Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2001, page 14

Affairs of State

 

Talk, Talk...Fight, Fight

 

By Eugene Bird

In his pursuit of a minimalist U.S. involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian war process, Secretary of State Colin Powell has learned one lesson: Peacemakers of the world must unite—for, if everything breaks down they have nothing to lose but further involvement. A second lesson still to be learned is that the Central Intelligence Agency may have more of a role to play in getting the parties back to the table than does the secretary of state.

The current diplomatic scenario is as old as the state of Israel itself. During Israel’s 1948 war to acquire more territory than it was allocated by the U.N. partition resolution, there were at least seven different cease-fires. Each broke down, to be followed by outbreaks of fighting that always ended in the Israeli armies—the Haganah and Palmach—gaining more territory. A new cease-fire would then be brokered, followed by yet another breakdown.Then, as now, the “Talk, Talk…Fight, Fight” strategy worked to the advantage of the stronger party.

 

The 21st Century’s First Cease-fire

It is not impossible that the first cease-fire of the al-Aqsa intifada will lead back to the negotiating table—if CIA director George Tenet can keep the parties at the negotiating table from verbally massacring each other, and if the European “witnesses” now observing the flashpoints outside of Bethlehem and Ramallah manage to bring a temporary end to the cycle of Hamas suicide bombings and massive Israeli strikes against civilians.

If this temporary truce breaks down, however, we should not lose all hope: it has happened before in Palestine, and it is likely to happen again.

Unlike the Jewish armies in 1948, the Palestine Authority does not have the military power to take and hold further land Israel views as still under dispute and subject to negotiation. Nor are the hard facts about the economic damage to both sides likely to deter further episodes of fighting.

The secretary of state already has become adept at making one friendly statement after emerging from his first real meeting of substance with President Yasser Arafat, then saying something quite different on the same subject after emerging from meetings with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. On June 28 Powell said in Ramallah, “As we start out with confidence-building measures, there will be a need for monitors,” seeming to endorse the Palestinian proposal. Later that same day, after meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the secretary asserted that “monitors will, of course, have to have the agreement of both parties.”

 

European Witnesses

It is in the context of judging who is most responsible for resuming the fighting that the European “witnesses” now in place may be of great importance. They are stationed only in Palestinian territory, but that has been true of every observation force, including the nice but totally ineffective European “Temporary International Presence” team stationed in Hebron the past two years. The only problem is that the European observers may be ignored if their testimony is not made public. Even if their assessment is not classified, however, their task is not an easy one: it will be difficult to determine blame and even harder to get either side to accept that judgment.

The Europeans’ role is certain to be different than its parallel in 1949, when four formal U.N. observation groups, called “Mixed Armistice Commissions,” were set up with wide-ranging authority to travel freely, and even negotiate between the parties.

Technically, these U.N. observer forces still exist, located in Jerusalem’s old Government House, headquarters of the High Commissioner during the British Mandate in Palestine. Indeed, from 1949 until the Six-Day War in 1967 they helped immensely in heading off trouble before it began. During that period Israel enjoyed its greatest and longest run free of any but the most trivial security problems. The Green Line established at Rhodes and monitored by the U.N. Truce Supervision Organization was amazingly effective in giving Israel a chance to grow internally, if it did constrict its ability to expand territorially. Would Israel accept a new Israel-Palestine Mixed Armistice Commission? Even if unlikely, it is intriguing to consider whether the U.S. should be proposing such a body.

No one at the Department of State, however, was hopeful that by the 225th birthday of American independence an independent Palestine, free of the most overt and devastating effects of Israeli occupation, could be negotiated in the present atmosphere.

 

Fighting Not for Peace, But For Freedom

“We are not fighting for peace, but for freedom and independence,” one Palestinian official was quoted as saying. Members of the Israeli peace movement could only muster the plaintive cry that America must save the day by getting more deeply involved. David Kimche, former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and a long-time Labor Party wheel-horse, pleaded strongly, even emotionally, for such U.S. involvement because, he said, by themselves the parties cannot reach an agreement.

Will the Bush-Powell team be willing to invest precious political capital in confronting the Israeli government on settlements, house demolitions, and renewing the Oslo agreement? The strong impression given by Department of State spokesmen is that this administration will stay “engaged” but not “involved.”

Washington is seeking to extend the cease-fire with an agreement to end the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements. There are numerous chokepoints before real peace—or even permanent truce negotiations—begin again. Any one incident may lead to a breakdown in the cease-fire, which has been brokered primarily by the Europeans.

Granted, there is a basic difference between 1949 and now: The Palestinians were hardly involved at all in the 1949 negotiations, but instead were represented by the Jordanians and Egyptians. The current intifada is an historic anomaly since, according to its leaders, it seeks only to end the occupation of Palestinian land in Gaza and the West Bank, rather than secure historic Palestine.

Although former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s Camp David proposal was rejected by President Arafat, it should be remembered that not only did negotiations continue, but they lasted for four months following the September outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada.

According to participants, these last-minute negotiations led to a very significant breakthrough, which made it possible for President Bill Clinton on Jan. 12, 2001 to lay out a rather comprehensive peace proposal just days before he left office. Moreover, negotiations continued between the two sides, without involvement by the outgoing Clinton administration, until a matter of days before Barak lost his bid for re-election. Yet Israel’s successor Sharon government rejects the idea of using these earlier proposals in any way as the basis for further negotiations.

 

Looking for a Tunnel…Not to Mention a Light

Another extended period of “Talk, Talk…Fight, Fight” that will disrupt the Middle East for a very long period can be expected if Sharon’s government remains in power. The Jewish colonists, many of them from America, are not about to ease their pressure against even a renewal of negotiations with the Palestinians. Although Sharon does not need to listen to them, he probably will anyway. He seems to have no interest in removing a single colony, much less ending the occupation.

Will European and U.N. involvement be enough to accommodate a Bush-Powell strategy of outwaiting the parties until the talking evolves into serious negotiations on the very real issues ignored so long during the Oslo process? Or will the talks degenerate abruptly into rolling periods of violence, resumed because of lack of progress in finding a formula to end the occupation? The pressures on Bush and Powell for the U.S. once again to become a major player will be so heavy that there may be little room for substantial European and U.N. involvement beyond brokering anything more than a series of cease-fires. Without major engagement on the part of Washington, the wheel of history in the Middle East may just keep spinning indefinitely.

Eugene Bird, a retired career foreign service officer, is president of the Council for the National Interest and diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Report.

 

Barak’s “Generous Offer”: A – B – C = D

Taking their cue from former President Bill Clinton, Israel and its American cohorts have blamed the collapse of the Clinton-sponsored Camp David peace talks—and the current Palestinian intifada—on Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s rejection of the incredibly “generous offer” made by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Curiously, however—or perhaps not—while the rejection was common wisdom, the specifics of the offer were not.

Now, based on the maps Barak showed Arafat at Camp David last December, the Israeli peace organization Gush-Shalom has provided a graphic illustration of Barak’s “generous offer.”

Map A shows the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which comprise 22 percent of pre-1948 Palestine and which were captured by Israel in 1967. “When the Palestinians signed the Oslo agreement in 1993,” Gush-Shalom states, “they agreed to accept only [this] 22 percent and recognize Israel within [its] Green Line borders. Conceding 78 percent of the land was an historical Palestinian compromise.”

Map B shows the 10 percent of the West Bank Barak demanded for existing illegal settlements. Notes Gush-Shalom, “69 settlements are included in this area, where 85 percent of the settlers live. It is clear…that the blocks create impossible borders, which severely disrupt Palestinian life in the West Bank.”

Map C illustrates an additional 10 percent of West Bank land demanded by Barak for “temporary Israeli control.” “The ‘temporary control’ concept is uniqe,” says Gush-Shalom. “It refers to sovereign Palestinian land that will remain under Israeli military and civil control for an indefinite time.”

Map D represents what remains: Barak’s “generous offer.” Gush-Shalom informs us, however, that “what appears to be territorial continuity is actually split up by settlement blocks, bypass roads and roadblocks. The Palestinians [would] have to relinquish land reserves essential for their development and absorption of refugees [and] accept Israeli supervision of border crossings, together with many other restrictions.”

According to Gush-Shalom, Barak presented a “much improved map” at Taba negotiations shortly before he lost his bid for re-election. Although the Palestinians “consider it a basis for negotiation,” Barak repudiated the revised map following his defeat.

No proposed maps of Gaza were presented at either Camp David or Taba.

For information on Gush-Shalom, or to view the maps online, visit <http://www.gush-shalom.org>.

—Janet McMahon

< Prev		Next >