22 - 28 March 2001
Issue No.526
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 22 - 28 March 2001 Issue No.526 |
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Sharon and Bush: how similar?
Mohamed Sid-Ahmed believes Sharon and Bush have similar approaches to Middle East problems. How far does the similarity go?
Confounding expectations to the contrary, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon did not ask his foreign minister, Shimon Peres, to accompany him on his first trip to the United States to meet with new US President George W Bush. The significance of the omission lies in the fact that the two men are representatives of two obviously different approaches towards the peace process in the coalition making up Israel's national unity government, and as such should both have been included in the visit.
The very fact that Sharon did not take Peres with him to Washington suggests that the coalition government is already facing problems. True, there are precedents of Israeli prime ministers not taking their foreign ministers with them to the United States, but in this case the exclusion of Peres runs counter to the agreement reached between the two leaders and which constitutes the basis of the national unity government. It would appear that Peres was included in the government in the sole aim of neutralising his role and limiting his freedom of manoeuvre, with no regard to his status as second in rank in the cabinet.
Sharon took advantage of his solo visit to Washington to exhort Bush to support his policies, even if they are not necessarily those of all the members of his coalition, and to back whatever action he decides to take -- again not necessarily with the approval of his entire cabinet -- in the event of an escalation of violence in the region. The first Middle East leader to receive an invitation from President Bush, Sharon met the new American administration before it had fully formulated its policy on the Middle East. Like Sharon, Bush is primarily interested in regional stability. He is not concerned with such abstract notions as "comprehensive peace," "human rights" or "Palestinian independence," as was the case with previous US presidents.
In fact, the new American and Israeli leaders have a lot in common. Both believe in a "unipolar order," the former on the global level, the latter on the regional level; both also believe this does not mean the arena is devoid of adversary forces. But both see those forces as lying outside the boundaries of international legality and hence as legitimate quarries to be hunted down and liquidated without hesitation on the grounds that they are part of "international terrorism." This accusation is levelled by Bush against Saddam Hussein and by Sharon against Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon -- with the distinct possibility that in Sharon's case it might soon extend to include Arafat himself.
In his condemnation of Iraq, Bush proceeds from a premise that has become a cornerstone of American strategic thinking since the end of the Cold War. According to this premise, there are a number of "rogue" states in the world today that are capable of resorting to nuclear terror in order to blackmail the "free world." Ensuring the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction requires standing up to countries like Iraq, Iran, North Korea, etc, whose mischief-making potential has greatly increased since the disappearance of the Soviet Union, which had a moderating effect on these states. Hence the need for a technological breakthrough represented in the invention of high-precision missiles capable of destroying invading missiles with nuclear warheads before they reach their target. Such missiles should not be short-range only, but also intermediary- and long-range.
Clinton hesitated over the decision to produce such anti-ballistic missiles, finally opting to leave the decision to his successor, the main reasons being the exorbitant price of the enterprise (hundreds of billions of dollars), the questionable efficacy of the project and its certain effect in reactivating the arms race. Nevertheless, Bush has been quick to endorse the project and make it the backbone of his global strategic outlook.
The US thus guarantees for itself unprecedented technological and military hegemony, a greater grip over the unipolar world orders and the reallocation of American surpluses to serve the military-industrial complex, along the lines of Ronald Reagan's "star wars." An extra factor inducing Bush to follow that line is that the present drop in the stock markets is threatening the US with a major recession.
As to Sharon's national unity government, it represents a spectrum that extends from the Israeli right to the Israeli left and which underscores that, for the whole spectrum two options are impossible: first, the absorption of the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza into Israel proper, because that would threaten the Jewish character of the Jewish state, if only because of the high rate of population growth among the Palestinians; second, the subjugation of the Palestinians indefinitely to a system of apartheid in the aim of immunising Israel against Palestinian rebellions now taking the form of chronic Intifadas.
This situation has encouraged a majority of Israelis to turn to the teaching of revisionist Zionist leader Jabotinsky who, since the 1920s, advocated that Zionists should "generate such despair among the Palestinians that they will sue for surrender," and that "Zionism should endeavour to bring about a Jewish state in the whole land of Israel, regardless of the Arab response." The Palestinians "will agree to limited civil and national rights only after their resistance is broken." Historian Avi Shlaim (one of Israel's notable "new historians") contends that this outlook has become central to Israel's approach to the Palestinians. He quotes Ben-Gurion as admitting: "It is not in order to establish peace in the country that we need an agreement... [P]eace for us is a means. The end is the complete and full realisation of Zionism. Only for that do we need an agreement."
That is why neither the one-state option (a Jewish state that also includes the Palestinians) nor the two-state option (i.e., creating a separate Palestinian state deprived of the means to challenge Israel) is acceptable to a majority of Israelis as a solution for the Palestinian problem. Instead, they chose to turn to Sharon, known for his bloody past, to solve Israel's dilemma, simply by resorting to naked force. That is the lesson Israel drew from the failure of the peace talks in Camp David, especially after this failure led to the Intifada. In his talks with Bush, Sharon concentrated on trying to convince the American president to support Israel unconditionally as it liquidates the Intifada by all means available, including brute force.
It would appear from the way the Palestinian refugees are now being treated that Sharon was successful in his attempt. For the first time in the last half century, UNRWA seems to be facing the danger of liquidation. Commissioner-General Peter Hansen is calling on the international community to come forward as soon as possible with the sum of $37 million for immediate aid to the Palestinians. It is the Western countries that furnish most of the money donated to UNRWA. Hansen recently admitted that the results of his quest have not been "encouraging." We are not in a time of charity, but of hard bargaining, using economic strangulation and hunger as a means of compelling the Palestinians to yield.
The problem of the Palestinian refugees is at the heart of the Middle East crisis. Clinton built his "ideas" to solve the Palestinian problem on the false assumption that the Palestinians could be ready to waive their right to return to what is now Israel. These ideas have been repudiated by the new American administration and are no longer a frame of reference. If they do have a lasting effect, it is to show that the refugee issue is of crucial importance and cannot be swept under the carpet as Clinton tried to do through negotiations and Sharon is now trying to do through the use of force.
Has Sharon convinced Bush that Arafat is not different from Saddam and that both should be dealt with as rogue leaders of terrorist entities? Should we expect that Bush, in his coming meetings with the Arab leaders, will try to convince them to put an end to the Intifada and force Arafat to extend his hand to Sharon so that Israel and the Arab states can cooperate together to bring down the Iraqi regime? That is the master-plan which the coming Arab summit will be required to contend with. The question is whether it will be up to the challenge.
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