What if?

Is the region ready for Israel to accept the Arab peace initiative? No, says Hassan Nafaa*

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What would happen if Israel accepted the Arab peace initiative? Some would respond that the question is hypothetical, if not totally absurd, so why bother? I disagree. The question merits immediate attention. Israel is going through a difficult time and will have to make some tough choices. It is likely that the current controversy over available options, especially that raging within the Israeli military establishment, may result in a fundamental policy shift and the acceptance of the Saudi peace initiative, adopted as the Arab peace initiative, in the Beirut summit of 2002.

There is much evidence pointing in this direction, not least the remarks made by Ehud Olmert in an extended interview with the Israeli journalists Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer. The interview was published in Yediot Aharonot on the eve of the Jewish new year and excerpts appeared, translated into English, in the latest edition of The New York Review of Books (Volume 55, Number 19, 4 December 2008). For the first time an Israeli prime minister dared to ask his fellow citizens, openly and in Hebrew, in a message directed more to local than for foreign consumption, to let go of their dreams of a "greater Israel" with Jerusalem as its eternal capital. It was now time to seriously contemplate the setting of final, internationally recognised borders for the state of Israel so that the international community could deal with it as an ordinary state. Olmert also seems to have realised that Israel must accept the pre-June 1967 borders as the final boundaries or, in the event that it annexes portions of Palestinian land upon which major Israeli settlements have been constructed, it must give the Palestinians an amount of territory elsewhere.

I can already picture some people smirking, accusing me of being naïve. They will hasten to say Olmert only ventured to speak this way after resigning and that now he is acting in the capacity of a lame duck prime minister. They will argue this voids his message of all substance, making it a gratuitous airing of opinion, rather than a reflection of official Israeli policy.

But the matter goes far deeper than this. Olmert's statements reflect a crisis that Israel has been going through for many years, one aggravated by the unexpected defeat at the hands of Hizbullah in the war in Lebanon in 2006. Perhaps the only Israeli who could discuss this crisis frankly is an outgoing politician who has nothing left to lose yet whose loyalty to Israel is unquestionable. Olmert has spent his political career in the ranks of the hardcore right as a staunch advocate of "Greater Israel". That he, and many others, should have come to the realisation that Israel's available options have shrunk to essentially two alternatives, is not insignificant.

The first alternative is to prepare for a war the scope of which will be difficult to contain. It would be a comprehensive war that Israel will have to fight on several fronts, with Syria, with Hizbullah in Lebanon and, perhaps, Iran. Olmert is confident of Israel's ability to win this war, especially if it is facing standing armies. But he is also aware that a military victory, even one as solid as in 1967, will not alter the political realities on the ground. Any settlement with Syria requires the return of the Golan Heights. So, he asked, "Why enter a war with the Syrians, full of losses and destruction, in order to achieve what might be achieved without paying such a heavy price?"

The second alternative is to maintain the status quo, a state of no-war, no- peace. In Olmert's opinion, this situation is burdensome on all sides and ultimately very risky. It is virtually impossible to sustain indefinitely. Sooner or later it will erupt into a new war which, again, will not alter the conditions for a settlement. So, he asked, why not negotiate for a settlement on the basis of the same conditions?

Preparing for another war or trying to sustain the state of no-war, no peace both place Israel on a collision course with a new US administration that has pledged to promote change and which aspires to improve America's international image. In the face of these difficulties there appears to be a growing tide of opinion among the Israeli centre in favour of a settlement with Syria on the basis of the return of the Golan Heights in full, and a settlement with the Palestinians on the basis of the return of the entire West Bank with some minor modifications in the borders and on the condition that the Palestinian state is unarmed. If this is the case, a victory of a centre-left alliance in the forthcoming Israeli elections will hasten the pace of negotiations currently in progress with Syria and the PA and eventually lead to an Israeli announcement of its official acceptance of the Arab peace initiative.

It is time, therefore, for the Arab world to ask itself whether it is ready for such a development. Is it prepared to do what will be required of it? I doubt so for several reasons.

First, the price Syria will have to pay for getting the Golan back will involve guarantees that it will forego regional alliances with Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas. The price that will be exacted from the PA in exchange for the West Bank and the creation of a Palestinian state will be guarantees of its ability to control the territories it governs. One of the guarantees will probably be a pledge to undertake joint military action with Israel to uproot Hamas from Gaza and eliminate the movement. The price Arab parties will have to pay in exchange for Israel's withdrawal to the 1967 borders and the partition of Jerusalem will be to renounce the Palestinian's right of return and make arrangements to nationalise refugees, and pay them compensation if necessary.

Given that there is nothing to guarantee the coalition mentioned above will win the forthcoming Israeli elections one could also predict that the Arab-Israeli conflict will develop along the lines of one of the following scenarios.

A victory of the extreme right, led by Netanyahu, will slam the door shut on all real opportunities for a settlement. Netanyahu will then prepare for a war against Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and the militant Palestinian resistance or -- and this is more likely --pursue Israel's current policies with little significant change. The official Arab order is used to this situation and can handle it. In fact it is comfortable with the way things are and is probably looking forward to the prospect of US-Israeli tensions that it might turn to its advantage, not least in evading demands for political reform. Unfortunately, it is a situation that threatens the Arab order in the long run.

The official Arab order, as it currently stands, is not prepared to deal with what might be described as an Israeli "peace offensive". It would view the cost of peace -- open confrontation, if not outright war, with the Iranian-led "resistance camp", even with Syria removed from the equation -- as too heavy. The fallout, which would be felt in the heart of Arab regimes, would be intolerable in the absence of guarantees for real peace at the end of the process.

The Arab world would be embarking on "peace" when it is at its most divided. Nor will the creation of a Palestinian state without arms, the return of the Golan to Syria and Shabaa Farms to Lebanon, necessarily lead to stability in the absence of a solution to the refugee problem, and in an area governed by dictatorships, rife with sectarian and ethnic tensions, plagued with one of the highest illiteracy rates and widest class discrepancies in the world. Normalisation with Israel would also alter the pattern of regional relations in a manner favourable to Israel. And since it would not be in Israel's or the US's interests to promote political reform that might give rise to Arab hardliners opposed to a settlement the gap between rulers and ruled in the Arab world will broaden, exacerbating the forces of instability.

The Arab world has never seriously studied the consequences of Israel's acceptance of the Arab peace initiative. It is not prepared for a lasting settlement. Israel's acceptance of the initiative -- it would be amply compensated for the territories it restored by assuming a position of regional leadership -- would trigger chaos in the region.

The US's project for uncontested global hegemony may have collapsed but the US has not, unlike the former Soviet Union. Washington will now be more willing to work with others in building the international and regional order. If the Arab world can not summon the collective will to contribute effectively, and in a manner that serves its interests, it can write itself off as a political entity.

* The writer is secretary-general of the Arab Thought Forum, Amman, Jordan.