Hidden agendas

Things are not what they seem at Sharm El-Sheikh, but Palestinians and Arabs can still transform appearance into reality, writes Hassan Nafaa*

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"The goal of two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace is within reach, and America will help them achieve that goal," proclaimed President George W Bush in his State of the Union address on 3 February. As one of these democratic states already exists, the logical implication is that Washington has committed itself to helping to establish the other one -- Palestine -- to balance things out. And, indeed, Bush declared that he will take immediate steps to fulfil this commitment. The first step, as one gathered later in the same speech, would be to dispatch his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, to Israel and the West Bank to meet Sharon and Abu Mazen. "She will discuss with them how we and our friends can help the Palestinian people end terror and build the institutions of a peaceful, independent, democratic state," he said, adding, "to promote this democracy, I will ask the Congress for $350 million to support Palestinian political, economic and security reforms."

It is difficult to understand the implications of these remarks unless we link them to the rush of events since the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. Among the most salient of these was the remarkably smooth transfer of power in Palestine and the subsequent progress towards laying democratic and constitutional institutions of government. Should these prove capable of sustaining a Palestinian consensus they will have marked a fresh start in the unified management of the struggle against Israel.

In tandem with this development, Egypt has embarked on a series of important unilateral initiatives. Perhaps the most important of these were the hand-over to Israel of the Israeli spy, Azzam Azzam, and the signing of the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZ) protocols, both intended to encourage Israel to resume the peace process and to support the Sharon government in the face of even more extremist factions in Israel. Then, more recently, the dialogue between Abu Mazen and the Palestinian factions succeeded in reaching an understanding in accordance with which they will commit themselves to a ceasefire and restoration of calm so as to create a climate conducive to the resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations.

These diverse developments combined to encourage the Palestinian and Israeli leaderships to announce that they would attend a conference in Sharm El-Sheikh hosted by Egypt and attended also by Jordan. If all proceeds well, by the time this article goes to print, the summit will have produced a mutual ceasefire declaration, which, in turn, will set into motion a number of initiatives, one of which might be the return of the Egyptian and Jordanian ambassadors to Israel.

There is no denying, therefore, that there are swift currents of movement. But will they lead to something tangible? Is the creation of a Palestinian state really within reach, as Bush said? Or, are we being led down the garden path of a new US-Israeli scheme for deception?

I have tried to convince myself that the parties concerned have learned the lessons from the past four years of disaster and that they now realise that only a just settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict will lead the region, and perhaps the world, to security, stability and peace. Sadly, I failed in this endeavour. Something inside me has cautioned me against wishful thinking and to remain on the lookout for all possibilities, including the possibility that the purpose behind the current drive to restore calm is a plan to unleash a new storm over the region.

Certainly, we cannot have already forgotten that Bush had originally announced his "vision" for a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict at the time he had decided to go to war against Iraq and had already drawn up plans for mobilising American armed forces towards that end. Then, while talking about a roadmap for the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005, did he not have in his hand the letter of guarantees backing Sharon's determination not to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders and his refusal to recognise the Palestinian refugees' right to return? And, what of the fact that once US forces toppled Saddam and occupied Iraq, he reneged on the 2005 deadline for creating a Palestinian state, stating that dates were not sacred? Given that two- sided past, why should we exclude the possibility that the region is currently being tranquilised preparatory to a war on Iran and perhaps Syria and Hizbullah as well?

If experience should have taught the Arabs anything it is that the peace process can be spurred into action at a moment's notice, but that it cannot be pushed to its desired end as long as the balance of powers between the conflicting parties is so skewed. Looking back we see a recurrent pattern: hardly does the peace process get moving than it abruptly grinds to a halt and only resumes again at a point when the Arabs are weaker and more disunited than they were the first time around. Each time it flounders, moreover, the blame falls exclusively on the Arabs for squandering a unique opportunity, and as a new round kicks off they are cautioned not to let the new opportunity slip through their hands as they had the one before.

And this is always upon the understanding that grasping the new opportunity means accepting what's on offer.

Soon enough, however, they discover that what is on offer is less than it was the last time around. And then comes the additional realisation that, in fact, they had never been offered anything that could have served as the basis of a lasting settlement.

It appears that the Arabs have yet to grasp the rules of the game; or if they have, that isn't the game on the board.

From the outset, the Arabs thought that the aim of the game was to reach a just and comprehensive solution to the conflict, and their strategy was founded on the legal and moral principles that were to serve as the framework of this purpose. Not so the US-Israel side, which is playing the "conflict management" game, in which the strategy is to gradually sap the material and moral forces of the adversary, the tactics are pep talks, impossible-to-meet conditions and censure, and the ultimate objective is to establish a Greater Israel and to bury Arab and Muslim dreams of revival.

It would be in the Arabs' interests to consider carefully what the aims of the current drive are and to contemplate all possible scenarios, even the most dire, before making any new concessions they will later come to regret. Sharon's aims are an open book authored by him and its title is unilateral disengagement. One chapter is the separation wall snaking deep into the West Bank, which he is determined to finish and transform into a permanent border, which he will call a "long term interim border". The plan does call for the creation of a Palestinian state, but only on the remaining portion of the West Bank and in Gaza, from which Israeli forces will withdraw. In other words, what he is angling for is a Palestinian state on 40--60 per cent of the territories occupied in 1967. Now, in the face of mounting Arab international pressures to merge his unilateral disengagement plan with the roadmap and having finally realised that implementing his plan requires a Palestinian partner, he has grasped the opportunity made possible by the death of Arafat to push ahead with his original plan -- which he now presents as part of the roadmap, instead of an alternative to it.

He has many reasons to feel confident of success. He now has a Palestinian partner he can negotiate with over withdrawal arrangements from Gaza and the northern part of the West Bank. These arrangements he will portray as the first two phases of the roadmap lumped together into a single phase, in accordance with which Israeli forces are to evacuate Palestinian cities and return to the lines of pre-28 September 2000. However, while undertaking this withdrawal, which is scheduled for completion by the end of 2005, Sharon believes he will have created new realities on the ground. He envisions a new, tightly organised Palestinian security force capable of keeping the situation in the territories under control. By then, too, he thinks, the reconstruction and development programme will have progressed sufficiently to have defused much of the anger and frustration that have fuelled the fighting spirit of the Palestinian people, who had suffered so much from the deterioration in their economic conditions and standards of living over the past few years.

Then, it will be possible to hold the international conference called for under the roadmap with the objective of creating a Palestinian state with temporary borders defined by the separating wall. Meanwhile, the other pending issues -- the permanent borders, the status of Jerusalem and the rights of Palestinian refugees -- will be deferred to a final negotiating phase, which Sharon hopes to put off for another 10 to 15 years.

That lengthy interval will give the US plenty of time to overturn the Iranian and Syrian regimes, to set up a pro-American government in Lebanon that will eliminate or sideline Hizbullah, and to crush all other pockets of armed resistance in the region by force of arms or by co-opting them into the political process. By the end of this interim period, when all these factors have clicked into place, the Palestinians will have their backs up against the wall and be forced to accept a settlement on Israel's conditions.

Some might charge that the scenario I described above is a paranoiac fantasy inspired by anti-American and anti-Israeli ideology. To them I say, take a look around you. Our worst fears have come true. Yet, when we predicted this outcome, you scoffed at our warnings as hysterical ravings.

The fact that the US and Israel will attempt to set this scenario in motion does not mean it is achievable. The US does not always get its own way, and in this case I am confident that the Arab world, if it puts its mind to it, has the power to check this scenario. I believe that the course adopted by Abu Mazen and the Palestinian factions is the correct one, but the road ahead is still riddled with booby traps. If I may be permitted to offer them some advice, I would caution the PA against entering any negotiations before Israel commits itself sincerely to two actions: a complete and immediate halt to all settlement expansion, as stipulated in the roadmap, and the dismantlement of the separation wall, on which the International Court of Justice has issued its unequivocal ruling.

* The writer is a professor of political science at Cairo university.