Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2003, pages 8-10

Special Report

 

After U.S. War on Iraq: What Next for the Middle East and for Palestinians?

 

By Rachelle Marshall

Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America’s most potent weapon since the days of Woodrow Wilson.

—From a letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell by John Brady Kiesling, resigning his post as senior diplomat and political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Athens. Feb. 27, 2003.

War with Iraq won’t change the reality that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will be the key to the fundamental relationship between the United States and the rest of the Middle East.

—Professor Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland in a speech before the World Affairs Council in San Francisco, Feb. 27, 2003.

A Stanford student taking part in an anti-war teach-in at Stanford in early March recalled that he was once in a serious automobile accident. In the seemingly endless moments before the crash he was aware that a disaster was about to take place but as a passenger he was powerless to prevent it. He said he had the same feeling of imminent disaster again, as the United States moved closer to a war on Iraq. It was a feeling shared by millions of people around the globe. As George Bush was declaring that the United States would attack Iraq with or without U.N. approval, the Pentagon announced that its “Operation Shock and Awe” would begin by raining down 3,000 precision-guided missiles on Baghdad in the first 48 hours of the war. The round-the-clock bombing would continue, as one Pentagon planner said, “until the Iraqis are shocked into submission.”

Meanwhile, Israeli forces were treating Gaza as a free-fire zone. A suicide bombing by Palestinian militants in Haifa on Feb. 5 killed 16 Israelis and ended another two- month period in which there had been no major Palestinian attacks. For ordinary Palestinians, however, that period had been anything but quiet. Israel had staged daily raids on Palestinian cities and refugee camps, making mass arrests, assassinating suspected members of militant groups and their political leaders, and flattening buildings. An Israeli Caterpillar bulldozer demolishing homes in Rafah on March 16 crushed to death a young unarmed American woman, Rachel Corrie, as she was protesting the demolitions as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement.

Between early January and mid-March Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank killed more than 180 Palestinians, at least 40 of them children, and the killing has continued. The Israelis no longer needed a provocation for their attacks. After soldiers blew up an eight-story apartment building, an army spokesman told reporters, “This was another of our preemptive operations to target the terrorist infrastructure.” Among the “terrorists” on that occasion were a 9-year old boy and a 50-year old man who was hit by a bullet while inside his apartment. On another day Israeli tanks set a building in Jabalya on fire, then fired shells into the crowd gathered to watch as firemen tried to put out the blaze. Soldiers have become so trigger-happy that on March 13 they shot to death two Israeli plainclothes security guards and two Palestinian workmen laying irrigation pipe.

Palestinian victims of army violence are normally treated by the Israelis as faceless statistics, but one exception was Nooha Sweidan Makadmah, a mother of eight children. She was killed when the Israelis blew up a house next door and the walls of her bedroom collapsed, crushing her as she cradled a 2-year-old daughter in her arms. An army colonel expressed regret for Mrs. Makadmah’s death but said militants were responsible.

The explanation was hardly necessary, since such killings incur no penalties. Although the State Department has protested the growing number of civilian casualties, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer continues to assert Israel’s “right to self-defense.” And the new right-wing government appointed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in late February is not likely to consider any violence against Palestinians as excessive.

The four-party governing coalition that resulted from Israel’s Jan. 28 election consists almost entirely of right-wing extremists dedicated to a Greater Israel. The National Religious Party rejects a Palestinian state under any circumstances, and the National Union Party favors the outright expulsion of Palestinians. The secular but conservative Shinui party insists Yasser Arafat must be replaced before any negotiations take place. Likud, the largest member of the coalition, has members who also favor expelling the Palestinians. “This government will mean more settlements, more occupation and more escalation of violence,” chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said when the cabinet was announced.

It was a safe prediction. The National Religious Party, which represents settlers, was given the Housing Ministry and will oversee settlement building.The new defense minister, Gen. Shaul Mofaz, directed the Israeli army’s destructive rampage through the West Bank in the spring of 2002 and strongly favors continued military pressure on the Palestinians. Internal Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi and Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz were convicted in 1980 for leading a chain-wielding attack on Arab students at Hebrew University.

Palestinians have also moved toward a change of leadership. The Palestinian Authority has suffered the destruction of its offices and records, the decimation of its security forces, and constant efforts by the Israeli government to delegitimize both the Authority and its president, Yasser Arafat. Nevertheless, Israel and the United States have insisted they “reform.” Sharon has repeatedly said he would never negotiate with Arafat, and George Bush has stipulated that Palestinians had to replace Arafat with a leader “uncompromised by terror” before there can be progress toward peace.

Palestinians did not miss the irony in the fact that two powerful leaders who claim to believe in democracy were demanding that the Palestinians oust their democratically elected president. Nevertheless, on March 10 the Palestinian parliament met in Ramallah and appointed Mahmoud Abbas to the newly created post of prime minister.

Abbas, who has a law degree and a doctorate in history, took part in talks with Israeli peace activists during the 1970s and was one of the first Palestinian officials to recognize Israel. He has urged the Palestinians to call off their armed struggle, saying that doing so would test Sharon’s willingness to negotiate, but he insists that a halt in violence would not mean ending resistance to the occupation. Although there is still a question of how much responsibilty Arafat will be willing to relinquish, a more pressing question is whether Israel will agree to concessions such as the easing of closures that would give Abbas some credibility with the Palestinian people.

Abbas is said to have been the preferred choice of the Bush administration, but his appointment is not likely to make a difference unless Israel adopts a drastic change of policy. No Palestinian leader can abandon or modify the Palestinians’ demands for an independent state on all of the land captured by Israel in 1967, a shared capital in Jerusalem, dismantling of the settlements, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Abbas strongly endorses all of these demands. The Sharon government adamantly rejects them. The standoff means that, no matter who heads the Palestinian Authority or what tactics the Palestinians adopt, the solution depends on Washington’s willingness to put pressure on Israel.

After Sharon announced his new ruling coalition, Saeb Erekat said, “I hope President Bush will see the light and understand that this government will kill his vision of a Palestinian state.” But achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians has been far down on Bush’s agenda, after war with Iraq and getting his tax cuts through. He all but abandoned the road map to Palestinian statehood he proposed last June, and only brought it back to life on March 14 under pressure from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush’s chief ally in urging war on Iraq.

 

An Unworkable Road Map

In a formal announcement from the Rose Garden, Bush said that as soon as the Palestinians approve a prime minister with full “executive authority” he would release a plan based on the proposal he made last June calling for a Palestinian state by 2005. Blair immediately hailed the announcement as a demonstration of “even-handedness,” but in fact Bush’s proposal may be all but unworkable. The three-stage plan demands that the Palestinians transfer power from Arafat to the new prime minister, that they stop all violence, appoint a new Cabinet, and write a new constitution. The Israelis in turn would freeze settlement activity, dismantle recently built settlements, and withdraw troops from areas occupied since 2000. Meanwhile, negotiations would lead to a provisional Palestinian state by 2003, with final boundaries set in 2005.

In making a settlement freeze contingent on an end to Palestinian violence and “progress toward peace,” Bush abandoned the long-held policy of U.S. opposition to settlements and ignored the numerous U.N. resolutions that have declared the settlements to be illegal. Bush’s plan puts the burden on the Palestinians, who must meet a number of conditions before Israel is required to act. Even if Abbas is allowed to take over power from Arafat, as Bush demands, it is doubtful that he could persuade militants to stop their resistance in the hope that the present Israeli government would withdraw some of its troops and freeze settlement building.

But the obstacle that could prove fatal to the road map is Bush’s proviso that Israel and the Palestinians will have a chance to suggest changes. “We will urge them to discuss the road map with one another,” he said, as if the two sides had equal bargaining power. The fact that Bush’s announcement came during a 24-hour period in which Israeli troops raided two West Bank towns and killed 10 Palestinians suggests that such discussions would not be fruitful.

Until he made his surprise announcement, Bush had been selling war in Iraq as the way to achieve Middle East peace. In a Feb. 26 speech to the American Enterprise Institute he asserted that ousting Saddam Hussain would help end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by depriving Palestinian terrorists of funding. “Without this outside support for terrorism Palestinians who are working for reform and long for democracy will be able to choose new leaders,” Bush said, “true leaders who strive for peace.” A new regime in Iraq would also, he said, “serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region.” That statement was contradicted, however, by a classified State Department report leaked to the Los Angeles Times that said existing economic and social problems that plague the Middle East would only become worse.

True democracy may be the last thing that Washington hawks have in mind. Statements by some members of the Bush administration suggest their chief purpose in going to war is to eliminate Iraq as a serious challenge to Israel, pave the way for friendly regimes in Iran and Syria, and allow for resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Israel’s terms. Sharon was quoted by Mansour Farhang in the March 17 Nation as calling on the United States to “attack Iran once they are finished with Iraq.” He called Iran “a center of world terror.” When Israeli Defense Minister Mofaz spoke to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in February he also urged the United States to exert pressure on Iran. “We have great interest in shaping the Middle East the day after a war,” he said.

Such statements are in line with the views of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who has predicted that a change of regime in Iraq “would cast a very large shadow across the whole Arab world,” starting with Syria and Iran. Others in the administration have put the case less politely. In the Feb. 17-24 New Yorker, Nicholas Lemann quoted from a book published in 1999 by David Wurmser, senior adviser to Undersecretary of State John Bolton. Wurmser wrote, “Launching a policy and resolutely carrying it through until it razes Saddam’s Ba’athism to the ground will send terrifying shock waves into Teheran.” According to correspondent Ian Williams, on Feb. 25 Bolton himself promised Sharon that after Iraq the United States “will deal with threats from Syria, Iran, and North Korea.”

Such sentiments obviously worry other nations. Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien asked in a speech in Mexico in early March “If you start changing regimes, where do you stop? This is the problem. Who is next?” No one doubts that America will achieve an overwhelming military victory over Iraq, especially after the U.S. Air Force unveiled its newest weapon in mid-March, the 21,500 pound Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB). The huge bomb spreads a wave of fire over hundreds of square yards and devastates everything in its path. As the ultimate terror weapon it is intended to provide “an enormous disincentive for the Iraqi military to fight,” said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

It is what comes after such a victory that worries many Middle East peace experts. They fear that war in Iraq could lead to more, not less, authoritarianism among Arab regimes fearful of dissent. At the same time, anti-Americanism could increase and lead to greater popular support for militant groups. Professor Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland told a meeting of the World Affairs Council on Feb. 27 that his research in five Arab countries showed that the vast majority of Arabs regard the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, not Saddam Hussain, as the single most important issue.

Despite Bush’s optimistic vision, that issue is not likely to be resolved through war on Iraq. According to Uri Avneri, one of Israel’s most steadfast peace activists, Palestinians expect Israel to react to the outbreak of war by imposing a total and prolonged closure on the occupied territories, with round-the-clock curfews that will make it impossible for families to obtain food or medicine or even water. The Israelis may even cut off their electricity. “But the word that hovers over all the discussions,” Avneri reported, is “transfer.” Palestinians fear they will be forced to move, not necessarily across borders but from one part of the West Bank to another, where they would be crowded together behind high walls while settlers seize their vacated villages and land. With the world’s attention focused on Iraq, they expect little international protest.

Both Sharon and Bush have the power to achieve victory over their adversaries through sheer military strength. But the question is, for how long? And what kind of peace will result? Jon Carroll concluded his March 12 column in the San Francisco Chronicle by saying, “if the United States is going to win, let the victory be swift. But then fear the peace because when a rogue nation gets what it wants, it just wants more.” Carroll may be right, but history also tells us that rogue regimes that try to impose their will on others seldom last long.

Rachelle Marshall is a free-lance editor living in Stanford, CA. A member of the Jewish International Peace Union, she writes frequently on the Middle East.

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