Letters and parameters
US officials scramble to convince leaders and peoples that nothing has changed in Washington's stance towards the Arab-Israeli conflict. Their claims won't wash, writes Abdel-Moneim Said*
It has been claimed by the US administration that the letter given by President Bush to Prime Minister Sharon does not depart from previous American policies towards the Middle East conflict. Steven Hadley and Elliot Abrams, in the name of the White House, insisted that President Bush's statements "do not mark a major shift in US policy". More recently, the respected Israeli Policy Forum published a paper by Steve Spiegel and the Forum's staff claiming "the Clinton parameters of 2001 and the Bush letter of 2004 do not, in any substantial way, contradict each other."
I beg to differ. President Bush's letter departs irrevocably from traditional US policy regarding the Middle East conflict and will cause damage to the cause of peace in the region.
First, as to form; it has not been a tradition of US policy to issue letters to only one of the parties to the conflict. From the Rogers Plan, to the Clinton parameters, up to the roadmap, American initiatives are directed towards ending the conflict, not to giving credence to one of the parties' positions in order to prop up its domestic politics.
The only time that the US departed in a major way from this policy was when Henry Kissinger, then secretary of state, gave Israel in 1974 a letter wherein the US committed neither to recognise nor negotiate with the PLO. It is left to historians to decide the damage done by this letter to peace in the region. We know that there was no peace process until the US revoked this policy and recognised the PLO. If there was another letter to the Palestinians expressing other American commitments towards Palestinian rights, or if the letter to Israel adopted a comprehensive position on all the issues of the conflict, the claim of no departure in policy would have merit.
Second, on substance, it is true that the Bush letter and accompanying statements recommits the US to the creation of a Palestinian state, the boundaries of which stand behind the conflict since the PLO recognised Israel in 1988. When Bush's letter refers to the consideration of "existing major Israeli populations centres" in final status negotiations, it might look as if nothing is really new. The devil, however, is always in the detail. It is true that President Clinton spoke of a similar position when he referred in his "parameters" to the incorporation into Israel of settlement blocks. Clinton also said, "and to make the agreement durable, I think there will have to be some territorial swaps and other arrangements." The assumption behind this is that we are not in the process of making a state more or less corresponding to 1967 boundaries. If demographic realities require annexation of territories to Israel, territorial compensation for the Palestinians will be required.
Unfortunately, Bush's letter mentions neither territorial swaps nor other arrangements. Leaving it at this point will not do justice to peace. So long as the letter is silent on land swaps, it could be read as sanctioning Israel's annexation of up to 58 per cent of the West Bank, in accordance with Sharon's declared intentions. It does not help much that the Bush letter does not commit itself to the previous US policy in the roadmap and the Mitchell Plan that calls upon Israel to freeze all settlement building. Instead, the letter asks Israel to make "progress" towards freezing the settlements. Nothing in the letter suggests how this will be monitored.
Third, on the refugees issue, Bush's departure from traditional US policy is marked. In a press conference with President Mubarak in 2002, President Clinton, in response to a question on the possibility of treating Kosovan and Palestinian refugees equally, the former having returned to their home land, said after considering many factors that the bottom line was that the Palestinian refugees have the right to choose where they should live.
On the parameters for a Palestinian-Israeli peace, Clinton recognised first the "suffering" of the Palestinian refugees. This recognition had great moral and political implications. No such suffering has been recognised by President Bush. Additionally, although it was understood that most refugees would settle within the bounds of a Palestinian state, and that the settlement of others should not affect delicate "demographic balances", Clinton did not exclude Israel from the list of countries that Palestinian refugees could elect to settle in. But when President Bush excludes Israel from the start as a possible home for some Palestinians he does not only depart from Clinton's position but from Israel's agreement in Taba to accept 100,000 refugees over a 10-year period.
These departures from previous American policy do not help the cause of peace in the Middle East. Neither do they serve US interests in the Arab world. When foreign policy is put in the service of American or Israeli domestic politics, the results are usually catastrophic.
* The writer is director of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/689/op3.htm