for a just and durable peace. Even if Sharon manages to form a national unity government, Israel's internal cohesion will remain shaky. The Labour Party is divided on itself, with a majority in favour of joining a Sharon-led coalition and the rest opposed to Sharon's understanding of peace, which they reject as not being a "historical compromise," but rather a simple diktat that is bound to perpetuate instability and lack of security.
The most prominent figure in the latter camp is outgoing foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, who has refused Sharon's offer of a ministerial post and announced his intention to create a "popular alternative" to the national unity government in the form of a new socialist democratic party to be called the Peace and Welfare Party, which he believes should take the place of the Labour Party. "I intend to create a common camp of people who believe that there is a need to create an alternative." Why should the Palestinians, basing themselves on the Oslo precedent, not support this idea of alternative talks? It should be remembered that the Israeli team which negotiated in Taba just before the Israeli elections on 6 February, and which included Ben-Ami and Beilin from Labour and Sarid from Meretz, succeeded (according to the Israeli negotiators themselves) in achieving progress and scoring results. What if similar, unofficial, talks were pursued with a similar team of Israeli negotiators -- this time obviously without Barak? Such an endeavour could demonstrate that the inability to reach peace is not related to peace itself, but to the nature of a specific type of Israeli leadership opposed to the very idea of peace.
Peres has succeeded in convincing Sharon to take him on as foreign minister, justifying his move to critics by claiming that this will enable him to exert a moderating influence on the new coalition government. To be consistent, Peres must support any alternative talks when official negotiations prove unable to move forward.
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