February 1992, Page 22, 23

Church and State

Vignettes from the Peace Talks: Corridor Diplomacy and Hotel Briefings

By John Asfour

"You should have two principles in entering these talks: Do not be provoked by Israel no matter what the Shamir delegates say or do. And do not give up and walk away."

The advice was given to the Palestinian delegates at a large but very private party 48 hours before the first round of Washington Mideast peace talks began on Dec. 10. The speaker was a former US official with long experience in the Israel-Palestine problem. Responding, Dr. Haider Abdel-Shafi, former radical nationalist who has, in his 72 years, given so much to the medical and national needs of his people, said: "I am convinced that we can reach a real peace, because our people and the Israeli people both want to reach an agreement." He was to repeat that refrain, bringing the Israeli people into his equation, constantly during the next two weeks.

For reporters, the December talks in Washington became a race on foot and by taxi between three major sites: The Department of State, where there was no information available; the Grand Hotel, owned by Arab investors and where both Palestinian and Jordanian delegates held separate press conferences daily during the talks; and the Madison Hotel, also owned by a Middle East combine, but where the Israeli delegation held the last press briefing each day. About 50 to 100 journalists covered the talks this way. All major networks covered the daily press briefings, although they used only a few seconds each day.

There was less stardom in Washington than in Madrid for the main Palestinian spokeswoman, Hanan Ashrawi. That was partly because she had a difficult point to make that simply did not lend itself to being newsworthy: It was that the Palestinians had been promised two-track negotiations-one with a Palestinian delegation and the other by Jordan with Israel. The press would rush from the State Department noon briefing to cover the 1:30 pm explanations by Ashrawi that Israel had reneged on an agreement made at Madrid to negotiate with the Palestinians on a second track, as specified in the letter of assurance from the co-sponsors, the Soviet Union and the US. At one point in the first day's briefing she used the term "moved the goal posts" to explain what the Israelis were doing in demanding that the Palestinians negotiate only in a subcommittee, and not as a full-fledged delegation to the talks. One hour later the Israeli spokesman, Benjamin Netanyahu, used exactly the same term to describe what the joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation was doing.

The Israeli delegates repeatedly made the point that they were in Washington reluctantly. They did not like the publicity or hard questioning, although Arab journalists were present at their briefings. Negotiations with Syria turned out to be the surprise. Even the Israelis admitted that there seemed to be a change toward negotiating some kind of a real peace, if Israel gave up the Golan area. And Assad released several hundred dissidents and commuted the prison sentences of two Jews in the midst of negotiations.

"Israel confuses the two-track negotiations; we stress their importance."

Each day, the Department of State spokesperson repeated the "hope that the parties would get on with the negotiations and get into substance." The US refused to give its interpretation of what had been agreed to by the parties and refused to release the letters of assurance which spelled out the agreement and which had been issued before Madrid. The spokesperson would only point out that there were three rooms for the meetings between the Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians. The two smaller ones were designated for "Jordan-Israel" and for "Palestinian-Israel" talks. There also was one room each for the Syrian-Israeli and the Lebanese-Israeli talks. The US refused to be drawn into interpreting what was meant by the "two-track" approach, but the deliberate ambiguity apparently backfired, with each party interpreting it differently.

Ashrawi on the second day suggested that the real problem was that Israel did not want to recognize the Palestinians as a separate people. "It is perfectly respectable to talk with the Palestinians," she said, "quite kosher in fact. The real problem is that there is a high-visibility profile for the Palestinians. That Israel finds intolerable."

Netanyahu on the second day of briefings made a long statement in which he suggested that Israel did not want a 22nd Arab state. . . there was no need for one. . . and that in fact Jordan was 70 percent Palestinian. The Jordan River was so small it hardly was a barrier or a border and the Palestinians on the West Bank all had relatives in Jordan. One reporter suggested that what Israel really wanted was for King Hussein to change the name of his country to "The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine."

Most significant was the Dec. 14 US action that took direct issue with the Israeli government over allowing settlers to move into Arab houses in East Jerusalem's Silwan village quarter and placing a heavy curfew on Ramallah. The American protest was not as strong as the protest from Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek, but it was clearly a sharp rebuke to Tel Aviv's present government.

While there was no reply from the Shamir government to the US protest, it was clear that the US was trying to remain somewhat balanced in its efforts to get confidence-building measures going on both sides. The Shamir government was not interested in any such measures, according to Hebrew press reporters covering the peace talks.

The issue of Shamir refusing a freeze not only on new settlements, but additional housing and additional Jewish settlers in the present settlements in the occupied territories, came up as the over-the-horizon real problem that could halt the peace talks. "Only" 140,000 Soviets, not all of them Jews, managed to come to Israel in 1991, compared to the forecast of 400,000 at the beginning of the year. And registrations of Jews for emigration at the Israeli Embassy in Moscow continue to level off or decline in spite of bad economic conditions in Russia and the Ukraine. Yet the numbers of Jewish settlers on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem grew by 10 percent again this year, reaching more than 240,000.

Some 30 percent of the 20,000 to 25,000 increase in Jewish settlers in 1991 were Soviet Jews, according to a Department of State report which surfaced late in 1991. That report was quickly withdrawn and is no longer available to the public, a part of the program of "freezing" information and official US evaluations of this kind, presumably so as not to threaten continuation of the peace talks.

In his summing-up press conference, Netanyahu, joined by Eliahu Rubenstein, the Israeli delegation leader for talks with Jordan and the Palestinians, repeatedly made the point that the Arabs had learned from these negotiations that: "Israel could not be dictated to by the United States or anyone else." He seemed unaware of how such a statement would be received by American taxpayers and leaders with its implied criticism of the Bush-Baker initiative, made on behalf of Israel more than any other country. He added that the Arabs knew now that there was no "Big Daddy" to bail them out.

The Israeli delegate made clear he was uncomfortable with all the press attention. He suggested that what was needed was "Open Agreements, secretly arrived at," a reversal of the Wilsonian doctrine. By contrast, the Palestinians called repeatedly for "transparency" in the talks.

The Israeli spokesman gave a hint of what Israel would be seeking if the talks ever got to substance: "No apartheid peace" was one sound-bite he used. There cannot be an area "free of Jews nor an area free of Arabs." "If Jews cannot live in Judea, where can they live in the world?" he asked. But he also claimed Arabs of Israel could live and buy property "anywhere," in Tel Aviv or Jaffa. (Just try buying any Jewish National Fund land anywhere if you are not a Jew!) He added that Israel was not "an exclusionary state." Could there be Jews living under Arab sovereignty? he was asked. "That is our position," he replied.

David Hoffman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee asked Jordanian delegate Majali how his government could justify its failure to vote for repeal of the Zionism is racism resolution. Citing Silwan and a Jewish settler rampage in Ramallah, Majali replied: "If we had made real progress here at the second phase of the peace talks, perhaps there would have been a different attitude. But there is only a continuation [by Israel] of treating the Palestinians [as] a lower type of . . . human being."

Palestinian delegation head Dr. Haider Abdel-Sharif said that when Secretary Baker was asked during the negotiations leading up to the talks whether he thought that the settlements would be continued, Baker said no, predicting that Congress would not allow them, Dr. Shafi also remarked that the US role as "catalyst" would not be adequate.

Dr. Shafi also remarked during a briefing after the talks had ended that with regard to the settlements already established on the West Bank and Gaza, "What has been done can be undone. I certainly do not mean to pull them down as at Yamit [in the Sinai]. That would be a waste."

Jordanian delegate Majali revealed that he had proposed several times that she stalled negotiators seek the help of the US to end the "corridor diplomacy." Always, he said, the reply of Rubenstein was, "I do not recognize any sponsors or co-sponsors of these talks." And, Majali said, when he proposed that they simply "go to a friend, the United States, for help, Rubenstein's reply always was, 'no.'"

At the final Ashrawi press conference, the strain began to show. She charged the Israelis with "coming without any mandate, except to embroil us in technicalities and assert the asymmetry of power between us. We came to engage. They to delay and play tricks. They are selling short their people by buying time instead of peace. At least half of the Israeli public sincerely want to negotiate with the Palestinian people. I appeal to them to make their voice heard and tell the government to reach out to us. We came committed to the effort of the co-sponsors of this conference. . .

"Left to our own devices, the occupying government and the occupied cannot make peace. As far as [Israel's delegation is] concerned, there are no sponsors and they say 'Who needs US?' I want to address the American people directly and let them know about these Byzantine discussions."

The chief Palestinian delegate, Dr. Shafi, summed up the Corridor Couch discussions by asking, "What was it all about? It was about [recognizing] a . . . . DISTINCTNESS of the Palestinians. Still, we do not deny that we are a part of a joint Palestinian/Jordanian delegation. Israel confuses the two-track negotiations, we stress their importance. We emphasize issues. They emphasize procedure. The Israel/Palestinian track, not the Jordanian one. What gains have they achieved? We came with the right spirit, wanting to solve the [disagreement] and talk substance according to the rules."

John Asfour is a specialist in the political economies of Palestine and Israel.

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