23 - 29 August 2001
Issue No.548
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 23 - 29 August 2001 Issue No.548 |
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Window of opportunity
The time is ripe to help Israel serve its own best interests, writes Ibrahim Nafie
As the Middle East teeters on the brink of a cataclysm, international efforts have intensified to end the vicious cycle of violence between Palestinians and Israelis preparatory to implementing the recommendations of the Mitchell commission and resuming peace talks.
A major contribution to this end was the high-level delegation President Mubarak dispatched to Washington last week in order to drive home to US officials the precariousness of the regional situation. An immediate escalation of US involvement in peacemaking efforts and US support for a team of international monitors are vital, Cairo feels, to prevent the violence from spiraling out of control and harming the interests of all concerned parties, including the US's.
In view of the urgency of the situation, the Egyptian delegation put to US officials a package proposal of concrete measures for effecting the provisions of the Mitchell report as soon as possible. The proposal stresses that a cease-fire must be backed up by international monitors and that, once a reasonable level of calm is restored, the parties should begin implementing confidence-building measures. In addition, it calls upon Israel to lift its siege of the West Bank and Gaza, withdraw its forces from PA areas and halt all settlement construction, including that ostensibly designed to "accommodate natural growth." Following the implementation of these measures, the proposal calls for the immediate resumption of final-status negotiations. Further interim negotiations, Cairo argues, will only be a step backwards, "voices from the past," as presidential adviser Osama El-Baz put it.
A number of encouraging developments should lend impetus to such initiatives. In addition to growing international alarm over the situation in the region, the pernicious influence of anti-Palestinian Israeli propaganda is beginning to recede. Following Camp David II, Israel succeeded in convincing US public opinion in particular that the Palestinians were at fault for the failure of the negotiations and the subsequent deterioration. The Palestinians rejected Ehud Barak's "generous concessions," the Israeli line went, because they never really wanted peace and were unwilling to give up violence and terrorism. Recently, however, many impartial articles and studies appearing in prominent US periodicals have put paid to these fabrications. Perhaps the most credible account of what actually transpired in Camp David II can be found in a study published in the New York Review of Books. According to the authors -- a former Clinton aide who participated in Camp David, and a Palestinian scholar -- Barak never made a concrete proposal to the Palestinians, nor did he reveal his final positions even to the US. Rather, they write, his suggestions were vague, potentially retractable and, even then, far short of the minimum Palestinian demands. Of greater consequence in light of subsequent events was the "take it or leave it" approach with which Barak sought to bully Arafat into signing a prejudicial and humiliating agreement or else face the prospect of renewed violence. The threat was explicit and the results predictable; it is, therefore, Barak who should be held primarily accountable for the ensuing bloodshed.
The New York Times and Washington Post have also carried commentaries insisting that the Palestinians should not be held solely responsible for the failure of Camp David II. Such admissions imply a condemnation of the international silence that met the brutal Israeli crackdown on the Palestinians under both Barak and Sharon; for if Barak's heavy-handedness and intransigence at Camp David ultimately caused the collapse of negotiations there, and Sharon's provocative visit to Al-Aqsa Mosque delivered the death blow to the peace process, it is difficult at best to justify Israel's ferocious repression of the Intifada.
Signs of Sharon's plummeting popularity inside Israel offer further hope of a more objective approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. A recent opinion poll conducted by Ma'arev indicated that 53 per cent of Israelis are disappointed by Sharon's performance on security and 70 per cent feel he will not succeed in bringing an end to "Palestinian violence." In other words, for the first time since Sharon came to power five months ago, the majority of the Israeli people feel that he has failed to deliver on his electoral promises and that he is now only buying time. The Ma'arev poll, moreover, coincides with a number of analyses in the Israeli press arguing that Sharon has no concrete plan to resolve the security dilemma Israel has experienced since the Intifada began and indeed, more significantly, that there can be no military solution to the Intifada.
The changing climate of opinion is undoubtedly encouraging. But will the Israeli government itself heed the lessons of almost a year of escalating violence? Unfortunately, the Sharon government still appears to imagine it can crush the Intifada through further assassinations, economic blockades, arbitrary detentions and bombardments of Palestinian towns and villages. This is a government whose only nod to flexibility is to suggest "complete separation" between Palestinians and Israelis. It is also a government beleaguered by conflicting pressures from its ultra-right members, clamouring for even more brutal violence against the Palestinians, and its less extremist members, who urge the resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians, if only to reach a cease-fire.
The Sharon government, thus, still appears unready and unwilling to effect a cease-fire capable of lasting, undertake the necessary confidence-building measures with the PA and enter final-status negotiations. Even if this government proves capable of concluding a cease-fire, Sharon's policies offer little hope for a feasible settlement. Any Palestinian state he might consider would be established on no more than 42 per cent of the occupied territories, and he continues to reject the possibility of negotiating over the return of Palestinian refugees or the status of Jerusalem. Although he has spoken of "painful concessions," leading some observers to believe he would suggest more realistic solutions at the appropriate time, the only "concession" he was willing to pledge was to refrain from reoccupying PA territory. He has failed to abide even by this.
The Arabs must therefore intensify their support for the Palestinian position, particularly given increasing awareness of the disaster Sharon has wrought. Growing objectivity in the Western media and inside Israel offers an important window of opportunity. If the Arabs can capitalise on this, they should be able to help Israel do what is best for its own peace and security -- first, by granting the Palestinian people their legitimate rights.
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