16 - 22 May 2002
Issue No.586
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 16 - 22 May 2002 Issue No.586 |
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(Mis)managing the conflict
Despite the US's renewed "deep involvement" in Middle East peace, there remains no clear vision within the Bush Administration on how to solve the conflict, writes Thomas Gorguissian from Washington
According to President George W Bush's spokespersons, Washington has been acting (and reacting) "actively" in the ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and Israel. Although this administration became more "deeply involved" -- the choice phrase these spokespersons often like to use -- observers continued to note "mixed signals" and, to a great extent, "indecisiveness" by that same administration on how to deal with the conflict.
In fact, the Bush administration is struggling to find its way -- especially when the situation cannot be seen as "black or white," according to Jeffrey Kemp, Middle East expert at the Nixon Centre.
The administration "continues to be very divided over where to go, how fast, and with whom," said William Quandt, who was part of the National Security Council (NSC) team that negotiated the Camp David accords during former US President Jimmy Carter's administration. This is a man who knows exactly what the Middle East needs in terms of an American involvement, preferably on the White House level. Quandt did not hesitate to say about President Bush: "This is a president who remains uncertain of whether he really wants to take this on, surrounded by the people closest to him who don't agree [on how]."
In an interview with Knight Rider newspaper last Friday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell brushed off questions about the widespread perception that he and others on Bush's foreign policy team are deeply divided over how to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "The only one I worry about is the president," Powell said. "I know what he thinks. He knows what I'm doing to carry out his policies."
Powell added that he and President Bush were intent on "driving ahead" in the search for Middle East peace. Acting as if he was reading people's minds, Powell told the interviewer: "Whatever clarity is lacking will be forthcoming in the near future."
Diana Buttu, a member of the Palestinian negotiators' legal team, was also in Washington recently and suggested that the US Middle East policy is simply about "managing the conflict" -- nothing more, nothing less.
As she described it: "I think the policy is simply to manage the conflict, not to resolve it. The policy seems to be to sign more agreements, to arrange more handshakes, but to actually affect the situation on the ground doesn't seem to be a goal at all."
And it seems that this approach is still as valid today as it was in the last few weeks, despite the aggressive Israeli military invasions and the resulting damages on the Palestinian side. The US approach will persist as long as "there is no moral equivalence between what Israelis are doing and what Palestinians are doing."
"No moral nation, neither Israel nor America, can allow terrorists to chart the political course of its people. No freedom-loving nation can tolerate a terrorist state on its border," said Senator John McCain before the 96th Annual Meeting of the American Jewish Committee held in Washington last week. The Senator also said: "We will defeat terrorism against America, and we will stand with Israel as she fights the same enemy." The American Jewish Committee (AJC) presented him with its prestigious Congressional Leadership Award.
Election-minded Senator McCain and his colleagues did not miss the chance to point out that Arab rhetorical and material support for the Palestinian Intifada does not serve peace. "Telethons and poems glorifying suicide bombers are not steps toward peace. Cash payments to the families of suicide bombers are not steps toward peace. Communiqués glorifying the murder of innocents are not steps toward peace," said Senator McCain. "All of this is evil, pure and simple."
Because targeting Iraq is on the horizon and is also a favourite issue for this particular audience, McCain added that "39 Iraqi missiles fell on Israel during the Gulf War." He then added, "These missiles had only conventional warheads. The 40th missile may not. This is my nightmare."
The Republican leader did not just hum the tune but sang the whole song when he told the audience, "failure to act against this regime while we still have the freedom to do so would be morally wrong. Europe slept in the 1930s. We must not," he said in a reference to Nazi Germany.
An Israeli pilot, now a high ranking military official, who bombed the Iraqi nuclear plant was also one of the speakers at this gathering.
Standing beside and behind Israel is also the basic theme of words coming from the other side of the policy making field, i.e. the administration. "We stand with Israel against terrorism," Marc Grossman, under- secretary of state for political affairs, said to the AJC during the same annual meeting. "We understand the need for self-defence."
Two other senior administration officials were there too: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Under-Secretary of Defence Douglas J Feith. It is worth mentioning here that no American official at the same level has attended or expressed interest in attending any Arab American or Muslim American convention in the near past.
One of the participants invited to speak at the AJC meeting was Abdurrahman Wahid, former president of Indonesia (from 1999 to 2001), and current chairman of Nahdatul Ulama, which was described by the organisers as Indonesia's largest Islamic association.
Defence Department Under-Secretary Douglas Feith, one of the Sharon government's strongest backers in the Bush administration, said in no uncertain terms at the gathering: "The president has made clear that Israel has the right to defend itself, that Israel is facing terrorist problems that are similar to the problems that we are confronting."
He also mentioned the need to reform education systems in Muslim countries: "We recognise that peace can be achieved only when the conditions are right: and the most important condition is the state of peoples' minds. Thus, we must take seriously the incitement to hatred that creates the intellectual atmosphere in which terrorism can flourish. If we seek the 'root cause' of terrorism, this is where we'll find it," Feith said.
The favourite catch phrase these days in Washington, whenever the key word "Middle East" is mentioned, is the idea of "the culture of hate." Consequently, the higher tone is how Washington has a leading role to play in confronting and eradicating that hatred.
Last week, Rice told the audience at the AJC dinner: "President Bush will always stand for peace and tolerance and oppose those who take us back into history's nightmares." Explaining the kind of challenge the US faces, Rice said, "We are engaged in the broadest sense in a clash of ideas about modernity, about tolerance, respect, and tradition." She added "we cannot build a stable, more peaceful world if difference is seen as a licence to kill."
Mentioning that too many places in the world had educational systems that "fuel old hatreds instead of opening new opportunities," she said: "People are not born to hate. They are taught to hate." So the solution, according to the president's national security adviser, is to help nations and peoples who want their schools to teach less about why to hate the world and more about the tools needed for success in the world. This help "is the work not just of government but the work of all of us, including groups like the American Jewish Committee," she said.
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