5 - 11 April 2001
Issue No.528
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 5 - 11 April 2001 Issue No.528 |
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In Amman last week, the Arabs set out to achieve reconcilliation, support the Palestinian Intifada and bolster the Arab League. Dina Ezzat, who was in the Jordanian capital for the summit, appraises the results
Arafat's bitter options
The summit resolutions on Palestine may not be enough to secure the sustainability of the Intifada
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat may soon find himself in the awkward position of seeking his people's approval for a suspension -- even if temporary -- of the Intifada. This may happen despite the support expressed for the uprising, its motives and objectives during the Arab summit in Amman last week.
Can the Intifada be sustained? (photo: AP)
In Amman, Arab leaders agreed to simplify the mechanism by which Palestinians access the financial aid promised them during last October's Cairo summit. Moreover, they promised to provide the Palestinians and the Intifada with other forms of support, including a re-introduction of the total Arab boycott on Israel.
"This is all very nice," commented a senior Palestinian official. "We have always heard our Arab brothers talk in support of the Intifada, but we have not seen many deeds in this direction." According to this official, the kind of political and financial support offered in Amman "will not provide sustainability for the Intifada".
As Nabil Shaath, Palestinian minister for planning and international cooperation put it, the $40 million per month in Arab aid that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is to receive for six months could help provide the basic, day-to-day needs of Palestinians, but not much beyond that.
Arab diplomats agree that this may well be true, but argue that the Palestinian leadership "never told the Arab summit that it wanted the Intifada to continue for many months to come." In the words of one Arab League source: "We all know very well that if given a chance to resume negotiations with the current Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon -- with all his anti-Arab background -- Arafat will go for it."
Arafat's actions in Amman illustrate this. While taking part in the summit, he was also coordinating with Cairo and Amman to convince Washington to agree to a joint Egyptian-Jordanian initiative discreetly launched in mid-March. Its objective is the suspension of Palestinian-Israeli confrontations in a bid to allow the parties to return to the negotiating table.
"The only reason that this initiative did not work is that neither the Americans nor the Israelis wanted to work on it," said one informed source. "Sharon insists that Arafat will have to stop the Intifada first, before negotiations are resumed. And when he was in Washington, Sharon got the new US administration's approval."
For their part, European governments have shown little enthusiasm for Arafat's idea. In a meeting with Arabs on the fringe of the Amman summit, top EU foreign policy envoy Javier Solana did not promise support for an initiative that was turned down by the US and Israel. In fact, the abstention of EU member states on the UN Security Council during last week's vote on sending international observers to protect Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories was a clear message to Palestinians and to Arabs in general that they should reduce their expectations from the Europeans.
Moreover, Arab diplomats who have recently visited key European capitals to lobby for support and protection of Palestinians have discovered that the EU is adopting the Israeli diagnosis of the current crisis in the occupied territories. "The message is said in different ways in different European capitals, but the general mood there is not for Arafat," commented one Arab diplomat upon his return from Europe. "It is rather the opposite. The Europeans believe that Arafat needs to call on his people to stop the Intifada before Sharon can resume negotiations with the Palestinians," he added.
This, then, is the advice that Arafat is getting from several Arab capitals, which argue that, in light of the escalation in Israeli aggression -- in which key Palestinian figures are being liquidated -- Arafat needs to worry about the safety of his people and his personal safety as well. They say that in six months, the Intifada has cost the Palestinians considerable misery and economic suffering and in return given them little international sympathy and repeated accusations. Therefore, they argue, Arafat should try to suspend the Intifada for four to six weeks to allow for six months of unbrokered, intensive Palestinian-Israeli negotiations on interim and final status issues.
"Then if Sharon does not come around and insists on his limited formula of a long-term non-belligerency agreement, the blame will be put on him and on the US, which has largely disengaged from the peace process," said one source.
Those close to Arafat say that he is in favour of the idea but is unsure whether or not he can actually push it through. "He knows that his people are suffering and that there is not much that he expects to help reduce this suffering," said one source. "But he also knows that if he comes to tell his people, who have buried hundreds of Palestinians during the past six months, that they need to stop the Intifada, he will lose whatever political popularity he may still enjoy and may even be killed."
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