Hanging on
Egypt is determined to keep Palestinian-Israeli negotiations going, which means propping up Abbas,
Dina Ezzat reports
This week, President Hosni Mubarak was explicit in expressing determination to keep Palestinian-Israeli negotiations going, despite the hiccups these talks have faced, and despite current Israeli political upheaval and upcoming US presidential elections. In statements made Sunday, Mubarak added that Cairo was in talks with key regional and international players to ensure that nothing distracts from current "peace negotiations".
According to Egyptian and Arab diplomats, the suspension of talks now would replace the semblance of political movement with a vacuum. "No movement at all means despair to all concerned, and that does not exclude any Palestinian faction," argued an Egyptian diplomat who asked for his name to be withheld.
Any vacuum, Cairo fears, could strengthen Hamas, an undeclared political foe despite otherwise tactful political statements issued from both sides. Strengthening Hamas is seen by Cairo as sure fire means to undermine negotiations as a strategic option and replace them with direct and armed resistance, both unacceptable to Egypt and the official Arab order. "We have been very clear about it and we still are: the attacks on Israeli targets prompt anger on the Palestinians from the world and give Israel the right to foster its already harsh measures that erode the decency of the lives of the Palestinian people under occupation. We are clear that negotiations are the way to go ahead," said another Egyptian diplomat who also asked for anonymity.
Moreover, the suspension of the talks now would leave Egypt- Saudi Arabia- and Jordan-supported Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with nothing. While publicly acknowledging that the 2007-launched Annapolis process has failed, or almost, Egyptian officials say that the suspension of talks now would see the entire Palestinian-Israeli file shelved for the foreseeable future. A lengthy "on hold" phase, Egyptian diplomats say, would allow Israel to press ahead with its aggressive settlement building policy that would make establishing a Palestinian state "almost if not effectively impossible".
The suspension or declaration of failure of negotiations with Israel would also strip Abbas, whose popularity in the Palestinian territories is low and declining, of any political justification by which he could ask -- or claim right to -- extend his presidency that legally expires 9 January 2009. Egyptian and Jordanian legal experts are working, with Arab support, to find "the right legal conditioning to make Abbas capable of expanding his presidency". "For this to happen the negotiations have to keep on going," admitted an Egyptian official.
Thus Egyptian diplomacy is working on a two-track scheme. The first track is to secure regional and international support to maintain the momentum of negotiations. Egyptian diplomats report as solid European support, and considerable efforts on the part of the outgoing US administration that could use the declaration of a process in motion as a face-saving formula to cover up for the White House failure. On a parallel track, Cairo is intensifying efforts to promote a semblance of Palestinian reconciliation, fragile though it would be.
Today, in Cairo, Tony Blair, envoy of the International Quartet, is slated to discuss with Egyptian officials the possibility for the convocation of a foreign minister-level meeting for the Quartet, concerned Arab governments, and the Palestinians and Israelis. According to statements made earlier in the week by Presidential Spokesman Suleiman Awad, "[Egypt] welcome[s] any meeting for the Quartet with the Palestinians, Israelis and Arab countries provided that it takes notice, analyses and assesses what has been reached during the final status talks and provided that it registers [these results] so that they would not go to waste."
Awad also said that the meeting that was proposed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit on the fringe of the UN General Assembly in New York late last month should "secure the continuation of negotiations".
Meanwhile, Cairo is not blind to the fact that regional and international support for Abbas is insufficient in the face of considerable Palestinian political opposition led by Hamas. Consultations that Cairo has been conducting for over a month with 12 Palestinian factions, including Fatah that controls the Palestinian Authority, and this week with Hamas, aim to conclude a Palestinian reconciliation deal that in turn could facilitate negotiations. Sources close to the Egyptian mediation team say that a deal with Hamas is not impossible. "It is going to be tough, but it will work out somehow, even if not exactly when and how we would like to see it working out," said one source.
To make a deal with Hamas possible, the Egyptian mediation team chaired by Egyptian General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman has to find a means of bypassing three components of the Egyptian reconciliation proposal: establishing a new technocratic unity government with the consent but not the participation of both Fatah and Hamas; restructuring the security apparatus in Gaza under Arab supervision; and organising early legislative elections and delaying due presidential elections. Hamas leaders and spokesmen have explicitly rejected these three points.
Sources familiar with the outcome of talks conducted by Suleiman in Saudi Arabia last week with Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal, and of similar talks that Meshaal conducted with the intelligence chiefs of both Saudi Arabia and Jordan, say that if offered a good deal Hamas could demonstrate flexibility. In return for a largely but not exclusively technocratic unity government, an agreement on the restructuring of the security apparatus in both Gaza and the West Bank, and a permit for the Palestinian National Council to extend the presidency of Abbas, Hamas would need to get a deal on the smooth and regular operation, away from Israeli control, of the Rafah crossing that links Gaza to Egypt, the release of two lists of prisoners -- one of prisoners held in Egypt and the other for prisoners held by the Palestinian Authority, and an Arab League commitment to supervise the restructuring of the Palestine Liberation Organisation that is currently controlled by Fatah.
In pursuit of agreement, Egypt is playing a give and take game with Hamas. The carrot it has dangling throughout the past few weeks -- and again this week -- is the unilateral short-term opening of the Rafah crossing. The stick Egypt wields is the arrest of pro- Hamas individuals as they pass through Egypt. There is also the prevention of non-governmental aid convoys, as happened Monday on the eve of the arrival of the Hamas delegation to Cairo.
For its part, Hamas is also playing a cat and mouse game by either maintaining calm on the Gaza side of the Gaza-Egypt border, or by stirring matters a little -- or more than a little -- to allow unrest on the border to embarrass the Egyptian government.
"It has been and it will continue to be a careful game, but there will be no full rupture on either side," commented an Egyptian diplomatic source. He added that if upgraded, the timid and hesitant warming up in Egypt-Syria relations -- the latter a supporter of Hamas -- would prove useful to "easing things up between Cairo and Hamas".
High-level Arab diplomatic sources say that Syria "is not currently" dissuading Hamas from moving forward on a deal with Abbas. They add, however, that Abbas would have to show flexibility and understanding towards Hamas if the deal was to be concluded by the Egyptians and sanctioned by a collective Arab vote. "Abbas is not in a very strong position now," one Arab diplomat admitted.
On 12 November the Arab League will hold an extraordinary meeting to look into the fate of the Middle East peace process. By this date, Egypt should have hosted the Quartet meeting and held the first in a series of Palestinian reconciliation roundtables that would be later picked up by the Arab League. The Arab League meeting should endorse and pursue the first phase of Palestinian reconciliation and it should also support a well-backed Palestinian decision on how to administer future talks with the Israelis.
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