8 - 14 November 2001
Issue No.559
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 8 - 14 November 2001 Issue No.559 |
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Fogging the issues
A less belligerent tone to Israel's rhetoric is intended as a palliative for Washington, and no more, writes Ibrahim Nafie
The meeting between Arafat and Peres on the fringes of the Euro-Med Formentor Symposium last week reveals just how far apart the Palestinian and Israel positions are at present. Peres took pains to ensure that the get-together was little more than a formality, stressing that he would meet with Arafat but not negotiate with him.
The distance between the two sides was apparent in their speeches to the forum. Arafat was precise, realistic and constructive, focussing on the causes of spiraling tensions. The Israeli occupation must end, he said, and an independent Palestinian state be created with Jerusalem as its capital. He declared that the PA was ready to enter into serious negotiations immediately, but stressed that Israel must withdraw its forces from PA controlled areas, lift the 14-month old blockade and halt an assassination policy that is jeopardising regional stability.
Peres' speech, by contrast, was vague and deceptive. He said that the Israelis want to live as friends and neighbours alongside the Palestinians, but they do not want to commit suicide. The obstacle to peace is the problem of security. If the Palestinians cannot ensure security, then the Israelis, however unwillingly, must do so. Peres went on to say that the Palestinians were responsible for the current deadlock, but that if the PA clamped down on illegal arms then Israel would be able to reach a solution with the Palestinians. He added that Sharon was prepared to make painful concessions, and that the problem was not land, but security.
Peres also announced in Majorca that Israel should dismantle some settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. In Peres' opinion many of these settlements have no practical future in view of their vulnerability to Palestinian gunfire. Contrary to Sharon, who holds that "every settlement is important," Peres argued that the current settlement configuration hampers peace with the Palestinians.
Peres differed with Sharon on other crucial issues. While Sharon has declared that he will not resume negotiations before a cease-fire has taken hold, Peres announced that, if prime minister, he would negotiate with the Palestinians under a rain of bullets in order to improve the situation.
Peres' statements may appear to reflect discord within the Israeli government. Yet they also smack of stage management, a deliberate policy of sending out mixed messages to further cloud a cloudy situation. Whatever, the substance of Peres's comments remains founded on the misleading premise that the Palestinians are at fault in the current crisis, which in itself indicates that the Israeli government, and large sectors of the public, are still unable to see the roots of the cycle of violence -- continued Israeli occupation and its relentless belligerence towards the Palestinian people and their governing authority. What they term Palestinian violence is, in fact, the internationally sanctioned right of resistance against a brutal occupation.
It is particularly disturbing that the Sharon government hopes to exploit the current international climate in order to roll back all the achievements made since Oslo and impose an entirely new negotiating agenda on the Palestinians. Initially, Sharon hoped to turn US and European opinion against the Intifada by likening it to terrorist acts in New York and Washington. Although this insidious contention received great publicity in pro-Israeli media, the US administration refused to bite. Instead, it exerted slight pressure on Israel to halt the escalation of violence so as not to hamper Washington's campaign against terrorism.
Following this slap on the hands, the Israeli government donned its peace-making face, issuing a spate of hollow sentiments, some voiced by Sharon. Suddenly, the man famous for his hatred of Palestinians and Arabs and for his hostility to the very idea of peace wants to shed his image as a brutal warmonger. On several occasions, recently, Sharon has announced that he is ready to enter into peace talks with the Palestinians because he believes in "the necessity of these negotiations," as he told the leaders of the International Jewish Congress.
Sadly, the type of negotiations Sharon has in mind cannot result in a just and lasting peace. Sharon has nothing to offer the Palestinians that can serve as the basis for negotiations. He rejects the principles of international legitimacy, the terms of reference of the Madrid process and the provisions of the Oslo accords. In addition, any Palestinian state he might consider would be only nominally sovereign and created on a patchwork of no more than 42 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza. Sharon would exclude Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital since he is determined to assert Israel's eternal sovereignty over east Jerusalem, not to mention Israeli sovereignty over the airspace and territorial waters of the "independent" Palestinian state he proposes.
The comments coming out of Israeli, then, are palliatives, intended to placate US and international opinion. And as soon as the US emerges from its current crisis Israeli officials will, in all probability, retract even these paltry nods towards peace.
President Mubarak, who hoped to reduce Palestinian-Israeli tensions by sponsoring the Arafat- Peres meeting, was clear about what he perceived to be the reasons for the collapse of the peace process. In his speech to the Formentor symposium he said that Israel had used various political and security pretexts to evade its obligations under the Oslo, Wye River and the Sharm El-Sheikh I accords and then undertook actions to incite Muslim sensitivities, triggering the second Palestinian Intifada.
Now, he said, the only way to resolve the current predicament is to abide by a clear set of principles. These include faithful implementation of the recommendations of the Mitchell report and quick and courageous action by both sides to halt the spiraling violence and move to negotiations. The president also called upon Israeli people and the Jewish communities in the US and Europe to lend their fullest support to the cause of peace and stability, and upon the EU and European Parliament to help in raising these communities' awareness of the danger to Israel's security posed by the continuing deadlock. The president's advice offers a viable way to end the crisis and to reinvigorate the peace process.
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