Diplomacy is on the ascendancy again in the Middle East and hopes have been rekindled that Israelis and Palestinians might find their way back to the negotiating table after the last four years of low-intensity warfare that has left over 4000 people dead and thousands more injured and traumatized. The Sharm esh-Sheikh summit between Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s visit to the region this week are positive signs that should not be exaggerated or minimized. Yet they reflect fatigue and frustration, more than a substantial change in position by either side.
The chances of successful diplomacy resolving this conflict remain slim but they are there, and we should not allow skepticism to overwhelm the real desire for all concerned in this conflict to achieve a permanent negotiated peace agreement. The bottom line to date is that everything we are witnessing – heartening and welcomed as it is – has been tried before, by these same people, without success.
The events of this month will not in themselves indicate if a negotiated peace is on the horizon. The steps that have been taken to date in the past month and the next steps to be announced at Sharm esh-Sheik and beyond are relatively easy ones. They merely implement agreements that had been previously negotiated on prisoner releases, stopping armed violence by both sides, pulling back troops, and other such issues. They also provide both leaderships with a much needed period of political calm.
The relatively speedy return to diplomacy by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reflects three important ingredients that are necessary for a negotiated permanent peace: decisive leadership, majority support among their publics, and weariness from war that sparks renewed interest in diplomatic alternatives. The fourth and vital element that is not yet on the table these days is a willingness to tackle the tough, core issues with a realistic sense of compromise and courage.
Abbas and Sharon are building diplomatic efforts on a foundation of widespread exhaustion and fear among their publics — not the most conducive building blocs for permanent peace. Yet when the tough decisions on Jerusalem, settlements and refugees have to be made some months down the road, it remains unclear if majorities among both publics will go along or whether Sharon and Abbas can heroically lead their people into new diplomatic territory where real sacrifices have to be made and long-held positions abandoned.
The immediate test of whether the feel-good atmospherics of the Sharm esh-Sheikh summit will move all sides towards a more promising negotiation for a permanent peace will probably be the fate of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab East Jerusalem. Palestinian Cabinet members say privately that the most important test of Sharon’s seriousness to negotiate peace in the short term will be his ability to freeze all settlement activity, including expansion due to natural population growth. This is one of the requirements in the first phase of the ‘roadmap’ that was agreed by both sides in 2003, when George Bush personally came to the region and met with Sharon and Abbas – to no avail.
The Palestinians see Israeli settlement activity as a colonization process that is the most threatening aspect of Israel’s policies, for it literally takes away Palestinian land and the possibility of a viable independent Palestinian state. Israeli settlements are to the Palestinians like Palestinian armed attacks and terror bombings are to Israelis – an existential threat that shatters their fundamental ability to live normal lives in their own country. Just as Israelis have refused to move diplomatically until the Palestinian resistance groups stop their military and terror attacks, so will the Palestinians refuse to continue with this process if Israel persists in colonizing and stealing Palestinian lands. Returning to the situation on the ground of September 2000 – before Sharon visited the Haram esh-Sherif/Temple Mount compound in Israeli-occupied Arab East Jerusalem and sparked the Palestinian intifada – only returns us to the stalemated situation that generated the frustrations which spiraled into massive violence the last time around.
The short-term litmus tests of whether this month’s diplomacy can lead to something permanent will be the Palestinians ceasing all military attacks against Israelis and the Israelis ceasing all colonization and settlement activities in occupied Palestinian lands. If these tests are passed, then the real tests of a negotiated permanent peace accord will surface towards the end of this year. They will revolve primarily around how to resolve the Palestine refugees issue; other issues that will demand decisive decision-making include the status of Jerusalem, the extent of Israel’s withdrawal from occupied Palestinian lands, and the nature of any land swaps to be made to compensate for a less than full Israeli withdrawal.
The likelihood of the Israeli and Palestinian leaders reaching a stalemate again in 8-10 month’s time is high, which emphasizes the role of the third party mediator: the United States, whether we like it or not.
The renewed American involvement in this conflict in the past weeks is noteworthy, but it similarly repeats moves that Washington made in the past without ultimate success. We have seen other U.S. secretaries of state meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders, announce aid packages, appoint diplomatic envoys and coordinators, and invite the principals to meet the American president in the White House. These are useful moves, but relatively mild ones that signal diplomatic caution and indecisiveness rather than a firm willingness to play the mediator’s role of banging heads together or cajoling the necessary compromise agreements from teams of exhausted negotiators.
Rami G. Khouri is executive editor of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.
Copyright @2005 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 10 February 2005
Word Count: 963 words
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