9 - 15 May 2002
Issue No.585
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 9 - 15 May 2002 Issue No.585 |
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Pursuit of legitimacy
Ibrahim Nafie outlines the necessary groundwork for any successful international conference aimed at promoting peace in the Middle East
Last week in Washington US Secretary of State Colin Powell, his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Spanish Foreign Minister and current EU Chairman Josep Pique announced plans for a new international peace conference to be held early this summer. The aims of the conference are, firstly, to ensure security for the Palestinians and Israelis and to reorganise the Palestinian security apparatus; secondly, to provide economic and humanitarian aid to the Palestinians and institute solidly democratic Palestinian governing institutions supportive of a market economy; and, thirdly, to lay the groundwork for earnest and rapid negotiations for a settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
That last Friday's meeting included international powers with a stake in the Middle East process must certainly be received as an encouraging sign. More significantly, though, it represented an acknowledgement from Washington that America could not, by itself, succeed in encouraging the conflicting parties to return to the negotiating table.
Nonetheless, it remains glaringly obvious that certain conditions must be met if the proposed peace conference is to be successful in stimulating new efforts towards the ultimate objective of a comprehensive settlement that will bring peace and security to all peoples of the region.
It is abundantly clear that the situation in the Middle East cannot support a repeat of the events that followed Madrid, with sponsorship of the peace process effectively devolving to a single party -- the US -- as Washington's cosponsors were relegated to the background, serving, essentially, as nothing but an audience at official signing ceremonies. The conference must, therefore, ensure that all the sponsors remain active partners in any ensuing process. This is in American interests. Sole sponsorship has placed the entire onus for failure on Washington, whose unmitigated pro-Israeli bias encouraged Israel to indulge in endless intransigence, evading all of its responsibilities and flagrantly violating agreements it had already signed. The result being that the entire peace process was backed into a cul-de-sac. And in the Arab world US partiality has earned such widespread censure that Washington is now perceived not as a sponsor of peace but as a full accomplice in Israeli crimes. On a popular level, calls for a boycott of Israeli goods have been extended to demands that US goods and services also be boycotted.
The conference must be conceived as part of a cumulative process, within which framework it should seek to build upon the range of principles that have emerged from successive peace conferences held since 1973. It must observe all relevant international conventions and resolutions: specifically, it must observe Resolutions 242 and 338 calling for Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab territories and the right of the Palestinian people to self- determination, in addition to more recent resolutions -- 1397 to 1405 -- regarding Israeli withdrawal from the territories it reoccupied, and the fact-finding committee to be sent to Jenin. If past experience has taught us anything it is that the more the peace process departs from established principles of international legitimacy the greater are the chances of failure and return to the cycle of violence.
It is also essential that preparations for the forthcoming conference include certain prior arrangements, as well as a carefully conceived agenda for a process that will ultimately lead to final agreements. The arrangements to which I refer, here, should include a complete Israeli withdrawal from the PA territories it reoccupied during recent incursions, a pledge not to repeat such offensives and the release of all Palestinians detained in the recent reoccupations.
The conference's success will also be contingent upon a fundamental change in US attitudes. Specifically, Washington must refrain from reiterating the Israeli contention that Arafat is spearheading "terrorist" activities against Israel. Such claims are clearly a ploy to exclude Arafat from the peace process and bring in an alternative Palestinian leadership. To play into the hands of such a stratagem is to obstruct the will of the Palestinian people, who elected Arafat in fair and internationally monitored elections. It would also constitute an unacceptable precedent in the history of negotiating processes intended to end foreign occupation.
In this regard, Washington must end its habit of thoughtlessly issuing endless Israeli-inspired pronouncements that are inimical to the cause of peace. Such actions have served only to detract from Washington's image as a peacemaker and compromise American credibility throughout the region. Washington must make the distinction between terrorism and the internationally sanctioned right to resist foreign occupation. To continue to defer to the Israeli line and make the Palestinians the exception to this principle is unconstructive, particularly at this juncture. It further gives the Palestinians every right to pursue their demands for the prosecution of Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity -- above all, Sharon, who has left a bloody trail of evidence that stretches from Sabra and Shatilla to Jenin.
So brutal was the Israeli offensive against Jenin that it provoked the horror of many international figures, including some US officials. Aware of these implications, Washington opposed an international commission to investigate the atrocities Israeli forces perpetrated in Jenin, insisting instead upon a fact-finding committee as its condition for agreeing to Security Council Resolution 1405. With even more knowledge of the extent of the atrocities committed in Jenin the Israeli government -- it had, after all, sanctioned them -- steadfastly obstructed the implementation of even this resolution. Yet the UN made no move to condemn Israel for defying international resolutions, let alone invoke Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, the clauses of which seem only applicable when action is to be directed against Iraq or Libya.
Equally unproductive are the kinds of statements issuing from Washington that serve only to encourage Israeli extremism. In a recent interview on Fox Television, US Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice said, "The current Palestinian leadership is not a leadership that can lead to the establishment of the Palestinian state we need." Ms Rice has evidently forgotten that it is the inherent right of the Palestinian people to choose the leaders they want, who will head the state they need. And it is a right that they exercised, bringing into power Yasser Arafat. But, beyond such obliviousness to democratic values, such statements perform a service free of charge to Sharon, who will seize upon any pretext to target Arafat as a sponsor of terrorism, even as he augments his own already lengthy record of the very type of crimes and atrocities that Washington constantly proclaims it intends to fight.
It is time for officials in Washington to be more objective towards the Middle East conflict and to work more assiduously towards generating a climate that will promote the relevant parties to interact positively with the efforts currently under way to hold a new Middle East peace conference. Statements issuing from the White House and State Department can contribute to this end. For example, following his meeting with the president of the EU commission, Romano Prodi, and the Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, President Bush admitted that Israel's relationship with the Palestinian territories is that of an occupying power, adding, "This occupation must come to an end through negotiations." Bush also said that the US "needs to cooperate with Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in order to reach a lasting peace in the Middle East," a statement that reflects the US president's recognition of the centrality to the peace process of Egypt and Jordan, both front line states with peace treaties with Israel, and Saudi Arabia, the author of the initiative that was adopted by the Arab Summit in Beirut last March. It was also significant that prior to Sharon's recent visit to Washington, the White House reaffirmed its commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Equally encouraging was Colin Powell's announcement that he would ask Sharon to freeze settlement construction and that the US would not consent to a political solution that seeks to exclude President Arafat from the equation. "It is best to work with all Palestinian leaders and Washington recognises those who the Palestinians see as their leader," the US secretary of state said. Such statements are indicative of a positive and constructive shift in the US position. They suggest that Washington will no longer automatically parrot Israeli claims and fallacies, a phenomenon that lost the US much of its residual credibility in the region over the past few months.
It is our hope that the shift in the US position will continue in its positive trajectory, that it will remain open to the opinions of the EU and Russia and that it will work towards promoting respect for the principle of international legitimacy and honouring of international resolutions pertaining to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Should this be the case, the forthcoming peace conference will constitute a major step forward towards a final and comprehensive settlement to the Middle East conflict and our aspirations for peace and stability for all peoples in the region.
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