2 - 8 May 2002
Issue No.584
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 2 - 8 May 2002 Issue No.584 |
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A very small victory
Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah succeeded in ending Arafat's confinement in Ramallah. However, writes Mohamed El-Sayed Said from Washington, the prince failed to reduce Bush's bias towards his ally, Sharon
Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Abdullah Bin Abdel-Aziz's talks in the US with President George W Bush yielded a breakthrough on the matter of ending Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's confinement in his presidential compound in Ramallah. And although Abdullah's eight-point peace plan may bear further fruit, any additional measures following from the prince's proposal will probably only concern Israel's reoccupation of Palestinian Authority (PA) territories -- not the substantive and procedural aspects of a long-term peace.
When Abdullah kicked off his official visit to the United States last Tuesday, what he had in mind could be described as the most ambitious undertaking in Saudi Arabia's diplomatic history. Supported by a mandate from the Palestinian, Egyptian and Jordanian leaderships, the Saudis aimed to bargain with the Americans for a comprehensive solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The Beirut Arab summit -- which concluded one day before Israel launched its latest offensive -- had determined the general framework for the Saudi proposal. At the summit, Arab leaders had endorsed the Saudi initiative, under which the Arabs would normalise relations with Israel in return for its withdrawal from Arab land. Popular Arab reaction to Arafat's confinement in Ramallah, Israel's massive invasion of the West Bank, the massacre at Jenin and the stand-off at Bethlehem's Church of Nativity gave Saudi diplomacy added vigour and a sense of mission.
Abdullah left the United States on Sunday after talks failed to produce a detailed final joint statement or plan of action. Each side ended up making its own statement on the outcome of the discussions. Negotiations were shrouded in secrecy and replete with difficulties, reflecting the vast gulf that separates the Arab consensus from the Israeli and, inter alia, the American positions on the present and outstanding issues of a political settlement.
The difficulties are expected to persist even if a broad framework is finally developed to reduce the tension in Arab- American relations. The Saudi side demonstrated unprecedented interest in trying to come up with a way out of the stalemate in the peace process. Abdullah took the visit as an opportunity to try to elucidate for the American president the dangers posed by recent developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Indeed, the Saudis warned that Arab- American relations -- and Saudi- American relations, in particular -- would collapse if the US maintained its policy of complicity with Israel. According to informed Arab sources, the Saudis went as far as to threaten to walk out of negotiations at the end of the first day of the visit, seeing this as the only way to pressure the Americans to be more flexible and take constructive positions. And the possibility of losing Saudi Arabia appears to have been the decisive factor causing the US to look closely at its blind support for the Israeli aggression.
Sources here agree that the crown prince was successful in communicating the extent of Arab moral and political outrage against the American policy towards the Palestinians. And the American press conveyed a vivid description of the Saudi presentation of Palestinian suffering in the course of five-hour meetings with President Bush and his top aides. One US official quipped that not even the New York fire brigade would be able to cool the crown prince's exasperation concerning American policy in the region.
The US administration is said to be split over how to respond to the conflict raging in the occupied territories. Throughout the month-long invasion, the US response has been characterised by confusion and vacillation. On the one hand, the administration voted for all United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for Israel's withdrawal from Palestinian territories and backing the formation of an international committee to investigate the atrocities Israel's army committed at the Jenin refugee camp (resolutions 1402-1405). On the other hand, the US has not even apologised for supporting the Israeli military drive, let alone taken any practical measures to censure its ally. A legacy of bias and inaction on the Palestinian matter provided the Bush administration little insight about how to proceed. And when it comes to conceptualising "peace" between the Palestinians and Israelis, the Bush administration's vision is much closer to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's position than any solution that would be acceptable to the Arab side.
The Bush administration was torn between its own legacy and its concern to avert the risk of losing its allies in the region, Saudi Arabia, in particular. A compromise was found by striking a bargain on the issue about which Palestinians are currently most concerned. Lifting the siege on Arafat achieves many ends: it appears as a reward for the Saudi leader's visit and it is a means of reducing the anti-American feelings in the region. Returning to Arafat some semblance of the status of an internationally-recognised leader is an important premise for the return to some form of the 1993 Oslo agreement.
An end to the stand-off at the Church of Nativity, where more than 200 Palestinians suffered inhumane conditions for an entire month, also appears to have been a reward for the Saudis and an attempt to restore calm in the region.
In addition to those two issues, observers had expected that the US and Saudi sides would issue a joint statement at the conclusion of the talks, announcing agreement on a number of principles and future steps. These agreements would have been framed in general terms, possibly outlining some specifics for when the time comes to resume peace negotiations.
President Bush made a point of satisfying Saudi pride on a number of matters of pressing concern for all Arabs, like the issues of Arafat and Bethlehem. In return, he will satisfy Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon when it comes to the substance of a proposal for a long-term agreement and a regional peace conference where the Saudi presence may represent a success for Sharon overall political strategy.
Obviously, the Saudis did not fall into this trap -- at least in public. Formal shows of agreement on certain general principles failed to conceal philosophical differences and disagreements on how to approach to peace-making.
In fact, the American administration, which described Prince Abdullah's eight- point plan as constructive, continues to equivocate when it comes to specifics.
The overall logic of the Saudi plan reflects Arab fatigue and distrust of a renewal of step-by-step diplomacy. In concrete terms, the plan calls for a package deal that is to be implemented in an uninterrupted manner, leading to full withdrawal and full normalisation. In this vision, CIA Director George Tenet's plan and former US Senator George Mitchell's recommendations to restore calm and resume talks are considered obsolete. Withdrawal of Israeli troops from the areas it reoccupied in the recent offensive is seen as a first step towards full withdrawal to the 1967 borders. Thus, the security aspects are tied to a definitive solution -- not to another transitional phase, as the case was with the Oslo agreement.
The American view seems to take the opposite tack. Statements made by Bush administration officials, most notably US Secretary of State Colin Powell, began to recognise the need to combine political and security aspects of the required deal to "end the violence." Nevertheless, the administration continues to view the process as a gradual one that comprises a series of steps and priority is given to security assurances required of Arafat and the PA. In return, Israel may withdraw in calculated steps from the areas recently occupied. In this vein, a return to an exact or modified version of Tenet's plan is the first step. The next step is Mitchell's confidence-building measures. Those are to be translated into numerous measures to be taken by both the PA and Arab states. A formula for negotiating the building of a Palestinian state may follow. In addition, a formula for negotiations under the auspices of the four major power brokers -- the US, Russia, the EU and the UN secretary- general -- may be modified to accommodate Sharon's regional peace conference. US officials and the country's press said that such ideas were being considered by the Bush administration.
The Saudi peace plan calls for a multinational force whose mission is to protect the Palestinian people and monitor violations on both sides. The Bush administration is siding completely on this issue with Israel, which vehemently rejects any form of internationalisation of the conflict.
On the issue of settlement activities in the occupied territories, the Bush administration has, indeed, taken a step backward. While previous administrations traditionally regarded Jewish settlements as an obstacle to peace, Bush administration officials opted for the Israeli view that settlement activities are a part of the broader border issue, which is to be negotiated by the two parties. Indeed, the Bush administration refused to commit itself to even a flexible definition of Security Council Resolution 242.
In this regard, it seems clear that the American view prevailed over, or at least was distinct from, the Saudi approach that focused on the package deal. The result of the American-Saudi negotiations will probably be yet another resuscitation of the Oslo track. The agreement on Arafat fits perfectly with this scenario.
Nonetheless, the Bush administration has engaged in extensive and detailed negotiations with the Saudis on all aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is a surprise for two obvious reasons. First, the US's traditional view is that negotiations on all aspects of the conflict should be conducted on a bilateral and regional basis, with only ambiguous references to UN resolutions. Second, beyond an unspecified commitment to the building of a Palestinian state, the administration itself has not developed a clear image on either the form or the substance of the overall solution to the conflict. The difficulty of coming to grips with the issues involved is still aggravated by internecine conflicts within the administration itself. An overtly ideological and utterly right-wing conception of the world obviously clashes with pragmatic considerations of interests and realities. Different departments have responded in different ways -- something that hampered the formulation of a policy with any level of coherence.
Moreover, the American president himself is obviously, and for ideological reasons, highly committed to sustaining his alliance with Sharon's government. This government built its fame on a rejectionist philosophy. Its view of what constitutes a resolution to the conflict with Palestinians and Arabs falls far short of the minimum required to strike any deal on any major issue of contention. Its exceedingly aggressive drive in the West Bank caused the situation to go from bad to worse. The fact of the matter is that Sharon's government has publicly and successfully challenged President Bush on the issue of withdrawal when it turned a deaf ear to his repeated calls to this effect. Sharon's government also humiliated Powell during his visit to the region when it refused to budge on a single issue. It took the direct intervention of Bush himself, who called Sharon on Saturday to get Israel to agree to allow Arafat to move freely in the occupied territories. Without this agreement, Saudi- American negotiations would have ended in complete disarray.
Within such a framework, regardless of whether the two sides issued a joint statement, it was clear that the Saudi visit failed to reduce the ambiguity of the administration's thought on all of these issues. In compensation for the ambiguity and tilt towards Israel, the administration will exaggerate the significance of Arafat's freedom of movement. And it will call on all parties to fulfil their responsibilities -- a phrase dear to the heart of the American president.
Was Crown Prince Abdullah's visit to the United States a failure? The visit was, in fact, only partially so. The main goals of the Saudi efforts were to repair the rupture to the American-Saudi relationship and to avert the potentially disastrous consequences of the Bush administration's political and diplomatic debacles in the region. The high calibre of Saudi diplomacy should be acknowledged; the Saudi's preparedness made the Americans look far from professional. Above all, Crown Prince Abdullah's efforts should be appreciated as the most serious and comprehensive attempt to advocate Palestinian and Arab rights and grievances in the United States.
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