21 - 27 June 2001
Issue No.539
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 June 2001 Issue No.539 |
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Back on track?
Mohamed Sid-Ahmed argues that resuming talks with Israel is no guarantee that negotiations will be more successful this time
The resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority should not be seen as an end in itself. After all, many attempts have been made over the last few months to reopen channels of communication between the two sides but all proved to be false starts. The real challenge is to set a mechanism in place to ensure that once the negotiation process is resumed it can be sustained. The interruption of the process this time around is different from previous interruptions, when talks were said to be stalled or deadlocked. The present hiatus cannot be explained away as just another snag that will eventually be ironed out. It is symptomatic of the complete collapse of the process, a collapse that has engendered on the one side the Palestinian Intifada, now in its ninth month, and, on the other, the ascension to power of Sharon, standard-bearer of Israel's extreme right. In this context, there is no guarantee that negotiations can be sustained unless a serious effort is made to identify the reasons for their repeated failure and to restructure the peace process in such a way as to avoid similar setbacks in future.
While both parties' acceptance of the Mitchell report as the blueprint for a cease-fire and an eventual return to the negotiating table represents an important step forward, it is not sufficient in and of itself to ensure continuity. The whole process will remain vulnerable and liable to break down at any moment as long as only the procedural aspects and not issues of substance have been addressed. Still, there was a palpable sense of relief that the worst might be over. And, to avoid duplication and prevent Israel from using the Egyptian-Jordanian initiative as pretext for undermining the resumption of talks, Cairo and Amman gave their support to the Mitchell report.
Then came CIA director George Tenet's effort to translate the Mitchell report into a work plan. Full details of the plan have not been made public, but according to media reports, Israel has agreed to lift the blockade that has caused great hardship to the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza and to redeploy its forces to the positions they held prior to the outbreak of the Intifada on 28 September, that is, to end its reoccupation of Palestinian-controlled territory, while Arafat has agreed to implement the cease-fire immediately and collect illegal weapons. However, the Palestinian leadership has made it clear that the security agreement must be part of a package and not separate from a political accord. In other words, maintaining the cease-fire will depend on political measures such as halting the construction of new settlements and the expansion of already existing ones.
In a direct appeal to the Israeli public, Palestinian Minister of Culture and Information Yasser Abed Rabbo said that "we either both win or both lose: the old formula of a winner and a loser is over." He explained that the solution to the current crisis cannot be achieved by one side winning victory over the other: either both sides emerge as winners or both sides continue to lose in a mutual cycle of violence. "While the Palestinian side understands and accepts the Israeli interest in ending the violence, the Israeli side must also understand the Palestinian interest in ending Israeli violence, foremost within which is the ongoing expansion of settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. As explicitly stated in the Mitchell report recommendations, this is the only way to enable the sides to resume political negotiations leading to permanent peace."
But for both sides to emerge as winners, as Mr Abed Rabbo propose, certain minimum requirements must be met. No conflict situation can be expected to spontaneously end up benefiting both warring parties -- all the more so when the balance of power is clearly tilted in favour of one of the parties which, from its favourable position, is tempted to prolong the violence, if only in the aim of revenge. A win/win outcome is the exception rather than the rule. Herein lies the difficulty of passing from a state of violence to a state of tranquillity.
Then there is the question of how to measure benefit for any specific party. If we define a desired settlement as one that will benefit all the conflicting parties, not one at the expense of the others, how to measure what constitutes benefit, bearing in mind that the protagonists have different views on where their benefit lies?
In the absence of a common yardstick, it is necessary to devise a yardstick that is not informed by the subjective will of the parties. I believe this should be the degree of intensity of conflict within the ranks of each protagonist at any given moment. A party within the ranks of which conflict is intense will be weakened by the mutual neutralisation of its various component forces and their resultant will be less than their sum total. Conversely, a party that is able to control and, eventually, even eliminate, internal conflict, will have a resultant equal to if not exceeding the sum total of its component forces.
Scoring points in this bitter and protracted conflict has often depended on the ability of either party to displace the most acute contradictions into the ranks of the other. Israel wins when it succeeds in transferring the most acute contradictions into Arab ranks and vice versa. For instance, the Arab side was the winner in the immediate aftermath of the crossing of the Suez Canal in October 1973, because at that specific moment disarray in Israeli ranks attained unprecedented proportions.
It would thus appear that the resumption of negotiations on the Palestinian-Israeli track that will lead to the restoration of usurped Arab rights will depend not only on implementing the Mitchell report or Tenet's security work plan, but also on the ability of the Arab parties to shield themselves against Israel's attempts to displace the most acute contradictions into their ranks.
When negotiations failed in Camp David between Clinton, Arafat and Barak, and it became apparent to the Israelis that the peace process was witnessing a critical setback, they closed ranks behind Sharon, and the Israeli peace movement practically evaporated. Sharon's slogan that Israel's security should take precedence over the peace process with the Arabs has been accepted by a wide majority of Israelis, whether of the right or the left. Sharon made it clear that he would not hesitate to sacrifice peace if it stood in the way of Israel's security; more precisely, of his reading of what Israel's security entailed.
Controversy over Sharon in Israeli society has practically disappeared. Contrary to crimes against humanity committed by other leaders, those committed by Sharon, particularly in Sabra and Shatila, have been conveniently forgotten. Outraged Western calls to try leaders or former leaders for crimes against humanity fall silent when it comes to Sharon. Indeed, some Western commentators have described his behaviour as wise and "responsible"! When others dare to project a more balanced picture, as the BBC recently tried to do when it broadcast a programme investigating the possibility of putting Sharon on trial as a war criminal, they are accused of anti-Semitism.
But where do the Arab parties stand vis-à-vis these developments? Has there been any degree of Arab consensus comparable to the Israeli consensus over Sharon? Have all the Arabs rallied around the Intifada, or do some see it as a nuisance impeding the Arab world from catching up with the processes underway in the name of globalisation?
There is no doubt that Amr Moussa will do everything possible to activate the Arab League and capitalise on the Arab summit decision to hold annual summit meetings as a way of breathing new life into the organisation and removing many of the reasons for friction and discord between Arab states. But Israel has succeeded to deal with each Arab state separately. The time has come to overcome the consequences of such an approach, and to oblige Israel to deal with the Arab parties collectively when it comes to issues of a strategic nature.
Acting separately does not go back only to the Camp David agreements, but is deeply embedded in Arab political conduct. Much in future will depend on the ability of the Arab parties to overcome this drawback.
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