A new diplomatic season in the Middle East has begun, with a flurry of activity in the region and in the United States in the wake of the reelection of President Bush and the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Skeptics and optimists both have weighed in quickly on the prospects for a new diplomatic dynamic that could revive Palestinian-Israeli, and then wider Arab-Israeli, peace negotiations.
The evidence to date suggests that the three principal parties — Palestinians, Israelis, Americans — recognize the urgency of seeking a negotiated Arab-Israeli peace, and the opportunity that now presents itself to move in that direction. It remains unclear if they have the political will required to achieve this goal. Initial signs are encouraging on all sides.
The American leadership has quickly stated its determination to make Arab-Israeli peace-making a priority for this second Bush administration, and Colin Powell has personally engaged the parties this week. This is good news if it’s serious; but skepticism is in order because previous Bush administration pledges to work for peace in the Middle East have quickly dropped by the wayside. Washington is also hampered by President Bush’s clear tilt towards the positions of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on such key issues as Jewish settlement expansion and retention, and the rights of Palestinian refugees in a permanent peace settlement.
The Palestinian transitional leaders have moved quickly to assert order within Palestine and to affirm the supremacy of state security institutions, but they are severely hampered in this by two factors: Israel has destroyed much of the security structure and even the political legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and it is impossible to expect Palestinian militants to act moderately when the Israeli government is on a rampage of assassinations, settlement expansions, land expropriations, collective punishments of entire Palestinian communities, and continued building of the apartheid-era separation wall.
Nevertheless, the Palestinian leadership has quickly expressed its intention to work for a resumption of peace talks with Israel. It has engaged all Palestinian factions in discussions on promoting internal political developments as well as resuming peace talks with Israel, focusing on holding the election in January to choose a replacement for Yasser Arafat as PA president.
Israel for its part has also shown some constructive signs of wanting to shift from war to peace, even grasping the importance of being realistic in its demands of the Palestinians and not expecting the occupied Palestinians to make all the initial moves needed to resume peace talks. The Sharon government says it is willing to work with the Palestinians to allow the January election to take place, has resumed some security cooperation to that end, and will allow Palestinians in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem to take part on the vote, as happened in the 1996 election.
This new round of diplomacy is not taking place in a vacuum, though, for we have considerable peace-making experience from recent years to draw on. The first point to keep in mind is that personality matters less than policy. The new Palestinian leadership and the appointments of Condoleezza Rice as U.S. Secretary of State and Stephen Hadley as U.S. National Security Adviser will only reflect the broader policy directions and constraints that already define their respective societies. If a majority of Palestinians, for example, feels the need to make more flexible compromises or to adopt tougher policies towards Israel, the new leadership will have to respond to those defining political realities. Established old guard Palestinian leaders like Mahmoud Abbas, Ahmed Qorei and Farouk Qaddoumi, who now dominate the transitional leadership, are not about to reverse half a century of Palestinian national policy positions.
A second important point is the imperative of constructive moves by both sides simultaneously. The experience of the past 11 years since the Oslo accords were signed in September 1993 confirms that Palestinians and Israelis will protect and promote negotiated peace-making, and shun warfare, if the peaceful path delivers meaningful results to both sides. This happened in 1994-1996, when Israeli started withdrawing from occupied Palestinian lands and the Palestinian Authority was established. The process gradually collapsed in subsequent years, due to legitimate concerns on both sides: Palestinians were angered by the continued expansion of Israeli settlements and the constraints that Israel wanted to place on ultimate Palestinian statehood, while Israelis were shocked by Palestinian bombings of civilian targets inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
A third lesson is that all sides must move together in pushing a realistic diplomatic process with tangible benchmarks and results, both in negotiating agreements and then monitoring their implementation. While the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are the principal parties and the Americans are the main mediators, important roles must be carved out quickly for the Europeans, Arabs, Russians, the UN and others if the resumed diplomatic approach is to succeed this time. Monitoring the timely and full implementation of agreements reached is vital for the success of a negotiated peace process or accords. Third parties other than Israelis, Palestinians and Americans should play clearly defined roles in this respect.
A fourth relevant issue is the credibility of the external mediator, in this case the United States. Washington’s obvious partiality to Israel did not in itself, or directly, stop the negotiations in the past. But it allowed Israel to maintain unrealistic negotiating positions — on settlements, refugees and Jerusalem, for example — which ultimately led the negotiations to a dead end. The U.S. as mediator must stop siding with Israel, and instead firmly stand on the internationally recognized legal and moral consensus for a permanent Arab-Israeli peace; this consensus includes most importantly the non-acquisition of territory by force, and a just and negotiated resolution of the refugees’ status.
We face a real opportunity today to move beyond the warfare that has long plagued Palestinians, Israelis and others in the Middle East, and the recent past provides critically important lessons that can help us succeed where we failed in the past.
Rami G. Khouri is executive editor of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.
Copyright © 2004 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 24 November 2004
Word Count: 984 words
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