Issue No.590
Opinion
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13 - 19 June 2002 Issue No.590 Opinion |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
A scoreless tie
The calm that apparently characterised the atmosphere at Camp David does not seem to have impacted on the situation in Palestine. Certainly Washington's own positions and stands have not changed and Bush once again repeated what is fast becoming his mantra when he appeared before the cameras at the press conference that followed his meetings to announce, once again, that Arafat is to blame. Arafat, it seems, is solely responsible for ending the violence, despite there being no direct commitment on Washington's part to undertake the political legwork necessary to stop the strife.
The meeting, if anything, resembled a football game that ends up in a nil-nil draw. The Egyptian team played in straight lines, as it were, placing everything on the table with frankness: Israel is to withdraw immediately from lands occupied in since the Intifada was launched in September 2000; a Palestinian state is to be declared, preceded by the internal reforms necessary to put an end to violence and to grant the Palestinian people the right to self- determination; a strict time frame for implementing the terms of the resolution is to be put in place on the basis of previous agreements and UN resolutions. The proposals were unequivocal, and could not have been more transparent.
The American team, by contrast, relied on tactics of evasion, fielding attacks, driving rivals out of the designated arena and preventing the game from reaching its end within any designated time frame. Bush demanded that Palestinian reforms start before anything else in an effort to make available the mechanisms and apparatuses necessary for a state, that the Palestinian Authority rely on new, talented leaders (the implication being that Arafat must be sidelined, if not replaced) and that no time frame for the declaration of the Palestinian state be specified at present. As to Israeli obligations and responsibilities, Bush made only the most ambiguous references to them.
What the Americans want, in other words, is a temporary transition period -- to use Kissinger's phrase -- for building trust between Israel and the newly reformed Palestinian administration, during which a cease-fire should be observed to be followed by an indefinite period of negotiations with the aim of establishing the promised state. And this, it should come as no surprise, is more or less what Sharon wants, at least for the time being. According to recent statements in which he specified the framework for his upcoming talks with Bush, Sharon is against establishing a Palestinian state at the present time, against returning to the 1967 borders, against dealing with Arafat and against all but a transitional, long- term agreement that would ensure an end to violence and terrorism. In the light of Israel's great influence on the American administration no one should hold their breath waiting for Bush to exercise pressure on Sharon to alter his position to help reach a compromise with Arab demands.
It is becoming increasingly easy to argue that the American administration is itself becoming an obstacle to attempts to successfully transcend the present crisis. Many had mistakenly believed, when Washington asked for an immediate meeting with President Mubarak, that the American administration might have a practical plan or, at least, the will to consider implementing ideas and plans at hand. Yet all that Washington seems to be doing is biding its time, demanding internal Palestinian reforms and an end to suicide operations. Political analysts who explain Washington's paralysis as a result of divisions between right-wing extremists like Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld and moderates like Powell and Armitage are right.
Between infighting within the American administration, and factionalism on the part of the Palestinians, the only beneficiary is Sharon. We should not anticipate, then, in President Bush's much publicised final statement after talks with the Arabs and Israelis, even the vaguest semblance of a plan.
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